Why I Am Not a Liberal

Studies in Reaction

by Jonathan Bowden

Bowden's oratorical firepower is on full display in this 2009 interview. Members of the London New-Right put every question to him you ever wanted to ask, letting Bowden hold forth on such topics as race and politics, the EU, Islam, gender roles, paganism and Christianity, modern art, and his own vision of the future. This volume also includes three short reflections on Bowden the man by members of the London New-Right.Far from suggesting a misty-eyed return to a nostalgic past, the picture Bowden paints here is one of great intellectual daring, aesthetic dynamism, and the sort of bravado needed for any political movement to succeed. This is a foundational voice of the dissident right reminding it of lessons it has forgotten.The inaugural release in the Studies in Reaction series, Bowden's Why I Am Not a Liberal serves as a sweeping overview of illiberal thinking, and makes for an excellent entré into dissident right politics.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, Nonfiction

76 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 19, 2020

About the author

British artist and political figure who was active in a number of political parties and groups, and was a leading speaker on the nationalist circuit.

Bowden began his political life in the Conservative Party and in Right-wing groups around conservatism, such as the Monday Club, the Western Goals Institute, and the Revolutionary Conservative Caucus.

He later joined the Freedom Party and then the British Nation Party, which he left after an internal dispute. He continued speaking for the BNP until 2010, but never rejoined the party.

Bowden was the chairman of New Right, an British pan-European forum.

Reviews

[… · Rating 4 out of 5]

liberalism, both the classical variant underpinning western democracy but also the specific brand of composite ideologies that constitute the left, has morphed into the most aggressively moronic brand of politics, and it makes no attempt to hide it.

Bowden certainly gives a nod to the impossibility of escaping a brand of generic ethics and coded language that just wants to conscript you for the purposes of demoralization. The system and entire sociocultural/media apparatus erected on its behalf is a form of psychological entrapment that serves as a seedbed for the legitimization of idiotic, half-baked contrivances meant to serve a select few, whether they be political or economic elites. It's an onslaught of almost constant gaslighting, hence the emotional exhaustion and mental torment of its political subjects when it is operating most efficiently.


Reasons to reject liberalism:

1) A general distrust of power, of its corrupting influence on the people who possess it, as well as its inherently expansive nature and centralizing tendencies. Power is zero-sum. When they get more, you get less.

2) The cavalier attitude of this power. Its rejection of anything resembling prudence or humility. Evident in the medical sciences, most recently during the pandemic. It's rejection of other human resources like intuition or historical knowledge.

3) Lack of reverence... for anything, really. History, beauty, distinction, values. Everything will be mowed down by neoliberalism or technology. Progress is good.

4) Refusal of limits. This is where it gets satanic. It's a confusion of the animal, human, and divine.


This book is a good intro to Bowden's fundamental ideas and also his personality. Apparently, he was a great orator too.

[Jack0 · Rating 4 out of 5]

CLEAR THEM OUT

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jonathan Bowden was a noted orator and BNP intellectual. His critiques of various shades of Leftist and Marxist thought were often penetrating, though his own Nietzschean and racialist views were deeply problematic. He also misunderstands Christianity's relationship between weakness and strength. Saying that one is not to oppress the weak is a different thing from denying that there is a place for legitimate strength. The strengths and weaknesses of his thinking are on display in this transcription of an interview not long before his death.

If British nationalism is to get anywhere, it needs to ditch all associations with paganism, distance opposition to anti-whiteism from white supremacy, return to Christianity and root its conception of liberty in natural law. The latter, especially, will give it a stronger basis to oppose Thatcherism and Libertarianism (in favour of economic prudence) while also rejecting the tyrannical nanny-statism that we have seen with these lockdowns.

[Nick John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definatley a nice little read and a great small gift to give to people who are coming around to sort of Far Right ideas. Anyone will enjoy Jonathans talking and points made though great stuff. The man is an ocean of knowledge and ideas.

[Ethan Berman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brisk but entertaining read, that somehow feels universal through its specificity. The rapid fire opinions on evergreen topics serve as a good reminder that the reactionary right did not manifest in the United States in 2016. Bristling with energy, this quick entry serves as a great beginning to the Imperium Press series on reactionary thought.

[Bobby Daugherty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bowden is one of the most underrated minds of his time. In this transcript of an interview grandted after his "Punch and Judy" speech he elaborates on the simplicity of the mob and the complexity of the world around it. He does not dismiss the common man but acknowledges the fatalistic attitude of society as the political corruption is so obvious it reaches new levels of vulgarity.

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much, much better than the title would suggest.

