Civilization as Political Concept – Dugin

Civilization as Political Concept

Interview with the leader of the International “Eurasian Movement”, a philosopher, and a professor at Moscow State University Alexander Dugin.

Interviewed by the Global Revolutionary Alliance’s own Natella Speranskaja (Natella Speranskaya).

 

Natella Speranskaja: The crisis of identity, with which we faced after the Cold War and the collapse of the communist world, is still relevant. What do you think is capable of lifting us out of this crisis – a religious revival or creation of a new political ideology? Which of the options are you inclined to yourself?

Alexander Dugin: After the collapse of communism came the phase of the “unipolar moment” (as Charles Krauthammer called it). In geopolitics, this meant the victory of unilateralism and Atlanticism, and because the pole was left alone, the West has become a global phenomenon. Accordingly, the ideology of liberalism (or more accurately, neo-liberalism) is firmly in place crushing the two alternative political theories that existed in the twentieth century – communism and fascism. The Global liberal West has now defined culture, economics, information and technology, and politics. The West’s claims to the universalism of its values, the values of Western modernity and the Postmodern era, has reached its climax.

Problems stemming from the West during the “unipolar moment” has led many to say that this “moment” is over, that he could not yet be a “destiny” of humanity. That is, a “unipolar moment” should be interpreted very broadly – not only geopolitical, but also ideologically, economically, axiologically, civilization wide. The crisis of identity, about which you ask, has scrapped all previous identities – civilizational, historical, national, political, ethnic, religious, cultural, in favor of a universal planetary Western-style identity – with its concept of individualism, secularism, representative democracy, economic and political liberalism, cosmopolitanism and the ideology of human rights. Instead of a hierarchy of identities, which have traditionally played a large role in sets of collective identities, the “unipolar moment” affirmed a flat one-dimensional identity, with the absolutization of the individual singularity. One individual = one identity, and any forms of the collective identity (for example, individual as the part of the religious community, nation, ethnic group, race, or even sex) underwent dismantling and overthrowing. Hence the hatred of globalists for different kind of “majorities” and protection of minorities, up to the individual.

The Uni-polar Democracy of our moment – this is a democracy, which unambiguously protects the minority before the face of the majority and the individual before face of the group. This is the crisis of identity for those of non-Western or non-modern (or even not “postmodern”) societies, since this is where customary models are scrapped and liquidated. The postmodern West with optimism, on the contrary, asserts individualism and hyper-liberalism in its space and zealously exports it on the planetary scale.

However, it’s not painless, and has caused at all levels its own growing rejection. The problems, which have appeared in the West in the course of this “uni-polar moment”, forced many to speak, that this “moment’s” conclusion, has not succeeded in becoming “the fate” of humanity. This, therefore, was the cost of the possibility of passage to some other paradigm…

So, we can think about an alternative to the “unipolar moment” and, therefore, an alternative to liberalism, Americanism, Atlanticism, Western Postmodernism, globalization, individualism, etc. That is, we can, and I think should, work out plans and strategies for a “post-uni polar world”, at all levels – the ideological and political, the economic, and religious, and the philosophical and geo-political, the cultural and civilizational, and technology, and value.

In fact, this is what I call multi-polarity. As in the case of uni-polarity it is not only about the political and strategic map of the world, but also the paradigmatic philosophical foundations of the future world order. We cannot exactly say that the “uni-polar moment” has finally been completed. No, it is still continuing, but it faces a growing number of problems. We must put an end to it – eradicate it. This is a global revolution, since the existing domination of the West, liberalism and globalism completely controls the world oligarchy, financial and political elites.

So they just will not simply give up their positions. We must prepare for a serious and intense battle. Multi-polarity will be recaptured by the conquered peoples of the world in combat and it will be able to arise only on the smoking ruins of the global West. While the West is still dictating his will to the rest, to talk about early multipolarity – you must first destroy the Western domination on the ground. Crisis – this is much, but far from all.

Natella Speranskaja: If we accept the thesis of the paradigmatic transition from the current unipolar world order model to a new multi-polar model, where the actors are not nation-states, but entire civilizations, can it be said that this move would entail a radical change in the very human identity?

Alexander Dugin: Yes, of course. With the end of the unipolar moment, we are entering a whole new world. And it is not simply a reverse or a step back, but it is a step forward to some unprecedented future, however, different from the digital project of “lonely crowds”, which is reserved for humanity by globalism. Multi-polar identity will be the complex nonlinear collection of different identities – both individual and collective, that is varied for each civilization (or even inside each civilization).

This is something completely new that will be created.

And the changes will be radical. We cannot exclude that, along with known identities, civilizations, and offering of new ways … It is possible that one of these new identities will become the identity of “Superman” – in the Nietzschean sense or otherwise (for example, traditionalist) … In the “open society” of globalism the individual is, on the contrary, closed and strictly self-identical.

The multi-polar world’s anthropological map will be, however, extremely open, although the boundaries of civilizations will be defined clearly. Man will again re-open the measurement of inner freedom – “freedom for”, in spite of the flat and purely external liberal freedom – “freedom from” (as in John Mill), which is actually, not freedom, but its simulacrum, imposed for a more efficient operation of the planetary masses by a small group of global oligarchs.

Natella Speranskaja: Alexander Gelevich Dugin, you are the creator of the theory of a multi-polar world, which laid the foundation from which we can begin a new historical stage. Your book The Theory of a Multi-polar World (Теория многополярного мира) has been and is being translated into other languages. The transition to a new model of world order means a radical change in the foreign policy of nation-states, and in today’s global economy, in fact, you have created all the prerequisites for the emergence of a new diplomatic language. Of course, this is a challenge of the global hegemony of the West. What do you think will be the reaction of your political opponents when they realize the seriousness of the threat posed?

Alexander Dugin: As always in the vanguard of philosophical and ideological ideas, we first have the effect of bewilderment, the desire to silence or marginalize them. Then comes the phase of severe criticism and rejection. Then they begin to consider. Then they become commonplace and a truism. So it was with many of my ideas and concepts in the past 30 years. Traditionalism, geopolitics, Sociology of imagination , Ethnosociology, Conservative Revolution , National Bolshevism, Eurasianism, the Fourth Political Theory, National-structuralism, Russian Schmittianism, the concept of the three paradigms, the eschatological gnosis, New Metaphysics and Radical Theory of the Subject, Conspiracy theories, Russian Heideggerianism, a post-modern alternative, and so on – perceived first with hostility, then partially assimilated, and finally became part of mainstream discourse in academia and politics of Russia, and in part, beyond.

Each of these directions has their fate, but the diagram of their mastering is approximately identical. So it will be also with the theory of a multipolar world It will be hushed up, and then demonized and fiercely criticized, and then they will begin to look at it closely, and then accepted. But for all this it is necessary to pay for it and to defend it in the fight. Arthur Rimbaud said that “the spiritual battle as fierce and hard, as the battle of armies.” For this we will have to struggle violently and desperately. As for everything else.

Natella Speranskaja: In the “Theory of a multipolar world,” you write that in the dialogue between civilizations the responsibility is born by the elite of civilization. Do I understand correctly, it should be a “trained” elite, that is, the elite, which has a broad knowledge and capabilities, rather than the present “elite”? Tell me, what is the main difference between these elites?

Alexander Dugin: Civilizational elite – is a new concept. Thus far it does not exist. It is a combination of two qualities – deep assimilation of the particular civilizational culture (in the philosophical, religious, value levels) and the presence of a high degree of “drive,” persistently pushing people to the heights of power, prestige, and influence. Modern liberalism channels passion exclusively in the area of economics and business, creating a preference for a particular social elevator and it is a particular type of personality (which is an American sociologist Yuri Slezkine called the “mercurial type”).

The Mercurial elite of globalism, “aviakochevniki” mondialist nomadism, sung by Jacques Attali, should be overthrown in favor of radically different types of elites. Each civilization can dominate, and other “worlds”, not only thievish, mercurial shopkeepers and cosmopolitans. Islamic elite is clearly another – an example of this we see in today’s Iran, where the policy (Mars) and economics (Mercury) are subject to spiritual authority, of the Ayatollah (Saturn).

But the “world” is only a metaphor. Different civilizations are based on different codes. The main thing is that the elite must be reflected in the codes themselves, whatever they may be. This is the most important condition. The will to power inherent in any elite, shall be interfaced with the will to knowledge; that is, intellectualism and activism in such a multipolar elite should be wedded. Technological efficiency and value (often religious) content should be combined in such an elite. Only such an elite will be able to fully and responsibly participate in the dialogue of civilizations, embodying the principles of their traditions and engaging in interaction with other civilizations of the worlds.

Natella Speranskaja: How can you comment on the hypothesis that the return to a bipolar model is still possible?

Alexander Dugin: I think not, practically or theoretically. In practice, because today there is no country that is comparable to the basic parameters of the U.S. and the West in general. The U.S. broke away from the rest of the world so that no one on their own can compete with them. Theoretically, only the West now has a claim to universality of its values, whereas previously Marxism was regarded as an alternative. After the collapse of the Soviet Union it became clear that universalism is only liberal, capitalist. To resist Western imperialism there can only be a coalition of large spaces – not the second pole, but immediately multiple poles, each of them with its own strategic infrastructure and with a particular civilizational, cultural and ideological content.

Natella Speranskaja: How real is the sudden transition to a non-polar model? What are the main disadvantages of this model?

Alexander Dugin: Passage to a non-polar model, about which leaders are increasingly talking of in the Council on Foreign Relations (Richard Haass, George Soros, etc.), means the replacement of the facade of a uni-polar hegemony, the transition from the domination based on military and strategic power of the United States and NATO (hardware) to dispersed domination of the West as a whole (software). These are two versions – hard-hegemony and soft-hegemony. But in both cases the West, its civilization, its culture, its philosophy, its technologies, its political and economic institutes and procedures come out as the standard universal model. Over the long term, this will indicate the transfer of power to a “world government”, which will be dominated by all the same Western elites, the global oligarchy. It will then discard its mask and will act directly on behalf of the transnational forces. In some sense, non-polarity is worse than uni-polarity, though it would seem hard to believe.

Non-polarity itself, and even more sharply and rapidly, will not yet begin. For this, the world must go through the turmoil and trials until a desperate humanity itself cries for the world elite with a prayer for salvation. Prior to that, to weaken the power of the United States, world disasters occur, and war. Non-polar world under the control of a world government, consisting of direct representatives of the global oligarchy, is expected by many religious circles as the coming “of the kingdom of the Antichrist.”

As for the “shortcomings” of such a model, I believe that it is just “a great parody of” the sacred world empire, which Rene Guenon warned of in his work The Reign of Quantity and The Signs of the Times. This will be a global simulacrum. To recognize these “deficiencies” will not be so easy, otherwise opposition to “the Antichrist” would be too simple a matter, and the depth of his temptation would be insignificant.

The true alternative is a multi-polar world. Everything else – evil in the truest sense of the word.

Natella Speranskaja: The “counter-hegemony” by Robert Cox, who you mention in your book aims to expose the existing order in international relations and raise the rebellion against it. To do this, Cox called for the creation of counter-hegemonic bloc, which will include political actors who reject the existing hegemony. Have you developed the Fourth Political Theory as a kind of counter-hegemonic doctrine that could unite the rebels against the hegemony of the West?

Alexander Dugin: I am convinced that the Fourth Political Theory fits into the logic of building counter-hegemony, which Cox spoke of. By the way, also in the proximity of critical theory in the MO theory, and multi-polar world is a wonderful text by Alexandra Bovdunova, voiced at the Conference on the Theory of a Multipolar World in Moscow, Moscow State University on 25-26 April 2012.

4PT is not a complete doctrine, this is still the first steps toward the exit from the conceptual impasse in which we find ourselves in the face of liberalism, today rejected by more and more people around the world, in the collapse of the old anti-liberal political theories – Communism and Fascism. In a sense, the need for 4PT – is a sign of the times, and really cannot be disputed by anyone. Another matter, what will be 4PT in its final form. The temptation appears to build it as a syncretic combination of elements of previous anti-liberal doctrines and ideologies …

I am convinced that we should go another way. It is necessary to understand the root of the current hegemony. This coincides with the root of modernity as such, and it grows from the roots of modernity in all three pillars of political theories – liberalism, communism and fascism. To manipulate them to find an alternative to modernity and liberalism, respectively, and of the liberal hegemony of the West, is in my view, pointless. We must move beyond modernity in general, beyond the range of its political actors – individual, class, nation, state, etc.

Therefore 4PT as the basis of a counter-hegemonic planetary front should be constructed quite differently. Like the theory of a multipolar world 4PT operates with a new concept – “civilization”, but 4PT puts special emphasis on the existential aspect of it. Hence the most important, the central thesis of 4PT that its subject is the actor – Dasein. Every civilization, its Dasein, which means that it describes a specific set of existentials. On their basis, should be raised a new political theory generalized at the following level into a “multipolar federation of Dasein” as the concrete structure of counter-hegemony. In other words, the very counter-hegemony must be conceived existentially, as a field of war between the inauthentic globalization (global alienation) and the horizon of authentic peoples and societies in a multipolar world (the possibility of overcoming the alienation of civilizations).

Natella Speranskaja: When we talk about cognitive uprising, however, first of all, should our actions be aimed at the overthrow of the dictatorship of the West?

Alexander Dugin: The most important step is the beginning of the systematic preparation of a global revolutionary elite-oriented to multi-polarity 4PT. This elite must perform a critical function – to be a link between the local and global. At the local level we are talking about the masses and the clearest exponents of their local culture (religious leaders, philosophers, etc.). Often, these communities do not have a planetary perspective and simply defend their conservative identity before the onset of toxic globalization and Western imperialism.

Raising the masses and the traditionalist-conservatives to a realized uprising in the context of a complex union of a counter-hegemonistic block is extremely difficult. Simple conservatives and their supportive mass, for example, of the Islamic or Orthodox persuasion are unlikely to realize the necessity of alliances with the Hindus or the Chinese. This will be the play (and they are already actively playing it) of the globalists and their principle of “divide and conquer!” But the revolutionary elite, which is the elite, even within a particular traditionalist elite of society, should take the heartfelt deep and deliberate feelings of local identity and correlate it within a total horizon of multi-polarity, and the 4PT.

Without the formation of such an elite, the revolt against the post-modern world and the overthrow of the dictatorship of the West will not take place. Every time and everywhere the West has a problem, he will come to the aid of anti-Western forces, which, however, will be motivated by narrow bills to specific civilizational neighbors – most often, just as anti-Western as they are. So it will be and already is the instrumentalization of globalists of various conservative fundamentalist and nationalist movements. Islamic fundamentalists to help the West is one. European nationalists – is another. So a “unipolar moment” extends not only to exist in itself, but also playing the antagonistic forces against him. The overthrow of the dictatorship of the West will become possible only if this strategy will be sufficient enough to create or make appear a new counter-hegemonic elite. An initiative like Global Revolutionary Alliance – the unique example of really revolutionary and effective opposition to hegemony.

Natella Speranskaja: You have repeatedly said that Eurasianism is a strategic, philosophical, cultural and civilizational choice. Can we hope that the political course chosen by Vladimir Putin (establishment of a Eurasian Union) Is the first step towards a multipolar model?

Alexander Dugin: This is a difficult question. By himself, Putin and, especially, his environment, they act more out of inertia, without calling into question the legitimacy of the existing planetary status quo. Their goal – to win his and Russia’s rather appropriate place within the existing world order. But that is the problem: a truly acceptable place for Russia is not and cannot exist, because the “uni-polar moment”, as well as the globalists, stand for the de-sovereignization of Russia, eliminating it as an independent civilization and strategic pole.

This self-destruction seems to suit Dmitry Medvedev and his entourage (INSOR), for he was ready to reboot and go for almost all of it. Putin clearly understands the situation somewhat differently, and his criteria of “acceptability” is also different. He would most of all psychologically arrange a priority partnership with the West while maintaining the sovereignty of Russia. But this is something unacceptable under any circumstances to the unipolar globalists – practically or theoretically.

So Putin is torn between multipolarity – where he leads the orientation of sovereignty – and Atlanticism – where he leads the inertia and the tireless work of a huge network of influence that permeates all of the structure of Russian society. Here is the dilemma. Putin makes moves in both directions – he proclaims multi-polarity, the Eurasian Union, to protect the sovereignty of Russia, even spoke of the peculiarities of Russian civilization, strengthening vertical power, shows respect (if not more) to Orthodoxy, but on the other hand, surrounds himself with pro-American experts (eg, “Valdai Club”), rebuilds education and culture under the globalistic Western models, has a liberal economic policy and suffers comprador oligarchs, etc.

The field for maneuver Putin is constantly shrinking. The logic of the circumstances pushes him to a more unambiguous choice. Inside the country this uncertainty of course causes growing hostility, and his legitimacy falls.

Outside the country, the West only increases the pressure on Putin to persuade him towards globalism and the recognition of “unilateralism”, specifically – to cede his post to the Westerner Medvedev. So Putin, while continuing to fluctuate between multipolarity and Westernism, loses ground and support here and there.

The new period of his presidency will be very difficult. We will do everything we can to move it to a multipolar world, the Eurasian Union and 4PT. But we are not alone in Russian politics – against us for influence in Putin’s circles we have an army of liberals, agents of Western influence and the staff of the global oligarchy. For us, though, we have the People and the Truth. But behind them – a global oligarchy, money, lies, and, apparently, the father of lies. Nevertheless, vincit omnia veritas. That I have no doubt.

 

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Dugin, Alexander. “Civilization as Political Concept.” Interview by Natella Speranskaja. Euro-Synergies, 13 June 2012. <http://euro-synergies.hautetfort.com/archive/2012/06/09/civilization-as-political-concept.html >. The text of this interview was also found at the official Fourth Political Theory website: <http://www.4pt.su/en/content/civilization-political-concept >. (See this article in PDF format here: Civilization as Political Concept).

Notes on further reading: On the topics discussed in the above interview, one of Aleksandr Dugin’s most  well-known books is Четвёртая политическая теория (Санкт-Петербург & Москва: Амфора, 2009), which is available in English translation as The Fourth Political Theory (London: Arktos, 2012), in Spanish translation as La Cuarta Teoría Política (Molins de Rei, Barcelona: Nueva República, 2013), in German translation as Die Vierte Politische Theorie (London: Arktos, 2013), in French translation as La Quatrième Théorie Politique (Nantes: Éditions Ars Magna, 2012), in Portuguese translation as A Quarta Teoria Política (Curitiba: Editora Austral, 2012), in Romanian translation as A Patra Teorie Politică (Chișinău: Editura Universitatea Populară, 2014), in Greek translation as Η τέταρτη πολιτική θεωρία (Αθήνα: Έσοπτρον, 2013), and in Serbian translation as Четврта политичка теорија (Београд: MIR Publishing, 2013).

Also of note in English is Dugin’s book Eurasian Mission: Program Materials (Moscow: International Eurasian Movement, 2005 [2nd edition: London: Arktos, 2015]). For those who know French, an important book by Alexander Dugin has been published as  Pour une théorie du monde multipolaire (Nantes: Éditions Ars Magna, 2013), the French translation of the Russian original: теория многополярного мира (Москва: Евразийское движение, 2012). There is also a Portuguese translation of this work known as Teoria do Mundo Multipolar (Iaeg, 2012). On the theory of the multi-polar world in German, see Dugin’s Konflikte der Zukunft: Die Rückkehr der Geopolitik (Kiel: Arndt-Verlag, 2014). Also worth noting in French is Dugin’s books Le prophète de l’eurasisme (Paris: Avatar Éditions, 2006) and L’appel de L’Eurasie (Paris: Avatar Éditions, 2013). A Spanish version of the latter has been published as ¿Qué es el eurasismo? Una conversación de Alain de Benoist con Alexander Dugin (Tarragona: Ediciones Fides, 2014). It should also be noted that a deeper clarification of the Fourth Political Theory has also been published by Dugin (in Russian), titled Четвертый Путь (Москва: Академический проект, 2014).

A good introduction to Dugin and his ideas in the Spanish language can be found in Sebastian J. Lorenz’s Elementos, N° 70, “Alexander Dugin y la Cuarta Teoría Política: La Nueva Derecha Rusa Eurasiática” (Mayo 2014), <http://urkultur-imperium-europa.blogspot.com/2014/05/elementos-n-70-alexander-dugin-y-la.html >. (We have made Elementos Nº 70 available for download from our site here: Elementos Nº 70 – Dugin). For Spanish readers, the book ¿Qué es el eurasismo? (previously cited) also serves as a good introduction to Dugin’s thought, which augments the Elementos publication.

For more information, see the official Fourth Political Theory website: <http://www.4pt.su/ >.

 

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Necessity of Fourth Political Theory – Savin

Necessity of the Fourth Political Theory

By Leonid Savin

 

The present world financial crisis marks the conclusion of the damage done by the liberal ideology which, having appeared during the epoch of the Western Enlightenment, has for decades dominated most of the planet.

Disturbing voices and criticism started during the end of the last century, with the rise of such phenomena as globalisation and one-worldism. This criticism sounded not only from outside opponents – conservatives, Marxists and indigenous peoples- but started within the camp of the Western community. Researchers noticed that the modern shock of globalisation is a consequence of universal liberalism, which opposes any manifestation of distinctions. The ultimate program of liberalism is the annihilation of any distinctions. Hence, liberalism undermines not only cultural phenomena, but also the social organism itself. The logic of contemporary Western liberalism is that of the universal market devoid of any culture other than the production and consumption process.[1]

Historical experience has proved that the Western liberal world has tried to forcibly impose its will upon all others. According to this idea, all public systems of the Earth are variants of the Western – liberal – system[2] and their distinctive features should disappear before the approach of the conclusion of this world epoch.[3].

Jean Baudrillard also states that this is not a clash of civilisations, but an almost innate resistance between one universal homogeneous culture and those who resist this globalisation.[4].

Universal Ideologies

Apart from liberalism two more ideologies are known for having tried to achieve world supremacy: Namely Communism (i.e. Marxism in its various aspects) and Fascism/National Socialism. As Alexander Gelyevich Dugin fairly notices, Fascism has arisen after the two ideologies and has disappeared before them. After the disintegration of the USSR the Marxism that was born in the 19^th Century has been definitely discredited as well. Liberalism based mainly on individualism and an atomistic society, human rights and the State-leviathan described by Hobbes emerged because of bellum omnium contra omnes [5] and has long held on.

Here it is necessary to analyse the relation of the aforesaid ideologies in the contexts of the temporary times and loci from which they emerged.

We know that Marxism was a somewhat futuristic idea – Marxism prophesied the future victory of Communism at a time that nonetheless remained uncertain. In this regard it is a messianic doctrine, seeing the inevitability of its victory that would usher the culmination and end of the historical process. But Marx was a false prophet and the victory never eventuated.

National Socialism and Fascism on the contrary, tried to recreate the abundance of a mythic Golden Age, but with a modernist form[6]. Fascism and National Socialism were attempts to usher in a new time cycle, laying the basis for a new Civilisation in the aftermath of what was seen as a cultural decline and death of the Western Civilisation (thus most likely the idea of the Thousand-year Reich). This was abortive too.

Liberalism (like Marxism) proclaimed the end of history, most cogently described by Francis Fukuyama (the End of history and the last man)[7]. Such an end, nonetheless, never took place; and we have instead a nomadic-like “information society” composed of atomised egoist individuals,[8] that consume avidly the fruits of techno-culture. Moreover, tremendous economic collapses take place worldwide; violent conflicts occur (many local revolts, but also long-term wars on an international scale); and so disappointment dominates our world rather than the universal utopia promised in the name of “progress.”[9]

Fourth Political Theory and the Context of Time

How should the experts of the new fourth political theory frame their analyses in the context of historical time epochs? It should be the union with eternity about which conservative-revolutionary theorist Arthur Moeller van der Brück espoused in his book Das Dritte Reich.

If humans consider themselves and the people to which they belong not as momentary, temporal entities but in an ‘eternity perspective’, then they will be freed from the disastrous consequences of the liberal approach to human life, whereby human beings are considered from a strictly temporal viewpoint. If A. Moeller van der Brück’s premise is achieved, we shall have a new political theory the fruits of which will be simultaneously both conservative and bearing the new values that our world desperately needs.

From such an historical perspective, it is possible to understand the links between the emergence of an ideology within a particular historical epoch; or what has been called the zeitgeist or “spirit of the age.”

Fascism and National Socialism saw the foundations of history in the state (Fascism) or race (Hitlerian National socialism). For Marxism it was the working class and economic relations between classes. Liberalism on the other hand, sees history in terms of the atomised individual detached from a complex of cultural heritage and inter-social contact and communication. However, nobody considered as the subject of history the People as Being, with all the richness of intercultural links, traditions, ethnic features and worldview.

If we consider various alternatives, even nominally ‘socialist’ countries have adopted liberal mechanisms and patterns that exposed regions with a traditional way of life to accelerated transformation, deterioration and outright obliteration. The destruction of the peasantry, religion and family bonds by Marxism were manifestations of this disruption of traditional organic societies, whether in Maoist China or the USSR under Lenin and Trotsky.

