Althusius: First Federalist – Benoist

“The First Federalist: Johannes Althusius” by Alain de Benoist (PDF – 94 KB):

The First Federalist: Johannes Althusius

————–

De Benoist, Alain. “The First Federalist: Johannes Althusius.” Telos, vol. 200, no. 118 (Winter 2000), pp. 25-58. <http://www.alaindebenoist.com/pdf/the_first_federalist_althusius.pdf >.

Note: On the topic of this essay, see also Alain de Benoist, “What is Sovereignty?” Telos, vol. 1999, no. 116 (Summer 1999), pp. 99-118, <http://www.alaindebenoist.com/pdf/what_is_sovereignty.pdf >. We would also like to mention that excellent research articles in the Spanish language on this matter of sovereignty and federalism have been collected in Sebastian J. Lorenz’s Elementos, N° 37, “Federalismo Poliárquico Neoalthusiano” (Noviembre 2012), <http://urkultur-imperium-europa.blogspot.com/2012/11/elementos-n-37-federalismo-poliarquico.html >. (We have made Elementos N° 37 available for download on our site: Elementos Nº 37 – Federalismo).

 

Advertisements

Main Principles of Eurasist Policy – Dugin

Main Principles of Eurasist Policy

By Alexander Dugin

Translated by Martino Conserva

 

1. Three patterns (Soviet, pro-Western, Eurasist)

In modern Russia there exist three basic, reciprocally conflicting patterns of state strategy both in the sphere of foreign policy, and in the field of domestic policy. These three patterns form the modern system of political co-ordinates in which any political decision of the Russian government, any international step, any serious social, economic or juridical problem is decomposed.

The first pattern represents the inertial cliché of the Soviet (mainly later Soviet) period. It has somehow taken roots in the psychology of some Russian managing systems, often unconsciously, pushing them into adopting such or such decision on the basis of the precedents. This pattern is supported with the “relevant” argument: «It worked earlier, it will work also now». It concerns not only those political leaders who consciously exploit the nostalgic complex of the Russian citizens. The Soviet reference pattern is much wider and deeper than the structures of the KPFR [Communist Party of the Russian Federation], which now stands at the rim of executive power, far from the decisional centres. Everywhere politicians and officials, formally not identifying themselves in any way with communism, are guided by it. It is an effect of education, life experience, formation. In order to understand the substance of the undergoing processes in Russian politics, it is necessary to admit this “unconscious sovietism”. The second pattern is the liberal-democrat, pro-American one. It started taking shape with the beginning of “perestroyka” and became some kind of dominant ideology in the first half of the 1990s. As a rule, the so-called liberal-reformers and the political forces close to them identify themselves with it. This pattern is based on choosing as system of reading of the American socio-political device, copying it on the Russian ground and following US national interests in international issues. Such pattern has the advantage to allow to lean on the quite real “foreign present”, as against the virtual “domestic past” around which the first pattern gravitates. The argument here too is rather simple: «It works for them, it will work for us too». Here it is important to stress that we are not simply talking about “foreign experience”, but about the orientation towards the US, as to the flagship of the successful Western capitalist world.

These two patterns (plus their manifold variations) are diffusely represented in Russian politics. Since the end of the 1980s all basic world-view conflicts, discussions and political fights takes place between the bearers of these two views.

The third pattern is much less known. It can be defined as “eurasist”. We are dealing here with much more complex operations, than simply copying the Soviet or American experience. This pattern refers both to the domestic past and to the foreign present in terms of differentiation: it derives something from our political history, something from the reality of modern societies. The Eurasist pattern recognises that Russia (as a State, as a people, as a culture) is an autonomous civilisation value, that she should save its uniqueness, independence and power in that that became, having put at the service of this purpose any doctrine, system, mechanism and political technique which can to this encourage. Eurasism, in this way, is an original “patriotic pragmatism”, free from any dogmatics – be it Soviet or liberal. But at the same time, the wideness and flexibility of the Eurasist approach do not prevent this theory from being conceptually systematic, possessing all the marks of an organic, consequent, internally consistent world-view.

As the two former orthodox patterns show their unfitness, Eurasism becomes more and more popular. The Soviet pattern operates with obsolete political, economic and social realities, it exploits nostalgia and inertness, it lacks a sober analysis of the new international situation and the real development of world economic trends. The pro-American liberal pattern, in turn, cannot be realised in Russia by definition, being an organic part of another civilisation, alien to Russia. This is well understood in the West too, where nobody disguises their preference to see not a prospering and safe Russia, but, on the contrary, a weakened Russia, submerged in the abyss of chaos and corruption.

Therefore today the Eurasist pattern becomes most urgent, most demanded by the society.

So we must take a closer look at it.

2. Eurasism and Russian foreign policy

Let us formulate the basic political principles of modern Russian Eurasism.

We shall start from foreign policies.

As in every political field, also in foreign policy Eurasism proposes to follow the third path – neither sovietism, nor americanism. It means that Russian foreign policies should not directly reconstruct the diplomatic profile of the Soviet period (rigid opposition to the West, recovering a strategic partnership with “rogue countries” – North Korea, Iraq, Cuba etc.) while at the same time it must not blindly follow the American advisors. Eurasism offers its own foreign policy doctrine. Its essence can be summarised as follows.

Contemporary Russia can be saved as an autonomous and independent political reality, as a valuable subject of international policy, only in the conditions of a multipolar world. Consenting to the unipolar American-centred world is impossible for Russia, since in such world she could be but one of the objects of globalisation, inevitably losing her independence and originality. The opposition to unipolar globalisation, the assertion of the multipolar pattern is the major imperative of contemporary Russian foreign policies. This condition must not be put into doubt by any political forces: and from this follows that the propagandists of American-centred globalisation inside Russia must be (at least morally) delegitimized. The construction of the multipolar world (vital for Russia) is feasible only through a system of strategic alliances. Russia alone cannot cope with this problem, not disposing of sufficient resources for complete autarchy. Therefore her success in many respects depends on the adequacy and activity of her foreign policy.

In the modern world there are some geopolitical subjects which, due historical and civilisation reasons, also are vitally interested in multipolarity. In the situation now taking shape these subjects represent Russia’s natural partners.

They are divided in some categories.

The first category: powerful regional formations (countries or group of countries), whose relations with Russia can be conveniently expressed by the term “complementary”. It means that these countries own something vital for Russia, while Russia owns something extremely indispensable for them. As a result, such strategic exchange of potentials strengthens both geopolitical subjects. To this category (symmetrically complementary) belong the European Union, Japan, Iran, India. All these geopolitical realities can quite reasonably claim to a role of autonomous subjects in conditions of multipolarity, while American-centrism deprives them of this possibility, reducing them to mere objects. As the new Russia cannot be presented as an ideological enemy (that which ensured the US their major argument for drawing Europe and Japan into their orbit, and confounded the USSR into being pulled together with Islamic Iran in the “cold war” period), the imperative of complete subordination of these countries to American geopolitics is practically no more substantiated with anything (except for historical inertia). Hence, the contradictions between the US and the powers reciprocally complementary to Russia will be continuously aggravated.

If Russia will prove to be active and will substantiate with her potential the multipolar trend, finding for each of these geopolitical formations the right arguments and differentiated conditions for strategic alliance, the club of the supporters of multipolarity can become mighty and influential enough to efficiently achieve the realisation of its own project of future world system.

To each of these powers Russia has what to offer – resources, strategic potential of weapons, political weight. In exchange Russia will receive, on the one hand, economic and technological sponsorship on behalf of the European Union and Japan, on the other hand – political-strategic partnership in the South on behalf of Iran and India.

Eurasism conceptualises such foreign-policy course and substantiates it by the scientific methodology of geopolitics.

The second category: geopolitical formations being interested in multipolarity, but not being symmetrically complementary to Russia. These are China, Pakistan, the Arab countries. The traditional policies of these geopolitical subjects have an intermediate character, but strategic partnership with Russia is not their major priority. Moreover, the Eurasist alliance of Russia with the countries of the first category strengthens the traditional rivals of the countries of the second category at the regional level. For example, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have serious contradictions with Iran, as China with Japan and India. On a broader scale, the relations of Russia with China represent a special case, complicated by demographic problems, by the heightened interest of China to the scarcely populated territories of Siberia, and also the by absence at China of a serious technological and financial potential able to positively solve the major problem for Russia of technological assimilation of Siberia.

All the countries of the second category are delivered before necessity to manoeuvre between America-centred unipolarity (which does not promise anything good for them) and Eurasism.

With regard to the countries of this category Russia must act with the utmost caution – not including them in the Eurasist project, but at the same time aiming at neutralising as much as possible the negative potential of their reaction and actively countering their active inclusion in the process of unipolar globalisation (for which there are enough reasons).

The third category represents the countries of the Third World which do not possess enough geopolitical potential to claim even to the status of limited subjects. Concerning these countries Russia should follow differentiated policies, contributing to their geopolitical integration in zones of “common prosperity”, under the control of the mighty partners of Russia within the Eurasian bloc. This means that in the Pacific zone it is convenient for Russia to favour the strengthening of the Japanese presence. In Asia it is necessary to encourage the geopolitical ambitions of India and Iran. It is also necessary to contribute to expanding the European Union influence in the Arab world and Africa as a whole. The same states which are included into a traditional orbit of Russian influence must naturally remain there or be brought back into it. To this effect the policy of integration of the countries of the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] to the Eurasian Union is directed.

The fourth category: the US and the countries of the American continent laying under US control. The international Eurasist policies of Russia must be oriented to show by any means the US the inconsistency of the unipolar world, the conflicting character and irresponsibility of all process of American-centred globalisation. Rigidly and actively (using to this purpose, first of all, the instrument of the Eurasian alliance) opposing such globalisation, Russia should on the contrary support the isolationist tendency in the US, saluting with favour the limitation of US geopolitical interests to the American continent. The US, as the strongest regional power, whose circle of strategic interest is disposed between the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean, can even be a strategic partner for an Eurasist Russia. Moreover, such America will be extremely desirable for Russia, as she will limit Europe, the Pacific region, and also the Islamic world and China, in case their aspiration were to follow a path of unipolar globalisation on the basis of their own geopolitical system. And if unipolar globalisation will keep being staged, it is Russia’s interest to back the anti-American mood in Southern and Central America, using, however, a much more flexible and wider world-view and geopolitical device than Marxism. In the same channel lays the policy of priority work with anti-American political circles in Canada and Mexico. Possibly also using in this direction the lobbyist activity of the Eurasian diasporas in the US.

3. Eurasism and domestic policy

Eurasism in domestic policy means following some major directions.

The integration of CIS countries into a united Eurasian Union is the major strategic imperative of Eurasism. The minimal strategic volume indispensable for starting a serious international activity to the creation of a multipolar world is not the Russian Federation, but the CIS taken as a single strategic reality, fastened by a single will and a common civilisation purpose.

The political system of the Eurasian Union in the most logical way is founded on the “democracy of participation” (the “demotia” of the classical Eurasists), the accent being not on the quantitative, but on the qualitative aspect of representation. The representative authority should mirror the qualitative structure of the Eurasian society, instead of the average quantitative statistical indicators based on the efficiency of pre-election shows. Special attention should be given to the representation of ethnoses and religious confessions. The “democracy of participation” must be organically integrated with a definite fraction of individual responsibility as much as possible expressed in strategic areas. The Supreme Leader of the Eurasian Union must concentrate the common will to the achievement of power and prosperity of the state.*

The principle of the social imperative should be combined with the principle of personal freedom in a proportion essentially differing as much from liberal-democratic recipes, as from the impersonal collectivism of the Marxists. Eurasism supposes here the preservation of a definite balance, with a significant role of the public factor.

In general, the active development of the social principle is a constant feature of the Eurasian history. It is shown in our psychology, ethics, religion. But as against the Marxist patterns the social principle should be affirmed as something qualitative, differentiated, linked with the concrete national, psychological, cultural and religious setting. The social principle must not suffocate, but strengthen the private principle, giving it a qualitative background. The qualitative understanding of the social factor allows precisely to define the golden mean between the hyper-individualism of bourgeois West and the hyper-collectivism of socialist East.

In the administrative system Eurasism insists on the model of “Eurasist federalism”. This supposes choosing as the basic category for building the Federation not the territories, but the ethnoses. Having separated the principle of ethno-cultural autonomy from the territorial principle, Eurasist federalism will forever liquidate the same reasons for separatism. So as a compensation the peoples of the Eurasian Union receive the possibility of maximal development of ethnic, religious and even, in some definite issues, juridical independence. The undoubted strategic unity in Eurasist federalism is accompanied by ethnic plurality, by the emphasis on the juridical element of the “rights of the peoples”. **

The strategic control of the space of the Eurasian Union is ensured by the unity of management and federal strategic districts, in whose composition various formations can enter – from ethno-cultural to territorial. The immediate differentiation of territories into several levels will add flexibility, adaptability and plurality to the system of administrative management in combination with rigid centralism in the strategic sphere.

The Eurasian society should be founded on the principle of a revived moral possessing both common features and concrete forms linked to the specificity of the ethno-confessional context. The principles of naturalness, purity, restraint, respect for the rules, liability, healthy life, righteousness and truthfulness are common to all traditional faiths of Eurasia. These undeniable moral values must be given the status of state norms. Scandalous social vices, impudent and public violation of moral foundations should be ruthlessly rooted out.

The armed forces of Eurasia and the power ministries and offices must be considered as the strategic skeleton of the civilisation. The social role of the militaries should increase, it is necessary to restore their prestige and public respect.

On the demographic plan is indispensable to achieve the “proliferation of the Eurasian population”, morally, materially and psychologically encouraging having many children, making of it the Eurasian social standard.

In the field of education it is necessary to strengthen the moral and scientific education of youth in the spirit of faithfulness to historical roots, loyalty to the Eurasist idea, liability, virility, creative activity.

The activity of the informational sector of the Eurasist society must be based on the strict observance of civilisation priorities in making light upon domestic and foreign events. The principles of formation and intellectual and moral education should be set above the principles of entertainment or commercial benefit. The principle of freedom of speech must be combined with the imperative of liability for the freely spoken words.

Eurasism supposes the creation of a society of a mobilisation kind, where the principles of creation and social optimism should be the standard of human life. The world-view should uncover the potential possibilities of the man, enabling everyone – overcoming (internal and external) inertia and limitation – to express his unique personality in the service of society. At the basis of the Eurasist approach to the social question lays the principle of a balance between state and private. This balance is defined by the following logic: all scale, related to strategic sphere (military-industrial complex, education, safety, peace, moral and physical health of a nation, demography, economic growth etc.) is controlled by the State. Small and medium production, the sphere of services, personal privacy, the entertainment industry, the sphere of leisure etc. are controlled not by the State but on the contrary by personal and private initiative (except for those cases when the latter conflicts with the strategic imperatives of Eurasism in the global sphere).

4. Eurasism and the economy

As against liberalism and Marxism, Eurasism considers the economic sphere to be neither autonomous nor determining for socio-political and state processes. According to the Eurasists’ belief, economic activities are only a function of various cultural, social, political, psychological and historical realities. We might express the Eurasist relation to the economy, rephrasing the Gospel truth: “not the man for the economy, but the economy for the man”. Such relation to the economy can be called as qualitative: the thrust is done (made) not on formal digital indexes of economic growth, a significantly wider spectrum of indexes is allowed, in which the economic force is clean is considered in a complex with others, predominantly having social character. Some economists (in particular Joseph Schumpeter) already tried to introduce qualitative parameters into economics, separating the criteria of economic growth from those of economic development. Eurasism sets the issue from an even wider perspective: what matters is not only economic development, but economic development combined with social development.

The Eurasist approach to the economy can be expressed as a simplified scheme in this way: state regulation of the strategic branches (military-industrial complex, natural monopolies and similar) and maximal economic freedom for medium and small business.

The major element of the Eurasist approach to the economy is the idea of the decision of a significant number of Russian national-economic problems within the framework of the Eurasist foreign policy project. It is in view of what is present. Some geopolitical subjects vitally interested in the multipolarity of the world – first of all, the European Union and Japan – have a huge financial-technological potential, whose engaging can sharply change the Russian economic climate. At the present stage it is regretfully necessary to acknowledge that there are no sufficient resources in Russia for (even relative) autarchy. Therefore investments and other kinds of interaction with the advanced economic regions is vitally necessary to us. This interaction should be initially plotted on the logician by more volumetric, rather than is narrow economic relations – investment, credits, import-export, energy deliveries etc. All this should be set in the wider context of common strategic programs – such as the joint assimilation of fields or the creation of unified Eurasian transport and information systems.

In some sense Russia must lay the burden of the revival of its economic potential to the partners of the “club of supporters of multipolarity”, actively using to this purpose the possibility to offer extremely convenient joint transport projects (the “Trans-Eurasian main”) or vital energy resources for Europe and Japan.

A relevant problem is also the return of capital to Russia. Eurasism creates very serious reasons to this purpose. The confused Russia of the period of liberal reforms (beginning in the 1990s), completely turned to the West, referring to herself with distaste, immersed in the psychosis of privatisation and corruption, and the Eurasist, patriotic, state-oriented Russia of the beginning of the XXI century are diametrically opposite political realities. Capital fled a weak and collapsing Russia. In a Russia set on a path of strength and recovery, capital must return.

In the Western countries most of the capitals taken out from Russia can neither be saved nor increased. In the beginning of the 1990s, the West looked with approval at Russian capital flight (mainly of criminal origin), considering – according to the “cold war” logic – that the weakening of post-communist Russia would play in the hands of NATO countries. Now the situation has sharply changed, and in the present conditions serious problems will arise (they already have, indeed) for the owners of illegal capitals in the West

The Eurasist logic means the creation of the most favourable conditions to the return of these capitals to Russia, which in itself will provide a serious impulse to the development of the economy. Contrary to some purely liberal abstract dogmas, capital moves back faster to a state with strong, accountable authority and precise strategic orienting points, rather than to an uncontrollable, chaotic and unstable country.

5. Eurasian path

Eurasism is the pattern most precisely responding to the strategic interests of modern Russia. It gives the answers to the most difficult questions, offers an exit to the most entangled situations. Eurasism combines openness and attitude to dialog with fidelity to historical roots and consequent assertion of national interests. Eurasism offers a consistent balance between the Russian national idea and the rights of the many peoples inhabiting Russia and more widely Eurasia.

Some definite aspects of Eurasism are already being used by the new Russian authorities oriented to a creative solution of the difficult historical problems Russia has to face the in new century. And every time this happens, efficiency, effectiveness, serious strategic results speak for themselves. The integration processes in the CIS, the creation of the Eurasian Economic Commonwealth, the first steps of the new foreign policy of the Russian Federation concerning Europe, Japan, Iran and the countries of the Near East, the creation of a system of Federal districts, the strengthening of the vertical line of power, the weakening of the oligarchic clans, the policy of patriotism and statehood, the increase of responsibility in the work of the mass media – all these are relevant and essential elements of Eurasism. For the time being these elements are intermingled by the inertial trends of the other two patterns (liberal-democrat and soviet). And yet it is perfectly clear that Eurasism is steadily moving to its zenith, whereas two other patterns conduct only “rear-guard fight”.

Enhancing the role of Eurasism in Russian politics is an evolutionary and gradual process. But the time has already come for a more attentive and accountable learning of this really universal theory and philosophy, whose transformation into political and world-view practice is under our eyes.

———————

Added Notes:

* On democracy and demotia, Dugin also wrote elsewhere (“Milestones of Eurasism”) the following: “Western democracy was formed in the particular conditions of ancient Athens and through the centuries-old history of insular England. Such democracy mirrors the peculiar features of the ‘local European development.’ Such democracy does not represent a universal standard. Imitating the rules of the European ‘liberal-democracy’ is senseless, impossible and dangerous for Russia-Eurasia. The participation of the Russian people to the political rule must be defined by a different term: ‘demotia,’ from the Greek ‘demos,’ people. Such participation does not reject hierarchy and must not be formalized into party-parliamentary structures. ‘Demotia’ supposes a system of land council, district governments or national governments (in the case of peoples of small dimensions). It is developed on the basis of social self-government, of the “peasant” world. An example of ‘demotia’ is the elective nature of church hierarchies on behalf of the parishioners in the Muscovite Rus.” He further explains that “The thesis of ‘demotia’ is the continuation of the political theories of the ‘organic democracy’ from J.-J. Rousseau to C. Schmitt, J. Freund, A. de Benoist and A. Mueller van der Bruck. Definition of the eurasist concept of ‘democracy’ (‘demotia’) as the ‘participation of the people to its own destiny’.”

** On his concept of federalism, Dugin further wrote in another article (“The Eurasian Idea”) the following: “Eurasianism rejects the center-outskirt model of the world. Instead, the Eurasian Idea suggests that the planet consists of a constellation of autonomous living spaces partially open to each other. These areas are not nation-states but a coalition of states, reorganized into continental federations or “democratic empires” with a large degree of inner self-government. Each of these areas is multipolar, including a complicated system of ethnic, cultural, religious and administrative factors.”

 

—————-

Dugin, Aleksandr. “Main Principles of Eurasist Policy.” Международное Евразийское Движение, 21 June 2001. <http://evrazia.info/article/421 >. (See this essay in PDF format here: Main Principles of Eurasist Policy).

This article was also republished at the official Fourth Political Theory website: <http://www.4pt.su/mk/node/30HYPERLINK “/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=421” >. The original Russian version (titled “Основные принципы евразийской политики”) can be found here: <http://evrazia.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=43 >.

