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Conservatism
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RADICAL CONSERVATISM AND
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RADICAL CONSERVATISM AND
THE FUTURE OF POLITICS
G6ran Dahl
SAGE Publications
London Thousand Oaks New Delhi
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Giiran Dahl 1999
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction
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vi RADICAL CON S E RVATISM A N D THE FUTU RE OF POLITICS
References 151
Index 161
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Most of this book was written during a six-month stay in the USA in 1997.
Being in Lawrence, Kansas, provided me with an excellent infrastructure.
The friendly people, the excellent University Library and the enthusiastic
people at the Sociology Department made the hard work feel like doing
something interesting and important. My gratitude goes to The University
of Kansas, The Fulbright Commission and The Bank of Sweden
Tercentary Foundation whom, together, made this stay possible.
Many people have read the manuscript or part of it. Among those, I
wish to say thank you especially to Robert Antonio and Mohamed El
Hodiri in Lawrence, Carl-G6ran Heidegren and Jonathan Friedman in
Lund, Frederik Stjernfelt in Copenhagen and Conny Mithander in
Karlstad. The book would have been less informative if 'radical con
servatives' like Henning Eichberg, Armin Mohler and Gunther Maschke
had been unwilling to talk to me. These three gentlemen especially showed
me respect, generosity and warmth during long talks.
Chris and Robert Rojek at Sage have been positive and enthusiastic
since the beginning of the project, and the book would not have been
written at all if Mike Featherstone, the editor of Theory, Culture & Society,
had not suggested that I do so. Thank you Mike!
Small parts of the book have been published earlier. Chapter 3 is
published in a slightly different version in Spaces of Cultures, edited by
Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash (London: Sage, 1 998); pieces of my
article 'Will "the Other God" Fail Again? On the Possible Return of the
Conservative Revolution', Theory, Culture & Society ( 1 996, vol. 13: 25-50)
appear here and there in the text. I acknowledge Sage Publications for
permission to use this material in this volume.
Last but not least my deepest gratitude to Pia, my wife, and our lovely
kids Hanna and Joel who had the patience to leave me alone during long
and lonely late evenings with my thoughts, computer and gallons of coffee.
G6ran Dahl
Lund University
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INTRODUCTION
I In this book I sometimes use 'left' and 'right' although it is necessary to problematize this
distinction. At least 'left' and 'right' serve as provisional guidelines in the West. I use them in
the common-sense meaning, that is, 'left' is associated with justice, internationalism, equality,
etc., 'right' with nationalism, traditional values, individual freedom, etc. An interesting
discussion can be found in Bobbio (1997) and in Eatwell and O'Sullivan (1992).
2 Here I definitely agree with Panjatos Kondylis ( 1 986) who, in the concluding remarks of
his long treatise on conservatism, declares it dead.
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2 RADICAL CON S E RVATISM A N D T H E FUTU RE OF POL ITICS
CLASSICAL RADICAL
Please note that this is only a heuristic, preliminary scheme; note also the critical issue of
modernity in both classical and radical conservatism.
fit in with the old classical political ideologies. The related thesis is that
'radical conservatism' is both a new political trend, and also that it marks a
new situation where different elements are situated in new constellations.
At this moment it is necessary to give 'radical conservatism' a pre
liminary definition, even if the whole book will deepen and also expand this
definition a little. First, for the sake of preliminary clarification, we3 have
constructed a simple table which gives an idea of the main differences
between liberalism, radical conservatism and conservatism (see Table 1).
'Radical conservatism' is basically about conservatism being radicalized,
and not the other way around. There can be basically two forms of
conservatism: structural conservatism which simply wants to save the
status quo, disregarding the contents of this status; it can also mean value
conservatism, which defends values like the importance of stability, tradi
tion, religion, authority and nation. It is this latter kind of conservatism
which is the starting point for radical conservatism. However, the present
situation might threaten these values, and two options are then at hand:
either apocalyptic cultural pessimism or a voluntarist radicalization. It
becomes necessary to use radical means to serve the value-conservative
ends. Radical conservatives see liberalism as their main enemy. First of all,
it is seen as a political expression of capitalism. Radical conservatives are
3 Carl-Goran Heidegren and Conny Mithander were the two others present when we
constructed this figure.
