VLNT

Defending Democracy™

Category: Profile

  • Z Man

    Z Man

    Z Man is the creator and host of the Z Blog blog and Z Blog Power Hour podcast. He releases written content daily and a free Power Hour podcast episode every Friday.

    Overview

    Z Man’s style is conversational, rational, and skeptical. He mainly discusses politics, but occasionally muses on culture and sociology. He is remarkably prolific; for years, he’s been publishing a new article or podcast nearly daily, a few of which are now paywalled behind Substack each week.

    Overall, he just wants freedom of association and a sane society. He spoke at the AmRen conference in 2022, and started hosting John Derbyshire’s podcast when VDARE shut down in 2024.

    He used to have a column published at Taki’s Magazine, but the articles were purged when he left; they remain available via the Wayback Machine’s archives. He has been a guest on Myth of the 20th Century, the J Burden Show, and the Pete Quinones Show podcasts, among others.

    Themes

    Freedom of Association (1A)

    Z Man doesn’t explicitly reference the First Amendment or Freedom of Association often, but it’s perhaps the largest undercurrent in his political ideology (which is tough to nail down on its own).

    He does not mindlessly entertain unrealistic solutions to political problems. If he doesn’t believe mass deportation, remigration, or state-sanctioned segregation is politically possible, then he doesn’t waste time discussing them.

    Given this, he defaults to voluntary segregation as a reasonable and actionable approach to living within the globo-homo,1 multi-culti2 U.S. empire. Americans been bombarded with forced integration for the last 50 years. It hasn’t worked, and there’s not much more the regime can do to impose it upon their citizens.

    So, one can do what one has always done — vote with their feet, engage in white flight, and find a homogeneous community with shared values. For the time, one weathers the storm, keeps their head down, and protects themselves and their loved ones until enough cracks cause the egalitarian propaganda to falter.

    Human Biodiversity

    Human Biodiversity (HBD) is a dumb term (to sound academic) for something simple. Z Man doesn’t use the phrase or the acronym “HBD” much, but he is familiar with the movement, for lack of a better term.

    HBD is simply the idea that different humans are different. Of course, it’s slightly more complex than that tautology, but that is really what it boils down to. HBD comes down to a few basic ideas:

    • People are not a “blank slate”
    • Genetics play a material role in the capabilities and limitations of individuals
    • Ethnic groups have different genetic traits

    For Z Man, HBD is obvious. Of course individuals and different groups of related individuals are different from others. To live in reality is to acknowledge such, but the multicultural liberal programme propagandizes public-schoolers and NPR listeners to believe that, in fact, everyone is perfectly equal (yet different) and the same (yet unique), and that any differences between different groups in their success or intelligence or outcomes in life must be attributable to racism.

    Z Man doesn’t beat the HBD drum, but it clearly underlies his worldview. And he believes many social and political problems could be more appropriately addressed if ordinary people simply started talking, acting, and voting on the truths they inherently already believe — that different people are different, different groups are different, and it’s rational to acknowledge those differences.

    Managerialism

    Z Man frequently discusses the “managerial elite,” which is a common theme of the Online Right. James Burnham popularized the idea in his 1941 book, The Managerial Revolution.

    The phrase is used pretty loosely these days to refer to any authority undeserving of the power they wield. But it’s still a useful concept, in part because so many major American universities are degree mills for worthless theorizing and so much of the American upper caste is remarkably unremarkable.

    The managerial elite are those who are a bit dumber than you, but more connected, or with more visible minority status, who get placed into positions of marginal power to make your life more difficult. They help sustain the disparate silos of power across state and federal governments, academia, and non-profit organizations, so nobody is ever really in charge, nobody can be held accountable, and nothing material can change.

    Read & Listen

    Z Man can be found on Substack as The Dissident Writer. You can subscribe for free content or access everything for the price of one coffee a month.

    If you don’t use Substack, then you can find his written content at thezman.com and his podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

    Footnotes

    1. Globohomo, adj.: Of or pertaining to a state of a global homogeneity, where major differences between different groups have been eliminated. ↩︎
    2. Abbreviation for multiculturalism. ↩︎
  • E. Michael Jones

    E. Michael Jones

    E. Michael Jones is the author and host of the Culture Wars magazine and podcast, where he critiques modernity, secularism, and Jewish influence from a Catholic perspective.

