1 The French New Right’s transnationalism
1 An earlier draft of this chapter first appeared as Tamir Bar-On, ‘Transnationalism and the French nouvelle droite’, Patterns of Prejudice, 45 (3) (2011), pp. 199–223.
2 Traditionalism is also sometimes called Perennialism. Traditionalism is a school of thought based upon a belief in a universal, objective religion. Some key Traditionalist influences include René Guénon, Frithjof Schuon, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Titus Burckhardt, Martin Lings, Jean-Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and Julius Evola. See Mark Sedgwick (2004).
3 A term popularized by Jean-Louis Loubet del Bayle in Les non-conformistes des années 30 (1969). Non-conformists were French thinkers of the 1930s, including Emmanuel Mounier, Alexandre Marc, and Robert Aron, who sought for a ‘third way’ between communism and capitalism, while rejecting liberal democracy, parliamentarism, and fascism.
4 The search for alternative modernity
1 An earlier draft of this chapter appeared in Tamir Bar-On, ‘The French New Right’s Quest for Alternative Modernity’, Fascism: Journal of Contemporary Fascist Studies 1 (1) (2012), pp. 18–52. See Tamir Bar-On (2012b).
2 I am not against the substance of Jeffrey Herf’s argument in his book Reactionary Modernism (1984) in respect of the CR thinkers in the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. His argument has indeed informed my own about the French ND, their links to the German CR, and the ND’s simultaneous support for technical modernity and rejection of the egalitarian principles of 1789. For Herf (1984: 1), CR thinkers such as Oswald Spengler and Ernst Jünger influenced Nazi ideology through a paradoxical ‘reconciliation between the antimodernist, romantic and irrationalist ideas present in German nationalism and the most obvious manifestations of means–ends rationality, that is, modern technology’. Herf (1984: 12) insists that the ‘reactionary modernists’ are ‘modernists’ because they wanted a more industrialized, revitalized Germany and they also embodied the themes of the ‘modernist vanguard’ that could be on the right or left (that is, the free spirit at war with the bourgeoisie, tradition, and reason; a fascination with violence; and a commitment to engagement and authenticity). On the other hand, the ‘reactionary modernists’ are ‘reactionaries’ because as Herf (1984: 11) explains, they embodied a right-wing political tradition that sought to ‘vitalize the nation’: ‘I have called the tradition under examination a reactionary modernist one to emphasize that it was a tradition of the political Right.’ In addition, the CR thinkers are ‘reactionaries’ since ‘they opposed the principles of 1789 yet found in nationalism a third force “beyond” capitalism and Marxism’ (Herf 1984: 12).
Rather, I have several criticisms of Herf’s term ‘reactionary modernism’. In the first place, Herf points out that the term ‘reactionary modernism’ is his own and was never used by CR thinkers themselves. Second, I reject the use of the term because it is disparaging, smacks of political partisanship, and implies that the right is ‘reactionary’ and the left is necessarily ‘progressive’. Undoubtedly modernizers were on both the right and left. In addition, claiming that the right is ‘reactionary’ because it rejects the values of 1789 is a value judgement and assumes that one must accept all of the manifestations of modernity in order to qualify as a ‘modernist’.
Finally, all of this begs the question of how to label the ND? I have several possible suggestions: (1) revolutionary right-wing modernists; (2) anti-1789 (or anti-French Revolution) modernists; (3) nativist (ethnic) modernists; (4) fourth-way pan-European modernists; (5) archeo-modernists; (6) synthetic postmodernists; and (7) alternative modernists (the term I have chosen for this work). In 2012, de Benoist called himself a ‘modern antimodern’ (2012: 285), a phrase I deem insufficient because it connotes that, despite his criticism of all backward-looking, nostalgic political projects, he is questionably more anti-modern than modern; ignores his profound postmodernism; and does not tell us more about how he is modern and anti-modern.
3 Revolutions can be ‘non-violent’, as with the ‘Quiet Revolution’ in Québec, Canada from roughly 1960 to 1966, corresponding to the tenure of Liberal Québec Premier Jean Lesage. The ‘Quiet Revolution’ represented a non-violent revolution in state and societal institutions and mentalities, a turn away from the rural and clerical authoritarianism of the past, and a shift towards modernization, industrialization, secularization, civil rights, nationalist assertiveness, and state involvement in the economy (Thomson 1984).
4 A term distinctive from genocide inspired by French ethnologist Robert Jaulin (1928–96) used by ND thinkers to connote the destruction of the culture of a people. See, for example, Guillaume Faye’s (1981) Le système à tuer les peuples.
5 The quest for a new religion of politics
1 An earlier version of this chapter first appeared as Tamir Bar-On, ‘Understanding Political Conversion and Mimetic Rivalry’, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 10 (3) (December 2009), pp. 241–64.
2 While this may be true, de Benoist (2012: 215) continues to defend CR authors from criticism as if the CR were a pillar of his faith. He shields the likes of Carl Schmitt from criticism by correctly pointing out that some CR thinkers were ‘persecuted’ by the Nazis, but never stating the real historical record of Schmitt’s willing pro-Nazi collaborationism. One would expect more from a school of thought wedded to ‘objectivity’. Moreover, let us accept de Benoist’s premise that the CR represented a ‘real alternative’ to Nazism. He fails to tell us if the consequences of the CR thinkers in major positions of power would have been better or worse for their victims and society at large. Or, did the CR thinkers merely long for an anti-regime fascism that was more martial, hierarchical, corporatist, and revolutionary than the Nazis?
7 Analysing ‘The New Right for the Year 2000’
1 In this section, I quote from an English translation of Charles Champetier and Alain de Benoist, ‘La Nouvelle Droite de l’an 2000’, Éléments 94 (February 1999), pp. 10–23. See Alain de Benoist and Charles Champetier, ‘The French New Right in the Year 2000’, Online. Available HTTP: <http://www.freespeechproject.com/alain9.html> (accessed 1 June 2010).
2 Concept of ‘spherical time’ borrowed from Armin Mohler, Ernst Jünger’s former press secretary. See Roger Griffin (ed.), Fascism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 351–4. The term Alain de Benoist (2012: 314) uses to describe our current age sandwiched between the modern and postmodern is the German Zwischenzeit (interregnum).