[David Fisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bowden is a bit of a hero of the dissident right. This is more a transcript of an interview than a treatise of any sort. He has a rather playful side to him as he dances around his political ideology. Although I'm not sure he'd have subscribed to any one ideology in particular. He certainly identified much of what is wrong in the west and sadly predicts where we are now, but he did have an air of optimism. He's got that rather misinformed childish understanding of Christianity, which is likely just due to being exposed to the wishy washy happy clappy side of the Church of England. I suspect he'd have thought differently if he had a deeper understanding of Christianity's robustness. It was a short read and quite enjoyable, and I'd recommend it to anyone, even if you are not in agreement with his political leanings.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting speech. He's such a talented and detailed speaker than it works really well in textual format. A bit of it near the end gets a bit niche, talking about political and social occurrences in Manchester. But the vast majority packs a major punch for such a small text. The main reactionary/dissident right-wing talking points, considerations, are tackled here. People trying to synthesise and come up with new ideas basically come up with pale imitations of what Bowden throws out in a couple of sentences, you could say. I'm exaggerating but it really feels true. He's a firebrand, you get to witness Nietzscheism and the true vitality and strength it can provide. It's a great entryway for people interested in the reactionary right for certain, and an 8/10 for me.

[Victor Van · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a transcript of an interview with Jonathan Bowden, in which he expresses some of his doubts about Liberalism. Something of this length can't make a decisive case, and the fact that it is an interview means that it will not have the coherence of an extended essay, but its conversational style and brevity make it accessible to most readers. Bowden also points the way to further reading on illiberalism, citing figures such as Julius Evola and Alexander Raven Thomson. I would recommend this to people who have doubts about Liberalism but aren't sure where to start.

[Lachlan Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

He gives credit where credit is due, mostly to Christianity’s part in western society

Usually you’ll have neo-pagans larping and making fun of the churches impact and rule in the liberalisation of western society, but it took 2000 years until liberalism took its effect so its just silly to think that

[Ben Andrus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting perspective. I think Bowen has certain revolutionary energy that I like. However, he gets Christianity completely wrong and that’s more of an indictment of Anglicanism and the religious education in the UK than of the man himself.

[Jordan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kept imagining Michael Palin and John Cleese in drag as I read this one....

[Andrés · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Why aren't you yourself afraid? [of being labelled conservative and become unrespectable] :
... There's an artistic element in me. I don't care for bourgeois respectability. It doesn´t bother me. "

[Oolalaa · Rating 3 out of 5]

11/20

[K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Agree or disagree with Bowden, he was a guy I would grab a drink with.

[Blase · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I don't believe in misery. Misery is for bores."

[John Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

A refreshing read. Based on interviews with Bowden before his sudden death, just short of 50. Whilst I don’t agree with all he has to say, I respect what he does say and why he feels the need to say it. More writing on the wall. It’s over to the reader how they choose to respond. Morph into mediocre nothingness or fight for the right to be who we are and what Nature intended us to be - in our place and time?

[John Keillor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant yarn

A true and inspiring vision of the world. I only wish it were longer. Bowden was a true visionary. Highly recommended

[Lazich · Rating 2 out of 5]

Because hierarchy is natural and hierarchy is good.

[Henning Bergström · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good critique of liberalism.

[Vykintas Balevicius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. I really am lost for words. Bowden is such a genius. I miss him.

[Iegfb · Rating 1 out of 5]

This isn't really a book, it's a transcript of some meeting or conference where nothing of value was said and the thing only got more and more meaningless with each passing page..

I don't even know why IP decided to publish this thing, there's nothing to be studied in here. It only gives a bad impression for what these Studies in Reaction series are gonna be about when it serves as the first installment of said series.

Skip this one.

[شاهنشاه‎ · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a hard book to rate as it is essentially a transcript of an interview. I had never heard of Bowden until reading this book and am still not entirely sure what to think of him. One thing that immediately stood out was that his "oratory power" is somewhat exaggerated - or perhaps it was simply not well-conveyed in this format. To me, Bowden came across as a reasonable intelligent but very self-absorbed person who could speak with confidence on a variety of topics. However, being able to speak with confidence is not the same thing as really knowing what you are talking about.

In some cases he certainly does, but in others, specifically when it comes to Christianity, his knowledge was very clearly limited to the realm of common stereotypes and complaints. That is not surprising as he seems to be thoroughly irreligious individual - even his "paganism" amounted to his gods being little more than personifications of ideas, forces, whatever. He is not wrong though when he said that one cannot believe in God the way one did 100 or 1000 years ago, that is clear.

A number of other ideas were very problematic: his dime-a-dozen Nietzscheanism, his almost purely contrarian predilection for modern art (the bourgeois conservative finds it ugly, ho ho, then I find it good. "Fierce" he calls it.).

A major upside of this book is that it is extremely short. While Bowden has very insightful takes on certain topics, much of his ideas are mundane or simple egocentrism. The real question, though, is how much of this represents his real beliefs and how much does he say to simply shock or maintain a contrarian position? His own admission regarding modern art casts a shadow of doubt on everything he says afterwards.