In 1996 AD, Samuel P. Huntington wrote and published his book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order.The main thesis of this American political scientist is that unlike the wars of the past, fought over nation and ideology, the wars of the future will be fought between cultures. This book represented a different Western view of future world history after the end of the Cold War, contrasting the liberal thesis of the Japanese-American political analyst Francis Fukuyama and his The End of History and the Last Man. Fukuyama’s vision of the coming of ‘the end of history’ proved to be an arrogant liberal illusion. Even Fukuyama himself abandoned this position.

On the other hand, Huntington’s vision was criticized by various spheres of the political spectrum. Major criticism of Huntington’s thesis was laid out by two schools of thought: Marxism and post-colonialism. The Marxist critique was based on the lack of an economic analysis within Huntington’s book, especially when compared to the neo-Marxist world-systems analysis of Immanuel Wallerstein. The post-colonial reaction to The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order was based upon the works of Edward Said, such as his masterpiece Orientalism.. Both criticisms are legitimate, even justified. However, they are missing the point.

The point of Samuel P. Huntington’s thesis was to stress the important role culture will inevitably play in the future of international relations. The author of this text, however, would add an even bolder statement – that culture always played an important role within the actual practice of not only international relations, but world history as well. That the ‘clash of civilizations’ was, and is, an inevitability.

However, Samuel P. Huntington’s work should be understood not as a manual or some sort of a holy scripture, but as a reorientation towards older, now forgotten schools of historical thought. His own, extremely simplistic view of civilizations has been influenced by the much more complex and nuanced historical analysis of civilizations offered by the great Irish-American professor, Carroll Quigley. Quigley, was in turn, under the influence of the quintessential British historian, Arnold J. Toynbee – who was himself under the influence of the legendary German philosopher of history, Oswald Spengler.

That is why political analysts of today should go beyond the works of Huntington, and his oversimplified cultural model – but they should bear in mind the political importance that abstract notions, such as culture and civilization, actually play. The current problems and crises of the modern West are, among other things, a direct result of cultural decay. Of course, there are many causes to the conflicts of our age, which have been studied in more detail by countless academics and philosophers, but the loss of cultural identity of the Western man is often neglected. Any form of collectivism, left or right, has been atomized by the forces of neo-liberalism – the final stage of capitalism. Capitalism – especially in its globalist form – is individual, as well as societal, schizophrenia.

Globalism seeks to undo all cultures and civilizations across the entirety of Earth. Although it is a creation of Western civilization, it lacks all of its values. Older civilizations, such as China, India and Islam, are no exception to this. Their values and world-views are challenged by the global forces of Capital, which lacks any and all morals – traditional, religious, ethnic. Even the secular morality of the Enlightenment has been compromised by Capital – all that has been left of them is an empty shell, mere words to be used by mainstream media pundits and opportunistic politicians. Younger cultures, such as Russia, Africa, Latin America or the Malay World are no exception, as well.

One day, a truly global civilization will emerge. But that day has not yet come. Such a culture can only arise naturally, through the endless cycles of cultural death and rebirth. It certainly shall not be born through soulless accumulation of Capital for the oligarchic elites. And it is certainly not the West’s duty to seek the establishment of this ecumenical civilization. The duty of the West is to survive. And in order to survive, the West needs to abandon the globalist project and restore the cultural values which brought its Gothic Springtime. If Caesarism is the inevitable future of the modern West, it is the duty of Western intellectuals to lay the foundations of a more enlightened, yet conservative society.

Caesarism, with its coming, brings destruction – as countless strongmen and charismatic leaders compete for power. At the same time, it is the advent of the Universal State, the final cultural form which brings about the last Golden Age. In order to establish a society which would allow for a more stable transition towards Caesarism and the Universal State, the modern West needs to establish a just society – where working men are awarded for the Labour – as well as a conservative one – where Western traditions are held high. A conservative socialism, where there is a strong sense of spiritual and political hierarchy.

An argument could be made that Capitalism is a product of Western Culture, appearing during the later Middle Ages – what are called by most historians at least, because every connoisseur of the West knows that the period was a truly marvelous birth of a new spirituality. This argument is justified, of course. Evidence for this claim was brought about by the books of Carroll Quigley, Immanuel Wallerstein and Fernand Braudel. Only Japan, as well as Chinese merchants living outside the Middle Kingdom, had the potential to bring about Capitalism – independently from the West. Professor Quigley would add the Canaanites, but that is a topic of its own.

