Every generation and every town has one: the slightly bedraggled person who camps out on a street corner with a sign proclaiming “The End is Near.” We’ve become accustomed to them so that they fade into background noise much like our grandparents telling us that things were better in the good ol’ days.
But over the past decade, a new thought has entered our collective consciousness, which is that decay may come slowly, and if so, every doomsayer has been correct — just early. With that thought comes the question, “Where should we go next?” After all, the last century burned out fascism, nationalism, communism and theocracy, and the century before seemed to finish the work of the century before it in shattering aristocracy and the older order. What’s left?
As more people turn toward this question, a new type of publisher has emerged that focuses on different types of social order, some ancient and some futuristic. At the forefront of this new type is Arktos, a publishing firm known for its high-quality imprints of traditionalist, ecofuturist and transcending modernity texts. We were fortunate to have John Morgan, Editor-in-Chief of Arktos, agree to an interview with us.
Arktos birthed itself from Integral Tradition Publishing, and now seems to me to be the foremost alternative right, traditionalist, perennialist and New Right publisher in existence. Can you tell us a bit about the goals, history and methods of Arktos?
Thanks so much for the compliment! It’s always good for morale for us here in India when people give us such votes of confidence.
First, the history. ITP was founded in December 2006 by myself and some friends with the intention of becoming the pre-eminent publisher and distributor of traditionalist and radical/anti-modernist literature. We were always very ambitious, but all of us were working other full-time jobs, and we didn’t have very much money at our disposal, so we could only get out one or two publications per year. It was the decision to open an office in India in 2009 that really turned things around, since those of us who came to work here could actually afford to live on what the company was making and thus work full-time on ITP. Towards the end of 2009, we found out that some Swedish friends of ours were planning a project very similar to our own, and we concluded that it was a better use of our resources to just combine forces, and the resulting product was a completely new venture: Arktos. We’re still very small, but with the additional manpower and money we’ve been able to bring a lot of projects to fruition that we could only dream about in the ITP days.
Our goals are stated on the “About Us” section of our Web site (www.arktos.com), although they are quite general. Arktos does not have a specific ideology or point-of-view that it advocates, even though there are certain themes which are of concern to us. We’ve published a number of European New Right titles, for example, but we don’t see ourselves strictly as a New Right publisher. When I’ve tried to boil down our interests, the best I’ve come up with is “alternatives to modernity.” All of our books in some way seek to convey alternative ways of looking at life or civilization itself. So far we’ve published works on politics, philosophy, spirituality/traditionalism, radical environmentalism, and fiction. I’m sure we will continue to publish works in all these areas, and also expand into new ones.
You’ve unleashed English translations of many of the true classics of the New Right movement. Do you think there’s a large audience in English-speakers, such as in the UK or USA, or is English a kind of lingua franca that we all speak because we use the internet and watch too much American TV?
I certainly hope there are. We’ve had good sales of our Alain de Benoist and Guillaume Faye titles so far, but they haven’t exactly been flying off the shelves as we’d hoped. I was hopeful that we might see thousands of copies sold right away, in the belief that there were a lot of people like me who had spent years grumbling about how little New Right material had been available in English previously. I’m convinced that there are a lot more potential readers out there, and that we just need to find a way to reach them and make them aware of this material. But orders for the books continue to come in, and we have many more translations planned, so I’m hopeful that we will gradually get to that point.
As for the possibilities in English, it’s unquestionable that English has now become the global language, at least among the educated elites across the world. I find it a bit ironic that we’re exploiting this reality in Arktos, since one of the fundamental aspects of the New Right is its opposition to American cultural imperialism, of which the current proliferation of English is a part. But it’s a fact, so we might as well work with it. We certainly do see a lot of sales to customers in countries that are not primarily English-speaking, simply because our books have not been made available in their native languages. Although I do think there is a lot of interest in Arktos in English-speaking countries as well, simply because the sorts of ideas propagated in our books are coming from completely new perspectives for us. I don’t think most people would dispute that the political, cultural and spiritual traditions which have dominated the English-speaking world for centuries have been appearing quite threadbare in recent decades. Both the United States and the United Kingdom are founded on English political and philosophical assumptions that have gone unquestioned for a long time. The New Right texts are coming out of French, and to a lesser extent German and other Continental traditions that are a breath of fresh air. Previously, these sorts of ideas were only the province of academic specialists in political theory, but now we are making them available for anyone to consider.
