The American Ideology
Francis Parker Yockey
This organic individualism was formulated in written constitutions and in a
literary-political literature. Typical of the spirit of this literature is the Declaration
of Independence. As a piece of Realpolitik, this manifesto of 1776 is masterly: it points
to the Future, and embodies the Spirit of the Age of Rationalism, which was then ascendant
in the Western Culture. But, in the 20th century, the ideological part of this Declaration
is simply fantastic: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men
are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with inherent and inalienable
rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure
these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these
ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such
form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.” In
1863, the charlatan Lincoln delivered an address in which he speaks of America as “a
nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created
equal.” He then went on to say, referring to the War of Secession, then in progress,
“…we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any
nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
This ideology continued right into the middle of the 20th century, and was even, after the
First and Second World Wars, when a totally different and utterly incompatible outlook was
in the ascendant, offered to the home of the Western Civilization as a model to imitate
somehow. It was only the entirely fortuitous material success which attended American arms
that enabled this ideology to survive late into a century which had outgrown it, and, not
because it is important as a political outlook, but solely because it is an effective
technique for splitting and disintegrating Europe, must this archaic ideology be examined
here.
The Declaration of Independence is saturated with the thinking of Rousseau and
Montesquieu. The basic idea, as in all Rationalism, is the equating of what ought
to be with what will be. Rationalism begins with confusing the rational with the
real, and ends by confusing the real with the rational. This arsenal of “truths”
about equality, inalienable and inherent rights, reflects the emancipated critical spirit,
devoid of respect for facts and tradition. The idea that governments are “instituted”
for a utilitarian purpose, to satisfy a demand of “equal” men, and that these
“equal” men give their “consent” to a certain “form” of
“government,” and then abolish it when it no longer serves the purpose— is
pure Rationalistic poetry, and corresponds to no facts that have ever occurred anywhere.
The source of government is the inequality of men— this is the fact.
The nature of the government is a reflection of the Culture, the Nation, and the stage of
development of both. Thus any nation may have one of two forms of government, an efficient
or an inefficient government. An efficient government carries out the Idea of the nation—
not the “will of the masses,” for this latter does not exist if the leadership
is capable. Leadership goes down, not when “the people” rationally decide to
abolish it, but when that leadership becomes so decadent as to undermine itself. No
government anywhere is “founded” on “principles.” Governments are the
expression of political instincts, and the difference between the instincts of various
populations is the source of differences in their practice of government. No written
“principles” affect the practice of government in the slightest, and the sole
effect they have is to furnish the vocabulary of political struggles.
This is as true of America as it is of every other political unit that has ever existed in
five millennia of the history of High Cultures. Contrary to a certain messianic feeling in
America, America is not completely unique. Its morphology and destiny are readable
in the history of other colonies, in our own, and in previous Cultures.
The reference in the Independence Declaration to government as having the purpose of
effecting the “safety” and “happiness” of the population is more
Rationalistic nonsense. Government is the process of maintaining the population in form
for the political task, the expression of the Idea of the Nation.
The quotation from Lincoln still reflects the Age of Rationalism, and his contemporary
Europe could feel and understand such ideology, although, since State, Nation, and
Tradition existed still in Europe, even if weakened, there was always resistance to
Rationalist ideologies, whether of the Rousseau, Lincoln, or Marx variety. No nation was
ever “conceived in liberty,” and no nation was ever “dedicated to a
proposition.” Nations are the creations of a High Culture, and in their last essence
are mystical Ideas. Their coming, their individualities, their form, their going, are all
reflections of higher Cultural developments. To say that a nation is “dedicated to a
proposition” is to reduce it to an abstraction that can be put on a blackboard for
the instruction of a class in logic. It is a Rationalistic caricature of the
Nation-Idea. So to speak of a Nation is to insult and debase it: no one would ever die for
a logical proposition. If such a proposition— which is also claimed to be “self-evident”—
is not convincing, armed force will not make it more so.
The numen “liberty” is one of the main foci of the American ideology. The word
can only be defined negatively, as freedom from some restraint or other. Not even the most
rabid American ideologist advocates total freedom from every form of order, and similarly
the strictest tyranny has never wished to forbid everything. In a country “dedicated”
to “liberty” men were taken from their homes, under threat of prison, pronounced
soldiers, and dispatched to the antipodes as a “defense” measure on the part of
a government which did not ask the “consent” of its masses, knowing perfectly
well such “consent” would be refused.
In the practical sense, American freedom means freedom from the State, but it is obvious
that this is mere literature, since there never was a State in America, nor any necessity
for one. The word freedom is thus merely a concept in a materialistic religion, and
describes nothing in the world of American facts.