This fundamental opposition to tradition embodied in both liberalism and Marxism can be understood by the method of historical analysis considered above: Marxism and liberalism both emerged from the same zeitgeist in the instance of these doctrines, from the spirit of money.[10]

Alternatives to Liberalism

Several attempts to create alternatives to neo-Liberalism are now visible – the Lebanese socialism of Jamaheria, the political Shiism in Iran where the main state goal is the acceleration of the arrival of the Mahdi and the revision of socialism in Latin America (reforms in Bolivia are especially indicative). These anti-Liberal responses, nonetheless, are limited within the borders of the relevant, single statehood.

Ancient Greece is the source of all three theories of political philosophy. It is important to understand that at the beginning of philosophical thought the Greeks considered the primary question of Being. However they risked obfuscation by the nuances of the most complicated relation between being and thinking, between pure being (Seyn) and its expression in existence (Seiende), between the human being (Dasein) and being in itself (Sein).[11]

Hence, the renunciation of (neo)Liberalism, and the revision of old categories and, perhaps, of the whole of Western Philosophy are necessary. We should develop a new political ideology that, according to Alain de Benoist, will be the New (Fourth) Nomos of the Earth. The French philosopher is right in remarking that the positive reconsideration of collective identity is necessary; for our foe is not “the other”, but an ideology which destroys all identities[12].

It is noteworthy that three waves of globalisation have been the corollaries of the aforementioned three political theories (Marxism, Fascism, and Liberalism). As a result, we need after it a new political theory, which would generate the Fourth Wave: the re-establishment of (every) People with its eternal values. And of course, after the necessary philosophical consideration, political action must proceed.

 

Notes

[1] Gustav Massiah, « Quelle response a la mondialisation » , in Après-demain (4-5-1996), p.199.

[2] For example, the insistence that all states and peoples should adopt the Westminster English parliamentary system as a universal model regardless of ancient traditions, social structures and hierarchies.

[3] « Les droits de l´homme et le nouvel occidentalisme » in L’Homme et la société (numéro spécial [1987], p.9

[4] Jean Baudrillard, Power Inferno, Paris: Galilée, 2002. Also see for example Jean Baudrillard, “The Violence of the Global” (< http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=385&gt;).

[5] In English: War of everybody against every body.

[6] Hence the criticism of National Socialism and Fascism by Right-Traditionalists such as Julius Evola. See K R Bolton, Thinkers of the Right (Luton, 2003), p. 173..

[7] Francis Fukuyama The End of History and the Last Man , Penguin Books, 1992.

[8] G Pascal Zachary, The Global Me, NSW, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 2000.

[9] Clive Hamilton, Affluenza: When Too Much is Never Enough, NSW, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 2005.

[10] This is the meaning of Spengler’s statement that, “Herein lies the secret of why all radical (i.e. poor) parties necessarily become the tools of the money-powers, the Equites, the Bourse. Theoretically their enemy is capital, but practically they attack, not the Bourse, but Tradition on behalf of the Bourse. This is as true today as it was for the Gracchuan age, and in all countries…” Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, (London : George Allen & Unwin , 1971), Vol. 2, p. 464.

[11] See Martin Heidegger on these terms.

[12] – Ален де Бенуа (Alain de Benoist), Против Либерализма (Against Liberalism), Saint-Petersburg : Амфора, 2009, pp.14 -15.

 

———–

Savin, Leonid. “Necessity of the Fourth Political Theory.” Ab Aeterno, No. 3 (June 2013), pp. 48-50. Republished online at the Russian “Conservative Research Center”: <http://konservatizm.org/konservatizm/theory/290810000649.xhtml >.

Notes: Leonid Savin is the Chief Editor of “Geopolitics” at the Department of Sociology and International Relations Faculty of Sociology, Moscow State University, Russia. Savin is aslo the Editor-in-Chief of the “Geopolitics of postmodernism” internet media (www.geopolitica.ru) and is the Chief of Staff at the International Social Movement “Eurasia Movement”, which maintains a website at <http://www.evrazia.info >.

Note on further reading: For a brief discussion of Dugin’s theories and also a listing of major translated works by him, see Natella Speranskaya’s interview with Dugin: <https://neweuropeanconservative.wordpress.com/2014/06/27/civilization-as-political-concept-dugin/ >. On the idea of the “Fourth Political Theory”, see also Olivia Pistun’s review of Dugin’s book on the subject: <https://neweuropeanconservative.wordpress.com/2014/06/18/review-of-dugins-4th-political-theory-pistun/ >.

 

Thoughts on GRECE’s Manifesto – Heffernan

Some Thoughts on GRECE’s Manifesto of the New Right: Inspiration from France

By Ian Heffernan

The Centre for Research and Study on European Civilisation (Groupement de Recherche et d’Études sur la Civilisation Européene – GRECE) was founded in France in 1968. It is the most prominent representative of the European New Right (Nouvelle Droite) – which is in no way to be confused with the Anglo-American free-market New Right – and is closely identified with its leading member, Alain de Benoist.

The European New Right is, in de Benoist’s own words, ‘in no sense a political movement, but rather a current of thought and cultural action’ (Interview for Right Now magazine, April 1997 – echoing the opening lines of the ‘Manifesto of the New Right’ below). Its activities encompass the publishing of magazines and books, the organisation of conferences and debates and so forth, rather than either electioneering of paramilitary action. De Benoist himself has published something in the region of forty books – among them Vu de Droite (Seen from the Right) for which he was awarded a prize by the Académie Française in 1978 – and either founded or been associated with a number of magazines (Nouvelle École, Éléments and Krisis).

De Benoist has in these endeavours been particularly influenced by the theories of the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci was a critic of the Marxist belief that power stems simply from the ownership of capital. He stressed instead the importance of people like journalists, academics and teachers in creating a climate of ideas which would be the precursor to successful political change. De Benoist set out to institute a ‘Gramsciism of the Right’, in which respect he met with some degree of success. In particular when in 1978 he and other key members of the New Right were appointed to the staff of the French daily Le Figaro. These appointments helped to spread the ideas of the New Right far more widely than would otherwise have been possible. The outcry from the left at this only served to increase publicity and ensured the ideas were even more widely disseminated. All this is credited with preparing the ground for the electoral breakthrough of the National Front in France in the early 1980s.

So what are these ideas? The defining document of the New Right is GRECE’s ‘Manifesto of the New Right’ (Manifeste de la Nouvelle Droite), co-written by de Benoist and Charles Champetier. I think it justifies examination in some detail.

The Manifesto is divided into three sections, preceded by a short introduction. The first section provides an analysis of the ills of present-day society, the second expresses de Benoist and Champetier’s vision of man and the world and the third states their position on major contemporary issues.

The introduction opens by making it clear that the New Right is a school of thought rather than a political movement. And taking up the Gramscian theme, the writers stress the importance of ideas in shaping human history. Philosophers, theologians, political thinkers and their like have through their ideas brought about revolutions the effects of which are still felt today. The history of ideas – as de Benoist says in the Right Now interview (following Herder) – is the key to the history of deeds.

De Benoist and Champetier also bring in another vital theme in the introduction – the need to think across accepted political divisions. We are living in an age, they tell us, in which traditional institutions (the political parties, the unions etc) are losing their power and the traditional left-right dichotomy is – along with other similar categorisations – becoming obsolete. In the fluidity and uncertainty of the modern world they seek therefore to develop a ‘transversal’ (transversal) mode of thought which ignores these decaying mental barriers.

The first of the three main sections of the Manifesto begins by declaring that we are today at a historical turning point: the end of modernity. How do the writers justify this rather startling claim?

They start by telling us exactly what they mean by ‘modernity’. It is defined as the political and philosophical movement of the last three centuries of western history, and ascribed five principal characteristics: individualism, ‘massification’ (i.e. the adoption of standardised behaviour and lifestyles), the triumph of scientific over religious interpretations of the world, the triumph of the mercantile mentality and technology, and the planet-wide spread of a model of society – the western one – presumed the sole rationally possible.

The various schools of political thought of modernity may differ on many things, de Benoist and Champetier say, but all agree on this: that there exists a sole and universal solution to social, moral and political questions. Humanity must realise its historical unity, and in this respect the diversity of the world becomes an obstacle and what differentiates men from one another must be eliminated. Modernity has tried therefore by all possible means to tear individuals from their surroundings in order to universalise them and – introducing a theme that is a common thread throughout de Benoist’s many works – the most effective means it has used to do this is the market.

De Benoist and Champetier go on to outline what they see as the crisis of modernity. Its central values – liberty and equality – have been betrayed. Cut off from the communities which protect them and give sense and form to their existence, individuals are subject to the iron rule of immense mechanisms (the market, technology etc) in relation to which their liberty is purely formal. And the promise of equality has brought on the one hand barbarous communist regimes and on the other capitalist societies which give equality in principle but in practice allow huge inequalities.

As for the idea of progress – the promise of an ever-improving future – for many this future is not now full of hope but rather of fear. Each generation faces a world different from that which the previous one faced. The speed of change produces anxiety not happiness.

We are living in the most empty civilisation in human history, the writers say: adspeak is our paradigm language, all is commercialised, technology rules and criminality, violence and incivility are widespread.

This shows that modernity is drawing to a close, according to de Benoist and Champetier. We are entering a period of post-modernity which will be not so much a return to what has gone before but rather a rediscovery of certain pre-modern values but now looked at in a post-modern way.

In the second section of the Manifesto that most vital and most controversial of contemporary issues – race – begins to make its presence felt.

Man’s belonging to the human species is always expressed through a particular context we are told. Humanity is plural by nature – not one race. Diversity is of its very essence. Differences between cultures are neither an illusion, nor transitory, nor accidental, nor of trivial importance. All of which will have our anti-racist ideologues foaming at the mouth.

Human existence, the writers go on to tell us, is also inextricably linked to the communities and social groups in which it is set, the most basic of these being the extended family. This is an idea which would be anathema, they say, to the modern individualist and universalist who associates community with hierarchy, parochialism and claustrophobia.

In reality, though, modernity has not set men free by breaking the old bonds of family, locality, race, religion etc. It has, de Benoist and Champetier tell us (taking up again a theme from the first section of the Manifesto), just submitted them to different constraints – and harder ones at that because more distant, impersonal and demanding. In becoming more solitary man has also become more vulnerable and powerless. He has no sense of where to place himself in the world. The great project of emancipation has resulted in alienation on a massive scale. We must therefore reinstate the idea of community.

And on the economy again: contrary to what liberals and Marxists suppose, the writers assert, the economy has never formed the ‘infrastructure’ of society. In pre-modern societies the economy was embedded within and contextualised by the rest of human activity. Though it is undeniable that economic development has brought benefits it will eventually lead us to an impasse, not least because the world has finite resources.

De Benoist and Champetier say that the commercialisation of the world in the last few centuries has been one of the most important phenomena in human history and that its decommercialisation will be one of the great issues of the twenty-first century. The economy must be recontextualised. All the other important elements must be put back into the equation – ecological equilibrium and everything else. Even one might venture – though they do not mention it directly – the greatest bogeyman of all: race.

And there is a corresponding critique of the idea of universal human rights. Rights are social, we are told. They are only conceivable within a specific setting. Rights, like the economy, must be put back within a social context. What might our rapidly-proliferating human rights gurus and missionaries think of this?

Towards the end of the second section de Benoist and Champetier come back to the subject of diversity. They stress again that diversity is inherent in life itself – that there exists a plurality of races, languages, customs and religions – and that there are two opposing attitudes to this. There are those who believe such a diversity is a burden and always seek to reduce men to what they have in common and there are those – like the New Right – who believe differences are riches that should be preserved and cultivated. A good system, say the writers, is one that transmits at least as many differences as it has received.

The word ‘diversity’ here is quite rightly recaptured from our present rulers and their entourage of race relations experts. The New Right are the true upholders of diversity. When the proponents of our present multi-racial society use this word – as they so frequently do – they are being disingenuous. Racial diversity for these people is not something of value in itself. It is just a stepping-stone to their ultimate goal – the destruction of race through mass inter-breeding (the mixed-race society, one might say).

De Benoist and Champetier also take two other important and sensitive concepts – imperialism and ethnocentrism – and show just who stands where on these today. The attempt by our political class to impose the social and economic system and moral standards (human rights) of the west on the rest of the planet is the modern-day equivalent of the crusades or colonialism. It is an imperialist and ethnocentric movement which seeks to efface all differences through the imposition of one supposedly superior model. It is the New Right who are its opponents.

But unstoppable though our leaders’ vision of society seems at present there are growing signs that they will not succeed. This is not the ‘end of history’ whereby the western model of society finally and permanently triumphs over all competing versions. Other civilisations are on the rise. The new century will see the birth of a multi-polar world in which power will be defined as the ability to resist the influence of other cultures rather than to impose one’s own. Let us hope they are correct about this!

The third and final section expresses the New Right’s position on a range of contemporary issues. The spread is wide and includes gender, democracy, Europe, the role of work in society, the modern urban environment, ecology and freedom of speech. I just want to concentrate here on a few points most relevant to my own interests (principally racial issues).

De Benoist and Champetier express their opposition to both homogenisation and tribalism and their support instead for what they term ‘strong identities’ (des identités fortes). Homogenisation, they say, leads to extreme reactions – chauvinistic nationalism, tribal savagery and the like. By denying individuals the right to an identity the western system has paradoxically given birth to hysterical forms of self-affirmation. The question of identity is sure to become more and more important over the coming decades. Who could doubt that they are right about this?

And they continue by saying that the New Right is the defender of the cause of peoples. It defends not only its own difference but the right of others to be different too. The right to difference is not a means of excluding others for being different.

The right to an identity or the right to difference. A new human right? A universal right which is not universal, one might say. It is interesting to note that this type of right also appears, for example, in the programme of the Austrian Freedom Party where it is termed the right to a cultural identity.

De Benoist and Champetier go on to make clear the distinction between the right to difference and racism. Racism, they say, is a theory which holds that there exist between races inequalities which mean that one can distinguish ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ races, that the value of an individual can be deduced from which racial group he or she belongs to, and that race is the central explaining factor of human history. All three of these assertions, the writers maintain, are false. Races differ but one cannot put them in a hierarchy.

Opposed to racism de Benoist and Champetier distinguish two very different forms of anti-racism: a universalist form and a differentialist form. The first, they say, is as bad as the racism it denounces. It values in peoples only what they have in common. These kind of anti-racists – the ones with whom we are all only too familiar, sadly – are incapable of recognising and respecting differences. Differentialist anti-racism, on the other hand – the New Right kind – considers the plurality of the human race to be a positive thing. The New Right, in short, rejects both exclusion and assimilation, the writers say. Neither apartheid nor the melting-pot are for them desirable forms of society.

But they then make it quite clear where they stand on immigration. In view of its rapidity and massive scale it is, they say, incontestably a negative phenomenon. And the responsibility for the problem lies not principally with the immigrants themselves but with the western system which has reduced man ‘à l’état de marchandise délocalisable’ (to the status of an uprootable commodity). Immigration is desirable neither for the immigrants themselves nor for the peoples of the receiving nations who are confronted with unwished-for and often brutal modifications to their environment. The problems of developing nations are not resolved by the large-scale transfer of population to the developed world. The New Right, we are told, therefore favours a restrictive immigration policy.

De Benoist and Champetier go on to say that as regards the immigrant population in France today it would be illusory to expect their mass departure (something which I could never accept in relation to the immigrant population of Britain, France or any other northern European country). But the writers declare themselves firmly in favour of immigrants being encouraged to retain their own cultures, rather than their being pressurised into integration – which I could hardly disagree with at least as a stop-gap or second-best measure.

There is just one further point I would like to pick out. Towards the end of the Manifesto – during a critique of modern capitalism – de Benoist and Champetier do a bit of very important transversal thinking. Taking up a cause which is normally thought of as belonging to the left they call for the cancellation of third world debt, the freeing of developing economies from the dictates of the World Bank and IMF and other changes to the relationship between the developed and developing world.

This kind of transversal thinking is not quite unique – there are elements of it in the programmes of many major radical right parties in northern Europe (the National Front in France, the Flemish Bloc in Belgium, the Freedom Party in Austria and the Danish People’s Party, for example). You will also find such thinking in the programme of the Federation for American Immigration Reform and, though approached from a very different angle, in the famous speech given by the late Bernie Grant MP in the House of Commons in December 1995 in which he advocated government assistance for people from the Caribbean to return home. It is always welcome to see people prepared to ignore obsolescent political divisions in this way.

The Manifesto provides a strong foundation for the modern radical right. One can draw a huge amount of inspiration from it – for example, as regards the need for transversal thinking (as demonstrated above), or from the way the writers quite rightfully reclaim the word ‘diversity’, or from their analysis of what racism really means.

It seems to me, in fact, that de Benoist, Champetier and other like-minded people are the only true opponents of globalisation in the west. Their sole rival in this respect is the green movement. But greens are inconsistent in their opposition to globalisation. Whilst they are staunch opponents of economic globalisation they also tend, bizarrely, to be among the most enthusiastic supporters of the globalisation of people – i.e. of increased immigration, particularly the de facto mass immigration scheme known as the asylum system, and of the multi-racial society generally (this, incidentally, is a mirror image of the criticism that is often made of Enoch Powell – that his views were inconsistent because he opposed immigration and the multi-racial society yet was at the same time a strong supporter of capitalism).

There are things I would disagree with in the Manifesto too. Not only the dismissal of the possibility of the departure of non-white immigrants but also the pre-eminent position accorded to the market as regards responsibility for our present ills. I would put the largest share of the blame on the perverse doctrine of universalist anti-racism with the capitalist economic system as its hand maiden (it is the economic system that goes naturally with such a credo). After all, as I have pointed out elsewhere, how many non-Oriental immigrants are there in the paradigm capitalist society of Hong Kong, or in Japan? Though they have the most capitalist of economies they have relatively few immigrants because they do not suffer from the sickness of universalist anti-racism.

So when are the kind of ideas contained in the Manifesto going to be taken up by a political organisation in Britain? When is there going to be some concrete, pragmatic initiative? The creation of an organisation which displays similar transversal thinking in its programme. And one too, I would argue, which focuses very much on the tackling of the most sensitive and difficult issue of all – race – and does so in a more daring and forthright manner than de Benoist and Champetier. We had better hope it is soon.

 

—————–

This article by Ian Heffernan appeared in the October 2001 issue of Middle American News in the US under the title “French Manifesto Could Be Basis For A New Political Movement.” Text retrieved from: <http://home.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/debenoist/alain11.html >.

Note: See also on our website the complete “Manifesto of the French New Right”: <https://neweuropeanconservative.wordpress.com/2012/10/20/manifesto-of-the-new-right-benoist-champetier/ >.

 

 

Ethnic & Racial Relations – Tudor

Ethnic & Racial Relations: Ethnic States, Separatism, & Mixing

By Lucian Tudor

Translations: Español (see note at the bottom of this page)

In our previous essay, “Race, Identity, Community,”[1] we discussed a number of subjects: most importantly, the varying levels and relations of ethnic and cultural groups, the matter of cultural communication, openness, and closure, the relationship between race and culture, the necessity of resisting miscegenation for the sake of ethno-cultural stability, the error of individualism and the value of social holism, and the importance of the sense of community to ethnic and racial identity.

In the present essay, we will not reiterate the major points which we made before, except those which are relevant to the matters discussed. The purpose of this essay is to serve as an extension of the previous one and to expand upon certain points which were not made sufficiently clear or covered properly, and it thus must be read in the context of the preceding essay. Here we aim to discuss the topic of social, cultural, and political relations between ethnic and racial groups, the problem and varieties of social and biological mixing, and the practices and forms of ethnic and racial separatism.

Identity and Interaction

Particularities and particular identities define human beings; contrary to egalitarian and universalist ideology, one cannot be truly human without a belonging to particular groups, including religious, political, cultural, and racial groups. Of course, belonging to a group and possessing a conscious identification with this belonging are two different things (just as we can say that there is a conscious and unconscious aspect to identity). History and observation show that ethnic, cultural, and racial identities come into being and are awakened by awareness of and interaction with other ethnic and racial groups. As Alain de Benoist wrote: “The group and the individual both need to be confronted by ‘significant others.’ Therefore, it is nonsense to believe that identity would be better preserved without this confrontation; actually, it is the opposite: confrontation makes identity possible. Other subjects make a subject become subject.” [2]

Thus, interaction with other types of human beings is an essential part of human existence, since they draw their very awareness of being who they are by this interaction. Furthermore, as we have already mentioned in our previous work (“Race, Identity, Community”), the various cultures (in terms of both smaller and larger groups) develop and are enriched not only by internal development, but also by interaction with and the exchange of products and ideas with other cultures or peoples. It is for these reasons that it is justified to assert that “the originality and the richness of the human heritages of this world are nourished by their differences and their deviations . . .” [3] as Pierre Krebs stated, similarly to many other New Right authors.

Of course, recognizing the value of diversity and differences, and appreciating these differences in other peoples and learning from them, does not mean that all peoples of the world can or should be appreciated equally. It is, of course, perfectly natural that one people will find certain foreign peoples to be unattractive in some cases, and will distance themselves from them. This is why, although diversity is valuable, the present egalitarian and multiculturalist propaganda that all cultures and ethnic groups must be appreciated and accepted equally, is simply wrong and absurd. No healthy people show equal liking for all others, although it is possible to respect all foreign peoples even if one does not treasure them all. It is, for example, completely natural that a European may be repulsed by the culture of an African tribe but simultaneously feel admiration for East Asian culture, while still according to each people a certain level of respect.

It is also a fact of life that without barriers, without a certain level of separation from other peoples, and without a specific territory on which to live as a distinct and relatively homogeneous people, an ethnic or a racial group would disappear through mixture or assimilation into other groups. The extreme modern liberal-globalist propaganda advocating complete openness and mixing between cultures and peoples, using as its justification historical examples of cultural exchanges, is fallacious because normal cultural dialogue and interaction never involved complete openness but always a limited form of interaction.

Total openness and mixing eliminates identities because peoples do not merely change through such processes, but lose who they are or merge with another people entirely. To quote Benoist, “it is the diversity of the human race which creates its richness, just as it is diversity which makes communication possible and gives it value. Diversity of peoples and cultures exist, however, only because, in the past, these various peoples and cultures were relatively isolated from one another.”[4] Culture transforms over time due to internal creativity and development as well as through communication with other cultures, but contact with other cultures must always be limited and imperfect, otherwise the very integrity of a culture is undermined. Therefore, “Identity is not what never changes, but, on the contrary, it is what allows one to constantly change without giving up who one is.”[5]

The Problem of Mixing

It needs to be recognized that mixing, both the social form (so-called “integration”) as well as the biological form (miscegenation), is a complicated human problem. Mixing has occurred all throughout history in a variety of forms and circumstances, as a result of different forms of close interaction between different ethnic and racial groups. The questions of why mixtures occur and whether this is a normal and acceptable phenomenon therefore naturally present themselves, and they must be answered with the proper level of sophistication in order for us to defeat our opponents.

First, it needs to be recognized that mixture between two different peoples belonging to the same race is a distinct matter from mixture between two different races, and involves different principles and circumstances. Ethnicities belonging to the same racial type share the same biological and spiritual background, which serves as a larger foundation for identity which connects them. In cases where two or more ethnic groups of the same racial type no longer live separately and choose to mix socially (from which intermarriage inevitably follows), it is oftentimes because these groups – within a particular time and conditions – have become closely connected culturally and spiritually or because they no longer feel their distinctions to be significant.

This phenomenon cannot be regarded as abnormal and wrong any more than when two racially related ethnic groups choose to separate instead of mix, because both occurrences are rather frequent in history and do not normally have negative effects to identity (even if identity undergoes some change in this). For example, many European ethnic groups (the English, the French, the Balkan peoples, etc.) are the result of an inter-European mixture that occurred centuries ago, although they also have a right to separate. Thus, within a race, separation and mixing can both be regarded as normal phenomena, depending on the circumstances and the nature of the ethnic groups in question.

On the other hand, between different races, mixing can be argued to be an abnormal phenomenon because the relations and effects are different; the state of normality is to desire racial separation. Contrary to the assertions of many egalitarian multiculturalist (“multiculturalism” here signifying the belief and practice of ethnic mixing) propagandists, racial identity and the concept of race is not a modern phenomenon, for, as Benoist pointed out, “the idea of race is almost as old as humanity itself.”[6] So it is clear that recognizing the importance of race and practicing racial separatism does in fact have a historical and even a universal basis; human beings were never in a condition where they completely lacked racial feelings and mixed freely.

The reasons for racial mixing (social and, following that, biological) throughout history are complex and differ based on the circumstances in question. In some cases, it was due to a powerful, militant people conquering another people and forcefully reproducing with the women of the conquered in order to secure their conquest through breeding. In other cases, as some authors have argued, it is due to the decadence of a people who have lost certain spiritual qualities, their sense of differentiation, and their racial identity, and have as a result chosen to mix with other peoples, even those racially different (these other peoples may be immigrants or conquered peoples who formerly lived separated). Of course, where mixing occurs willingly, both sides have surrendered their unique identity.[7] There may be other causes, and in a sense racial miscegenation is inevitable because it is always bound to occur at certain times and places where different races come into contact (even if only to a small extent).

However, it is always important to recognize and reassert that despite its occurrence throughout history, for whatever reasons or causes, race-mixing is not a rule. It is actually rather abnormal, and that it occurs all throughout history does not invalidate this fact. Because the identity, basic anthropological and psychological features, and character of ethnic groups and cultures are influenced by racial type, and because of the spiritual and sociological dimension of race, race-mixing means a deep and profound change completely transforming a family or, when it occurs on a larger scale, a people. This idea cannot be associated with biological reductionism, which we must reject as fallacious; even though culture, society, and cultural identity cannot be reduced to race, and race is only one factor among many which affects them, racial background is still undoubtedly an important factor.