Capitalism is a product of the West, but as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels  in the Communist Manifesto once poetically put it – the sorcerer is no longer able to control the powers of the netherworld he has summoned by his spells. This quite interesting allegory brought forth by Marx and Engels strongly resembles Spengler’s Faustian Man – a term which he uses to describe Western High Culture. Capitalism plays an interesting role in Western history, one quite similar to the role of Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust. Capitalism tempts the West, as well as the rest of Mankind. It remains to be seen how and when will the West surpass this historical trial. Although it has created Capitalism (or summoned it, if one subscribes to the philosophy of Nick Land), the West is not Capitalism.

However, the creation of Capitalism is an interesting story by itself. When all societies, which can be deemed as Great Cultures, start – each begins with some sort of hierarchy. India was governed by a strict caste-system (varna), ruled by elite warriors (kshatriya) of Aryan descent, although the clergy (brahmin), also of Aryan descent, were held in high esteem. In the West, a similar system was established. Three estates: the Catholic priesthood, the Germanic nobility, and the Third Estate – consisting of various commoners. Among them rose the merchants, the bourgeoisie. It is among these merchants that the Protestant Reformation caught wind. Max Weber sees Protestantism as one of the foundations of Capitalism. It certainly is, but by itself it is not enough.

The Catholic priesthood represented a cultural Symbol – they were the axis mundi between the sinful world of Men and the Ten Heavens above. Politically, but not spiritually, above them were the Germanic warrior-nobles, usually of Norman descent, who represented power and the divine right of kings. The Third Estate lacked symbolism, they existed to be ruled by their betters. This lack of symbolism will prove essential to the advent of Capitalism as a political force.

Capitalism as a true, naked political force starts with two great revolutions of the late XVII century: the American Revolution and the French Revolution. Before these revolutions, Capitalism did exist as an economic force, but it has not yet replaced the feudal political structure of the so-called “Middle Ages”. The nominal protagonists of these revolutions, especially the French one, were the lower classes – often called sans-culottes (those without breeches). They were the men and women who bled for the revolution and fought against an old, now decrepit system. The decadence of the French nobility, which at the time consisted mostly of uplifted merchants loyal to the absolutist monarchs, became insufferable. However, there was more to it than this simple dialectic.

The peasantry was used. It was used by the richest among the common folk, the rising bourgeoisie, as well as the old nobility which turned to mercantile endeavors, to overthrow the monarchy and establish a new system which would suit their needs. It is here that Capitalism finally manifests itself in the political realm, using Liberalism – and eventually nationalism – as its “religious” justification. The once mighty cultural symbols brought forth by the Gothic Springtime of Western Culture were no more, replaced by the “symbols” of civilization. Where once stood the icons and statues of saints and kings serving an infinite God, representing the spiritual needs of Western Culture, now stood the false idols of money and modernity, clear manifestations of the dawn of Civilization.

Lacking all symbols, the Third Estate soon became anti-symbolic – a trait which has intensified since the end of the Cold War and can be observed when analyzing the various “cancel culture” movements which have appeared in the last decade. The revolutionary fervor started erasing all traces of traditional society, in order to make way for Civilization. Soon, however, Civilization found its enemies among two groups of intellectuals opposed to Liberalism: the conservatives and the radicals.

Conservatives, in the European sense of the word as defined by Immanuel Wallerstein, were nostalgic about the lost world many of them grew up in, or at least heard about from those who lived in it. They fought to stop the endless march of History. On the other side of the political spectrum stood the radicals, who saw Liberalism as too slow and quite unjust towards the proletariat – a new social phenomenon of exploited workers and laborers, serving the bourgeoisie. They wanted to speed up the Wheel of History, through any and all means necessary.

In the end, however, Capitalism defeated them both. Conservatives were defeated by Capitalism’s ability to commodify anything – including older cultural symbols, such as religion. Not just religion. Anything most European conservatives held dear. The symbols of Old Europe became commodities, to be sold and bought like common goods. Others became instruments of the Capitalist Reaction – known to us as fascism – and were used to combat the various forms of radicalism which sought to destroy Capitalism. There was a third group of conservatives, thinkers such as Oswald Spengler, G.K. Chesterton, Rene Guenon, Roger Scruton and many others, which did not fall under the temptations of Capitalism. These thinkers, however, are considered marginal, even by the mainstream Right, as their theories and thoughts are considered “outdated”. The mainstream Right fights only for private property, serving as the “conservative” wing of Capitalism.