Note: 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/ >.

 

Othmar Spann – Tudor

Othmar Spann: A Catholic Radical Traditionalist

By Lucian Tudor

 

Translations: Português

Othmar Spann was an Austrian philosopher who was a key influence on German conservative and traditionalist thought in the period after World War I, and he is thus considered a representative of the intellectual movement known as the “Conservative Revolution.” Spann was a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Vienna, where he taught not only scientific social and economic theories, but also influenced many students with the presentation of his worldview in his lectures. As a result of this he formed a large group of followers known as the Spannkreis (“Spann Circle”). This circle of intellectuals attempted to influence politicians who would be sympathetic to “Spannian” philosophy in order to actualize its goals.[1]

Othmar Spann himself was influenced by a variety of philosophers across history, including Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, J. G. Fichte, Franz von Baader, and most notably the German Romantic thought of Adam Müller. Spann called his own worldview “Universalism,” a term which should not be confused with “universalism” in the vernacular sense; for the former is nationalistic and values particularity while the latter refers to cosmopolitan or non-particularist (even anti-particularist) ideas. Spann’s term is derived from the root word “universality,” which is in this case synonymous with related terms such as collectivity, totality, or whole.[2] Spann’s Universalism was expounded in a number of books, most notably in Der wahre Staat (“The True State”), and essentially taught the value of nationality, of the social whole over the individual, of religious (specifically Catholic) values over materialistic values, and advocated the model of a non-democratic, hierarchical, and corporatist state as the only truly valid political constitution.

Social Theory

Othmar Spann declared: “It is the fundamental truth of all social science . . . that not individuals are the truly real, but the whole, and that the individuals have reality and existence only so far as they are members of the whole.”[3] This concept, which is at the core of Spann’s sociology, is not a denial of the existence of the individual person, but a complete denial of individualism; individualism being that ideology which denies the existence and importance of supra-individual realities. Classical liberal theory, which was individualist, held an “atomistic” view of individuals and regarded only individuals as truly real; individuals which it believed were essentially disconnected and independent from each other. It also held that society only exists as an instrumental association as a result of a “social contract.” On the other hand, sociological studies have disproven this theory, showing that the whole (society) is never merely the sum of its parts (individuals) and that individuals naturally have psychological bonds with each other. This was Othmar Spann’s position, but he had his own unique way of formulating it.[4]

While the theory of individualism appears, superficially, to be correct to many people, an investigation into the matter shows that it is entirely fallacious. Individuals never act entirely independently because their behavior is always at least in part determined by the society in which they live, and by their organic, non-instrumental (and thus also non-contractual) bonds with other people in their society. Spann wrote, “according to this view, the individual is no longer self-determined and self-created, and is no longer based exclusively and entirely on its own egoicity.”[5] Spann conceived of the social order, of the whole, as an organic society (a community) in which all individuals belonging to it have a pre-existing spiritual unity. The individual person emerges as such from the social whole to which he was born and from which he is never really separated, and “thus the individual is that which is derivative.”[6]

Therefore, society is not merely a mechanical aggregate of fundamentally disparate individuals, but a whole, a community, which precedes its parts, the individuals. “Universalists contend that the mental or spiritual associative tie between individuals exists as an independent entity . . .”[7] However, Spann clarified that this does not mean that the individual has “no mental self-sufficiency,” but rather that he actualizes his personal being only as a member of the whole: “he is only able to form himself, is only able to build up his personality, when in close touch with others like unto himself; he can only sustain himself as a being endowed with mentality or spirituality, when he enjoys intimate and multiform communion with other beings similarly endowed.”[8] Therefore,

All spiritual reality present in the individual is only there and only comes into being as something that has been awakened . . . the spirituality that comes into being in an individual (whether directly or mediated) is always in some sense a reverberation of that which another spirit has called out to the individual. This means that human spirituality exists only in community, never in spiritual isolation. . . . We can say that individual spirituality only exists in community or better, in ‘spiritual community’ [Gezweiung]. All spiritual essence and reality exists as ‘spiritual community’ and only in ‘communal spirituality’ [Gezweitheit]. [9]

It is also important to clarify that Spann’s concept of society did not conceive of society as having no other spiritual bodies within it that were separate from each other. On the contrary, he recognized the importance of the various sub-groups, referred to by him as “partial wholes,” as constituent parts and elements which are different yet related, and which are harmonized by the whole under which they exist. Therefore, the whole or the totality can be understood as the unity of individuals and “partial wholes.” To reference a symbolic image, “Totality [the Whole] is analogous to white light before it is refracted by a prism into many colors,” in which the white light is the supra-temporal totality, while the prism is cosmic time which “refracts the totality into the differentiated and individuated temporal reality.”[10]

Nationality and Racial Style

Volk (“people” or “nation”), which signifies “nationality” in the cultural and ethnic sense, is an entirely different entity and subject matter from society or the whole, but for Spann the two had an important connection. Spann was a nationalist and, defining Volk in terms of belonging to a “spiritual community” with a shared culture, believed that a social whole is under normal conditions only made up of a single ethnic type. Only when people shared the same cultural background could the deep bonds which were present in earlier societies truly exist. He thus upheld the “concept of the concrete cultural community, the idea of the nation – as contrasted with the idea of unrestricted, cosmopolitan, intercourse between individuals.”[11]

Spann advocated the separation of ethnic groups under different states and was also a supporter of pan-Germanism because he believed that the German people should unite under a single Reich. Because he also believed that the German nation was intellectually superior to all other nations (a notion which can be considered as the unfortunate result of a personal bias), Spann also believed that Germans had a duty to lead Europe out of the crisis of liberal modernity and to a healthier order similar to that which had existed in the Middle Ages.[12]

Concerning the issue of race, Spann attempted to formulate a view of race which was in accordance with the Christian conception of the human being, which took into account not only his biology but also his psychological and spiritual being. This is why Spann rejected the common conception of race as a biological entity, for he did not believe that racial types were derived from biological inheritance, just as he did not believe an individual person’s character was set into place by heredity. Rather what race truly was for Spann was a cultural and spiritual character or type, so a person’s “racial purity” is determined not by biological purity but by how much his character and style of behavior conforms to a specific spiritual quality. In his comparison of the race theories of Spann and Ludwig Ferdinand Clauss (an influential race psychologist), Eric Voegelin had concluded:

In Spann’s race theory and in the studies of Clauss we find race as the idea of a total being: for these two scholars racial purity or blood purity is not a property of the genetic material in the biological sense, but rather the stylistic purity of the human form in all its parts, the possession of a mental stamp recognizably the same in its physical and psychological expression. [13]

However, it should be noted that while Ludwig Clauss (like Spann) did not believe that spiritual character was merely a product of genetics, he did in fact emphasize that physical race had importance because the bodily racial form must be essentially in accord with the psychical racial form with which it is associated, and with which it is always linked. As Clauss wrote,

The style of the psyche expresses itself in its arena, the animate body. But in order for this to be possible, this arena itself must be governed by a style, which in turn must stand in a structured relationship to the style of the psyche: all the features of the somatic structure are, as it were, pathways for the expression of the psyche. The racially constituted (that is, stylistically determined) psyche thus acquires a racially constituted animate body in order to express the racially constituted style of its experience in a consummate and pure manner. The psyche’s expressive style is inhibited if the style of its body does not conform perfectly with it.[14]

Likewise Julius Evola, whose thought was influenced by both Spann and Clauss, and who expanded Clauss’s race psychology to include religious matters, also affirmed that the body had a certain level of importance.[15]

On the other hand, the negative aspect of Othmar Spann’s theory of race is that it ends up dismissing the role of physical racial type entirely, and indeed many of Spann’s major works do not even mention the issue of race. A consequence of this was also the fact that Spann tolerated and even approved of critiques made by his students of National Socialist theories of race which emphasized the role of biology; an issue which would later compromise his relationship with that movement even though he was one of its supporters.[16]

The True State

Othmar Spann’s Universalism was in essence a Catholic form of “Radical Traditionalism”; he believed that there existed eternal principles upon which every social, economic, and political order should be constructed. Whereas the principles of the French Revolution – of liberalism, democracy, and socialism – were contingent upon historical circumstances, bound by world history, there are certain principles upon which most ancient and medieval states were founded which are eternally valid, derived from the Divine order. While specific past state forms which were based on these principles cannot be revived exactly as they were because they held many characteristics which are outdated and historical, the principles upon which they were built and therefore the general model which they provide are timeless and must reinstituted in the modern world, for the systems derived from the French Revolution are invalid and harmful.[17] This timeless model was the Wahre Staat or “True State” – a corporative, monarchical, and elitist state – which was central to Universalist philosophy.

1. Economics

In terms of economics, Spann, like Adam Müller, rejected both capitalism and socialism, advocating a corporatist system relatable to that of the guild system and the landed estates of the Middle Ages; a system in which fields of work and production would be organized into corporations and would be subordinated in service to the state and to the nation, and economic activity would therefore be directed by administrators rather than left solely to itself. The value of each good or commodity produced in this system was determined not by the amount of labor put into it (the labor theory of value of Marx and Smith), but by its “organic use” or “social utility,” which means its usefulness to the social whole and to the state.[18]

Spann’s major reason for rejecting capitalism was because it was individualistic, and thus had a tendency to create disharmony and weaken the spiritual bonds between individuals in the social whole. Although Spann did not believe in eliminating competition from economic life, he pointed out that the extreme competition glorified by capitalists created a market system in which there occurred a “battle of all against all” and in which undertakings were not done in service to the whole and the state but in service to self-centered interests. Universalist economics aimed to create harmony in society and economics, and therefore valued “the vitalising energy of the personal interdependence of all the members of the community . . .”[19]

Furthermore, Spann recognized that capitalism also did result in an unfair treatment by capitalists of those underneath them. Thus while he believed Marx’s theories to be theoretically flawed, Spann also mentioned that “Marx nevertheless did good service by drawing attention to the inequality of the treatment meted out to worker and to entrepreneur respectively in the individualist order of society.”[20] Spann, however, rejected socialist systems in general because while socialism seemed superficially Universalistic, it was in fact a mixture of Universalist and individualist elements. It did not recognize the primacy of the State over individuals and also held that all individuals in society should hold the same position, eliminating all class distinctions, and should receive the same amount of goods. “True universalism looks for an organic multiplicity, for inequality,” and thus recognizes differences even if it works to establish harmony between the parts.[21]

2. Politics

Spann asserted that all democratic political systems were an inversion of the truly valuable political order, which was of even greater importance than the economic system. A major problem of democracy was that it allowed, firstly, the manipulation of the government by wealthy capitalists and financiers whose moral character was usually questionable and whose goals were almost never in accord with the good of the community; and secondly, democracy allowed the triumph of self-interested demagogues who could manipulate the masses. However, even the theoretical base of democracy was flawed, according to Spann, because human beings were essentially unequal, for individuals are always in reality differentiated in their qualities and thus are suited for different positions in the social order. Democracy thus, by allowing a mass of people to decide governmental matters, meant excluding the right of superior individuals to determine the destiny of the State, for “setting the majority in the saddle means that the lower rule over the higher.”[22]

Finally, Spann noted that “demands for democracy and liberty are, once more, wholly individualistic.”[23] In the Universalist True State, the individual would subordinate his will to the whole and would be guided by a sense of selfless duty in service to the State, as opposed to asserting his individual will against all other wills. Furthermore, the individual did not possess rights because of his “rational” character and simply because of being human, as many Enlightenment thinkers asserted, but these rights were derived from the ethics of the particular social whole to which he belonged and from the laws of the State.[24] Universalism also acknowledged the inherent inequalities in human beings and supported a hierarchical organization of the political order, where there would be only “equality among equals” and the “subordination of the intellectually inferior under their intellectual betters.”[25]

In the True State, individuals who demonstrated their leadership skills, their superior nature, and the right ethical character would rise among the levels of the hierarchy. The state would be led by a powerful elite whose members would be selected from the upper levels of the hierarchy based on their merit; it was essentially a meritocratic aristocracy. Those in inferior positions would be taught to accept their role in society and respect their superiors, although all parts of the system are “nevertheless indispensable for its survival and development.”[26] Therefore, “the source of the governing power is not the sovereignty of the people, but the sovereignty of the content.”[27]

Othmar Spann, in accordance with his Catholic religious background, believed in the existence of a supra-sensual, metaphysical, and spiritual reality which existed separately from and above the material reality, and of which the material realm was its imperfect reflection. He asserted that the True State must be animated by Christian spirituality, and that its leaders must be guided by their devotion to Divine laws; the True State was thus essentially theocratic. However, the leadership of the state would receive its legitimacy not only from its religious character, but also by possessing “valid spiritual content,” which “precedes power as it is represented in law and the state.”[28] Thus Spann concluded that “history teaches us that it is the validity of spiritual values that constitutes the spiritual bond. They cannot be replaced by fire and sword, nor by any other form of force. All governance that endures, and all the order that society has thus achieved, is the result of inner domination.”[29]

The state which Spann aimed to restore was also federalistic in nature, uniting all “partial wholes” – corporate bodies and local regions which would have a certain level of local self-governance – with respect to the higher Authority. As Julius Evola wrote, in a description that is in accord with Spann’s views, “the true state exists as an organic whole comprised of distinct elements, and, embracing partial unities [wholes], each possesses a hierarchically ordered life of its own.”[30] All throughout world history the hierarchical, corporative True State appears and reappears; in the ancient states of Sparta, Rome, Persia, Medieval Europe, and so on. The structures of the states of these times “had given the members of these societies a profound feeling of security. These great civilizations had been characterized by their harmony and stability.”[31]

Liberal modernity had created a crisis in which the harmony of older societies was damaged by capitalism and in which social bonds were weakened (even if not eliminated) by individualism. However, Spann asserted that all forms of liberalism and individualism are a sickness which could never succeed in fully eliminating the original, primal reality. He predicted that in the era after World War I, the German people would reassert its rights and would create revolution restoring the True State, would recreate that “community tying man to the eternal and absolute forces present in the universe,”[32] and whose revolution would subsequently resonate all across Europe, resurrecting in modern political life the immortal principles of Universalism.

Spann’s Influence and Reception

Othmar Spann and his circle held influence largely in Germany and Austria, and it was in the latter country that their influence was the greatest. Spann’s philosophy became the basis of the ideology of the Austrian Heimwehr (“Home Guard”) which was led by Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg. Leaders of the so-called “Austro-fascist state,” including Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt Schuschnigg, were also partially influenced by Spann’s thought and by members of the “Spann circle.”[33] However, despite the fact that this state was the only one which truly attempted to actualize his ideas, Spann did not support “Austro-fascism” because he was a pan-Germanist and wanted the German people unified under a single state, which is why he joined Hitler’s National Socialist movement, which he believed would pave the way to the True State.

Despite repeated attempts to influence National Socialist ideology and the leaders of the NSDAP, Spann and his circle were rejected by most National Socialists. Alfred Rosenberg, Robert Ley, and various other authors associated with the SS made a number of attacks on Spann’s school. Rosenberg was annoyed both by Spann’s denial of the importance of blood and by his Catholic theocratic position; he wrote that “the Universalist school of Othmar Spann has successfully refuted idiotic materialist individualism . . . [but] Spann asserted against traditional Greek wisdom, and claimed that god is the measure of all things and that true religion is found only in the Catholic Church.”[34]

Aside from insisting on the reality of biological laws, other National Socialists also criticized Spann’s political proposals. They asserted that his hierarchical state would create a destructive divide between the people and their elite because it insisted on their absolute separateness; it would destroy the unity they had established between the leadership and the common folk. Although National Socialism itself had elements of elitism it was also populist, and thus they further argued that every German had the potential to take on a leadership role, and that therefore, if improved within in the Volksgemeinschaft (“Folk-Community”), the German people were thus not necessarily divisible in the strict view of superior elites and inferior masses.[35]

As was to be expected, Spann’s liberal critics complained that his anti-individualist position was supposedly too extreme, and the social democrats and Marxists argued that his corporatist state would take away the rights of the workers and grant rulership to the bourgeois leaders. Both accused Spann of being an unrealistic reactionary who wanted to revive the Middle Ages.[36] However, here we should note here that Edgar Julius Jung, who was himself basically a type of Universalist and was heavily inspired by Spann’s work, had mentioned that:

We are reproached for proceeding alongside or behind active political forces, for being romantics who fail to see reality and who indulge in dreams of an ideology of the Reich that turns toward the past. But form and formlessness represent eternal social principles, like the struggle between the microcosm and the macrocosm endures in the eternal swing of the pendulum. The phenomenal forms that mature in time are always new, but the great principles of order (mechanical or organic) always remain the same. Therefore if we look to the Middle Ages for guidance, finding there the great form, we are not only not mistaking the present time but apprehending it more concretely as an age that is itself incapable of seeing behind the scenes. [37]

Edgar Jung, who was one of Hitler’s most prominent radical Conservative opponents, expounded a philosophy which was remarkably similar to Spann’s, although there are some differences we would like to point out. Jung believed that neither Fascism nor National Socialism were precursors to the reestablishment of the True State but rather “simply another manifestation of the liberal, individualistic, and secular tradition that had emerged from the French Revolution.”[38] Fascism and National Socialism were not guided by a reference to a Divine power and were still infected with individualism, which he believed showed itself in the fact that their leaders were guided by their own ambitions and not a duty to God or a power higher than themselves.

Edgar Jung also rejected nationalism in the strict sense, although he simultaneously upheld the value of Volk and the love of fatherland, and advocated the reorganization of the European continent on a federalist basis with Germany being the leading nation of the federation. Also in contrast to Spann’s views, Jung believed that genetic inheritance did play a role in the character of human beings, although he believed this role was secondary to cultural and spiritual factors and criticized common scientific racialism for its “biological materialism.”

Jung asserted that what he saw as superior racial elements in a population should be strengthened and the inferior elements decreased: “Measures for the raising of racially valuable components of the German people and for the prevention of inferior currents must however be found today rather than tomorrow.”[39] Jung also believed that the elites of the Reich, while they should be open to accepting members of lower levels of the hierarchy who showed leadership qualities, should marry only within the elite class, for in this way a new nobility possessing leadership qualities strengthened both genetically and spiritually would be developed.[40]

Whereas Jung constantly combatted National Socialism to his life’s end, up until the Anschluss Othmar Spann had remained an enthusiastic supporter of National Socialism, always believing he could eventually influence the Third Reich leadership to adopt his philosophy. This illusion was maintained in his mind until the takeover of Austria by Germany in 1938, soon after which Spann was arrested and imprisoned because he was deemed an ideological threat, and although he was released after a few months, he was forcibly confined to his rural home.[41] After World War II he could never regain any political influence, but he left his mark in the philosophical realm. Spann had a partial influence on Eric Voegelin and also on many Neue Rechte (“New Right”) intellectuals such as Armin Mohler and Gerd-Klaus Kaltenbrunner.[42] He has also had an influence on Radical Traditionalist thought, most notably on Julius Evola, who wrote that Spann “followed a similar line to my own,”[43] although there are obviously certain marked differences between the two thinkers. Spann’s philosophy thus, despite its flaws and limitations, has not been entirely lacking in usefulness and interest.

Notes

1. More detailed information on Othmar Spann’s life than provided in this essay can be found in John J. Haag, Othmar Spann and the Politics of “Totality”: Corporatism in Theory and Practice (Ph.D. Thesis, Rice University, 1969).

2. See Othmar Spann, Types of Economic Theory (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1930), p. 61. We should note to the reader that this book is the only major work by Spann to have been published in English and has also been published under an alternative title as History of Economics.

3. Othmar Spann as quoted in Ernest Mort, “Christian Corporatism,” Modern Age, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Summer 1959), p. 249. Available online here: http://www.mmisi.org/ma/03_03/mort.pdf.

4. For a more in-depth and scientific overview of Spann’s studies of society, see Barth Landheer, “Othmar Spann’s Social Theories.” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 39, No. 2 (April, 1931), pp. 239–48. We should also note to our readers that Othmar Spann’s anti-individualist social theories are more similar to those of other “far Right” sociologists such as Hans Freyer and Werner Sombart. However, it should be remembered that sociologists from nearly all political positions are opposed to individualism to some extent, whether they are of the “moderate Center” or of the “far Left.” Furthermore, anti-individualism is a typical position among many mainstream sociologists today, who recognize that individualistic attitudes – which are, of course, still an issue in societies today just as they were an issue a hundred years ago – have a harmful effect on society as a whole.

5. Othmar Spann, Der wahre Staat (Leipzig: Verlag von Quelle und Meyer, 1921), p. 29. Quoted in Eric Voegelin, Theory of Governance and Other Miscellaneous Papers, 1921–1938 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003), p. 68.

6. Spann, Der wahre Staat, p. 29. Quoted in Voegelin, Theory of Governance, p. 69.

7. Spann, Types of Economic Theory, pp. 60–61.

8. Ibid., p. 61.

9. Spann, Der wahre Staat, pp. 29 & 34. Quoted in Voegelin, Theory of Governance, pp. 70–71.

10. J. Glenn Friesen, “Dooyeweerd, Spann, and the Philosophy of Totality,” Philosophia Reformata, 70 (2005), p. 6. Available online here: http://members.shaw.ca/hermandooyeweerd/Totality.pdf.