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I NTROD UCTION 3
4 I use 'fascism' as the general concept, and 'Fascism' as its Italian specific form.
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4 RAD I CAL CONSERVATISM A N D T H E F U T U R E OF POLITI CS
both the conservative and the radical conservative religion is the very heart
of life. On the other hand, there are several overlappings between fascism
and radical conservatism. One is the issue of socialism. Apart from the
national bolsheviks, a heterogeneous movement in Weimar Germany, and
also a tendency in contemporary Russia, one means a planned economy
with the state owning the majority of the corporations. 'Socialism' most
often means a national community without class conflicts where the whole
people benefit from material and spiritual progress. This faith in progress is
connected to the faith in modernization, the development of technology
and science. However, there are exceptions: in fascism we have national
socialists who prefer a return to rural life, and among the radical con
servatives the relation to technology is problematized, especially by Martin
Heidegger and Carl Schmitt.
This complex relationship between conservatism, radical conservatism
and fascism can be illustrated as circles partly overlapping each other (see
Figure 1). If this is an attempt to illustrate the structure of thinking, there
are also movements and constellations which do not constitute a structure.
Some writers can in the same text move between positions in all three
circles; some can move between them at different points of time; some texts
are strategic - for example, when radical conservatives or fascists want
conservatives to listen to them.
This is easier to apply in an historical context than in a contemporary
one. If we look at the past, we can, according to Figure I , quite easily place
people within the circles. We can also see how people have moved from
radical conservatism to conservatism for example. 5 But today, not to
mention tomorrow, our knowledge is more limited. My attempt at finding
a solution is to distinguish between three forms of radical conservatism in a
contemporary perspective:
The aesthetes.
2 Neo-conservative revolutionaries.
3 National socialists.
5 Muller (1 987) describes the post-war political development of Hans Freyer and Arnold
Gehlen as a 'de-radicalization'.
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I NTRODUCTION 5
Equality
SOCIALISM
National bolshevism
FASCISM
RADICAL
Totally new
CONSERVATISM
institutions
Partly new
Sacralization of
institutions
politics
Tradition
Religiosity
Belief in institutions
CONSERVATISM
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6 RADICAL CONSERVATISM A N D TH E F U T U R E OF POLITICS
this group may not know too much about the conservative revolution, but
one could say that if they did have an ideological heritage, it would be
close to the conservative revolution.
We can see some signs of the times where the third form of radical
conservatism can be said to appear. One such is the rise (although sub
sequent fall) of the Republican candidate for the US presidency Pat
Buchanan. His 'militant conservatism' can be understood as a Conservative
Republican reaction against Big Business. 6 Taken together with the recent
elections in Israel,7 where the classical pattern of the Labour party as the
working-class alternative and the conservative party (Likud) as an upper
class party to a large degree was twisted, and this demonstrates that the
'right' does not primarily represent the upper class and capital any more.
This could be regarded as a modification of the latest, but not the last,
dividing line between left and right. As Alain de Benoist ( 1 996)8 has
argued, the rise of right and left, that is the moment modern politics
emerged, was a question of pro or con vis-a-vis the French revolution. The
left supported it, the right was basically negative. However, during the
nineteenth century this divide began to disappear when even the right
acknowledged some positive characteristics of the revolution. The next,
and new dividing line rested on the judgement of religion. In the dispute
over Charles Darwin's evolution theory, where he tried to prove that Man
is not a creation but an historical result, the right supported the theory of
creation and the left the theory of evolution. However, the same thing
happened with this demarcation line as with the earlier one, that is it
became insignificant; Die soziale Frage, the social question, was the next to
come. Here I disagree with de Benoist, who suggests that the same thing
has happened to this as with the two former distinctions, that is it becomes
insignificant. According to him, an egalitarian right-winger is not more of
an anomaly than an atheist, anti-monarchist one. The social question is not
insignificant, but instead it is embedded in the new political issues of
morality, security and (inter-)nationalism. Such issues become almost
equally important as income for the poor people. For example, Politiker
verdrossenheit, neglect or dislike of politicians because they are thought of
as being corrupt, is a common phenomenon in many countries (Germany,
Sweden, Poland, Italy). When welfare is cut down people ask themselves if
they can afford to be honest, especially when more and more politicians are
corrupted and when executives in the big international companies raise
their incomes. 'Why should we trust the politicians?' is thus a more fre
quent question. One reason is a widespread corruption and amoral egoism;
another the decreasing field of possible political actions and reforms.
6 The old leftist writer Nonnan Mailer met and discussed with Buchanan in 1 995 and 1996
and they agreed on this issue.
7 This chapter was written in late summer 1 996, and the elections in Israel resulted in the
victory of the Likud party.
8 Of course, de Benoist is a controversial person. However, this specific article is
illuminating.
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I NT ROD UCTION 7
9 Robert B. Reich (1991) and Jeremy Rifkin (1995) both predict that delivering 'security'
on the market will grow very fast in the future. Of course, this can be bought only by
corporations and by rich people.
