Posted: Release Date – 12:15 AM, Sat – Nov 5th 22
Johannes Steisinger
The populist radical right has been on the rise for some time now, with candidates and parties on the far-right fringes of the political spectrum reaching new heights across the globe.
Donald Trump’s electoral success in the US, France’s Marine Le Pen, Germany’s alternatives and, most recently, Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy all put the spotlight on awareness Morphological change: the so-called new right.
It is a loose network of radical right-wing activists organized in regional initiatives such as Alt-Right in the US, Nouvelle Droite in France, Neue Rechte in Germany and CasaPound in Italy.
This broad movement aims to bring an ideological update to right-wing politics by focusing on the politics of cultural identity and belonging. This approach is called “metapolitics” because it first attempts to shape how we think and experience our daily lives, playing a long game to change the political structure of our society.
identity politics
The focus on identity politics has led to far-right extremism rebranding very successfully. Supporters of the New Right are less devoted to discussions of natural superiority than their predecessors and seek to avoid the overt racism of traditional neo-Nazi groups, thereby giving their political views a wider appeal.
Instead, they push the line that white people are oppressed in contemporary Western society. They describe themselves as “patriotic activists” concerned only with tackling “uncontrolled immigration,” “anti-white discrimination” and “loss of tradition.”
One of their main enemies is globalization, against it, they insist that every culture has a “right to be different” (including Alain de Benoist, one of the founders of the French New Right movement). They reject the fusion of cultures because they believe that cultures are rooted in clearly demarcated and internally unified social groups. This stems from their key thesis that human beings are made up of many different “ethnic cultures”.
A national culture is the organic community to which its members are born. Families are often seen as the biological source of ethnocultural communities. Members of a community also ostensibly share a way of life. Their public life is characterized by specific cultural practices and moral values. According to these New Right supporters, a person’s personal identity is thus shaped by the ethnocultural community to which they belong.
Inherit the tradition
These proponents often cite the mythical beginnings or so-called glorious chapters of a community’s past and stress the need for historical continuity for its survival. Therefore, cultural traditions must be passed on from generation to generation without major changes. Completing this task is the common destiny of the members of the national cultural community.
New right advocates focused on identity politics argue that national cultures compete with each other and that their encounters can lead to conflicts that threaten the collective identity of communities—a ready-made reason for violent conflict, including war. The results of these struggles reveal the inequalities assumed by different cultures.
Their conception of culture easily explains why the New Right is obsessed with immigration and sees it as a major threat to their political vision. As such, they spread conspiracy theories, including the “great alternative” theory.
In this pernicious view, immigration is portrayed as a conspiracy organized by liberal global elites to replace native peoples in Western countries with foreigners. Thus, the often-proclaimed “right to difference” applies only to relationships between groups. Individual members of a group must conform to their overall characteristics.
This apartheid agenda has harmful consequences not only for immigrants, but also for those who are seen as members of the national culture. Viewing culture as unified can mask important differences between subgroups within a culture, especially the differing interests of elite and non-elite members of the group.
We see this exploited in the rhetoric that the British people should “take back control” by voting for Brexit. The idea is questionable for a number of reasons, not least the false suggestion that all members of the “British” bloc will emerge stronger post-Brexit.
picture is not accurate
The ideology of the new right is politically dangerous. It also paints an inaccurate picture of how cultural life works. Culture has neither clear boundaries nor uniformity and consistency over time. They are flexible and dynamic, constantly interacting with each other. These cross-cultural encounters can be opportunities to grow and increase self-understanding and understanding of others. Consider the many formative influences other cultures had on Europe, including on Christianity (from the Middle East) and number systems (from India).
We should embrace the diversity of our cultural life and reject attempts by the new right to divide us further. While recent election results in Brazil and the United States two years ago may be promising signs, it’s a broader battle over how we interpret the world.
Fighting against the dangerous ethnocultural framework of social conflict that mainstream politicians often embrace requires more than an electoral victory. Instead, we need convincing counter-narratives that explain the causes of the economic crisis we face and foster solidarity to address the staggering social inequalities that undermine all societies.
(The author is an associate professor of philosophy at McMaster University. theconversation.com)