11. Spann, Types of Economic Theory, p. 199.

12. See Haag, Spann and the Politics of “Totality,” p. 48.

13. Eric Voegelin, Race and State (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997), pp. 117–18.

14. Ludwig F. Clauss, Rasse und Seele (Munich: J. F. Lehmann, 1926), pp. 20–21. Quoted in Richard T. Gray, About Face: German Physiognomic Thought from Lavater to Auschwitz (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004), p. 307.

15. For an overview of Evola’s theory of race, see Michael Bell, “Julius Evola’s Concept of Race: A Racism of Three Degrees.” The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Winter 2009–2010), pp. 101–12. Available online here: http://toqonline.com/archives/v9n2/TOQv9n2Bell.pdf. For a closer comparison between the Evola’s theories and Clauss’s, see Julius Evola’s The Elements of Racial Education (Thompkins & Cariou, 2005).

16. See Haag, Spann and the Politics of “Totality,” p. 136.

17. A more in-depth explanation of “Radical Traditionalism” can be found in Chapter 1: Revolution – Counterrevolution – Tradition” in Julius Evola, Men Among the Ruins: Postwar Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist, trans. Guido Stucco, ed. Michael Moynihan (Rochester: Inner Traditions, 2002).

18. See Spann, Types of Economic Theory, pp. 162–64.

19. Ibid., p. 162.

20. Ibid., p. 226.

21. Ibid., p. 230.

22. Spann, Der wahre Staat, p. 111. Quoted in Janek Wasserman, Black Vienna, Red Vienna: The Struggle for Intellectual and Political Hegemony in Interwar Vienna, 1918–1938 (Ph.D. Dissertion, Washington University, 2010), p. 80.

23. Spann, Types of Economic Theory, pp. 212.

24. For a commentary on individual natural rights theory, see Ibid., pp.53 ff.

25. Spann, Der wahre Staat, p. 185. Quoted in Wassermann, Black Vienna, Red Vienna, p. 82.

26. Haag, Spann and the Politics of “Totality,” p. 32.

27. Othmar Spann, Kurzgefasstes System der Gesellschaftslehre (Berlin: Quelle und Meyer, 1914), p. 429. Quoted in Voegelin, Theory of Governance, p. 301.

28. Spann, Gesellschaftslehre, p. 241. Quoted in Voegelin, Theory of Governance, p. 297.

29. Spann, Gesellschaftslehre, p. 495. Quoted in Voegelin, Theory of Governance, p. 299.

30. Julius Evola, The Path of Cinnabar (London: Integral Tradition Publishing, 2009), p. 190.

31. Haag, Spann and the Politics of “Totality,” p. 39.

32. Ibid., pp. 40–41.

33. See Günter Bischof, Anton Pelinka, Alexander Lassner, The Dollfuss/Schuschnigg Era in Austria: A Reassessment (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003), pp. 16, 32, & 125 ff.

34. Alfred Rosenberg, The Myth of the Twentieth Century (Sussex, England: Historical Review Press, 2004), pp. 458–59.

35. See Haag, Spann and the Politics of “Totality,” pp. 127–29.

36. See Ibid., pp. 66 ff.

37. Edgar Julius Jung, “Germany and the Conservative Revolution,” in: The Weimar Republic Sourcebook, edited by Anton Kaes, Martin Jay, and Edward Dimendberg (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995), p. 354.

38. Larry Eugene Jones, “Edgar Julius Jung: The Conservative Revolution in Theory and Practice,” Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association, Vol. 21, No. 02 (1988), p. 163.

39. Edgar Julius Jung, “People, Race, Reich,” in: Europa: German Conservative Foreign Policy 1870–1940, edited by Alexander Jacob (Lanham, MD, USA: University Press of America, 2002), p. 101.

40. For a more in-depth overview of Jung’s life and thought, see Walter Struve, Elites Against Democracy: Leadership Ideals in Bourgeois Political Thought in Germany, 1890–1933 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University, 1973), pp. 317 ff. See also Edgar Julius Jung, The Rule of the Inferiour, 2 vols. (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellon Press, 1995).

41. Haag, Spann and the Politics of “Totality,” pp. 154–55.

42. See our previous citations of Voegelin’s Theory of Governance and Race and State; Armin Mohler, Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918–1932 (Stuttgart: Friedrich Vorwerk Verlag, 1950); “Othmar Spann” in Gerd-Klaus Kaltenbrunner, Vom Geist Europas, Vol. 1 (Asendorf: Muth-Verlag, 1987).

43. Evola, Path of Cinnabar, p. 155.

 

—————-

 

Tudor, Lucian. “Othmar Spann: A Catholic Radical Traditionalist.” Counter-Currents Publishing, 19 March 2013. <http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/03/othmar-spann-a-catholic-radical-traditionalist/>.

Note: This essay was also republished in updated form in Lucian Tudor’s From the German Conservative Revolution to the New Right: A Collection of Essays on Identitarian Philosophy (Santiago, Chile: Círculo de Investigaciones PanCriollistas, 2015).

 

German Conservative Revolution – Tudor

The German Conservative Revolution & its Legacy

By Lucian Tudor

 

Translations: Suomi, Română

During the years between World War I and the establishment of the Third Reich, the political, economic, and social crises which Germany suddenly experienced as a result of its defeat in the First World War gave rise to a movement known as the “Conservative Revolution,” which is also commonly referred to as the “Conservative Revolutionary Movement,” with its members sometimes called “Revolutionary Conservatives” or even “Neoconservatives.”

The phrase “Conservative Revolution” itself was popularized as a result of a speech in 1927 by the famous poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who was a Catholic cultural conservative and monarchist.[1] Here Hofmannsthal declared, “The process of which I am speaking is nothing less than a conservative revolution on such a scale as the history of Europe has never known. Its object is form, a new German reality, in which the whole nation will share.”[2]

Although these phrases give the impression that the Conservative Revolution was composed of people who shared the same worldview, this was in fact not the case because the thinkers and leaders of the Conservative Revolution often had disagreements. Furthermore, despite the fact that the philosophical ideas produced by this “new conservatism” influenced German National Socialism and also had links to Fascism, it is incorrect to assume that the people belonging to it are either Fascist or “proto-Nazi.” Although some Revolutionary Conservatives praised Italian Fascism and some also eventually joined the National Socialist Movement (although many did not), overall their worldviews were distinct from both of these political groups.

It is difficult to adequately summarize the views held by the Revolutionary Conservatives due to the fact that many of them held views that stood in contradistinction to certain views held by others in the same movement. What they generally had in common was an awareness of the importance of Volk (this term may be translated as “folk,” “nation,” “ethnicity,” or “people”) and culture, the idea of Volksgemeinschaft (“folk-community”), and a rejection of Marxism, liberalism, and democracy (particularly parliamentary democracy). Ideas that also were common among them was a rejection of the linear concept of history in favor of the cyclical concept, a conservative and non-Marxist form of socialism, and the establishment of an authoritarian elite. [3]

In brief, the movement was made of Germans who had conservative tendencies of some sort but who were disappointed with the state into which Germany had been put by its loss of World War I and sought to advance ideas that were both conservative and revolutionary in nature.

In order to obtain an adequate idea as to the nature of the Conservative Revolution and its outlook, it is best to examine the major intellectuals and their thought. The following sections will provide a brief overview of the most important Revolutionary Conservative intellectuals and their key philosophical contributions.

The Visionaries of a New Reich

The most noteworthy Germans who had an optimistic vision of the establishment of a “Third Reich” were Stefan George, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, and Edgar Julius Jung. Stefan George, unlike the other two, was not a typical intellectual but a poet. George expressed his Revolutionary Conservative vision of the “new Reich” largely in poetry, and this poetry did in fact reach and affect many young German nationalists and even intellectuals; and for this he is historically notable.[4] But on the intellectual level, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck (who popularized the term “Third Reich”) and Edgar Julius Jung had a deeper philosophical impact.

1. Arthur Moeller van den Bruck

Moeller van den Bruck was a cultural historian who became politically active at the end of the First World War. He was a founding member of the conservative “June Club,” of which he became the ideological leader.[5] In Der preussische Stil (“The Prussian Style”) he described what he believed to be the Prussian character, whose key characteristic was the “will to the state,” and in Das Recht der jungen Volker (“The Right of Young Peoples”) he presented the idea of “young peoples” (including Germany, Russia, and America) and “old peoples” (including England and France), advocating an alliance between the “younger” nations with more vitality to defeat the hegemony of Britain and France.[6]

In 1922, he contributed, along with Heinrich von Gleichen and Max Hildebert Boehm, to the book Die neue Front (“The New Front”), a manifesto of the Jungkonservativen (“Young-conservatives”).[7] A year later, Moeller van den Bruck produced his most famous work which contained a comprehensive exposition of his worldview, Das Dritte Reich, translated into English as Germany’s Third Empire.[8]

In Germany’s Third Empire, Moeller made a division between four political stances: Revolutionary, Liberal, Reactionary, and Conservative. Revolutionaries, which especially included Communists, were unrealistic in the sense that they believed they could totally brush aside all past values and traditions. Liberalism was criticized for its radical individualism, which essentially amounts to egotism and disintegrates nations and traditions. Reactionaries, on the other hand, were criticized for having the unrealistic position of desiring a complete revival of past forms, believing that everything in past society was positive. The Conservative, Moeller argued, was superior to the former three because “Conservatism seeks to preserve a nation’s values, both by conserving traditional values, as far as these still possess the power of growth, and by assimilating all new values which increase a nation’s vitality.”[9] Moeller’s “Conservative” was essentially a Revolutionary Conservative.

Moeller rejected Marxism because of its rationalism and materialism, which he argued were flawed ideologies that failed to understand the better side of human societies and life. “Socialism begins where Marxism ends,” he declared.[10] Moeller advocated a corporatist German socialism which recognized the importance of nationality and refused class warfare.

In terms of politics, Moeller rejected republicanism and asserted that true democracy was about the people taking a share in determining its destiny. He rejected monarchy as outdated and anticipated a new form of government in which a strong leader who was connected to the people would emerge. “We need leaders who feel themselves at one with the nation, who identify the nation’s fate with their own.” [11] This leader would establish a “Third Empire, a new and final Empire,” which would solve Germany’s political problems (especially its population problem).

2. Edgar Julius Jung

Another great vision of a Third Reich came from Edgar Julius Jung, a politically active intellectual who wrote the large book Die Herrschaft der Minderwertigen, translated into English as The Rule of the Inferiour,[12] which has sometimes been called the “bible of neo-conservatism.”[13] This book presented a devastating critique of liberalism and combined ideas from Spann, Schmitt, Pareto, and other thinkers.

Liberal democracy was rejected by Jung as the rule of masses which were manipulated by demagogues and also the rule of money because it had inherent tendencies towards plutocracy. The French Revolutionary ideas of “liberty, equality, fraternity” were all rejected as corrosive influences harmful to society and sources of individualism, which Jung viewed as a key cause of decay. Jung also rejected Marxism as a corrupt product of the French Revolution. [14] The Conservative Revolution for Jung was, in his words, the

Restoration of all those elementary laws and values without which man loses his ties with nature and God and without which he is incapable of building up a true order. In the place of equality there will be inherent standards, in the place of social consciousness a just integration into the hierarchical society, in the place of mechanical election an organic elite, in the place of bureaucratic leveling the inner responsibility of genuine self-government, in the place of mass prosperity the rights of a proud people. [15]

In the place of liberal and Marxist forms, Jung envisioned the establishment of a New Reich which would use corporatist economics (related to the medieval guild system), would be organized on a federalist basis, would be animated by Christian spirituality and the power of the Church, and would be led by an authoritarian monarchy and an elite composed of selected qualified members. In Jung’s words, “The state as the highest order of organic community must be an aristocracy; in the last and highest sense: the rule of the best. Even democracy was founded with this claim.”[16]

He also critiqued the materialistic concept of race as “biological materialism” and asserted instead the primacy of the cultural-spiritual entity (it was on this basis, rather than on biology, that the Jewish Problem was to be dealt with). Furthermore, he rejected nationalism in the normal sense of the term, supporting the concept of a federalist, supra-national, pan-European Empire, while still recognizing the reality and importance of Volk and the separateness of ethnic groups. In fact, Jung believed that the new Reich should be formed on “an indestructible volkisch foundation from which the volkisch struggle can take form.”[17]

Edgar Jung, however, was not content with merely writing about his ideas; he had great political ambitions and actively worked with parties and conservatives who agreed with him in the 1920s up until 1934.[18] The necessity of battle was already part of Jung’s philosophy: “If the German people see that, among them, combatants still live, then they become aware also of combat as the highest form of existence. The German destiny calls for men who master it. For, world-history makes the man.” [19]

During his political activity, he came to dislike the National Socialist movement due to a personal dislike for Hitler as well as his view that National Socialism was a product of modernity and was ideologically linked with Marxism and liberalism. Jung was highly active in his opposition to the NSDAP and was eventually responsible for writing Papen’s Marburg address which criticized Hitler’s government in 1934, which resulted in Jung’s death on the Night of the Long Knives.[20]

Theorists of Decline: Spengler and Klages

1. Oswald Spengler

The most famous theorist of decline is Oswald Spengler, the “doctor-prophet” who predicted the fall of the Western High Culture in his magnum opus, The Decline of the West. According to Spengler, every High Culture has its own “soul” (this refers to the essential character of a Culture) and goes through predictable cycles of birth, growth, fulfillment, decline, and demise which resemble that of the life of a plant.[21] To quote Spengler:

A Culture is born in the moment when a great soul awakens out of the proto-spirituality of ever-childish humanity, and detaches itself, a form from the formless, a bounded and mortal thing from the boundless and enduring. It blooms on the soil of an exactly-definable landscape, to which plant-wise it remains bound. It dies when the soul has actualized the full sum of its possibilities in the shape of peoples, languages, dogmas, arts, states, sciences, and reverts into the proto-soul. [22]

There is an important distinction in this theory between Kultur (“Culture”) and Zivilisation (“Civilization”). Culture refers to the beginning phase of a High Culture which is marked by rural life, religiosity, vitality, will-to-power, and ascendant instincts, while Civilization refers to the later phase which is marked by urbanization, irreligion, purely rational intellect, mechanized life, and decadence. Spengler particularly focused on three High Cultures which he made comparisons between: the Magian, the Classical, and the present Western High Culture. He held the view that the West, which was in its later Civilization phase, would soon enter a final imperialistic and “Caesarist” stage – a stage which, according to Spengler, marks the final flash before the end of a High Culture.[23]

Perhaps Spengler’s most important contribution to the Conservative Revolution, however, is his theory of “Prussian Socialism” which he expressed in Prussianism and Socialism, and which formed the basis of his view that conservatives and socialists should unite. In this short book he argued that the Prussian character, which was the German character par excellence, was essentially socialist. For Spengler, true socialism was primarily a matter of ethics rather than economics.[24]

This ethical, Prussian socialism meant the development and practice of work ethic, discipline, obedience, a sense of duty to the greater good and the state, self-sacrifice, and the possibility of attaining any rank by talent. Prussian socialism was differentiated from Marxism and liberalism. Marxism was not true socialism because it was materialistic and based on class conflict, which stood in contrast with the Prussian ethics of the state. Also in contrast to Prussian socialism was liberalism and capitalism, which negated the idea of duty, practiced a “piracy principle,” and created the rule of money.[25]

2. Ludwig Klages

Ludwig Klages was a less influential, although still noteworthy, theorist of decline who focused not on High Cultures, but on the decline of Life (which stands in contrast to mere Existence). Klages’s theory, named “Biocentrism,” posited a dichotomy between Seele (“Soul”) and Geist (“Spirit”); two forces in human life that were in a psychological battle with each other. Soul may be understood as pure Life, vital impulse, and feeling, while Spirit may be understood as abstract intellect, mechanical and conceptual thought, reason, and Will.[26]

According to Biocentric theory, in primordial pre-historic times, man’s Soul and body were united and thus humans lived ecstatically in accordance to the principle of Life. Over time, human Life was interfered with by Spirit, which caused humans to use conceptual (as opposed to symbolic) thought and rational intellect, thus beginning the severing of body and Soul. In this theory, the more human history progresses, the more Life is limited and ruined by the Spirit in a long but ultimately unstoppable process which ends in completely mechanized, over-civilized, and soul-less people. “Already, the machine has liberated itself from man’s control,” wrote Klages, “it is no longer man’s servant: in reality, man himself is now being enslaved by the machine.”[27]

This final stage is marked by such things as a complete disconnection from Nature, the destruction of the natural environment, massive race-mixing, and a lack of true Life, which is predicted to finally end in the death of mankind due to damage to the natural world. Klages declared, “. . . the ultimate destruction of all seems to be a foregone conclusion.”[28]

Spann and the Unified State

Othmar Spann was, from 1919 to 1938, a professor at the University of Vienna in Austria who was influential but who, despite his enthusiastic support for National Socialism, was removed by the Third Reich government due to a few ideological disagreements.[29] He was the exponent of a theory known as “Universalism” (which is entirely different from universalism in the normal sense of the term). His Universalist view of economics, politics, society, and science was expounded in numerous books, the most important of which was his most memorable work, Der wahre Staat (“The True State”).[30]

Spann’s Universalism was a corporatist theory which rejected individualism. To understand Spann’s rejection of individualism it is necessary to understand what “individualism” is because different and even contradictory definitions are given to that term; individualism here refers to the concept that the individual is absolute and no supra-individual reality exists (and therefore, society is nothing more than a collection of atoms). The reader must be aware that Spann did not make a complete denial of the individual, but rather a complete denial of individualist ideology.[31]

According to Universalist theory, the individual exists only within a particular community or society; the whole (the totality of society) precedes the parts (individuals) because the parts do not truly exist independent from the whole.[32] Spann wrote, “It is the fundamental truth of all social science . . . that it is not the individuals that are the truly real, but the whole, and that the individuals have reality and existence only so far as they are members of the whole.”[33]

Furthermore, society and the State were not entirely separable, because from the State comes the rights of the individual, family, and other groups. Liberalism, capitalism, democracy, and Marxian socialism were all rejected by Spann as individualist or materialist and corrupt products of French Revolutionary ideas. Whereas in past societies the individual was integrated into community, modern life with its liberalism had atomized society. According to Spann, “Mankind can reconcile itself to poverty because it will be and remain poor forever. But to the loss of estate, existential insecurity, uprootedness, and nothingness, the masses of affected people can never reconcile themselves.”[34] As a solution to modern decay, Spann envisioned the formation of a religious Christian, corporatist, hierarchical, and authoritarian state similar to the First Reich (the Holy Roman Empire).[35]

A lesser-known Revolutionary Conservative academic, Hans Freyer, also held similar views to Spann and challenged the ideas and results of the “Enlightenment,” particularly secularism, the idea of universal reason, the concept of a universal humanity, urbanization, and democratization. Against modern society corrupted by these things, Freyer posed the idea of a “totally integrated society” which would be completed by a powerful, non-democratic state. Culture, Volk, race, and religion would form the basis of society and state in order to restore a sense of community and common values. Freyer also joined the National Socialists believing that the movement would realize his aims but later became disappointed with it because of what he saw as its repressive nature during the Third Reich.[36]

Zehrer and Elitist Theory

Hans Zehrer was a notable contributor to and editor of the “neoconservative” magazine Die Tat, and thus eventually also a founding member of a group of intellectuals known as the Tat-Kreis (“Tat-Circle”). Zehrer held the view that “all movements began as intellectual movements of intelligent, well-qualified minorities which, because of the discrepancy between that which is and that which should be, seized the initiative.”[37] His theory was somewhat related to Vilfredo Pareto’s concept of a “circulation of elites” in that he believed that intellectuals, in most cases gifted and intelligent men emerging from any social class, were crucial in determining the succeeding social order and its ideas.

In Germany at that time, the middle class, which made up a large segment of society and of which Zehrer was a member, was facing a number of economic problems. It was Zehrer’s dream that a new political order could be established by young intellectuals of the middle class which he attempted to reach. This new order would result in the abolishment of the insecure Weimar republic and the establishment of an authoritarian elite made up largely of such intellectuals. This elite would not be subject to control by the masses and would choose its own members based on the criterion of personal quality and ability without regard to social class or wealth.[38]

Zehrer’s vision was not fulfilled due to a series of failures to establish a new state by a “revolution from above” as well because of the rise of the NSDAP, which he attempted to influence in the early 1930s despite his disdain for party rule and, after being unsuccessful, retreated from political activity. However, although most Revolutionary Conservative thinkers did not envision an elite composed almost solely of intellectuals, it is notable that they shared with Zehrer the view that an authoritarian elite should have its membership open to qualified individuals of all classes and ranks.[39]

Sombart and Conservative Socialism

Socialists with nationalist and conservative leanings such as Paul Lensch, Johann Plenge, Werner Sombart, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, and Oswald Spengler to the rise of a new, national, conservative socialism. Of course, it should be remembered that non-Marxist socialism already had a long history in Germany, including such people as the Kathedersozialisten (“socialists of the chair”), Adolf Stöcker, and Ferdinand Tönnies.[40] Werner Sombart himself began as a Marxist, but later became disillusioned with Marxist theory, which he realized was destructive of the human spirit and organic community much in the same way capitalism was.