10 l owe this information to the Austrian writer Josef Haslinger. On the FPQ, see Hans
Ake Persson ( 1 996).
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8 RADICAL CON S E RVATISM A N D T H E FUTU RE OF POLITICS
when the regime discovered that the socialist utopia no longer could be
based on a superior technology, another base was necessary. Here life
philosophy offered a replacement. The GDR was a better keeper of Life,
Leben, and culture, since it was not destroyed by Western technology and
consumption (Herzinger and PreuI3er, 1 993). The DDR-Kultur stood in
absolute opposition to the BRD-Zivilisation (Herzinger, 1992).12 The same
tune can be heard from the very extreme right when Franz Schonhuber,
leader of the Republikaner party, thinks that West Germany was more
Americanized than East Germany was Russified (Domdey, 1 994: 1 2).
Thus, the new parts of Germany are more 'authentic', 'German' and
should, therefore, be more willing to listen to the radical conservative plea
,
for a change of mentality, away from the American 'Spirit . 1 3
In short, our problem here is that, especially after 1 989, we have seen,
and see, new political constellations develop. The utopias of today, where
happiness and other existential matters are articulated, are formulated
from, so it seems, the right.
We see new constellations with both radical and conservative elements:
the radicalism favoured by poverty, immigrants, nihilism, corruption, etc.
join a form of conservatism - environmentalism, anti-feminism and the
belief in a strong state. The common ground of this radical-conservative
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I NTRODUCTION 9
constellation is the belief that the enemy rules, big business and politicians
only care about themselves. One slogan could be 'change in order to save',
a paradoxical formulation we remember from the conservative revolution.
In fact, this was said many times by many writers. Paul de Lagarde
considered himself as 'too conservative not to be radical'; Moeller van den
Bruck meant that 'conservative means creating things that are worth
conserving' (Muller, 1 997: 28).
I think that one important reason for radicalism moving to the 'right'
instead of moving to the 'left' is that the latter had become defensive when
trying to save the last bastions of the welfare state project. Another
important reason is the breakdown of what the British historian Norman
Davies ( 1 997: 39ff.) has called 'the allied scheme of history'. This scheme
has dominated the post-war period, and has gradually broken up only
during the last ten years or so. It has its roots in Hitler's attack on Russia,
when the latter country became an 'ally' and in the judicial aftermath of
the war - the Nuremberg trials. Then, the Soviet Union was one of the
victorious nations. The trials ended in the declaration that Germany was
the only guilty party for starting the war, and ignored the fact of the
contents of the protocol where Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to
split up Poland; that Germany alone was the only country who committed
crimes against humanity. Nothing could be compared with what Germany
had done; crimes committed by the allies were only a necessary response to
the act by nazi Germany. This became the paradigm for the allied scheme
of history, which contains at least six elements:
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10 RAD I CAL CONSERVATISM AN D THE F U T U R E O F POLITICS
persons, but today one assumes that 300,000 is closer to the truth (H.F.
Dahl, 1 997: 6).
I could go on with a number of other examples, but what is important
here is that what had been the absolute evil and the most extreme right
(Germany) showed many parallels and similarities with an ally and the
'left' (the Soviet Union). Thus, and this is my main point here, since some
years back, being right is not any more extreme than being left. And the
breakdown of the normativity of the allied scheme of history also
strengthens the rise of new political constellations, hard to place on a left
right scale.
Of course, there are social developments that partly determine these new
political issues and constellations. For example, we have new social classes
like the 'symbol analytics'. According to Reich ( 1 99 1 : 1 77), this group
consists of people who work with 'problem-solving, problem-identifying,
and strategic brokering activities'. This growing group of people is the one
with power, access to the media, the skills to do well in the knowledge
society and the ability to sell their work-force wherever they want to. For
this reason they do not identify themselves as members of a nation; they
are true cosmopolitans. With the rise of this group we see a decline of the
more traditional groups working for the old industry, and even the service
sector. This all results in a new possible source of conflict: Multiculturalists
against Traditionalists. The former probably tend to vote for social liberal
parties, the latter for right-wing parties. This is the very case in France
where large parts of the unemployed from the working class vote for Le
Pen (Marcus, 1 995).
The new global situation is also important: the new West rising in east
Asia and the American west coast. These trends might very well lead to
support for protectionist (i.e. nationalist) preferences.
The problem discussed in this book is 'radical conservatism' and its
possible political ramifications. The most important factor is the revival of
nationalism which goes hand in hand with a new 'anti-West' attitude.