How many titles does Arktos publish in a year, and how do you choose them?
We try to publish at least two or three new titles per month, although we’ve fallen short of that goal recently because all of us spent much of the summer travelling and attending conferences, but we’re working to get caught up now. We choose books based in part on our own interests (since we would definitely all be a part of Arktos’ audience if we weren’t working for it), as well as in terms of what we feel is most needed or what people would like to see in print. Plus we’re always getting submissions from authors, several of which we’ve already published. Both Andrew Fraser’s The WASP Question and Kerry Bolton’s Revolution from Above were the result of unsolicited submissions.
Why publishing? It seems the publishing industry is in disarray, although many suggest niche publications (like what Arktos does) are the way of the future. Did you consider other forms of action?
The world of publishing is undergoing changes on a scale unseen since Gutenberg, but I don’t think publishing is going away. I firmly believe that there will always be books – and paper books among them – as long as there is some form of human civilization. It is definitely true that recent developments have created many new opportunities for small publishers than have ever existed before. Arktos wouldn’t exist were it not for the blessings of print-on-demand and the Internet. And I’m very pleased to see the plethora of publishers with goals similar to Arktos that have sprung up in recent years: Counter-Currents, Wermod & Wermod, Finis Mundi, Sophia Perennis, Primordial Traditions, and Black Front Press, to name but a few. When I’ve spoken to people who’ve travelled in our circles for decades, they describe how they used to have to make do with poor-quality photocopies of long out-of-print books or typewritten manuscripts. Now, thanks to the growth of small publishing, we have an entire universe of publishers that are producing professional-quality books that can stand alongside those of the big names. And I think that’s terrific. Ideas are the building blocks of change, and without a rich intellectual and cultural foundation, which can only be found in books, Western civilization will never be able to break out of its present morass. Other forms of action will be needed sooner or later, but we have to have a solid conception of where we want to go first, and books are still the best way to do that.
Hopefully it’s not gauche to leave this here, but these are some of our reviews of Arktos books mentioned in this article:
Why We Fight: Manifesto of the European Resistance, by Guillaume Faye
Against Democracy and Equality, by Tomislav Sunic
The Problem of Democracy, by Alain de Benoist
Archeofuturism, by Guillaume Faye
The dying Western ‘civilization’ is entrapped by this very problem. We have several core ingredients like equality, diversity, democracy, ‘freedom’ (consumerism) that we treat like a magic balm or talisman and apply more of them whenever we have a problem. It never seems to occur to anyone that on some level at least the ‘solution’ is related to or causative of the problem.
Well, that’s the question isn’t it. How do we keep our technology and societies in which we do not live in fear for our lives, and throw out all the bad spirit-killing aspects of Modernity? Speaking for myself, systems of law and order, due process, innocent-until-proven guilty and other ‘democratic’ reforms are really worth having. What’s not worth having is rule by the lowest common denominator ‘bread and circuses’ approach.
The neo-nazis have some good ideas about what the core problem and solution is……though it’s not entirely correct when viewed beyond just the 20th century.
I personally think that the long-term impact of the internet will be the negation of the ‘bread and circuses’ approach as it is dependent on large, centralized distribution and economies of scale associated with it.
I like your point YT and i like to continue on that thought,neo-feudalism anyone? instead of the classic marxist progression, isn’t all this centralization of martial power/wealth/”capital” constantly reoccuring over and over again. under an aristocracy either a) of rich buisness interests or of “party officals” who tell the system what to do? i mean why not just tear off the charade and call walmart everything, call the army the forces of walmart and the marines the huscarls of “globalism”, honesty could even make this current monster more respectable. and that smiley face would look really unnerving on the side of an armored vehicle.
in fact much of the “environMENTAL” agenda would require de-industrialization in many areas, and clearly if one is a fan of econmic determinism, central industrialized hubs left over for trade, production and communication would be dominating the more rural areas politically and economically (they will be making the AR-15s), with an elite of somekind.
Feudalism already exists. Because people vary in IQ, some are trapped at lower socioeconomic levels than other. For this reason, feudalism always exists, even in “equitable” systems.
We could make it a gentler system however.
The environmentalists we have today are nutty leftists. I would just limit growth and insist on recycling everything, as well as setting aside lots of land for nature. The result would be better than all the crazy programs we have now.