Important also to the American ideology is the written constitution adopted in 1789, as a
result of the labors of Hamilton and Franklin. Their interest in it was practical, their
idea being to unite the thirteen colonies into a unit. Since the union could never have
been brought about at that time on any sort of central basis, the most they were able to
bring about was a weak federation, with a central government that could hardly be
described as government at all, but only as a formulated anarchy. The ideas of the
constitution were mostly derived from the writings of Montesquieu. The idea of “separation
of powers” in particular comes from this French theorist. According to this theory,
the powers of government are three, legislative, executive, and judicial. Like all
crystal-dear Rationalistic thinking, this is muddy and confused when applied to Life.
These powers can only be separated on paper, in Life they cannot. They were never actually
separated in America, although the theory was retained that they were. With the onset of
an internal crisis in the 30's of the 20th century, the entire power of the central
government was openly concentrated into the executive, and theories were found to support
this fact, still calling it “separation.”
The various colonies retained most of the power that mattered to them— the power to
make their own laws, keep a militia, and conduct themselves in economic independence of
the other colonies. The word “state” was chosen to describe the components of
the union, and this led to further confused ideological thinking, since European
State-forms, where the State was an Idea, were thought to be equivalent to American “states,”
which were primarily territorial-legal-economic units, without sovereignty, aim, destiny,
or purpose.
In the union, there was no sovereignty, that is, not even the legal counterpart of
the State-Idea. The central government was not sovereign, neither was any state
government. Sovereignty was represented by the agreement of two-thirds of the states and
the central legislative, or in other words, a complete abstraction. If there had been
fifty or a hundred million Slavs, or even Indians, on America 's borders, there would have
been a different notion of these things. The whole American ideology presupposed the
American geopolitical situation. There were no powers, no strong, numerous, or organized
hostile populations, no political dangers— only a vast empty landscape,
sparsely populated with savages.
Also important to the American ideology was the feeling— expressed above in Lincoln
's address— of universality. Although the War of Secession had nothing
whatever to do with ideology of any kind— and in any case, the Southern legalistic
rationale of the War was more consequent than the Yankee idea— Lincoln felt impelled
to inject the issue of ideology into the War. The opponent could never be simply a
political rival, bent upon the same power as the Yankee— he had to be a total enemy,
intent upon wiping out the American ideology. This feeling informed all American Wars from
that time onward— any political enemy was regarded ipso facto as an
ideological opponent, even though the enemy had no interest whatever in American ideology.
American ideology led America to claim countries as allies which did not return the
compliment, but American ardor was not thereby dampened. This type of politics can only
strike Europe as adolescent, and in truth, any pretense that 20th century forms and
problems can be described in a 19th century Rationalistic ideology is immature, or to be
more blunt, silly.
In the 20th century, when the Rationalist type of ideology had been discarded by the
advancing Western Civilization, the American universalizing of ideology turned into messianism—
the idea that America must save the world. The vehicle of the salvation is to be a
materialistic religion with “democracy” taking the place of God, “Constitution”
the place of the Church, “principles of government” the place of religious
dogmas, and the idea of economic freedom the place of God's Grace. The technic of
salvation is to embrace the dollar, or failing that, to submit to American high-explosives
and bayonets.
The American ideology is a religion, just as was the Rationalism of the French Terror, of
Jacobinism, of Napoleonism. The American ideology is coeval with them, and they are
completely dead. Just as inwardly dead is the American ideology. Its principal use at the
present time— 1948— is in splitting Europe. The European Michel element battens
on to any ideology whatever which promises “happiness” and a life without effort
or sternness. American ideology thus serves a negative purpose, and that only. The Spirit
of a bygone Age can give no message to a subsequent age, but can only deny the new age,
and attempt to retard, distort, and warp it from its life-path. American ideology is not
an instinct, for it inspires no one. It is an inorganic system, and when one of its tenets
gets in the way, it is promptly discarded. Thus the religious doctrine of “separation
of powers” was dropped from the list of sacred dogmas in 1933. Before that the holy
tenet of Isolation had been put aside in 1917, when America entered into a Western War
which did not concern it in any way. Resurrected after the First World War, it was again
discarded in the Second World War. A political religion that thus switches the changes on
its supernatural doctrines is convincing neither politically nor religiously. The “Doctrine”
of Monroe, for instance, announced early in the 19th century that the entire Western
Hemisphere was a sphere of American imperialistic influence. In the 20th century, this
passed into the special status of an esoteric doctrine, being retained for domestic
consumption, while the external dogma was called the “good-neighbor policy.”
The ideology of a people is merely intellectual clothing. It may, or may not, correspond
to the instinct of that people. An ideology may be changed from day to day, but not the
character of the people. Once that is formed, it is definite and influences events far
more than they can influence it. The character of the American People was formed in the
Secession War.
