Nearly two weeks ago an anonymous author – apparently an Austrian identitarian – published Volle Fahrt ins Nichts, a very interesting analysis of right-wing populist parties in the West, concluding they are unlikely to achieve their goals. This essay was shared by another (not quite anonymous) Austrian identitarian on Twitter who assured me he knows the author, and that he has no objections to a translation provided the original source is linked. And so I present to you Full Speed Into the Void, my hopefully not-too-terrible translation of the German article into English. Anyone is free to republish this translation elsewhere, with links to the original and translated articles.
Readers who are fluent in German should take note that Austrian identitarian chief Martin Sellner has already published an extensive reply to the original analysis which is also well worth reading.
Translation Notes
The article’s implicit context, where not otherwise indicated, is Austrian or possibly German politics. I occasionally added clarifications for readers unfamiliar with the local situation.
Some idiosyncratic German terms were difficult to translate verbatim. In particular, I replaced the party labels “sozialdemokratisch” (social democratic, i.e. SPÖ/SPD) and “christlich-bürgerlich” (literally Christian bourgeois, i.e. ÖVP/CDU) with the more generic terms center-left and center-right, as I believe the intention was to indicate general positions on the political spectrum rather than any local peculiarities.
Outstanding translation! It’s an excellent and thought provoking article, so thanks for making it available to the Anglosphere – I know it took a lot of effort. I see the Z-man was impressed by it, and linked it on his blog.
Thank you! Indeed I wanted to link to Z-Man’s article but forgot about it, so here it is: What Comes Next, a discussion of the end of liberal democracy from an American perspective.
Spandrell, another famous reactosphere writer, comments on the issues raised by the article in How far is far enough.
The problem here is that liberalism itself causes more pro-foreigner society. First, there is not a single liberal society that does not have negative birth rate, which makes immigration necessary sooner or later. . And second, people who are more socially liberal, or more egalitarian, are also on average more “tolerant” and more “anti-racist”. Support for traditional values meanwhile, is also correlated with xenophobia and anti-foreign sentiment. So when you have a more liberal society, you will also generally have more tolerant society.
In other words – there is strong correlation between liberal social values and pro-foreign sentiment/anti-racism. Those two things come together. If you want liberal society, you will also have tolerant society.