'Anti-West' is a structurally homogeneous reaction, a discontent with the
effects of globalization and universalism, but it differs in content. In the
Islamic world, China, and Russia, it simply means the 'West' as a foreign
phenomenon, but in, for example, Germany and France it means anti
Americanism, while in America itself this affect takes the expression as
both or either anti-federalism or anti-UN. In the end, it is all about a
theological entity - Anti-Christ, Satan, etc.
'Radical conservatism' is both a description of fairly distinguishable
groups and a new 'optic' that makes us sensitive for new political con
stellations. I also ask what is the future of politics, and regard different
options and scenarios.
In the first place this is an attempt in mentality history, that is, tracing
and mapping mentalities which might have or really have a social and
political significance. I also regard my method as a sociology of knowledge
in Karl Mannheim's sense, that is, a synthesis of logic and historical
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I NTRO D U CTION 11
* * *
In a work like this there is always a need for some empirical control in
order to avoid becoming victims of our own fantasies and paranoias. We
could, for example, use a counter-hypothesis. However, I do not intend to
'prove' anything here, rather to sketch possible scenarios; therefore the
danger is not too great.
A note on style and the research used in this book: I have conducted
many interviews with intellectual radical conservatives in Europe in order
to understand their thinking; I have read their books as well as many
others; I have used the Internet and newspapers for up-to-date infor
mation; I have discussed radical conservatism with many scholars. Thus,
my style is not homogeneous, sometimes it is somewhere between main
stream social science and journalism, sometimes social theory, sometimes
mainstream social science. If this would annoy the reader, I apologize.
However, since I regard radical conservatism as a highly relevant field of
study for philosophy, history, sociology and political science, this book just
had to be written.
My methodology is hermeneutic, and this has to be clarified for a
number of reasons. One good reason is to avoid misunderstandings. At the
end of 1 996 Conny Mithander and I started a debate in Sweden on the
need of understanding fascism. Of course, we meant 'understanding' as in
14 See, for example, Meier ( 1 995: x) who shows that '[Carl] Schmitt was no better than the
value-free liberals he condemned, for both he and they admitted any end as equally
choiceworthy with any other'.
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12 RAD I CAL CON S E RVATISM AN D THE FUTU RE OF POLITICS
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PART I
'RADICAL CON5ERVATI5M'
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1
There are very few works on conservative social and political thought that
both go beyond the national context and the time of its origin (Muller,
1 995: 1 ) . There are, however, obvious reasons for this. Since conservatism
is concerned with the non-universal specificity of the period and context it
is formulated time after time; thus, the problem of generalization becomes
crucial. Another reason is its positionality: in times of social disintegration,
conservatism is defined by its enemies as such thinking that stresses the
need for tradition, stability and institutions.
My attempt in this first part of the book is to trace the origins of radical
conservatism. Then, we first have to define what we mean by 'conservatism',
define its basic characteristics and at the same time regard its specificity in
time and place, that is, be sensitive to both the logics of conservative thought
and its dynamics, how this thinking interacts with the social reality.
A discussion of conservative thought always runs the risk of starting at
an arbitrary chosen point. Since we do not have any immediate access to
such a large, and at first sight also clumsy, concept like 'conservatism', we
must have a clear approach. In order to achieve this, the most rational
thing to do is to discuss the relevancy of the major works on this topic.
However, the 'major works' must then be chosen, and the criteria of such a
choice must be discussed. One criterion is genealogical, the other recogni
tion and reliability. My main focus will be on German conservatism. The
principal reason, which I also discussed above, is that it was here that we
first saw a radical form of conservatism and intellectuals who were aware
of this, and both the logical and historical causes for this transformation.
That is, both the logic and the dynamics of contemporary radical conser
vatism can be found in the German Conservative Revolution, which in its
turn must be understood in its context - German society and history. In
the ideology of German conservatism ideas from other countries - Russia,
France, Italy - were incorporated in the emerging radical conservatism.
The other criterion - reliability - has a more arbitrary character, of
which I try to have a certain degree of control through an ongoing
dialogue with other scholars.
For both these reasons it is quite self-evident to start with Karl
Mannheim's classical study on conservatism (originally an article, but in
the 1 980s a longer version was published as a book). Another reason for
starting with this text is that it offers both an historical description and an
analysis. Also, it is an example of Wissenssozi% gie, a 'method', 'theory' or
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16 RAD ICAL CO N S E RVATISM A N D THE FUTU RE O F POLITICS
rather, an approach that I will discuss and confront with other approaches
such as hermeneutics and critical theory.