The radicals were initially fought against by all means available to the liberal elites. They were used, in rare cases, when a new market needed to be opened for the interests of Wall Street – as was in the case of Russia. However, these Russian radicals were quite different from Western ones, in spirit and culture – if anything else, that is an altogether different topic. Be as it may, the radicals failed to establish the society they have envisioned – and the causes of such failure are many: imperialist sabotage, the formation of securitocracies, left-wing sectarianism, ideological dogmatism, the formation of new classes such as the nomenklatura, and many other contradictions. What remained of the radical movements by the end of the Cold War was also assimilated by the power of Capital, becoming the “progressive” wing of Capitalism. Instead of defending worker’s rights, these new “radicals” turned towards promoting the rights of minorities – especially more controversial ones, such as sexual, and so-called “gender”, minorities. Only a few intellectuals in the West still promote old-school left-wing ideals, but they are quite marginal – usually seen as “red fascists” by the mainstream Left.

The proletarian masses have been stupefied by the power of media, which has lulled the Western working class into a state of consumerist torpor in order to protect the interests of Capital. This transformation has given birth to the Fourth Estate. The Fourth Estate however transcends all boundaries as well, creeping its way across the entirety of Western society. It is anti-symbolic, consumerist to the core, easily appeased by the superficial. They are the people of the panem et circenses described by the Roman poet, Juvenal. However, what the liberal elites have forgotten, is that, unlike the working class of yesteryear, the Fourth Estate lacks any semblance of civic duty. They will follow anyone, authoritarian or liberal, who can satisfy their needs.

Now all that is left for Capitalism is global domination and the destruction of not only Western cultural symbols, or their remnants, but all cultures and civilizations across the globe. They must all be commodified, as there can only be “One Market under God”. Morality and tradition must bend before the laws of the Market, as Humanity gives way to the Machine. Consumerism has grown out of proportions, transcending the economic sphere, slowly dominating both politics and culture – while extinguishing true faith. Like a thousand flowers blooming, various cults and sects rise across the Western world – their “spirituality” nothing more than a shadow on the wall. Dark days are ahead for not only the West, as the Earth’s ruling Civilization, but for the rest of the world as well.

But it is in the darkest of days that the brightest light can shine.

Capitalism, as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels predicted, began eating itself. Once it falls, the forces of Chaos shall be unchained as the World Order crumbles. However, as in the Western legends of old, chivalrous heroes, egalitarian aristocrats of the soul, shall rise against Chaos and establish a new world – the final Golden Age of the West.

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Whilst writing this, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has survived a no-confidence vote, brought about by, of all things, having an ‘unloicensed’ booze-up. Although he’s allowed to stay in the job, his prospects are grim. Most of the Tory backbenchers not on the PM’s payroll voted against him, and the Conservatives continue to trail behind Keir Starmer’s Labour – a man with as much positive energy as a recently divorced mortician, a deflated man for a deflated party.

That said, the Conservatives’ tanking popularity cannot be reduced to “a bad look”. I’m sure such a notion is very consoling for the parliamentary party. Never mind the insufferable coverage of “Partygate”, the government’s track-record over the past few months has been utterly terrible – far more severe than a regrettable office party to any serious person. Most people could vote for a lockdown-breaking Prime Minister provided he was governing in their interests, but he’s not.

Giving a blank cheque to Ukraine to fight a losing war with Russia, betraying his Brexit-voting supporters on immigration – continuing to permit absurd numbers to pour across the border, legally or illegally, and an underusing a historic supermajority; consequently failing to break the stranglehold of NGOs and a Blairite civil service, and reinforcing the government’s failure to implement supply-side solutions to Costalivin, the people with the most reason to hate this government are the conservatives that (theoretically) should be supporting it. All this said, we’ve been in similar circumstances before. Economic turbulence, government scandal, political disaffection, and an absence of progressive vision, it should be remembered that all these factors contributed to the rise of a new and dynamic political force. Of course, I am talking about the Revolutionary Conservative Caucus.

Co-founded by Jonathan Bowden and Stuart Millson in November 1992, the Revolutionary Conservative Caucus (RCC) was a fringe right-wing pressure group aiming to introduce a new, radical, and idiosyncratic brand of conservatism into British politics. In Bowden’s words: to introduce “abstract thought into the nether reaches of the Conservative and Unionist party”.

Before the establishment of the RCC, Bowden and Millson both operated in right-wing circles. Bowden became active in local Conservative Party politics in the late-80s and early-90s after dropping out of Cambridge University, during which time he joined the Monday Club. After failing to get elected to the club’s executive council, Bowden was appointed co-chairman of the club’s media committee alongside Millson in 1991. 

