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New Culture, New Right: Anti-Liberalism in Postmodern Europe
New Right, New Culture is the first English-language study of the identitarian New Rights movements presently reshaping the contours of European politics. The study's focus is Alain de Benoist's GRECE (Groupement de Recherche et d'Etude pour la Civilisation Europeenne) and is designed as an introduction to the European New Right for an American audience.
230 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2004
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December 13, 2017
An entertainingly written and well-organized introduction to many of the prominent currents of the French New Right. O'Meara has done his research. He includes an impressive array of citations and provides some subtly deep insights. Considering that frustratingly few of the works associated with GRECE have been translated into English, this book is an absolutely essential resource for anglophone readers. I feel comfortable recommending this to Americans of an identitarian or "alt-right" orientation who are not necessarily well versed in continental political philosophy. I suspect even a leftist interested in understanding European politics might gain something from this book if they are able to approach it with an open mind. O'Meara's writing seems geared toward that sort of accessibility without sacrificing depth or rigor. He concludes the book with some apt critiques of GRECE from an identitarian perspective, echoing Pierre Krebs and Guillaume Faye. This book is a true gem and nicely compliments the works of Alain de Benoist that have been translated into English thus far.
May 23, 2018
I'm done. Negotiating the vast generalisations at the heart of this book was like crossing the Taklamakan with nothing but a bottle of Evian and a packet of crisps.
February 18, 2013
This book is a fantastic introduction to identitarian ideology even if I disagree with most of the authors criticisms of GRECE as that segment are only five pages of the conclusions its still a five star book.
August 14, 2018
I decided to borrow this book from the library to find out more about the right-wing trend in European politics - especially in the context of Trump winning the US presidency in 2016.
Overall, despite the attempt to link the GRECE (Groupement de Recherche et d'Etude pour la Civilisation Europeenne) to various philosophical trends, it seems to me the attempt is simply an effort to apply lipstick to a pig, as the saying goes: The issue is European thinkers are outraged that Europe has lost influence since the war, and anti-cosmopolitan, anti-liberal, intolerant Europeans are outraged that people that don't look like them "dare" to immigrate to Europe - along with the "invasion" of American-inspired cultural trends, such as clothing, music styles and the popularity of Hollywood movies, which are popular worldwide anyway.
The entire outrage "package" is wrapped in a call for Europeans to reach back to their primordial "Indo-European" roots - as opposed to Christianity or the Judeo-Christian ethic - because only European or Indo-European paganism is authentically European, whereas Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, are all "imports." The vision for a "harmonious" Europe they propose is one of a confederation of sovereign states, in which the European "ethnos (that is "nation") " is preserved. To me, their vision appears rather "deadly" and "static." In fact, it's a "recipe" for disaster as the Second World War demonstrated.
It's quite sad that some Europeans even after the horrors of WWII still seem to retreat back into reactionary politics whenever the new (either people, culture, or the market) arrives on their shores. It was probably this very backward "closed" vision of Europe that in fact has kept Europe in a reduced position with respect to world politics since the collapse of every single one of the European "empires" starting in the aftermath of WWI and finishing with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the waning days of the 20th Century.
The thinkers referenced in the book, and the author himself, seem a bit panicked that Europe might be changing demographically. They seem resentful of America's success since WWII, and American influence worldwide - which they probably view as having supplanted that of Europe. They are so enraged that they cling to old European examples of high culture and can't admit that America has also had its share of great composers, authors, thinkers, philosophers, scientists, and so forth.
The author recommends a European alliance with Russia - to counter-balance the "enemy" - the USA, which they see as imposing the market/homogenizing "soulless" globalization, liberalism, the American way of life, on the Rest of the World. I doubt if any European country would seriously consider a confederation with Russia, however - even nearby countries that were once allied with Russia, and may have at least initially viewed the Red Army as liberators, eventually disliked the "alliance" experience, and started to revolt; most of these countries promptly joined NATO & the EU as soon as they broke away from the (then) Soviet sphere of influence, or once the USSR collapsed. The current Ukrainian crisis is simply the latest extension of the anti-Russian trend among former allies of the Soviet Union (Warsaw Pact states and even former Soviet Socialist Republics).
These right-wing European thinkers say a united "Eurosiberia" stretching from Galway to Vladivostok could possibly challenge the power of the USA, although they admit that whoever rules the waves, is going to be in a position to call the shots worldwide - a role played by the UK for centuries until it ceded its naval primacy to the USA following WW2. They resentfully regard the USA as an island continent - which is why it can project sea power anywhere on earth, whereas except for Britain, most of the 50 European nations are land powers.