Sombart is for the most part remembered for his work on the nature of capitalism, especially his works linking the materialistic character of the Jews with capitalism. The obsession with profit, ruthless business practices, indifference to quality, and “the merely rationalizing and abstracting characteristics of the trader” which were key products of capitalism, destroy any “community of labor” and disintegrate bonds between people which were more common in medieval society.[41] Sombart wrote, “Before capitalism could develop, the natural man had to be changed out of all recognition, and a rationalistically minded mechanism introduced in his stead. There had to be a transvaluation of all economic values.”[42]

Sombart’s major objections to Marxism consisted of the fact that Marxism aimed to suppress all religious feelings as well as national feelings and the values of rooted, indigenous culture; Marxism aimed not at a higher mankind but mere base “happiness.” In contrast to Marxism and capitalism, Sombart advocated a German Socialism in which economic policies would be “directed in a corporative manner,” exploitation would be ended, and hierarchy and the welfare of the whole state would be upheld.[43]

Radicalism and Nationalism: Jünger and Niekisch

1. Ernst Jünger

Ernst Jünger is well-known for his work on what he saw as the positive effects of warfare and battle, with himself having experienced these in World War I. Jünger rejected the bourgeois civilization of comfort and security, which he saw as weak and dying, in favor of the hardening and “magnificent” experience of action and adventure in war, which would transform a man of the bourgeois world into a “warrior.” The warrior type battled “against the eternal Utopia of peace, the pursuit of happiness, and perfection.”[44] Jünger believed that the crisis and restlessness of Germans after the World War was essentially a good thing.

In his book Der Arbeiter, the “warrior” was followed by the “worker,” a new type which would become dominant after the end of the bourgeois order. Jünger had realized that modern technology was changing the world; the individual man was losing his individuality and freedom in a mechanized world. Thus he anticipated a society in which people would accept anonymity in the masses and obedient service to the state; the population would undergo “total mobilization.”[45] To quote Jünger:

Total Mobilization is far less consummated than it consummates itself; in war and peace, it expresses the secret and inexorable claim to which our life in the age of masses and machines subjects us. It thus turns out that each individual life becomes, ever more unambiguously, the life of a worker; and that, following the wars of knights, kings, and citizens, we now have wars of workers. The first great twentieth-century conflict has offered us a presentiment of both their rational structure and their mercilessness.[46]

Ernst Jünger’s acceptance of technology in the “worker” stage stands somewhat in contrast to the position taken by his brother, Friedrich Georg Jünger, who wrote critiques of modern technological civilization (although Ernst would later in life agree with this view).[47] Ernst Jünger later changed in his attitudes during World War II, and afterwards nearly inverted his entire worldview, praising peace and individualism; a change which had not come without criticism from the Right.[48]

2. Ernst Niekisch

Another notable radical nationalist in the Conservative Revolution was Ernst Niekisch, who began as a Communist but eventually turned to a seemingly paradoxical mixture of German nationalism and Russian communism: National Bolshevism. In accordance with this new doctrine, Niekisch advocated an alliance between Soviet Russia and Germany in order to overcome the Versailles Treaty as well as to counter the power of the capitalist and anti-nationalist Western nations. However, this deviant faction, in competition with both Communists and anti-Communist nationalists, remained an unsuccessful minority.[49]

Political Theory: Schmitt and Haushofer

1. Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt was a notable Catholic philosopher of politics and jurist who was a major influence on political thought and who also supported the Third Reich government after its formation. His most famous book was The Concept of the Political, although he is also the author of numerous other works, including Political Theology and The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy.

The “political,” for Schmitt, was a concept distinct from politics in the normal sense of the term, and was based on the distinction between “friend” and “enemy.” The political exists wherever there exists an enemy, a group which is different and holds different interests, and with whom there is a possibility of conflict. This criterion includes both groups outside of the state as well as within the state, and therefore both inter-state war as well as civil war is taken into account. A population can be unified and mobilized through the political act, in which an enemy is identified and battled.[50]

Schmitt also defended the practice of dictatorship, which he distinguished from “tyranny.” Dictatorship is a form of government which is established when a “state of exception” or emergency exists in which it is necessary to bypass slow parliamentary processes in order to defend the law. According to Schmitt, dictatorial power is present in any case in which a state or leader exercises power independently of the approval of majorities, regardless of whether or not this state is “democratic.” Sovereignty is the power to decide the state of exception, and thus, “sovereign is he who decides on the exception.”[51]

Schmitt further criticized parliamentary or liberal democracy by arguing that the original basis of parliamentarism — which held that the separation of powers and open and rational dialogue between parties would result in a well-functioning state — was in fact negated by the reality of party politics, in which party leaders, coalitions, and interest groups make decisions on policies without a discussion. Another notable argument made by Schmitt was that true democracy is not liberal democracy, in which a plurality of groups are treated equally under a single state, but a unified, homogenous state in which leaders’ decisions express the will of the unified people. In Schmitt’s words, “Every actual democracy rests on the principle that not only are equals equal but unequals will not be treated equally. Democracy requires, therefore, first homogeneity and second – if the need arises elimination or eradication of heterogeneity.”[52]

2. Karl Haushofer

Karl Haushofer was another philosopher of politics who is well-known for his theoretical work on “geopolitics” which aimed to advance Germany’s understanding of international politics and geography. Haushofer asserted that nations not only had the right to defend their land, but also to expand and colonize new lands, especially when experiencing over-population. Germany was one nation in such a position, and was thus entitled to Lebensraum (“living-space”) for its excess population. In order to overcome the domination of the Anglo-American power structure, Haushofer advocated a new system of alliances which particularly involved a German-Russian alliance (thus Haushofer can be viewed as a “Eurasianist”). Haushofer joined the National Socialists but his ideas were eventually rejected by Third Reich geopoliticians because of their hostility to Russia.[53]

The Influences of the Conservative Revolution

The thinkers of the Conservative Revolution had not only an immediate influence in Germany during the early 20th Century, but also a deep and lasting impact on right-wing (and in some cases even left-wing) thought up to the present day. Aside from the obvious influence on National Socialism, and if we assume that Otto Strasser cannot be included as part of the Conservative Revolution, then Strasserism was still clearly influenced by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck and Oswald Spengler.[54]

Francis Parker Yockey, the author of Imperium, also revealed influence from Spengler, Schmitt, Sombart, and Haushofer.[55] Julius Evola, the famous Italian traditionalist, is yet another writer who was affected by Revolutionary Conservative intellectuals, as is clear in such major works as Men Among the Ruins[56] and The Path of Cinnabar.[57]

More recently, the European New Right shows a great amount of inspiration from Revolutionary Conservatives. Armin Mohler, who may himself be considered a part of Germany’s Conservative Revolution as well as the New Right, is well-known for his seminal work Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918–1932.[58] In addition, Tomislav Sunic also draws many intellectual concepts from Revolutionary Conservatives in his highly important book, Against Democracy and Equality, including Schmitt, Spengler, and to a lesser extent Spann and Sombart. [59]

Yet another intellectual in league with the New Right, Alexander Jacob, is the translator of Jung’s The Rule of the Inferiour and is also responsible for multiple works on various Revolutionary Conservatives.[60] When one considers these facts, it becomes apparent that much can be learned by studying the history and ideas of the German Conservative Revolution. It is a source of philosophical richness which can advance the Conservative position and which leaves its mark on the thought of the Right even today.

 

Notes

[1] On Hofmannsthal’s political views, see Paul Gottfried, “Hugo von Hofmannsthal and the Interwar European Right.” Modern Age, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Fall 2007), pp. 508–19.

[2] Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Das Schrifttum als geistiger Raum der Nation (Munich, 1927). Quoted in Klemens von Klemperer, Germany’s New Conservatism; Its History And Dilemma In The Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), p. 9.

[3] Armin Mohler, Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918–1932 (Stuttgart: Friedrich Vorwerk Verlag, 1950).

[4] Robert Edward Norton, Secret Germany: Stefan George and his Circle (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002).

[5] Klemperer, Germany’s New Conservatism, pp. 102–111.

[6] Klemperer, Germany’s New Conservatism, pp. 156–159.

[7] Mohler, Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland, p. 329.

[8] Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Germany’s Third Empire (New York: Howard Fertig, 1971).

[9] Ibid. p. 76.

[10] Ibid. p. 245.

[11] Ibid. p. 227.

[12] Edgar Julius Jung, The Rule of the Inferiour, trans. Alexander Jacob (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellon Press, 1995).

[13] Larry Eugene Jones, “Edgar Julius Jung: The Conservative Revolution in Theory and Practice,” Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association, vol. 21, Issue 02 (June 1988), p. 142.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Edgar J. Jung, Deutsche uber Deutschland (Munich, 1932), p. 380. Quoted in Klemperer, Germany’s New Conservatism, pp. 121–22.

[16] Jung, The Rule of the Inferiour, p. 138.

[17] Jung, “Sinndeutung der konservativen Revolution in Deutschland.” Quoted inJones, “Edgar Julius Jung,” p. 167. For an overview of Jung’s philosophy, see: Jones, “Edgar Julius Jung,” pp. 144–47, 149; Walter Struve, Elites Against Democracy; Leadership Ideals in Bourgeois Political Thought in Germany, 1890-1933 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University, 1973), pp. 317–52; Alexander Jacob’s introduction to Europa: German Conservative Foreign Policy 1870–1940 (Lanham, MD, USA: University Press of America, 2002), pp. 10–16.

[18] Jones, “Edgar Julius Jung,” pp. 145–48.

[19] Jung, The Rule of the Inferiour, p. 368.

[20] Jones, “Edgar Julius Jung,” pp. 147–73.

[21] Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West Vol. 1: Form and Actuality (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926).

[22] Ibid. p. 106.

[23] Ibid. For a good overview of Spengler’s theory, see Tomislav Sunic, Against Democracy and Equality: The European New Right (Third Edition. London: Arktos, 2010), pp. 91–98.

[24] Oswald Spengler, Selected Essays (Chicago: Gateway/Henry Regnery, 1967).

[25] Ibid.

[26] See: Joe Pryce, “On The Biocentric Metaphysics of Ludwig Klages,” Revilo-Oliver.com, 2001, http://www.revilo-oliver.com/Writers/Klages/Ludwig_Klages.html, and Lydia Baer, “The Literary Criticism of Ludwig Klages and the Klages School: An Introduction to Biocentric Thought.” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Jan., 1941), pp. 91–138.

[27] Ludwig Klages, Cosmogonic Reflections, trans. Joe Pryce, 14 May 2001, http://www.revilo-oliver.com/Writers/Klages/515.html, 453.

[28] Ibid., http://www.revilo-oliver.com/Writers/Klages/100.html, 2.

[29] Klemperer, Germany’s New Conservatism, pp. 204–5.

[30] Othmar Spann, Der Wahre Staat (Leipzig: Verlag von Quelle und Meyer, 1921).

[31] Barth Landheer, “Othmar Spann’s Social Theories.” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Apr., 1931), pp. 239–48.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Spann, quoted in Ernest Mort, “Christian Corporatism.” Modern Age, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Summer 1959), p. 249. http://www.mmisi.org/ma/03_03/mort.pdf.

[34] Spann, Der wahre Staat, p. 120. Quoted in Sunic, Against Democracy and Equality, pp. 163–64.

[35] Janek Wasserman, Black Vienna, Red Vienna: The Struggle for Intellectual and Political Hegemony in Interwar Vienna, 1918–1938 (Saint Louis, Missouri: Washington University, 2010), pp. 73–85.

[36] Jerry Z. Muller, The Other God that Failed: Hans Freyer and the Deradicalization of German Conservatism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). The single book by Hans Freyer to be translated into English is Theory of Objective Mind, trans. Steven Grosby (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1998).

[37] Hans Zehrer, “Die Revolution der Intelligenz,” Tat, XXI (Oct. I929), 488. Quoted in Walter Struve, “Hans Zehrer as a Neoconservative Elite Theorist,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 70, No. 4 (Jul., 1965), p. 1035.

[38] Struve, “Hans Zehrer as a Neoconservative Elite Theorist.”

[39] Ibid.

[40] Klemperer, Germany’s New Conservatism, pp. 57–58. On Tönnies, see Christopher Adair-Toteff, “Ferdinand Tonnies: Utopian Visionary,” Sociological Theory, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Mar., 1995), pp. 58-65.

[41] Alexander Jacob, “German Socialism as an Alternative to Marxism,” The Scorpion, Issue 21. http://thescorp.multics.org/21spengler.html.

[42] Werner Sombart, Economic Life in the Modern Age (New Brunswick, NJ, and London: Transaction Publishers, 2001), p. 129.

[43] Jacob, “German Socialism as an Alternative to Marxism.”

[44] Ernst Jünger, ed., Krieg und Krieger (Berlin, 1930), 59. Quoted in Klemperer, Germany’s New Conservatism, p. 183. See also Ernst Jünger’s Storm of Steel, trans. Basil Greighton (London: Chatto & Windus, 1929) and Copse 125 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1930).

[45] Klemperer, Germany’s New Conservatism, pp. 185–88.

[46] Ernst Jünger, “Total Mobilization,” trans. Joel Golb, in The Heidegger Controversy (Boston: MIT Press, 1992), p. 129. http://anarchistwithoutcontent.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/junger-total-mobilization-booklet.pdf.

[47] Alain de Benoist, “Soldier Worker, Rebel, Anarch: An Introduction to Ernst Jünger,” trans. Greg Johnson, The Occidental Quarterly, vol. 8, no. 3 (Fall 2008), p. 52.

[48] Julius Evola, The Path of Cinnabar (London: Integral Tradition Publishing, 2009), pp. 216–21.

[49] Klemens von Klemperer, “Towards a Fourth Reich? The History of National Bolshevism in Germany,” The Review of Politics, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Apr., 1951), pp. 191–210.

[50] Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, expanded edition, trans. G. Schwab (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).

[51] Carl Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, trans. G. Schwab (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. 1.

[52] Carl Schmitt, The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, trans. E. Kennedy, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985), p. 9.

[53] Andrew Gyorgy, “The Geopolitics of War: Total War and Geostrategy.” The Journal of Politics, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Nov., 1943), pp. 347–62. See also Mohler, Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland, p. 474.

[54] Otto Strasser, Hitler and I (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1940), pp. 38–39.

[55] Francis Parker Yockey, Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics (Sausalito, Cal.: Noontide Press, 1962).

[56] Julius Evola, Men Among the Ruins (Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2002).

[57] Evola, The Path of Cinnabar, pp. 150–55.

[58] See note #3.

[59] See Sunic, Against Democracy and Equality, pp. 75–98, 159–64.

[60] See Jacob, Europa; “German Socialism as an Alternative to Marxism”; Introduction to Political Ideals by Houston Stewart Chamberlain (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2005).

 

—————–

Tudor, Lucian. “The Conservative Revolution of Germany & its Legacy.” Counter-Currents Publishing, 14 August 2012. <http://www.counter-currents.com/2012/08/the-german-conservative-revolution-and-its-legacy/ >.

 

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

 

La Nueva Derecha Europea en Español (The European New Right in Spanish)

La Nueva Derecha Europea en Español

(The European New Right in Spanish)

Note in English: Due to the fact that the Spanish is one of the most important languages (along with French, Italian, and German) in which many key works of the European New Right have been published, we have created this page to bring attention to some of the more significant Spanish-language resources on the European New Right which are available on the Internet and which we have chosen to republish on our website. These include certain selected issues of Sebastian J. Lorenz’s online journal Elementos which we have deemed to be the most important, along with Alain de Benoist’s and Charles Champetier’s “Manifesto of the New Right” (Spanish version).

Aquí vamos a poner en conocimiento de los recursos más importantes en el idioma español para el pensamiento de la Nueva Derecha Europea. El recurso más importante es la revista de Sebastián J. Lorenz: Elementos: Revista de Metapolítica para una Civilización Europea, que se ha anunciado y publicado en línea en su sitio web: <http://elementosdemetapolitica.blogspot.com.es/ >. Hemos seleccionado y publicado en nuestra página web lo que hemos considerado que son los números más esenciales de esta revista en lo que respecta a las ideas de la Nueva Derecha. En el espacio a continuación vamos a enumerar y enlace en el espacio por debajo de estos números de Elementos y sus contenidos, junto con el manifiesto de Alain de Benoist y Charles Champetier.

Aquí también queremos mencionar los libros más importantes de la Nueva Derecha en español que están disponibles en formato impreso: Alain de Benoist, ¿Es un Problema la Democracia? (Barcelona: Nueva República, 2013); Benoist, La Nueva Derecha: Una respuesta clara, profunda e inteligente (Barcelona : Planeta, 1982); Alain de Benoist, Guillaume Faye, & Carlos Pinedo Cestafe, Las Ideas de la “Nueva Derecha”: Una respuesta al colonialismo cultural (Barcelona: Nuevo Arte Thor, 1986); Guillaume Faye, Pierre Freson, & Robert Steuckers, Pequeño Léxico del Partisano Europeo (Molins de Rei, Barcelona: Nueva República, 2012); Tomislav Sunic, Homo Americanus: Hijo de la Era Postmoderna (Barcelona: Ediciones Nueva Republica, 2008); Dominique Venner, Europa y su Destino: De ayer a mañana (Barcelona: Áltera, 2010); Rodrigo Agulló, Disidencia Perfecta: La Nueva Derecha y la batalla de las ideas (Barcelona & Madrid: Altera, 2011); Jesús J. Sebastián Lorente (ed.), Alain de Benoist: Elogio de la disidencia (Tarragona: Ediciones Fides, 2015).

 

Manifiesto: La Nueva Derecha del año 2000 por Alain de Benoist y Charles Champetier

(Nota: Este libro también fue publicado en forma impresa como: Manifiesto para un renacimiento europeo [Mollet del Vallès, Barcelona: GRECE, 2000])

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 15 – “Moeller van den Bruck: Conservadurismo Revolucionario”  (publicado 1 Junio 2011)

Contenidos:

Arthur Moeller van den Bruck y la Nouvelle Droite, por Sebastian J. Lorenz

Moeller van den Bruck: un rebelde conservador, por Luca Leonello Rimbotti

Moeller van den Bruck: ¿un “precursor póstumo”?, por Denis Goedel

Moeller y Dostoievski, por Robert Steuckers

Moeller y la Kulturpessimismus de Weimar, por Ferran Gallego

Moeller y los Jungkonservativen, por Erik Norling

Moeller y Spengler, por Ernesto Milá

Moeller y la Konservative Revolution, por Keith Bullivant

Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, por Alain de Benoist

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 16 – “Un Diálogo Contra la Modernidad: Julius Evola y Alain de Benoist”  (publicado 9 Junio 2011)

Contenidos:

Julius Evola, por Alain de Benoist

Posmodernidad y antimodernidad: Alain de Benoist y Julius Evola, por Marcos Ghio

Julius Evola, reaccionario radical y metafísico comprometido. Análisis crítico del pensamiento político de Julius Evola, por Alain de Benoist

Evola y la crítica de la modernidad, por Luisa Bonesio

La recepción internacional de Rebelión contra el mundo moderno, por Giovanni Monastra

Rebelión contra el mundo moderno, por Julius Evola

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 24 – “Europeismo Identitario”  (publicado 25 Mayo 2012)

Contenidos:

Hacia el reencuentro de Europa: Lo que piensa la Nueva Derecha, por Diego L. Sanromán

Europa a la búsqueda de su identidad, por Isidro J. Palacios

La cuestión europea: Bases ideológicas de la Nueva Derecha, por Carlos Pinedo Cestafe

Europa: la memoria del futuro, por Alain de Benoist

Una cierta idea de Europa. El debate sobre la construcción europea, por Rodrigo Agulló

La memoria en herencia: Europa y su destino, por Dominique Venner

Siglo XXI: Europa, un árbol en la tempestad, por Guillaume Faye

La identidad europea, por Enrique Ravello

Europa: no es herencia sino misión futura, por Giorgio Locchi

El proyecto de la Gran Europa, por Alexander Dugin

¿Unión Europea o Gran Espacio?, por J. Molina

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 26 – “Economía Orgánica. Una Alternativa a la Economía de Mercado” (publicado 11 Junio 2012)

Contenidos:

Salir de la Economía, por Rodrigo Agulló

La Economía no es el Destino, por Guillaume Faye

La Economía Orgánica en la Nueva Derecha, por Carlos Pinedo

Adam Müller: la Economía Orgánica como vivienca romántica, por Luis Fernando Torres

Friedrich List: Sistema Nacional de Economía Política, ¿proteccionismo?, por Arturo C. Meyer, Carlos Gómez y Jurgen Schuldt

Crear la Economía Orgánica, por A.L. Arrigoni

El principio de reciprocidad en los cambios, por Alberto Buela

¿Homo oeconomicus o idiota moral?, por Ramón Alcoberro

Por una Economía Mundial de dos velocidades, por Guillaume Faye

La Economía Local contra la Economía Global, por Edward Goldsmith

Dictadura de la economía y sociedad mercantilista, por Stefano Vaj

Crisis económica: aproximación a un modelo económico alternativo, por Juan P. Viñuela

La crítica de la Economía de Mercado de Karl Polanyi, por Arturo Lahera Sánchez

Por la independencia económica europea, por Guillaume Faye

¿Decrecimiento o barbarie?, por Serge Latouche

Decrecimiento: hacia un nuevo paradigma económico, por Luis Picazo Casariego

La Economía del Bien Común: un modelo económico alternativo, por Christian Felber

Charles Champetier: por una subversión de la lógica economicista, por Diego L. Sanromán

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 28 – “Contra el Liberalismo: El Principal Enemigo” (publicado 29 junio 2012)

Contenidos:

El liberalismo, enemigo principal, por Alain de Benoist y Charles Champetier

El liberalismo en las ideas de la “Nueva Derecha”, por Carlos Pinedo Cestafe

Liberalismo, por Francis Parker Yockey

Frente al Peligro de la Hegemonía Liberal, por Marco Tarchi

La esencia del neoliberalismo, por Pierre Bourdieu

El error del liberalismo, por Alain de Benoist

Liberalismo y Democracia: Paradojas y Rompecabezas, por Joseph Margolis

El liberalismo y las identidades, por Eduardo Arroyo

Dinámica histórica del Liberalismo: del mercado total al Estado total, por Tomislav Sunic

Neoliberalismo: la lucha de todos contra todos, por Pierre Bourdieu

La impostura liberal, por Adriano Scianca

Una crítica liberal del liberalismo, por Adrián Fernández Martín

Leo Strauss y su crítica al liberalismo, por Alberto Buela

Charles Taylor: una crítica comunitaria al liberalismo político, por Carlos Donoso Pacheco

El liberalismo norteamericano y sus críticos: Rawls, Taylor, Sandel, Walzer, por Chantal Mouffe

La crítica comunitaria a la moral liberal, por Renato Cristi

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 31 – “Armin Mohler y la “Konservative Revolution” Alemana” (publicado 12 Agosto 2012)

Contenidos:

El movimiento de la Revolución Conservadora, por Robert Steuckers

La herencia del movimiento de la “Revolución Conservadora” en Europa, por Ian B. Warren

La Revolución Conservadora, por Keith Bullivant

La crisis de la democracia en Weimar:Oposición ideológica de la Revolución

Conservadora,por José Ramón Díez Espinosa

La Revolución Conservadora en Alemania, por Marqués de Valdeiglesias

Ideas para Europa: la Revolución Conservadora, por Luca Leonello Rimbotti

Revolución Conservadora y nacionalsocialismo, por Andrea Virga

Evola y la Revolución Conservadora, por Giano Accame

La Konservative Revolution como doctrina de la decadencia de Alemania, por Miguel Ángel Simón

La influencia de Armin Mohler sobre la cosmovision de la Nueva Derecha, por Robert Steuckers

De la «Konservative Revolution» a la «Nouvelle Droite»: ¿apropiación o rehabilitación?, por Sebastian J. Lorenz

La Revolución Conservadora y la cuestión de las minorías nacionales, por Xoxé M. Núzez Seixas

El sinsentido de la Revolución Conservadora Historia de la idea, nacionalismo y habitus, por Henning Eichberg

Índice de los autores de la «Konservative Revolution”, según Armin Mohler

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 32 – “Imperio: Orden Especial y Espiritual” (publicado 11 septiembre 2012)

Contenidos:

La idea de Imperio, por Alain de Benoist

Translatio Imperii: del Imperio a la Unión, por Peter Sloterdijk

¿Hacia un modelo neoimperialista? Gran espacio e Imperio en Carl Schmitt, por Alessandro Campi

¿Europa imperial?, por Rodrigo Agulló

Imperialismo pagano, por Julius Evola

El concepto de Imperio en el Derecho internacional, por Carl Schmitt

Nación e Imperio, por Giorgio Locchi

El Imperium a la luz de la Tradición, por Eduard Alcántara

Imperio sin Imperator, por Celso Sánchez Capdequí

Imperio: Constitución y Autoridad imperial, por Michael Hardt y Antonio Negri

La teoría posmoderna del Imperio, por Alan Rush

El Imperium espiritual de Europa: de Ortega a Sloterdijk, por Sebastian J. Lorenz

 

ELEMENTOS N° 37 – “Federalismo Poliárquico Neoalthusiano” (publicado 28 Noviembre 2012)

Contenidos:

El primer federalista. Johannes Althusius, por Alain de Benoist

Carl Schmitt y el Federalismo, por Luis María Bandieri

Nacionalismo, Democracia y Federalismo, por Ramón Máiz

Europa federal y el principio de subsidiariedad, por Rodrigo Agulló

España, ¿federación o autodeterminación?, por Sebastian J. Lorenz

Plurinacionalidad, Federalismo y Derecho de Autodeterminación, por Jaime Pastor

El federalismo pluralista. Del federalismo nacional al federalismo plurinacional, por Miquel Caminal

Federalismo plurinacional, por Ramón Máiz

Estado federal y Confederación de Estados, por Max Sercq

De la Confederación a la Federación. Reflexiones sobre la finalidad de la integración europea, por Joschka Fischer

Federalismo versus Imperialismo, por Juan Beneyto

Europa. De imperio a federación, por Josep M. Colomer

Entrevistas imaginarias con el Presidente de Europa y el Jefe del Gobierno europeo

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 39 – “Una Crítica Metapolítica de la Democracia: De Carl Schmitt a Alain de Benoist, Vol. I” (publicado 23 Enero 2013)

Contenidos:

Democracia, el problema

Democracia representativa y democracia participativa, por Alain de Benoist

La crítica de la democracia, por Felipe Giménez Pérez

La democracia: Un análisis a partir de los críticos, por Eva Garrell Zulueta

La crítica decisionista de Carl Schmitt a la democracia liberal, por Antonella Attili

Rectificación metapolítica de la democracia, por Primo Siena

La crítica de Nietzsche a la Democracia  en Humano, demasiado humano, por Diego Felipe Paredes

Teoría democrática: Joseph Schumpeter y la síntesis moderna, por Godofredo Vidal de la Rosa

La crisis de la Democracia, por Marcel Gauchet

Democracia morbosa. Variaciones sobre un tema de Ortega, por Ignacio Sánchez Cámara

La democracia capitalista como forma extrema del totalitarismo. Entrevista con Philip Allot, por Irene Hernández Velasco

Sobre Nietzsche contra la democracia, de Nicolás González Varela, por Salvador López Arnal

La Democracia como Nematología. Sobre El fundamentalismo democrático, de Gustavo Bueno, por Íñigo Ongay de Felipe

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 40 – “Antonio Gramsci y el Poder Cultural. Por un Gramscismo de Derecha” (publicado 11 Febrero 2013)

Contenidos:

El gramscismo de derecha, por Marcos Ghio

Antonio Gramsci, marxista independiente, por Alain de Benoist

La estrategia metapolítica de la Nueva Derecha, por Carlos Pinedo

Un gramcismo de derechas. La Nueva derecha y la batalla de las ideas, por Rodrigo Agulló

El Poder Cultural, por Alain de Benoist

Gramsci, la revolución cultural y la estrategia para Occidente, por Ricardo Miguel Flore

El concepto de hegemonia en Gramsci, por Luciano Grupp

Gramsci y la sociología del conocimiento,por Salvador Orlando Alfaro

Antonio Gramsci: orientaciones, por Daniel Campione

Cómo Ganar la Guerra de las Ideas: Lecciones de la Derecha Gramsciana Neoliberal, por Susan George

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 41 – “Una Crítica Metapolítica de la Democracia: De Carl Schmitt a Alain de Benoist, Vol. II” (publicado 18 Febrero 2013)

Contenidos:

Democracia antigua y “Democracia” moderna, por Alain de Benoist

¿Es eterna la democracia liberal? Algunas opiniones al respecto,por Pedro Carlos González Cuevas

La democracia según la Escuela de Frankfurt y Carl Schmitt: ¿Opuestos y complementarios?, por Emmanuel Brugaletta

Carl Schmitt y René Capitant. Parlamentarismo y Democracia, por Xavier Marchand

La democracia federalista, por Sergio Fernández Riquelme

Tres modelos de democracia. Sobre el concepto de una política deliberativa, por Jürgen Habermas

Carl Schmitt y la paradoja de la democracia liberal, por Chantal Mouffe

Elitismo y Democracia: de Pareto a Schumpeter, por Mercedes Carreras

Democracia como sistema, democracia como ideología, por Pelayo García Sierra

Filósofos para una nueva democracia, por Braulio García Jaén

¿Hacia un nueva democracia? Habermas y Schmitt, por Ellen Kennedy

El invierno de la democracia, por Guy Hermet

Los enemigos de la democracia: la dictadura neoliberal, por Eduardo Álvarez Puga

Democracia sin demócratas, de Marcos Roitman, por Josep Pradas

 

ELEMENTOS N° 43 – “La Causa de los Pueblos: Etnicidad e Identidad” (publicado 18 Marzo 2013)

Contenidos:

La causa de los pueblos, por Isidro Juan Palacios

El etnocidio contra los pueblos: Mecánica y consecuencias del neo-colonialismo cultural, por José Javier Esparza

Etnopluralismo: las ideas de la Nueva Derecha, por Carlos Pinedo

El Arraigo por Alain de Benoist

La Europa de las etnias: nuestro único futuro posible, por Olegario de las Eras

La cuestión étnica: Aproximación a los conceptos de grupo étnico, identidad étnica, etnicidad y relaciones interétnicas, por Maria Cristina Bari

Visiones de la etnicidad, por Manuel Ángel Río Ruiz

Sobre la identidad de los pueblos, por Luis Villoro

La etnicidad y sus formas: aproximación a un modelo complejo de la pertenencia étnica, por Eduardo Terrén

El problema del etnocentrismo en el debate antropológico entre Clifford Geertz, Richard Rorty y Lévi-Strauss, por Rafael Aguilera Portales

La negación de la realidad étnica, por Guillaume Faye

Etnicidad y nacionalismo, por Isidoro Moreno Navarro

Etnicidad sin garantías: contribuciones de Stuart Hall, por Eduardo Restrepo

Etnia y etnicidad: dos categorías en construcción, por Carlos Ramiro Bravo Molina

 

ELEMENTOS N° 47 – “Elogio de la Diferencia. Diferencialismo versus Racismo” (publicado 28 Mayo 2013)

Contenidos:

Identidad y diferencia, por Alain de Benoist

Sobre racismo y antirracismo. Entrevista a Alain de Benoist, por Peter Krause

Diferencialismo contra racismo. Sobre los orígenes modernos del racismo, por Gilbert Destrées

El racismo. Génesis y desarrollo de una ideología de la Modernidad, por Carlos Caballero Jurado

Hacia un concepto convencional de raza, por Sebastian J. Lorenz

Nihilismo Racial, por Richard McCulloch

El antirracismo como religión de Estado, por Guillaume Faye

Un asunto tenebroso: el problema del racismo en la Nueva Derecha, por Diego Luis Sanromán

El racismo como ideología política. El discurso anti-inmigración de la Nueva Derecha, por José Luis Solana Ruiz

Sobre viejos y nuevos racismos. Las ideas de la Nueva Derecha, por Rodrigo Agulló

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 54 – “La Falsa Ideología de los Derechos Humanos” (publicado 30 Agosto 2013)

Contenidos:

Más allá de los Derechos Humanos. Defender las Libertades, por Alain de Benoist

Reflexiones en torno a los Derechos Humanos, por Charles Champetier

El Derecho de los Hombres, por Guillaume Faye

Derechos Humanos: una ideología para la mundialización, por Rodrigo Agulló

En torno a la Doctrina de los Derechos Humanos, por Erwin Robertson

¿Derechos del hombre?, por Adriano Scianca

¿Son universales los Derechos Humanos?, por François Julien

Los Derechos Humanos  como derechos de propiedad, por Murray Rothbard

La religión de los Derechos Humanos, por Guillaume Faye

Derechos comunes y Derechos personales en Ortega y Gasset, por Alejandro de Haro Honrubia

Derechos Humanos: disyuntiva de nuestro tiempo, por Alberto Buela

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 61 – “La Condición Femenina. ¿Feminismo o Feminidad?” (publicado 28 Noviembre 2013)

Contenidos:

Visión ontológico-teológica de lo masculino y lo femenino, por Leonardo Boff

El ser oculto de la cultura femenina en la obra de Georg Simmel, por Josetxo Beriain

El feminismo de la diferencia, por Marta Colorado López, Liliana Arango Palacio, Sofía Fernández Fuente

La condición femenina, por Alain de Benoist

La mujer objeto de la dominación masculina, por Pierre Bourdieu

Feminidad versus Feminismo, por Cesáreo Marítimo

Afirmando las diferencias. El feminismo de Nietzsche, por Elvira Burgos Díaz

La mujer como madre y la mujer como amante, por Julius Evola

El “recelo feminista” a proposito del ensayo La dominacion masculina de

Pierre Bourdieu, por Yuliuva Hernández García

Friedrich Nietzsche y Sigmund Freud: una subversión feminista, por Eva Parrondo Coppel

Hombres y mujeres. Un análisis desde la teoría de la polaridad, por Raúl Martínez Ibars

Identidad femenina y humanización del mundo, por Rodrigo Guerra
Simmel y la cultura femenina, por Raquel Osborne

La nueva feminidad, Entrevista a Annalinde Nightwind

El hombre no es un enemigo a batir, Entrevista con Elisabeth Badinter

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 64 – “El Eterno Retorno de Mircea Eliade”  (publicado 20 Marzo 2014)

Contenidos:

Bibliografía comentada de Mircea Eliade, por José Antonio Hernández García

Antropología y religión en el pensamiento de Mircea Eliade, por Pedro Gómez García

Mircea Eliade y el ideal del hombre universal, por Ioan Petru Culianu

Mircea Eliade y la Revolución Conservadora en Rumanía, por Claudio Mutti

Paisaje espiritual de Mircea Eliade, por Sergio Fritz Roa

Ingenieros de almas. Cioran, Elíade y la Guardia de Hierro, por Luis de León Barga

La experiencia de lo sagrado según Mircea Eliade, por François Chirpaz

Muerte y religión en Mircea Eliade, por Margarita Ossorio Menéndez

El paradigma del mito-ontológico de Mircea Eliade y su significación metodológica, por Nataly Nikonovich

Eliade y la antropología, por José Antonio González Alcantud

Mircea Eliade: hombre histórico, hombre mítico, por Hugo Basile

Mircea Eliade: un parsifal extraviado, por Enrico Montarani

Las huellas de la ideología en el pensamiento antropológico. El caso de

Mircea Eliade, por Pedro Jesús Pérez Zafrilla

Mircea Eliade, el novelista, por Constantin Sorin Catrinescu

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 70 – “Alexander Dugin y la Cuarta Teoría Política: La Nueva Derecha Rusa Eurasiática” (publicado 29 Mayo 2014)

Contenidos:

Alexander Dugin: la Nueva Derecha rusa, entre el Neo-Eurasianismo y la Cuarta Teoría Política, por Jesús J. Sebastián

Más allá del liberalismo: hacia la Cuarta Teoría Política, por Alexander Dugin

Necesidad de la Cuarta Teoría Política, por Leonid Savin

La Cuarta Teoría Política y la “Otra Europa”, por Natella Speranskaya

El Liberalismo y la Guerra Rusia-Occidente, por Alexander Dugin

Alexander Dugin, o cuando la metafísica y la política se unen, por Sergio Fritz

La Cuarta Teoría Política, entrevista a Natella Speranskaya, por Claudio Mutti

El quinto estado: una réplica a Alexander Dugin, por Marcos Ghio

La Tercera Teoría Política. Una crítica a la Cuarta Teoría Política, por Michael O’Meara

La gran guerra de los continentes. Geopolítica y fuerzas ocultas de la historia, por Alexander Dugin

La globalización para bien de los pueblos. Perspectivas de la nueva teoría política, por Leonid Savin

Alianza Global Revolucionaria, entrevista a Natella Speranskaya

Contribución a la teoría actual de la protesta radical, por Geidar Dzhemal

El proyecto de la Gran Europa. Un esbozo geopolítico para un futuro mundo multipolar, por Alexander Dugin

Rusia, clave de bóveda del sistema multipolar, por Tiberio Graziani

La dinámica ideológica en Rusia y los cambios del curso de su política exterior, por Alexander Dugin

Un Estado étnico para Rusia. El fracaso del proyecto multicultural, por Vladimir Putin

Reportaje sobre Dugin (revista alemana Zuerst!), por Manuel Ochsenreiter

Dugin: de la Unión Nacional-Bolchevique al Partido Euroasiático, por Xavier Casals Meseguer

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 79 – “Contra Occidente: Salir del Sistema Occidental” (publicado 29 Agosto 2014)

Contenidos:

Occidente debe ser olvidado, por Alain de Benoist

Occidente como decadencia, por Carlos Pinedo

¿Existe todavía el mundo occidental?, por Immanuel Wallerstein

¿Qué es Occidente?, por Juan Pablo Vitali

Romper con la civilización occidental, por Guillaume Faye

Sobre Nietzsche y el masoquismo occidental, por Carlos Javier Blanco Martín

Hispanoamérica contra Occidente, por Alberto Buela

El paradigma occidental, por H.C.F. Mansilla

El decadentismo occidental, por Jesús J. Sebastián

Critica del sistema occidental, por Guillaume Faye

¿El ascenso de Occidente?, por Immanuel Wallerstein

René Guénon, ¿profeta del fin de Occidente?, por Antonio Martínez

Más allá de Oriente y Occidente, por María Teresa Román López

Civilización y hegemonía de Occidente, por Jaime Parra

Apogeo y decadencia de Occidente, por Mario Vargas Llosa
Europa vs. Occidente, por Claudi Finzi

Occidente contra Occidente. Brecha intelectual francesa, por José Andrés Fernández Leost

Civilización e Ideología occidentales, por Guillaume Faye

Occidente como destino. Una lectura weberiana, por Jacobo Muñoz

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 82 – “El Debate sobre el Paganismo de la Nueva Derecha (Vol. 1)” (publicado 11 Octubre 2014)

Contenidos:

¿Cómo se puede ser pagano? (I), por Alain de Benoist

La cuestión religiosa y la Nueva Derecha, por José Javier Esparza

¿Qué aliento sagrado puede salvarnos? Carta abierta a José Javier Esparza, por Javier Ruiz Portella

La tentación pagana, por Thomas Molnar

Paganismo, la nueva religión europea, por Guillaume Faye

¿Qué religión para Europa? La polémica del neopaganismo, por Rodrigo Agulló

La Derecha pagana, por Tomislav Sunic

Monoteísmo versus Politeísmo, por Alain de Benoist

El paganismo: religión de la vida terrenal, por José Vicente Pascual

La religión en las sociedades occidentales, por Alain de Benoist

El paganismo de Hamsun y Lawrence, por Robert Steuckers

El eclipse de lo sagrado, ¿o el sagrado eclipse?, por Paul Gottfried

La reacción contra la modernidad y la secularización del cristianismo, por Adolfo Galeano Ofm

El Paganismo como concepción del Mundo, por Ramón Bau

Contra Dawkins: qué esconden sus preferencias por el politeísmo, por Javier del Arco

Politeísmo versus monoteísmo: el desarrollo de la crítica a la religión cristiana en la obra de Friedrich Nietzsche, por Herbert Fre

El origen de la Navidad. Las raíces paganas de una fiesta cristiana, por Alfredo Martorell

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 83 – “El Debate sobre el Paganismo de la Nueva Derecha (Vol. 2)” (publicado 11 Octubre 2014)

Contenidos:

¿Cómo se puede ser pagano? (II), por Alain de Benoist

Lo sagrado en la cultura europea, por Carlos Martínez-Cava

Marx, Moisés y los Paganos en la Ciudad Secular, por Tomislav Sunic

Dioses y titanes: entrevista con Guillaume Faye sobre el paganismo, por Christopher Gérard

¿Es preciso ser cristiano? La Derecha tradicional, por José Javier Esparza

La religión de Europa, por Alain de Benoist

¿Qué religión para Europa?, por Diego L. Sanromán

Entre el paganismo y la derecha radical, por Stéphane François

Europa: pagana y cristiana, por Juan Pablo Vitali

Humanismo profano y neopaganismo moderno, por Arnaud Imatz

Del politeísmo al monoteísmo: los riesgos de los fundamentalismos, por Juan Antonio Estrada

El Frente Nacional de Marine Le Pen y la derecha pagana, por Fernando José Vaquero Oroquieta

La cuestión del paganismo. Entrevista a Alain de Benoist, por Charles Champetier

Paganismo y nihilismo, por Daniel Aragón Ortiz

El neopaganismo pessoano, por Antonio López Martín

El nuevo paganismo ¿triunfo del ilusionismo?, por José Miguel Odero

Paganismo y Cristianismo, por Eduard Alcántara

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 84 – Julien Freund: Lo Político en Esencia (publicado 31 Octubre 2014)

Contenidos:

Julien Freund: una introducción, por Juan Carlos Corbetta

Julien Freund, un politique para nuestro tiempo, por Jerónimo Molina

Julien Freund y la impolítica, por Alain de Benoist

Evocación de Julien Freund, por Günter Maschke

Julien Freund, por Dalmacio Negro Pavón

Conflicto, política y polemología en el pensamiento de Julien Freund, por Jerónimo Molina

Julien Freund, analista político: contextos y perspectivas de interpretación, por Juan C. Valderrama Abenza

Lo público y la libertad en el pensamiento de Julien Freund, por Cristián Rojas González

El realismo político. A propósito de La esencia de lo político, de Julien Freund, por Felipe Giménez Pérez

Julien Freund. Del Realismo Político al Maquiavelismo, por Jerónimo Molina

Situación polémica y terceros en Schmitt y Freund, por Jorge Giraldo Ramírez

Orden y situación política en Julien Freund, por Juan C. Valderrama Abenza

Las nociones de mando y obediencia en la teoría política de Julien Freund, por Jerónimo Molina

Julien  Freund: la paz como medio de la política, por José Romero Serrano

Julien Freund: entre liberalismo y conservadurismo, por Sébastien de la Touanne

 

Otros Ensayos:

“Alain de Benoist y su crítica del capitalismo” por Carlos Javier Blanco Martín

“La Nueva Derecha Criolla” por Francisco Albanese

 

Arthur Moeller van den Bruck – Tudor

Arthur Moeller van den Bruck: The Man & His Thought

By Lucian Tudor

 

Arthur Moeller van den Bruck was one of the most important, perhaps even the single most important, figure of what is known as the “Conservative Revolution” in early 20th century Germany. His influence on conservative German thought, despite its limitations, is deep and lasting, carrying on even into the present day. Indeed there may be some truth to the mystical declaration made by his wife: “In trying to account for the question who was Moeller van den Bruck, you are really addressing a question to Germany’s destiny.”[1] An examination of his life and philosophical thought is an examination of one of those great forces in the realm of ideas that moves nations. And it is for the value to any nationalist or conservative inherent in such an examination that we aim to accomplish that here concisely.

