robertsgriffin.com

WRITINGS


Three parts in this section, and I'll add entries as time goes on
  • Recent Short writings.   Comments on and a copy of my short writings produced since the publication early in 2006 of my latest book, Living White.  The most recent writing is listed first.
  • Books.  Comments and availability information on five books I have published since 1998.
  • Short Writings, 2001-2005.  Published and unpublished short writings, absent commentaries, from 2001 to the publication of Living White.  Again, most recent first, and unpublished material is available here.
If you wa nt to get my view of American life and our individual lives, you could read the books in the order I have listed them here, beginning with Sports in the Lives of Children and Adolescence.   Add to that the short writings since the publication of my last book, Living White--they are listed in the "Recent Short Writings" section below--and then the material in the "Thoughts" section of this site.  If you only have the time or interest to read just one book, I suggest The Fame of a Dead Man's Deeds.  If you want the latest and/or a sense of who I am,  read the thoughts in the order they are listed in the Thoughts section of this site, beginning with "On Foucault"--and you can read tcrosbysiteA.pdfhem in any order, they are self-contained.

          If the PDF links are oversize, adjust them to accommodate your reading preference..

          Recent Short Writings    


        · Robert S. Griffin,  About Nietzsche’s Maxim,  2025, 4 pps.


        Just about everybody knows German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s maxim, “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”  Here’s

        my take on it.  See the analysis here.     

                  · Robert S. Griffin, Saint Lorne, 2025, 5 pps.

                 Prominent on the front page of the February 14th, 2025 New York Times is a feature story—“14 MIN READ” it said (most
                 articles are two to six minutes), nine pictures, billed as “The Great Read”-- by Times’ opinion columnist Maureen Dowd 

                 called “Live From New York, It’s Lorne Michaels: The man who made ‘Saturday Night Live’ reflects on its legacy.”  At the end

                 of the article was a comments section.  I’m not as big a fan of Lorne Michaels as Ms. Dowd is, so I thought to balance things

                  off I’d offer a comment that is a little critical of his contribution to the world.  Read the article here.     

                    
                   · Robert S, Griffin, The Hite Three, The Occidental Observer, posted January 4th,2025, 7 pp.

                  The Hite three are three precepts, prescriptions, rules to live by, somewhere in there, that you might want to try out
                  to see how they work for you.  See the article here.


                   ·Robert S.  Griffin, “Thoughts on the Election” 8 pp., 2024.

                  To my way of thinking, the 2024npresidential election was far too big a show — to the extent that it obscured the 

                  rest of the political process.  See the article here.

                    · Robert S.  Griffin, “Kinjies and Me,” 8 pp., 2024.

                   Kinji is a metaphor I’ve used privately and now I’m going public with it.   It refers to realizing that something isn’t what
                   you had been led to believe it was.  “I get it now, that’s a kinji, how about that?”  See the article here.


                      · Robert S. Griffin, A Commentary on the Life of Jeannette Rankin, 10 pp., 2024.

                   Jeannette Rankin (1880–1973) was the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives to represent an at-large district in Montana.  
                   She was the only member of Congress who voted against declaring war on Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  See the article here.

             ·  Robert S. Griffin, Thoughts Prompted by “Rich Men North of Richmond: Including One About Celebration, 8 pp., 2023.

 

               I've been especially taken by the “Rich Men North of Richmond” phenomenon that’s so big in the news these days
              (it’s late August of ‘23).  It’s a song by a heretofore unknown singer/songwriter who goes by the name of Oliver Anthony.   

              Read the article here.


             · Robert S. Griffin, Why I Write (Or Wrote) on White Racial Matters, 8 pp., 2023.

            I received an email asking how I came to write about “white people like John Kasper, who is seen by most to be very dubious if
            not altogether immoral.”  I assumed I’d reply briefly, a short paragraph, and that would be it, but I found myself going on, and it
            was for me, not him.  What I was writing was getting at the question of what has propelled the extensive amount of writing on
            white racial matters I’ve done the last couple of decades.  See the complete reply here.

             · Robert S. Griffin, An Exchange with a Newspaper Reporter, 8 pp., 2023.

               In the first half of May, 2023, I received an email from John Terhune, a reporter for the Portland Press Herald newspaper in Portland, Maine, who
           was working on a story about White racial activism that resulted in an email exchange between us.  I’ve decided what we wrote each other and what I
           make of it might be of worth to others.   See the article here.

              
           · Robert S. Griffin, Thoughts Upon David Crosby’s Death, 6 pp., 2023. 

 

             David Crosby, who died January 18, 2023, helped create two of the most popular and influential American musical groups in the 1960s and ‘70s, the
             Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.  He endured the ravages of a severe drug problem, including addictions to cocaine and heroin that landed him
             in jail, as well as obesity and a general lack of self-care.  His life involved a stark contradiction: while he gave an enormous gift to the world through
             his music, for many years he badly abused himself and paid a great personal price for it.  Read the article here.

 

                 · Robert S. Griffin,  A Tenth White American Voice, 3 pp., 2023

 

                  In 1831 while a student at the Andover Theological Seminary in Andover, Massachusetts, Samuel Francis Smith wrote the lyrics to “America”
                  (“My Country 'Tis of Thee”) to the melody of “God Save the Queen.”  Read the article here.

              
                 · Robert S. Griffin, Nine White American Voices, 12 pp., 2022.

             
              In the article below this one on this site, The American Political System and White Racial Discourse,  I suggested that White advocacy dialogue and debate

[m]ake room for American voices—Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and (I’m thinking out loud) Emerson and Thoreau and Mark Twain and     Edgar Rice Burroughs (the Tarzan author) and Teddy Roosevelt and H.L. Mencken and . . . oh, I don’t know, just somebody besides Julius Evola, you know? American thinkers, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, Teddy Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway, somebody.

             I’ve asked myself, “Who are White ‘somebodies’ you think ought to be heard?”   Of course, the possibilities are virtually endless, but I’ve got to
             start somewhere and nine people come to mind.  Read the article here.

            · Robert S. Griffin, The American Political System and White Racial Discourse, 7 pp., 2022.

          In the recent mid-term elections (this is being written in December of 2022), Democrats, apparently with a good amount of success,
          Republicans with being no less than a threat to American democracy.  I’ll use the democracy-under-siege talk so prominent lately as
          a springboard to a consideration of the America’s political system from the perspective of White racial advocacy.  Read the  
          article here.

   

          • Robert S. Griffin, What Does Watching the Film “Shadowlands” Bring Up for You? 3pp., 2022.

 

            I streamed a movie the other day that prompted responses in me that made a difference in how I see things, including myself,       

           and that have stayed with me, and I think it might do the same for you.  Read the article here.

 
         • Robert S. Griffin, Schooling and Education Amid the Siege: A Perspective, 12 pp., 2022.

 

               This writing sketches out a perspective on schooling and education (they are different things; more on that later on) for your     
               consideration, including what, if anything, to do about it.  Read it here.

 

                 • Robert S. Griffin, Looking Over the Wall to See What a Stranger is Up To, 12 pp., 2022.

 

                These days, very near the end, images from long ago pop into my head, seemingly on their own; I don’t know what prompts them, and
                I let them take me where they will.  A couple of days ago, it was of a moment from the mid- to late-1980s in Burlington Vermont. 
                Read the article here.

 

              • Robert S. Griffin, “What-If” Thinking:  Imagining Alternative Histories as a Way to Know, 13 pp., 2021.

 

              I’ve found it useful to engage in a “what-if” thought exercise. The idea is to imagine what it would be like now if what   
              happened in the past had happened in some other way, to envision an alternative history and see what it implies.  Read the
              article here.
 

                 •  Robert S. Griffin, Thoughts on Kenosha, 9 pp., 2021.

                                     

                This was written on November 20th, 2021, the day after the not guilty verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse case in Kenosha, Wisconsin.  

                Streaming the trial got me thinking.   This article shares some of what came up for me for your consideration.  Read the article here.