In the Wissenssoziologie of Mannheim there is often both an historical
description and an analysis, and vice versa. The two 'levels' can be hard to
separate, but it also gives us a possibility to see that there is no inde
pendent past reality such as history 'in itself' . Furthermore, Mannheim is
one of the few sociologists who also wants to learn something from the
object under study, a recognition of the fact that sociology always is a part
of its object. The section below on Mannheim is rather long, but I have
considered it necessary to give his thoughts enough space in order to see
how they can work as analytical tools and to demonstrate the richness of
his sociology of knowledge so that my application of it later will be more
comprehensive. Also, he is perhaps the best exponent of the inner logic of
political thinking.
'Rationalizing the irrational' I this formula has been used to catch one
-
I This is the title of an article by Kettler and Meja (1 990) on Mannheim's approach to
conservatism.
2 As Hans-Georg Gadamer (1989: 276) puts it: The overcoming of all prejUdices, this is
the global demand of the Enlightenment, will itself prove to be a prejudice.'
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CONSERVATISM A N D POL I TI CS 17
3 See the contributions in the book Extremismus der Mille (edited by Hans-Martin
Lohmann, 1994).
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18 RAD ICAL CON SERVATISM A N D THE FUTU RE OF POL ITICS
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CONSERVATISM A N D POLITICS 19
The essay 'A sociological theory of culture and its knowability (conjunctive
and communicative thinking)' was published posthumously in 1 982, and
was most likely written in the mid- I 920s. Although the focus here is on
'culture', it connects to Mannheim's attempts towards a sociological
understanding of knowledge and politics. Here we find an important
distinction that can make us more sensible of what politics is about.
In this essay we once again find a very clear praxis-oriented aspect: if a
sociology of culture is to be a legitimate enterprise, it has to be able to say
something to those who are able to carry culture forward regarding how to
'cure' it. One important mission, then, is to clarify how our theories and
interpretations are dependent upon a more basic level of the understanding
in everyday life. This basic act of understanding consists of 'conjunctive
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20 RAD I CAL CONSERVATISM AN D T H E FUTU RE OF POLITICS
4 'Conjunctive knowledge' could also be described as 'metic reason' (Elkana, 198 1 ). This is
always bound to situations, and plays a decisive role in the Homeric dramas (Barmark, 1 992).
Metic reason consists of 'a complex but very coherent body of mental attitudes and
intellectual behaviour which combines flair, wisdom, forethought, subtlety of mind, deception,
resourcefulness, vigilance, opportunism, various skills and experience acquired over the years.
It is applied to situations which are transient, shifting, disconcerting and ambiguous, situations
which do not lend themselves to precise measurements, exact calculations or vigorous logic'
(Elkana, 1 9 8 1 : 48).
5 In a way, Mannheim was waiting for Heidegger's Sein and Zeit ( 1 972), in which we find a
strong plea for a return to the pre-Socratic ontology which existed a long time before the
splitting between techne and praxis.
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CONSERVATISM A N D POLITICS 21
The conservative does not want satisfaction of his interests alone, but also his
own world, a world in which his interests are at home. The bourgeois does not
want only his demands fulfilled, but also a world shaped by his own mentality.
The proletarian is not content to secure his future; he wants a future in keeping
with his spirit. (Mannheim, 1 986: 55)
But since modern society has made it possible for us to see what has probably
always been the case - that history is the story of class struggles, conflict and
competition - the wills are recognized as tied to partial interests. 6 Knowledge
always has such a 'bias'; it can always be suspected of not telling the 'truth'.
This duality, the Janus face of knowledge, is possible to recognize thanks to
the modern suspicion and uncertainty introduced by Descartes. The duality
can also be understood as the difference between what we presuppose and
preunderstand, and what we do when we understand.
The pre-cognitive ('conjunctive') source of conservatism can be called the
'will' and the cognitive ('communicative') element in conservatism (and in
all other political ideologies) 'interest'. Interests are obviously class-based
and a class can only constitute itself as an historical actor if its members
are able to 'communicate' with each other. However, 'will' includes the
total orientation of a person or a group, community, or a generation where
also the religious and spiritual outlook is of importance.
The thesis on the duality of knowledge is also related to the double
sidedness of Mannheim's approach. Thus, we have one analytical, classical
sociological side used to describe what we have, and one dialectic, praxis
oriented side looking into what we could have. The analytical approach,
operating with two elements, could be described as follows (according to
my interpretation of Mannheim's essay):
erkliiren verstehen
quantitative qualitative
repetition development, growth
the bourgeoisie anti-capitalist classes
dissection unity
abstract concepts community-bound meaning
SClence real life
artificial authentic
6 l owe this idea to Karl Marx, who in the Grundrisse says that modern political economy
is able to see the abstract side of labour, the side which creates exchange value, 'labour as
such', because the modern division of labour enables us to see it - the growth of a high
number of concrete work tasks makes it possible to see what they have in common (Marx,
1974: 2 1 ff.).