Some of these ideas are familiar to those who have visited right-wing websites, and Trump indeed seems to be oriented toward Russia, as well as being a racist, and a president who has pursued backward and sadistic immigration policies, and who is threatening to shut down the federal government unless the "Wall" is built. Therefore, many of the backward ideas and trends that are evidently popular among right-wing thinkers in Europe, are mirrored to lesser or greater extent, by Trump - except for the constant anti-Americanism of these European thinkers who wish to make Europe great (as opposed to Trump, who says the same thing about America - although his policies are designed to do just the opposite).
I should really not even give this book any "stars" because its thesis is wrong, the presumption that constructs such as "race" should be the determinants of membership in any polity. That thinking is so backward as to be ridiculous in this day and age.
The author, Mr. O'Meara (a pen-name, unsurprisingly) seems to idolize Ancient Greece, but only has a superficial idealized "airbrushed" impression of what Ancient Greece, or the Athenian democracy was like. He omits the fact that ancient nation-states routinely enslaved each other, making slaves of residents of nation-states they defeated on raided without regard to "race;" thus, the wealth and power of Athens was built on the exploited labor of slaves of any color (but mostly enslaved fellow-Greeks). "Respectable" women were no better than chattel, with no rights - secluded in the home and excluded from participation in the economic or political life of the city. Membership in the polis as a voting citizen was limited to male Athenian citizens (non-slaves, non-foreign residents). Thus, Athenian society was far from perfect. It would take millennia for the problems to be corrected in later societies that strive to be democracies & emulate Athens, such as extending full civil rights to African Americans in the USA and suffrage to women worldwide.
I read the book to find out about why so many governments in Europe are trending rightward, but the only enlightenment was a sense of the author's panic because of demographic changes, and lingering resentment that Europe is definitively no longer the "center of the world." The plaintive cry which echoes throughout the book is how can Europe regain its "greatness" - eerily foreshadowing Trump's infamous campaign slogan.
The right wing European thinkers referenced in the book seem to believe the battle to regain their independence from the USA starts with taking back their culture, that is, rejecting US cultural imports, and not being part of the world market. In this, they are living in a world of their own, since Europe, like many if not most other countries, depends on trade to survive. As far as culture is concerned, Europe has long had a vibrant culture including film industry of its own - no one is forcing Europeans to see the latest Hollywood hit, and I do not think it would be possible for them to dissuade audiences throughout Europe to stop going to popular Hollywood movies, or stop listening to Western-oriented popular music, or stop wearing blue jeans and sneakers, and baseball caps. American cultural imports became popular for a reason. They have always represented dynamism and the future, egalitarianism, and "anti-snobbery" which is always going to be popular with the masses.
The European right-wing thinkers referenced in the book view the USA as enemy #1, and thus the book is filled with anti-American rhetoric - attacking the last 50 or so years since the end of the war, as the US, according to them, imposed liberal governments throughout Western Europe, and Europeans adopted American values and culture, rejecting their own past. And how could you blame Europeans, considering the bloodbath of the Second World War, and the incessant fighting among European countries that marked the entirety of their prior history. I suppose European right-wingers like Mr. O'Meara are thrilled now that the buffoon Trump is POTUS although the impression I get is that these right-wingers will not be happy until the USA and its to them "baneful" liberal influence is destroyed. Unfortunately, with an inept, lying president like Trump, even that outcome is possible.
The quotes:
From the Introduction "The True Right:"
"Inspired by the spirit of Protestant individualism, Newtonian science,and a latest Gnosticism, [the Left] believes in "the infinite progress of knowledge and the infinite advance toward social and moral betterment.""
"...it was only with the advent of the Protestant Reformation that the embryonic Left assumed an openly revolutionary stance." "...it was from this religious individualism challenging traditional authorities in the name of "freedom" that most future manifestations of the Left would take their cue."
"Ironically, the reformers' greatest success would come not in re-ordering Christian spiritual life, but in undermining the social authority of all religion, for in challenging the established church they inadvertently let loose the fores of skepticism and secularism."
"Impelled by this secularizing process - which was simultaneously a process of social dissolution - modernity "took off," as other institutions, such as the family, the trades, and the various corporate bodies, began shedding their traditional communal trappings for the sake of individual interests."
"...the Enlightenment... ...this "second Protestant Reformation" (Christopher Dawson) sought to disenchant the cosmos, organize the universal brotherhood of man, and prepare the way for the inevitable progress that was to issue from reason's reign."
"Enlightenment liberalism would sanction, then, not merely the rationalization (or detraditionalization) of European society, but the ascent of the capitalist class, whose moneyed powers were henceforth allowed to take priority over every political, moral, and religious barrier opposing it."