  

               • Robert S. Griffin, What’s to be Learned from Jon Gruden Getting Kicked Out of the Game, 6 pp.,  2021.                                         

                                                                                    

                At this writing in mid-October, 2021, Jon Gruden, coach of the National Football League’s Los Vegas Raiders, has forced to resign
                from his coaching position and undoubtedly been cancelled for life after it was found he used offensive language in personal emails to
               former Washington Football Team president. Bruce Allen. Race hasn’t surfaced in the Gruden matter, at least explicitly, but it informs
               what went down in his case.  Read the article here.

 

              • Robert S. Griffin, My Take on James W. Loewen, Sociologist and Civil Rights Champion, 13 pp., 2021.

              At my late stage of life, I find that the first thing I read every morning is the obituary section of The New York Times.  I took particular
              notice of the obituary of James W. Loewen in the August 20, 2021 edition of the paper.   It prompted me to rework a review of a book of
              his I had written many years earlier.  Read the reworked review here
 

              • Robert S. Griffin, If I Had Made the Closing Argument in Defense of Derek Chauvin . . . , 13 pp., 2021.


               At this writing, in mid-May, 2021, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has been convicted by a jury of second-degree
               murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in the death of George Floyd during Floyd’s arrest.  The first charge carries
               a maximum of forty years in prison.  I watched the defense closing argument on television, which brought up questions for me and
               prompted this writing.   Read the article here.

 

          • Robert S. Griffin, Hemingway’s Truth: A Consideration of Across the River and into the Trees, 9 pp., 2021.

                           

          I don’t consider Across the River and into the Trees a major literary accomplishment, so why am I putting energy into writing about it?
          It’s because after I finished the book I did what I often do with books and films, cruised the internet reading what other people,
          including scholars, have said about it and it hit me that if the people I read are right I misread the book’s plot in a big way, and that intrigues   

            me.   Read the article here.

 

           • Robert S. Griffin, Three Fine Films, 4 pp., 2020.

                                     

           In late December of 2020, I wrote a thought for this site called “On the Working Poor.” It was based on three films that, tied together,
           I found artistically superb, personally moving, and very thought-provoking.  I decided to expand it into an article.  Read the article here.


          • Robert S. Griffin, Was “Eyes Wide Shut” A Cultural Watershed?, 10 pp.. 2020.

                                                                   

           “Eyes Wide Shut,” released in 1999, was the last film of the legendary director Stanley Kubrick.   I watched again recently, and while I found
         its merits wanting to say the least, I speculate that it may have been a watershed in our collective life, a turning point, an historical moment in
         the core culture.  Read the essay here.

       

         • Robert S. Griffin, Looking Into “What’s My Line?” 9 pp., 2020.

                                     

          When I was a kid, around eleven or twelve I suppose--this was way back in the 1950s, Saint Paul, Minnesota--in an upstairs room Mother,
          Dad, and I rented in Mr. Jensen’s house—he and his family lived on the first floor--all alone, I watched a game show called “What’s My
          Line?” on CBS at 9:30 p.m. on Sunday nights on our 17-inch black-and-white Zenith television set that looked like a small refrigerator,
          never missed the show.  Read the essay here.

 

          •  Robert S. Griffin, The White Wolf, 2020. 

 

             See the image here.                              

                        

         • Robert S. Griffin, Competing with the Negative Story About Whites, 21 pp., 2020.

                                    

          We need to put forth a positive narrative of the white race to counter the negative one being propagated from all sides.  Read the complete
          article here. 


        • Robert S. Griffin, Getting Control in Your Life, 11 pp.,  2020.

 

         This writing began with a meditation on a slogan of the authoritarian, repressive Party in George Orwell’s dystopian novel,
         Nineteen Eighty-Four, often referred to as 1984, published in 1949.  I let the process take me wherever it did and it turned out to be some
         advice to young people especially.   Read the complete essay—I think that’s what this is—here.

       • Robert S. Griffin, The Tale of Bob Mathews, 12 pp., 2020.

                                     

          In 1983, The National Alliance—a white activist organization founded and headed by William Pierce—held its annual convention in
        Washington,  D.C.  A young mine worker from the Pacific Northwest by the name of Bob Mathews was scheduled to give a talk at the  
         convention.  Mathews had been an Alliance member for three years and actively recruiting new members for the organization among the
         farmers  and ranchers and working people around where he lived in Washington state.   Dr. Pierce asked Bob to tell the people at the
         convention how his efforts were going, and about the situation generally in his part of the country.  Read the tale here.

         • Robert S. Griffin, A Suggestion to American White Advocates:  Root Your Arguments in This Country’s Core Political and Cultural  

           Ideals, 10 pp., 2020.

 

        This is a shortened version of the article just below on this site, The White Racial Movement’s Historic—and Unfortunate--Embrace of the
         Far Right.  It was posted in the internet magazine, The Occidental Observer, in June of 2020.  The edit required a change in title.   Read
         this version of the article here.

 

         • Robert S. Griffin, The White Racial Movement’s Historic—and Unfortunate--Embrace of the Far Right, 15 pp., 2020.

                                                 

        The cause of white people has historically been linked to the far-right end of the social/political spectrum, which I find problematic
        both philosophically and practically.  Read the article here.

 

         • Robert S, Griffin, More on a Recent Article About COVID-19, 5pp., 2020.                                 

 

          I wrote an article on the public response to the COVID-19 virus called “Thoughts from a Leather Couch on Covid-19.”  This article expands
          on it.  Read this article here.

          • Robert S. Griffin, Thoughts from a Leather Couch About COVID-19, 11 pp., 2020.

                         

         Yesterday’s (March 30th, 2020) New York Times headline was “As U.S. Death Toll Climbs, Washington Weighs New Emergency Steps.”  Today’s is “Virus May
         Kill 100,000 to 240,000, Experts Say.”  I read the Times online, but what I would call the front page had 13 stories—every one of them was about the
         current COVID-19 crisis.  There were 11 opinion pieces on the front page—same thing.  Read the complete article here.

        • Robert S. Griffin, A Rejoinder to “The ABC’s of the Alt-Right: A Guide for Students by Thomas Dalton, Ph.D,” 16pp., 2019.

                                     

        I read with interest Professor Thomas Dalton’s article in The Occidental Observer (an online magazine) posted on December 8th, 2019,
        “The ABC’s of the Alt-Right: A Guide for Students.”  My experiences and analyses have led me to different conclusions and proposals
        than Professor Dalton expresses in his article.  I hope what I set out here in response to Professor Dalton’s article will prompt reasoned
        dialogue and debate.  Read the article here.

 

       • Robert S. Griffin, Why I Owe Jim Bakker an Apology and Thank You, 14 pp., 2019.

        In the mid-1970s to the late-‘80s, Jim Bakker and his wife Tammy Faye hosted a daily Christian talk show called “The PTL Club,” which
        was seen widely on a satellite network Jim had created.  It was never clear what PTL stood for--Praise the Lord or People That Love, one of
        the two or both—later on, after Jim and Tammy got in trouble,  people said it stood for Pass the Loot.  Read the full article here.

         • Robert S. Griffin, “Midnight Cowboy” Revisited: Making New Sense of an Iconic Old Film, 14 pp., 2019.

                                                    

        The film “Midnight Cowboy” has turned out to be one of the three iconic American films of the 1960s—the other two, “The Graduate” and
        “Easy Rider.”  One’s understanding of that time in American history is enhanced by a consideration of the social and cultural significance of
        these three films, how they both reflected and shaped collective and individual life.  And since one thing leads to another, giving attention to
        them will shed light on contemporary reality and how it got to be this way, which includes how you, if you are an American, and perhaps
        even if you aren’t, think about things and conduct your life. This writing considers artistic merit of “Midnight Cowboy” and three themes
        in the film.   Read the article here.


        • Robert S. Griffin, Who Shall Remain Nameless: Al Hanzal and Democracy in Action, 14 pp., 2019.  

         In Saint Paul, Minnesota, a parent at the Linwood Arts Plus School brought his concern about the Monroe part of the school’s name to the
         school’s Parent-Teacher Organization.  James Monroe, he offered, isn’t the kind of person the school ought to be named after. The PTO
         co-chair sided with the parent: “It’s a critically important issue that James Monroe was a slave owner, and that doesn’t reflect the kids that
         go to Linwood-Monroe in the slightest.”  The Linwood-Monroe name change looked to me like a done deal.  But not so fast.  On to the
         scene comes Al Hanzal.  Read the full article here.                               

