Hate, Narrative, and Propaganda inThe Turner Diaries

Abstract

When Agent William Eppright of FBI's evidence response team opened sealed envelope found in Timothy McVeigh's yellow Mercury, he found among clippings two highlighted passages from The Diaries. This novel of Aryan revolution was written by Dr. William Pierce, leader of neo-Nazi organization National Alliance (Serrano 218-20). During McVeigh's trial, The Diaries was first piece of evidence introduced, and prosecution called witnesses that testified to McVeigh's obsession with text. These witnesses told court that McVeigh had read novel repeatedly while in military and later sold it at a loss at gun shows (Griffin 8). While McVeigh's case brought The Diaries to public's attention, Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has documented multiple cases since 1980s in which violent hate groups have cited Pierce's novel as influential. Two of these have even taken their names from novel (ADL). During dragging murder of James Byrd in 1998, driver, John William King, reported to have shouted, We are going to start Diaries early, as he shackled Byrd's legs to his truck (Meggido 2). Pierce's novel was first self-published in his periodical Attack! and then self -published as a novel in 1978. Since that time it has become required reading for Aryan groups and has been widely disseminated at gun shows throughout country. While no precise circulation numbers are available, as of 2001 estimates were that at least 300,000 copies had been sold (Griffin 138). As a vehicle for hate propaganda, Pierce's tract has been all too successful. The Diaries unambiguously a hate novel. According to its Foreword, novel a manuscript found in 2100 after a worldwide Aryan revolution. This manuscript diary of Earl Turner, a member of Aryan that started revolution that has led to worldwide massacre of all non-Aryans. The diary narrates beginnings of this revolution from perspective of and follows him through his guerilla war against documenting his methods and hate crimes. Despite its historical and political importance, critical research on The Diaries has been sparse- presumably because one finds simply reading it horrifying enough. Those critics who have examined novel write about it as hate speech: condemning its politics and psychology, and critiquing its narrative failings.1 For example, in a insightful discussion of novel's anti-Semitism and racism, Joe Lockard has noted that novel is not one that invites prolonged contemplation on issues of critical undecidability and that Aryan ideology exists beneath a fairly crude narrative surface (Lockard 121, 127). Evaluating novel's obvious ideological contradictions, Jonathan Cullick has argued that Turner assumes that Organization has freed his intellect from System, but he neglects to notice that Organization has only provided him with a different kind of prison (Cullick). Lockard's and Cullick's evaluations of novel's literary merit are accurate. The Diaries are crudely written and ethical position they invoke not only repugnant, but also often inconsistent and self-contradictory. However despite these failings, a cognitive prison exactly what novel intends for its reader. As a piece of propaganda fiction it not interested in trying to open up discussion or encourage deliberation and undecidability, but instead seeks to trap its reader within its ideology, persuading through identification and imposing its ideological authority. While Cullick sees the device of diarist-narrator [as] vehicle for a book that intended to carry heavy ideological freight, diaries and framing narrative are not merely trappings, but calculated propaganda techniques (Cullick). The voices of diarist narrator and editor work in unison to promote ideology of hate by urging reader to identify with while using editorial authority to foreclose ideological alternatives. …