ing the rights of all parents to bring up their children as they sawrnfit. They constructed a welfare state to divide the generationsrnfrom each other; they did their best to destroy every vestige ofrnregional and religious loyalty. They got rich building highwaysrnthat broke up the old familiar patterns of life and spattered thernchildren of the house across the continent; they destroyed everyrnobstacle to their own profit and called their actions progressivernand philanthropic, because, unlike Henry Ford who realized toornlate what the automobile had done to American life, they couldrnnot bear to confront the truth.rnSo here we are, 260 million well-fed savages prowlingrnthrough the ruins, scavenging bits of civilization from museumsrnand bookstores like street people browsing through garbagerncans. Our great-grandparents were part of a civilization, a culture,rnwhether the language of that culture was Sicilian or AmericanrnEnglish. They could recognize the people of their neighborhoodrnby the tilt of the hat they wore and spot the strangerrn(of 50 miles away) from his mistakes in language and manners.rnThe prayers they said at table, the cups from which they drank,rnthe snatches of song floating through their heads as they driftedrnoff to sleep at night—these and a million other cultural particlesrndefined them as people of their region, their faith, theirrnvillage.rnWc, their descendants, are more likely to identify ourselvesrnwith the brand of instant coffee we heat up in the microwave,rnthe Seattle espresso bar chain we patronize, the label on our designerrnjeans. The songs that go through our heads were concoctedrnby jingle-writers and fabricated in a studio, and if wernhave actually heard them performed live, we were disappointedrnwith the quality. After Disney World, our children look upon arnreal jungle or an actual hometown as boring and unreal. If wernare well-off, the lack of a culture does not bother us; there are sornmany distractions: 24-hour sports channels, virtual sex on thernInternet, and if for one instant we hear the voice of consciencernin our head telling us that nothing is real, there is always coke orrndope or the legal tranquilizer of the month to block the chinksrnagainst the faint whispers we hear through the massive walls ofrnmass culture.rnThe not-so-rich are less fortunate and have to content themselvesrnwith cheap beer and network television. Without anrnHMO to supply them with legal narcotics, they turn to morerndangerous alternatives, like heroin and crack. If they are blackrnor brown, they might start thinking about Donald Trump orrnGeorge Bush or any other affluent white man and wonder whatrnmakes them so special (what, indeed). Some of them mayrneven dimly realize that the welfare state that takes care of themrnwas designed by frightened whites who wanted to keep the coloredsrnquiet. Despising the weakness of a white ruling class thatrndestroys what is left of its own cultural memory and nurses itsrnchildren on cultural diversity and Afrocentrism, they begin tornlisten to Louis Farrakhan railing against white devils who havernstolen the black man’s inheritance or to the Latino leaders whornspeak of taking revenge on Columbus, Cortez, and Sam Houston.rnIf, on the other hand, they are white like me, they may resentrnall the pri ileges and largesse squandered on blacks and Mexicansrnbv rich liberals spending their money and their children’srnbirthright. The antiwhite propaganda on television onl- makesrnthem sympathetic to David Duke, and looking around forrnsomething to believe in, some place to take their stand, theyrncan find nothing more compelling than the abstractions ofrnwhite identity. If they are halfway literate, they may subscribernto one or another racialist newsletter, where they will learn allrnabout how black and brown devils have stolen their birthright.rnUntil a few years ago, they would also ha e been taught that civilrnrights, affirmative action, and miscegenation were all part ofrna plot designed by Jewish lawyers, but some of the very racialistsrnwho used to speak boldly about the “holohoax” (signing theirrnworks with zip codes, pen names, even alternating first names)rnand hang their hats at the Institute for Historical Review haverndecided to tap into Jewish racial resentments.rnIonce had the misfortune to find myself sitting with a neoconscrvativernphilosopher-turncd-racial-theorist and with arnleading holocaust revisionist. Instead of turning on each other,rnthey attacked me for my views on Lincoln. I suppose that ifrnthey had been candid, their argument would have been thatrnLincoln was a progressive racist building a white nation inrnNorth America. If, in his quest for union, he destroyed bothrnUnitarian New England and the Trinitarian South, that was ofrnno concern to ideologues who confess to no loyalty or creed butrnrace. At the risk of sounding like an old Bourbon (my only connectionrnis bottled in Kentucky), I prefer the company of anyrnAfrican-American who loves his kids and goes to church. Politically,rnhe may vote for antiwhite programs that discriminaternagainst my children and drain my pocket; morally, at least, herndoes not turn my stomach by making a tactical alliance with hisrndeclared enemies in the Klan.rnHealthy people cannot existrnwithout loyalty, and if therernis no American nation to commandrntheir loyalties, they will turn inevitablyrnto something else.rnThe great mistake made by black and white nationalistsrnalike—the mistake that ensures their failure—is to confuse therncategories of race and nation. A race is more or less a subspecies,rna set of genetically determined characteristics. Evenrnthough it may be true that no pure races exist on the planet, thernbasic types and subtypes are still distinguishable. A nation, onrnthe other hand, is defined by language, culture, and shared experience.rnA man will fight and die for a nation, “for the ashesrnof his fathers and the temples of his gods,” but for a race, thernmost he will do is to subscribe to a newsletter that makes himrnfeel less like a loser. Some national conflicts are also race wars,rnbut a Slav defending his village against the Huns was protectingrnhis wife and children; he was not protecting the purity of therngene pool.rnAt first sight, the United States in the 1990’s might resemblernAustria-Hungary wracked by nationalist uprisings: a polyglotrnempire dominated by one or two ethnic groups whose power isrnchallenged by minorities demanding recognition. The differences,rnhowever, are more striking than the similarities. ThernNOVEMBER 1997/11rnrnrn