       • Robert S. Griffin, Where is Calvin Coolidge When We Need Him? 10 pp., 2019.

                            

         People who have done the talking all of my life don’t like presidents like Calvin Coolidge.  Read the article here.

       
          • Robert S. Griffin, Who Will Sign Bryce Harper? How Media-Derived Narratives Shape Our Perceptions, and What Am I Doing with
          My Life?,  12 pp., 2019.

                               

         At this writing, a story dominating the sports headlines—ESPN, the sports pages of newspapers, and so on--is the fate of baseball free
         agents Bryce Harper and Manny Machado.   Free agents are players who aren’t under contract with any team and thus able to sign with any
         team for  any period of time and for any amount of money.   See the complete article here.

 

         • Robert S. Griffin, William Gayley Simpson on Christianity and the West, 9 pp., 2018.

 

              "Someone else you might want to include in this [book] project [The Fame of a Dead Man’s Deeds]," William Pierce called out to me as
          I was leaving his office at the end of one of our evening talks, "is William Gayley Simpson.  Do you know about him?"  Read the full
          article here.

              

• Robert S. Griffin, A Commentary on The Sky King, 5 pp. 2018.

                               

 On August 10th, 2018, Richard Russell, 29-years-old and married, a baggage handler at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport, who had no training as a pilot, and who as far as anyone knows had never flown  a plane before, took an empty 75-seat twin-turboprop bombardier Q400 plane and flew it for about an hour over Puget Sound, executing wild, dangerous, and highly impressive rolls and such, all the while engaging in self-effacing chat with an air traffic controller, before—in all likelihood with suicidal intent--plunging into sparsely populated Ketron Island 25 miles southwest of the airport, demolishing the plane and ending his life.  Read the commentary here.

 

• Robert S. Griffin, The White Racial Movement and Gays, 12 pp., 2018.

Back in 2008, I wrote an essay/review for this site--I called it a review at the time, but it was as much an essay as a review--of the book
Gay Artists in Modern American Culture: An Imagined Conspiracy by Michael S. Sherry (The University of North Carolina Press, 2007). 
 I went back to the gay artists writing again a couple of days ago, and this time thought to myself, this gets at an important issue, what about doing an edit and creating an updated version?  Read the complete essay (I excised the review part of the 2008 writing) here.

        

• Robert S. Griffin, William Pierce and a Play by George Bernard Shaw, 9 pp., 2018.

In the early part of this century, I published a portrait, as I called it, of the white activist William Pierce, who died shortly thereafter, called The Fame of a Dead Man’s Deeds.   I called the book a portrait rather than a biography because it was basically my sense of Pearce after spending a month living in close contact with him on his remote compound in West Virginia.  One of Pierce’s prime traits, he took ideas very seriously and lived in accordance with the ones that gave him direction in his life’s project of living an honorable and meaningful existence in the time he had allotted to him on earth (it turned out to be 68 years).   One major source of perspective and guidance for Pierce was a stage play, Man and Superman, by George Bernard Shaw.  The following is an excerpt from the Fame book about that play’s impact on him.  Read the complete article here.

        • Robert S. Griffin, Where’s Nordic-Boy?  A Game for Our Time, 8 pp., 2018.

 

        During intermission of a modern dance performance I attended, I looked through the program handed out to everyone in attendance that
        evening.   A couple of pictures--one having to do with the center’s education programs, the other with its arts programs—caught my eye. 
        Read the article here.

 

         • Robert S. Griffin, Learning from Baseball, 3 pp., 2018.

 

          There are lessons to be learned from the game of baseball.  Read the article here.

  
        • Robert S. Griffin, Don’t Give People a Club to Beat You Over the Head With, 16 pp., 2018.

                              

             In November of 2016, I wrote a couple of related articles I thought were good, but nobody else did, so I set them aside.   In March
         of 2018, I felt drawn to revisit them.   Read the article here.

            

         • Robert S. Griffin, Who Was Revilo Oliver? 13 pp, 2018.

 

        If a thorough history of the white racial movement is ever written, Revilo Oliver (1908–1994), a classics professor at the University of
        Illinois, will indeed be prominent in it.  Read the profile here.

           

         • Robert S. Griffin, William Pierce and Cosmotheism, 12 pp., 2018.

                                    

            During the early 1970s, the late white activist Dr. William Pierce formulated a religious orientation he called Cosmotheism to provide
        the spiritual basis for the direction he was taking in his racial work.  Read the article here.                          

           

        • Robert S. Griffin, Who Was George Lincoln Rockwell?  9pp.,  2018.

              

           For those unfamiliar with George Lincoln Rockwell (1918-1967), perhaps this writing, drawn from my book on the late William
        Pierce, The Fame of a Dead Man’s Deeds, will provide a sense of him.  Read the profile here.

      

        • Robert S. Griffin, What Hitler Believed, 12 pp., 2018.

 

        All my life, it’s been Hitler this and Hitler that.  For me, it was like the Norm Macdonald joke, the more I heard about the guy, the more
        I didn’t care for him.  Finally, I took it upon myself to read Hitler’s magnum opus, Mein Kampf, and see what I could pick up about him
        for myself.  Read the article here.  


       • Robert S. Griffin, The Tale of John Kasper (2017), 17 pages, 2017.

       In 2007, I wrote the article on the white activist John Kasper (1929-1998). The Kasper writing came to mind this past week (early December
      of 2017) because I happened upon a reference on the internet to a new book about Kasper—John Kasper and Ezra Pound: Saving the Republic
      by Alec Marsh.  Read the article  here.

      
        • Robert S. Griffin, "Moneybull": An Inquiry Into Media Manipulation (short version), 12 pp., 2017.        This is an abridged and slightly revised version of a
         2012 writing on this site.    It’s about the 2011 film “Moneyball," a fine piece of entertainment, but I question its messages.   Read the
         revised  article here.                               


        • Robert S. Griffin, Addictions:  An Example of the Interplay of the Public and Private, 11 pp., 2017.

       Almost exclusively, white racial discourse has focused on public concerns: white identity and culture, historical and current realities,
       philosophical and ideological concepts, and proposals and strategies for collective action.  And that’s all well and good, keep it going. 
      The argument here is that at the same time we’re doing that, let’s give attention to the opposite of a public focus: let’s look at things from a
      private, or personal or individual, frame of reference; and take note of the interplay of the public and private, how each affects the other.
      The private concern I shine a light on here is addiction.   Read the complete article here.

         
          • Robert S. Griffin, World War II and the Walters (Lippmann and Winchell):  Their Implications for Our Time, 10 pp., 2017.

          Around the turn of the century, I wrote a book about white advocate William Pierce.  One of the things that stuck with me about that experience is
          Pierce’s consuming interest in World War II.  Read the article here.

        

           · Robert S. Griffin, He Doth Opine:  A Review of Making Sense of The Alt-Right by George Hawley (Columbia University Press, 2017) 218 pp. , 
           5pp. review, 2017.

                                         

          With any book, it helps to take into account who wrote it and who published it.  Read the complete review here.

        


          · Robert S. Griffin, Feelings and Thoughts on Charlottesville, 3 pp., 2017.

                            

          Like everyone—in the world, really—I was riveted by the events in Charlottesville, Virginia in mid-August of 2017.   White racial activists had gathered in that city
          to  protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee and to hold a “United the Right” rally.  Read my commentary here.

         


           · Robert S. Griffin, Serena, Ingrid, and the Story of My Time, 2 pp., 2017.

                                  

          The August, 2017 issue of Vanity Fair magazine has the naked and very pregnant tennis star Serena Williams on the cover.   When I saw it, a thought flashed
          to my mind: “Ingrid Bergman wasn’t naked on the cover of Life in Dad’s shop.”  Read the full commentary here.

      

          

          · Robert S. Griffin, How Movements Succeed, commentary, 3 pp., 2017.


          One way to be successful is to learn from the successes of others. Three successful movements in recent decades have been the civil rights, feminist,
          and gay rights  movements.   Read my commentary here.

        

         • Robert S. Griffin, The Downsides of Being a Teacher for Me (And Maybe for You),  21pp.,  2017.