Thus, since preserving their racial type means maintaining who they are, their identity as a folk, peoples are thus historically compelled to resist race-mixing and to separate from other races. It is not only for the sake of their survival that they are so compelled, but also because of the primal impulse to live with their own people in their communities. As Krebs pointed out, “modern ethology clearly established the innate tendency of man to identify with individuals who resemble him . . .”[8] There is, furthermore, also the fact that, as Evola pointed out, “blood and ethnic purity are factors that are valued in traditional civilizations too,” which means that the maintaining physical racial type is a practice which holds a meta-historical value.[9]

We should note that, of course, a people which goes through minor amounts of race-mixing does not lose its identity or its belonging to its original racial type. For example, the Eastern Slavic peoples and Southern Europeans peoples who have endured some level of miscegenation historically still belong to the White-European race, both in terms of their general anthropological-physical type as well as their racial and ethnic identity. Race is defined not by a strict purity, but by the possession of a general physical form (the general anthropological features associated with a race), the general spiritual form associated with it, and the cultural style and identity which is sociologically linked with race.[10]

It also needs to be mentioned here that resisting race-mixing is not necessarily a “racist” phenomenon (which means racial supremacism), because placing value on racial differences and practicing racial separatism can and has taken on non-racist forms. It is clear that it is extremely naïve and erroneous to associate all forms of racial separatism with racism and inter-racial hostility.[11] As Guillaume Faye once wrote:

In effect, just as it is normal and legitimate for the Arab, the Black African, the Japanese to desire to remain themselves, to recognize that an African is necessarily a black man or an Asian a yellow man, it is legitimate, natural and necessary to recognize the right of the European to reject multiracialism and to affirm himself as white man. To link this position with racism is an inadmissible bluster. The real racists are, on the contrary, those who organize in Europe the establishment of a multiracial society.[12]

Practices of Separatism

Evidently, racial and ethnic separatism has taken on a variety of forms throughout history. One commonly recognized form is the creation of a class or caste system, separating people into different castes based on their racial background (or, in a typical analogous system, based on ethnic or cultural background). The class structure of racial separation, which is usually the result of conquest, can be seen in numerous cases throughout history, including in Classical civilization, in certain ancient Near Eastern civilizations, in India, and in many parts of Central and South America after European colonization. The most negative feature of this practice is obviously that it involved “racism” and subjugation, although it also had the positive effect of preserving the racial types which have formed, even after miscegenation (the new, mixed racial types; mulattoes and mestizos), due to the fact that it discouraged race-mixing by class separation.[13]

Another form of separatism is what is commonly recognized as ethnic “nationalism,” which has its primary basis in ethno-cultural identity, although it is oftentimes accompanied by racial identity where inter-racial contact exists. Nationalism is defined, in the most simple terms, as the belief that ethnic groups or nationalities (in the cultural sense) are the key category of human beings and that they should live under their own independent states. It implies complete and total separation of ethnic groups into separate nations. Nationalism is oftentimes associated with ethnic chauvinism, inter-ethnic hostility, imperialism, and irredentism, although it is important to remember that there have been certain select forms of nationalism throughout history that were not at all chauvinistic and imperialistic, so it is erroneous to assume that it always takes on these negative features.

However, “nationalism” is a problematic term because it has been defined in different and sometimes contradictory ways. In one, very generic sense, nationalism means simply the desire of a people to live separately from others, under its own state and by rule of leaders of its own ethnic background; in essence, a basic ethnic separatism and desire for independence. In this sense, nationalism is a very ancient idea and practice, since all across history one can find cases where a people of one particular ethnic background desired to be independent from the rule of another different people and fought for this independence. This is not, however, the way nationalism is always defined, and aside from the fact that it is sometimes defined as being necessarily chauvinistic, it is also often defined in a certain manner that makes it particularly an early modern phenomenon.

Many New Right as well as Traditionalist authors have defined nationalism as a form of state in which the “nation” is politically or culturally absolutised, at the expense of smaller local or regional cultural differences, and regarding other nations as completely foreign and of lesser value. This form of “nationalism” is exemplified by the Jacobin nation-state and form of sovereignty (since the French Revolution was a key force in initiating the rise of this state form), and is identified by the elimination of sub-ethnic differences within its borders and the regard for differences with other peoples or nationalities as absolute. Naturally, this form of nationalism has the consequence of creating hostility and conflict between nations because of these ideological and political features.[14]

From the “Radical Traditionalist” perspective, exemplified by Evola’s thought, nationalism is an anomaly, a deviation from valid state forms. It is regarded as negative, firstly, because this form of traditionalism considers ethnicity and nationality as secondary qualities in human beings; although they have some level of importance, they are not valid as primary features around which to organize states and leadership, which should be based solely upon the values of elitism, aristocracy, and spiritual authority. Nationalism also contradicts the practice of the Empire – the imperial state, which is not necessarily imperialistic – since nationalism means the absolutisation of the “nation,” whereas the traditional empire is organized as a supra-national federalistic union with a central spiritual authority.[15] According to Evola,

The scheme of an empire in a true and organic sense (which must clearly be distinguished from every imperialism, a phenomenon that should be regarded as a deplorable extension of nationalism) . . . safeguarded the principles of both unity and multiplicity. In this world, individual States have the character of partial organic units, gravitating around . . . a principle of unity, authority, and sovereignty of a different nature from that which is proper to each particular State . . . due to its super-ordained nature, would be such as to leave wide room for nationalities according to their natural and historical individuality.[16]

In the imperial state, which Evola asserts is the true traditional model of the state, ethnic or national groups are thus separated federally; different peoples live under the same state and serve the same ultimate monarchical authority, but they live in separate parts of the kingdom or empire. To quote one his key works: “the Middle Ages [and also certain ancient civilizations] knew nationalities but not nationalisms. Nationality is a natural factor that encompasses a certain group of common elementary characteristics that are retained both in the hierarchical differentiation and in the hierarchical participation, which they do not oppose.”[17]

Identitarian Separatism

The European New Right and the Identitarian Movement, the latter being closely related to and derived from the New Right,[18] also advocates the practice of federalism, although their thinkers have some disagreements with the claims of “Radical Traditionalists” concerning certain essential principles. The “New Rightist” concept of federalism involves the vision of a federation (or better, confederation, which more clearly expresses this decentralized type of federalism) which is based upon the principles of subsidiarity, of granting autonomy to its regions, and of local and regional political structures holding the power that is due to them, while the central authority rules primarily when decisions affecting the whole state must be made. This form of state and sovereignty “implies plurality, autonomy, and the interlacing of levels of power and authority.”[19] Subsidiarity and allowing decisions to be made at lower levels are also features of the Radical Traditionalist concept of the federalist state, but in contrast they assert the importance of the ultimate authority of the sovereign (the central ruler) far more.

Aside from supporting a partly different conception of sovereignty and authority from Radical Traditionalists, Identitarians and New Rightists also support the practice of a participatory and organic form of democracy as the ideal state form (which, it must be noted, is still compatible with respect for authority and hierarchy). This idea does indeed have a historical basis, for, as Benoist pointed out, “governments with democratic tendencies have appeared throughout history . . . . Whether in Rome, in the Iliad, in Vedic India or among the Hittites, already at a very early date we find the existence of popular assemblies for both military and civil organisation. Moreover, in Indo-European society the King was generally elected . . .”[20]

Furthermore, New Rightists and Identitarians strongly assert the value of ethnic, cultural, and racial differences and identities, and therefore, according to this conception, organic democracy coincides with the recognition of and respect for ethnic differences.[21] Because organic democracy, meaning true democracy, is based off of respect for ethnic differences, Benoist rightly asserts that:

Democracy means the power of the people, which is to say the power of an organic community that has historically developed in the context of one or more given political structures – for instance a city, nation, or empire . . . Every political system which requires the disintegration or levelling of peoples in order to operate – or the erosion of individuals’ awareness of belonging to an organic folk community – is to be regarded as undemocratic.[22]

The New Right advocates the idea of respecting the identities of smaller, local, and regional ethnic or sub-ethnic groups as well as recognizing the importance of larger ethnic and cultural relations and unities. Thus, for example, to be a Breton, a Frenchman, and a White European[23] all have importance, and each level of identity and belonging has value in a hierarchical relationship. Ethno-cultural groups of all levels and types have the right to live with freedom and separately from others in different states and territories. The New Right acknowledges that there are cases where complete state separation for a people is appropriate (akin to the simpler, generic idea of “nationalism”), but there are also cases where the federalist state system in which each people has its own autonomous region in which to live is more practical or desirable.[24]

Arguably, the New Right or Identitarian vision is not only the most desirable, but also the most realistic in the modern world because it offers the most balanced solution to the current problems and ethnic-racial chaos. In a world where democratic feelings have become permanent among most peoples it offers an organic participatory democracy to replace the corrupt liberal democracies presently dominant. Where there are countries composed of multiple ethnicities which are not in a position to divide themselves entirely (complete nationalism) it offers the idea of a federation of autonomous regions. Finally, in a world where ethnic and racial groups are threatened to be disintegrated by “multiculturalist integration” and mixing it offers a peaceful and fair solution of territorial separation, the creation of unmixed ethnic communities, and cooperation between the different races and peoples of the world to achieve this vision.

Notes

[1] Lucian Tudor, “Race, Identity, Community,” 6 August 2013, Counter-Currents Publishing, http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/08/race-identity-community.

[2] Alain de Benoist, “On Identity,” Telos, Vol. 2004, No. 128 (Summer 2004), p. 39.

[3] Pierre Krebs, Fighting for the Essence (London: Arktos, 2012), p. 89.

[4] Alain de Benoist, “What is Racism?” Telos, Vol. 1999, No. 114 (Winter 1999), p. 46-47. This work is available online here: http://www.alaindebenoist.com/pdf/what_is_racism.pdf

[5] Benoist, “On Identity,” p. 41.

[6] Alain de Benoist, “What is Racism?” p. 36. It is worth mentioning here that there are certain mainstream historians who have admitted and studied the history of racial feelings since ancient times (in Western and Middle Eastern civilizations, specifically). Among their works include Benjamin Isaac, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004) and Miriam Eliav-Feldon, Benjamin Isaac, & Joseph Ziegler, eds., The Origins of Racism in the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Despite the egalitarian bias and hostility to racialism these authors may reveal in their works, these still have research value for us because of the historical facts they provide.

[7] See for example the chapters “Life and Death of Civilizations” and “The Decline of Superior Races” in Julius Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World (Rochester: Inner Traditions, 1995) and Krebs, Fighting for the Essence, pp. 23 ff. & 79 ff.

[8] Ibid., p. 25.

[9] Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World, p. 57. On this matter, see also the chapter “The Beauty and the Beast: Race and Racism in Europe” in Tomislav Sunic, Postmortem Report: Cultural Examinations from Postmodernity (Shamley Green, UK: The Paligenesis Project, 2010).

[10] A number of Right-wing authors have already written much more on this matter. For the White Nationalist perspective in particular, see especially Ted Sallis, “Racial Purity, Ethnic Genetic Interests, & the Cobb Case,” 18 November 2013, Counter-Currents Publishing, http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/11/racial-purity-ethnic-genetic-interests-the-cobb-case. For the New Right perspective, see for example: the entries “Miscegenation” and “Race, Racism, Anti-Racism” in Guillaume Faye, Why We Fight: Manifesto of the European Resistance (London: Arktos, 2011), pp. 194 ff. & 227 ff.; Benoist’s commentaries in his “What is Racism?”; Tomislav Sunic, “Ethnic Identity versus White Identity: Differences between the U.S. and Europe,” The Occidental Quarterly, Vol.12, No.4 (Winter 2012/13), available online here: http://www.tomsunic.com/?p=444.; The articles in Sebastian J. Lorenz, ed., Elementos: Revista de Metapolítica para una Civilización Europea, No. 47, “Elogio de la Diferencia, Diferencialism versus Racismo,” (28 May 2013), http://urkultur-imperium-europa.blogspot.com/2013/05/elementos-n-47-elogio-de-la-diferencia.html

[11] See the citations of Faye, Benoist, Sunic, and Lorenz in the previous note (# 10).

[12] Guillaume Faye, “La Sociedad Multirracial,” 13 Jul y 2007, Guillaume Faye Archive, http://guillaumefayearchive.wordpress.com/2007/07/13/la-sociedad-multirracial. Note that this article was republished in print in Escritos por Europa (Barcelona: Titania, 2008).

[13] On the matter of historical examples, see our previous citations of Isaac’s The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity and The Origins of Racism in the West. Dealing with the racial basis for the Indian caste system, see for example the preface to Arvind Sharma, Classical Hindu Thought: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), and Alain Daniélou, India: A Civilization of Differences: The Ancient Tradition of Universal Tolerance (Rochester: Inner Traditions, 2003), the latter arguing that the caste system is not truly “racist” but a natural racial ordering. On the race-based case/class systems in Central and South America, one classic mainstream resource is Magnus Mörner, Race Mixture in the History of Latin America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967). There are, of course, numerous other academic resources on this subject matter.

[14] See Alain de Benoist, “Nationalism: Phenomenology & Critique,” 16 May 2012, Counter-Currents Publishing, http://www.counter-currents.com/2012/05/nationalism-phenomenology-and-critique; Michael O’Meara, New Culture, New Right: Anti-Liberalism in Postmodern Europe, 2nd edition (London: Arktos, 2013), pp. 228 ff.; Edgar Julius Jung, “People, Race, Reich,” in Europa: German Conservative Foreign Policy 1870–1940, ed. & trans. by Alexander Jacob (Lanham, MD, USA: University Press of America, 2002); the overview of Evola’s position in the chapter “Nations, Nationalism, Empire and Europe” in Paul Furlong, Social and Political Thought of Julius Evola (Abingdon & New York: Routledge, 2011).

[15] See Alain de Benoist, “The Idea of Empire,” Telos, Vol. 1993, No. 98-99 (December 1993), pp. 81-98, available online here: http://www.gornahoor.net/library/IdeaOfEmpire.pdf.

[16] Julius Evola, Men Among the Ruins: Postwar Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist (Rochester: Inner Traditions, 2002), p. 277.

[17] Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World, pp. 338-39.

[18] Identitarianism is founded upon the ideas of New Right intellectuals such Alain de Benoist, Guillaume Faye, Tomislav Sunic, Pierre Krebs, Dominique Venner, and Pierre Vial, who themselves are sometimes designated as “Identitarian.” However, we should also note that some of the basic ideas of the Identitarian Movement can be found in We Are Generation Identity (London: Arktos, 2013), although by itself this brief manifesto may be insufficient.

[19] Alain de Benoist, “What is Sovereignty?” Telos, vol. 1999, no. 116 (Summer 1999), p. 114. This work is available online here: http://www.alaindebenoist.com/pdf/what_is_sovereignty.pdf . See also Benoist, “The First Federalist: Johannes Althusius,” Telos, vol. 200, no. 118 (Winter 2000), pp. 25-58, and the articles in Sebastian J. Lorenz, ed., Elementos: Revista de Metapolítica para una Civilización Europea, No. 37, “Federalismo Poliárquico Neoalthusiano,” (28 November 2012), http://urkultur-imperium-europa.blogspot.com/2012/11/elementos-n-37-federalismo-poliarquico.html.

[20] Alain de Benoist, The Problem of Democracy (London: Arktos Media, 2011), pp. 14-15. We should note that this book is one of the most essential resources on the matter of democracy, for the idea of an organic and ethnic-based participatory democracy and for defending the idea of democracy as a political system.

[21] See Chapter I. “The Ancients and the Moderns” in Ibid.

[22] Benoist, Problem of Democracy, p. 103.

[23] When we refer to the broader, more encompassing cultural identity of Europeans, it is better to refer to a general “European” culture rather than to “Indo-European” culture because not all White European peoples are entirely Indo-European, and there clearly are and have been non-Indo-European peoples in Europe who are of the same racial and general cultural type as Indo-European peoples (well-known modern examples including the Finns, Hungarians, Estonians, Livonians, and Basques, although there were also numerous white pre-Indo-European peoples in ancient times who had disappeared through mixture with Indo-Europeans).

[24] Along with our previous citations of Benoist’s essays on sovereignty, empire, and federalism, see also Faye’s entries “Empire, Imperial Federation” and “Democracy, Democratism, Organic Democracy” in Why We Fight, pp. 130-32 and 111-14.

 

——————–

Tudor, Lucian. “Ethnic & Racial Relations: Ethnic States, Separatism, & Mixing.” Counter-Currents Publishing, 20 March 2014. <http://www.counter-currents.com/2014/03/ethnic-and-racial-relations/ >.

Note: We have also republished on our website Lucian Tudor’s “Race, Identity, Community.” On the matters discussed in the above essay, see also a more complete exposition in Lucian Tudor, “The Philosophy of Identity: Ethnicity, Culture, and Race in Identitarian Thought,” The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Fall 2014), pp. 83-112.

Translation note: This essay by Tudor has also been translated into Spanish as “Relaciones Etnicas y Raciales: estados etnicos, separatismo y mezcla” (published online 18 April 2014 by Fuerza Nacional Identitaria). We have also made this translated file available on our site here: Relaciones Etnicas y Raciales

 

On Indistinction – Benoist

On Indistinction

By Alain de Benoist

 

The history of the last two millennia bears witness to a slow rise of indistinction — which began with monotheism. Indeed, the assertion of the existence of one single God implies the unity of the human family, not only at the level of biological species, but also from the viewpoint of spirituality. To argue that there is only one God means to assert at the same time that all men are part of only one family and that all other gods need to be discarded. This boils down to the instauration of a new regime of truth in which otherness becomes a source of falsehood or error. “The One was first the specificity of the Judeo-Christian culture” and later of modern culture, writes Michel Maffesoli. The One excludes the Other which threatens its exclusivity. The Other must be therefore rightly annihilated. Throughout the history of the West, the obsession with Oneness has never ceased to operate as the guiding principle. Historically, it has been the motor of intolerance, of exclusion and of separation, and later of fragmentation that gave birth to all kinds of inquisitions and justified all efforts to remove otherness.

In the modern age, Christianity itself transcends all cultural and ethnic differences: it does not deny them, yet it regards them as inessential. In God’s eyes, there is neither “Jew nor Greek,” neither man nor woman (Gal. 3: 28). God “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation” (Acts 17: 26). At the same time, just as the separation of the spiritual and temporal power had introduced a fateful division in the notion of sovereignty, the new religion began to separate the city of God from the city of Man, the generic man vs. the citizen, the universal religion vs. the local beliefs. It promotes humanity at the expense of patriotism. “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matt. 28: 19). This was the first directive that dismissed all borders.

The Ideology of Progress

This idea has not ceased to expand, that is, the idea that what makes individuals and peoples distinct must be therefore incidental, accidental, contingent, and in the last analysis negligible or harmful. In the modern age, transposed into the secular realm, it takes on the form of an assertion of the immediate (but not mediate) belonging of man to humanity. Accordingly, we are human beings before belonging to a specific people, or to a specific culture. In reality though, the very opposite is true: we are human beings insofar as we belong to a specific people or to a specific culture. It is by means of our specificity that we have access to the universality.

The ideology of progress claims that all peoples are called to achieve the same kind of society by following the same stages. As St. Augustine already argued, they must progress in a unitary manner (“Human reason is conducive to unity“). In the same vein the Enlightenment declared the futility of any heritage, which it conflated with a mishmash of superstitious customs and habits. In order to become “free” the past is depicted as a hurdle that needs to be rejected. The only choices admitted are those which are made downstream from One’s Self (“it is my choice”) whilst the choices conditioned by what is upstream from One’s Self are disqualified as illusory. From this derives the ideal of “autonomy,” patterned after the model of independence, the questioning of every status and of each authority experienced now as a humiliating deprivation of unrestricted freedom. This is the modern myth of the creation of the Self by means of the Self alone (and from scratch), which implies the rejection of both “nature” and of all inherited traits. Such a liberty conceived as an absolute commencement and not determined by anything, bestows upon man a prerogative that was once attributed to God.

The drive towards indistinction is based on reducing equality to Sameness; there is no way of being equal unless becoming identical; one can have the same value only when adopting the same roles. By contrast, any acknowledgment of differences, even the most glaring ones, would perpetuate inequality and oppression. This aspiration to Sameness (Auguste Comte rightly spoke of reductio ad unum)—also fueled by a mimetic desire—is a major characteristic of modern society. Man is supposed to be the same everywhere. What is good for one (for us) must be also good for all (the rest of mankind), regardless of whether this takes place in the political, economic, or social realm. Tocqueville had keenly identified this modern desire for resemblance; not empirical resemblance, nor similarity, which is at the basis of sociability, but a resemblance based on the idea of equal dignity of all human beings, and equally distributed to each human being, in a manner of an attribute of human nature, that is to say, prior to any political or social life.

Equality of conditions, a great theme of modernity, cannot be understood unless one takes into account economic transformation which has turned the mercantile exchange into the basic human bond. “Similar human beings”, of which Tocqueville wrote, are unable to connect to each other except by means of work and trade. Money appears as the general equivalent whereas utility becomes a corollary of equality. The labor force is not conducive to the homogenization in the amount of the wages; instead, it brings about the homogenization of humans by setting up the reign of homo economicus — a species exclusively focused on his immediate material gratification. As Christian Laval has noted, “Equality of conditions is the equivalence of the same individuals in a society fueled by economic and mercantile issues, i.e. a society in which the only legitimate differences are those that relate to the measure of their utility.”

Universalism and individualism march hand in hand. In the postmodern era indistinction has become widespread just as narcissistic individualism and the metaphysics of subjectivity have become major features of the dominant ideology. Everything becomes fluctuating, short-lived, transitory and “liquid”. The loss of reference points leads to social anomie, the widespread uncertainty of concepts (“anything goes”), the effort to erect each singular desire into a general law of “equality” with everybody else. Made up of individuals with no location, of single atoms from everywhere and therefore from nowhere, society turns into a semi-chaotic structure, a caravanserai deprived of any conscience of the common good. The more people separate from each other, the more mass conformism sets in. Individuals become slaves without masters, uprooted and without culture, interchangeable and vulnerable, as well as targeted preys of the double grip of the market and the state within a system that claims to be all the more tolerant in general as it is intolerant in particular.

Without Belonging, Without Identity

Any belonging or any collective specificity is described as incarceration, a misleading fiction, or as an illusory “construction.” Any concern to a sense of belonging is labeled “fanaticism” or “fundamentalism.” “In order to establish ‘real freedom of choice,’ one must therefore liberate students from any determination, be it family, ethnic, social, or intellectual,” declared Vincent Peillon, the new minister of education. Simultaneously, a catch-all concept of ‘discrimination’ is invading the judiciary and the penal language. While this word described originally a treatment unfairly applied to such and such individual (or a category of individuals), it has now begun to stigmatize all kinds of distinction among people. Tocqueville, again, notes that “in the age of equality nothing revolts humans so much as the idea of being subjected to the forms.” The forms are perceived as limitations and constraints. Contemporary art has already abolished aesthetic categories. The ultimate “deconstruction” is the deconstruction of elementary sexual differences, implemented by the “gender” ideology and gender studies. The reign of the “no-form” has set in.

Indistinction means also the negation of all frontiers and of all limitations. The bottom line is how to get rid of a measure. The One goes hand in hand with excess (hybris), just as the logic of over-accumulation of capital is itself a form of limitlessness which has turned into its own “raison d’être.” At all times cosmopolitanism has strived toward the erasure of borders. Today it has taken on the form of nomadic behavior. The leftist ideology of no-borders converges with the rightwing ideology of free trade, with both interpreting globalization as across-the-board social hybridization. The ideology of “no borders” is jointly espoused by the financiers, the smugglers and the mob. “No borders” and “the undocumented” — that is to say, no adherence and no identity.

Yet, borders are not barriers, but only locks in a waterway. In the era of globalization, they are primarily intended to regulate trade and protect the most threatened ones. (Régis Debray: “The poor has only his own pasture left to himself”).This is the reason why the Capital International — the only one that thrives — requires the removal of all borders.

The only thing remaining is what Freud called “the narcissism of petty differences” — differences that are unessential and that are being projected on the system of objects (one has the “choice” between Shell and Chevron, Windows or Apple, Renault and Peugeot, Coke or Pepsi). This is a fake diversity, based only on differential purchasing power. “Diversity,” as a form of euphemism, is in reality just another word for indistinctive mixture. The ideology of miscegenation, which has become widespread today, must be understood as going well beyond the mixing of bodies and cultures only. One could use the word “in-mixture” (mélangisme), in the promotion of general indistinctiveness as a moral imperative and as a normative project that must be achieved. Although “miscegenation” of any kind (be it cultural, ethnic, artistic, linguistic, and so on) and “diversity” completely contradict each other, the “miscegenation” is hailed as a method of salvation, lending itself thus to the redemptive fusion on its path toward the undifferentiated.

The apology of nomadic life everywhere, the deterritorialization of all problems, the dream of “world governance,” a systematic removal of all roots, the encouragement to all kinds of hybridization — the fantasy of the One who has finally landed in the field of mandatory in-mixing — becomes the rule. “The global hybridization, writes Pierre-André Taguieff, resembles the steamroller which brings about the homogenization, levels all cultures and finally abolishes every cultural diversity.” Shuffling and blending everybody with everybody and everything with anything – this is the final and ultimate form of indistinction today.