"In the course of the 19th century, the Right's reaction "to the French Revolution, liberalism, and the rise of the bourgeoisie" would naturally assume various shapes, but in whatever guise it continued, when true to itself, to oppose the Left's anti-traditionalist subversions."
"...the... 19th century ... socialist reaction... [to modernity] ...differed with the liberal Left mainly in emphasizing a more equable and compassionate distribution labor's fruits (thus their anti-capitalism) and , in the form of planning, a rational alternative to the disorders and injustices that came with unregulated markets."
"...socialism, even Marxian socialism (which Edouard Bernstein called "organized liberalism"), has always been a derivation of the Enlightenment project and hence a complicit participant in liberalism's war on tradition."
"...no country has remained as committed to the Enlightenment's liberal project as the US, bound as it is to the rationalist principles upon which it was founded."
"For Evola's True Rightist, all evil comes from the bourgeoisie and its liberalism." "...[the Left's] socialist wing has abandoned its anti-capitalism and, in some cases, its commitment to social policy, moving closer to the market forces associated with the false Right."
"Europe in general, abut particularly France, Italy, Belgium, and Germany (not to mention Russia and parts of Eastern Europe), are today experiencing a revival of anti-liberal politics that portends major changes in the European political system."
From Chapter 1 "From the Old Right to the New:"
"Once the Allies captured Paris in August 1944, the Left - with the French Communist Party (PCF) at its head and the US Command in the rear - lost no time in taking its revenge on the "collaborators."" "With this "orgy of summary vengeance," as many as a hundred thousand so-called "fascist collaborators" were murdered by the anti-fascist Resistance (the figure is disputed), over a million interned, several tens of thousands sentenced to hard labor, a quarter million deprived of their civil rights, and an unknown number of others driven into exile." "...the left-wing vigilantes....were not only in the pay of, but under the command of the American invasionary forces."
"...postwar France made the transition to a liberal-democratic consumer society." "With the ensuing consumption of such deculturating products as Hollywood films, jazz, and standardized commodities reflecting "le look americain," French culture, like European culture as a whole, began to retreat."
"The GRECE was established..not as a political organization...but as a school of thought to contest the regnant ideology and redeem the fundaments of European culture and identity."
"...the postwar make-over had eliminated many traditional ways of life -- in France and throughout Europe."
"[The] ... origins [of the May 1968 French student rebellion]...lay in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when the government introduced an American-style university system, foreign to the elite models previously dominating European education. As one of the world's foremost educational systems proceeded to dismantle itself, Greek and Latin were eliminated from the curriculum; the character and orthography of the French language were simplified; moral and civic instruction was suppressed; political-national history was replaced by a "new social history;" memorization was eliminated; and various pedagogical and psychological methods, supplemented with audio-visual aids, were substituted for more rigorous methods of instruction."
"French life...was already succumbing to American mass culture, which Gaullist modernization inadvertently encouraged. As Elvis,blue jeans, and the television screen started crowding out indigenous references, the French began to fall under the spell of America's Culture Industry and its antipathy to traditional forms of taste and value." "...one New Rightist would later say ... [that] 1968 ... unleashed an insurgence of narcissistic individualism." "Not the militant trade unionist opposing capitalist exploitation in the name of worker solidarity, but the pioneer of "emancipatory" lifestyles, personal freedoms, and political correctness now embodied the ideal of its "cultural revolution." "...intellectual, moral, racial, and cultural standards were razed in the name of certain libertarian ideals..."
"Marriage, family, and natality underwent analogous "liberations."" "Even Christians ... began abandoning or downplaying transcendent references for the sake of self-fulfillment."
"...passing from the Marxism of their youth to the "social Reaganism" of their adult years... the former rebels...began assuming positions of responsibility in society, especially after Francois Mitterrand's Socialist party took power in 1981, [they] ... readily signed on to globalization, Third World immigration, multiculturalism, and the various "progressive" forces warring on the remnants of Old Europe." "...human rights moved to the center of the Left's value system, liberal individualism became all the vogue, and entrepreneurial "culture" crowded out traditional references."
"What provoked this sea change which converted the Mao-jacketed rebels into business-suited collaborators of American-style globalism?" "As the European monoclass increasingly mirrored the New Class forces in control of US institutions and as transitional values retreated before those of American mass culture, ti was only natural, [the "Grecistes"] ...believed, that political and social developments took a similar track. This especially seemed the case since the capitalism the Sixty-Eighters had attacked in the name of hyper-modernism had itself become hyper-modern, linked to the growing globalization of the market and the denationalization of European economies."
"...[for postmodernists] representations of all kinds are entwined in sociolinguistic webs of signification that know no all-embracing truth, only their own truths, which are indistinguishable from their will to power." "Every representation of reality, they emphasize, is a mediated one, reflecting not reality per se, but a subjective and highly contextualized system of signficatory representations."