Early Life and Development

Arthur Moeller van den Bruck was born on April 23, 1876 in Solingen in the Rhineland area of Germany. At the age of sixteen, Moeller van den Bruck (we will hereafter shorten his last name to Moeller) was expelled from the Gymnasium which he was attending at Dusseldorf due to the fact that he was indifferent in his classes, which was a result of his preoccupation with German literature and philosophy. This expulsion did not stop him from continuing his literary studies and he even attended lectures at several intellectual centers, despite not being able to enter a university.[2]

Friedrich Nietzsche’s (and to some extent also Paul de Lagarde’s and Julius Langbehn’s) philosophy had a powerful influence on Moeller’s thought in his youth, and shaped his views of Bismarck’s Second Reich, a state which he found disagreeable because of its “forced patriotism.” At this time, Moeller was extremely “un-political” and decided to leave Germany in 1902 for some time to avoid military service.[3] The first location to which he traveled was Paris, where he began the writing of an eight-volume work titled Die Deutschen: unsere Menschengeschichte (“The Germans: Our People’s History”), published from the years 1904 to 1910, which was a cultural history that classified significant Germans according to characteristic psychological types.[4]

Supplementing Die Deutschen, Moeller published in 1905 Die Zeitgenossen (“The Contemporaries”), which presented his concept of “old peoples” and “young peoples,” an idea which he would reassert in later notable works.[5] During this time he also acquired a fascination with Fyodor Dostoevsky’s work and also an admiration for the “Eastern[Russian] spirit,” which motivated him to produce a German translation of Dostoevsky’s works with the help of Dmitry Merezhkovsky.[6]

From the years 1912 to 1914, Moeller had traveled throughout various nations, particularly through Italy, England, Russia, and Scandinavia, having originally planned to write books describing the prime characteristics of certain nations, but he ultimately only finished a book on Italian art titled Die Italienische Schönheit (“The Italian Beauty”) in 1913.[7]

World War I, Young Peoples, and Racial Theory

When the First World War began, Moeller returned to Germany due to a feeling of attachment for Germany and enlisted in military service. In 1916, after having been discharged from the army due to suffering from nervous disorders, he produced a key work known as Der preussische Stil (“The Prussian Style”). This book, although its primary focus was on Prussian architecture, presented Moeller’s view on the nature of the Prussian character, which he now praised, writing that “Prussianism is the will to the state, and the interpretation of historical life as political life in which we must act as political men.”[8]

In 1919, Moeller produced another of his famous works known as Das Recht der Jungen Völker (“The Right of Young Peoples”), which reasserted his idea of “young peoples” and “old peoples” in a new form. In this theory, peoples or nations (Völker, which is the plural form of Volk) differed in “age,” which means not age in years or actual time but rather in their character and behavior. “Young peoples,” which included Germany, Russia, and America, possessed a high amount of vitality, hard work, will-to-power, strength, and energy. “Old peoples,” which included Italy, England, and France, were saturated, highly developed, valued “happiness” over work, and generally had a lower amount of energy and vitality.[9]

According to Moeller, the destiny of peoples would be determined by the “law of rise and decline of nations,” which held that “all aging states relentlessly sink down from their hegemonial positions.”[10] However, “young peoples” could be defeated in war by a coalition of “old peoples,” as Germany had been in World War I, although this would not crush a “young people” if the resulting conditions would still leave that nation with the ability to exist and grow. Consequently, Moeller advocated an alliance between Germany, America, and Russia, hoping that with this effort Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” could be implemented and Germany would live under reasonable conditions. However, the resulting peace treaty was the Versailles Treaty and not the Fourteen Points.[11]

In Das Recht der Jungen Völker Moeller also included some earlier writing he had done on the subject of race. Moeller believed that humans could not be divided into races solely by anthropology because Man is “more than nature.” He had a peculiar idea of race which presented a dichotomy between Rasse des Blutes (“Race of the Blood”), which refers to the common biological concept of race, and Rasse des Geistes (“Race of the Spirit”), which refers to psychological or “spiritual” character which is not hereditarily determined.[12]

Moeller argued that because peoples of the same biological race could have significant differences between each other, the English and the Germans being an example of this, “race of the blood” was not as powerful or important as a “race of the spirit.” Conversely, it was also proven by the fact that a people could be made of up of a mixture of races, such as the Prussians (who were the result of an ancient Slavic-Germanic mix), yet still have a positive and unified form; although, of course, it should be noted that despite this commentary, Moeller would certainly have not approved of any European group mixing with non-European (i.e. non-white) races.[13]

The June Club and the Spengler Debate

In 1919, Moeller founded, along with Heinrich von Gleichen-Russwurm and Eduard Stadtler, the “neoconservative” (an alternative term for “revolutionary conservative”) group known as the Juniklub (“June Club”), an organization of which Moeller would soon become the key ideological leader.[14] In early 1920, the June Club invited Oswald Spengler to discuss his book The Decline of the West with Moeller van den Bruck. Moeller and Spengler agreed on some basic issues, including the basic division between Kultur (“Culture”) and Zivilisation (“Civilization”), but had some significant disagreements as well.[15]

Moeller asserted that Spengler’s “morphological” theory of culture cycles had certain key inaccuracies. Firstly, he disagreed with Spengler’s rigidly deterministic and fatalistic view of history, in which the rise and decline of High Cultures were “destined” and could even be predicted, because for Moeller history was essentially unpredictable; it is “the story of the incalculable.”[16]

Secondly, the nations which Spengler claimed constituted the “West” had powerful differences between each other, especially in terms of being “young” and “old,” which affected whether they would rise or decline, as well as cultural differences. Moeller wrote that due to these significant differences there was clearly no “homogeneous Occident” and “for that reason alone there can be no homogeneous decline.”[17]

Not only that, but history resembled a “spiral” rather than a “circle,” and a nation in decline could actually reverse its decline if certain psychological changes and events could take place within it. In fact, Moeller felt that a nation like Germany could not even be classified as “Western” and even had more in common, in terms of spirit, with Russia than it did with France and England.[18]

The Third Empire

In 1922, Moeller, along with his two friends Heinrich von Gleichen and Max Hildebert Boehm, published a collection of their articles in the form of a book titled Die Neue Front (“The New Front”), which was intended to be a manifesto for young conservatives.[19] One year later, however, Moeller would publish his own manifesto, Das Dritte Reich (“The Third Empire,” translated into English as Germany’s Third Empire), which contained the most comprehensive exposition of his worldview.[20]

He began the book with a declaration of the ideal of the Third Empire which Germany had the potential to establish while simultaneously giving a warning that Germany must become “politically-minded.” In the first chapter he discussed the German Revolution of 1918 which established the Weimar Republic, declaring that this revolution introduced un-German political ideas which were imposed by the foreign powers of France and England, and that it must be overcome by a new, conservative and nationalist revolution.

Here Moeller also repeated his concept of “young peoples” and “old peoples,” emphasizing that the English and French nations were “old” but shrewd and politically experienced, while Germany was “young” and vigorous but had behaved in an inexperienced and impetuous manner. If Germany could rise above the defeated situation in which it was placed into, its leaders would need caution and political experience. Moeller warned that if German leaders would not handle the political situation “with the utmost care and skill” and with wisdom, “her[Germany’s] attempt will plunge us once more into impotence, into disintegration, into a non-existence which will last this time not for decades but for centuries.”[21]

The succeeding parts of Germany’s Third Empire would examine the four typical ideological types – Revolutionary, Liberal, Reactionary, and Conservative – in Germany and their essential attitudes and ideas.

Revolutionaries, Socialism, and the Proletariat

The political type known as the “Revolutionary” or the “Radical,” which was represented primarily by the Marxists, held the mistaken view that a nation and its society could be entirely transformed through a revolution, rapidly creating a new world. Moeller believed that this was a naive view of the life of nations, because the past customs, traditions, and values of a nation cannot ever simply be totally brushed aside. “We may be the victims of catastrophes which overtake us, of revolutions which we cannot prevent, but tradition always re-emerges.”[22]

Moeller spent much time critiquing the materialist and rationalist ideological foundations of Marxism. He critiqued rationalism for failing to understand that “reason” had limits and was entirely separate from “understanding.” “Reason should be one with perception. This reason ceased to perceive; she merely reckoned. Understanding is spiritual instinct; reason became mere intellectual calculation.”[23] Materialism (which shared a link with rationalism) and rationalism “embraces everything except what is vital.” Like rationalism, materialism could not understand either history or the nature of man:

The materialist conception of history, which gives economics greater weight than man, is a denial of history; it denies all spiritual values. . . . Man revolts against the merely animal in himself; he is filled with the determination not to live for bread alone – or, at a later stage, not alone for economics – he achieves consciousness of his human dignity. The materialist conception of history has never taken cognizance of these things. It has concentrated on half man’s history: and the less creditable half. [24]

Thus Marxism, because it was founded upon such ideas, made the error of conceiving of man as a soulless animal guided merely by economic motives, while in reality higher spiritual forces and ideas guided his actions. Furthermore, Marx failed to understand that there could be no international proletariat because people, whether they were proletariats or not, were differentiated by belonging to different Völker (this is often translated as “nations,” but may also be understood as “ethnicities”).

Moeller believed that this failing was partly a product of Marx’s rationalistic thought as well as his Jewish background, which made him “a stranger in Europe” who yet “dared to meddle in the affairs of European peoples.” Moeller struck out: “Jew that he was, national feeling was incomprehensible to him; rationalist that he was, national feeling was for him out of date.”[25]

However, socialism itself was not limited to Marxism and in fact, “international socialism does not exist . . . socialism begins where Marxism ends.”[26] Moeller called for the recognition of the fact that “every people has its own socialism” and that a conservative “national socialism” of German origin existed which should be the foundation of the Third Empire.

This German socialism was essentially a form of socialistic corporatism, a “corporative conception of state and economics,” which had its foundations in the ideas of thinkers such as Friedrich List, Frieherr von Stein, and Constantin Frantz, as well as in the medieval guild system.[27] Other notable intellectuals who were contemporaries of Moeller, most prominently Oswald Spengler and Werner Sombart, advocated similar conceptions of “German socialism.”[28]

Moeller also defied Marx’s concept of the proletariat as well as his concept of class warfare, asserting that “the proletarian is a proletarian by his own desire.” Thus the proletariat in the Marxian sense was not a product of his position in capitalist society, but merely of “the proletarian consciousness.” Socialism is a “population problem,” which is the “the most urgently socialist question conceivable” and which Marx was incapable of giving proper recognition to.[29]

The problem of the proletariat was essentially the problem of a nation having too much surplus population due to a lack of “living space,” which meant that its people began to live in bad conditions. Because Germany was being prevented by foreign powers from solving its population problem, “the proletariat is learning that if oppressed classes suffer in body, oppressed nations suffer in soul.” German proletarians and non-proletarians were both German and would have to unite in order to free themselves from oppression, for “only the nation as a whole can set itself free.”[30]

Liberalism and Democracy

Liberalism was attacked by Moeller as a negative force which must be absolutely eliminated and which was the prime enemy of both the conservative Right and revolutionary Left. Liberalism, Moeller taught, is at its essence based upon individualism, meaning not simply the idea that the individual has value but a kind of egotism which refuses to recognize anything above the individual and which even puts total value upon self-interest. “The liberal professes to do all he does for the sake of the people; but he destroys the sense of community that should bind outstanding men to the people from which they spring.”[31]

Thus, liberalism is a degenerating force which weakens nations and atomizes society; it is an ideology tolerated only by nations which no longer have a sense of unity or “state-instinct.” Liberals consequently have no sense of responsibility towards their nation, being indifferent to both its past and its future and seeking only personal advantage. The disintegrating power of this ideology is obvious: “Their[liberals’] dream is the great International, in which the differences of peoples and languages, races and cultures will be obliterated.”[32]

Moeller concluded that liberalism had created a form of state – the republic – in which the old aristocracy was replaced by a “dangerous, irresponsible, ruthless, intermediate stratum” of corrupt politicians who were guided solely by self-interest. Moeller even maintained that liberals did not even have proper idea of freedom: “Freedom means for him[the liberal] simply scope for his own egotism, and this he secures by means of the political devices which he has elaborated for the purpose: parliamentism and so-called democracy.”[33]

In place of the liberal-republican concept of democracy, Moeller offered a new idea: “The question of democracy is not the question of the Republic” but is rather something that comes into being when the people “take a share in determining their own Fate.”[34] Germans had originally been a democratic people in ancient times, which had nothing to do with theoretic rights or even voting, but rather with the bond of peoplehood and with the monarch executing the people’s will.

Thus, even a strong monarchy could be a democracy. However, Moeller believed that the old monarchy of the Second Reich had lost touch with the people and a new kind of monarchical state should come into being, a “democracy with a leader – not parliamentism.”[35] This Leader would abolish the rule of the parties and institute a system in which leaders would “feel at one with the nation” and “identify the nation’s fate with their own.”[36]

Reactionaries and Conservatives

Reactionaries and Conservatives are often seen as interchangeable, but Moeller emphasized that there are important differences between the two groups. A reactionary is essentially someone who believes in a total reinstitution of a past form. That is, he seeks to reverse history and bring back into being all old practices, regardless of whether they are actually good or bad, because he believes that everything of the past was good. Moeller thus distinguished the reactionary from the conservative:

The reactionary’s reading of history is as superficial as the conservative’s is profound. The reactionary sees the world as he has known it; the conservative sees it as it has been and will always be. He distinguishes the transitory from the eternal. Exactly what has been, can never be again. But what the world has once brought forth she can bring forth again. [37]

What is meant here is that while a reactionary seeks to completely revive past forms, the conservative understands how the world actually functions. Societies evolve and therefore some values and traditions change, but at the same time certain values and traditions do not change or should not change. The conservative tries to preserve the values and customs which are good for the nation or are eternal in nature while simultaneously being accepting of new values and practices when they are helpful for the nation or when they replace older ones which were negative in effect. Therefore,

He [the conservative] has no ambition to see the world as a museum; he prefers it as a workshop, where he can create things which will serve as new foundations. His thought differs from the revolutionary’s in that it does not trust things which were hastily begotten in the chaos of upheaval; things have a value for him only when they possess certain stability. Stable values spring from tradition. [38]

What, then, is a “Revolutionary Conservative” or “Conservative Revolutionary”? In many ways, Moeller’s definition of conservative is basically equivalent to revolutionary conservative; one who values what is eternal or good while leaving behind what is no longer tenable or is bad. However, strictly speaking, for Moeller the revolutionary conservative is a conservative who merges conservative and revolutionary ideas for the benefit of the nation. Moeller wrote that “conservative-revolutionary thought” is the “only one which in a time of upheaval guarantees the continuity of history and preserves it alike from reaction and from chaos.”[39] It is thus a necessary development which recognizes and reconciles “all the antitheses which are historically alive amongst us.”[40]

Conservative Nationalism and the Third Empire

According to Moeller, conservatism and nationalism are linked, meaning that a conservative is now a nationalist. But how does he define “nationalism,” a term which often has contradictory definitions? Nationality (or alternatively, ethnicity) is not based simply on being born in a specific country and speaking its language, as has often been assumed in the past; a nation is in fact defined by “its own peculiar character from the manner in which the men of its blood value life.”[41] Thus Moeller wrote:

Consciousness of nationhood means consciousness of a nation’s living values. Not only those are Germans who speak German, or were born in Germany, or possess her citizen rights. Conservatism seeks to preserve a nation’s values, both by conserving traditional values, as far as these still possess the power of growth, and by assimilating all new values which increase a nation’s vitality. A nation is a community of values; and nationalism is a consciousness of values. [42]

It is of interest to note here that liberal-egalitarian intellectuals oftentimes claim that nationalists believe that a nation is a totally unchanging entity in terms of character, while Moeller’s concept of conservatism and nationalism, as explained above, entirely defies these anti-nationalist prejudices. Similarly, Moeller’s associate, the influential volkisch (“Folkish”) thinker Max Hildebert Boehm, held the view that a Volk was not an unchanging organism but always in a state of flux.[43]

Finally, Moeller declared that “The crumbling state threatened to bury the nation in its ruins. But there has arisen a hope of salvation: a conservative-revolutionary movement of nationalism.”[44] It will establish a “Third Empire, a new and final Empire” which would unite the German people as a whole, would be founded upon conservative values and the love of country, and would resolve Germany’s economic and population problems. However, Moeller emphasized that the aim was not to fight only for Germany’s sake, but in fact “at the same time he[the German nationalist] is fighting for the cause of Europe, for every European influence that radiates from Germany as the centre of Europe.”[45] Thus, the fulfillment of German destiny would mean the salvation of Europe.

Influence and Death

Moeller’s grand vision for the future of German nationalism and conservatism had much influence among right-wing groups in Germany and was critical in the development of “revolutionary conservatism.” However, his most prominent influence was on Hitler’s National Socialist movement, even to the extent that Moeller is oftentimes said to be a precursor of National Socialism.

Although the term “Third Reich” did not originate with him, it was he who popularized it during the Weimar Republic and was the source from which the National Socialists adopted it.[46] Furthermore, Moeller’s concept of a Leader who identifies with the nation, the concept of a “national socialism,” his anti-liberalism, and his belief in the importance of nationality all bear an obvious relationship to Hitler’s National Socialism.

However, on the other hand, these ideas are certainly not unique to either Moeller or Hitler, and in fact predate both of them. There are also conspicuous differences between Moeller’s worldview and Hitler’s. Moeller did not share Hitler’s anti-Slavism or his particular racial views, nor were his anti-Jewish attitudes as strong as Hitler’s, even though he recognized Jews as a problem.

When Hitler visited the June Club in 1922 and had a discussion with Moeller, Moeller believed that while Hitler clearly was fighting for German interests, he did not have the right personal qualities or tendencies: “Hitler was wrecked by his proletarian primitivism. He did not understand how to give his national socialism any intellectual basis. He was passion incarnate, but entirely without measure or sense of proportion.”[47]

According to Otto Strasser, another associate of Moeller, Hitler also did not understand Moeller’s phrase “We were Teutons, we are Germans, we shall be Europeans,” which meant that Germany should become “a member of the great European family”[48] Yet in spite of all this, Hitler still admired Moeller and a signed copy of his Das Dritte Reich was found in Hitler’s bunker in 1945.[49]

By the year 1925, Moeller began to despair over the political situation in Germany and various negative developments. He did not have any confidence in the right-wing political forces which emerged, and it has also been suggested that he had feared that the National Socialists abused or distorted his ideas. As he began to withdraw from political activism, Moeller became lonelier and more depressed, and was finally struck by a nervous breakdown, after which he committed suicide on May 30, 1925.[50] But as Arthur Moeller van den Bruck passed from this world he left behind his imposing vision:

German nationalism fights for the possible Empire . . . . We are not thinking of the Europe of Today which is too contemptible to have any value. We are thinking of the Europe of Yesterday and whatever thereof may be salvaged for Tomorrow. We are thinking of the Germany of All Time, the Germany of a two-thousand-year past, the Germany of an eternal present which dwells in the spirit, but must be secured in reality and can only so be politically secured . . . . The ape and tiger in man are threatening. The shadow of Africa falls across Europe. It is our task to be guardians on the threshold of values. [51]

 

Notes

[1] Lucy Moeller van den Bruck as quoted in Fritz Stern, The Politics of Cultural Despair (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1974), p. 184.

[2] Gerhard Krebs, “Moeller Van Den Bruck: Inventor of the ‘Third Reich,’” The American Political Science Review, Vol. 35, No. 6 (Dec., 1941), pp. 1085–86.

[3] Klemens von Klemperer, Germany’s New Conservatism; Its History And Dilemma In The Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), pp. 154–55.

[4] Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Die Deutschen, 8 vols. (Minden, Westphalia: J. C. C. Bruns, 1910).

[5] Krebs, “Moeller Van Den Bruck,” p. 1093.

[6] Kemperer, Germany’s New Conservatism, p. 155–56.

[7] Ibid., p. 156.

[8] Moeller, Der preussische Stil (Munich, 1916), p. 202. Quoted in Klemperer, Germany’s New Conservatism, p. 156.

[9] Moeller, Das Recht der Jungen Völker (Munich: R. Piper & Co., 1919).

[10] Moeller as quoted in Krebs, “Moeller Van Den Bruck,” p. 1093.

[11] Klemperer, Germany’s New Conservatism, pp. 158–59.