————-

De Benoist, Alain. “On Indistinction.” The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Winter 2012-2013). This is article, which was translated from French by Tomislav Sunic, first appeared in the quarterly Éléments # 145 (October-December, 2012). The text of this article was retrieved from: <http://eurocontinentalism.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/on-indistinction-alain-de-benoist/ >.

Commentary: We do not agree with the position that Christianity is necessarily responsible by itself for the rise of egalitarianism and modern ethnic-cultural indistinction. Because of the varieties of forms that Christianity has taken throughout history, some of them compatible with valuing ethno-cultural distinctions and even with nationalism, it is not reasonable to put so much of the blame on Christianity per se, but rather on certain interpretations of it and on egalitarian values and ideas in general (separate from religion). However, despite the hostility to Christianity in general in Alain de Benoist’s present article “On Indistinction” (although he takes a moderate stance towards Christianity in certain other works), this writing is valuable for all because it presents a strong and direct attack on the unlimited ethnic mixing in modern times from the author’s perspective.

 

Interview with Benoist on the New Right – Warren

The ‘European New Right’: Defining and Defending Europe’s Heritage

An Interview with Alain de Benoist

By Ian B. Warren

 

In the following essay and interview, Professor Warren takes a close look at the “European New Right,” a cultural-intellectual movement that offers not only an unconventional view of the past, but a challenging perspective on the present and future. This piece admittedly represents a departure from the Journal’s usual content and tone. All the same, we hope and trust that readers will appreciate this look at an influential movement that not only revives an often neglected European intellectual-cultural tradition, but which also — as French writer Alain de Benoist explains here — seeks to chart Europe’s course into the 21st century. — The Editor (IHR)

During the postwar era — approximately 1945-1990 — European intellectual life was dominated by Marxists (most of them admirers of the Soviet experiment), and by supporters of a liberal-democratic society modeled largely on the United States. Aside from important differences, each group shared common notions about the desirability and ultimate inevitability of a universal “one world” democratic order, into which individual cultures and nations would eventually be absorbed.

Not all European thinkers accepted this vision, though. Since the late 1960s, a relatively small but intense circle of youthful scholars, intellectuals, political theorists, activists, professors, and even a few elected parliamentarians, has been striving — quietly, but with steadily growing influence — to chart a future for Europe that rejects the universalism and egalitarianism of both the Soviet Marxist and American capitalist models.

This intellectual movement is known — not entirely accurately — as the European New Right, or Nouvelle Droite. (It should not be confused with any similarly named intellectual or political movement in Britain or the United States, such as American “neo-conservatism.”) European New Right voices find expression in numerous books, articles, conferences and in the pages of such journals as Eléments, Scorpion and Transgressioni.

No one has played a more important role in this movement than Alain de Benoist, a prolific French writer born in 1943. As the chief philosopher of the Nouvelle Droite, he serves as a kind of contemporary Diogenes in European intellectual life. According to the critical Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right, de Benoist is “an excellent stylist, cultivated and highly intelligent.”[1]

He has explained his worldview in a prodigious outpouring of essays and reviews, and in several books, including a brilliant 1977 work, Vu de Droite (“Seen from the Right”), which was awarded the coveted Grand Prix de l’Essai of the Académie Française. (His books have been translated into Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, German, Dutch and Arabic, but none has yet appeared in English.)

For some years a regular contributor to the French weekly Le Figaro Magazine, de Benoist has served as editor of the quarterly Nouvelle Ecole, of the magazine Eléments, and, most recently, of a quarterly review, Krisis.[2] For some years he also played a leading role in the operation of the Paris-based group GRECE (“Research and Study Group for European Civilization”), which is sometimes described as an organizational expression of the Nouvelle Droite.[3]

De Benoist’s fondest wish, he once said, would be to see the “peoples and cultures of the world again find their personality and identity.” He believes that Europe has largely sold its soul for a mess of cheap “Made in the USA” pottage. American-style economic and cultural hegemony is a “soft” but insidious totalitarianism that erodes the character of individuals and the heritage of nations. To the peoples of Europe, de Benoist and the European New Right insistently pose this question: How can we preserve and sustain our diversity in the face a consumer-driven world based largely on a synthetic universalism and egalitarianism?

A dramatic indication of de Benoist’s importance came during a visit to Berlin in February 1993, when he was attacked and beaten by about 20 young “anti-fascist” thugs.

Few people on this side of the Atlantic know much about de Benoist and the intellectual movement he represents. The most cogent and useful overview in English is a 200-page book, Against Democracy and Equality: The European New Right, by Tomislav Sunic, a Croatian-born American political scientist.[4]

The task of the European New Right, explains professor Sunic in his 1990 monograph, is to defend Europe — especially its rich cultural heritage — above all from the economic-cultural threat from the United States.[5] According to Sunic:[6]

The originality of the [European] New Right lies precisely in recognizing the ethnic and historical dimensions of conservatism — a dimension considered negligible by the rather universalist and transnational credo of modern Western conservatives …

The New Right characterizes itself as a revolt against formless politics, formless life, and formless values. The crisis of modern societies has resulted in incessant “uglification” whose main vectors are liberalism, Marxism and the “American way of life.” Modern dominant ideologies, Marxism and liberalism, embedded in the Soviet Union and America respectively, are harmful to the social well-being of the peoples, because both reduce every aspect of life to the realm of economic utility and efficiency.

The principle enemy of freedom, asserts the New Right, is not Marxism or liberalism per se, but rather common beliefs in egalitarianism.

In the intellectual climate of the postwar era, writes Sunic, “those who still cherished conservative ideas felt obliged to readapt themselves to new intellectual circumstances for fear of being ostracized as ‘fellow travellers of fascism’.”[7] The European New Right draws heavily from and builds upon the prewar intellectual tradition of such anti-liberal figures as the Italians Vilfredo Pareto and Roberto Michels, and the Germans Oswald Spengler and Carl Schmitt. Not surprisingly, then, Nouvelle Droite thinkers are sometimes dismissively castigated as “fascist.”[8]

In the view of the European New Right, explains Sunic, “The continuing massification and anomie in modern liberal societies” is a symptom “of the modern refusal to acknowledge man’s innate genetic, historical and national differences as well as his cultural and national particularities — the features that are increasingly being supplanted with a belief that human differences occur only as a result of different cultural environments.”[9]

Real, “organic” democracy can only thrive, contends de Benoist, in a society in which people share a firm sense of historical and spiritual commitment to their community. In such an “organic” polity, the law derives less from abstract and preconceived principles, than from shared values and civil participation.[10] “A people,” argues Benoist, “is not a transitory sum of individuals. It is not a chance aggregate,” but is, instead, the “reunion of inheritors of a specific fraction of human history, who on the basis of the sense of common adherence, develop the will to pursue their own history and given themselves a common destiny.”[11]

New Right thinkers warn of what they regard as the dangers inherent in multi-racial and multi-cultural societies. In their view, explains Sunic,[12]

A large nation coexisting with a small ethnic group within the same body politic, will gradually come to fear that its own historical and national identity will be obliterated by a foreign and alien body unable or unwilling to share the same national, racial, and historical consciousness.

Sharply rejecting the dogma of human equality that currently prevails in liberal democratic societies, these New Right thinkers cite the work of scientists such as Hans Eysenck and Konrad Lorenz.[13] At the same time, the European New Right rejects all determinisms, whether historical, economic or biological. Contends de Benoist: “In the capacity of human being, for man, culture has primacy over nature, history has primacy over biology. Man becomes by creating from what he already is. He is the creator himself.”[14]

Consistent with its categorical rejection of universalism, the European New Right rejects the social ideology of Christianity. In de Benoist’s view, the Christian impact on Europe has been catastrophic. Christian universalism, he contends, was the “Bolshevism” of antiquity.[15]

In spite of the formidable resistance of an entrenched liberal-Marxist ideology, the impact of the European New Right has been considerable. While its views have so far failed to win mass following, it has had considerable success in eroding the once almost total leftist-liberal intellectual hegemony in Europe, and in restoring a measure of credibility and respect to Europe’s prewar conservative intellectual heritage. In Sunic’s opinion, the merit of the European New Right has been to warn us that “totalitarianism need not necessarily appear under the sign of the swastika or the hammer and sickle,” and to “draw our attention” to the defects of contemporary liberal (and communist) societies.[16]

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the collapse of the Iron Curtain (perhaps most dramatically symbolized by the tearing down of the Berlin wall), the end of USA-USSR Cold War rivalry, as well as mounting political, economic and ethnic problems in Europe, a new age has dawned across the continent — an era not only of new problems and danger, but also of new opportunities. In this new age, the struggle of the European New Right takes on enormously greater relevance and importance.

One evening in June 1993, this writer had the opportunity to meet at length with Alain de Benoist in his Paris office. Amid a prodigious clutter of accumulated books, journals, and pamphlets, this prolific philosopher and influential intellectual “agitator” provided insights and observations in reply to a series of questions. (Our meeting had been arranged by Professor Sunic, who sat in on the discussion.)

* * * * *

Q: Let me first ask you how it happened that you became, in effect, the founder of a new intellectual movement. Exactly how did this come about?

B: I did not set out to do this. In 1968, when I was 25 years old, I had the idea of creating a new journal — a more or less academic or, better yet, a theoretical journal, which was given the name Nouvelle Ecole [“New School”]. At first it was not even printed, merely photocopied in a very primitive way. Still, it achieved a certain success, and after a while some friends wanted to try to organize the readership into a cultural association. So that was the beginning. This association later took the name of GRECE. I was not involved in actually founding GRECE, because I am not so much a man of organizations or movements, even cultural. I’m more what you might call a “closet intellectual.” Since that beginning more than 25 years ago, there have been many conferences, colloquia, books, booklets, papers, and journals. This movement has never been directly connected with politics; rather it has been cultural, philosophical, and theoretical. Of course, we are interested in politics, but, like all those who see themselves as intellectuals, only as spectators.

Q: What do see as the future of the movement? Do you see any particular end in view?

B: No, I have no intention of changing myself or to change what I do. But your question is, what is the destiny of ideas. Oh, sometimes it’s nothing at all, but you never know. It’s impossible to know. What you can say is that in world history, especially in the recent world history, in my opinion, there can be no political revolution, or even a major political event, if there had not already occurred some kind of change in the minds of the people. So I believe that the cultural revolution comes first, and the political revolution comes after that. But that does not mean that when you make something cultural, it is because you want, in the end, to make something political. This is not done by the same people, you see. If I can give an example, the French Revolution probably would not have been possible without the work of the Enlightenment philosophers. Yet, it was not these philosophers who actually made the revolution. Quite probably they had no idea of that possibility. But it came. So it’s very hard to know the destiny of what you do. I do it because I like what I do, and because I am interested in ideas and the history of ideas. I am not a utilitarian, so I don’t care to know if it is useful or useless; this is not my concern.

Q: Have you seen your ideas change, or have they remained the same?

B: They are always undergoing change. When we started this school of thought or trend, we had no literal catechism. It was not dogma, but rather it was a mixture of conviction and empiricism. So we have changed on some points. Some of the ideas we have developed have revealed themselves to be not very good, or perhaps what might be called “dead ends.”

Q: Can you give an example of a “dead end?”

B: Yes. For example, 20 or 25 years ago I was much more of a positivist than I am today. I remember that I devoted an issue of Nouvelle Ecole to the philosophy of Bertrand Russell, for example. And there appeared plenty of things against such strange people as Martin Heidegger and so on. But 20 years later I devoted an issue of Nouvelle Ecole to Heidegger, one that was very favorable to his philosophy.17 This is, of course, just one example. That doesn’t mean that we have changed everything; that would be stupid, of course. But it’s a living school, like a living organism. You have to retain something and to work deeper on those things, but some things you have to abandon because they are simply false. Well, we don’t want to repeat variations around the same theme year after year.

Q: How would you assess the significance of the Nouvelle Droite?

B: Well, first I have to spell out my concerns with some words — the very name: the New Right. I don’t like it for several reasons. First, you should know that we did not invent this name. It was given to us. About ten years after the first appearance of journals such as Nouvelle Ecole and Eléments, there was a very large-scale mass media campaign in which the expression, “The New Right,” was produced by people who were quite outsiders from our circle. We attempted to change it. We tried to say that it’s not “The New Right” but, “A New Culture.” Yet “new culture” is not a very clear term. And, in our modern society, when you have been given a wrong label, it just sticks.

I don’t like this term because, first of all, it gives us a very political image, because “right” is a political term. Therefore, when you speak about “the New Right,” the people who do know nothing about it immediately believe it is some kind of political party. Of course, it is not. We are a theoretical and cultural movement.
At the same time, there is something that is clearly political — particularly in America — with this “New Right” name. Even though it is in different countries, people thus start to believe that this is the same thing. Based on everything I know about it, the so-called New Right in America is completely different from ours. I don’t see even a single point with which I could agree with this so-called New Right. Unfortunately, the name we now have gives rise to many misunderstandings.

While I cannot say that, after these many years, the [European] New Right is accepted everywhere — that is obvious — I can say that, in ever wider circles, it is accepted in France as a part of the cultural-political landscape. Debate and discussion here during the last two decades could not be thought of without the contribution of the New Right. Moreover, it is because the New Right has taken up particular themes that particular debates have taken place at all. I refer, for example, to discussions about the Indo-European legacy in Europe, the Conservative Revolution in Germany, about polytheism and monotheism, or about I.Q. — heredity or environment (which is partly a rather false dichotomy), participatory democracy, federalism and communitarian ideas, criticism of the market ideology, and so forth. Well, we were involved in all these issues. As a result, I think, the situation in France today is a bit different.

When the New Right first appeared in France in 1968, the times were completely different. For me, the ideology of the extreme left was a kind of model or standard. Marxism, Freudianism and so on, were everywhere. In the years since then, all of those “ideological churches” have fallen apart. Very few people in France today would describe themselves as Marxists. Jean-Paul Sartre, a very famous philosopher, died [in 1980] without any particular ideological legacy. The landscape had already completely changed. I would say that there are no longer are any ready-made ideas. All of the grand ideologies or ideological characters have more or less disappeared. More and more the intellectuals have to look for something new; something original and beyond the ready-made solutions of the past.

We must accept, first of all, the fact that we are out of the post-World War II period, and that we have entered a new world epoch — that there are new frontiers, both in political and ideological terms. And we don’t want to impeach people simply because they come from different ideological starting points. So it is clear that the times have changed. And always when the times are changing, some people want to keep things as they were. Opposition to the New Right is often “wet” or undogmatic, which means more liberty for everyone. I mean, for example, that there are people in the leftist circles who are willing to discuss issues with me, or to be published in Krisis, the journal I started in 1988. (Of course, there are other leftists who absolutely refuse to do so).18

In the last several years, the New Right has produced numerous articles rejecting the ideal of the economy as the destiny of society and criticizing alike conservatism, liberalism, socialism, and Marxism — in short, all of the “productivistic” ideologies that see earning money and possessing wealth as the key to human meaning and happiness. All these ideologies fail to confront the main issue of individual and collective meaning: What are we doing here on earth? So we have published numerous books and articles against consumerism, the commodity-driven life, or the idéologie de la marchandise. Of course, such themes are more or less a bridge between people coming from the Right and coming from the Left. So you have also the new phenomenon of the “Greens,” which, again, is a bit different in France and America. For example, we have in France a “green” ecology movement — a political party, in fact — that describes itself as neither Right or Left.

Thus we have today in Europe numerous new political parties — ecological, cultural identity and region-oriented. While these are, of course, different options, each of them goes beyond the idea of Right versus Left. Each reflects the consequences of the decay of the traditional nation-state. Each is trying to find, beyond individualism, some kind of community. While each has a different base, of course, there is also a common idea, because we can no longer continue to live in an age of narcissism, consumerism, individualism, and utilitarianism.

Q: What would you say is the political importance today of the so-called New Right? Does it have any direct or tangible political significance?

B: No, I could not say that. I know people in probably every political party in France, ranging from the Front National to the Communist Party. The New Right does not have a direct influence. The influence that the New Right has had is clearly in terms of the theoretical and cultural. The discussions we have generated have had an impact on the new social-political movements. But you know, it is very difficult even to try to isolate these influences. Most of the time, I think, the ideas go underground. Nietzsche once said that ideas come “sur des pattes de colombe” — on the feet of a dove.

All the same, one can tell that there is currently some kind of influence by us on the new social or political movements in Europe, such as the identity parties, the regional parties, and the Green parties. Many of these people read what we produce, but it is hard to say just what they do with it. You never know not only just what influences your ideas have, but what becomes of ideas between their origin and their manifestation [in action]; they are always twisted. Even when you have people who say, “I agree with you, I like what you do,” the use they make of your ideas is, of course, sometimes not exactly what you had in mind.

Q: Can you give an example of where you feel the ideas of the movement have been misused? Does this bother you?

B: In a way. Yes. I could say the Le Pen movement [of the French Front National]. This doesn’t mean that the Le Pen movement grew primarily from New Right ideas, but it is clear that when the New Right spoke about the necessity of retaining collective identity, for example, this had an impact. So it might be confused a bit with quite a different philosophy, which is more xenophobic against immigrants, and so on. But this is not the position of the New Right. Our national identity is not in danger because of the identity of others. We say, instead, “Here we are. We have to fight together against the people who are against any form of any identity.” You see what I mean? Criticizing uncontrolled immigration doesn’t mean criticizing immigrants.

Q: So it is not so much a question of one identity in conflict with another, but a more fundamental question of whether it is possible to have any kind of identity?

B: Yes, I think it is possible to make a coalition of all kinds of people who want to retain identity against a world trend that dissolves every form of identity, through technology, the economy, a uniform way of life and consumerism around the world. People such as Le Pen say that, either way, we are losing our identity because of the immigrants. I believe that we are not losing our identity because of the immigrants. We have already lost our identity, and it is because we have already lost it that we cannot face the problem of immigrants. You see, that is quite a great difference of views.

Q: Isn’t this idea of forming a coalition a philosophical one? In reality, doesn’t the nation-state demand that one have citizenship and through this one is granted an identity? If you do away with the nation-state, your idea is possible, but is it possible within the nation-state? Doesn’t the nation-state require a competition or conflict between identities?

B: I think that the nation-state is slowly disappearing. It exists, of course, formally — I don’t want to say that France or Germany or Spain is going to disappear. But it is it not the same kind of society. First, you can see that every Western society lives in more or less the same way, whether it is a republic, a democracy, a constitutional monarchy, and so on. Second, we have unification through the media, television, and consumerism; so that’s the same way of life. After that you have the building of the so-called European Community or European Union. So the nation-state is slowly disappearing. This process is very complex, of course, because the nation-state retains authority in many fields. And sometimes it is good that it retains some authority. Still, it is clear to us that, to use a popular expression, the nation-state is too big for the little problems, and too little for the big problems.

Q: Are you saying that the nation-state is obsolete as a basis for responding to problems and for creating identity. Are you saying that it cannot exist in a healthy form?

B: You can’t retain a commonplace or, vulgar — as it were — attitude, or a mere identity on paper. It is necessary to really live organically, not in some theater. Thus, in France today, we need more small-scale organic units and regions. Historically, you must not forget, France is the very model of the nation-state. And the French nation-state was organized first through the kings, and then through Revolution [1789-1792], that is, through Jacobinism. (Of course this process existed before the Revolution; de Toqueville saw this very clearly.)

French unity was made on the ruins of the local traditions of local languages. In France today you have only one official language: French. In fact, though, eight different languages are still spoken, even if not by very many people, including Corsican, Flemish, German, Basque, and Breton.

Q: Are you saying that the idea of the nation-state today is an idea of decadence? What is the source of this decadence? Is it the nation-state itself?

B: No. I think the nation-state is just a by-product. You can have the same decadence in countries that are supposed to be more federal, such as the United States. It is not just a matter of the nation-state of the French model. I think that the decay began very early, quite probably at the end of the Middle Ages or even earlier. Of course you can always go back to some earlier roots. But it is the birth of modernity. Modernity was also the beginning of individualism; the rejection of traditions; the ideology of progress; the idea that tomorrow will be better than yesterday just because it is tomorrow; that is, something that is new is better just because it is new; and then the ideal of a finalized history; that all humankind is doomed to go in the same direction.

Along with this is the theory of “steps”: that some people are a bit advanced while others are a bit late, so that the people who are advanced have to help those who are not. The “backward” people are supposed to be “lifted up” in order to arrive at the same step. This is the Rostows’ theory of “development.”

With this comes an ever more materialistic attitude, with the goal of all people becoming affluent. This in turn means failure to build a socially organic relationship, of losing the more natural links between people, and mass anonymity, with everyone in the big cities, where nobody helps anybody; where you have to go back in your home to know the world, because the world comes through the TV. So this is the situation of decay. Political, economic and technological forces try to make a “One World” today in much the same way that the French state was built on the ruins of the local regional cultures. This “One World” civilization is being built on the ruins of the local peoples’ cultures. So it is that, in the wake of the fall of Communism, the so-called “Free World” realizes this, and that it is not so “free” after all. We seemed free when compared to the Communist system, but with the disappearance of that system, we no longer have a basis by which to compare ourselves.

In addition, to be “free” can mean different things: to be free for doing something, for instance, is quite different than to be free not to do something.

Q: In your writings you have mentioned that it is important to have an enemy. Were you implying that with the fall of Communism, because there is no longer a clear enemy, there can be no clear identity?

B: Not exactly. It’s clear that you can have an identity without an enemy; but you cannot have an identity without somebody else having another identity. That doesn’t mean that the others are your enemies, but the fact of the otherness can become in certain circumstances, either an enemy or an ally. I mean that if we are all alike — that we if there is just “One World” — we no longer have any identity because we are no longer able to differentiate ourselves from others. So the idea of identity is not directly connected to an enemy; the idea of an enemy is connected with the collective independence; that is, collective liberty.

There are many definitions of “the enemy,” of course. Traditionally, the enemy is a people that makes war against you. But today’s wars are not always armed conflicts. There can be cultural wars or economic wars, which are conducted by people who say they are your friends. You could say that a basic definition of the enemy is any force that threatens or curtails your liberty. Each nation must define this for itself. What is a good basis for determining this today? I think this must be done on the level of Europe itself, because the nation-states are too small for this. When Soviet Communism disappeared, it seemed to give way to a worldwide wave of liberalism. In the view of some, it means the “end of history.” I do not believe that history is finished. I believe that history is just at the point of a new beginning.

We have to organize the world, not on the basis of a “One World” logic, but in very large zones or areas, each more or less “self-centered” or self-sufficient. The United States has already understood this, I think, in creating a free trade zone with Canada and Mexico. Japan already has zones of influence in Southeast Asia. Here in Europe we must have our own way of life, which is not the way of life of the Japanese or the Americans, but is rather the European ways of life. I don’t think that these ways of life have to be hostile towards others. Hopefully not. But it has to be aggressive against those who intend to keep Europeans from living their our own way of life.

Q: Does Europe have the strength or the ability to resist such forces?

B: The ability, yes. But the will? In today’s world, you first of all have to resist from both an economic and a cultural point of view. By cultural I mean very popular mass media and its powers. Today, if you turn on your radio in France, nine times out of ten you will hear American music. In America, when you turn on your radio you will hear only American music. This problem, which is also true for the cinema, is a kind of monopoly; culture always from the same source, and so consistent. You may ask if it is possible to resist this kind of invasion. Considering the enormous budgets of these American films, to counter this we may have to act together, rather than in a single country.

Now I am not suggesting that in France we should hear only French music. This would be ridiculous. We have to be open to others. The problem is that there are more countries in the world besides France and America; I would also enjoy hearing other varieties as well. I am not for a closed society. I would be very malheureux — unhappy — to get only French films, French sounds. I very much enjoy foreign products. But I wonder why we do not see Danish, Spanish, Russian or Dutch cultural products in France, though those countries are quite close by. Instead we always have the same American imports. Sometimes they are good, but most of the time I would say that they are not. So what happens, for example, when the Japanese and the French, the people in South Africa and the villagers in Kansas, all receive the same Rambo message? Is that good for civilization or not? This is the question: the quality of the product.

Q: I have heard that in France one week is set aside each year when American films cannot be shown. Is that true?

B: No, you are referring to something quite different: by law in France, TV channels cannot broadcast too many films on Saturday night. This law is supposed to help the French film industry, even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the origin of the films. This is a situation peculiar to France, even though we still have a good French film industry, which is greatly appreciated in other European countries. This means that television has not entirely killed the French cinema. The situation is quite different in Italy and Germany, which is very dramatic when you consider the former quality of the Italian or German films.

In another way, though, I think that “popular [mass] culture” in France is probably worse than in Italy, Spain, Germany, or other lands. I travel a great deal. I think that there is an Italian people, a German people, and that even with many foreign films, they are not affected in the same way as the French. When you are in Germany, or Italy, or Spain, or England, people in each country live a bit differently.

This is not so true in France, I think. The main reason is that so many more people live in large cities. Eighty-five per cent of the French people live in the main cities now. So the French countryside is a desert, a social desert.

Q: Are you saying then that France is more vulnerable to this cultural invasion from America then, for example, Italy or Germany?

B: I understand very well the market decision of the Disney company people to locate “Eurodisney” in France (even though this has proven to be a financial failure). The threat is that today every decision is a market decision. This is Americanism. A country has a right to make a decision that is not a market decision, and even against the market, because the laws of the market are not the laws of life.

