Month: October 2022

By Felix Nicol

Perhaps a bit on the nose considering Professor Evans directly addressed this last week, but I thought it interesting to ponder the meaning of a reading on the New Left in a week called “1968 and the New Right.” Though the obvious conclusion might be that contrast, I believe the readings instead showed us the superfluous reality of the post-Nazi era. Ideologies associated with the far Right were present in Leftist movements, like in the November 9th 1969 bombing of the Berlin Jewish Community Center (Biess 210). On the other hand, Benoist’s ideology under the Nouvelle Droite shows us that though a clear path between the Fascist past and New Right present exists, there is a clear separation on many fronts. In particular, the transnationalist angle inciting a Euro-centric approach rather than a national one is in stark contrast with the previous Nazi regime. In this regard, I believe the important takeaway from the readings is the revolutionary nature of the post-1960s, where both sides tried (and perhaps struggled) to separate themselves from their problematic past. 

To me, this was especially present in the New Left reading, which underlined that both sides pinned the other as “fascist,” which meant “they had no chance for meaningful dialogue or reform” (Biess 236). In the same vein, Benoist’s assessment that liberalism was also totalitarian (Bar-On 206) shows us that this criticism was not uniquely for the opposing side, but also against the status-quo. As was the case with the attempted shift away from the Fascist ideas of the past, I believe this shows the desire of these movements to validate themselves in an era where they felt it was necessary to create distance between themselves and the recent atrocities of the past.

Frank

One of the ways that the New Left challenged the postwar order was during 1968, when student movements shook Western and Eastern Europe. McCreary and Drescher argue that the Paris movement subtly changed patterns, attitudes, and institutions through the shock treatment of crisis. For instance, French institutes of higher learning experienced a revolution: their reactionary, conservative faculty and administration were replaced with left-leaning, progressive scholars. Some far right groups like the Novelle Droite saw this as a seizure of the levers of cultural power in civil society, signalling the need for far-right groups to fight fire with fire. As Bar-On discusses, the ND’s leader Alain de Benoist called for a ‘cultural hegemony’ project in order to create long-term, durable power.

This materialized in a form of far-right nationalist internationalism akin to what early-20^th century Fascist leaders fostered to undercut their European rivals before and during WWII. While tactics of post-1968 European parties differed, they shared a core of ideas: an antipathy for liberalism, immigration, and multiculturalism. While the USSR was the boogeyman of the Cold War era, the US became it’s successor. As Deam Tobin highlights, ideas from thinkers like Julius Evola where diffused amongst dozens of far-right figures and leaders, who latched onto fringe theories like “spiritual races” and myths of Hyperborean origins. It is also not coincidental that Evola was a contemporary of Mussolini, who admired Evola’s work.

The spread of these ideas again demonstrates the strange relationship that ultranationalists have with internationalism. I found that the readings of this week provided useful frameworks through which to view this relationship: that it is in service of a mission to provide an alternative cultural hegemony to leftist liberalism.

By Blaise Rego

The extreme poles of the political spectrum are threats to the foundation of democracy as they are inherently built upon unstable myths that often lead them to conflict with other groups. This post will focus upon the myths that entrench racist fears into every day politics.

The phrase “great replacement” has become a commonly held view by the far right across the world. It refers to the xenophobic idea that immigrants are coming to replace white people in North American/European societies. This idea was first penned by a homosexual writer from France, Camus, the author, began their career as a writer who position them-self on the left of France’s political spectrum. He then turned to the far right when he moved to rural France and saw that there was an increasing amount of muslim immigrants living in rural France.

The great white replacement was then spread internationally by far right groups who represented a new age of this movement. They capitalized on traditional conservative fears about immigration and created new conspiratorial fears that immigrants were colluding globally to replace white people in North America and Europe. The new right has normalized bigoted racism as concerns about policy. This has given greater credence to myths that immigrant groups are looking to come and “steal jobs and opportunities”.