[12] On Moeller’s racial views, see Stern, Politics of Cultural Despair, pp. 142–43, 187, and Alain de Benoist, “Arthur Moeller van den Bruck: Une ‘Question a la Destinee Allemande,’” Nouvelle Ecole, Paris, 35, January 1980, http://www.alaindebenoist.com/pdf/arthur_moeller_van_den_bruck.pdf, pp. 13 & 35.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Klemperer, Germany’s New Conservatism, p. 103.

[15] Benoist, “Arthur Moeller van den Bruck,” p. 28.

[16] Moeller, Das Recht der Jungen Völker, pp. 11–39. Quoted in Zoltan Michael Szaz, “The Ideological Precursors of National Socialism,” The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Dec., 1963), p. 942.

[17] Moeller as quoted in Stern, Politics of Cultural Despair, p. 239.

[18] Benoist, “Arthur Moeller van den Bruck,” pp. 13, 27–30.

[19] Klemperer, Germany’s New Conservatism, p. 232 and Krebs, “Moeller Van Den Bruck,” p. 1087.

[20] Moeller, Germany’s Third Empire (Howard Fertig, New York, 1971). Note that a new edition of this work in English has recently been published by Arktos Media (London, 2012).

[21] Ibid., p. 24.

[22] Ibid., p. 223.

[23] Ibid., p. 212.

[24] Ibid., p. 55.

[25] Ibid., p. 43.

[26] Ibid., p. 76.

[27] Ibid., pp. 60, 74, 160.

[28] See Oswald Spengler, Selected Essays (Chicago: Gateway/Henry Regnery, 1967) and Werner Sombart, Economic Life in the Modern Age (New Brunswick, NJ, and London: Transaction Publishers, 2001).

[29] Moeller, Germany’s Third Empire, pp. 160–62.

[30] Ibid., p. 161.

[31] Ibid., p. 90.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Ibid., p. 110.

[34] Ibid., p. 132.

[35] Ibid., p. 133.

[36] Ibid., p. 227.

[37] Ibid., p. 181.

[38] Ibid., p. 223.

[39] Ibid., p. 192.

[40] Ibid., p. 254.

[41] Ibid., p. 245.

[42] Ibid., p. 245.

[43] Max Hildebert Boehm, Das eigenständige Volk (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1932).

[44] Moeller, Germany’s Third Empire, p. 248.

[45] Ibid., p. 264.

[46] Klemperer, Germany’s New Conservatism, pp. 153, 161–62.

[47] Moeller as quoted in Stern, Politics of Cultural Despair, p. 238.

[48] Otto Strasser, Hitler and I (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1940), pp. 39 & 217.

[49] Cyprian Blamires, World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia, Volume 1 (Santa Barbara, Cal.: ABC-CLIO, 2006), p. 431.

[50] Stern, Politics of Cultural Despair, p. 266 and Benoist, “Arthur Moeller van den Bruck,” p. 49.

[51] Moeller, Germany’s Third Empire, p. 264.

 

—————-

Tudor, Lucian. “Arthur Moeller van den Bruck: The Man & His Thought.” Counter-Currents Publishing, 17 August 2012. <http://www.counter-currents.com/2012/08/arthur-moeller-van-den-bruck-the-man-and-his-thought/ >.

Note: For a discussion related to Revolutionary Conservative thought, see also the Interview with Robert Steuckers on our site.

Additional Note: This essay was also republished in updated form in Lucian Tudor’s From the German Conservative Revolution to the New Right: A Collection of Essays on Identitarian Philosophy (Santiago, Chile: Círculo de Investigaciones PanCriollistas, 2015).

 

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.

 

——————-

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/ >.

 

Idea of Empire – Benoist

The Idea of Empire

by Alain de Benoist

 

Europe was the place where two great models of polity, of political unity, were elaborated, developed and clashed: the nation, preceded by the monarchy, and the empire. The last emperor of the Latin West, Romulus Augustus, was deposed in 475. Only the Eastern empire remained. But after the Western empire was dismantled, a new unitary consciousness seems to have arisen. In 795, Pope Leon III started to date his encyclicals based on the reign of Charles, king of the Franks and patrician of the Romans, rather than on the reign of the emperor of Constantinople. Five years later in Rome, on Christmas Day in the year 800, Leon III placed the imperial crown on Charlemagne’s head.

This is the first renovation of the empire. It obeys the theory of transfer (transratio imperii) according to which the empire Charlemagne revived is a continuation of the Roman empire, thus putting an end to theological speculations inspired by the prophet David who foresaw the end of the world after the end of the fourth empire, i.e., after the end of the Roman empire which succeeded the Babylonian, the Persian and the Alexandrian empires.

At the same time, the renovation of the empire also breaks with the Augustinian idea of a radical opposition between civitas terrena and civitas Dei, which could have been understood to mean that a Christian empire was only a chimera. In fact, Leon III had a new strategy — a Christian empire, where the emperor would be the defender of the City of God. The emperor derived his powers from the pope, whose spiritual powers he reproduced in the temporal realm. Of course, all quarrels surrounding investitures will stem from this equivocal formulation which makes the emperor a subject in the spiritual order but at the same time makes him the head of a temporal hierarchy whose sacred character will soon be asserted.

After the Verdun Treaty (843) sealed the division of the empire between Charlemagne’s three grandsons (Lothario I, Ludwig the German, and Charles the Bald), the king of Saxony, Henry I, was crowned emperor in 919. The empire then became Germanic. After Carolingian power was dislocated, it was restored again in the center of Europe with the Othonians and the Franks in 962 to the benefit of King Otto I of Germania. It remained the major political force in Europe until the middle of the 13th century, when it was officially transformed into the Sacrum Romanum Imperium. After 1442, the appellation “of the German nation” was added.

It is not possible to retrace the history of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation here beyond pointing out that throughout its history it was a composite bringing together three components: antiquity, Christianity, and German identity.

Historically the imperial idea began to disintegrate in the Renaissance, with the appearance of the first national states. Of course, the 1525 victory of Pavia, won by imperial forces against Francis II’s troops, seemed to reverse the trend. At the time, this event was considered very important and caused a renaissance of Ghibellinism in Italy. After Charles V, however, the imperial title did not go to his son Philip, and the empire was again reduced to a local affair. After the Peace of Westphalia (1648), it was seen less and less as something dignified and more and more as a simple confederation of territorial states. The decline went on for another two and a half centuries. On 6 April 1806, Napoleon brought the revolution to fruition by destroying what remained of the empire. Francis II resigned his tide and the Holy Roman Empire was no more.

At first sight, the concept of empire is not easy to understand, given the often contradictory uses that have been made of it. In his dictionary, Littre is satisfied with a tautological definition: an empire is “a state ruled by an emperor.” This is a bit too brief. Like the polis or the nation, the empire is a kind of political unity; unlike the monarchy or the republic, it is not a form of government. This means that the empire is compatible a priori with different forms of government. The first article in the Weimar Constitution stated that “the German Reich is a republic.” Even in 1978, the constitutional court at Karlsruhe did not hesitate to claim that “the German Reich remains a subject of international law.” The best way to understand the substantive reality of the empire is by comparing it with that of the nation or the nation-state — the latter represents the end of a process of nationality-formation for which France more or less provides the best example.

In its current meaning, the nation appears as a modern phenomenon. In this respect, both Colette Beaune [1] and Bernard Guenée are wrong in locating the birth of the nation very early in history. This idea rests on anachronisms; it confuses “royal” and “national,” the formation of nationality and the formation of nation. The formation of nationality corresponds with the birth of a sense of belonging which begins to go beyond the simple natal horizon during the war against the Plantagenets — a sense reinforced during the Hundred Years War. But it should not be forgotten that in the Middle Ages the word “nation” (from nation, “birth”) had an exclusively ethnic meaning — the nations of the Sorbonne are simply groups of students who speak a different language. In the same way, the word “country,” which only appeared in France with the 16th century humanists (Dolet, Ronsard, Du Bellay), originally referred to the medieval notion of “homeland.” When more than a mere attachment to the land of one’s birth, “patriotism” is fidelity to the lord or allegiance to the person of the king. Even the word “France” appeared relatively late. Starting with Charles III (called the Simple), the title borne by the king of France was Rex Francorum. The expression Rex Franciae only appeared at the beginning of the 13th century, under Philippe-Auguste, after the defeat of the Count of Toulouse au Muret, which ended with the annexation of the countries speaking the langue d’oc and with the persecution of the Cathars.

The idea of nation was fully constituted only in the 18th century, especially during the revolution. At the beginning it referred to a concept of sovereignty opposed to that of absolute monarchy. It brought together those who thought the same politically and philosophically—it was no longer the king but the “nation” which embodied the country’s political unity. Finally, it was the abstract location where people could conceive of and exercise their rights, where individuals were transformed into citizens.

First of all, the nation is the sovereign people which, in the best of all cases, delegates to the king only the power to apply the law emanating from the general will; then it is those peoples who recognize the authority of a state, inhabit the same territory and recognize each other as members of the same political unity; finally, it is the political unity itself. This is why the counter-revolutionary tradition, which exalts the aristocratic principle, initially refrains from valuing the nation. Conversely, Article 3 of the 1789 Declaration of Rights proclaims “The principle of all sovereignty essentially resides in the nation.” Bertrand de Jouvenel even wrote that: “In hindsight, the revolutionary movement seems to have had as its goal the foundation of the cult of the nation.” [2]

What distinguishes the empire from the nation? First of all, the fact that the empire is not primarily a territory but essentially an idea or a principle. The political order is determined by it — not by material factors or by possession of a geographical area. It is determined by a spiritual or juridical idea. In this respect, it would be a serious mistake to think that the empire differs from the nation primarily in terms of size in that it is somehow “a bigger nation than others.” Of course, an empire covers a wide area. What is important, however, is that the emperor holds power by virtue of embodying something which goes beyond simple possession. As a dominus mundi, he is the suzerain of princes and kings, i.e., he rules over sovereigns, not over territories, and represents a power transcending the community he governs.

Julius Evola writes: “The empire should not be confused with the kingdoms and nations which constitute it because it is something qualitatively different, prior to and above each of them in terms of its principle.” [3] Before it expressed a system of supra-national territorial hegemony, “the old Roman notion of imperium referred to the pure power of command, the quasi-mystical force of auctoritas.” During the Middle Ages, the prevailing distinction was precisely one between auctoritas (moral and spiritual superiority) and potestas (simple political public power exercised by legal means). In both the medieval empire and the Holy Roman Empire, this distinction underlies the separation between imperial authority and the emperor’s sovereign authority over a particular people. For example, Charlemagne was part emperor and part king of the Lombards and the Franks. From then on, allegiance to the emperor was not submission to a people or to a particular country. In the same way, in the Austro-Hungarian empire, loyalty to the Hapsburg dynasty constituted “the fundamental link between peoples and replaced patriotism” (Jean Béranger); it prevailed over relations of a national or confessional character.

This spiritual character of the imperial principle directly provoked the famous quarrel concerning investitures which pitted the partisans of the pope and those of the emperor against each other for many centuries. Lacking any military content, the notion of empire originally acquired a strong theological cast in the medieval Germanic world, where one could see a Christian reinterpretation of the Roman idea of imperium. Considering themselves the executors of universal sacred history, the emperors deduced from this the idea that the empire, as a “sacred” institution (Sacrum imperium), must constitute an autonomous power with respect to the pope. This is the reason for the quarrel between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.

The emperor’s followers who denied the pope’s pretensions—the Ghibellines — found support in the old distinction between imperium and sacerdotium, seen as two equally important spheres both instituted by God. This interpretation was an extension of the Roman concept of relations between the emperor and the pontifex maximus, each being superior to the other in their respective orders. The Ghibelline viewpoint was not to subject spiritual authority to temporal power but to claim for imperial power an equal spiritual authority in the face of the Church’s exclusive pretensions. So for Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, the emperor is the half-divine intermediary whereby God’s justice is spread on earth. This renovatio, which makes the emperor the essential source of law and confers on him the character of “living law on earth” (lex animata in terris), encapsulates the Ghibelline claim: like the pope, the empire must be recognized as an institution sacred in nature and character. Evola emphasizes that the opposition between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines “was not only political . . . it expressed the antagonism of two great dignitates, both claiming a spiritual dimension . . . On its deepest level, Ghibellinism held that during his life on earth (seen as discipline, combat and service) the individual could transcend himself . . . by means of action and under the sign of the empire, in accordance with the character of the ‘supernatural’ institution which was granted to it.” [4]

From here on, the decline of the empire throughout the centuries is consistent with the decline of the central role played by its principle and, correspondingly, with its movement toward a purely territorial definition. The Germanic Roman empire had already changed when the attempt was made in both Italy and Germany to link it to a privileged territory. This idea is still absent in Dante, for whom the emperor is neither German nor Italian but “Roman” in the spiritual sense, i.e., a successor of Caesar and Augustus. In other words, the empire cannot transform itself into a “great nation” without collapsing because, in terms of the principle which animates it, no nation can assume and exercise a superior ruling function if it does not rise above its allegiances and its particular interests. “The empire in the true sense,” Evola concludes, “can only exist if animated by a spiritual fervor . . . If this is lacking, one will only have a creation forged by violence — imperialism — a simple mechanical superstructure without a soul.” [5]

For its part, the nation finds its origin in the pretension that the kingdom has to give itself imperial prerogatives by relating them not to a principle but a territory. Its beginnings can be located in the division of the Carolingian empire following the Verdun Treaty. At that point France and Germany, if one can call them that, began to have separate destinies. The latter remained in the imperial tradition, whereas the kingdom of the Franks (Regnum Francorum), seceding from the Germanic community, slowly evolved toward the modern nation by the intermediary of the monarchical state. The end of the Carolingian dynasty dates from the 10th century: 911 in Germany, 987 in France. Elected in 987, Hugh Capet was the first king who did not understand francique. He was also the first sovereign who situated himself clearly outside the imperial tradition, which explains why, in the Divine Comedy, Dante has him say: “I was the malignant roof whose shade darkened all Christian land!”

In the 13th and 14th centuries, the kingdom of France was constructed against the empire with Philippe-Auguste (Bouvines, 1214) and Philippe le Bel (Agnani, 1303). As early as 1204, Pope Innocent III declared that “it is publicly known that the king of France does not recognize any authority above him in the temporal realm.” Just as the Trojan legend was instrumentalized, an entire work of “ideological” legitimation allowed the empire to be opposed to the principle of sovereignty of national kingdoms and their right to recognize no law other than their own interest. The role of jurists, emphasized so well by Carl Schmitt, is fundamental here. In the mid-13th century they were the ones who formulated the doctrine according to which “the king of France, who does not see anyone above him in the temporal realm, is exempt from the empire and may be considered as a princeps in regno suo.” [6] This doctrine was further developed in the 14th and 15th centuries with Pierre Dubois and Guillaume de Nogaret. By proclaiming himself “emperor in his own realm” (rex imperator in regno suo), the king opposed his territorial sovereignty to the spiritual sovereignty of the empire—his purely temporal power was opposed to imperial spiritual power. At the same time, jurists took the side of centralization against local freedoms, and against the feudal aristocracies, thanks especially to the institution of the cas royal. They founded a juridical order, bourgeois in character, in which the law — conceived as a general norm with rational attributes — became the basis of a purely statist power. Law was transformed into simple legality codified by the state. In the 16th century, the formula of the king as “emperor in his own realm” was directly associated with the idea of sovereignty, about which Jean Bodin theorized. Schmitt remarks that France was the first country in the world to create a public order completely emancipated from the medieval model.

What happened next is well known. In France the nation came into being under the double sign of centralizing absolutism and the rise of the bourgeoisie. Here the main role fell on the state. When Louis XIV said “L’Etat c’est moi,” he meant there was nothing above the state. The state creates the nation, which in turn “produces” the French people; whereas in the modern age and in countries with an imperial tradition, the people create the nation, which then creates a state. The two processes of historical construction are thus entirely opposed and this opposition is based on the difference between the nation and the empire. As has often been pointed out, the history of France has been a constant struggle against the empire. The secular politics of the French monarchy was primarily aimed at breaking up Germanic and Italian spaces. After 1792, the republic took up the same objectives: the struggle against the house of Austria and the conquest of the Rhine.

The opposition between the spiritual principle and the territorial power is not the only one. Another essential difference concerns the way in which the empire and the nation regard political unity. The unity of the empire was not mechanical but organic, which goes beyond the state. To the degree to which it embodies a principle, the empire only envisages a unity on the level of that principle. Whereas the nation engenders its own culture or finds support in culture in the process of its formation, the empire embraces various cultures. Whereas the nation tries to make the people and the state correspond, the empire associates different peoples.

The principle of empire tries to reconcile the one and the many, the particular and the universal. Its general law is that of autonomy and of the respect for diversity. The empire tries to unify on a higher level, without suppressing the diversity of cultures, ethnic characters and peoples. It is a whole whose parts are autonomous in proportion to the solidity of what unites them. These parts are differentiated and organic. In contrast to the unitary and centralized societas of the national kingdom, the empire embodies the classical image of universitas. Moeller van den Bruck rightly saw the empire as a unity of opposites, while Evola defined it as “a supranational organization such that its unity does not tend to destroy or to level the ethnic and cultural multiplicity it embraces,” [7] adding that the imperial principle makes it possible “to retreat from the multiplicity of diverse elements to a principle which is at once higher and prior to their differentiation—a differentiation which proceeds only from sensible reality.” So it is not a question of abolishing but of integrating difference.

At the height of the Roman Empire, Rome was an idea, a principle, which made it possible to unite different peoples without converting or suppressing them. The principle of imperium, which was already at work in republican Rome, reflected the will to realize an always threatened cosmic order. The Roman Empire did not require jealous gods. It admitted other divinities, known or unknown, and the same is the case in the political order. The empire accepted foreign cults and the diversity of juridical codes. Each people was free to organize its federation in terms of its traditional concept of law. The Roman jus prevailed only in relations between individuals of different peoples or in relations between federations. One could be a Roman citizen (civis romanus sum) without abandoning one’s nationality.

This distinction (foreign to the spirit of the nation) between what today is called nationality and citizenship can be found in the Germanic Roman Empire. The medieval Reich, a supra-national institution (because animated by a principle beyond the political order), was fundamentally pluralist. It allowed people to live their own lives according to their own law. In modern language, it was characterized by a marked “federalism” particularly able to respect minorities. After all, the Austro-Hungarian empire functioned efficiently for centuries while minorities began to constitute most of its population (60% of the total). It brought together Italians and Romanians, as well as Jews, Serbs, Russians, Germans, Poles, Czechs, Croats and Hungarians. Jean Béranger writes that “the Hapsburgs were always indifferent to the concept of nation-state,” even to the point where this empire, founded by the house of Austria, for many centuries refused to create an “Austrian nation,” which really only took shape in the 20th century. [8]

Conversely, what characterizes the national realm is its irresistible tendency to centralization and homogenization. The nation-state’s investment of space is first revealed in a territory on which a homogeneous political sovereignty is exercised. This homogeneity may at first be apprehended in law: territorial unity results from the uniformity of juridical norms. The monarchy’s secular struggle against the feudal nobility, especially under Louis XI, the annihilation of the civilizations of countries where the langue d’oc was spoken, the affirmation of the principle of centralization under Richelieu, all tended in the same direction. In this respect, the 14th and 15th centuries marked a fundamental shift. During this period the state emerged as the victor against feudal aristocracies and ensured its alliance with the bourgeoisie at the same time as a centralized juridical order was put in place. Simultaneously, the “national” economic market appeared. Thanks to a monetarization of all forms of exchange (non-commercial, intra-community exchanges being untaxable before then), it responded to the will of the state to maximize its fiscal revenues. As Pierre Rosanvallon explains: “the nation-state is a way of composing and articulating global space. In the same way, the market is primarily a way of representing and structuring social space; only secondarily is it a decentralized mechanism for regulating economic activity through the price system. From this perspective, the nation-state and the market refer to the same form of socialization of individuals within space. They are conceivable only in an atomized society in which the individual is considered autonomous. In both the sociological and economic senses of these terms, a nation-state and a market cannot exist in spaces where society unfolds as a global and social entity.” [9]

There is no doubt that monarchial absolutism paved the way for bourgeois national revolutions. After Louis XIV had broken the nobility’s last resistances, the revolution was inevitable when the bourgeoisie could in turn win its autonomy. But there is also no doubt that in many respects the revolution only carried out and accelerated the tendencies of the Ancien Régime. Thus Tocqueville wrote: “The French Revolution caused many subordinate and secondary things, but it really only developed the core of the most important things; these existed before it . . . With the French, the central power had already taken over local administration more than any other country in the world. The revolution only made this power more skillful, powerful, enterprising.” [10]

Under the monarchy, as under the republic, the “national” logic tried to eliminate anything that might interfere between the state and the individual. It tried to integrate individuals to the same laws in a unified fashion; it did not attempt to bring together collectivities free to preserve their language, cultures and laws. State power was exercised over individual subjects, which was why it constantly destroyed or limited the power of all forms of intermediate socialization: familial clans, village communities, confraternities, trades, etc. The 1791 law against corporations (loi Le Chapelier) thus found its precedent in Francis I’s suppression of “all confraternities of trades and artisans in the whole kingdom” in 1539 — a decision which at that time targeted those artisans belonging to societies said to be of duty. With the revolution, of course, this trend accelerated. The restructuring of the territory into departments of more or less equal size, the fight against “the provincial spirit,” the suppression of particularities, the offensive against regional languages and “patois,” the standardization of weights and measures, represent a real obsession with bringing everything into alignment. In terms of Ferdinand Tönnies’ old distinction, the modern nation emerges when society rises on the ruins of old communities.