"Postmodernists thus celebrate the differentiation of authority ... and the heterogeneous possibilities freed from modernity's homogenizing abstractions, particularly those of a pluralistic politics of difference and identity."
"...while criticizing the Graet Narrative's denigration of traditional communities, the "micro-groups" and "tribal identities" (Michel Maffesoli) postmodernists celebrate as alternatives to modern individualism and expressions of a new polyvalent sociality are typically ones geared to the libidinal impulses of changing markets and seasonal fashions."
"...the postmodern condition [is] both highly uniform and highly atomized, reflecting a world market that situates a rootless individual within a multitude of incommensurable micro-groups, each of which resembles the other in lacking stability, coherence, and social bond."
"..."Grecistes" defend an ontology rooted in Europe's cultural-historical specificity."
"The breakdown of the modernist paradigm needs not, therefore, culminate in a tribalizing atomization dispensing with organic attachments."
"The young Benoist, who was twenty-five at the time of the GRECE's founding, had been much influenced by the eminent historian, classicist, and philosopher of science, Louis Rougier, who was best known as the foremost French proponent of "logical positivism.""
"...Alexandre Zinoviev...: "Hardly had Communism collapsed than the West began adopting certain characteristics of its discredited adversary.""
"The...Third Way movement...[ that] emerged from the ...First [World] War...believed that the traditional order could no longer be restored, only redeemed though a revolutionary overthrow of the liberal regime."
From Chapter II "Metapolitics:"
"In the 20th century, the notion that politics is an interwoven facet of culture's intricate web is one that has been most persuasively developed by the Communist theorist, Antonio Gramsci."
"Unlike his fellow Marxists, he thought the state's authority rested on more than its police and judicial powers. Trained in historical linguistics, Gramsci the scholar had learnt that because "the dominant speech community exerted prestige over contiguous subordinate communities," it was able to affect their use of language." "...the state was able to govern not because most people lived in fear of its repressive forces, but because they adhered to views - to a hegemonic ideology - that sanctioned its activities and made them seem "natural.""
"In emphasizing the importance of civil society and the power of its cultural forms to generate consent, Gramsci's heterodox Marxism anticipated the postmodernist inversion of the base/superstructure model."
"...Lenin...like Gramsci, recognized the power of ideas in history." "The foundations of the European state ... were preeminently cultural and ideological, undergirded by a complex network of civil institutions and by a "common sense" that imbued it with reserves unknown to the Russian one. As long...as the reigning institutions, ideas, and mores - culture in the larger sense - remained those of the bourgeoisie, Gramsci was convinced the European ruling class would be able to "rule" over the subaltern class , even in the absence of the state's coercive powers." "A socialist revolution in Europe, in other words, would come about not through a frontal assault on the state, as Lenin thought, but circuitously, as the workers' counter-hegemony gradually absorbed civil society and encompassed the state's political society."
"A spiritual or cultural revolution would thus be requisite to a political revolution."
Overall, despite the attempt to link the GRECE (Groupement de Recherche et d'Etude pour la Civilisation Europeenne) to various philosophical trends, it seems to me the attempt is simply an effort to apply lipstick to a pig, as the saying goes: The issue is European thinkers are outraged that Europe has lost influence since the war, and anti-cosmopolitan, anti-liberal, intolerant Europeans are outraged that people that don't look like them "dare" to immigrate to Europe - along with the "invasion" of American-inspired cultural trends, such as clothing, music styles and the popularity of Hollywood movies, which are popular worldwide anyway.
The entire outrage "package" is wrapped in a call for Europeans to reach back to their primordial "Indo-European" roots - as opposed to Christianity or the Judeo-Christian ethic - because only European or Indo-European paganism is authentically European, whereas Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, are all "imports." The vision for a "harmonious" Europe they propose is one of a confederation of sovereign states, in which the European "ethnos (that is "nation") " is preserved. To me, their vision appears rather "deadly" and "static." In fact, it's a "recipe" for disaster as the Second World War demonstrated.
It's quite sad that some Europeans even after the horrors of WWII still seem to retreat back into reactionary politics whenever the new (either people, culture, or the market) arrives on their shores. It was probably this very backward "closed" vision of Europe that in fact has kept Europe in a reduced position with respect to world politics since the collapse of every single one of the European "empires" starting in the aftermath of WWI and finishing with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the waning days of the 20th Century.
The thinkers referenced in the book, and the author himself, seem a bit panicked that Europe might be changing demographically. They seem resentful of America's success since WWII, and American influence worldwide - which they probably view as having supplanted that of Europe. They are so enraged that they cling to old European examples of high culture and can't admit that America has also had its share of great composers, authors, thinkers, philosophers, scientists, and so forth.