 

        In recent days, I read a couple of good books on teaching.  They got me thinking about the effects a career in teaching had on me.   Read
        the complete essay here.

      


       • Robert S. Griffin, How Movements Succeed: Lessons from the Past, 3 pp., 2017.

                        

       This is a commentary drawn from a section in the two articles immediately below on this site—“The Alt Right and Tyler Durden’s Advice” and  

      “Seize the Center.”   It examines the black civil rights movement in the 1950s and ‘60s, the modern feminist movement, and the gay rights

        movement, all three of them successful, to see what might be learned from them.  It was posted in March, 2017 in the webzine American
        Renaissance.  Read the commentary here.

 

       

          · Robert S. Griffin, Football Players Making a Better World, commentary, 3 pp,, 2016.

                                    

          On December 17th, 2016, the University of Minnesota football players called off their threatened boycott and will play in the Holiday Bowl game
          in San Diego on December 27th.  Read my commentary here.

 

        • Robert S. Griffin, Seize the Center: A Critique of the Alt Right, Including Tyler Durden’s Advice, 17pp., 2016.


        This is a revision and update of the article immediately below this one on this site,  “The Alt Right and Tyler Durden’s Advice.”   It was
        written just after the conference that was central to the article, and just after President-Elect Donald Trump’s disavowed of the Alt Right.
        Read the complete article here.

      

        • Robert S.  Griffin, The Alt Right and Tyler Durden’s Advice, 21 pp.,  2016.

 

        In November of 2016, I received a notice for a conference:

 

         CELEBRATE THE ALT RIGHT!  The past 12 month might be remembered as the year of Donald Trump . . . the year of the Red Pill . . . and the year of the
         Alt Right.  It was a time when more people joined our movement than ever before and when our ideas invaded the mainstream.  Become Who We Are/2016—
         which will take place after November’s presidential election—will give us the opportunity to ask what’s next? 

 

        This article offers thoughts keying of the conference notice.   Read the article here.

      

        • Robert S. Griffin, From a Chat to Metapolitics: A Journey in Thought, 18 pp., 2016.

   

       Four current or retired faculty members at the University of Vermont were chatting with a new dean who had recently arrived in
       town from California.  The new arrival commented that he was indeed happy to come to Vermont, great state, but that he realized it
       takes a generation for you--or I guess better, yours--to be accepted by Vermonters as one of them, as a real Vermonter.  Read the full article here.

        

        • Robert S. Griffin, Blacks As Emotional Abusers of Whites: The Exploration of a Possibility, 13 pp., 2016.

                             

        I’m picking up a basic difference in black-white relations in America these days compared to past times, and this writing is an attempt
        to make sense of what’s it’s about.  Read the complete article here.

      

         • Robert S. Griffin, The Real Ernest Heminway? 16 pp., 2016.


       On June 20th, 2016, in a post entitled “The Real Ernest Hemingway," the Occidental Observer reprinted the first few paragraphs of a writing
       that had appeared in the February, 1979 issue of Instauration, a white interests magazine, along with a link to the complete source.  I found
       the Instauration material from 37 years ago in its entirety fascinating, and the contemporary comments in TOO intriguing; and I found all of

       it  important.  Read the complete article here.

       

        • Robert S. Griffin, The Orlando Shootings: Talk, Reality, and The New York Times, article, 19 pp., 2016.      

                                

        In Orlando, Florida in the early morning hours of June 12, 2016, 50 people were killed and 53 others injured in Pulse, a gay nightclub,
        by, it appears at this writing, a lone gunman of Afghan decent by the name of Omar Mateen.  Now, after the reality of the event, essentially,
        and most importantly, the Orlando tragedy is what people say and write about it and what comes out of that.  It’s about language, and to
        make sense of what happened in Orlando, it is important to look at it from a linguistic angle.   Read the complete thought here.

 

        • Robert S. Griffin, Creating a White Future, article, 11 pp., 2016.

                            

        For its fourth anniversary issue in the fall of 2016, Le Harfang, a French Canadian white nationalist publication, invited foreign
        contributions from a number of people, me being one of them, I’m an American, that 1) speaks to how the contributor sees the world for
        white people “in four or forty years,” and 2) offers advice on how to prepare for tomorrow’s world.   The editor said length was up to me, and
        that he’d trim what I wrote if need be as he translates my English into French.  I replied that I’d give it a go.  This writing is my response to the
        Le Harfang charge.  Read the complete response here.

 

 

        • Robert S. Griffin, How We Can Be Had: An Inquiry into the Ploys of People Who Sell Us Something  (Or At Least It Began As That), 25 pp., 2016.

 

        The focus in this writing is on how somehow like me, and I presume you, can be taken for a ride, or the title of this thought, how we can be had.  While the example
        here is how an investment company representative manipulated me to serve his employers’ interests as well as his own, I think these tactics, maneuvers, stunts,
        are employed by anybody looking to get money out of people: real estate agents, car salesmen, mortgage company representatives, doctors, psychologists,
        interior   decorators, travel agents, personal coaches (golf, skiing, etc.), the list goes on, use your imagination.  Read the full article here.

 

         •Robert S. Griffin, What Schools Could Learn from Skateboarding, article, 15 pp., 2015.

        One of my students in a university course I instructed last semester brought his skateboard with him to classes.  He carried it under his arm as he came in the door and
        it sat prominently on the floor in front of his desk during the class hour.  Read the full article here.

                   

        • Robert S. Griffin, A Needed Paradigm Shift in Education (Short Version), essay, 32 pp., 2015.

 

        This writing is an excerpt from a long article I authored back in 2010.  If you want to read the piece in its entirety—and candidly, I feel very good about its
        content--it’s  down this page among the 2010 writings.  Even though what’s here was composed some time ago, I believe it is still relevant.  Read the essay here.


         • Robert S. Griffin, Epistemology Matters: Reflections Prompted by a Death in Missouri, 12 pp., 2014.
                                           
          At this writing, it has been four days since a highly anticipated and nationally televised November 24th, 2014 press 
          conference conducted by St. Louis County, Missouri Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch in which he announced that a
          grand jury had chosen not to indict white Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson in the August 9th, 2014 death   
          of an eighteen-year-old local black resident, Michael Brown.  What particularly struck me in the hours and days that followed
          the immediate release to the public of the evidence and testimony the grand jury reviewed in the process of coming to its
          decision, much of it supportive of Officer Wilson's side of the story, was that it didn't appear to have been taken into account
          by those who, from the beginning days of the case three months earlier, were convinced that this was a racially motivated
          murder of a black youth attempting to surrender to a police officer and thus an outrage.  This intrigued me and I wanted to
          make sense of it.  This writing is a report of the direction my thinking went in this regard over the next couple days.  Read the
          complete article here.

          • Robert S. Griffin, Poking into the Manosphere, 13 pp., 2014.
                                      
         A book review in the webzine Taki’s Magazine of “Thirty Seven:  Essays on Life, Wisdom, and Masculinity by the obviously
         pseudonymous author Quintus Curtius prompted me to read the book and think about boys and men and masculinity in our
         time.  Read my article here.

         • Robert S. Griffin, Joseph K., Kenny Rogers, and Me:  My Experience in an American University (with 2018 postscript), 35 pp., 2014.
                                      
         "Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was
         arrested."  So begins Franz Kafka's classic book, The Trial.  The Trial makes the reader grateful for being an American.  
         Certainly nothing like this could happen here in America.  My faith in that comforting and reassuring thought
         has  been shaken over the past few months.  Read the article here.

        • Robert S. Griffin, Who Is Jeannette Rankin? 10 pp., 2014.
                                           
        Who's Jeannette Rankin? I've asked that question to a number of people, both men and women, in classes I teach at the
        university and just people I come across day to day--I suppose it's been a total of thirty--and so far nobody's heard of her. 
        That has intrigued me.  Read the complete article here.

        • Robert S. Griffin, How Baseball Has Changed--And Other Things Too, 15 pp., 2014.
                                      
         One way to get a handle on what is going on now is to look at how this same thing went on in years past and compare.  
         Last weekend, I had a chance to do that with baseball, which has been part of my life since my earliest memory. 
         Read the full article here.