Q: Although you have already indicated that this is not your primary concern, let me now go back for a moment to a question of practical politics. I want to know your ideas about how to strengthen resistance in this cultural war. What can be done that is not now being done?

B: In history you have always two kinds of factors. The first is the conscious will of the people to do something. I must say that in Europe this will is very weak today, and lacking in intensity. The second factor is that things happen outside of the will of anybody. Consider the fall of the Berlin Wall. Of course, the Russians had the will to say “Okay, you can tear it down now.” But in Germany, until that moment, nobody was really willing to tear down the wall. Some Germans hoped to see it come down, and others said that maybe after five, ten or 15 years a confederation [of the two German states] would arise. So if you consider the trend throughout Europe, it is more or less the same: the people and their governments talk and talk, and do nothing! The war in the former Yugoslavia is the best example of this I see.

A principle of conflicting interests is also involved here. Most European governments want to conclude a free trade agreement, based on the United States model. It is a fact, of course, that the interests of Europe, America, and Japan are no longer convergent. But there are common interests of each with regard to the Third World countries, where the people are paid so low that they can produce everything for almost nothing. If it is possible to manufacture a pair of shoes in the Third World for one franc, it is done. As a result, we now have all the problems of unemployment here. Experts predict that within two years there will be 24 million jobless people in the countries of the European Community. Never in the entire world history of capitalism have we seen that. In such a situation you cannot calmly sit in your chair and say, “Well, let’s wait a bit more.” You have to react, because the need to deal with such a situation becomes so great. Each nation must protect its own interests. Free trade agreements must be limited. It is the same, of course, for America, which protects its own industries while denying this same right to Europe.

I think that these forces will more likely produce a world of large-scale competing units than one in which each nation is preserved. I do not think this trend reflects the will of the people. I mean that the process seems to be going on as a result of certain factors that have nothing to do with what people want.

Q: This process of forming these new and larger entities is not just a natural accident of history. Doesn’t it require conscious organization of some kind? Or do you think it is a sort of natural historical development?

B: I don’t believe there is much natural development in history. You have to will something, and yet, will alone is not sufficient, of course. You must have the necessary pre-conditions; so it is an equilibrium between what is wanted and what is possible. Politics is, as the saying goes, “the realm of what is possible,” that is, between what is a necessity and what is a possibility. So, it is not natural. But of course, when you have a certain situation like today, you can predict that things are likely to take this or that direction. Change can also be reversed, of course.

For example, the main characteristic of the current state of world politics is that, in the minds of most politicians, that Berlin Wall has still not fallen. They still analyze the world on the basis of former conceptions, former ideas, because that view worked in the past. We have a new state of the world, but we haven’t yet adapted to it. So we continue to reason on the basis of the world order created in 1945 — as if that political, economic and cultural order will last forever. So, I think that while world conditions have begun to change, our mind-set and perceptions have not changed.

Q: Some analysts predict the overthrow of an obsolete “political class.” Do you see a new awareness regarding the need to replace the ruling class?

B: One thing that is quite new in the present period is this: in former times, when the people disagreed massively with the ruling powers, they would overthrow them, and there would be an explosion. Today, though, in the Western world we are in a period not of social or political explosion, but more in an epoch of implosion. The people disagree with the political class, but they do not try to overthrow it; they don’t try to change the regime. They merely turn away.

So this is a time of retreat, of flight, of withdrawal. People try to live and organize their own lives. They don’t participate in elections. That’s why you see so many new self-assertive social movements, which we in France sometimes call the “new tribes.” This term often has a pejorative meaning, but in general there is something positive here.

Before the emergence of the nation-state, people were, of course, organized into tribes. Tribes are now returning in the name of communities, or something akin to that. In France we do not have this phenomenon on the political level to the degree that it has been occurring in Italy, notably with the regionalist Lega Nord. Here in France, what you can see is that fewer people are voting. Now more than one-third of the electorate has stopped going to the polls. (The exception is presidential elections, because these are more personalized.) And another third of the electorate votes for non-conformist parties — the ecologists, Front National, regionalists, and so on — while only one-third still votes for the older, “classical” parties.

A problem in France is that our representative system provides no legal place for opposition political forces. Today we have a more or less conservative majority, which got 40 percent of the vote in the general election. But with 40 percent of the vote, they gained more than 80 percent of the parliament seats. The Front National, with three million votes, got zero seats, and the ecologists, with two million votes, likewise got zero seats. When you arrive at a point of such distortion, you realize that the political system no longer works. Of course, this is one major reason why people don’t bother to vote anymore. Why go to vote when you are sure that you will get no say at all?

Q: It appears to be very much the same in the United States.

B: For me, as a European observer, the American two major-party system always makes it difficult for any third party to arise. It is very strange. In Europe we have evolved a broader spectrum of options, I think. While it is sometimes difficult even for Americans to see any real difference between the Republican and Democratic parties, for me it is almost impossible. Each is really interested only in more business and economic efficiency — frankly, I don’t see any difference. For me it is a one-party system with two different factions.

Q. So you see this American monopoly or hegemony as the key problem? Are you implying that it is not so much the contact as such, which may have some good elements, but mainly that there is no choice?

B: These are two different problems. Of course, there is the problem of monopoly — that’s clear — but if the products were quite good — after all I like quality, too, even if it comes from the outside. The Romans took everything from classical Greece and it was not so bad, after all.

I enjoy visiting the United States, because it is always very interesting. Although I am very critical, of course, of the content of capitalist values, there are some things in America that I like very much: everything works much better than here in Europe! But is efficiency an ideal? And what price do you have to pay for this efficiency? You can be rich, but also have an empty life. Another problem, I think, is that American society — for us, America is more a society than a nation or a people — is to a large extent a product of its Puritan origins. This idea that all people are born free and equal, that America is a new promised land, with people quoting the Bible, can be seen in the spirit of the American Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.

Q: Why don’t you consider America a nation?

B: It’s a special kind of nation, if you will. There is a very strong American patriotism, of course — and we have seen many examples of that in history. But because it is more a mixture of such different cultural and ethnic stocks, the United States of America is not what we in Europe regard as a traditional nation.

* * * * *

Throughout our conversation, de Benoist’s remarks left me with a certain ambivalence. He was identifying my own nation as the enemy of the very civilization from which America derived. Even when he tried to re-assure me that there was nothing personal in his critique of American culture, it was clear that he was marking out a battleground of antagonistic ideas. Those who value the cultural heritage of Europe would have to look beyond day-to-day political and economic disputes between the European Community and the United States to understand that much more is at stake here. Our discussion had touched on some of most critical issues of social identity and organization, with profound implications for cultural and collective survival.

Notes:

1. Philip Rees, Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), p. 30.
2. Krisis, 5 impasse Carrière-Mainguet, 75011 Paris, France.
3. GRECE is an acronym of “Groupement de recherche et d’études pour la civilisation européenne. (“Research and Study Group for European Civilization.”). Address: GRECE, B.P. 300, 75 265 Paris Cedex 06, France. Established in May 1968, GRECE was formally organized in January 1969. It characterizes itself as “an association of thought with intellectual vocation.” Its avowed goals, writes Sunic (p. 12), “are to establish an association of thinkers and erudites sharing the same ideals, as well as organize its membership into the form of an organic and spiritual working community.” The name is not accidental. It suggests the French name for Greece — “Grèce” — calling to mind Europe’s Hellenic and pre-Christian cultural heritage.
4. Against Democracy and Equality (196 + xii pages), by Tomislav Sunic, with a preface by Paul Gottfried, was published by Peter Lang of New York in 1990.
5. See the preface by P. Gottfried in T. Sunic, Against Democracy and Equality (1990), p. ix.
6. T. Sunic, Against Democracy and Equality (1990), pp. 19, 20.
7. T. Sunic (1990), p. 7
8. Sunic comments (p. 99) that “The New Right contends that due to the legacy of fascism, many theories critical of egalitarianism have not received adequate attention on the grounds of their alleged ‘anti-democratic character’.”
9. T. Sunic (1990), pp. 104-105.
10. Sunic writes (p. 120): “Faced with immense wealth which surrounds him, a deracinated and atomized individual is henceforth unable to rid himself of the fear of economic insecurity, irrespective of the degree his guaranteed political and legal equality … . Now, in a society which had broken those organic and hierarchical ties and supplanted them with the anonymous market, man belongs nowhere.”
11. Quoted in: T. Sunic (1990), p. 107; In Benoist’s view, “People exist, but a man by himself, the abstract man, the universal, that type of man does not exist.” Moreover, contends Benoist, man acquires his full rights only as a citizen within his own community and by adhering to his cultural memory. (T. Sunic, p. 107); De Benoist also asserts that man can define his liberty and his individual rights only as long as he is not divorced from his culture, environment, and temporal heritage. (T. Sunic, p. 111.)
12. T. Sunic (1990), p. 103.
13. T. Sunic, pp. 103-105; From the perspective of the New Right, observes Sunic (p. 107), “Culture and history are the ‘identity card’ of each people. Once the period of the assimilation or integration begins to occur a people will be threatened by extinction — extinction that according to Benoist does not necessarily have to be carried out by physical force or by absorption into a stronger and larger national unity, but very often, as in the case today, by the voluntary and involuntary adoption of the Western Eurocentric or “Americano-centric” liberal model… . To counter this Westernization of nations, the New Right … opposes all univer-salisms.”
14. Quoted in: T. Sunic (1990), pp. 105, 106, 174 (n. 41).
15. T. Sunic (1990), pp. 65-70, 72.
16. T. Sunic (1990), pp. 153, 155-156.
17. Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) is one of this century’s most important philosophers. In several major works — especially Sein und Zeit [“Being and Time”] (1927) — he grappled with the spiritual basis of human experience, mounting a fundamental attack on what he termed “nihilistic rationalism,” which he saw as a product of an ever-advancing and dehumanizing technology. Because of his probing of the metaphysical issues of human existence, Heidegger is regarded as a major shaper of “post-modernism,” with its probing of the unconscious meaning and nature of human experience.
    Heidegger was a member of the National Socialist party from 1933 to 1945, while at the same time highly critical of National Socialist philosophy. The extent of his sympathy and support for the Hitler regime has been a subject of much debate.
18. In a much-discussed “Call to Vigilance” issued last summer, 40 French and Italian intellectuals warned of the growing acceptance of “right wing” views, particularly in European intellectual life. (Le Monde, July 13, 1993.) It was signed by such prominent figures as the “deconstructionist” Jacques Derrida. While it did not name names, this call was clearly aimed, at least in large part, at Alain de Benoist and the European New Right. It asserted the existence of a virtual conspiracy — “the extreme right’s current strategy of legitimation” — in which “the alleged resurgence of ideas concerning the nation and cultural identity” are promoted as a means of uniting the left and the right. “This strategy,” contend the signers, “also feeds on the latest fashionable theory that denounces anti-racism as both ‘outmoded’ and dangerous.” Many leftist intellectuals, it should be noted, publicly opposed this “Call to Vigilance,” regarding it as a new kind of “McCarthyism,” and ultimately this summer campaign proved utterly ineffectual.

 

——————–

De Benoist, Alain. “The ‘European New Right’: Defining and Defending Europe’s Heritage – An Interview with Alain de Benoist.” Interview by Ian. B. Warren. The Journal of Historical Review, Vol. 14, No. 2 (March-April 1994), pp. 28-37. Published online here: <http://ihr.org/jhr/v14/v14n2p28_Warren.html >.

Note: Another notable interview with Alain de Benoist was made by the organization American Renaissance, titled “We Are at the End of Something”. Readers should also note that another brief overview of the European New Right was made by Mark Wegierski in his essay “The New Right in Europe.”

 

New Right in Europe – Wegierski

The New Right in Europe

By Mark Wegierski

 

The European New Right (ENR) presents itself as a contradictory phenomenon. While many of its arguments sound radical and original, they owe a great deal to traditional European thought — especially Catholic organicism. Although the ENR has rejected the far Right, some questionable links remain. Despite this, it may become the ideology of choice for those intellectuals still opposed to capitalism — a possible place for that intellectually-honest part of the Left attempting to come to terms both with the collapse of “really existing socialism” and a triumphant Western consumerist society predicated on managerial-therapeutic capitalism.

The ENR cannot be understood independently of its history. As Marco Tarchi, a leader of the Italian New Right put it: “What we must do today is to illuminate the fundamental novelty of the New Right, to put the emphasis on the term ‘new’ and no longer on the term ‘Right.’ Otherwise we will still be clinging to the heritage of the decrepit and worm-eaten currents of thought of the 1950s and 1960s which, in the face of all opposition, are still churning out the same old slogans with their whole perception of reality built around bygone political divisions. The desire to restore chauvinistic nationalisms is part of this archaic way of thinking. . . . It is up to us, to our generation, definitively to surpass these outworn ideas.”[1]

The ENR has made a major effort to break with its far Right roots. In this sense, it is misleading to call a tendency strongly opposed both to Anglo-American conservatism (with its emphasis on bourgeois individualism, capitalism, and property rights) and traditional Continental conservatism (with its emphasis on monarchy and Church) “right-wing.” The conventional notion of “right-wing” in the Anglo-American context is so different from what the ENR represents that it is almost useless when it comes to describing the latter phenomenon.

The ENR came into being in the 1960s to provide a satisfactory analysis of what ails the West and the world, and to identity possible brakes for the ineluctable logic of “progress.” It saw as the primary feature of late modernity the tendency to shatter religious, cultural, and national traditions stretching back hundreds or even thousands of years, and to replace them with banal victimologies. It is explicitly opposed to American hegemony and, in Britain, it identities with the Celtic fringe. The ENR claims that England had diverged from the continent in its Calvinism, capitalism and Whiggery, and that America then diverged still further. European intellectual lite — Left, Right, and Center, particularly in France — revolves around a knee-jerk anti-Americanism. The ENR is no exception, and has developed a Left-sounding critique of American intervention in Vietnam and around the globe, American cultural imperialism in France, the problems of poverty and homelessness in America, the Calvinistic messianism and puritanism of the US, and so forth.[2]

The ENR has not yet worked out a precise genealogy of what it views as the Anglo-American deviation, though the outcome of the English Civil War and the later struggles which led to the exclusion of the Stuarts from the English and Scottish thrones have played a large part in determining the Anglo-American trajectory. Along with anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism is also central to the ENR. Here “capitalism” is seen as the encroaching system of US-based media/corporate oligarchy: gross materialism and the homo ceconomicus, or the homunculus of Nietzsche’s Last Man. It also implies the whole burgeoning world of technology and its attempt to manipulate human and physical nature. Through anti-capitalism, the ENR links with the Left and various ecological movements. According to Perspectives, a leading ENR organ: “The collapse of communism is not only a political victory for the American New World Order but a moral triumph for the American Way of Life. We can all now look forward to a future of unbridled consumption, in which we will all be equal and free to buy the same things. However, there are those in Europe who still value the roofed diversity of its peoples, and all the qualities which make us more than mere units of consumption. These people actually oppose the liberal-capitalist system. They want an organically rooted society instead of more Disneylands, and they flout accepted political convention by talking about transcending the old notions of Left and Right in a new synthesis of radical thought. They are active in fields of culture and metapolitics, waging a war of ideas. They seek a European renaissance. This attachment to identity is an inconvenience to the multinationals, an insult to Ronald McDonald and a direct attack on Coca-Colonization.”[3]

This anti-capitalism is connected with the ENR’s opposition to Calvinism — something it shares with nearly all varieties of Catholic-derived Continental right-wing thought — but also with its opposition to Judeo-Christianity. This radical, anti-traditional aspect of the ENR is also shared by the anti-clerical Lett and Nazism. The ENR engages in biting anti-clerical polemics of an almost Voltairean style. It sees the roots of totalitarianism and persecution in European history as a result of Judeo-Christian values, notably the Old Testament, with its tales of ferocity and retribution. “The body count amassed by the servants of the God of love . . . is now incalculable . . . Had Nicolae Ceaucescu lived a few hundred years ago he would have made a not untypical prince of the Church-on frequent precedent, a saint. . . . The concept of totalitarianism, the evil seed of the Inquisition, Auschwitz and the Gulag, was brought to Europe and forced on it by the followers of Jesus Christ. . . . “[4]

A group calling itself the “Organisation de Defense Juive” violently protested against GRECE on December 9, 1979, claiming that opposition to “Judeo-Christian totalitarianism” was disguised anti-Semitism. (They seemed to forget that the criticism of Christianity as the seed of Auschwitz is common among Jewish and Left historians). GRECE’s response to these accusations was unequivocal: “Jewish monotheism became truly totalitarian only when it ceased to be Jewish and claimed to submit people who held different religious views to the law of a single God. . . . The children of Athens and of Jerusalem, the pagan and Jewish victims of religious intolerance, suffered as a result of Christian persecutions.”[5] However, this condemnation of Christianity and exculpation of Judaism is disingenuous. The ENR stresses the Near Eastern, alien origins of Christianity, implying that the Jews are also aliens in Europe. The tact that such views were prominent in Nazism contributes to the ENR’s ostracism from mainstream politics.

Although there is a long tradition of criticism of Judeo-Christianity from Voltaire to Nietzsche, the ENR creates problems for traditional conservatives. It is ironic to find laudatory articles on Joseph de Maistre and Nietzsche within a few pages of each other in Elements.[6] For a school ostensibly critical of modernity and its “disenchantment of the world,” these vitriolic attacks against traditional religion may be counterproductive. Clearly not all Christians are like Ceaucescu. It the problem of late modernity is the disappearance of all rooted, truly meaningful, and relatively stable belief-systems, then even from the ENR standpoint any traditional religion, even Christianity, must be better than no religion at all.

The ENR also takes its anti-Christianism further by recycling the most traditional European religion: paganism. This is quite a trick. It may even be dishonest: a ducking of the issue of the ENR’s atheism (a more difficult position to hold for alleged “restorers of the sacred”). What can this mean, thousands of years alter paganism has disappeared? This embrace of paganism may be an attempt to re-evaluate the relation between humanity and nature along Heideggerian lines, while vindicating particularity and locality.

For the ENR the Golden Age is the primordial Indo-European past. This is lifted straight out of German Romanticism and 19th century anthropology. The immediate suspicion is that “Indo-European” is simply a polite substitution for “Aryan.” Allegedly, in this pagan, tribal Indo-European paradise, there were no fratricidal wars between different branches of European peoples, and every member of the tribe lived a meaningful lite in relative economic prosperity. The spatial and temporal boundaries of this world are not precisely drawn — it could in-dude ancient India, Greece, Germanic tribal lite at the time of Tacitus, Slavic tribal lite around the 9th century A.D., and so forth.[7] The ethnographical work of Georges Dumezil, which identified the so-called “frifunctionality” of the Indo-European priest, warrior, and farmer, is often cited. This romanticized past is important because many of the ENR referents, such as paganism, naturalism, particularism, a sort of feminism, and ecology, are predicated on it.

This paganism fits well with Alain de Benoist’s “spherical” concept of time, according to which “(everything is in the instant) . . . the past and future consitute dimensions present in every actual moment. . . . The present actualizes all past moments and prefigures all future ones. To accept the present by joyously assuming the instant is to be able to enjoy all instants at the same time. Past, present, and future are three perspectives, equally actual now, that are given to every moment of historical becoming . . . [this] delivers to him the possibility of connecting with tradition, indeed in a cultural and ethnic sense. Tradition is not the past but is ‘beyond time’; it is ‘permanent’ and ‘within us,’ and it becomes ‘our tradition’ by being reactualized.”[8]

Despite such an elaborate metaphysics, this could be interpreted simply as a call for a return to one’s ethnic and cultural roots — a staple of traditional conservative thought. At any rate, there may be a contradiction in the ENR’s embrace of paganism. Is paganism meant to be a “manly,” “heroic” warrior-creed opposing the weakness of Christianity (allegedly a masochistic “slave-morality”), or a kind of sentimental nature-worship opposed to a savagely inquisitorial Christianity, with its crusades and witch-burnings?

The ENR’s “paganism” entails a naturalism towards mores and sexuality. Unlike still traditionalists, ENR members have a relatively liberated attitude towards sexuality. Thus Benoist had no qualms about giving an interview to Gaie France, which features homoerotic images as well as cultural commentary.[9] ENR members have no desire to impose what they consider the patently unnatural moralism of Judeo-Christianity on sexual relations. However, while relatively more tolerant in principle, they still value strong family life, fecundity, and marriage or relations within one’s own ethnic group. (Their objection to intraethnic liaisons would be that the mixture of ethnic groups diminishes a sense of identity. In a world where every marriage was mixed, cultural identity would disappear). They also criticize Anglo-American moralism and its apparent hypocrisy: ” . . . a video depicting a man and woman having sexual intercourse . . . is liable to confiscation by the [British] state. One graphically depicting teenage girls being disembowelled by razor blades affixed to the lingers of a repulsive ghoul, by contrast, tops the rental figures quite lawfully across the land, goes into tour editions, each more disgusting and genuinely obscene than the last, and is not indeed the most unpleasant revelling in blood and gore to sit lawfully on the video shops’ shelves.”[10] In this, they are closer to a worldly Europe than to a puritanical America obsessed with violence. According to the ENR: “Our ancestral Indo-European culture . . . seems to have enjoyed a healthy natural attitude to processes and parts of the body concerned with the bringing forth of new life, the celebration of pair-bonding love, and the perpetuation of the race.”[11]

In its desire to create a balanced psychology of sexual relations, the ENR seeks to overcome the liabilities of conventional conservative thought: the perception of conservatives as joyless prudes, and the seemingly ridiculous psychology implied in conventional Christianity. It seeks to address “flesh-and-blood men and women,” not saints. Since some of the Left’s greatest gains in the last few decades have been made as a result of their championing sexual freedom and liberation, the ENR seeks to offer its own counter-ethic of sexual joy. The hope is presumably to nourish persons of the type who can, in Nietzsche’s phrase, “make love alter reading Hegel.” This is also related to the desire for the reconciliation of the intellectual and warrior in one person: the reconciliation of vita contemplative and vita activa.

This naturalism leads the ENR to re-evaluate “the feminine” and reject what it sees as Christianity’s denigration of women. The ENR has begun developing a counter-ethic of feminism which, while respecting women and “the feminine,” rejects the US ideologization of gender by politically-correct feminism. These ideas promise to overcome the poisoned atmosphere of sexual relations and the neopuritanism of radical feminism. “In pre-Christian Europe, amongst the Celts and the Norse for example, women, without in any way renouncing their femininity or seeking to be ersatz men, enjoyed essentially equal rights.”[12]

The ENR’s naturalism also leads it to defend the supposedly natural and normative nature of ethnic or kinship links. Thus the ENR departs from traditionalism by emphasizing the small nations and the historical regions of Europe, rather than the large and homogenizing nation-states: “The emergence of the idea of nation-state in the 18th century is a phenomenon arising not from a consciousness of identity, but, on the contrary, from the bourgeoisie’s social and political conception of the state.”[13] Similarly,”. . . the Europe of the big states . . . is not, and never has been, a natural Europe. It is the product of rival imperialisms, of conquests, of aggressive and violent acts, both military and socioeconomic . . . . The real Europe, the natural Europe, is one of numerous small states, numerous national communities, principalities, and free cities which are united and brought together above the level of their differences and divergences by a common civilization, forged over the course of two millennia . . . . It was this natural Europe that the big imperialist states, and their conscripted supporters, destroyed and replaced with their own version. Great Britain, France, Germany and Russia were mainly to blame for this development.”[14]

The ultimate goal is the Europe of a Hundred Flags — a patchwork quilt of colorful, traditional principalities. The ENR does not emphasize national uniformity — the traditional right-wing position — but difference. This is part of the ENR’s overall anti-totalitarian stand. The emphasis is on philosophical pluralism: opposition to the reduction of life to any one variable or force (e.g. the class-struggle, economy, nation, or race), in favor of multiplicity and particularity. This is complemented by an aestheticism, in the tradition of the interwar German “Conservative Revolution” — a visceral reaction of “high taste” to the vulgarized modern world of “rubbish.” ENR publications are filled with finely-rendered reproductions of heroic art from Europe’s long history. The locus is on “romantic realism” — though they are not averse to some modernist painters. This is not only a trank celebration of European art, but also a deliberate attempt to vindicate the heroic aspects of life, for European people deadened by consumerism and Americanization.

In contrast to its emphasis on mythopoeia, the ENR tends toward what Ferraresi calls its scientism: “. . . in a cultural context which privileges science as the highest form of knowledge, one of the stated goals . . . is the propagation of scientific developments which will dissipate the prejudices and ‘taboos’ of the reigning ideology, i.e., egalitarianism and democracy. The ‘hard new’ sciences like anthropology, biology, genetics, ethology, sociobiology, psychology, psychiatry, etc. are thus systematically plundered, and those results are selected that support the notions of heredity, invariance, innateness, the biological determination of social and ethical attitudes . . . . The outcome is a set of savage rules, which are then put forward by right-wing ideologues as ‘laws of nature’.”[15] This scientistic locus was at one time very prominent, e.g., when the ENR sought to integrate the thought of the Vienna Circle and Bertrand Russell. This must be seen as intellectually jejune: it clashes with other proclivities for irrationalism and romanticism.