The author recommends a European alliance with Russia - to counter-balance the "enemy" - the USA, which they see as imposing the market/homogenizing "soulless" globalization, liberalism, the American way of life, on the Rest of the World. I doubt if any European country would seriously consider a confederation with Russia, however - even nearby countries that were once allied with Russia, and may have at least initially viewed the Red Army as liberators, eventually disliked the "alliance" experience, and started to revolt; most of these countries promptly joined NATO & the EU as soon as they broke away from the (then) Soviet sphere of influence, or once the USSR collapsed. The current Ukrainian crisis is simply the latest extension of the anti-Russian trend among former allies of the Soviet Union (Warsaw Pact states and even former Soviet Socialist Republics).
These right-wing European thinkers say a united "Eurosiberia" stretching from Galway to Vladivostok could possibly challenge the power of the USA, although they admit that whoever rules the waves, is going to be in a position to call the shots worldwide - a role played by the UK for centuries until it ceded its naval primacy to the USA following WW2. They resentfully regard the USA as an island continent - which is why it can project sea power anywhere on earth, whereas except for Britain, most of the 50 European nations are land powers.
Some of these ideas are familiar to those who have visited right-wing websites, and Trump indeed seems to be oriented toward Russia, as well as being a racist, and a president who has pursued backward and sadistic immigration policies, and who is threatening to shut down the federal government unless the "Wall" is built. Therefore, many of the backward ideas and trends that are evidently popular among right-wing thinkers in Europe, are mirrored to lesser or greater extent, by Trump - except for the constant anti-Americanism of these European thinkers who wish to make Europe great (as opposed to Trump, who says the same thing about America - although his policies are designed to do just the opposite).
I should really not even give this book any "stars" because its thesis is wrong, the presumption that constructs such as "race" should be the determinants of membership in any polity. That thinking is so backward as to be ridiculous in this day and age.
The author, Mr. O'Meara (a pen-name, unsurprisingly) seems to idolize Ancient Greece, but only has a superficial idealized "airbrushed" impression of what Ancient Greece, or the Athenian democracy was like. He omits the fact that ancient nation-states routinely enslaved each other, making slaves of residents of nation-states they defeated on raided without regard to "race;" thus, the wealth and power of Athens was built on the exploited labor of slaves of any color (but mostly enslaved fellow-Greeks). "Respectable" women were no better than chattel, with no rights - secluded in the home and excluded from participation in the economic or political life of the city. Membership in the polis as a voting citizen was limited to male Athenian citizens (non-slaves, non-foreign residents). Thus, Athenian society was far from perfect. It would take millennia for the problems to be corrected in later societies that strive to be democracies & emulate Athens, such as extending full civil rights to African Americans in the USA and suffrage to women worldwide.
I read the book to find out about why so many governments in Europe are trending rightward, but the only enlightenment was a sense of the author's panic because of demographic changes, and lingering resentment that Europe is definitively no longer the "center of the world." The plaintive cry which echoes throughout the book is how can Europe regain its "greatness" - eerily foreshadowing Trump's infamous campaign slogan.
The right wing European thinkers referenced in the book seem to believe the battle to regain their independence from the USA starts with taking back their culture, that is, rejecting US cultural imports, and not being part of the world market. In this, they are living in a world of their own, since Europe, like many if not most other countries, depends on trade to survive. As far as culture is concerned, Europe has long had a vibrant culture including film industry of its own - no one is forcing Europeans to see the latest Hollywood hit, and I do not think it would be possible for them to dissuade audiences throughout Europe to stop going to popular Hollywood movies, or stop listening to Western-oriented popular music, or stop wearing blue jeans and sneakers, and baseball caps. American cultural imports became popular for a reason. They have always represented dynamism and the future, egalitarianism, and "anti-snobbery" which is always going to be popular with the masses.
The European right-wing thinkers referenced in the book view the USA as enemy #1, and thus the book is filled with anti-American rhetoric - attacking the last 50 or so years since the end of the war, as the US, according to them, imposed liberal governments throughout Western Europe, and Europeans adopted American values and culture, rejecting their own past. And how could you blame Europeans, considering the bloodbath of the Second World War, and the incessant fighting among European countries that marked the entirety of their prior history. I suppose European right-wingers like Mr. O'Meara are thrilled now that the buffoon Trump is POTUS although the impression I get is that these right-wingers will not be happy until the USA and its to them "baneful" liberal influence is destroyed. Unfortunately, with an inept, lying president like Trump, even that outcome is possible.
The quotes:
From the Introduction "The True Right:"
"Inspired by the spirit of Protestant individualism, Newtonian science,and a latest Gnosticism, [the Left] believes in "the infinite progress of knowledge and the infinite advance toward social and moral betterment.""
