David Myatt - Civilisation and its Discontents

You may have seen the article in Timesonline about David Myatt, ex-luminary of the Neo-Nazi movement in Britain, now a Muslim and a supporter of the Jihadist war on the West. Why this step sideways?

The pure authentic Islam of the revival, which recognises practical jihad (holy war) as a duty, is the only force that is capable of fighting and destroying the dishonour, the arrogance, the materialism of the West . . . For the West, nothing is sacred, except perhaps Zionists, Zionism, the hoax of the so-called Holocaust, and the idols which the West and its lackeys worship, or pretend to worship, such as democracy.

You could be forgiven for thinking that this is merely a case of one anti-semitic, anti-American nutter joining forces with a lot of other anti-semitic, anti-American nutters. But I've had a quick look at some of Myatt's writings, and it's obvious that his rebellion against his own culture is both deeply rooted in his own culture and in needs and desires shared by many others.

There's a word that doesn't appear in the Times article, but that recurs constantly in his writings: numinous. He calls (or called) his philosophy the "Numinous Way of Folk Culture". What he loves about Islam is its "numinosity: the beauty, the sacredness, the intimation of the divine, which manifests itself in daily life". As for the modern state, there is "nothing numinous in the policies and goals of such organizations: no rational, cosmic, perspective, no inspiring numinosity".

He sought this numinosity in Nature and in the cult of the race, but ended up in despair, from which he was rescued by conversion to Islam, a religion that not only glorifies the warrior, but retains a concept of honour (two of his other most frequent words).

It makes me angry to watch the television pictures of American and British troops swaggering around, showing off their hardware while experts talk about powerful American weaponry: it so dishonourable; so against the ethos of the true warrior. There will be no honour in such a conflict, at least not on the part of American and allied troops. You want true warriors in the modern world? Muslims defending Jenin. Mujahideen defending Tora Bora.

What is the Western way of life? Materialistic, dishonourable, arrogant, decadent and its politics either petty and soulless or oppressive and imperialistic.

Doesn't a lot of this sound very familiar? If not, then you obviously don't read The Guardian or The Independent. His search for meaning (the numinous), his back-to-nature philosophy, his attempted construction of a cosmic perspective that will bestow honour and dignity on insignificant souls - aren't these needs and desires everywhere around us from the radical self-disgust of the Animal Liberationist to the faux-satanism of heavy metal?

I think people like David Myatt are beating a path that will be much travelled by desperate dreamy males and even more desperate, though fewer, females.

Most of the quotes above came from this website dedicated to Myatt.

Tagged: Religion, Philosophy, Islam, The radical