While the ENR’s “scientific” efforts are questionable, the accusation of lack of compassion is less plausible. Although the ENR unabashedly defends aristocracies or hierarchies, as both “natural” and organic, it also criticizes liberal-capitalist modernity as “soft in ideas, but hard in practice.”[16] The ENR argues that liberal capitalism conceals a crashing harshness behind its soft rhetoric of freedom and equality, a real “war of all against all.”[17] Summarizing his critique of late modernity, Benoist writes: “I am appalled by the remarkable capacity of the majority of people to adapt without complaint to a society which I estimate to be, and I mean what I say, the worst kind of society ever to have existed. The worst, because the most subjected to the tyranny of the economy; the worst, because the least organic and therefore the most inhuman.”[18]

Although some ENR members at one time advocated technocracy, they have now embraced ecology, as one of the most hopeful tendencies on the planet today. The 1993 GRECE colloquium was dedicated to ecology. To the extent that it sets limits not only on the physical exploitation of the planet, but also on the grotesque excesses of consumerism, ecology is seen as a hopeful development. The ENR hopes that ecology will continue to evolve a paradigm seeking to preserve cultural rootedness as well as the physical integrity of nature. Its preferences are for communitarian ecology. The ecological call for sacrifices in consumption would be much more meaningful if they were sacrifices for something more local, tangible, and particular than abstract ecological principles. It would apply to this land, this countryside, this country. Communitarian ecology calls for the careful shepherding of resources and stewardship of nature for the sake of a particular community deriving its sustenance from these resources. This also implies that either all communities will accept such policies, or that particular communities must be capable of repelling possible incursions from other communities refusing to accept this model. Such an ecological program cannot be based on wholesale de-urbanization, but rather on saner and more ecological management.

A central premise of this critique is that late capitalism is not a rational system of resource allocation. Enormous amounts of resources are wasted in advertising to inflame demand for unnecessary products, obsolescence is “built-in” to keep consumption high, etc. The personal and psychological rewards resulting from such a decrease in consumption, for a decrease in quantity will be an increase in the quality of life, the emergence of time for pause and reflection, as well as a sense of participation in and belonging to a genuine, friendlier, and safer community.

A large sector in the ENR subscribes to what they call le Gramscisme de Droite. The ENR (like Gramsci) reverses Marx’s idea of base and superstructure. It believes that changes in the ideological superstructure among the cultural and elite opinion-forming groups determine social change.[19] Gramsci called on intellectuals to change society in a socialist direction. The ENR adopts this approach tot their own programs. This is called metapolitics. The ENR also identifies with the appeal to populism in Gramsci, although it rejects the rest of the Marxist apparatus.

The ENR explicitly repudiates racism and searches for allies in the Third World against the US.[20] Although the ENR is a European phenomenon, it also seeks alliances with Islam, East Asian semi-authoritarian regimes, India; etc. against the Anglo-American world. This is an extension of the idea of pluralism in international politics — a multiplicity of power centers and cultural spheres instead of one militarily, economically, and culturally hegemonic power-center. One hegemonic power severely constricts the choices available to humanity, and moves it along one predetermined path. This fits well with the ENR view of itself as a kind of laboratory of ideas.[21] Thus it is proud of its intellectualism and its eschewing of raw political conflict. Nouvelle Ecole, one of the ENR’s main journals, refuses to endorse political candidates, and is opposed to Le Pen’s National Front. Finally, in terms of tactics, there is clearly the attempt to generate a mystique. ENR figures do not want to be perceived as stodgy, pet-it-bourgeois philistines, but as perceptive critics.

Try as it might, the ENR has not escaped Left-liberal criticism. Many routinely consider its members to be barely-disguised fascists, or part of “the eternal reactionary Right.”[22] The definition of “reactionary” here is peculiarly wrong. Intellectually, the stand “against all totalitarianisms” clearly entails the rejection of the Nazi reductionism of race. However, the ENR has a tendency to dance on the rim of the volcano by including certain politically risque imagery in its publications (e.g., photographs of Hitler in heroic poses) and questionable announcements.[23]

Although the ENR sees itself rooted in the 1968 revolutionary tradition, Pierre-Andre Taguieff has traced its origins to the classical French Right.[24] But to what extent can one be held accountable for positions held decades earlier and now strenuously rejected? Similarly, the ENR cannot be held responsible for the adoption of some of its ideas by groups such as Le Pen’s National Front, or the Anglo-American or German Right.[25]

The tendency to exaggerate in relation to the ENR is typified by Seymour Martin Lipset, who writes: “The best publicized European radical rightist tendency . . . has been the French ‘New Right.’ This movement . . . has, like the intellectual Right of pre-WWI France, focused its criticism on ‘alien’ anti-European forces, foreign immigrants, and radical and liberal forces. Supported by press lord Robert Hersant . . . once an overt anti-Semite and youthful collaborator with the Germans in WWII, the views of the New Right reach wide circles of the population, and may have helped stimulate widespread anti-Semitic violence in 1980.”[26]

Some of the ENR’s dabbling in politics, however, is problematic, although mostly in theory. Thus some ENR members support Zhirinovsky (or similar figures), Serbia, and a putative German-Russian alliance at the expense of most East European countries — all in the name of anti-Americanism.[27] The ENR also runs into problems with traditional religion and nationalism. Roman Catholicism is probably the only remaining serious traditional religious force (of historical duration) in Europe today. However strenuously the ENR rejects it, the similarities of some of its positions to those of traditional Catholic organicism are all too obvious (anti-capitalism, the stress on the social, and attacks on gross materialism and consumerism).[28] It is ironic that the ideas of Rene Geunon, and especially Julius Evola (such as the “political soldier,” considered pagan and terroristic in their implications by some dogmatic liberal critics[29]), are being taken up by a professedly Catholic tendency. As both C. G. Jung and Camille Paglia have indicated, Catholicism was clearly more “pagan” than Protestantism. One of the main Protestant accusations against Roman Catholicism was that it was a disguised paganism (with its worship of Mary and the Saints, its sumptuous churches, and its religious icons and relics). However, “the integralist French Catholic Right . . . considers the New Right as ‘Masonic adepts of the Satanic Revolution against the one true living God’. . . .”[30]

Relations to traditional nation-states are also problematic. To what extent should the regionalization and break-up of nation-states be encouraged? Is this not an invitation to community dissolution? What about countries such as Poland that will clearly not let go of their national identity? What about the threat of a Greater German),, perhaps lurking behind this proposed “regionalization,” possibly involving the reconstruction of a German-dominated East Prussia, Silesia, and Western Pomerania, as well as the weakening (or disintegration) of France by the secessions of Brittany, Provence, Normandy, etc.? What about relations with the US? Does the ENR realize that some of its most cherished ideas, i.e. ecology and even neopaganism, are very popular in the US, especially in California? Does it intend to expand its activities to the US, presumably among the libertarian Left or ecological and New Age circles?

The ENR has an extremely simplistic vision of the US — reducing it to Disneyland, Coca-Cola, etc. Clearly the US is more than New York, L.A., and San Francisco, more than “rap, crack et Big Mac.” It is a huge country of diverse regions and towns. Is the ENR more critical of “narrow-minded small–town America” (which American conservatives consider “the heartland”), or “big-city America” (which most American conservatives consider nightmarish, but Left-liberals defend as centers of progress)? Is it America’s Puritanism (of which little seems to be left in actual family mores), or a burgeoning decadence which is their target? At any rate, the center of anti-Americanism today is the US itself. Considering the fact that the US is being consumed by self-hatred and anti-Americanism, the ENR will have to rethink its position vis a vis the moral residues of contemporary American society. Because of the ENR’s violent anti-Americanism, it has hardly any relations with American paleoconservatives. The emphasis on federalism, cultural particularity and local autonomy, however, may pave the way for a new dialogue.

Two problems with ENR theory are rather obvious. First, there is the tension between elitism and populism. On the one hand, it identifies with the Olympian elitism of figures such as Nietzsche and Evola, harboring contempt for the masses. On the other, it wants to embrace an “organic democracy” rooted in Herder, German romanticism, the German Conservative Revolution and, to a certain extent, Carl Schmitt. Second, there is its over-reliance on the ancient Greek heritage, as reflected in the name of one of its main groups, GRECE. Even a superficial reading of Nietzsche betrays his condemnation of the influence of the Greek heritage in the development of Europe. Although “the gifts of the Greeks” can be considered multivalent, clearly traditions of both political democracy and science had their origins in Athens. Is it legitimate to trace the errors of contemporary Europe only to the Judeo-Christian heritage? Should not the classical heritage also come in for some careful scrutiny?

At any rate, the obsessive search for the origins of present European decline leads the ENR astray. One of the most obvious reasons for its adoption of a “metapolitical” position may be due to the fact that ideas such as neopaganism are difficult to relate to today’s sociopolitical realities. Consequently, the ENR is often accused of being a typical French salon phenomenon focused on German thinkers, in line with the old WWII “collaborationist” tradition (the ENR has sought to rehabilitate some of those figures), practising “Biedermaier” politics.

It is all too easy to overemphasize the ENR’s radicalism. In some sense it may be nothing more than an esoteric version of de Gaulle’s political program and an expression of Gallicism, with all of its cultural pride, joie-de-vivre, intellectual flashiness, and unabashed eroticism. After all, de Gaulle’s political genius has been consistently underestimated in the Anglo-American world. An anti-Nazi, anti-Communist, and anti-American (he led the Free French, dealt with Communist terror after the Liberation, and continued to oppose les deux hegemonies to the end of his life); a compassionate but strong nationalist, as well as a decolonizer; a champion of the unity of a “Europe of fatherlands” full of respect for tradition and the Catholic Church, while suspicious of progressivism, liberalism, and democracy, he is someone with whom the ENR could easily identity.

The ENR’s hopes for the future can be summarized as follows: 1) A return to meaningful politics (aiming at a restoration of the public sphere) against an apolitical, juridically-determined, economically-focused liberalism and formally egalitarian democracy. This politics would have to be both erotic and aesthetic, and predicated on “organic democracy.” 2) A restoration of community spirit. The ENR would like to see the dissolution of the US into regional and ethnic states. It prefigures a genuinely pluralistic global framework in opposition to American liberal universalism. (Pluralism of cultures across the planet requires some exclusivity of cultures in given areas and regions). 3) A braking of tendencies towards consumerism, commodification, commodity-fetishism, consumer-tribes, technologization, etc., by means of a “rooted radicalism” and “communitarian ecology.”

Following the recent victory in Italy of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, today a more dynamic Right seems to have some chance of succeeding in Europe. Although Berlusconi’s victory has little to do with the ENR, the Northern League’s regionalism is fully in line with ENR ideas, while the softening of doctrinaire positions which made possible the victory of the National Alliance in the South may also have something to do with ENR influence. Yet Berlusconi and many sectors of the conventional Right have placed a born-again capitalism at the center of their program. This leads to a harshness toward social problems and a contempt for anyone who cannot compete. This conventional Right ignores the fact that humanistically-trained, aristocratically-minded people who could lead a genuine cultural Right are probably the least able to prosper in the projected brave new capitalist world. The obsessive focus on “the discipline of the market” is antithetical to the rooted popular culture and ENR’s “high culture.”

The circulation of ENR journals is rather small, but intellectual influence can rarely be measured by circulation figures. By pursuing its “metapolitical” strategy, the ENR has created a new climate where some Right ideas can be voiced more freely and with less opprobrium. What makes the ENR arguments attractive is that often they are simply good, persuasive arguments. After all, the substitution of a particularistic “right to be different” for a belief in an innate, absolutistic white and European supremacy was a much-needed shift. The ENR has also understood that the orthodox Christian approach to sexual and family morality, in an extremely permissive and sexually-obsessed age, was untenable. The ENR has also renewed much of the criticism of capitalism from an organicist-aristocratic context at a time when the Left seems to have fallen silent on this matter in its uncritical and opportunistic embrace of liberalism. Only in today’s dessicated political landscape are people shocked by these positions, as the organic and Catholic Right — partially linked to various pre-Marxian socialisms as well as syndicalism and anarcho-syndicalism — had traditionally been in the forefront of the critique of capitalism. (In the 19th century, John Ruskin could readily claim: “I am a Tory of the sternest sort, a socialist, a communist”). ENR ideas are also intimately intertwined with central aspects of French identity and national character. Thus the ENR is divided concerning European unification, perhaps because it sees it as a possible vehicle for the continuation of French hegemony through such archetypically French figures as Jacques Delors.

At any rate, under no circumstances can the ENR be characterized as a “neo-fascist” residue destined to play only a very limited role in the future of Europe. Despite certain obvious problems and inconsistencies, the ENR has clearly transcended its origins in the far Right. Its formulations on certain issues have been pioneering, though often, and ironically, coming out of nothing more than a reactivation of half-forgotten arguments in the great store of non-fascist organicist thought. The ENR today is very much in the forefront of key debates concerning personal and cultural identities, and “the sources of the self” The intellectually-honest Left could benefit by appropriating some of these ideas. On the whole, the ENR represents the most intellectual, sophisticated, least dogmatic and most positive element “on the Right,” engaged in the reconfiguration of the political landscape alter the collapse of communism and the terminal crisis of liberalism have rendered traditional categories hopelessly obsolete.

Notes:

1. See “The Italian ‘Nuova Destra’: An Interview with Marco Tarchi,” in Perspectives, No. 3 (Winter 1991-92), p. 23.
2. See Elements, Nos. 69, 70 and Perspectives, No. 4, devoted respectively to the theme: “Le Nouvel Ordre Americaine,” “Etats-Unis: Danger!” and “Beware the USA!”
3. Insert to Perspectives, No. 3 (Winter 1991-92).
4. The Scorpion, No. 13 (Winter 1989-90), p. 52
5. See Michalina Vaughan, “Nouvelle Droite: Cultural Power and Political Influence,” in David S. Bell, ed., Contemporary French Politics (London & Canberra: Groom Helm, 1982), p. 63.
6. Elements, No. 79 (January 1994), pp. 25-28.
7. See in particular the “Heritage” section of Alain de Benoist’s Vu de droite (Paris: Copernic, 1977).
8. Thomas Sheehan, “Myth and Violence: The Fascism of Julius Evola and Alain de Benoist,” in Social Research, Vol. XLVIII (Spring 1981), pp. 64-65.
9. The Sting, No. 12 (Autumn 1992), p. 4.
10. The Scorpion, No. 13 (Winter 1989-90), p. 52.
11. The Scorpion, No. 13 (Winter 1989-90), p. 51. Thus, at the end of a long interview, Benoist states: “There are other comforts: the arts, contemplation and, of course, women. I do not have to tell you of all people, moncher Michel, who loathes as much as I do the misogyny so common on the Right, that the pleasures of the flesh are one of the paths to the spirit, and that the best argument which was ever given for justifying the existence of frontiers is the profound joy we feel in crossing them.” See The Scorpion, No. 10 (August 1986), p. 32. This is a translation of an interview originally published in Elements.
12. The Scorpion, No. 13 (Winter 1989-90), p. 51. Another example of the ENR’s pagan feminism is Brigid Clarke’s “The Black Virgins of Europe,” which praises the Cult of the Virgin Mary in Roman Catholicism as a residue of pagan Goddess worship. See Perspectives, No. 3 (Winter 1991-92), pp. 25-27.
13. Ulric Smith, “Nationalism: A Poison,” in Perspectives, No. 7 (Winter 1993-94), p. 16.
14. Yann Fouere, “Towards a Natural Europe,” in Perspectives, No. 5 (Winter 199293), p. 18. Originally published in the Breton nationalist journal, Gwenn ha Du (August-September 1992).
15. Ferraresi, op. cit., p. 145.
16. According to Francois-Bernard Huyghe: “It is an ideology that fiercely denounces all manifestations of inequality, yet advocates horrendous economic inequality and ruthless individual survivalism.” See La “Soft-Ideologie” (Paris: Laffont, 1987).
17. See Benoist’s indictment of Hayek as a savage ideologue of the harshest capitalism, for whom social justice, trade unions, society, and politics are illegitimate concepts, in Elements, No. 68 (Summer 1990), pp. 5-14. Similarly, addressing the British context, Perspectives claims that: “The hidden agenda behind the Conservative government’s assault on trade unions has been revealed. Far from championing the freedom of individual employees, it clearly regards them as little more than slaves to be sold on the international labour market. A Trade and Industry Department publication called Britain — The Preferred Location, aimed at attracting foreign money, enthuses: ‘Employers are now under no statutory obligation to recognize a union. Many companies do not do so . . . Wages and salaries are markedly lower than those in the US, Japan or many countries within the European Community, and so too are the add-on costs of social security and other benefits’.” See Perspectives, No. 6 (Summer 1993), p. 5.
18. The Scorpion, No. 10 (Autumn 1986), p. 32.
19. See Tomislav Sunic, Against Democracy and Equality: The European New Right (New York: Peter Lang, 1990), especially the section “The Gramscism of the Right,” pp. 29-32.
20. See Alain de Benoist, Europe. Tiers Monde. Meme Combat (Paris, R. Laffont, 1986).
21. Thus Benoist has debated Thomas Molnar, an American paleoconservative and Catholic traditionalist. See Alain de Benoist (with Thomas Molnar) L’ Eclipse du Sacre (Paris, Lo Table Ronde, 1986). Similarly, it has made an opening to the Left and some of its eclectic thinkers, notably Gramsci, the Frankfurt School, etc. The ENR also finds Jean Baudrillard extremely invigorating, with his criticism of American “hyperreality.”
22. Ferrazesi, op.cit., p. 147.
23. Jean-Jacques Mourreau, “L’Europe Malade de Versailles.” in Elements, No. 69 (Fall 1990), p. 42. Consider the following two problematic examples in Perspectives. One is an obituary for Arno Breker attempting to dissociate his art from the people he served. See Perspectives, No. 2 (Summer 1991), p. 10. The other is a call in the previously cited Tarchi interview for the “normalization” of the experience of Italian fascism after the 1970′s. That may have already happened. Yet the suggestion that Nazism could be similarity “normalized” is another matter. See Perspectives, No. 3 (Winter 1991-92), p. 24. Worse yet, The Sting newsletter practically advertises the work of Ernst Zundel, a Holocaust revisionist and neo-Nazi, as follows: “Across the Atlantic maverick publisher E. Zundel has been having a rough time for daring to publish and broadcast his ‘revisionist’ ideas. There is irony in a ‘bigot’ being harassed by the ‘champions of free speech’ for his views. He broadcasts into Germany from a kind of pirate radio (shades of the 30′s -more irony!) Whether he is a “hate-monger” or not he is courageous: a small donation will get you info [followed by Zundel’s address and telephone number in Toronto].” See The Sting, No. 15 (Winter 1993), p. 1. The most recent issue of the same newsletter includes the following passage: “In Canada, Mr. Zundel’s publicity-catching gimmicks have unquestionably made doubt about the Nazi gassing claim more acceptable.” See The Sting, No. 16 (Spring 1994), p. 1. This raises the suspicion that certain ENR members are not so much “reactionaries” as outright neo-Nazis. In English-speaking countries, the ENR is often confused, even among some of its adherents, with the far Right.
24. See the interview with Pierre-Andre Taguieff “Origines et Metamorphoses de la Nouvelle Droite,” in Vingtieme Siecle, No. 40 (October-December 1993), pp. 3-22. The second part of this interview is translated in this issue of Telos. In his work, Sur La Nouvelle Droite, Jalons d’un Analyse Critique (Descartes, 1994), Taguieff traces the long march of the ENR from a pro-Western, white racialist position in the 1960′s, to its advanced, “differentialist” stance of the 1980′s, “from race to culture.” The first chapter of this book is translated in this issue of Telos.
25. The politically-correct Left in France, as typified by its “Appeal to Vigilance by Forty Intellectuals” against “the far Right” in 1993, adopts the mode of inquisitors and commissars, calling for blacklists, bannings, etc., and ironically targeting the ENR more vociferously than the National Front. Most of these documents are translated in this issue of Telos. The ENR has quickly responded to what it considers this “McCarthyism of the Left.” See David Barney, Charles Champetier and Claude Lavirose, La Nouvelle Inquisition: ses Acteurs, ses Methodes, ses Victimes (Le Labyrinthe, 1993).
26. Seymour Martin Lipset, “The Revolt Against Modernity,” in Per Torsvik, Ed., Mobilization, Center-Periphery Structures and Nation Building (Bergen: Universitetforlaget, 1981), p. 477. Bela Kopeczi, a leading Hungarian Communist Party intellectual (and Hungary’s Minister of Culture at the time), while condemning ENR tendencies, has at least given them philosophical credence: “This ‘third way’ of philosophy, idealist and subjectivist in principle, posits the epistemological dependence of being on consciousness, and places the subject at its center of interest, although, as it tries to base itself on science, and especially history, it tries to mask this. In accordance with this philosophical direction, life, as it were, mediates between subject and object. Life always becomes subjectified as feeling, while feeling objectifies itself as life, which creates the appearance of the elimination of the dualism. This role is also fulfilled by the category of myth, which was brought into the vocabulary of philosophy by Nietzsche. The mythical objectivity of the ‘philosophy of life’ (Lebensphilosophie) appears in the subject, which suggests a certain type of objectivity.” Bela Kopeczi, Neokonserwatyzm i Nowa Prawica, tr. into Polish by Ester Lawnik (Warsaw: Ksiazka i Wiedza, 1986), pp. 25-26.
27. In this, they follow Ernst Niekisch and the “National Bolsheviks” of interwar Germany, who proposed an alliance of Germany with Stalin’s “workers’-state,” at the expense of “reactionary” East European societies. Niekisch is often pointed to as a prototypical ENR hero for his resistance to Nazism, but the main point of his daring attack on Hitler in 1938 was that Nazism was a disguised Catholicism and therefore a “death-wish philosophy” — hardly the most devastating criticism. See Francois Lapeyre, “Ernst Niekish, Un Destin Allemand,” in Elements, No. 73 (Spring 1992), pp. 32-33. The strong rhetorical opposition to the Versailles Treaties (and affection for a big Germany) in some of their historical articles could also be interpreted as a further threat to Eastern Europe. See Jean-Jacques Mourreau, “L’Europe Malade de Versailles,” op. cit., pp. 23-42.
28. This would be close to Derek Holland’s “Third Position” in England, which attempts to synthesize “Catholic traditionalism, European nationalism, and the ENR.” See “Polityczni Zolnierze,” in Stanczyk, No. 17 (1992), pp. 39-44.
29. Ferraresi, op. cit., pp. 137-140, links the ENR to far Right terrorists.
30. Cited in Jarosiaw Tomasiewicz, “Przeciwko Rownosci i Demokracji: Nowa Prawica we Francji,” in Mysl Polska (November 1-15 1993), p. 5.

 

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Wegierski, Mark. “The New Right in Europe.” Telos, Vol. 1993, No. 98-99 (December 1993), pp. 55-69.

Note: The text of this article was obtained from its online republication at: <http://www.amerika.org/texts/the-new-right-in-europe-mark-wegierski/ >.

Additional notes: While this essay by Wegierski serves as a good overview of some of the major features of the New Right, in order to more adequately understand the concepts and reasoning behind New Right philosophy, it is important to read certain key works by Alain de Benoist. See the works listed at the “Manifesto of the New Right”.

 

Interview with Alain de Benoist – American Renaissance

“We Are at the End of Something”

The American Renaissance Interview with Alain de Benoist

 

American Renaissance: You have said that modernity is the enemy of identity. Could you explain this idea further?

Alain de Benoist: When one considers modernity, one must consider two meanings of the word. The first is known to everyone: It is the changes of life that come with more material wealth. But modernity is also the product of an ideology that appeared in the 17th and 18th century with the Enlightenment. It is an ideology of progress, of which the basic idea is that mankind will always be better. The future will be better than the present and the present is better than the past. For this ideology, the past has nothing to teach us. The past is a graveyard of archaic customs and irrational constraints. Instead, man must use his reason to decide by himself what he wants.

Modernity also takes a unitary view of history. History is not cyclical, as it was for the Greeks, but is a straight line. This idea comes from Christianity and Judaism, which posit that there is an absolute beginning and an absolute end to history. Mankind is likewise unitary. All peoples must go through the same stages, and reach the same level of development. This is the myth of development, of technological progress.

Thus, everything that is new has value because it is new. There is a fetishism of the novel. So when you speak of modernity you must consider not only the material dimension but also the ideological dimension. Modernity is intrinsically antagonistic to collective identities because such identities are an obstacle to the march of progress towards a unitary mankind.

Of course, modernity has a strong economic component. In Europe it was linked to the rise of the bourgeois class and its commercial and merchant values. This is the problem of capitalism. It wants to organize more markets—a world market, a planetary market—and collective identities fragment this market.

Europeans have frequently criticized the United States as a materialist society, but is not every society materialist? Is it not part of human nature to always to want more?

You are right. In that sense I would say that today we are all Americans. And it is true that the desire to have more is part of human nature. The difference is that much of European religion and philosophy are based on values that are more important, on the belief that for moral or religious or philosophical reasons, we must not submit to greed and to the appetite for wealth. This was different in America because of the protestant Calvinist idea of the elect—God shows his approval by giving wealth. You know Max Weber’s theory of the link between Protestantism and the rise of capitalism. I think these things make a big difference.

In Catholic countries money is always suspect—even though everyone wants more of it rather than less. You can see that in the fact that in France it would be impossible for a wealthy man to be elected head of state. No one would vote for a millionaire. The idea would be repulsive. But in America if a candidate is a millionaire it shows he is a success and has ability.