"...it was only with the advent of the Protestant Reformation that the embryonic Left assumed an openly revolutionary stance." "...it was from this religious individualism challenging traditional authorities in the name of "freedom" that most future manifestations of the Left would take their cue."
"Ironically, the reformers' greatest success would come not in re-ordering Christian spiritual life, but in undermining the social authority of all religion, for in challenging the established church they inadvertently let loose the fores of skepticism and secularism."
"Impelled by this secularizing process - which was simultaneously a process of social dissolution - modernity "took off," as other institutions, such as the family, the trades, and the various corporate bodies, began shedding their traditional communal trappings for the sake of individual interests."
"...the Enlightenment... ...this "second Protestant Reformation" (Christopher Dawson) sought to disenchant the cosmos, organize the universal brotherhood of man, and prepare the way for the inevitable progress that was to issue from reason's reign."
"Enlightenment liberalism would sanction, then, not merely the rationalization (or detraditionalization) of European society, but the ascent of the capitalist class, whose moneyed powers were henceforth allowed to take priority over every political, moral, and religious barrier opposing it."
"In the course of the 19th century, the Right's reaction "to the French Revolution, liberalism, and the rise of the bourgeoisie" would naturally assume various shapes, but in whatever guise it continued, when true to itself, to oppose the Left's anti-traditionalist subversions."
"...the... 19th century ... socialist reaction... [to modernity] ...differed with the liberal Left mainly in emphasizing a more equable and compassionate distribution labor's fruits (thus their anti-capitalism) and , in the form of planning, a rational alternative to the disorders and injustices that came with unregulated markets."
"...socialism, even Marxian socialism (which Edouard Bernstein called "organized liberalism"), has always been a derivation of the Enlightenment project and hence a complicit participant in liberalism's war on tradition."
"...no country has remained as committed to the Enlightenment's liberal project as the US, bound as it is to the rationalist principles upon which it was founded."
"For Evola's True Rightist, all evil comes from the bourgeoisie and its liberalism." "...[the Left's] socialist wing has abandoned its anti-capitalism and, in some cases, its commitment to social policy, moving closer to the market forces associated with the false Right."
"Europe in general, abut particularly France, Italy, Belgium, and Germany (not to mention Russia and parts of Eastern Europe), are today experiencing a revival of anti-liberal politics that portends major changes in the European political system."
From Chapter 1 "From the Old Right to the New:"
"Once the Allies captured Paris in August 1944, the Left - with the French Communist Party (PCF) at its head and the US Command in the rear - lost no time in taking its revenge on the "collaborators."" "With this "orgy of summary vengeance," as many as a hundred thousand so-called "fascist collaborators" were murdered by the anti-fascist Resistance (the figure is disputed), over a million interned, several tens of thousands sentenced to hard labor, a quarter million deprived of their civil rights, and an unknown number of others driven into exile." "...the left-wing vigilantes....were not only in the pay of, but under the command of the American invasionary forces."
"...postwar France made the transition to a liberal-democratic consumer society." "With the ensuing consumption of such deculturating products as Hollywood films, jazz, and standardized commodities reflecting "le look americain," French culture, like European culture as a whole, began to retreat."
"The GRECE was established..not as a political organization...but as a school of thought to contest the regnant ideology and redeem the fundaments of European culture and identity."
"...the postwar make-over had eliminated many traditional ways of life -- in France and throughout Europe."
"[The] ... origins [of the May 1968 French student rebellion]...lay in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when the government introduced an American-style university system, foreign to the elite models previously dominating European education. As one of the world's foremost educational systems proceeded to dismantle itself, Greek and Latin were eliminated from the curriculum; the character and orthography of the French language were simplified; moral and civic instruction was suppressed; political-national history was replaced by a "new social history;" memorization was eliminated; and various pedagogical and psychological methods, supplemented with audio-visual aids, were substituted for more rigorous methods of instruction."
"French life...was already succumbing to American mass culture, which Gaullist modernization inadvertently encouraged. As Elvis,blue jeans, and the television screen started crowding out indigenous references, the French began to fall under the spell of America's Culture Industry and its antipathy to traditional forms of taste and value." "...one New Rightist would later say ... [that] 1968 ... unleashed an insurgence of narcissistic individualism." "Not the militant trade unionist opposing capitalist exploitation in the name of worker solidarity, but the pioneer of "emancipatory" lifestyles, personal freedoms, and political correctness now embodied the ideal of its "cultural revolution." "...intellectual, moral, racial, and cultural standards were razed in the name of certain libertarian ideals..."