This individualist component of the nation-state is essential here. The empire requires the preservation of the diversity of groups; by its very logic, the nation recognizes only individuals. One is a member of the empire in a mediated fashion through intermediary structures. Conversely, one belongs to the nation in an immediate way, i.e., without the mediation of local ties, bodies or states. Monarchial centralization was essentially juridical and political; it thereby pointed to the work of constructing the state. Revolutionary centralization, which accompanied the emergence of the modern nation, went further still. It aimed at “producing the nation” directly, i.e., at engendering new social modes of behavior. The state then became productive of the social, a monopolistic producer: it attempted to establish a society of individuals recognized as equal on a secular level, on the ruins of the intermediate bodies it had suppressed. [11]

As Jean Baechler points out, “in the nation the intermediate groups are seen as irrelevant with respect to the citizenry and so tend to become secondary and subordinated.” [12] Louis Dumont argues along similar lines, that nationalism results from transferring the subjectivity characteristic of individualism to the level of an abstract collectivity. “In the most precise, modern, sense of the term, ‘nation’ and ‘nationalism’ (distinguished from simple patriotism) have historically been part and parcel of individualism as a value. The nation is just a type of global society which corresponds to the reign of individualism as a value. Not only does the nation accompany individualism historically, the interdependence between them is so indispensable that one could say the nation is a global society composed of people who consider themselves individuals.” [13]

This individualism, woven within the logic of the nation, is obviously opposed to the holism of imperial construction, where the individual is not dissociated from his natural connections. In the empire the same citizenry is composed of different nationalities. In the nation the two terms are synonyms: belonging to a nation is the foundation for citizenship. Pierre Fougeyrollas summarizes the situation in these terms: “Breaking with medieval societies which had a bipolar identity—that of ethnic roots and of the community of believers — modern nations are constituted as closed societies where the only official identity is that which the state confers on citizens. Thus in terms of its birth and foundations, the nation has been an anti-empire. The Netherlands originated in a break with the Hapsburg Empire; England originated in a break with Rome and the establishment of a national religion. Spain only became Castilian by escaping from the grasp of the Hapsburg system, and France, which was slowly constituted as a nation against the Germanic Roman Empire, only became a nation by combating traditional forces in all of Europe.” [14]

The empire is never a closed totality, as opposed to the nation, which has been increasingly defined by intangible boundaries. The empire’s frontiers are naturally fluid and provisional, which reinforces its organic character. Originally the word “frontier” had an exclusively military meaning: the front line. At the beginning of the 14th century, under the reign of Louis X (“Louis the Stubborn”) in France, the word frontiere replaced marche, which had commonly been used up to then. But it would still take four centuries before it acquired its current meaning of delimitation between two states. Contrary to legend, the idea of a “natural frontier,” which jurists sometimes used in the 15th century, never inspired the external politics of the monarchy. Its origin is sometimes wrongly attributed to Richelieu, or even to Vauban. In fact, only during the revolution was this idea, according to which the French nation would have “natural frontiers,” used systematically. Under the Convention especially, the Girondins used it to legitimate the establishment of the eastern frontier on the left bank of the Rhine and, more generally, to justify their annexation policies. It is also during the revolution that the Jacobin idea that the frontiers of a state must all at once correspond to those of a language, a political authority, and a nation begins to spread everywhere in Europe. Finally, it is the Convention which invented the notion of the “foreigner within” (of which Charles Maurras was paradoxically to make great use) by applying it to aristocrats who supported a despised political system: by defining them as “strangers in our midst,” Barrère asserts that “aristocrats have no country.”

Even with its universal principle and vocation, the empire is not universalist in the current sense of the term. Its universality never meant expansion across the whole earth. Instead, it was connected to the idea of an equitable order seeking to federate peoples on the basis of a concrete political organization. From this viewpoint, the empire, which rejects any aim of conversion or standardization, differs from a hypothetical world-state or from the idea that there are juridico-political principles universally valid at all times and in all places.

Since universalism is directly linked to individualism, modern political universalism must be conceived in terms of the individualist roots of the nation-state. Historical experience shows that nationalism often takes the form of an ethnocentrism blown up to universal dimensions. On many occasions the French nation wanted to be “the most universal of nations,” and it is from the universality of its national model that it claimed to derive its right to disseminate its principles throughout the world. At the time when France wanted to be “the older sister of the Church,” the monk Guibert de Nogent, in his Gesta Dei per Francos, made the Franks the instrument of God. From 1792 on, revolutionary imperialism also tried to convert all of Europe to the idea of the nation-state. Since then, there has been no lack of voices authorized to ensure that the French idea of nation is ordered to that of humanity, and that this is what would make it particularly “tolerant.” One can question this pretension since the proposition can be inverted: if the nation is ordered to humanity, it is because humanity is ordered to the nation. With this corollary, those opposed to it are excluded not only from a particular nation but from the human species in its entirety.

The word empire should be reserved only for the historical constructions deserving this name, such as the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Germanic Roman Empire or the Ottoman Empire. The Napoleonic empire, Hitler’s Third Reich, the French and British colonial empires, and modern imperalisms of the American and Soviet types are certainly not empires. Such a designation is only abusively given to enterprises or powers merely engaged in expanding their national territory. These modern “great powers” are not empires but rather nations which simply want to expand, by military, political, economic or other conquest beyond their current frontiers.

In the Napoleonic era the “empire” (a term already used to designate the monarchy before 1789, but simply in the sense of “state”) was a national-statist entity attempting to assert itself in Europe as a great hegemonic power. Bismarck’s empire, which gave priority to the state, also attempted to create the German nation. Alexandre Kojève observed that “Hitler’s slogan: Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Führer is only a (bad) German translation of the nationalistic watchword of the French Revolution: la Republique une et indivisible.” The Third Reich’s hostility to the idea of empire is also visible in its critique of the ideology of intermediate bodies and “estates.” [15] A centralist and reductive vision always prevailed in the Soviet “empire,” implying a unified politico-economic space thanks to a restrictive concept of local cultural fights. As for the American “model,” which tries to convert the whole world into a homogeneous system of material consumption and techno-economic practices, it is difficult to see what idea, what spiritual principle, it could claim!

“Great powers” are not really empires. In fact, modern imperialisms should be challenged in the name of what an empire truly is. Evola thought no differently when he wrote: ‘”Without a Meurs et deviens, no nation can aspire to an effective and legitimate imperial mission. It is not possible to retain one’s national characteristics and then to desire, on this basis, to dominate the world or simply another place.” [16] And again: “If the ‘imperialist’ tendencies of the modern age have been abortive because they often accelerate the downfall of the peoples who give in to them, or if they have been the source of all kinds of calamities, this is precisely because they lack any really spiritual — supra-political and supra-national — element; the latter is replaced by the violence of a power which is greater than the one it wants to subjugate but which is not of a different nature. If an empire is not a holy empire, it is not an empire but a kind of cancer attacking all the distinctive functions of a living organism.” [17]

Why think at all about the concept of empire today? Is it not purely chimerical to call for the rebirth of a true empire? Perhaps. But is it an accident if, even today, the model of the Roman Empire has continued to inspire all attempts to go beyond the nation-state? Is it an accident if the idea of empire (the Reichsgedanke) still mobilizes reflection at a time when thought is in disarray? [18] And is it not this idea of empire which underlies all the debates currently surrounding the construction of Europe? Is the nation-state irreplaceable? Many on the Left and on the Right have said so. This is, notably, Charles Maurras’ viewpoint. According to him, the nation is “the biggest of the temporally solid and complete communitarian circles.” [19] He declared that “there is no political framework larger than the nation.” [20] Thierry Maulnier replied: “The cult of the nation is not in itself a response but a refuge, a mystifying effusion, or worse still, a redoubtable diversion from internal problems.” [21]

What basically moves the world today is beyond the nation-state. The latter finds its framework for action, its sphere of decision-making, torn apart by many ruptures. The nation is challenged both from above and below. It is challenged from below by new social movements: by the persistence of regionalisms and new communitarian claims. It is as if the intermediate forms of socialization which it once did away with were born again today in new forms. The divorce between civil society and the political class is reflected in the proliferation of networks and the multiplication of “tribes.” But the nation is also challenged from above by often weighty social phenomena which mock national frontiers. The nation-state is stripped of its powers by the world market and international competition, by the formation of supra-national or communitarian institutions, by intergovernmental bureaucracies, techno-scientific apparati, global media messages or international pressure groups. At the same time, there is the increasingly distinct external expansion of national economies at the expense of internal markets. The economy is becoming globalized because of interacting forces, multinationals, the stock-exchange, global macro-organizations.

The imagery of nations also seems to be in crisis and those who talk of “national identity” are generally hard-pressed to define it. The national model of integration seems to be exhausted. The evolution of politics toward a system of techno-managerial authorities, which brings to fruition the implosion of political reality, confirms that the logic of nations is no longer able to integrate anyone or to assure the regulation of relations between a state criticized on all fronts and a civil society which is breaking apart. So the nation is confronted with the growth of certain collective or communitarian identities at the very moment when global centers of decision-making paint a gloomy picture above it. Daniel Bell expressed this when he said that nation-states have become too big for little problems and too little for the big ones. Deprived of any real historical foundation, in the Third World the nation-state seems to be a Western import. The long-term viability of, e.g., black African or near Eastern “nations,” seems increasingly uncertain. In fact these nations are the result of a series of arbitrary decisions by colonial powers profoundly ignorant of local historical, religious, and cultural realities. The dismantling of the Ottoman and of the Austro-Hungarian empires as a result of the Sevres and Versailles treaties was a catastrophe whose effects are still felt today — as the Gulf War and renewed conflicts in Central Europe show.

In such conditions, how can the idea of empire be ignored? Today it is the only model Europe has produced as an alternative to the nation-state. Nations are both threatened and exhausted. They must go beyond themselves if they do not want to end up as dominions of the American superpower. They can only do so by attempting to reconcile the one and the many, seeking a unity that does not lead to their impoverishment. There are unmistakable signs of this. The fascination with Austria-Hungary and the rebirth of the idea of Mitteleuropa [22] are among them. The call for empire will be born of necessity. The work Kojève wrote in 1945, only recently published, is remarkable. In it he makes a fervent appeal for the formation of a “Latin empire” and posits the necessity of empire as an alternative to the nation-state and to abstract universality. “Liberalism,” he wrote, “is wrong to see no political entity beyond the nation. Internationalism sins because it can see nothing politically viable beyond humanity. It too was incapable of discovering the intermediate political reality of empires, i.e., of unions, even international fusions, of related nations, which is today’s very political reality.” [23]

In order to create itself Europe requires a unity of political decision-making. But this European political unity cannot be built on the national Jacobin model if it does not want to see the richness and diversity of all European components disappear. It also cannot result from the economic supra-nationality dreamt by Brussels technocrats. Europe can only create itself in terms of a federal model, but a federal model which is the vehicle for an idea, a project, a principle, i.e., in the final analysis, an imperial model. Such a model would make it possible to solve problems of regional cultures, ethnic minorities and local autonomies, which will not find a true solution within the framework of the nation-state. It would also make it possible to rethink the whole problem of relations between citizenship and nationality in light of certain problems arising from recent immigration. It would allow one to understand the resurgent dangers of ethno-linguistic irredentism and Jacobin racism. Finally, because of the important place it gives to the idea of autonomy, it would make room for grass-roots democratic procedures and direct democracy. Imperial principle above, direct democracy below: this is what would renew an old tradition!

Today there is a lot of talk about a new world order, and one is certainly necessary. But under what banner will it take shape? The banner of man-machine, of the “computer-man,” or under the banner of a diversified organization of living peoples? Will the earth be reduced to something homogeneous because of deculturalizing and depersonalizing trends for which American imperialism is now the most cynical and arrogant vector? Or will people find the means for the necessary resistance in their beliefs, traditions, and ways of seeing the world? This is really the decisive question that has been raised at the beginning of the next millennium.

Whoever says federation, says federalist principle. Whoever says empire, says imperial principle. Today this idea does not seem to appear anywhere. Yet it is written in history. It is an idea which has yet to find its time. But it has a past and a future. It is also a matter of making an origin dear. At the time of the Hundred Years War, Louis d’Estouteville’s motto was, “Where honor is, where loyalty is, there lies my country.” We have our nationality and we are proud of it. But it is also possible to be citizens of an idea in the imperial tradition. This is what Evola argues: “The idea alone should represent the country . . . It is not the fact of belonging to the same soil, speaking the same language, or having the same bloodline which should unite or divide us, but the fact of supporting or not supporting the same idea.” [24] This does not mean that roots are unimportant. On the contrary, they are essential. It only means that everything must be put into perspective. This is the whole difference between origin as a principle and origin as pure subjectivity. Only origin conceived as a principle makes it possible to defend the cause of peoples, of all peoples, and to understand that, far from being a threat to one’s own identity, the identity of others in fact plays a role in what allows one to defend one’s respective identity against a global system which tries to destroy them. It is necessary to affirm the superiority of the idea which preserves diversity for everyone’s benefit. It is necessary to assert the value of the imperial principle.

Notes

[1] Naissance de la nation France (Paris: Gallimard, 1985).
[2] Les débuts de l’État moderne. Une histoire des idées politiques au XIXe siècle (Paris: Fayard, 1976) p. 92.
[3] Révolte contre le monde moderne (Montreal: L’Homme, 1972) p. 121.
[4] Les hommes au milieu des ruines (Paris: Sept Couleurs, 1972) p. 141.
[5] Essais politiques (Puiseaux: Pardès, 1988) p. 86.
[6] Robert Folz, Le coronnement impérial de Charlemagne (Paris: Gallimard, 1964).
[7] Essais politiques, op. cit., p. 83.
[8] Histoire de l’empire des Habsbourg 1273-1918 (Paris: Fayard, 1990).
[9] Le libéralisme économique. Histoire de l’ldée de marché (Paris: Seuil, 1989) p. 124.
[10] L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution, Vol. I (Paris: Gallimard, 1964) p. 65. (First edition 1856).
[11] Cf. Pierre Rosanvallon, L’État en France de 1789 à nos jours (Paris: Seuil, 1990).
[12] ‘Dépérissement de la nation?’ in Commentaire (Spring, 1988) p. 104.
[13] Essais sur l’individualisme (Paris: Seuil, 1983) pp. 20-1.
[14] La nation, essor et déclin des sociétés modernes, (Paris: Fayard, 1987) p. 931.
[15] Cf. Justus Beyer, Die Standeideologien der Systemzeit und ihre Uberwindung (Darmstadt, 1942).
[16] Essais politiques, op. cit., p. 62.
[17] Révolte contre le monde moderne, op. cit., p. 124.
[18] During the Weimar Republic, there was a real growth in publications concerning the idea of empire and of ‘thinking about the Reich’ (Reichsgedanke). On this subject, see Fritz Buchner, ed., Was ist das Reich? Eine Aussprache unter Deutschen (Oldenburg: Gerhard Stalling, 1932); Herbert Krüger, ‘Der Moderne Reichsgedanke’, in Die Tat (December 1933) pp. 703-15 and (January 1934) pp. 795-804; Edmund Schopen, Geschichte der Reichsidee, 8 Volumes, (Munich: Carl Rohrig, 1936); Peter Richard Rohden, Die Idee des Reiches in der Europäischen Geschichte (Oldenburg: Gerhard Stalling, 1943); Paul Goedecke, Der Reichsgedanke im Schriftum von 1919 bis 1935 (Marburg: Doctoral thesis, 1951). The authors dealing with this subject often disagree about the meaning of the idea of empire and about the relation between the medieval Germanic Reich and the Roman imperium. In Catholic circles, the apology for empire often expresses nostalgia for the medieval Christian unity before the religious wars. The concept of the Reich as a ‘Holy Alliance’ or as a ‘sacramental reality’ frequently points to romanticism (Novalis, Adam Müller) but also to Constantin Franz. In other respects, the idea of a ‘third empire’ carries chiliastic representations from the end of the Middle Ages (Joachim of Fiore’s announcement of the Reign of the Spirit). On the Protestant side, one finds the ‘Reich theologies’, especially in Friedrich Gogarten’s Politische Ethik (Jena: Eugen Diederichs, 1932), Wilhelm Stapel’s Der Christliche Staatsmann: Eine Theologie der Nationalismus (Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1932) or Friedrich Hielscher’s Das Reich (Berlin: Reich, 1931), but from a different perspective. In Stapel, the main idea is that of a national Reich having its own ‘nomos’ with a pronounced pluri-ethnic character but sanctifying German hegemony. See his reply to the supporters of the Catholic Reich, ‘Der Reichsgedanke zwischen den Konfessionen’, in Deutsches Volkstum, (15 November 1932) pp. 909-16. In Moeller van den Bruck, this secularized and strictly German concept of empire is stressed even more. Very critical of the Holy Roman Empire, Moeller accuses Staufen of having been taken in by the ‘Italian mirage’, and of wanting to make the imperium romanum (the ‘periphery’) live again rather than trying to unify the German people (the ‘center’). This is the reason for his strange sympathy with the Guelphs and for his preference for the Deutsches Reich deutscher Nation as opposed to the Heiliges römisches Reich. After 1933, the discussion concerning the idea of Reich (Reichsidee) was carried on outside official circles. For Carl Schmitt, the notion of empire is the central representation of a new right-wing political order of peoples associated with the notion of ‘great space’ (Großraum) — an idea which was strongly criticized by the supporters of a purely German and völkische notion of empire. These supporters saw in the Reich the organizing force for a ‘living space’ grounded in the ‘biological’ substance of the German peoples. This argument is made by Reinhard Höhn (‘Großraumordnung und völkisches Rechtsdenken’: in Reich, Volksordung, Lebensraum, 1943, pp. 216-352). See also Karl Richard Ganzer, Das Reich als europäische Ordnungsmacht (Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1941-2); and Oswald Torsten, Rîche. Eine Geschichtliche Studie bet die Entwicklung der Reichsidee (Munich and Berlin: R. Oldenburg, 1943).
[19] Mes idées politiques (Albatros, 1983) p. 281.
[20] Enquête sur la monarchie 1900-1909, 1st ed. (Nouvelle Librairie Nationale, 1909) p. XIII.
[21] Au-delà du nationalisme (Paris: Gallirnard, 1938).
[22] Cf. Karlheinz Weissmann, ‘Das Herz des Kontinents: Reichsgedanke und Mitteleuropa-ldee’, in Mut (January 1987) pp. 24-35.
[23] ‘L’empire latin’, in La Règle du jeu (1 May 1990) p. 94.
[24] Les hommes au milieu des ruines, op. cit., p. 41.

 

—————-

De Benoist, Alain. “The Idea of Empire.” Telos, Vol. 1993, No. 98-99 (December 1993), pp. 81-98. Text retrieved from: <https://eurocontinentalism.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/the-idea-of-empire-alain-de-benoist/ >. (See this essay in PDF format here: The Idea of Empire).

Note: The essay “The Idea of Empire” was originally published in French as “L’idée d’Empire” (published in Critiques – Théoriques [Lausanne & Paris: L’Age d’Homme, 2003]). It is also available in a German translation as “Der Reichsgedanke. Das imperiale Modell für die künftige Struktur Europas” (published in Schöne Vernetzte Welt [Tübingen: Hohenrain-Verlag, 2001]), in a Spanish translation as “La idea de Imperio” (published in Elementos Nº 32, “Imperio: Orden Especial y Espiritual” [11 September 2012], <http://issuu.com/sebastianjlorenz/docs/elementos_n__32 >, pp. 3-30), in an Italian translation as “L’idea di Impero” (published in Incursioni [May 2007], pp. 31-51), in a Dutch translation as “De Europese Rijksgedachte” (published in Teksten: kommentaren en studies No. 68 [July-September 1992], pp 34-48), in a Russian translation as “Идея Империи” (published in Против либерализма: к четвертой политической теории [Санкт-Петербург: Амфора, 2009]), in  a Portugese translation as “Nação e império” (published online: website Legio Victrix, 10 April 2012, <http://legio-victrix.blogspot.com/2012/04/nacao-e-imperio.html >), and in a Belarusian translation as “Ідэя Імперыі” (published online: website Cytadel, n.d., <http://cytadel.org/en/node/2356 >).

Note on further reading: On this topic, see also the related essay by Benoist known as “What is Sovereignty?”

 

What is Sovereignty? – Benoist

“What is Sovereignty?” by Alain de Benoist (PDF – 172 KB):

What is Sovereignty

————–

De Benoist, Alain. “What is Sovereignty?” Telos, vol. 1999, no. 116 (Summer 1999), pp. 99-118. <http://www.alaindebenoist.com/pdf/what_is_sovereignty.pdf >.

Note: On the topic of this essay, see also Alain de Benoist, “The First Federalist: Johannes Althusius,” Telos, vol. 200, no. 118 (Winter 2000), pp. 25-58, <http://www.alaindebenoist.com/pdf/the_first_federalist_althusius.pdf >. We would also like to mention that excellent research articles in the Spanish language on this matter of sovereignty and federalism have been collected in Sebastian J. Lorenz’s Elementos, N° 37, “Federalismo Poliárquico Neoalthusiano” (Noviembre 2012), <http://urkultur-imperium-europa.blogspot.com/2012/11/elementos-n-37-federalismo-poliarquico.html >. (We have made Elementos N° 37 available for download on our site: Elementos Nº 37 – Federalismo).