    Overview

    Jones’ work blends theology, history, and social analysis, and takes an unapologetic stance against liberal orthodoxy. He regularly appears on podcasts and YouTube channels, engaging in debates that challenge establishment narratives on topics like immigration and globalism.

    He founded and edits Culture Wars magazine, and hosts the Culture Wars podcast. He has written numerous books, including The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and Libido Dominandi, which argue that cultural decline stems from moral and spiritual subversion.

    His style is polemical, direct, and rooted in Catholic traditionalism, appealing to those skeptical of mainstream cultural trends.

    Themes

    Fourth American Republic

    Jones argues that U.S. history can be divided into four distinct “republics” based on their foundational underpinnings.

    • The First Republic began with the Constitution, and was based in Enlightenment and Protestant principles.
    • The Second Republic began after the Civil War, and was dominated by industrialism, capitalism, and Northern political power.
    • The Third Republic began after WWII, and was characterized by centralized federal power and bureaucracy.
    • The Fourth Republic is emergent, and will be a conflict between Catholics and Jews over a return to traditionalism and a rejection of liberalism.

    Identity

    Jones emphasizes Catholic identity over ethnic or racial identity, arguing that “white” is a modern social construct which not only lacks spiritual and historical depth, but is also doomed to fail; e.g. it’s still politically acceptable and defensible for one to say they believe X because they are Catholic, but they can’t claim the same simply because they are “white.” Furthermore, “whiteness” is a much narrower (potential) coalition than “Catholics.”

    He subscribes to Theodore Allen’s position that “white” identity was created by the ruling class in the wake of Bacon’s Rebellion (1676-1677), to prevent the working class from uniting in a similar uprising again.

    Logos

    Logos in Greek (λόγος) translates to “word” or “reason.” As a proper noun, it has been used to signify “rationality” or, in the Christian context, the Word of God — Jesus Christ incarnate.

    Jones equates Logos with Christ, and interprets history as a conflict between those with Logos and those without Logos. Civilizations ascend when they are in accord with Logos — aligned with trust, beauty, and the divine moral order.

    For Jones, the French Revolution, Marxism, and contemporary secular liberalism are examples of regimes or systems of thought that operated without Logos, and thus descended into tyranny. He believes each of our individual actions and spirits should strive to elevate and propagate Logos daily.

    Revolutionary Spirit

    In his study of history, Jones attributes periods of great systemic change to a “revolutionary spirit” within people, and says the history of Jews demonstrates their higher propensity for engaging in this spirit.

    Regardless, most of these major sociopolitical revolutions lead to moral and societal collapse, regardless of how noble were their original intentions.

    Sexual Revolution

    Jones believes the “sexual revolution” from the 1960s — 70s was both destructive and destabilizing to the prevailing social order, when men and women were considerate and virtuous with their sexuality and bodies.

    The sexual revolution unleashed a flurry of modernist sensibilities which perverted the natural order. He believes that true freedom comes not from liberation from sexual morality, but rather from the submission to divine law, wherein authentic personal and social harmony emerge.

    Triple Melting Pot

    … by the 1920’s, grandsons and great-grandsons of the earlier immigrants were becoming increasingly plentiful… The third generation, in short, really managed to get rid of the immigrant foreignness… But what group could they belong to? The old-line ethnic group, with its foreign language and culture, was not for them; they were Americans… Men were Catholics, Protestants, or Jews, categories based less on theological than on social distinctions” (Handlin).

    —Will Herberg, The Triple Melting Pot, Commentary Magazine, August 1955

    Jones frequently references the theory that Americans can be most prudently grouped into Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish identities. At America’s founding, Protestants were the dominant group; since WWII, Jews have been disproportionately powerful.

    By this theory, he argues that religious identity drives social cohesion; that culture wars are reflections of religious conflicts; and that Catholics alone retain the moral and intellectual tradition needed to restore order (Logos) to America’s fractured society.