Abstract
The Euro-American far-right represents a highly diverse political movement comprising numerous ideological tendencies. It includes the European New Right, the US ‘alt-right’ and ‘alt-lite’, far-right accelerationism, traditionalism, and new forms of political misogyny. Despite the diversity in ideas and activities, this article argues that an overarching theme of the ‘fear of white extinction’ travels across and animates each major contemporary far-right tendency. The article explores a variety of older and contemporary metaphysical themes that are deployed in contemporary fascism. These include new configurations of racism, occultist ideas of nature and vitalism, the rendering of culture and civilization in ‘biocultural’ and ‘anthropological’ terms, and ideas about cosmic destiny. The article considers how older ideas from Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Hans Günther, Ludwig Klages, Arnold Gehlen and others are mobilized in contemporary fascism to generate a critique of liberal modernity, one which leads remorselessly to a logic of white supremacy and apocalyptic violence.
Highlights
We’ve not the slightest yearning for the social world: the storms and omens of the Cosmos will suffice. (Ludwig Klages)If the 2016 US Presidential Election reminded us of the resilience of racism and white supremacism in the United States, it demonstrated that white racial fascism has become re-vitalized for a new generation in North America, Brexit UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.Theory, Culture & Society 38(1)In recent years, the Western far-right has shown considerable political energy and multiple political forms
Its ideologies appear to be heterogeneous and capricious, making it difficult to capture them within elementary descriptions of a core ideology or methods of organization
The article focuses on some key themes in the political theology and eschatology of contemporary white racial fascism, themes which concern fascist metaphysics in its broadest sense
Summary
We’ve not the slightest yearning for the social world: the storms and omens of the Cosmos will suffice. (Ludwig Klages)If the 2016 US Presidential Election reminded us of the resilience of racism and white supremacism in the United States, it demonstrated that white racial fascism has become re-vitalized for a new generation in North America, Brexit UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.Theory, Culture & Society 38(1)In recent years, the Western far-right has shown considerable political energy and multiple political forms. Its ideologies appear to be heterogeneous and capricious, making it difficult to capture them within elementary descriptions of a core ideology or methods of organization Despite this variety, this article aims to elaborate deeper metaphysical tendencies that underlie the superficial diversity of much of today’s farright. The article focuses on some key themes in the political theology and eschatology of contemporary white racial fascism, themes which concern fascist metaphysics in its broadest sense. It draws eclectically on material from the European New Right and the US alt-right, and it links this material to older themes and ideological figures. Because the intellectual universe upon which the far-right draws is wide, I consider some emblematic writers that have influenced the European New Right and the US alt-right, including Julius Evola, Ludwig Klages, Hans Gunther and Arnold Gehlen
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