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22 RAD ICAL CON S E RVATISM A N D THE FUTURE OF POLITICS
7 For example, i t i s interesting t o note the close affinity o f these distinctions and the
distinctions made by 'reactionary modernism', especially by Werner Sombart (Herf, 1 984:
1 51).
8 See Megill (1987) for a discussion of these 'prophets of extremity'.
9 Gadamer (1 989) develops this idea from Aristotle, and it means the virtue or ability to
match the general with the particular.
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CONSERVATI SM A N D POL ITICS 23
Zivilisation
Gesellschaft
Communicative
thinking
Bildungsku/tur
('cultivated culture')
Ku/tur
Gemeinschaft
Conjunctive thinking
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24 RADICAL CON S E RVATISM A N D TH E FUTU R E OF POL ITICS
So far we have not discussed at any great length the epistemological con
sequences of the sociology of knowledge. There are two interesting essays
written just before Ideologie und Utopie that give us a reason to do so.
In 'The ideological and sociological interpretation of intellectual phe
nomena' from 1 926 Mannheim is primarily considering what implications
sociological interpretation has for the question of validity. To do sociology
is to place oneself 'outside' something, in this case an idea or an ideology.
But this does not automatically mean that we 'doubt' what the idea says,
only that we relate it functionally to something outside it. Thus, Mannheim
seems to reject the perhaps most common critique against the sociology of
knowledge - that it reduces an idea to its function, thus annihilating its
validity in favour of its genesis. Mannheim first presents the possibility that
these are two separate problems, to be treated separately in different
discourses, but then, truthful to his heroic project, he implies that demon
strating an idea's function might give it a new, 'higher' meaning. This
remains an unclear point in his thought. Perhaps he wanted to replace the
traditional epistemological formulation of the problem - that is, genesis or
function versus validity - with what I earlier called the thesis on the 'dual
nature of knowledge' .
The other essay, 'Competition a s a cultural phenomenon', from 1 928, I I
seems to point in that direction. Here he says that from the viewpoint of
sociology all knowledge '(even should it prove to be Absolute Truth itself)
is clearly rooted in and carried by the desire for power and recognition of
social groups who want to make their interpretation of the world the
universal one' (Mannheim, 1 990b: 57). With such a strong claim, how can
validity be seen as something totally unaffected by the forces that produce
it? Faced with this question I think that the thesis on the dual nature of
knowledge might provide not a 'solution', but a more 'comprehensive' way
of treating the problem. If we accept this thesis, then the 'honest' will and
the 'sneaky' interest are seen as two analytical aspects of something that is
inseparable in real life. When we act we often do so both because we think
it is rational and because we reinforce our social position by doing so. The
key word of this essay is 'competition' - due to the plurality of wills and
interests in the modern world, particularly after the breakdown of the
knowledge-monopoly of the church, competition becomes more central.
'Man . . . does not exist in a world in general, but in a world of meanings,
interpreted in a particular way' (Mannheim, 1 990b: 58). Men therefore
compete with one another, and the ultimate fight concerns 'the public
I I This essay was presented at the Sixth Congress of German Sociologists in Zurich, 1 928,
and almost caused a 'scandal'. Many of the German professors regarded it as a blasphemy,
implying that not only rationality but also 'competition' and other irrational factors played a
role in academic life. See, for example, the 'Discussion of Karl Mannheim's "Competition
paper'" in Meja and Stehr ( 1 990).
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12 Mannheim does not, however, share Heidegger's pessimism when elaborating this.
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Ideology
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13 In fact, these two forms of conservatism are basically the same as the two forms in the
distinction made by the German philosopher Riidiger Safranski: 'structural' and 'value
conservatism'. The former 'wants to build Autobahns, the value-conservative wants to protect
the trees that are cut down in order to build it' (Stjernfelt, 1 996: 3).
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14 Please note the resemblance to both the hermeneutic openness (Gadamer, 1 989), and
Habermas's ( 1 98 1 ) minimalistic modernism (the formal character of the 'discourse ethics').
15 Probably Mannheim is thinking of the works of Ludwig Klages here, although being an
extremely reactionary philosopher and psychologist, his important influence on, for example,
Max Weber and critical theory has not been discovered until recently. See Honneth ( 1 987),
and Stauth and Turner ( 1 992).
16 By this I mean that the concepts of modern science have aimed at reducing everything
qualitative to the quantity ' 1 ' - one Science, one Method, etc. See Horkheimer and Adorno
( 1 978: I I).
17 Cf. 'by 1 9 1 8 illiberalism had become so pervasive at all levels of German society . . .
that the Weimar republic stood little, if any, chance of survival' (Jones, 1 992: 75).