So in Europe people hide what they have. They don’t say how much they earn. In America there is a passion for numbers, and everything is a calculable quantity. Americans know how much they paid for everything. When American tourists go to the Eiffel Tower they ask, “How many steps to the top?” They do not understand the difference between quantity and quality.

Is there anything besides Catholicism that has protected Europe from the same levels of materialism?

No longer. Today, everyone looks at the same films, listens to the same music, lives in the same kind of houses. This is something that greatly concerns me. I have traveled a great deal, and every year I see the world becoming more similar. I call this the ideology of sameness. This ideology can take religious and not-at-all religious forms, but the central idea is that we are all part of mankind, that we are brothers of the same family. There may be differences but they are unimportant and should be either eradicated or transformed into mere folklore. American Indians do their dances for the tourists but this is not traditional life.

What is the solution to this problem of sameness?

To see solutions we must conceive of globalization as a dialectic. The more the world is homogenized, the more there is rebellion. Thus, the impulse that homogenizes the planet creates new kinds of fragmentation, new kinds of divisions. Sometimes this resistance can be excessive—it can take the form of terrorism, for example.

The solution is to work locally. I strongly believe in localism. Localism means more direct democracy, it means working to create liberated spaces. That’s why I don’t believe so much in politics. I believe that the time of political parties is over. Parties take each others’ places, but they are not real alternatives. In France it is the Right or the Left, or the Left or the Right, and everything remains the same.

That is the reason why so many people are fed up with what we call the “new class” of politicians, financiers, media. There is a widespread feeling that this class does not understand the daily life of the citizens, that it is remote, not committed to a particular nation, that it has common interests instead with an international new class. This is one of the reasons for the rise of the so-called populists parties, which is the most interesting political phenomenon in the last 10 or 20 years.

What are some other examples of this resistance to globalization?

Some countries resist very well. China, for example. I was in China not long ago. Of course you can see young people fixated on their video games, their iPods, iPads, and BlackBerries, but I think the Chinese leaders have a very clear view of the state of the world. Few countries really try to think about the future. The United States, yes, certainly. Russia and China as well, but in Europe, there is nothing.

You think Americans are thinking seriously about the future?

Not the American people, but the think tanks and government agencies think very seriously about the future.

More so than in Europe?

Yes, certainly. We have politicians but nothing like your think tanks. Maybe some political clubs, but nothing else. The politicians just want to be reelected, so the future for them is next year. They don’t think globally about the world.

If global capitalism is the enemy of identity, can you describe a type of economic organization that would be a friend of identity?

Economic life must not be reduced to free exchange and to commercial and market values. An economy must take social realities into consideration, and must not be free from political authority. It is perfectly possible to have an economy of social solidarity that includes a private sector, a public sector, as well as a sector for voluntary associations, such as workers’ cooperatives. The dictatorship of the financial markets must be destroyed. An economy must be based on real production and not on financial speculation. We must fight against the de-localization caused by globalization, which results in labor-market dumping, and harms the working classes by putting downward pressure on salaries. Free exchange between nations is good for everyone only if those nations are at approximately identical levels of economic development.

In Europe there must be reasonable protectionism that guarantees salaries and revenue. We must also promote, to the extent possible, consumption of goods where they are produced, with an emphasis on local transport and economies of proximity. The re-localization of economies is a way to maintain collective identities and also to restore social ties and local democracy in a public space in which citizenship is expressed.

Would you hope for a Europe that is more locally autonomous?

I am personally in support of a politically unified Europe, but this would be a Europe in which as many decisions as possible are made locally. We speak of the principle of “subsidiarity” according to which, as much as possible, and at the lowest possible level, people decide the matters that concern themselves.

That was the original idea of the United States. Every state was to have great autonomy.

But in the history of the United States the meaning of the word “federalism” has changed. Now when we say “federal” it means the central government, even though things were different in the beginning. The history of states’ rights is complex.

But that is my point. The European Union shows the same tendency. A central government always wants more power. Switzerland seems to be one of the few exceptions to this rule.

I like Switzerland very much. I would like the Swiss model extended to the whole of Europe. Do not forget that the difference between the central power in Europe (the so-called European Commission) and in the United States is that in Europe it is not even elected by anybody. There is no democratic legitimacy to it. I don’t have any illocutions about the value of the kinds of elections you have in the United States, but at least there is an election. Not in France. We elect a European parliament that has almost no power, and the only reason people take an interest in that election is because it is an indication of which parties are most popular within your own nation.

Do you think it is possible to have a politically united Europe that really does leave local decision-making to local people?

Yes. You see that in Switzerland. Of course, it is a small country.

But in the history of Europe you have two competing models. One is the nation-state, of which France is the perfect example, but of which England and Spain are also examples. The other model is empire: Italy, Germany and so on. I think the model of empire is much better because it does not concentrate power. It leaves rights and political autonomy to the different countries and regions. A recent model would be the Austro-Hungarian empire. It contained 35 different nationalities, but it worked pretty well. Of course, it was implicated in all the troubles in the Balkans.

For many countries, the United States is an unpleasant presence, but is this simply a reflection of its power? Is this just our version of the French mission civilisatrice or British empire-building, or is there something different about the way America imposes its ideas on the world?

Certainly England, France, and Spain had great influence on the world, but the difference is that they are old countries. They have behind them 2,000 or 3,000 years, and in such a long period of time you have many different conceptions of politics. Not so in the United States. From the beginning, you have the myth of the City on a Hill, that you were the new chosen people, that you fled corrupt Europe with its monarchies and that you would build a new society that would be the best in history.

This goes hand in hand with American optimism. There may be many problems but in the end technology will solve them. Technology creates problems and yet more technology will solve them. This feeling, which is shared by so many Americans, can lead to isolationism or Wilsonianism, in which you want to colonize, though not in the old way. You want all people to be Americanized.

I notice that when I am in America I always hear music—music or television—even in restaurants. But it is always American music. I never hear any singer or music that is not American. In a few restricted circles you may see a French film, and people may know of Edith Piaf or Maurice Chevalier. But if you go to Europe or anywhere else you will hear the same music! Not only, but mostly. When it is not French, it is American music. Why don’t the French listen to Chinese music or African music or German music or Spanish music or Danish music? And it is the same for films. We see all the American films. We do not see all the German or Italian films, even though those countries are very close to France.

Globalization is the vehicle for all this. English becomes the universal language; if you don’t understand English, you can’t really use the Internet. So here are two reasons for the impact of America. One is the ideological reason but the other is the effect of pure power. This is normal.

From the European point of the view, surely someone like George W. Bush must have been impossible to understand because he was not Machiavellian or even sophisticated.

To us he looks like a moron. In Europe a good politician or statesman is someone who is cultivated in matters of political philosophy and literature, who has a deep knowledge of the world, who sees history as tragedy. He is someone who is a realist in politics, who doesn’t try to hide his interests behind the smokescreen of moral discourse. Americans are completely different. They put their hands on their hearts and speak of freedom and democracy.

Yesterday I was at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, where I saw a quotation from President Reagan that went something like this: “There are no limits to growth or human happiness if people can freely choose their dreams.” What does that mean? Nothing. But you can see that sort of thing everywhere.

I was recently in New York and visited Rockefeller Center. There you have tablets with quotations from Nelson Rockefeller. “I believe in humanity. I believe in love. I believe in the pursuit of happiness but nothing is more important than love.” This man’s life was making money, but he says there is nothing more important than love. He was not a lover, he was a financier. This sort of thing is very strange for Europeans.

And there are so many things that have come from America to Europe and settled there, such as gender studies—people like Judy Butler, who are completely mad. The crazy kind of feminism. I am not against feminism. There is a good kind of feminism, which I call identitarian feminism, which tries to promote feminine values and show that they are not inferior to masculine values. But this American version of universalist egalitarianism says there is no difference between men and women. It concedes there is a small difference: you are born with one sex or the other, but it’s not very important. What is important is that gender is a social construct, and you can make the parallel with race. Race and sex, they don’t exist because they are social constructs; they are only what your mind says they are.

You may know that last May the French government decided—it is the law now—that the French Republic “does not recognize the existence of any race.” Race does not exist, but racism exists. We must fight racism, which is presumably a hatred of something that does not exist. Curiously, these people claim to value diversity, but how can there be diversity if races do not exist? Many of these ideological fashions came from America.

Many Americans and Europeans who are frustrated with the direction in which their country is going speak of the possibility of systemic collapse. Do you foresee such a collapse?

I don’t foresee that because it is impossible to foresee anything. The main characteristic of history is that it is always open, therefore unpredictable. All the important events of the last decades were not foreseen, beginning with the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of the Soviet system. Some people with a catastrophic and pessimistic view do not realize that history is open. They think nothing can change, yet change is always possible because human history is open. I don’t foresee any collapse but I believe that there is a strong possibility of a general collapse.

At least in Europe we have the impression that the political system has exhausted all its possibilities. There is also the financial crisis, which is, for me, a structural rather than contingent crisis of capitalism. You cannot live forever on credit. Look at the public debt of the United States—my God. We always add a bit more, a bit more, a bit more. But “more” and “better” are very different things. No tree can reach the sky, so it will certainly collapse.

At the same time, there are ecological, demographic, and immigration problems. We are clearly at the end of something. Probably at the end of modernity. Never in my life can I remember a time in which all possibilities were as open as they are today. We are in a world of transition. During the cold war, things were simple—two blocs—but not anymore. What will become of Russia? What will become of China? In Africa we will have demographic growth—like the public debt in the US!

So I think collapse is possible and it may be necessary, but you cannot rely on it. You cannot sit in your chair and say, “Well, dear friends, I am waiting for the apocalypse.” That would be like the Jehovah’s Witnesses: “The end of the world is nigh.” One world may be ending, but not the world.

Collapse may be necessary for what?

For change. Americans have lived ever since the beginning of their country under more or less the same system, so it is very easy for them to believe that theirs is a natural system. In Europe we have known so many systems, so many revolutions, so many conflicting opinions. I refuse to be constrained by inevitability.

Under the current system only marginal reforms are possible. In France, the National Front is rising in a very interesting way. It is becoming the leading political party, which is very strange when you remember that because of the electoral system it has only two members in the Chamber of Deputies. But even if Marine Le Pen were elected president—I do not think it will happen but I cannot exclude it—there would be no great changes. We would live in the same kind of society, looking at the same films, playing with the same electronic games, and so on.

You have spoken about how complex and multiple identity is. It is composed of language, history, profession, ethnicity, sex, etc. but why can race can never be part of a collective identity—at least for white people?

You mean in Europe?

I mean anywhere.

It is even more forbidden in Europe. In the United States, it is accepted by most people that races exist—and in my mind to accept race is very different from racism—but in Europe that is not so. In the United States you have racial statistics. You can go to the government and find race statistics on everything, including crime and social patterns. The collection of these kinds of statistics is forbidden in Europe—certainly in France.

In France you may categorize people as foreigners or French citizens but many immigrants have French citizenship. Sometimes they receive it automatically when they are born there. So sociologists who want to study a racial question must look indirectly at such things as medical statistics. No one knows how many blacks there are in France. We have an idea, of course, but officially race statistics are forbidden because race does not exist. Such race statistics might be used by racist people. They could use findings about crime, for example.

But to return to the question of identity, I am concerned that the people in France who want to defend identity seem to be the first not to know what identity means. They give only a negative definition of it: “I’m not an immigrant.” Alright, you are not an immigrant, but what are you? “I am French.” But of course you are so many other things as well. You are a man or a woman, you are a journalist or a producer, you are gay or straight, born in a particular region, etc. Identity is complex.

How do you see yourself as different from Identitarians?

If I compare you and me, the first difference is that I am aware of race and of the importance of race, but I do not give to it the excessive importance that you do. For me it is a factor, but only one among others.

The second is that I am not fighting for the white race. I am not fighting for France. I am fighting for a world view. I am a philosopher, a theoretician, and I fight to explain my world view. And in this world view, Europe, race, culture, and identity all have roles. They are not excluded. But mainly I am working in defense of a world view. Of course, I am very interested in the future and destiny of my own nation, race, and culture, but I am also interested in the future of every other group.

Immigration is clearly a problem. It gives rise to much social pathologies. But our identity, the identity of the immigrants, all the identities in the world have a common enemy, and this common enemy is the system that destroys identities and differences everywhere. This system is the enemy, not the Other. That is my basic credo.

Is there anything in particular you would you like to say to an American audience?

What I would say to America is to try to be a bit more open to the rest of the world. Try to know other countries and not just to visit them as tourists. As tourists you don’t see much. You need to understand that throughout the world people can think differently. I don’t say they are better or worse, but accept these differences, because a world of difference is a richer world. The wealth of the world is diversity — its genuine diversity.

 

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De Benoist, Alain. “We Are at the End of Something.” Interview by the American Renaissance Staff. American Renaissance, 22 November 2013. <http://www.amren.com/features/2013/11/we-are-at-the-end-of-something/ >.

Note: For a listing of certain major works of the New Right by Alain de Benoist in various languages, see Benoist’s and Champetier’s Manifesto along with the further reading section:  <https://neweuropeanconservative.wordpress.com/2012/10/20/manifesto-of-the-new-right-benoist-champetier/ >.

 

Glimpse of Post-American Future – Morgan

A Glimpse of the Post-American Future:
The National Policy Institute Conference of 2013

By John Morgan

When I think of my favorite cities in the United States, Washington, DC is not high on the list. I’ve had to go there, for various reasons, several times over the years, but, except for the time I came as a tourist, it’s never been a place I would imagine spending any more time in than absolutely necessary.

But in stepping off the plane as I was arriving for the recent National Policy Institute (NPI) conference there, and catching sight of the Capitol gleaming in the distance from Ronald Reagan airport, I did enjoy the irony of the fact that this had been chosen as the meeting place for those of us who are in opposition to nearly everything that America has come to stand for in recent history. We were gathering there, and we were refusing to be ignored, airing what is unquestionably the most radical political positions that exist at the present time (more on that later) in the shadow of the very institutions that are doubtless hoping that our views remain forever as marginalized from mainstream discourse as they are today.

The idea explored by this conference was one which questioned the very foundations upon which Washington rests: that America as we have known it is drawing to a close, and that if we, as both individuals and as a people, are to survive its end, we must rediscover our authentic identities.

The conference, which was held on Saturday, October 26, 2013, took as its theme “After the Fall,” and all of the speakers dealt with this idea in different ways, focusing their talks on themes related to the long-term unsustainability of the present, American-led state of global affairs, both domestically and globally, or else discussing what implications its end will have for those of us who care about the future of Western identity and civilization.

It took place, as did the NPI conference in 2011, in the Ronald Reagan Building in central Washington, which was an inspired choice on both occasions by Richard Spencer, NPI’s President and Director, given the airport-level security which it has, and also by virtue of the fact that, as a federal facility, the building authorities cannot deny NPI the right to hold its conferences there, in spite of any pressure or threats made by those who oppose it, without denying the organizers and participants their rights under the First Amendment. As such, NPI has been able to avoid the tragic fate of so many American Renaissance and similar conferences that have been called off in recent years due to such harassment.

Undaunted, however, a handful of protesters did make wholly unsuccessful attempts to disrupt the proceedings. I won’t discuss this in great detail, since videos of their activities are available online and Matt Parrott has already written about them for this site. I was left blissfully unaware of them by virtue of the fact that I had arrived over an hour before the start of the conference in order to set up a book table for my company, Arktos Media, and likewise ended up staying until several hours after the conference’s end – on both occasions, they were absent (no doubt fortifying themselves by smoking a bowl or whatever). A few of them made an appearance before the conference had actually begun, when everyone was simply having breakfast and getting coffee. When Richard demanded to see their admission passes, one of them, a White neo-hippie male youth, began shouting, “How can anyone in the 21st century have a bullshit nationalist identity . . . ” His thought was left incomplete as he was hustled out of the room—a great loss to the annals of political commentary, no doubt. A few others milled about the lobby outside the conference proper at various times throughout the day, perusing the book tables. I can’t know what they made of the books, but I hope that just maybe they came to realize that what they thought we stand for, and the reality as shown by our publications, are two very different things. Wishful thinking, perhaps.

This brings me to the point I mentioned earlier, about those of us who spoke at NPI, and those around the world who share our perspectives, being the REAL radicals. After all, what do these neo-Marxist protesters, using tactics and rhetoric that already seemed old hat in the 1960s, really have to offer? Nothing. While thinking themselves to be rebels against “the establishment” – which, oddly enough, they believe we represent (I’m still waiting for my check from the racist plutocrats who secretly control America to arrive in the mail) – they really embody nothing but a shabbily-dressed offshoot of the very system that they claim to oppose, and a slightly more extreme form of the ideas that have defined the United States and Europe for the last half-century. As Richard pointed out in his introductory remarks at the conference, these protesters aren’t the real enemy – they’re just sad. The only people who are actually developing a paradigm that challenges the dominant one in any meaningful way are those of us on the “radical Right” (for want of a better term). As such, WE are the genuine radicals – those who consider themselves to be our enemies are nothing but throwbacks to an earlier age.

As for the conference itself, it seemed to me that there were more people in attendance than there had been in 2011. Even more promising was the fact that there were many more young people among them, no doubt because of the significantly reduced price of the student tickets that Richard had made available. And, unlike 2011, there were even a few women in attendance, some of whom came of their own volition rather than reluctantly accompanying a spouse or boyfriend – a rare sight, at such an event in America, and hopefully a sign of an increasing trend.

Richard opened the proceedings by introducing the speakers and setting the tone for the day, which was one of daring to think beyond the parameters of Left and Right, and beyond any idea of “saving America” and toward imagining a new and better world to follow, as well as how it might work.

The first speaker was Piero San Giorgio, a Swiss citizen of Italian descent whose presentation was entitled “The Center Cannot Hold.” His talk was an extremely good overview of the many factors that are contributing to the decline of the present world order, particularly peak oil. He expressed his belief that all the signs indicate that a collapse of the economic system that will dwarf that of 2008 is not far off – a time most likely measurable in years rather than decades. Piero emphasized that capitalism was always a system destined to ultimately destroy itself, resting as it does on fantastical ideas of perpetual growth and the commodification of the entire planet and everything in it. For Piero, however, the coming collapse is not something to be feared, but rather an opportunity for revolutionary thinkers such as ourselves to refashion the world. To do this, we must be prepared by knowing how to survive on our own skills and resources, and Piero suggested a number of practical ways by which this can be accomplished. A very witty, well-written and thorough exposition of these threads is given in his book Survive the Economic Collapse: A Practical Guide, which was launched by Radix, an imprint of Washington Summit Publishers, in conjunction with the conference. This is a book that has been greatly needed by the “Right” for some time – both a summary of the evidence for an imminent collapse and a handbook for what one needs to in order to ensure that one can ride out the chaos rather than become caught up in it. As participants in a movement which is preoccupied with the idea of the collapse, it is nice to see someone take it up as a concrete phenomenon with definable features rather than treat it as a misty deux es machina that will magically deliver us from all our problems.

The next speaker, Sam Dickson, identified himself as a “racial communitarian activist.” Under the provocative title of “America: The God that Failed,” he set out what he saw as the fundamental flaws at the heart of America which have existed since its conception. In Dickson’s account, it was America’s roots in the British Isles, with its strong tradition of individualism that came about through its unique historical circumstances, as well as the individualistic tendencies of immigrants from other parts of Europe who came to America later, that led to the birth of the United States as a nation in which freedom was seen as an absolute value. This is an error, according to Dickson, since the individual can only attain meaning as a part of a community, and it was this elevation of freedom as an absolute value that led to Americans losing their sense of connection to a specific ethnic identity. In questioning freedom, Dickson hastened to add, one should not assume that those who do so are against freedom, as he sees himself as being against all forms of totalitarianism. Rather, one must question the view that sees freedom as an absolute value above all other concerns. Dickson says this was not just a problem that developed over the course of America’s history, but was implicit in the Declaration of Independence, which established equality as an absolute value and its associated sense of rights as something inalienable. A true community cannot be established solely on the idea of freedom, he claimed, and therefore America cannot be seen as an authentic nation. He went on to say that conservatives today are incapable of transcending this worship of freedom as an absolute and cannot surpass the notion of America as it is presently constituted. The only solution, he concluded, is to realize the limitations of the American conception of the nation, and to work toward a new nation based on the values of community and upon a renewed connection back to our European heritage.

This was followed by a panel discussion in which I participated, along with Richard, Andy Nowicki of Alternative Right, and Alex Kurtagić of Wermod and Wermod Publishing, concerning “Publishing and the Arts.” Richard kicked off by posing the question of how the new world of publishing that has emerged in recent years has impacted those of us engaged in “Right-wing” publishing. Andy spoke about the excitement of being part of a dissident form of media, and how satisfying it is to be in “the crest of an ever-growing wave” of alternative media. He also addressed the importance of avoiding getting too caught up in the day-to-day minutiae of the headlines and to instead to take a longer view, which leads to enduring rather than merely topical works, as well as the need to fund and encourage the arts of the dissident Right, which is a budding and much-needed component of the overall struggle to establish a new culture in keeping with our principles.

Next was my turn, and I discussed how a number of factors, including the birth of print-on-demand publishing, the growth of the Internet and social media, and even globalization – in the sense that my colleagues and I have outsourced ourselves to India for the past several years – have made Arktos possible, in a manner that would have been unthinkable even 20 years ago. In a sense, of course, we in Arktos are turning the very tools of the globalized world against itself in pursuit of an alternative. A gentleman from the audience expressed the view that the books that we publish only appeal to a small percentage of very intellectual readers in an age when books are allegedly on the decline, and that more direct, populist activism is what is really needed today. I replied that, while I would never discourage anyone from pursuing other courses of action, and in fact I am hopeful that such activities will take place, at the same time we should not dismiss the power of books. Not all books are intended for an exclusive audience, and I offered as an example the recent publication of our book, Generation Identity: A Declaration of War Against the ’68ers by Markus Willinger, which serves as a manifesto of the worldview of the identitarian youth movement which has accomplished many things in Europe in recent years, as an example of something which has proven to be very popular among young readers who are new to the “movement.” Besides which, it is my view that revolutions, whether they are political, cultural or intellectual, are always led by elites, and in this way books are still indispensable for training the elite that will lead our revolution in these fields. The European New Right, for example, would never have materialized were it not for the metapolitical efforts of Alain de Benoist and others who laid the groundwork in their books, something which could not have been achieved in any other medium.

Alex Kurtagić described what he is doing as an effort to engage with the space where “art, bibliophilia, and the counter-culture intersect,” and expressed his wish to bring out beautifully-produced editions of classic texts that have been neglected in recent years, as a sort of dissident Penguin Classics, which he has already done with Francis Parker Yockey’s Imperium and other books. Kurtagić believes the value of these books lies in the fact that they will lead to the development of a new body of theory, and also outlast any collapse scenario which we may face in the near future, unlike the products of the mass media and electronic culture.

Following this was lunch, and after this, there was a conversation between Sam Dickson and William Regnery. Regnery discussed his journey through the conservative movement of the time and how he later came to reject conservative politics in favor of the sorts of perspectives offered at NPI. Dickson then reflected on the fact that, while the America he grew up in during the 1950s and ’60s was better than it is today in some respects, it was also very closed-minded, and the dissemination information was dominated by a very few organizations, which rendered alternative points-of-view such as those represented by NPI and similar groups very difficult to find or disseminate. Therefore, in a sense, Dickson said that there are actually greater opportunities for revolutionary movements in America today than there were previously. Regnery professed his belief that the ostracism that Rightists encounter in America today is much more intense than anything that was experienced by Leftists under McCarthyism.

Next up was Alex Kurtagić once again, whose talks in various venues in recent years, including NPI in 2011, always cause them to be greeted with eager anticipation. His talk was on the theme of “The End of the World as We Know It.” Kurtagić explained that, since the financial meltdown of 2008, the idea of a collapse has percolated beyond its origins in the radical Right and into the mainstream, as expressed in the many books and novels which have dealt with the theme in recent years. The most distinguishing feature of these works, Kurtagić contended, is that they are primarily concerned with the idea of preserving America and its egalitarian, libertarian ideals. As such, they ultimately miss the point – egalitarianism is never questioned, and the issue of race never enters into the discussion.

The other common feature of such works, according to Kurtagić, is that they depict the collapse as something that happens suddenly and which is severe. This is not necessarily the way that it will actually happen, he pointed out – it is just as possible that we are already experiencing a gradual collapse, which will only be recognized by those looking back retrospectively at history at a later time. What must distinguish the “radical Right’s” idea of the collapse must be a willingness to see it through the lens of a transvaluation of values, rather than as an attempt to restore what will be lost when America as it is presently constituted finally falls. For Kurtagić, the key to this transvaluation is the idea of egalitarianism. Egalitarianism is the key to the liberal worldview because it is the tool that enables them to dismiss distinctions, hierarchy, meaning, and tradition. This is why the Right was ultimately forced to retreat from any meaningful opposition to liberalism, according to Kurtagić, because once egalitarianism was ensconced as the inviolable ideal of Western society, the Right was forced to oppose its enemies on their own terms, thus losing any ability to oppose them in a meaningful way.