"Marriage, family, and natality underwent analogous "liberations."" "Even Christians ... began abandoning or downplaying transcendent references for the sake of self-fulfillment."
"...passing from the Marxism of their youth to the "social Reaganism" of their adult years... the former rebels...began assuming positions of responsibility in society, especially after Francois Mitterrand's Socialist party took power in 1981, [they] ... readily signed on to globalization, Third World immigration, multiculturalism, and the various "progressive" forces warring on the remnants of Old Europe." "...human rights moved to the center of the Left's value system, liberal individualism became all the vogue, and entrepreneurial "culture" crowded out traditional references."
"What provoked this sea change which converted the Mao-jacketed rebels into business-suited collaborators of American-style globalism?" "As the European monoclass increasingly mirrored the New Class forces in control of US institutions and as transitional values retreated before those of American mass culture, ti was only natural, [the "Grecistes"] ...believed, that political and social developments took a similar track. This especially seemed the case since the capitalism the Sixty-Eighters had attacked in the name of hyper-modernism had itself become hyper-modern, linked to the growing globalization of the market and the denationalization of European economies."
"...[for postmodernists] representations of all kinds are entwined in sociolinguistic webs of signification that know no all-embracing truth, only their own truths, which are indistinguishable from their will to power." "Every representation of reality, they emphasize, is a mediated one, reflecting not reality per se, but a subjective and highly contextualized system of signficatory representations."
"Postmodernists thus celebrate the differentiation of authority ... and the heterogeneous possibilities freed from modernity's homogenizing abstractions, particularly those of a pluralistic politics of difference and identity."
"...while criticizing the Graet Narrative's denigration of traditional communities, the "micro-groups" and "tribal identities" (Michel Maffesoli) postmodernists celebrate as alternatives to modern individualism and expressions of a new polyvalent sociality are typically ones geared to the libidinal impulses of changing markets and seasonal fashions."
"...the postmodern condition [is] both highly uniform and highly atomized, reflecting a world market that situates a rootless individual within a multitude of incommensurable micro-groups, each of which resembles the other in lacking stability, coherence, and social bond."
"..."Grecistes" defend an ontology rooted in Europe's cultural-historical specificity."
"The breakdown of the modernist paradigm needs not, therefore, culminate in a tribalizing atomization dispensing with organic attachments."
"The young Benoist, who was twenty-five at the time of the GRECE's founding, had been much influenced by the eminent historian, classicist, and philosopher of science, Louis Rougier, who was best known as the foremost French proponent of "logical positivism.""
"...Alexandre Zinoviev...: "Hardly had Communism collapsed than the West began adopting certain characteristics of its discredited adversary.""
"The...Third Way movement...[ that] emerged from the ...First [World] War...believed that the traditional order could no longer be restored, only redeemed though a revolutionary overthrow of the liberal regime."
From Chapter II "Metapolitics:"
"In the 20th century, the notion that politics is an interwoven facet of culture's intricate web is one that has been most persuasively developed by the Communist theorist, Antonio Gramsci."
"Unlike his fellow Marxists, he thought the state's authority rested on more than its police and judicial powers. Trained in historical linguistics, Gramsci the scholar had learnt that because "the dominant speech community exerted prestige over contiguous subordinate communities," it was able to affect their use of language." "...the state was able to govern not because most people lived in fear of its repressive forces, but because they adhered to views - to a hegemonic ideology - that sanctioned its activities and made them seem "natural.""
"In emphasizing the importance of civil society and the power of its cultural forms to generate consent, Gramsci's heterodox Marxism anticipated the postmodernist inversion of the base/superstructure model."
"...Lenin...like Gramsci, recognized the power of ideas in history." "The foundations of the European state ... were preeminently cultural and ideological, undergirded by a complex network of civil institutions and by a "common sense" that imbued it with reserves unknown to the Russian one. As long...as the reigning institutions, ideas, and mores - culture in the larger sense - remained those of the bourgeoisie, Gramsci was convinced the European ruling class would be able to "rule" over the subaltern class , even in the absence of the state's coercive powers." "A socialist revolution in Europe, in other words, would come about not through a frontal assault on the state, as Lenin thought, but circuitously, as the workers' counter-hegemony gradually absorbed civil society and encompassed the state's political society."
"A spiritual or cultural revolution would thus be requisite to a political revolution."