        • Robert S. Griffin, Personal Computer Use in Our Time: An Addiction? 11 pp., 2014.
                                   
         Last week ago as I write this, I had a window seat on a five-hour flight from Philadelphia to the West Coast.  Seated next me
         in the middle seat was a fit, dark-haired, polite appearing young man of about twenty-two--fashiony clothes and glasses,
         jeweled stud in his ear, carefully outlined three-day growth of facial stubble, clean and neatly filed fingernails.  He looked to   
         be a charter member of this generation's college cohort, a senior perhaps.  In his left hand was a mobile phone.  On his
         lap was a laptop computer.  I've thought about him every day since.  Read the complete paper here.

         • Robert S. Griffin, Social Media, Young People, and Challenges for White Activism, 5 pp, 2014.
                            
          My read of things is that the pervasiveness of social media in our time poses particular challenges to those on the periphery
          of the social/cultural core of American life, and that very much includes white racial analysts and activists.  Read the
          complete paper here.

          • Robert S. Griffin, Critical Theory in the American University: A Critical Issue, article, 25 pp., 2013.

          Critical theory, critical pedagogy, is currently the predominant ideological perspective in the social sciences and
          humanities,  education, social work, and the field of higher education in American universities.  This article uses an episode in
          a class I teach in the university as a way to discuss the implications of this reality.  Read the full article here.
       
          • Robert S. Griffin, A University Personal Growth Course Syllabus: For Your Possible Use, 12 pp., 2013.
                      
          I submitted a proposal to the administration of the college in which I teach for a three academic credit course I would
          instruct  dealing with personal growth and fulfillment.  The proposal was turned down, but perhaps you can make some use
          of this course.  See the course syllabus here.
       
          • Robert S. Griffin, Learning from Birdman. 4 pp., 2013
                                  
         At this writing, Chris "Birdman" Andersen, a member of the NBA's Miami Heat--incidentally, Andersen is one of
         nature's rarities, an American white playing in the NBA--has been suspended for an upcoming game in a championship
         playoff series between the Heat and the Indiana Pacers.  It seems that Birdman--so called because of his arms-flapping,
         soaring style of play--suddenly and seemingly out of the blue knocked a Pacer player to the court with an elbow and then 
         shoved him when he got up and pushed a referee who tried to intervene.  I think Birdman's reaction when he was questioned
         about his outburst has applicability to the circumstance of white people, the race to which I belong, and a race I care deeply
         about in the same way other people care deeply about their race.  This writing also appeared in the June 8th edition of
         the  webzine, The Occidental Observer.  Read the complete article here.

        • Robert S. Griffin, An Educator's 10 Concerns About Social Media, 14 pp., 2013.
                                             
         Ten concerns, or worries, which, as a university professor, I have about the impact of social media involvement on students.  
         Read the complete paper here.

         • Robert S. Griffin, An Interview on Sport and Society, 8pp., 2013
                               
          In early 2103, the editor of Le Harfang, a journal of a Canadian organization, the Alliance of Ethnic Quebecers, requested a  
          written interview with me on the impact of sport on society with particular reference to nationalism.  These are my answers
          to his emailed questions.  The interview was published in French in Le Harfung, No. 6, Vol. 1, 2013.  Read the interview     
          here.

         • Robert S. Griffin, What Louis Michael Seidman Made Me Think About, 7 pp., 2013.
                            
         An opinion piece in the December 30th New York Times by Louis Michael Seidman, a professor of constitutional law, 
         caught my eye.  Seidman, or the Times' headline writer, entitled it "Let's Give Up on the Constitution."   This is a response
         to it submitted to The Occidental Observer web site for publication.  Read the full response here.
        
         • Robert S. Griffin, Are Whites Pathological? Yes and No, 16pp., 2012.

         In October of 2012, the editor of the journal The Occidental Quarterly, Kevin MacDonald, issued a call for papers to be
         included in an upcoming theme issue on White pathology.  "Whatever blame for our situation that we place on others,"
         Dr. MacDonald said in the announcement, "the bottom line is that we are allowing the unfolding disaster to happen.  It
         is unprecedented for a civilization to voluntarily cede political and cultural hegemony to others, particularly when so many of
         these people harbor hatreds and resentments toward our people and our culture."  This paper is my response to that call and
         has been accepted for  publication in that theme issue.  TOQ capitalizes White, so, while it is not my normal
         practice, I do it in this writing.  This writing appeared in the webzine The Occidental Observer in June of 2013,
         and in the journal The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 2, Summer 2013.  Read the full paper here.

          • Robert S. Griffin, Commercial Sports and Kids, 6pp., 2012.
                         
          This writing is a follow-up to the writing two sources down on this site, How They Get Us to Watch the Super Bowl:
          An Inquiry into Sport Marketing Strategies.  Here, I outline some of the effects the sports entertainment industry,
          professional sports, has on kids.   Read the full paper here.
        
          • Robert S. Griffin, "Moneybull": An Inquiry Into Media Manipulation, 17 pp., 2012.
                                        
         "Moneyball" was one of the best-received films of 2011 and an Academy Award contender for best film at the 2012
         Oscars.  It is based on a non-fiction book by the same name.  What we are told in the film isn't true.  Or better, it is true here 
         and there but fundamentally untrue.  "Moneyball" obscures significant truths. It portrays things as lucid and simple and
         resolved that are in fact muddy and complex and open to debate.  From what I have heard and read, people accept
        "Moneyball" as an accurate picture of what went on with the A's ten years ago, and its ideas, premises, as valid ones, when I
         consider them highly questionable and in need of qualification if not fundamentally false.  To the extent that I am accurate in
         my perceptions, it is very important for reasons that go beyond this popular entertainment, and that is what pressed me to give
         as much energy as I put into this writing.  Read the complete paper here.
        
         • Robert S.  Griffin,  How They Get Us to Watch the Super Bowl: An Inquiry into Sport Marketing Strategies, 16 pp., 2012.
                               
          The 2012 Super Bowl football game won by the New York Giants over the New England Patriots drew the largest
          American television audience of all time. That's for any kind of programming, entertainment, public affairs, anything, not
          just sports.  One hundred thirteen million people in this country watched that football game.  This was a show put on by the
          employees of two privately owned, profit making sport exhibition companies.  How did they get me and another one
          hundred thirteen million people minus one to attend to their football performance, and more than that, care about how it
          came out?   What accounts for our enchantment with commercial sports: the Red Sox and Cowboys and Lakers, and all
          the rest?  How do these sport show companies market their product with such remarkable effectiveness?  This writing
          outlines nine things that have come to mind in this regard. Read the paper here.
        
         • Robert S. Griffin, How University Students Think, 11pp., 2012
                                      
          This writing is best viewed as a companion piece to a couple others on this site.  One of them is "How University
          Academics Think," the eleventh source down from this one, in which I suggest that the investigation of how university 
          faculty and administrators see things is an important area of inquiry and offer some thoughts in this regard.  While I hope
          this paper on the way university students think, at least in some areas of their studies, stands on its own, I believe it makes
          most sense if it is considered in conjunction with the one on faculty; I see them as an interrelated pair.  Too, it will be helpful 
          to explore both writings within the context of the educational ideology, goals, and strategies I outline in "Totalism and
          Thought Reform in America's Universities"--either the short or long version, the second and third sources down.  I hope
          these three writings encourage others to contribute their own insights to this general concern, take what I've offered further,
          amend and correct it, and so on.  Read the paper here.

         • Robert S. Griffin, Are White Racial Egalitarians Lying?, paper, 5 pp, 2011.

          The lead article in the August 2011 issue of the journal American Renaissance by Robert Greenberg, entitled "When
          Whites Lie to Blacks," decries whites that in our time "contradict plain reality" and expound a "parade of deliberate 
          falsehoods" to and about blacks.  In this same issue of AR, Jared Taylor, in "Response to Dr. Greenberg," while noting
          that  he found the Greenberg essay "witty and insightful" and that he read it "with admiration," nevertheless takes exception 
          with its major premise, that whites who  espouse egalitarian line on whites and blacks are out-and-out lying.  This paper is
          my take on the Greenberg-Taylor exchange.  A version of this paper was published under the title "Are Whites Lying" in
          American Renaissance, vol. 22, no. 10, October, 2011.  Read the paper here.