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mind which is constantly seeking orientation for action. To awaken this capacity,
to keep it alert, and to make it effective with reference to the material at hand is
the specific task of political education. (Mannheim, 1 99 1 : 1 57)
Homogenization: Romanticism:
Once again, we can trace Mannheim's fascination with the irrational pole.
But he is also very aware of its limitations and dangers. Architecture, to
use one of Mannheim's own examples, cannot be learned conjunctively: 'it
is not our task to drive intellectualism from the places where it actually
fulfils an organic need that has arisen in recent times' (Mannheim, 1 99 1 :
1 6 1 ). An alternative metaphor for describing how a political rational
mastery can rise is artistic knowledge. Neither the arts nor politics can
simply be 'taught'; knowledge must also grow for itself. On the other hand,
we do need an orientation, which is available only through rational
reflection. It is here where the sociology of knowledge might make a
contribution to political knowledge; this meeting of science and politics lets
us know 'the innermost nature of political knowledge' ( 1 99 1 : 1 66).
At this point Mannheim's scepticism of Max Weber's standpoint
becomes visible - 'his [Weber's] solution suffers from the assumption of the
separability of theory and evaluation' ( 1 99 1 : 1 45, footnote I). This is
exactly what Mannheim wishes to avoid, but he cannot give anything
except hints as to what the bridge may look like. The reason for this is
already part of his theory - only the future can tell us what was right
today. For today, all we can do is be self-reflective and self-conscious,
asking ourselves which prejudices we have, trying to avoid naivete and go
towards the end of the process of thinking. If we want to avoid the totally
'administered society' (Adorno), 18 the unpolitical society, we must ask
what the irrational elements of politics are and treat them rationally.
The last essay of the original edition addresses the 'utopian mentality',
the historical forms of utopian thought and how these forms are related.
18 This is also an important aspect of Carl Schmitt's works - the critique of politics as
technology. See McCormick ( 1997).
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19 Here Mannheim differs from the often repeated proposition that conservatism (and
fascism) should lack utopias.
20 'Was verniinftig ist, das ist wirklich; und was wirklich ist, das ist verniinftig'.
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and recognized as both will and interest. They are also moving in the
ideology/utopia spiral: we have a need for both an understanding of what
reality is now (ideology), and ideas on how it can change (utopia). We have
to be utopian, while recognizing that this utopia is an ideology which is
starting a new attempt.
Since we should avoid final solutions, recognizing the provisory nature
of our convictions, we must avoid 'strong' concepts - 'objective', 'relative',
etc. Instead, the sociology of knowledge implies a weakening of concepts.
Dualities might sometimes be dissolved into a third category, but this
marks no absolute overcoming, only a social and historical possibility.
What the sociology of knowledge should aim towards is the explanation of
how strong concepts are formulated, a process which is an integral part of
the basic competition. Thus, for example, concepts like 'authenticity' or
'realism' are not part of the approach, but something that should be
explained and analysed - as slogans, markers in battles. The usefulness of
strong concepts in conflicts is that they fix something that is not fixed -
'reality', for example, has such a power, for the person using this is making
claims of having a superior knowledge. 2 1
But some dualities at the analytical level are more fundamental and
cannot be avoided. The best example of this is what I have called the dual
nature of knowledge. The two poles of knowledge are not of equal weight.
The sociology of knowledge, in its analyses, sees the objects from the
'sneaky' aspect, regarding actions and thoughts as caused by 'interests'. To
give priority to the 'evil' side, to be an 'anti-humanist', means practising
suspicion and not taking the actors' own explanations at face value. When
we as social scientists explain and analyse social phenomena we are not
simply creating replicas of the real world. We are constructing a discourse
which not only talks about social reality but is an autonomous enterprise
in itself. Therefore, when using weak concepts like 'competition', 'conflict',
'interests', etc., we construct other concepts of a non-common-sense
nature. Our concepts should not be too easily translatable into the
language of everyday life or the rhetoric of ideological competition.
What, then, about the other pole of knowledge - 'will'? This pole
represents the given, that which cannot be explained or rationalized. The
recognition of 'will' makes nihilism and relativism fruitless and self
contradictory. For example, nihilism is impossible since it always takes
something for given - the nihilist conviction or the positive value of a
nihilism. To recognize the will marks the ambition of Verbundenheit, the
wish to connect, to associate being and thinking. 'Will', like 'prejudice',
lives at the ontological level, and is a precondition of seeing something as,
for example, an expression of an 'interest'. When we identify something as
an interest we can do this because 'interest' is not the whole story.
