From The Land Of Mordor.

Or the from the Substack of C. Jay Engel

Meet C. Jay Engel, (I’m not sure what the “C” stands for) Paleoconserative and Traditionalist; not to mention that Engel is also a member of the Mises Institute and entrepreneur (according to his Mises Institute bio). However, it’s not clear what type of entrepreneur Engel’s actually is from his bio on the Mises Institute Website or Engel’s new Substack. In fact the two-links in his Mises Institute bio only come up with a 404 and 403 error respectively- for his websites Austro-Libertarian.com and Austro-Libertarian Magazine— both of which seem to have been rolled into a new Substack called “Contra Mordor”—yes, the Tolkien Mordor of the Fellowship of the Rings. The title is fitting for the content of the website— it is full of densely packed articles that lament for a lost world that never really existed. Engels is after all what you would call a Christian Nationalist after all.

“Denying to Heritage Americans and native Europeans our own past is incidentally driving a sort of historical reawakening: we European-derived Americans actually do have a historical context, and we are becoming more aware of it. The more we discover who we are, or were, the more we agitate against the culture revolution that is built upon the repudiation and tearing down of our history.”

Third Worlds, C. Jay Engels.

Christian Nationalism is becoming very popular according to the Southern Poverty Law Center with the types of people that believe in two things: American Exceptionalism (i.e. MAGA) and Religious Devotion. The core-principles of this belief system is that the United States was founded by Christians as a Devine nation with a covenant directly linked to GOD. In this respect the founding fathers of the nation take on the roles of prophets and not statesmen. It is a bit bizarre actually; however, it is serious and it reports that ultimately Christians will have to fight to regain their history , their birthright, and their nation back from the perversions of Marxism and multi-culturism.

One of the recurring themes in Engels’ work is the dilution of the “Western Culture”—specifically speaking the “Western Culture of Charlemagne to Otto Von Bismarck” — so about 800 ce to 1898 ce. In fact Engel’s presents the United States as being born completely from the English Colonies in the New World. Totally neglecting the fact that New York State was actually a Dutch Colony first until 1667. Hence the dutch names in my glorious home state— like Rhinebeck and Voorhessvile to name but two of many names. And yes, the Dutch influence persisted into the early and mid 19th Centuries culmination with the Rent-Wars 1839-1846. Many of the later Patroons of New York were ethnically English or only marginally of Dutch ancestry supported and even identified more with Dutch Cultural influences in what amounted to a feudal land system that gave them immense power in the society. A perfect example of a non Dutch Patroon would be Clement Clarke Moore who gave us the classic Christmas Poem “A Visit From Saint Nicholas (1837) and the creation of the American Santa Claus Myth was born. My point is that this idea of a pure cultures is idiotic.

The more time I spend seeking to understand our age, the more time I spend in the dark forests of history. They are dark indeed, for as Jonathan Clark has explained, what especially characterizes our time is a profound refusal to integrate the development of the past to understand the present. There is a general spirit, everywhere we look—from academia to “church” to the arts—to treat the past as something that modern man has conquered and therefore rendered irrelevant, inconsequential to our own world. But to shut off our world from its own history is to shut ourselves, as individuals, from the deeper elements that sustain our subconsciouses. It is no coincidence that the world of artificial intelligence and hysterical technological innovation would also seek the destruction of our heroes— it’s one and the same Weltgeist underlying both.

Third Worlds, C. Jay Engels.

It’s interesting that Engels would make these claims about history when he clearly seems to ignore so much of it. Engel’s writing is full of comments about the “reactionary” positions to modern day problems. It is hard to not get a sense that deep down inside on some cellular level Engel’s earns for a massive cultural reset to the 10th century c.e. A pre-science, pre-history, and pre-modern world view that is born of a metaphysical conceit that GOD is the universe and is necessary to the creation of a civilization. More specifically Engels presents that a solely Christian Worldview is necessary to develop civilization. Engels uses this idea to as he says in the following quote about Western Civilization : “To abandon the idea that the West is a Christian civilization, which we have, is to wave farewell to our civilization, which we did” . This is patently absurd since Western Civilization as we know today is an amalgamation of multiple cultural sources from Nordic Pagans to Roman and Greek Pagans—all have lent their beliefs and ideas to create what we call the Western European Logos. But, those aren’t the only sources we’ve assimilated other cultures into our culture as well like Hinduism from India and Mithraism from Persia and a multitude of Western, Northern and Eastern African cultures too.

This is especially true for the Christian Church of the Western World that Engel’s believes is the bedrock of the culture. It cannot be denied that Christianity grows out an eastern religion-judaism. That fact cannot be ignored nor can one ignore that as Christians conquered the Roman Empire the Church adopted a multitude of Pagan rituals from Saturnalia (a winter solstice festival that gives us the 12 Days of Christmas) to Mithraism ( Mithra born on December 25th) to the Nordic traditions of Holly, Missletoe and Germanic Trees. The reality is that no matter how hard Engels tries to divorce the past Eastern and Pagan influences of Christianity and the East on Western Cultures he can only do so by artificial means—specifically a truncated vision of Western Culture’s true roots.

And like the Victorian English that Engels’ so clearly adores the uncomfortable past of Celtic peoples must be replaced with an Anglo-Saxon and Christian mythos. The most notable figures of this past are the creation of the Robin Hood and King Arthur. Now, it’s true these two specific stories date back to late Medieval and early Renaissance periods; but, it is in the hands of the Victorians that King Arthur and Robin Hood become truly British Literary figures. King Arthur is of especial interest to the Victorian Era British upper class. Through poets like like Lord Alfred Tennyson, the mythological King takes on the mantel of the symbolic Germanic British Royalty, and fuses the Anglo-Saxon Past with the Saxon-Coberg present dynasty negating hundreds of years of Norman Rule in the process. This removal of the Pagan nature of the Angelo-Saxons is no different than the Colonial Process that Americans like Engels himself is engaged in.

This colonial process of presenting only a specific group of colonizers as important is a side effect of many nationalistic programs. The late 18th century British Royalty which again was a foreign group of rulers from Saxon-Cogburn in Germany like their Plantagenet predecessors didn’t speak the native tongue or share the native culture. So, instead the new rulers required a mythological connection to the general population— in this case they chose yet another Colonial Power the Anglo-Saxons that arrived in Britain at the end of the Roman Period (410 c.e) and ruled the island for the next six and half centuries. The Anglo-Saxon nature of the British Culture would be used to usurp the Viking, Celtic, and Norman(French) influences in the culture to the link two different Germanic groups separated by centuries. This is the same goal that Engels’ is using in his concept of history.

History for the Nationalistic project that Engels is engaged in is not dissimilar to that of the project of Hegel himself in that seeks to create an end of history moment. Engels refers to the idea of history as an end: “ There is a general spirit, everywhere we look—from academia to “church” to the arts—to treat the past as something that modern man has conquered and therefore rendered irrelevant, inconsequential to our own world. But to shut off our world from its own history is to shut ourselves, as individuals, from the deeper elements that sustain our subconsciouses” —while this passage exalts the idea of prefect pre-modern historical moment. Like Hegelian thought this represents a sociological and historical point of maximum evolution.

But, furthermore Engels also pushes the idea that for this perfect movement to exist and history to end a society must isolate itself from all foreign ideologies and influences. It’s only when these elements are purged from the society that it can truly create its end of history moment for Engels. This end of history moment is nothing more than a White-Christian European historical moment. It’s a moment that isolates the United States from all other nation-states, all other cultures, and specifically keeps out all immigrants. Now, it’s not clear if Engels’ is adherent of Peter Brimelow and his VDARE philosophy of absolutely no immigration at all. But, it is very clear that Engels presents a strong anti-immigration stance: “The immigration problem exposes the deep lie about American life that few are willing to talk about: groups of individuals are not blank slates that can be swapped at random with any other groups of individuals around the world and not change the culture that hosts said groups. That is to say, man is both the creator and the product of culture and the social order.” The specific social order that Engles approves of is the following: “Western (Anglo-Saxon) rights and liberties were products of historical development.” And once alien and non-fungible culture elements from immigrants push into a society like our Western European culture our world view must change. These social orders become unclear and soon as Engels phrases it: “Everywhere we look today we notice, little by little and in subtle steps, the realities of the great replacement (I link to Wikipedia, because by now we all know how to read around the goofy scare phrases like “conspiracy theory” and “white nationalist”); the slow yet sure nature of the disappearance of European majorities throughout major European and American economic-political centers of influence”. The culture is destroyed and Whiteness is lost and the end of History can no-longer be sustained since the White keepers of history are no longer the majority element in the culture.

But, the more read of “Contra Mordor “ you realize that Engels sees himself as a type of galant King Arthur figure in a present day Mordor (aka United States) Engels’ self image is that of a lone figure that will push to create an improved and stronger Western Culture- minus all of the pesky past it would seem that doesn’t work for his ideology. In Engels’ essay “Why I’m not a Libertarian” the concept social contract is not merely civil construct like that in Locke, Hobbes or any other social contract theorist—instead it is a “Covenant “ — complete with Judeo-Christian connotations of that term. While the claim that Engel makes is that all society is built on some type of covenant he’s not clear how that covenant should be propagated into the future other then through blind obedience to this mythical covenants its common ancestry. In short nothing more than a social contract mythology of Locke or Hobbes in the 17th and 18th centuries but with a heavy helping of old testament Abrahamic overtones.

So, in Engels estimation not only is Western Civilization proper it is the true covenant holder handed from God to Abraham lost when the Jews failed to accept Christ and thus bestowed upon Europeans. It’s murky as hell—especially how that covenant with God is transferred to the New World! But, there it is folks. And of course this covenant is anti- Socialism, anti-Central Banking, anti-Regulation aka the “Managerial State” (Engels’ phrase) and of course Anti-American Empire and Global Militarism. Of course Engels neglects to mention that very reason an American Empire exists is because of Western Colonization of the North American and South American Continent in the 15th and 18th centuries. Here is Engels’ position on that topic: “Now, naturally, the history of society is not always built on peaceful relations. There are elements of conquering, of plundering, of stolen land and occupied peoples” . Of course Engels’ position is completely different for these now conquered lands.

Now, the result of all this is that no man’s rights are more fundamental than the political order itself. The Order is upstream of the Liberty. This is what is meant by ordered liberty. In the Western tradition, this meant that our liberties were the benefit of our being connected to ancestors who earned them for us and bequeathed them to us. They are inherited liberties, not abstract liberties. They are liberties that derived from our being born of a People with a history, not as individuals disconnected to any heritage.

What this means is that we must not be pigeon holed by those who seek to prevent us from advocating political responses to activities that subvert and undermine the character of our culture and the integrity of our way of life. We don’t need to be hamstrung politically from exercising power against those who utilize claims of liberty in ways that weaken the very political order upon which our liberties were once dependent. We live in a world where the state has been weaponized against Heritage America and there should be nothing holding us back from exercising whatever power is necessary to confront enemies both public and private.

This darling of a passage that comes from Engels’ “Why I am not a Libertarian” is confusing as hell when you consider that he claims that he isn’t for Colonialism or Empire building then there is literally no “inherited liberty” in North or South America from a Western perspective. That can only occur from celebrating the past colonization of the North American Continent by Western Europeans like the Dutch, French, Spanish, and English. So, it is a bit bizarre to claim any inherited liberties from actions that are antithetical to your stated values I think. But, clearly this contradiction isn’t much of a problem for Engels because he claims what I”m doing in this paragraph is an example of “weaponizing against Heritage America” by pointing out this inconsistency in his positions.

This type of thinking negates the fact that colonization is the only way Western European Civilization has spread about the planet suppressing and replacing indigenous cultures in the process. And, yet, somehow Engels believes we should look past this uncomfortable formation of American Culture as a Western European artifact and promote its superiority. This bizarre twisting of fact and fiction is certainly at the center of Engel’s belief system and justifies how he can both embrace the American Empire and let Deny it as well. The problem with Christian Nationalism is that by definition in requires a Nation-State at minimum to promote. In this case that means the United States. And that means it must deny any elements of the state’s creation that is contradictory to this goal of creation a Theocratic State.

It is Time For Accept That These People Are Motivated And Motivating Others To Act! If we don’t counter these beliefs we will be living in a nightmare state of some nut job like C. Jay Engels’ and his fantasy theocratic state.