To really address the environmental problems we face, a complete restructuring of society and redefinition of life and civilization will have to take place. It’s hard for most people to accept it but the comfortable lives that most of us lead in the West at present are unsustainable and will have to go, either voluntarily now or as part of a huge die-off in the not-too-distant future. A catastrophic die-off may be inevitable anyway, given current population levels and trends, but our only hope to avoid it is to completely rethink our situation.
The problem with neo-Nazis is that they poison any good idea they have by taking it to an extreme that is unnecessarily destructive, and thus they obliterate they idea in the public eye. If I were a leftist media manipulator, I could not do better than having some of these angry neo-Nazi parties to discredit ideas I feared.
I’m not sure the internet will have the impact you think it will. The problem it seems to me is that the average citizen wants the bread and circuses approach, and so on the internet, they’ll seek out the type of stuff their TVs would otherwise give them. However, the internet has allowed the curious few to have access to actual information about the past, which brings these ideas to life.
It’s even more important to have people putting these ideas into print in a non-extremist and literate form, much like Arktos and other publishers are doing, so that people without the time/inclination to crawl the internet can experience new knowledge in its traditional format.
I realize this may be a controversial statement, but I think it’s difficult to convey sophisticated ideas over the Internet. Yes, you can put texts up, but the whole nature of the Internet leads people to disregard anything that isn’t brief and filled with pretty graphics. The Internet is fine for communication and for things like articles and blogs, but books and other forms of media will always be the only place for serious intellectual and cultural life to take place.
I have to agree with a lot of this. We are certainly not going to be able to revert back where all the technology and what not of the last hundred years will just disappear. And like you said, there are some solid ideas out there that have come about that are worth keeping. As far as technology goes, the analogy I like to use is salt. When cooking, we add a little salt to bring out flavors. But you don’t then just dump a ton of salt in thinking that will make things even better. You just end up ruining your food. I see technology like that. Our current usage model is just dumping technology onto our existence, and the powers that be that profit in this just want to dump more and more. Yet we could use technology more in a way that enhance life versus dominate and drown it out. For myself I have come to realize I can make that choice. But the raw numbers tend to shape society and the world. And we know how the raw numbers think and behave. I often wonder what consciousness and identity will be in a hundred years. We are paving a path where it really seems people will have no chance at having a sense of “being”. I could be wrong, but it seems likely the future could be very dystopic. Not in the 1984 way everyone wants to rail against (though possibly in that way as well), but more so in that people will have lost their sense of being, and there will be no way to get it back. Sounds gloomy, but I cannot see how this possibility is not a reasonable conclusion if you have the ability to extrapolate and look ahead. I am sure I am preaching to the choir here. Anyway, just a thought I had.
“When cooking, we add a little salt to bring out flavors. But you don’t then just dump a ton of salt in thinking that will make things even better. You just end up ruining your food. I see technology like that”
really awesome point!
Arktos is a great organization. I’ve ordered several books off of it in the past.
I ordered some stuff to give to my liberal friends for this Christmas, too. ;)
Interesting.. sounds great!
I did not know they were the publishers of Faye’s work. You learn something every day! Gracias!
Andrea, yes, we have published English versions of Faye’s “Archeofuturism” and “Why We Fight” to date. We have an agreement with Faye to publish six more over the next few years.
Many thanks for posting this interview!
I feel a great relief after reading this story: now I know other people are doing things similar to what I’m doing, and it makes me feel much more confident.
I wish Good luck to Arktos and John Morgan.
Rest assured that while there aren’t many of us, you are not alone! And thanks for your good wishes. What projects of your own are you developing?
My wife made a compilation of a good music for the piano students: four repertoir books and three method books. She did it for her students in order not to buy a couple of books and play only one or two pieces from each one.
It took a lot of time: Music notation was done in Finale from scratch, and the books – in InDesign. The goal was not only to foster a good musical taste in children, but also to make it readable better; we believed it’s important for kids. I print the books on demand on a color lazer printer on 28 lb paper and wire bind them (so they turn pages much better).
I work full time in telecommunication, print books on demand, and believe in necessity of culturel resurrection. Thus I saw some similarities and was glad we are not alone.
These are the books, I just put them on her site:
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeyhv92/id13.html
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