William S. Lind (born July 9, 1947) is an
American conservative author, described as being aligned with
paleoconservatism.
He is the author of many books and one of the first proponents of
fourth-generation warfare (4GW) theory and is the Director of The American Conservative Center for Public Transportation.
He used the
pseudonym Thomas Hobbes in a column for ''
The American Conservative''.
Early life
Lind graduated from
Dartmouth College in 1969 and from
Princeton University in 1971, where he received a master's degree in history. In 1973, having grown tired of doctoral work at Princeton, Lind wrote to Senator
Robert Taft Jr. of
Ohio requesting his help in securing a job with
Amtrak.
In response, Taft instead offered Lind a job in his office, where he eventually began analyzing defense policy (Taft was a member of the
United States Senate Committee on Armed Services).
Views on warfare and U.S. military
In 1989, alongside several U.S. military officers, Lind helped to originate fourth-generation war (4GW) theory.
Lind served as a legislative aide for Taft from 1973 through 1976 and held a similar position with Senator
Gary Hart
Gary Warren Hart (''né'' Hartpence; born November 28, 1936) is an American politician, diplomat, and lawyer. He was the front-runner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination until he dropped out amid revelations of extramarital affairs. ...
of Colorado from 1977 to 1986. He is the author of the ''Maneuver Warfare Handbook'' (Westview Press, 1985) and co-author, with Hart, of ''America Can Win: The Case for Military Reform''.
Lind has written for the ''
Marine Corps Gazette ''Marine Corps Gazette'' is a professional journal for U.S. Marines founded in 1916 at Marine Corps Base Quantico for members of the United States Marine Corps. Begun by then Col John A. Lejeune as the vehicle to launch the Marine Corps Associatio ...
'', ''Defense and the National Interest'', (
D-N-I.net), and ''
The American Conservative''.
According to the book ''Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed The Art of War'' by the writer Robert Coram, Lind was during lectures on
maneuver warfare sometimes criticized for having never served in the military and for having "never dodged a bullet, he had never led men in combat, he had never even worn a uniform." Coram writes that when challenged by an officer, Lind "cut him off at the knees."
Political career and related writings
Lind was the Director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation. He advocates a Declaration of Cultural Independence by
cultural conservative
Cultural conservatism is described as the protection of the cultural heritage of a nation state, or of a culture not defined by state boundaries. It is usually associated with criticism of multiculturalism, and opposition to immigration. Cultu ...
s in the United States and believes that the
federal government
A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governin ...
ceased to represent their interests and began to coerce them into negative behavior and to affect their culture in a negative fashion. The foundation believes that
American culture and its institutions are headed for a collapse and that cultural conservatives should separate themselves from that calamity. It also supports setting up independent parallel institutions with a right to secession and a highly decentralized nature that would rely on individual responsibility and discipline to remain intact but prevent the takeover of the institutions by those hostile to cultural conservatism.
Lind has authored and co-authored (with
Paul Weyrich) monographs on behalf of the
Free Congress Foundation that attempt to persuade American conservatives to support government funding for
mass transit
Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typical ...
programs, especially
urban rail transit. The two men wrote about
Cultural Marxism
The term "Cultural Marxism" refers to a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory which claims that Western Marxism is the basis of continuing academic and intellectual efforts to subvert Western culture. The conspiracy theory misrepresents the ...
as being an organized conspiracy against what Lind views as the traditional Christian values of America.
Lind was Associate Publisher of a quarterly magazine called ''
The New Electric Railway Journal'' from its launch in 1988 to 1996,
[Kunz, Richard R. (Spring 1996). "From the Editor: Cutting the Cord". '' The New Electric Railway Journal'', p. 2.] and from January 1994, he also co-hosted a monthly program about
light rail on the
National Empowerment Television
National Empowerment Television (NET), later known as America's Voice and eventually The Renaissance Network, was a cable TV network designed to rapidly mobilize politically conservative individuals for grassroots lobbying on behalf of the move ...
network; the program used the same name as the magazine.
As a
paleoconservative, Lind has often criticized
neoconservatives in his commentaries. While not a
libertarian
Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...
, he has also written for
LewRockwell.com. He is a self-proclaimed conservative and
monarchist.
He is a staunch supporter of a
non-interventionist foreign policy.
In his column of December 15, 2009, Lind announced that he was leaving the staff of the Center unexpectedly and that his series of articles was on hiatus.
Fiction
Lind also wrote ''Victoria: A Novel of 4th Generation War'' in which a group of "Christian Marines" leads an armed resistance against Cultural Marxism as the US federal government collapses.
Criticism
In the
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) report "Reframing the Enemy" (2003), Bill Berkowitz said that Lind was the principal promoter and popularizer of the
Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory, which claims that a coterie of Jewish-German philosophers, the
Frankfurt School, had seized control of American popular culture, and have been systematically subverting Christian churches and ethics within the US. The conspiracists' preoccupation with the Jewishness of most Frankfurt School intellectuals is seen as confirming that Cultural Marxism is an
antisemitic canard
Antisemitic tropes, canards, or myths are " sensational reports, misrepresentations, or fabrications" that are defamatory towards Judaism as a religion or defamatory towards Jews as an ethnic or religious group. Since the Middle Ages, such repo ...
.
The SPLC reported that in 1999 Lind wrote, "The real damage to race relations in the
South
South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
came, not from
slavery, but
rom
Rom, or ROM may refer to:
Biomechanics and medicine
* Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient
* Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac
* R ...
Reconstruction, which would not have occurred if the South had won
he civil war"
In "The Widening Gap Between the Military and Society" (1997), the journalist
Thomas E. Ricks said that Lind's rhetoric of Marxist cultural subversion is different from the "standard right-wing American rhetoric of the '90s" because Lind said that the "next real war we fight is likely to be on American soil."
In ''
The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad '' (2003)
Fareed Zakaria
Fareed Rafiq Zakaria (; born 20 January 1964) is an Indian-American journalist, political commentator, and author. He is the host of CNN's ''Fareed Zakaria GPS'' and writes a weekly paid column for ''The Washington Post.'' He has been a columnist ...
said, "There are those in the West who agree with
bin Laden that Islam is the reason for the
Middle East's turmoil. Preachers such as
Pat Robertson and
Jerry Falwell Sr., and writers such as
Paul Johnson and William Lind have made the case that Islam is a religion of repression and backwardness."
The manifesto of
Anders Breivik
Anders is a male name in Scandinavian languages and Fering North Frisian, an equivalent of the Greek Andreas ("manly") and the English Andrew. It originated from Andres via metathesis.
In Sweden, Anders has been one of the most common names fo ...
is built around Lind's theory on cultural Marxism and contains 27 pages taken directly from his writings.
References
External links
William S. Lind at TraditionalRight*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120208100227/http://www.theamericanconservative.com/article/2003/jan/13/00023/ Rage Against the Machine by William S. Lindarchived from the original
Declaration of Cultural Independence*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lind, William S.
1947 births
Living people
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American anti-communists
American columnists
American conspiracy theorists
American critics of Islam
American foreign policy writers
American male non-fiction writers
American military writers
American monarchists
American political writers
Anti-Marxism
Anti-Masonry
Catholics from Ohio
Critics of neoconservatism
Dartmouth College alumni
Far-right politics in the United States
Non-interventionism
Paleoconservatism
Princeton University alumni
Roman Catholic writers
Writers from Cleveland