Racist idea’s such as these have allowed for groups in the new right to pull racism back into real policy discussions. Across Europe tensions have gotten much more taught as far right groups stoke the flames of bigotry. From Sweden to Italy, the new right has gained power and influence by using racist myths to propel their ideas.

Megan MacRae

The various articles observed this week demonstrate that political stances were significantly altered in post-war Europe. Specifically, it appears that right-wing followers observed the changing times worked to alter their ideologies in an effort to attract more citizens.

This notion is illustrated in Tamir Bar-On’s piece, “Transnationalism and the French Nouvelle Droite” as they review the efforts of the French Nouvelle Droit (ND). Bar-On touches on the fact that ND’s creator, Alan de Benoist, took the group through three specific stages. The first stage occurred during the 1960s and was one that clearly supported white supremacy. The second stage focused on biological racism during the 1970s, while the third stage occurred during the 1980s and circled around cultural racism. This third stage is the prime focus because it shaped ND into a group that was a bit convoluted in the sense that they seemed to believe in equality between cultures, but rejected immigration. When Bar-On discusses the fact that ND argued against a culture being superior to another, this initially made me think that ND might have been working towards a diverse outlook. However, it quickly became clear that ND was referring to the fact that ‘white’ cultures in Europe were not superior to one another. This point was further emphasized when it became clear that ND was not against immigration as a whole, but rather they rejected non-white and non-European immigration. This was obviously in an effort to protect the ‘culture’ of various European countries from the ‘sins’ of multiculturalism. 

I can understand why some post-war European citizens would have found ND and their fellow right-wing groups attractive. On the surface, ND looks to reject fascism and racism by advertising an appreciation for each culture. However, their inclusive persona does not necessarily reflect their true beliefs. 

by Kaileigh La Belle

This week’s readings illuminated how the Far-Right has changed its dialogue on race and culture toward what Bar-On described as “spiritual racism.” Pioneered by conspiracies about ‘Hyperboreans’ in the works of Julius Evola, this fascist discourse, like other Far-Right conspiracies, maintains the traditional racial hierarchies but caches it in an obscure language that, at first, seems strange but divorced from fascism. Consequently, these readings had me consider what this shift meant for the propagation of Far-Right ideas. 

Primarily, as Griffin points out, this shift in metapolitics, including away from biological determinism and towards cultural discourse, means that those who attempt to call out their fascist rhetoric are often the ones being labelled hysterical. Reflecting back to Week One’s readings, I think that the use of these conspiracies also enables the Far-Right to hide behind ‘irony’ as a defence. Thinking about the characteristics of these conspiracies, they are so divorced from reality that it would be incredibly easy to simply pass them off as satire. Really, I think we’d all be more comfortable thinking that people claiming that a secret race of ‘Aryans’ discovered Atlantis must be joking, or that their ideas are too far out to have any real bearing on political thought. But, as Tobin’s anecdote about the recent evocation of Evola by Bannon reveals, these thoughts are leaching into mainstream politics. 

Similarly “white replacement” conspiracies put forward by Camus and picked up internationally by the New Far-Right also embody this shift away from overt biologized racism towards “cultural discourse”, profiting off of traditional conservative anxieties about immigration. As immigration has historically been constructed as a political issue, the idea that immigrants “destroy culture” wouldn’t seem so unreasonable to some who might hold more traditional anti-immigrant political beliefs, such as that immigrants “steal jobs”. As such, conspiracies of this type can act as a point of radicalization, maintaining and spreading deeply racist ideas and anxieties. 

As such, the seemingly more covert nature of these new discourses, often centred around conspiracy, deal in very transmissible rhetoric that can play off of both far-fetched conspiratorial thought or participate in more mainstream discussion of historically politicized issues. I feel this makes them more adaptable to modern extreme political discourses. Again, reflecting back on Week One, I am left wondering how this style of metapolitics appears on the internet and how it’s designed to spread.