21 I think that this thesis comes near to Pierre Bourdieu's ( 1 988) approach - that the social
scientist should avoid common-sense concepts since he otherwise would get involved in his
own object thus making it hard to maintain the very precondition of his own activity - the
necessary difference between the object and the description of it that the scientist creates.
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22 Mannheim, in a paper from the mid- 1930s, quoted from Kettler and Meja ( 1984).
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the gap between politics and science could be bridged, that a 'synthesis'
was possible.
In his main work, Ideologie und Utopie, Mannheim accuses rationalism of
ignoring the irrational and discrediting the 'volitional' base of human
existence. This does not mean, however, that Mannheim surrenders to a
Lebensphilosophie. For example, he viewed the emphasis on Erlebnis as the
hallmark of irrationalism (Kettler et aI., 1 990: 1 463). Instead, he defended
Erfahrung as the main source of genuine, historical knowledge, as an
openness to the unknown where authentic learning becomes possible
without the necessity to postulate an absolutely 'objective' one-dimensional
reality. He defends rational analysis but, as opposed to Max Weber, does
not recognize any absolute limit between the 'ought' and the 'is' - in other
words, between politics and science. From science politics can learn to
handle matters more rationally, while from politics science can learn how to
apply general rules to specific situations. This general thesis is made more
specific for the situation in the Weimar Republic - sociology is seen as a
partner in the search for a more 'organic', non-individualist approach. 23
Mannheim is searching for an 'organic',24 'dynamic' viewpoint which might
temporarily synthesize the different political perspectives, a viewpoint
which should adjust men to the present historical stage. Such an 'adjust
ment' makes a theory 'true', and here it seems plausible to assume that
Mannheim is not blind to the conservative ideological hegemony.
Having dealt with the 'passive' side of the analysis found in Ideologie und
Utopie, we can now turn to the more 'active' side. Here Mannheim is
pleading for self-reflection among his generation. As we know from another
text - 'The problem of generations' (Mannheim, 1 952c) - he considered
'generation' to be as important a formative factor as class, status, etc.,
because people of the same generation are conditioned by similar experi
ences, especially in times of turbulence. It seems quite obvious that this
thesis is derived from Mannheim's own strong experiences of belonging to a
'generation' with a 'mission' - in his case the so-called 'Sunday Circle' in
Budapest (appr. 1 9 1 5-20) (Kanidi and Vezer, 1 985; Gluck, 1 99 1 ) . In
Ideologie und Utopie Mannheim is clearly writing for a contemporary
audience, hoping to catch the attention of people who are able to save the
constitution and the republic. Towards these ends, Mannheim provides the
useful service of informing his audience of the nature of their own
knowledge and the 'prospects of scientific politics'.
From Carl Schmitt, Mannheim takes the conservative insight that no
knowledge can be 'liberated' from irrational elements. The most important
agent is, in fact, 'Life' itself (Mannheim, 1 990b: 69), while politics aims at
transforming the world according to a structured will. However,
23 Ideology and Utopia (199 1 : 29), from Chapter I, which was written especially for the
English version, and is therefore a self-reflective statement by Mannheim.
24 This metaphor is often used in every harsh critique of the current state. We will see later
that it is also a favourite among radical conservatives.
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38 RADICAL CONSERVATISM A N D TH E FUTU RE O F POLITICS
25 These persons all emphasized the role of myth. However, Mussolini differed from the
other two in believing in the possibility of real 'progress'.
26 The 'activistic intuitionism' is a strategy dealing with nihilism and the experience of
contingency. According to Heidegren ( 1997), there are two main strategies in this dealing:
either to strive for a new stable order, or to hail pure action, that is, a form of chiliastic
immanence. I will show later how this constituted an important discussion among conservative
revolutionaries in the mid-I 920s on whether one should have a 'programme' or not.
27 For a more detailed discussion of this, see Dahl ( 1 995).
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they have had a formative influence on him and his generation. Secondly,
the contemporary situation - the Weimar Republic - requires a synthesis
between, on the one hand, a rationalized society, and on the other, the
irrational, spiritual hunger and other human needs. Dostoyevsky's treatises
on 'Grace' are probably of central importance for understanding
Mannheim's eternal emphasis on the hunger and the other needs.
One of Max Horkheimer's ( 1 990) arguments against Mannheim was that
he did not differentiate between 'insight' and 'ideology'. In this case, I
think it is quite clear that Mannheim is in fact more up to date than Max
Horkheimer. Today it has become much more problematic to distinguish
between 'thought' and 'reality' - a distinction that until recently was
relatively unproblematic for Marxists and positivists. The 'linguistic turn'
(Wittgenstein, Lacan, Gadamer, