Radicalization blues

Spencer Sunshine’s essay for The Quietist on the ties between nihilistic counter cultural figures and neo-nazi terrorism is essential but uncomfortable reading.

Sunshine's book Neo-Nazi Terrorism and Countercultural Fascism The Origins and Afterlife of James Mason’s Siege goes into far more detail, and is worth reading for those with a deep interest in this stuff, but is probably a bit much for most people. The article covers the basics.

tldr; Sunshine got a look at the personal correspondence of James Mason, author of Siege, a highly influential neo-nazi text that helped inspired a number of violent groups over the years. Among Mason's regular correspondents:

- Adam Parfrey, publisher of the Apocalypse Culture books.

- Boyd Rice, noise artist behind NON and Death in June.

- Michael Moynihan, author of Lords of Chaos (published by Parfrey's Feral House).

No surprises re: Rice and Moynihan. It's also not a shocker that the late Parfrey corresponded with Mason (he published excerpts of Siege in Apocalypse Culture). But the extent to which Parfrey, who had some Jewish heritage, professed sympathy's to Mason's cause was not widely known before. He claimed to be, and was widely thought of as, a free-speech absolutist, not an out-and-out nazi. Yet he wrote to Mason: "I am sympathetic to all your stated ideals in Siege, and particularly your edict to Race Traitors." He told Mason that his magazine Exit was "a propaganda tool to legitimize a certain type of thought among race-mixing and otherwise polluted people."

And, yes, I bought into Parfrey's schtick in my 20s, when I thought there was something valuable in shock. Credit to Mark Dery and V. Vale, who called out Parfrey years ago.

From Dery's 2000 Village Voice review of Apocalypse Culture 2 (reprinted in his anthology I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts):

The shout-outs, in the book's acknowledgments, to close friend Michael Moynihan, described in a New Times article on Parfrey as a "fascist activist" who has published the writings of neo-Nazis and sold CDs and merchandise with a pagan-right slant; the inspirational quotes from Hitler and the National Socialist Liberation Front poster in AC; the gay Nazi poster and the social Darwinist ruminations, in AC II, on "democracy's deification of Victimhood," by good buddy Boyd Rice, last seen in brownshirt attire, accessorized with a darling little Nazi knife, in James Ridgeway's study of white supremacists, Blood in the Face: I'm sensing a theme here. And I'm not the first: former Re/Search publisher V. Vale told a New Times reporter, "Adam is a racist scumbag, and he's friends with a lot of racists. Here's why he publishes: purely to foment shock value and to celebrate himself. There isn't any compassion. passion. He's just a typical privileged, stunted-growth, adolescent white male."

Except of course his agenda was worse than shock value. What role Parfrey might've had in radicalizing people I don't know. But it was his stated intent.

(Originally published June 2025 in my newsletter)