         • Robert S. Griffin, Totalism and Thought Reform in America's Universities (short version), paper, 9 pp., 2011.

            This is a shortened version of the writing just below this one that I put together to accommodate the space requirements for
            publication.   You can read the description of the long version to get a sense of what both of these writings are about. 
           The  major difference between the two versions is that with the short version I cut the material illustrating how Robert
           Jay Lifton's thought reform methods fit what's going on in today's universities.  Depending on your time and interest in
           this topic, you can read either version.  Read the short version here.

         • Robert S. Griffin, Totalism and Thought Reform in America's Universities (long version), paper, 28 pp., 2011.
 
          In the summer of 2011, I received an e-mail message from the president of my university--I'm a professor of  
          education--addressed to all faculty and staff saying that all first year students would be required to read the book
          The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.  At the time, I had just completed reading psychiatrist and
          scholar Robert Jay Lifton's memoir, Witness to an Extreme Century.  I put the two experiences together and wrote a
          paper on what I see going on in today's universities.  Read the long version here.

         • Robert S. Griffin, "A Case for Conservative Schooling," 31pp. book chapter, 2011, originally published in 2005.

         This is an essay from the book listed above, While There's Time: Conservatism and Libertarianism in Education.   
         Conservative is a pejorative term to those who shape the hearts and minds of today's future teachers in our colleges of
         education.  Teacher education students don't study conservative educators--they hear about them from their professors
         and in the books they are assigned to read.  Conservatives in education, traditionalists of all stripes, so it goes, are misguided, 
         anachronistic, and just perhaps malevolent.  This essay was written primarily for my own students--I teach in a college of
         education--to give them a chance to consider a positive argument for conservative (or, other terms, traditionalist, essentialist,
         classical, perennialist) approaches.  Read the essay here. 
       
         • Robert S. Griffin, "A Lesson in Democracy," 21pp. book chapter, 2011, originally published in 2005.

          This is an essay from the book listed above, While There's Time: Conservatism and Libertarianism in Education.  I have
          been taken by the constant reference to democracy in the writings and talk of the dominant perspective held by
          professional  educators, progressivism.  The most important book by the leading figure in progressive education, John   
          Dewey, is entitled Democracy in Education.  Teaching democracy, inculcating this doctrine in students and implementing
          its ways in classrooms, is to be a top priority in schools.  What's this all about? I asked myself.  Even more fundamentally, 
          when did this country become a democracy?  We pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the 
          republic for which it stands--not to the democracy for which it stands.  When is the last time you heard this country referred
          to as a republic?  This essay is my exploration of this topic.  Basically, I contend that the democracy thrust in schools is part
          of a movement to collectivize America.  Read the essay here. 
        
        • Robert S. Griffin, "What Schools Can Learn from Sports," 32 pp., chapter, originally published in 2005.

          This is a chapter from a book of essays on education listed above, While There's Time.  It gets at how a study of the ways
          of sport, the sport culture, can inform what isn't working in schools and give direction to efforts to improve them.  Read
          the chapter here.

         • Robert S. Griffin, "Sports and Growing Up," book chapter, 23 pp., 2011, originally published in 1998.

          This is a chapter from the book listed above, Sports in the Lives of Children and Adolescents.  It outlines the lens through
          which I view the impact of organized sports--and really, everything, family and peer relations, school, activities of all
          sorts, media contacts--on young people.  It is about growing up well (or not), what that involves, and the role of parents
          in that regard.  The ideas in this chapter provided the bases for the four thoughts I wrote for this site in the latter part of
          2010 entitled "Lessons for Our Daughter."  Ken and Melissa Heise, whom I refer to in the chapter, are parents who wrote
          me asking for my advice around organized sports involvement for their son and daughter.   Read the chapter here.
       
          • Robert S. Griffin, Libertarianism and Racial Nationalism--Or Better, White Racialism, essay, 9 pp., 2011.

          This is an abridged version of the writing a couple sources below on this site, Libertarianism and White Racialism.  I  
          shortened it to meet the length requirements of an essay contest conducted by the journal The Occidental Quarterly, which 
          published it in its Spring 2011, Vol.  11, No. 1 issue.  (It was a runner-up to the winner.)  Depending on the time you have
          to devote to this topic from my perspective, you can read this one or the longer one.  The longer one, twice the word count, is
          a much more complete take on this concern, but I think this shorter version gets my perspective across well enough to give
          you a sense of how I see things.  Read the abridged essay here.

         • Robert S. Griffin, Becoming a Full Professor, paper, 10 pp., 2010.

          The faculty committee in my college responsible for matters related to faculty concerns developed a proposal that specifies
          the criteria for promotion from associate to full professor.  I volunteered to be on a work group in my department, in which
          I am a full professor, to review that proposal.  Prior to the group's first meeting, I wrote a statement that outlines my 
          perspective on criteria for assessing applications for promotion to full professor in general and the college committee's 
          proposal in particular. This writing includes that statement along with a follow-up statement I submitted to the group
          following  that first meeting.  I hope this writing communicates in a general way what it's like in the university these years.  
          Read the full paper here.

          •Robert S. Griffin, Libertarianism and White Racialism, essay, 34 pp, 2010.
 
           In mid-2010, the journal The Occidental Quarterly initiated a contest for the best essay on the topic of "Libertarianism
           and Racial Nationalism." The connection between libertarianism as a philosophy and approach to living and white racial    
           thought and action is an important concern, but thus far it has received little if any concerted attention in white racial  
           discourse.  This essay contest has been a good prompt for me to think though this connection, and I'll share here what I've
           come to.  Read the complete paper here.
        
           • Robert S. Griffin, A Needed Paradigm Shift in Education, paper, 48 pp., 2010.
                
           This writing is about making better sense of what is going on in American schools.  My thesis is that a paradigm shift
           would be helpful in doing that.  Read the full paper here.

         • Robert S. Griffin, "How University Academics Think," paper, 30 pp., 2010.
                    
          An examination of university academics' pattern of thought and behavior. To organize and ground my   
          presentation, I tie it to a case study of the current--March, 2010--effort at my university to develop a university-wide
          program of undergraduate general education.  Read the full paper here.
       
         • Robert S. Griffin, "Living White . . . Very Well," essay, 8 pp., 2010.

         A representative of the host of a radio show emailed me saying he had read some of my writing on race from a white 
         perspective and wanted to set up an interview with the host and me.  I wrote him back saying I was amenable to the
         interview and the topic he suggested and that I'd get back to him when I was clear about the specific direction in which
         I wanted to go in the interview.  This essay outlines what I came up with.  Read the full interview here.

         • Robert S. Griffin, "Ralph Waldo Emerson On Self-Reliance," commentary, 15 pp., 2009.
         
          Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was an American essayist and lecturer who championed individualism and the value of
          subjective, inner truths--he referred to "the splendid labyrinth of one's own perceptions"--in the face of society's pressures
          on people to conform in both thought and deed.   Emerson is a major figure in the history of American thought.  This  
          commentary is my response to Emerson's essay, "Self-Reliance."  Read the full commentary here.

          • Robert S. Griffin, The Wages of Ignorance: How the Press Attacks White Advocacy, article, 4 pp., 2009. 

          A few days after James von Brunn killed a security guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. in 2009, a
          journalist wrote an article that included speculations about my links to him.   This began a round of media and Internet
          consideration of my writings on  race from a white perspective and my status as a university professor in light of them.  A
          version of this article was publshed as a special report  to American  Renaissance News.  Read the article here.  

           • Robert S. Griffin, Armed in America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes, photographs by Kyle Cassidy (Iola, WI: 
           Krause Publications, 2007), book review, 17 pp., 2009.

          On the second floor at my local Borders bookstore in downtown Burlington, Vermont last week--July, 2009--I was
          perusing the remainder table, I guess they call it.  These are books that seem to have zero sales potential, so to get them out
          of the store they slash their prices and put them out on display with the other road-kill publications.  The front dust cover 
          picture of one of them, a hefty coffee table volume, caught my eye.  Read the full review here.

          • Robert S. Griffin,  A Message in the Inbox, article, 28 pp., 2009.
            
