Editing William Luther Pierce (section)

== Views ==
Pierce's goal was to convince the white population through propaganda, leading ultimately to a violent race revolution; he promoted his views through several mediums.{{sfn|Morris|2017|p=35}} Pierce was frequently described as a neo-Nazi,<ref name="Reed" /><ref name="SPLC-Bio" /><ref name="ADL-Bio" /><ref name="Johnston">{{Cite news |last=Johnston |first=David Cay |date=2002-07-24 |title=William Pierce, 69, Neo-Nazi Leader, Dies |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/24/us/william-pierce-69-neo-nazi-leader-dies.html |access-date=2021-03-16 |work=[[The New York Times]] |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> although he personally rejected this label.<ref name="60-Minutes">{{Cite episode |title=William Pierce, PhD/Facts of Life in Russia/Jack Kevorkian |series=60 Minutes |series-link=60 Minutes |network=[[CBS]] |date=1996-05-18 |season=28 |number=36 |language=en-US}}</ref> When confronted with the issue by Mike Wallace on ''[[60 Minutes]]'', Pierce described the term as a slander:
:I admire many things that [[Hitler]] wrote, many of the programs and policies that he instituted in Germany, but we do not blindly copy anyone else's policies or programs. We've formulated our own program in view of the situation that we face here in America today.<ref name="60-Minutes" />
Among Pierce's claimed inspirations for the development of his views were [[Dietrich Eckart]]'s ''Bolshevism from Moses to Lenin'', [[Friedrich Nietzsche]]'s [[Thus Spoke Zarathustra|''Thus'' ''Spoke Zarathustra'']], [[August Kubizek]]'s ''The Young Hitler I Knew'', [[Savitri Devi]]'s ''[[The Lightning and the Sun]]''. From Nietzsche he was particularly taken by the idea of being a master of one's own life and the points of power of the will. In Eckart's essay he found an ideological backing for his antisemitism, while he incorporated Devi's racist mysticism from ''Lightning and the Sun'' into his ideology.{{sfn|Morris|2017|p=34}} Also influential on the development of his political thought were the works of American white supremacists [[Francis Parker Yockey]], [[Lothrop Stoddard]], and [[Madison Grant]].{{sfn|Simonelli|1999|p=124}}

=== Cosmotheism ===
In the 1970s, Pierce created a religious philosophy he called [[cosmotheism]], based on a mixture of [[German romanticism]], the [[Darwinian]] concept of [[natural selection]], and Pierce's interpretation of [[George Bernard Shaw]]'s play ''[[Man and Superman]]''. The [[Anti-Defamation League]] and the [[Southern Poverty Law Center]] both allege that Pierce utilized cosmotheism in order to acquire [[tax exemption|tax-exempt]] status for the [[National Alliance (United States)|National Alliance]] after he had failed to do so earlier.<ref name="SPLC-Bio" /><ref name="ADL-Bio" />{{sfn|Morris|2017|p=35}} In 2001, Pierce officiated the Cosmotheist wedding ceremony of [[Billy Roper]], then a top staffer at the National Alliance.{{sfn|Kurczy|2021|p=95}} Cosmotheism was highly esoteric in its beliefs, which led to it having little influence on neo-Nazis outside of the National Alliance.{{sfn|Morris|2017|p=36}}