Meanwhile, Millson was an officer at the Western Goals Institute (WGI), a right-wing anti-communist group that formed out of Western Goals UK – a British offshoot of the USA-based Western Goals Foundation. Although it was based in Britain, the WGI was not bound to the Conservative Party or British politics, opting to associate with a wide range of right-wing parties across the world, such as the Conservative Party of South Africa and France’s Front National. The Board of British Jewish Deputies described the WGI as “not fascists or anti-Semitic” but as inhabiting the “nether-world” of the fringe right.

When Bowden and Millson were expelled from the Monday Club in 1992, the controversialist and vanguardist energy of the WGI, combined with the desire to influence British politics within conservatism’s remit, lay the foundation for the RCC identity. Self-described as “Conservative, Nationalist, Unionist, and New Right”, the RCC saw itself as anglicised parallel, rather than a direct outgrowth, of the European New Right – a right-wing pan-European nationalist movement that ascended to prominence in the 1970s following the establishment of GRECE – Groupement de Recherche et d’Études pour la Civilisation Européenne (Research and Study Group for European Civilization) in 1968, led by Alain De Benoist and Dominique Venner.

Despite its short lifespan (1992-1994), the RCC acquired national notoriety. The Labour Party and Conservative Party liberals attacked the RCC as far-right infiltrators, whilst the more Eurosceptic and traditionalist factions of the Conservative Party, despite ideological and strategic differences, were more sympathetic to their cause. In terms of activity, the RCC published policy papers and even hosted some well-attended fringe events at Conservative Party Conference. However, it mainly centred around the publication of a newspaper aptly named: The Revolutionary Conservative.

Despite being a short-lived publication, the content was surprisingly diverse. A defence of a right-wing alternative to the European Union, a nationalist economic proposal, as well as attacks on Major’s leadership, British intervention in Bosnia, “The Bolshevik Broadcasting Company”, immigration-led demographic change, Liberal Conservatism, all designed to “set the blood pressure pounding in those Oxfam veins”, are just a few examples of the articles published whilst the RCC was active.

However, unlike conventional party-political groups, the RCC was united by a belief in the political power of culture. As such, one could also find think-pieces on The Windsors and national decline, military heroism in the works of Ernst Junger, rumours about Michael Jackson, the sexual politics of Camille Paglia and Andrea Dworkin, and cream teas with Alan Clark. The literary section formed a notably large chunk of the newspaper, with reviews ranging from novels to biographies, from politics to socio-biology, as well as ponderings on art (Wyndham Lewis) and music (Richard Wagner vs Tina Turner).

However, what is most notable about The Revolutionary Conservative is its overtly anti-PC articulation, being humorously cruel and sometimes bordering on total misanthropy. Indeed, the RCC referred to its flagship paper as “the most politically-incorrect magazine in Britain”. The “Introduction to Revolutionary Conservatism” reads as follows:

“Are you sick and tired of being bullied by women who look like men in your local library? Are you sick of transvestite vicars running the country down as they reach for their macro-biotic dieting recipe books? Are you sick of anti-racist Noddy? Does your gorge rise when you see Peter Tatchell engaged in a die-in opposite the Palace of Westminster? Are you sick of your local council hosting Chad-awareness days at your expense?”

…We say, burn the Red Flag! Kick those trendy vicars in the seat of their pants (although they would probably enjoy that), let Peter Tatchell die of AIDs (the sooner the better) and put tanks on the streets of Handsworth. If you agree with these modest proposals… then you should subscribe to The Revolutionary Conservative”

The extent to which the rhetoric is to be taken in earnest or is merely a matter of performance is neither here nor there. One gets the impression that they enjoyed the ambiguity, whether it was a practical necessity or not. Even if the following write in was an advertising tactic or genuine, it’s still hilarious:

“Dear Sir… I obtained a copy of your noxious publication… I almost threw up my breakfast. To refer to Madonna as a slag is over the top… She is merely a distracted and somewhat sad girl in need of prayer, recuperation, and the sort of church socials my wife organises… the general tone of your magazine is harsh, masculine, ultra-reactionary, yet abusive yet stentorian…”

“Dear Vic… The idea of you gagging on your All bran and Hovis gave us considerable pleasure in the Editorial Department. We have decided to use your description of the magazine – harsh, masculine, ultra-reactionary, and yet radical, etc. – as an advertisement”

Gradually, a fringe-right ecosystem would develop around the RCC. The most notable outgrowths were Right Now! – a magazine dedicated to “politics, ideas, and culture” that ran from 1993 to 2006, featuring contributions and interviews from various people across the political right, and the Conservative Democratic Alliance – a group of ex-Monday Club members, opposed to what they saw as “sleaze, double-dealing, arrogance, incompetence, Europhilia, indifference and drift” within the Tory Party – particularly its leadership, which it often decried as neoconservative.

