Jonathan Bowden
| How an Empire ends U.K. Politics |
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| God Save the King? |
“”[T]he New Right wishes to bring back past verities in new guises. It ultimately recognises an inner salience; whence the Old Right enjoyed a Janus faced discourse: whether esoteric or exoteric in character. Do you follow? Because the outer manifestation tended to be conspiratorial, however defined. Whereas the innermost locution rebelled against old forms, postulated a Nietzschean outlook and adopted a pitiless attitude towards weakness in all its forms.
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| —Jonathan Bowden summarises his political views.[1] |
Jonathan Bowden (1962-2012) was a far-right British commentator known for his involvement with the British National Party and the New Right (Europe).
Political career[edit]
Born in Penbury in 1962,[1] Bowden became involved with the Federation of Conservative Students in the 1980s.[2] In 1993, he and Stuart Millson founded the Revolutionary Conservative Caucus.[1][2] He then became involved in the Bloomsbury Forum, founded in 1996; he joined the newly-launched Freedom Party in 2001 and subsequently became its treasurer. He moved on to the British National Party in 2003, becoming the party's cultural officer.[2]
In 2005, he attended the first New Right meeting, later becoming chairman of the organisation.[1] In 2007, he got into a dispute with BNP leader Nick Griffin, with Griffin's supporters responding by accusing Bowden of being a child molester; Bowden denied these claims and subsequently resigned from the party.[3][4] After this incident he focused his attentions on the New Right.[3]
In 2012, he died of a heart attack, aged 49.[3]
Writing[edit]
One of Bowden's areas of interest was analysing popular fiction through the lens of his political views; he cast his eyes over The Incredible Hulk[5] Conan the Barbarian[6] and Batman,[7] amongst other works. His essays contain many astute observations: "All super-heroes are elitist and non-humanist figures who fight for Humanist values against elitist figurines (the villains) who fight on behalf of power morality", he wrote in his examination of The Incredible Hulk.
Art[edit]
Bowden was a keen artist, expressing a desire to "create new and ferocious forms" and "paint the most ferocious image of my time". He described his work as "passionate integers of fury." His paintings had a distinctive style and were hailed by a number of his right-wing comrades.[8]
He had a particular interest in early modernist art, as he elaborated:
One cares nothing for the aesthetic standards of the masses; they are children who only like what they know or feel comfortable with. What really matters has to be the ecstasy of becoming – early or classic modernism happened to be exactly that. It was an attack on sentimentality; it proved to be an art purely for intellectuals. It was anti-humanist, elitist, inegalitarian, vanguardist, misanthropic, sexist, racist, and homophobic – all good things.[8]
In addition to painting, Bowden was involved in filmmaking, collaborating with Andrea Lioy on the films Grand Guignol and Venus Flytrap[9] and writing and narrating a documentary about his art called Fenris Devours Odin.[10]
External links[edit]
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 http://web.archive.org/web/20110725184319/http://www.jonathanbowden.co.uk/interview.html
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/blogs/searchlight-blog/new-right-chairman-dies
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 http://efp.org.uk/jonathan-bowden-1962-2012/
- ↑ http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.co.uk/2007/07/bnps-cultural-officer-resigns-after.html
- ↑ http://www.counter-currents.com/2011/07/the-incredible-hulk/
- ↑ http://www.counter-currents.com/2011/07/conan-the-barbarian/
- ↑ http://www.counter-currents.com/2010/11/batman-the-joker/
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 http://www.counter-currents.com/2011/01/jonathan-bowden-on-modern-art/img
- ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20110725184834/http://www.jonathanbowden.co.uk/articles.html#ggreview
- ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20100714075337/http://www.jonathanbowden.co.uk/fenris_devours_odin.html