           On a Sunday morning in June of 2009, in my office at the university where I am a professor, I came upon an e-mail 
           message that had been sent the previous Thursday and repeated on Friday.  It turned out to be the start of a round of media 
           and Internet consideration of my activities, including writings, dealing with race from a white perspective and my status as
           a  university professor given my views on race.  Read the full article here.
       
          • Robert S. Griffin,  Replies to a White Racial Activist, 10 pp., 2009.
                                     
          In mid-June of 2009, a white racial activist e-mailed me some questions about my writing and current activities.  He
          said he would share my answers with the members of the white advocacy organization he heads.  I answer
          the questions in this writing.  Read the full writing here.

          • Robert S. Griffin, Channel Surf, transcription, 6pp., 2009.
                                   
          Panasonic 20" Diagonal LCD TV, Model No. 20LAC.  Matsushita Electrical Industrial Co., Ltd., Utsunomiya, Japan.    
          Remote control--DVD-VIDEO/RW/R  NB075.  CLICK-ON.  Read the full transcript here.
        
         • Robert S. Griffin, Kids and Sports, essay, 5 pp., 2009.

          The mother of a four-year-old daughter asked me what I thought about the advisability of sports for her
          child as she grows up.  Essentially, this essay is my answer to her inquiry.  Read the complete essay here.

          • Robert S. Griffin, Autotelic Education: A Concept, 8 pp., 2009.

           In this writing I discuss a form of education that doesn't manage students' lives and dictate what they should study
           and think and become.  Read the complete writing here.

         • Robert S. Griffin,  To a Journalism Student About Sports,  5pp., 2008.

          Having read some of my writings on sports, in late 2008 a journalism student at a university in the eastern part of the
          United States e-mailed me that she was writing an article for the campus newspaper about sports and wanted my reply
          to some of her questions.  With some editing and augmentation, this writing includes her message, questions, and my
          answers.  Read the full writing here.

         •  Robert S. Griffin, Gay Artists in Modern American Culture : An Imagined Conspiracy,  by Michael S. Sherry,
          essay/review, 11pp. 2008.

          An essay/review that considers gay artists' impact on American culture and the implications of their lives and
          creations for the white racialist movement.  It was submitted to The Occidental Quarterly, but the editor and I
          couldn't agree on revisions.  For better or worse, this is the form I think it should be in.  Read the full
          essay/review here.

           • Robert S. Griffin, An Undergraduate Educational Studies Program, 12 pp., 2008
       
           This is directed at university faculty in the field of education.  It is an outline of an undergraduate bachelor's  
           degree program with a major concentration in educational studies that I put together--it is not in place anywhere.
           This program is not professional training nor is it designed to lead to licensure; rather, it is academic study, a
           scholarly exploration  of the field of education that parallels those in other fields, say, sociology or mathematics
           or literature. My assumption is that this would be a program offered by a college of education and that it would
           lead to a B.S. degree granted by that college.  Read the full program here.

           • Robert S. Griffin, When They Attack, essay, 4 pp., 2008
       
          Suggestions to white people whose racial identity and interests might bring them under attack. This is directed to
          racially  conscious white people of whatever stripe: white analysts, white advocates, white activists, white
          separatists, and white  supremacists.  While the focus in this writing is on racially-grounded assaults, it may
          apply to aggressions against those who  don't defer to the ideologies and agendas of those currently in power in
          any area, diversity, gender, politics, whatever it is. This appeared in The Occidental Observer in December of
          2007.   Read the full essay here.
         
          • Robert S. Griffin, Robert Henri on Education,  paper, 4pp., 2008

          Robert Henri (1865-1929) was an American painter.  Not long before his death, the Arts Council of New York
          designated him one of the top three living American artists.  Henri was also a popular and influential teacher of
          art.  Henri's ideas on art  and life, including education, were collected by a former student and published in a
          book entitled The Art Spirit.  This writing is made up of statements by Henri dealing with education from this
          book. Read the full paper here.

         • Robert S. Griffin, Traditionalist Education: A Needed Emphasis, article, 2008.            
        
        This is about a course I teach at the university, but I think a general reader will be able to find things to pick
         up on in this piece.   It deals with what I see is as the predominance of left-of-center, collectivist perspcctives
         in  the field of education to the virtual exclusion of other outlooks.  Read the full article here.
    
        • Robert S. Griffin, Ken Burns' Show Business,  article, 2007.

        This is an analysis of Ken Burns' seven-part documentary on World War II, "The War," shown on PBS in late
        September  and early October, 2007.  I critique the Burns documentary from the perspective of what I call the
        four rules of successful  show business.  This article will only be available on this site.  Read the full article here.
  • Robert S. Griffin, The Tale of John Kasper, article, 2007.
In 1956, twenty-six year-old John Kasper traveled to Clinton, Tennessee, which is just outside Knoxville, to combat school integration.  His exploits in Clinton received international media attention.  Rallies of whites in Knoxville in May and June of 2007 protesting the media's underreporting of the rape, mutilation, and murder of two young white people by blacks took place while I was researching and writing about Kasper, and I brought them into the telling of Kasper's story.  This article and picture will not be published and will only be available on this site.  Read the full article here.

  • Robert S, Griffin, book review, R. Cort Kirkland, Real Men: Ten Courageous Americans To Know and Admire (Nashville: Duke Cumberland House, 2005), unpublished, 2007.
This is a fleshed-out and, frankly, more honest response to this book than what I believe is going to be published in a Charles Martel Society newsletter, which is entirely favorable.  When I wrote the newsletter review, I decided I should hold back on negative comments because Kirkland is going to get enough static for writing a politically incorrect book and he didn't need me piling on.  I may well have been right in thinking that, but there is something about me that can't hold back in telling the truth in my writing--this newsletter review is the first time I have ever done that, and it will be the last--so the complete review is available here.

  • Robert S. Griffin, book review, Mattais Gardell, Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2003), The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 1, Spring 2007, pp. 107-112.
This review gave me a chance to think more about whether the pre-Christian, nature-centered religions of northern Europe are more valid religious expressions of European heritage people than Christianity.  This consideration began in the Fame book and has shown up in several of my writings, including the review of The Conservative Bookshelf listed below.   This is a good book; I recommend it.  Read the full review here.

  • Robert S, Griffin, "From Sex Symbol to French Patriot,"  book review of Brian Singer, Brigitte Bardot: A Biography, American Renaissance, Vol. 18: No. 1, January 2007, pp. 8-10.  Note the themes of transcending early-life difficulties, personal change in mid-life, doing what's right even if it is attacked and punished, and animal welfare.  Check American Renaissance's web page for availability.  In every published article there is a give-and-take between the writer and the editor.  Not that it is necessarily better than the published review, here is my version of the review, a "director's cut," if you will.  
  • Robert S. Griffin, A Knock on the Door, article, American Renaissance, Vol.l7: No. 12, December 2006, pp. 11-13.
Adapted from Living White.  A recounting of my first experience of having the light shine on me for breaking ranks with accepted thinking on the race issue.  Read the full article here.

  • Robert S. Griffin, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism, by James Loewen, book review, The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. 6: No.2, Summer 2006.
This gets into how university academics propagandize about race and make themselves look like scholars and princes of morality in the process.  You'll pick up an edge from me in this one; the Loewens of the world grate on me. Read the full review here.

  • Robert S. Griffin, Afterword, in Samuel Francis, ed., Race and the American Prospect, (Mt. Airy, MD: Occidental Press, 2006, pp. 425-431).
Sam Francis died in February of 2005--this was his last book.  Sam was a leading traditionalist conservative thinker and an exemplary human being.  I've been inspired and gained direction from Sam.  Note the discussion of how those who control the public discourse marginalize people like Sam.  And note too the Bret Easton Ellis and Michel Houllebecq quotes and the meaning I gave them. They reflect the nihilistic impulse I'll talk about in the Thoughts section of this site.  Read the full afterward here.

  • Robert S. Griffin, The Conservative Bookshelf: Essential Works That Impact Today's Conservative Thinkers, book review, The Occidental Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 2, Summer 2005.
This is a fine book.  Note my discussions of Christianity, individuality, and contemporary artists in light of conservatism.  Read the full review here.