August 28, 2023
This book is, for the most part, an excellent exposition of New Rightist/Third Positionist thinking. The critiques of the Left are powerful, as are the critiques of the capitalist Right (the so-called Classical Liberalism so lauded by American Libertarians and Milton Friedman's economics). O'Meara critiques the spiritual void faced by the postmodern world, a world in which Americanism has been the only game in town since it won its post-1945 empire games with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In that regard this book articulated a lot of the thought of Heidegger, Nietzsche, Julius Evola, and Rene Guenon which has been instrumental in moving me away from identifying with the American Left, and Progressivism. O'Meara cites his sources and lays out very convincing and well argued theses for the importance of celebrating identities centered on non-Christian European heritage and culture, especially as this emphasis on connection to place emphasizes environmental stewardship and community responsibility over rabid individualism, he makes a powerful case for a New Right movement. While O'Meara is writing about European politics and critiquing Americanism, I'm not sure this translates well to America's so-called "Alt-Right" movements which seem antithetical to the conclusions of some of the previously cited thinkers especially when it comes to ecology, capitalism etc. His warning about anti-European sentiment and bias, as well as the decline of these demographics, does seem to have validity, especially considered in light of his thesis on the tribal rooting of Nation States.
While the book thrives in analysis, the book's weakest areas come up when analyzing the American sociological landscape. For instance, O'Meara fails to consider the context of the racial unrest and tensions in America from more than one angle. His implications in the statement "Since the 'Civil Rights Revolution' of the Sixties, which imposed an onerous system of racial discrimination on all white males, the country has been racked by unprecedented levels of crime and incarceration (ten times the rate of Europe)." There's a lot to unpack there, but the implication in context here is that O'Meara sees these issues stemming from integration and the loss of racial hierarchy. Studying the matter further this is not a good argument. There are many factors at play as to why crime rose after the 1960's and the incarceration rate can largely be attributed to the failed racist policies of the War on Drugs and COINTEL-PRO operations. Similar issues arise in antiquated racial language in other areas. Further, the author seems ready to defend the American South of the pre-Civil War period as more embodied in European ideals than the "barbaric" North and has no qualms about calling the "War of Northern Aggression" terroristic, while not using remotely similar language to refer to the horrors of race-based chattel slavery and the terror campaigns of the KKK and Jim Crow era.
All in all I struggled between a three and a four star rating for this one. When this book is good it's REALLY good. When it's not so good it's not so good. Whatever disagreements I may hold and divergences I have from the author's overall worldview, I found myself agreeing with much of the overarching sentiment and critique. I learned a lot reading this, and this book challenged my thinking in many ways. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants genuine insight into a Right-wing critique of American hegemony, modernism, and the Enlightenment itself.
December 26, 2018
An extremely well written book about the Identitarian movement in Europe, labelled ‘New Right’. The author delves into the philosophical underpinnings of the new right, with a fair amount of historical context, and denounces both liberalism and communism as being two sides of the same coin - both seek to remove the ethnic people’s in countries with the justification of the economy and materialistic interests. The author argues that communism and liberalism are spiritually deficient, and will only further plunder Europe until both ideologies are removed from the political landscape and replaced with a more nationalistic government.
Near the end of the book, after a tirade of arguments against liberalism, the author talks about how democracy could exist in Europe without liberalism. To me, the author did not make a good argument for how democracy would work without liberalism, and why it’s needed at all. Perhaps he just wanted to avoid the ‘fascist’ label.
Near the end of the book, after a tirade of arguments against liberalism, the author talks about how democracy could exist in Europe without liberalism. To me, the author did not make a good argument for how democracy would work without liberalism, and why it’s needed at all. Perhaps he just wanted to avoid the ‘fascist’ label.
June 17, 2020
Kultur fart sniffers? Any "metapolitical" project ain't as important as implied and the author seems quick to fall back on unoriginal characteristic liberal concepts like "totalitarianism" for understanding social developments. Reading directly whats been published over the years in the pages of the journal Telos, in English, by the assorted figures of the movement would give you a better understanding than reading this.
October 13, 2024
This book is Heideggerian cant, dressing up an anti-American screed. It reeks of a European with a bruised ego and an inferiority complex.
The work is explicitly anti-Enlightenment and anti-rationality. It is also leavened with a considerable amount of anti-Semitism.
It is probably worth reading to prepare yourself for the pompous arguments of the New Right, but it is not a fun read.
The work is explicitly anti-Enlightenment and anti-rationality. It is also leavened with a considerable amount of anti-Semitism.
It is probably worth reading to prepare yourself for the pompous arguments of the New Right, but it is not a fun read.
November 21, 2015
Interesting. Definitely food for thought and a clear look at what's going on with the New Right in Europe. I had some issues with the way the material is presented, as well as the way the author occasionally quoted authors of literature in the way one might quote something from a book published by a university press, though I suppose that is in line with the ideas presented in this book, in terms of the strength and power of "myth" as a guiding influence in people's lives and the corrupted nature of modern universities.
April 23, 2017
The book provides a nice introduction to the ideas of the New Right intelectual movement.
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