Contrasted to the political zeitgeist of New Labour and Compassionate Conservatism, the RCC and Right Now! soon acquired reputations as being “extremist”. Robin Cook attacked William Hague for failing to contain “extremists” within his party – Right Now! serving as a reference point for the claim. Overtime, the fringe-right Tory scene declined, partially due to sustained attacks from the left and centre-right, partially due to the unwillingness of more right-wing Tories to associate with a movement that was increasingly critical of their party, and partially due to disorganisation, infighting, and a feeling of hopelessness to achieve change within or alongside the Tories.

In retrospect, were they “extremists”? In my view, I would say no. Upon inspection, the RCC was closer to “culturally-oriented” paleoconservatism or right-wing populism than anything fascistic. Granted, the RCC’s presentation and political priorities certainly differed from the bourgeois moralising of traditional conservatism; being far more concerned with mass immigration, nationalist rhetoric, and embracing bohemianism for culturally right-wing ends, than re-sanctifying Christian morals or pushing free-market Euroscepticism. The RCC et al. often found themselves torn between what they saw as “the free-market worship” of Thatcherite Dries and the social wetness of the… Wets.

In 1994, the RCC dissolved as Bowden and Millson went their separate ways. Bowden would continue to operate in right-wing political circles, briefly joining the cultural nationalist Freedom Party, momentarily serving as its treasurer. However, Bowden would eventually join the BNP in 2003 after being offered the role of “Cultural Officer” by then-leader Nick Griffin. Bowden left the party in 2007 citing concerns about the party’s finances, political strategy, and Griffin’s dictatorial control of party elections; he compared the BNP to a “tin-pot dictatorship”. Whilst he would continue to attend events organised by local BNP groups, he dedicated most of his time to artistic pursuits and ultimately cut all ties with the party in 2010. Similarly, Millson would orient himself more towards culture, mainly reviewing music and art.

Given how ‘forthright’ the RCC was, it’s interesting to imagine how they would react to the present government. After all, the Conservative Party of the early 2000s was bad enough in their eyes. Naturally, one can imagine they would be mortified, but would they be wrong? Britain is on track to becoming a third-world country and its main right-leaning political force are behaving like communists. I’m willing to bet that an RCC-style organisation would do very well. Then again, the same laws which make opposition to the regime so difficult are often the ones which have caused the specific problems we currently face.

Marked by weakness and a lack of imagination, the only thing currently between the Tories and political annihilation is their ability to note how terrible the opposition is. It has been the Tory Party’s go-to tactic for a while now. Eager replenishers of the status quo, Britain’s main “opposition” is underpinned by a sincere and existential hatred of the nation. Civil-servant galvanising, NHS-worshipping, border-abolishing, rape-gang denialist NIMBYs, they fly into tireless frenzy should it be rumoured that the Conservatives have opted to be slightly less useless than usual.

Some will point to the RCC as an exemplary case of how Tory Party radicalism is destined to fail. Whilst it is easy to understand this view, very few have been able to pose convincing alternatives. Reclaim is a joke, Reform is in many ways worse than the Tories, the SDP have one (1) council seat, the Heritage Party has zero (0), and UKIP hasn’t been relevant since 2015. If you’re going to join a political party, you might as well join one with a chance of winning. Once you accept that, the RCC transforms from another failed movement into useful case study to learn from. Right-wing dissidents should not conflate ‘political failure’ with ‘political worthlessness’. If one-hundred failures should inspire one glorious triumph, then those failures are not so worthless after all.

Above all else, the central problem identified by the RCC persists to our current political situation – conservatism can only win if it’s cooler than the left. There’s nothing attractive about delay, hesitation, or lamentation. Political energy belongs to the transgressive and the constructive. Conservatives, more than anybody else, should know that if one thing is constant in humans, it is the desire to feel a part of something exciting – such as a revolution, like “the one in France” or not. Bemoaning the Left’s successes and cultural power, calling them mean, hypocritical, high-status, and so on; projecting yourself as some blighted Chattertonian romantic for the attention of your enemies is nothing more than embellished whining. Whining with a cause is still whining and no revolution in history materialised from whining and whining alone.

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