 

        Books

  • Robert S. Griffin, Sports in the Lives of Children and Adolescents: Success on the Field and in Life (Westport, Connecticut:  Praeger, 1998).
I had published two previous books on education, but this one was the beginning of things for me, where I found my voice and approach.  This sports book--or at least nominally it is a sports book, the publisher considered it a parenting book and I saw it as being basically about growing up--was directed at a general readership rather than the academic audience I had written to up until that time (I'm a professor of education), and it had a broader focus than the field of education.  It was also the beginning of integrating my personal story into my writing, a pattern I have continued.  I was immersed in sports as a kid and into my twenties and this book was an occasion for making sense of the effect that activity and preoccupation had on me.  I think this book is still worthwhile reading a decade after its publication, and I see it as linked to my later writing.  It is only available from the publisher in a very expensive hard copy edition.  The best way to obtain it is to get it from a library.  If it is not in the library's collection, a reference librarian can order it through interlibrary loan.

  • Robert S. Griffin, While There's Time: Conservatism and Individualism in Education (Philadelphia: Xlibris, 2005).
This book has a 2005 copyright, but it was written in the late 1990s concurrently with the sports book, so I'm listing it here.  It outlines my views on education, but as with all my writing beginning with the sports book it has a broader focus than its nominal topic.  It outlines a philosophical perspective I apply to making sense of everything in American life and my own life.  I'm not sure how to label this outlook, but it is an interplay of libertarianism and cultural conservatism.   It is available at Amazon and the Xlibris site. 
  • Robert S. Griffin, The Fame of a Dead Man's Deeds: An Up-Close Portrait of White Nationalist William Pierce (Bloomington, IN: 1stBooks Library, 2001).  A Swedish language version is to be published by Logik Förlaget in 2013.
William Pierce, who died in 2002, was the chairman of the National Alliance, a white advocacy organization he founded.  The book recounts Pierce's personal story from childhood on, identifies what shaped his thinking and actions, outlines his perspective on the issues of the day, and describes his day-to-day routine. The Fame book kept my frame of reference broad as I recounted Pierce's views on history, philosophy, race, politics, economics, international relations, the media, education, men-women identities and relations, childrearing practices, and approaches to leisure.  I found Pierce to be a person of remarkable capability, decency, integrity, courage, and dedication. As impressed as I was with Pierce, however, I tried to be as objective and complete as I could in portraying him, and that included dealing with his limitations.  I was particularly struck by the contrast between the man I came to know and the demonic, sinister picture of him I had gotten from the mass media.  I hit me how much of what I know, or think I know, comes from mediated rather than direct experience.   That is to say, someone--a teacher, a media figure, a politician, an advocate for a cause--tells me and shows me what something is like.  If Pierce isn't as he has been depicted, I asked myself, what else isn't as it has been presented to me?  Who are these mediators of reality?  What are their interests, what are they selling?  This book changed my life forever.  I came away from my encounter with Pierce far more conscious of race from a white perspective and of myself as a white man and of my European cultural and historical roots. You can get this at Amazon, and Pierce's organization, the National Alliance, sells copies--check its web site--and you can get it directly from the publisher's web site.   You can get free PDF copy of the book on the home page of this site.
 
  • Robert S. Griffin, One Sheaf, One Vine: Racially Conscious White Americans Talk About Race (Bloomington, IN: 1stBooks Library, 2004).  Published in a French translation as Paroles de Blancs (London: White Revolution Books, 2012).
While writing the Pierce book, I encountered several hundred racially conscious white people.  Predominantly, they do not conform to the image of them the media has created: neo-Nazi bigots, menacing skinheads, ignorant thugs who commit hate crimes, and so on.  The seventeen white Americans, from across the country, both men and women, young and old, who offer their personal statements about race in this book aren't public figures or leaders of organizations.  They aren't on television and they don't publish books or make movies.  Politicians don't articulate their perspective or advocate their positions.  Journalists and intellectuals don't write about them unless it is to belittle them.  Schools make no attempt to deal with them objectively.  In this book, you hear from them.  I didn't alter, soften, or censor what they said or tell the reader what to think about them.   More than coming to know their thoughts on race, you'll meet these people as human beings.  Two of them are no longer alive.  Democracy depends on the free exchange of ideas.  There are individuals and organizations that want to silence people of this sort, as well as punish anyone who tries to give them voice.  Available from the same sources as The Fame of a Dead Man's Deeds. 

  • Robert S. Griffin, Living White: Writings on Race, 2000-2005 (Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse, 2006)   Published in French language edition as Vivre en tant que Blanc (Saint-Genis-Laval: Editions Akribeia, 2008).
This book is made up of my writings on race through 2005.  Included are excerpts of my books and, in total or in large part, my short writings, as well as three unpublished articles and a speech.  The writings are ordered chronologically for the most part, and I provide commentaries to accompany them.  This gives the book a narrative line and lends an autobiographical quality to it.  In large part, Living White is my own story over the past seven years as it relates to race.  The book's focus is on the personal, in contrast to the public, dimensions of the racial challenges that whites confront at this time.  The book is directed at a white audience and I hope it supports readers in living more honorable lives as white men and women.   Available from the same sources as The Fame of a Dead Mans Deeds.  In late 2008, a French translation of this book was published (Saint-Genis-Laval: Éditions Akribeia).


        Short Writings, 2001-2005

  • Robert S. Griffin,   "Ole Miss, New Miss: American Renaissance Ad Shines a Light on the University of Mississippi,"  American Renaissance, vol. 16, no. 6, June 2005, pp.11-13.  Also in my book, Living White.
  • Robert S. Griffin, "Epilogue,' written for a Swedish language version of The Fame of a Dead Man's Deeds: An Up-Close Portrait of White Nationalist William Pierce, 2006.  It appears this book will not be published.  Available here.
  • Robert S. Griffin, "While There's Still Time: Reflections on a Book Project," 2005, included in Living White. 
  • Robert S. Griffin, "Out of Bounds," commentary submitted to American Renaissance, unpublished, 2005. Available here.
  • Robert S. Griffin, "Education for the Second Vermont Republic--Or the Current One,"article, 2005.  Submitted to a magazine of the organization, Second Vermont Republic (see its web site), unpublished.  Available here.
  • Robert S. Griffin,  "Going Public: Being Seen, Heard, and Felt in Mainstream America," The Occidental Quarterly, vol. 4, no. 4, Winter, 2004.  Also in Living White.
  • Robert S. Griffin, "Belgium in July," Citizens Informer, Vol. 35, No. 5, Fall 2004, pp.1, 5, 6.  Also in Living White.
  • Robert S. Griffin, "Interview with Robert S. Griffin," written answers to questions, Blood, Soil, Honour, and Loyalty, May 2004.  Also in Living White.
  • Robert S. Griffin, " Abraham Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War," book review, The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 2, June 2004.  Also in Living White.
  • Robert S. Griffin, "Displaced: A Racially Aware White American Talks About Home,"American Renaissance, Vol. 15, No. 6, 2004, pp. 1-3.  Adapted from Living White.
  • Robert S. Griffin, "My Experience With George Lincoln Rockwell's This Time the World, National Vanguard, No. 122, March-April 2004, pp. 30-31.  Also in Living White.
  • Robert S. Griffin, "The Need for Positive White Visions and Actions," essay, 2004, included in Living White. 
  • Robert S. Griffin, "Racism: A Short History,"book review, The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 4, November-December 2003.  Also in Living White.
  • Robert S. Griffin, "David Starr Jordan: Racial Exemplar," National Vanguard, number 121, November-December, 2003, pp. 3-8.  Also in Living White.
  • Robert S. Griffin, "William Pierce: A Reminiscence," National Vanguard, No. 119, January-February, 2003, pp. 3-9.  Also in Living White.
  • Robert S. Griffin, "Living White: A Personal Challenge and Responsibility," The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 4, Winter 2002.  Also in Living White.
  • Robert S. Griffin, "The New White Nationalism: It's Challenge to Integration," book review, The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 3, Fall 2002.  Also in Living White.
  • Robert S. Griffin, "Rearing Honorable White Children," American Renaissance, Vol. 12: No. 10, October 2001, pp. 1-3.  Also in Living White.