Kurtagić called on his audience to dare to “think the unthinkable.” This means, according to him, questioning the very foundation upon which the radical Right in America has based itself in recent decades. The Anglo-American Right, according to Kurtagić, sees itself as a bastion of reason in a world of unreason. As a result, it has taken a scientific approach to its problems, which in turn is reflective of the bias towards empiricism inherent in the Anglo-American worldview. Speculative philosophy, in this tradition, is always viewed with suspicion. As a consequence, Kurtagić believes that the Anglo-American Right has failed to answer the issue of why egalitarianism cannot be questioned. The answer, he says, is because the Left succeeded in framing the issue of egalitarianism as one of an absolute good opposed to an absolute evil, and this is an idea that has spread throughout every facet of our society. Kurtagić claimed that it is not enough to try to prove the egalitarian ideal false through empirical data, but rather to depict it as an evil in turn, by pointing to the many injustices that have resulted from its pursuit, turning modern liberal democracies into near-totalitarian surveillance states in an effort to patrol the society and ensure that it is acting in accordance with this ideal.

What the game of egalitarianism is really about, Kurtagić said, is power – it is an instrument being used by those who want power to advance themselves, irrespective of whatever lofty goals initially inspired it. As such, it is mere arrogance masquerading as humility by the powers-that-be. What is needed to counter them is a moral critique of egalitarianism, which Kurtagić believes will undermine the moral legitimacy that supports the ruling classes. But it is not sufficient merely to tear down, says Kurtagić; something new will be needed to replace egalitarianism. This new ideal must surpass the merely biological view of life, because such a stand will merely render us as moral particularists, believing that what is good for our own group alone is what is best. But Kurtagić believes, along with Kevin MacDonald, that one of the distinguishing features of Western thought is universalism, and that the type of thought that we use to deal with a collapse scenario must be inherently Western in nature if we are to survive, and thus address the needs of all groups.

Unlike some, Kurtagić does not see the collapse as guaranteeing a reawakening of the racial spirit in Whites. We have come to focus on race, he said, because the Left decided to make an issue of it. But by countering them only on this level, we have only succeeded in dragging ourselves down to their level. Race is meaningless without taking into account whatever is built on top of it – therefore, we should focus our efforts on those higher, nobler aspects of our civilization rather than only upon its biological foundations. Kurtagić concluded by stating that he would rather live in a world full of differences than a homogenized one.

Following Alex Kurtagić was Roman Bernard, a Frenchman who has been active with the French organization which has been making headlines, Génération Identitaire – the same which brought identitarianism as a phenomenon to the attention of all Europe. His theme was “The Children of Oedipus.” He described his journey from more mainstream conservatism to the “radical Right,” in part as a result of his reading of English-language outlets such as Alternative Right, Counter-Currents, and Arktos. He explained that the youth of France are more and more beginning to question the ideals that they inherited from the radical Leftists who came to prominence after the strikes of 1968, and they are coming to see that all Europeans around the world are facing a common struggle. He pointed to Generation Identity as a portent of things to come: in its famous occupation of a mosque that was under construction in Poitiers, the site where Charles Martel drove back Muslim invaders in the eighth century, and in their occupation of the offices of the Socialist Party in Paris last May, the identitarians have given birth to a form of street activism that was unknown on the Right previously. Roman felt that these developments were indicative that a new and more vigorous Right, with much greater appeal to youth, was on the rise in Europe. Matt Parrott reinforced his message, emphasizing the need for continuing street-level activism to go along with more ideological or metapolitical efforts.

Mark Hackard, who writes for Alternative Right, then followed up with a discussion of the state of geopolitical affairs, in particular how the recent crisis in Syria, which led to Vladimir Putin’s frustration of Obama’s plans for military intervention, demonstrated that the era of American hegemony was already beginning to give way to a multipolar world in which other, opposing forces were coming into play.

Following this was Jack Donovan, who has been promoting the values of tribalism and a restoration of masculinity in his writings. Donovan pointed out that the collapse may come soon, or the system as it exists could limp on for quite some time; the one thing we can be certain of is that America, as it currently exists, will never change even as it declines, and the values which those of us on the “Right” hold dear will continue to be opposed by the establishment, as keeping people dependent on the liberal state is the key to their continuing power. Donovan said that, to the powers-that-be, we are only barbarians, condemned to be forever ostracized from the mainstream, but that rather than viewing this as a problem, we should embrace our barbarian identities.

Donovan said that the key to embracing this identity is to see ourselves as outsiders within our own homeland. What this means is to change the way we relate to the state, and see ourselves as something separate from it. He suggested four ways this could be accomplished. The first is to separate “us” from “them,” seeing ourselves in tribal terms and refusing to identify with America as a whole. The second is to stop getting angry because what is happening in society doesn’t make sense to us. The reason this is the case, Donovan said, is because what is being done is happening because it benefits those in power – not us. Therefore we shouldn’t expect things to seem sensible from our point of view. His third point is to de-universalize morality. Men, and White men in particular, he claimed, see themselves today as being on a mission to ensure that everyone in our society is being treated fairly. The problem is that this idea only works when everyone is interconnected as part of a cohesive community; in America today, many Whites have difficulty coming to terms with the idea that others do not have this same idea of universal justice in their hearts. No one cares when White men are excluded from anything today, Donovan pointed out. His fourth point is to encourage us to become “independent but interdependent” – to quietly establish a community somewhere of like-minded individuals who can jointly develop an alternative lifestyle, dissenting from the prevailing culture, and ensure that its members can provide for themselves by possessing the necessary skills. Land belongs to he who can hold it, Donovan emphasized, and while there is little chance that we can reclaim America from those who currently own it, it is still possible to establish a tribe that one can call one’s own.

Tomislav Sunić, who next took the podium, spoke on the idea of “Beyond Nationalism, or the Problem with Europe.” Sunić began by reminding us that prophecies of the imminent end of the world are nothing new in human history. The prevailing ideology of the modern West, he said, is that of progress, and the belief in an endless upward development of civilization. Sunić said that he sees himself as being among those who reject this belief. Believers in progress, he noted, have a tendency to want to impose their plans on society as a whole, and as a result have led to some of the greatest political atrocities of modern times. Our European ancestors, Sunić noted, were more accustomed to the idea of an inevitable fall, as can be seen in the myths of an apocalyptic end – and cyclical rebirth to follow – which predominated throughout Europe. For Sunić, this tragic sense, which he believes has been perpetuated up to the present day, as seen in great European writers such as Ernst Jünger and Emile Cioran, is part of what unites our civilization, in addition to its racial aspect. This indicates that the notion of our identity must go beyond the merely biological, in terms of being “White,” and we should look for our roots in our common historical memory. He also contended that defining ourselves solely in terms of what we oppose, such as in being against immigration or Islam, is also insufficient to form a complete identity.

Sunić claimed that we must embrace this European sense of the tragic, not as something negative, but rather as an opportunity to see history as an endless flow which will offer us opportunities, if only we can grab them. In order to do this, we must forge something new. This means creating a new, pan-European identity which will guarantee that we do not repeat the bloody mistakes that came between our various peoples in the past. Sunić offered many historical precedents for this idea, showing that when threatened by outside forces, Europeans have always demonstrated their willingness to put aside their differences to confront a greater threat. Sunić’s last point was that we must not ignore the issue of character when evaluating who is worthy to be a part of our new ethnostate – simply being of a common racial background is insufficient on its own. Sunić reminded us that both our movement and others, such as the Catholic Church, have been plagued by those with bad intentions who prey on such groups only for their own personal benefit. Such individuals must be rejected. Sunić believes that the only way forward is to establish a new European identity and rediscover our pride in who we are.

The final speaker of the day was the deliverer of the keynote address, Alain de Benoist, who more than anyone present has been responsible for giving birth to the trends which have culminated in the appearance of organizations such as NPI and the North American New Right. Benoist was the ideological founder of what came to be termed – against their own wishes – the “New Right” in France, and which later spread throughout Europe, and he has published dozens of books in French, several of which have now been translated by Arktos. Benoist’s project has always been to create a new type of political thought in Europe which will allow Europeans to defend and retain their identities while avoiding the intellectual and ideological pitfalls which befell similar efforts in the past. Thus, the subject of his talk was aptly named, “The Question of Identity.” He began by apologizing for his poor English, although it was my impression that everyone in the room was able to understand him with ease.

Benoist said that the question of identity is the most important question we face today, but also pointed out that it is a very modern question as well, since traditional societies never have the need to question their identity. He explained that identity in Europe became an issue with the rise of individualism in the wake of Descartes, who first described the notion of the individual as something independent of his community. Likewise, we have seen the division of the individual into various identities, such as one’s professional, sexual, ethnic identity, and so on.

The problems which prevail today in thinking about identity derive from the fact that we have come to think that it is a product only of how we think of ourselves. Benoist said that, from the communitarian perspective – which he also identified as his own – identity is dependent on how others see us, which means that identity can only be understood in terms of a social bond. This means that all notions of identity are ideological in nature. Furthermore, we tend to see identity as something immutable, whereas Benoist said that identity cannot exist without transformation, even if we remain, in essence, ourselves throughout such changes. The notion of identity is an interpretive act – when we perceive something, we do not just see it but also assign meaning to it, which gives our notions of identity a narrative character, in terms of a story which develops further every time we come back to it.

When it comes to mass immigration, Benoist said, while it is responsible for great social pathologies, those who oppose it miss the point by ignoring its actual causes. What is really behind it is “the system that kills the peoples,” namely the global system of capitalism that is attempting to destroy all differences in an effort to impose a universal world order. Benoist does not believe that our identity is primarily threatened by others, but rather the greatest danger we face is from the lack of respect for the identity of others that prevails everywhere today, in which Americanization is the order of the day and the highest value is money. We must wonder whether the world will continue to develop along unipolar lines, with America as the sole dominant force trying to bring about a monolithic world, or whether we will see the emergence of a multipolar world in which many identities will be allowed to play a role.

How this came about can only be understood by examining the roots of modernity in the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment, by its nature, was opposed to the very idea of identity, opposing tradition, rootedness, and ethnic solidarity. Benoist said that mainstream American conservatives repeat this mistake when they defend the myth of the individual against the rights of society as a whole. Continental Europeans, he said, have had less of a problem with this, since they have always recognized that capitalism is a destructive force. Capitalism is the opposite of real conservatism, he said; it believes itself to be universal and endless. Benoist pointed out that even Marx had identified capitalism as the system which stands for the abolition of all traditions and the feudal order. Capitalism relies for its survival on perpetual growth, and can thus only exist if it dismantles everything that stands in its way. This is why capitalism proved itself to be much more effective than Communism, Benoist said, since as a system it is even more universalist and materialistic than Communism ever was. Capitalism is ultimately responsible for the problem of immigration because it relies on a continual increase of its labor pool for a continuing increase in productivity, and thus it is the natural setting for the concept of “global citizenship.” But capitalism can only offer a caricature of a social bond, he said – in reality, all it can do is carry out the commodification of humans that is inherent in its logic. Benoist concluded by saying that identity will always remain under threat as long as the lifestyles inspired by capitalism remain unquestioned. He apologized to the audience if anyone had found his talk to be a deliberate provocation to Americans; he said he was only offering his opinion, but knew that it was difficult to convey in a country which valued the ideals of progress, individualism and capitalism above all else.

A very interesting question-and-answer session followed. Benoist further explicated his views on America, saying that one of the most fundamental problems with it is that it is the product of a land which already had its own culture being co-opted by another culture, which led to an inherent sense of alienation within it. He also noted that America was not alone in its responsibility for the present global order, admitting that the American and French revolutionary projects were linked by a similar ideology. Interestingly, he said that, in spite of their claim to stand for the rights of everyone, these revolutions had only possible as a result of massive bloodshed – in France, through the violent suppression of the ancien régime, and in America by the suppression of the Indians. He said that addressing these problems in America is always problematic, since a genuine Left and Right, as known in Europe, is absent here, “which is strange.” Benoist also invoked Carl Schmitt in reminding us that those who fight in the name of humanity only do so in order to deny the humanity of their enemy, rendering him into an absolute evil that must be destroyed.

After this was a very pleasant reception, during which I manned the Arktos book table. As inspiring as the speakers at the conference were, this is always my favorite part of any such event, since it gives me the opportunity to meet and speak with people who usually only know me through the Internet, or through my work for Arktos. It is always very invigorating to experience firsthand how many intelligent, interesting people find value in the work that we do, and I always greatly appreciate the many expressions of thanks for our efforts that were extended to me over the course of the weekend. I give my most heartfelt gratitude to anyone who did so.

I will conclude by saying that there were no problems of any significance at the conference, and both the speakers and the audience that the organizers managed to assemble were truly top-notch. I hope that NPI continues to hold such events with regularity in the future, as they are absolutely essential to the growth of a genuinely radical school of thought on the Right in America today – something that is desperately needed, as the impoverishment of the ideals underlying our society become more apparent by the day. Whether an actual collapse is imminent or not, what cannot be denied is the already ongoing collapse of America as a culture and as a society. Those of us on the “New Right” are the only ones capable of developing the right sorts of solutions. We need to get to work.

—————-

Morgan, John. “A Glimpse of the Post-American Future: The National Policy Institute Conference of 2013.” Counter-Currents Publishing, 6 November 2013. <http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/11/a-glimpse-of-the-post-american-future/ >.

 

After the Fall – AR Staff

After the Fall

By the American Renaissance Staff

Second NPI conference is held in Washington.

 

The National Policy Institute (NPI) held its second national conference in Washington, DC, on October 26, with a very interesting lineup of speakers. The meeting was held in the Ronald Reagan Center, a federally operated facility, which resisted all “anti-racist” threats to the conference.

The speakers were introduced by Richard Spencer, director of NPI, and the conference began with Piero San Giorgio, a Swiss author and survivalist. Mr. San Giorgio argued strongly that current population and consumption trends can lead only to economic and social collapse. We may have already reached “peak oil,” and in 15 or 20 years, the energy it takes to extract oil could be greater than the energy we can get from burning it. We are also running out of copper, zinc, bauxite, and other metals while we pollute, deforest, and overfish the planet.

Mr. San Giorgio predicted that what he calls “the religion of perpetual growth” will come to a crashing end as governments default on debt and nations go to war over resources. The result will be widespread poverty of a kind now found only in the worst parts of Africa.

Only organized groups will be available to survive this collapse, and the best organized groups for that purpose are criminal gangs, which are well armed and used to getting what they want by force. Those of us who do not want to be slaughtered by gangs will need what Mr. San Girogio calls a “sustainable autonomous base” with its own food supply, energy source, and armed defense. Mr. San Giorgio believes we should build such bases for ourselves but that no one will survive in isolation. We are social animals who need a tribe and social links. In the mean time, Mr. San Giorgio recommends getting out of debt, converting financial assets to gold, and learning how to lead the simpler, pre-industrial way of life that is coming.

Mr. San Giorgio elaborates on these themes in his book Survive–The Economic Collapse.

Sam Dickson spoke next on “America: the God that Failed.” Describing himself as a “racial communitarian,” he argued that America’s great failing has been an excess of individualism that has destroyed the organic ties of community. The British were already the most individualistic people of the Old World, and those who settled North America were the most individualistic of the British. Immigrants who followed, both through Ellis Island and later, have come to make money rather than to join a national community.

Americans glorify freedom and liberty, but the price has been so thorough a destruction of the racial and social bonds of community that we no longer live in a nation—those of us who imagine a better life are men without a country. And in some respects we are freer than our ancestors—we are free to fornicate, marry across racial lines, divorce, abort our children, and even marry a person of the same sex—but these freedoms are granted by the state. Without strong communities we are powerless in the face of the state that grants—and withholds—what it takes to be freedoms.

Mr. Dickson argued that any nation based on foolish propositions such as the equality of all men and the idea of inalienable rights—he noted that rights are alienated all the time—cannot even pretend to be a nation. He sounded a warning to Americans: We must recognize our susceptibility to “freedom” and rediscover the importance of community. We must build a “reracinated” nation that is a true outgrowth of Europe rather than the formless “biomass” that now constitutes what is called the American people.

Mr. Dickson was followed by a panel discussion on breaking the mainstream’s grip on media. It was composed of Andy Nowicki of AlternativeRight.com, John Morgan of Arktos Media, and Alex Kurtagic of the Wermod & Wermod Publishing Group. Mr. Nowicki described the current success of alternative media as “riding the crest of a wave” that makes it possible to spread dissident ideas to the entire world. He also noted the importance of supporting not only writers but artists who embody a new sensibility.

Mr. Morgan noted that although Arktos has been publishing only since 2010, it has produced some 60 books that he described as “alternatives to modernity.” Much of Arktos’ work has been to make available to English speakers important European works on politics, philosophy, and art that that have never been translated. Mr. Morgan noted that Arktos has been made possible only because of the latest technology—Internet, print on demand, Twitter, Facebook—and noted the delicious irony of fighting modernity with its own tools.

Mr. Kurtagic’s project is to produce beautiful, collectible versions of now-despised classics—what he calls “the dissident Penguin classics.” So far, he has produced beautiful annotated editions of Madison Grant’s best books and published a similar edition of Francis Yockey’s Imperium. At the same time, he strongly promotes new expressions of our traditional culture. To a questioner who doubted the wisdom of reviving bound books in the electronic age he replied that when the power goes out we will be glad to have paper.

Sam Dickson and William Regnery then spoke about how America has changed. Mr. Regnery, who grew up during the 1950s, said, “I regret that life in the ’50s is something my children, and grandchildren will not see.” He noted that there may have been precursors to the collapse in values of the 1960s, but that there was a community and even national coherence. He also described some of his adventures as a conservative activist but noted that the movement achieved virtually nothing in 40 years. “The conservative movement didn’t leave me,” he concluded. “I left the conservative movement.”

Mr. Dickson emphasized the same sense of community that he knew as a child, but also underscored how limited the sources of information then were. It was far harder than now to hear a dissident view of race or history, and a profusion of books, publishers, foundations, and Internet sites makes it much easier for independent-minded Americans to learn how badly their country has been led astray.

Mr. Kurtagic then spoke on “The End of the World as We Know It.” He noted that there is a vogue of fiction about the collapse of civilization. Many people sense that our levels of consumption and indebtedness cannot be sustained, but he pointed out that sometimes collapse can be slow and that its beginnings may be recognizable only in retrospect. Our aim should not be to contribute to the fall but to build what may come after the fall.

Today, egalitarianism is the highest value of the West but we must reject it. Egalitarianism makes everything the same, thus destroying all traditions and archetypes. Most people cannot even imagine a moral critique of egalitarianism, but until this false god is destroyed nothing new can emerge.

Egalitarianism erases the difference between the deserving and undeserving, and in so doing establishes a huge government apparatus that creates privilege for the undeserving. Egalitarian movements have also killed millions of people in their self-righteous quest for power. Conservatives try to fight egalitarianism with statistics and measures of inequality but theirs is only a half-hearted struggle that fails to reject the fundamental goal of homogenization and “social justice.”

Racialists seek to overthrow egalitarianism by asserting white identity but no solution can be found by seeking only what is good for whites. Western man believes in universal values, and will accept only those concepts based on what is good for all races. It is the left that makes a fetish out of race and we should not fall into its trap. We should strive towards the sublime, towards uniqueness, towards nobility. Biology is not a sufficient foundation for morality, and if we value our own uniqueness we must value and support the uniqueness of others.

Roman Bernard is a French activist who spoke about how young racially conscious Europeans are fighting dispossession. He said that for the first time, they feel deeply that all Europeans face the same challenges, and they see themselves as one people with a common destiny. They are not deceived by leftist media and, unlike European conservatives who just want to be left alone to enjoy their money, young identitarians want to take power so they can change the world.

Mr. Bernard pointed out that the old solution to immigration—white flight—is no longer possible. A man with a master’s degree waiting on tables cannot afford a house in the suburbs. As for solutions, it is too early to describe what form they will take. The awakening is too recent for its consequences to be predicted. However, the cultural and intellectual battle has begun, and more young people will join the movement as they see it as the only way out from a series of catastrophic failures.

So far, the most high-profile identitarian acts in France have been street theatre: storming the headquarters of the socialist party, and occupying the mosque that was under construction at Poitiers, not far from the famous battle of 732. The traditional Right would never think of doing such things. It is not possible to know how or whether these new youth movements will move into politics, but it has a focus and energy that reflect a genuine break with the past.

Jack Donovan, author of The Way of Men, spoke on “Becoming the New Barbarians.” Like Mr. San Giorgio, he predicted an inevitable decline and a more constrained way of life, since we can count on our rulers to fail us. They will also continue trying to keep us emasculated and dependent on the state. Healthy men are forceful, even violent. The state uses such men to serve its own violent purposes but wants to turn them into women for any other purpose.

Those among us who know that men are not created equal, who hate a government that tries to regulate everything, who know men and women are different, who believe free men should be armed, and who find same-sex marriage absurd are now the new barbarians.

Just as we are rejected and hated by the state, we must reject the state. Politicians cannot solve our problems, and once we recognize that they are crazy or stupid or both, we should “relax and appreciate their crafty strategies.” “We should see them for what they are,” Mr. Donovan added. “Be mocking, carefree, and violent.” We should not worry about changing the state; that is for people who believe in and belong to the state.

We must draw clear lines to distinguish ourselves from others, and be “morally accountable only to the tribe.” Blacks do not even pretend to care about us, and we must recognize that we have interests different from theirs. We have a compulsion to be fair, but this compulsion is healthy only in a world in which others believe in fairness.

When the decline comes, those with a tribal identity will survive, and a tribe must be of real comrades, not a group of Facebook friends. Bands of brothers should take over neighborhoods or apartment complexes. A community of 125 people can work together to survive when the state collapses, and if we have community we can live meaningful lives even if we are condemned to be outsiders in our own homeland.

The next speaker was Tomislav Sunic, the Croatian philosopher and author of Against Democracy and Equality. In a speech called “Beyond Nationalism, or the Problem of Europe,” he warned of the limits of white racial consciousness. Although he rejects the idea of inevitable progress—“after every sunny day there is a rainy day”—he does not believe in the inevitability of collapse. Even if there is a large-scale collapse, we cannot be sure that it will give rise to a healthy consciousness of race.

Mr. Sunic noted that the civil wars whites have waged against each other have killed far more of us than non-whites ever could. Race has never been a unifier; the Germanic Gepids even joined Atilla against Europe in the 5th century. At the same time, most of the people demonstrating in favor of illegal immigrants in Europe are themselves white, and “our worst detractors are from the same gene pool as ourselves.” He went on to point out that “when the final breakdown occurs, the lines of demarcation will not be clear at all,” and that there will be plenty of whites fighting on the barricades against us.

Mr. Sunic argued that Christianity is no longer central to the identity of the West. There are now more non-white than white Christians, and high-ranking church leaders tell us they see “the face of Jesus” among crowds of immigrants—even when they are Muslim or Hindu.

And yet biology alone cannot be our identity. “A generic white blank slate is meaningless if it is devoid of a racial soul.” Mr. Sunic called on whites to cherish their cultural and historical legacy because without that we are only a genotype. “We must resuscitate our sense of the tragic as well as our racial identity,” he concluded, noting that the sense of the tragic is what drives Promethean struggle, even in the face of overwhelming odds.

The keynote speaker was Alain de Benoist, the prominent French philosopher and one of the founders the New Right, who spoke about the nature of identity. He pointed out that as soon as someone speaks of his identity, it is a sign his identity is under attack. People in traditional, rooted societies do not ask “Who am I?” or “Who are we?” By the time someone begins to ask these questions, his identity may have disappeared.

Identity has many dimensions: language, culture, ethnicity, sex, profession, etc. We choose those parts of our identity we think most important to us, but it is a mistake to believe that our identity depends only on ourselves. A man living alone would have no identity, because identity is shaped by relations with others. Our community participates in our identity.

It is also a mistake to define identity as something immutable. We never cease to be ourselves, but the elements of which identity is composed change throughout our lives.

Many people say that mass immigration threatens collective identity, and this problem cannot be denied. However, too many natives then define themselves in opposition to what they are not rather than setting forth a positive identity.

Modernity itself attacks the identity of both the immigrant and the native. “I say the biggest threat is the system that kills the people,” Mr. de Benoist noted, adding that “the imposition of an across-the-board homogenization eliminates diversity of language culture, etc.” He decried global government and global markets that operate according to “the ideology of sameness.”

Mr. de Benoit also criticized capitalism because it seeks to reduce everything to a cost and a price, and to reduce all humans to interchangeable producers and consumers. Capitalism, noted Mr. de Benoist, has erased borders far more successfully than Communism ever did, and the global market leads to the global citizen. Capitalism has become a “total social fact” that seems to dominate and homogenize every aspect of our lives.

Modernity itself is the enemy of identity because it is rooted in the idea of progress, in which the past is nothing but a bundle of irrational superstitions. The future towards which modernity strives is one in which all men are individuals, seeking what is in their rational interests. Modernity has no place for the irrational or the collective, despite the fact that these are what give life meaning.

Mr. de Benoist concluded by saying that although globalization and Americanization are not synonymous, they are closely related. Only Americans believe that their system is the best in the world and that they have is a duty to export it. Of course, to the extent that this succeeds, it destroys all that is unique, different and valuable, just as it destroys identity. Ultimately, it destroys humanity because we cannot be human if we are all the same.

Before the conference speeches began, decorum was breached by an uninvited guest who shouted about “fu**ing racists” but the event was otherwise a success by any standard. Videos of the speeches should be available soon.

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American Renaissance Staff. “After the Fall.” American Renaissance, October 28, 2013. <http://www.amren.com/news/2013/10/after-the-fall/ >.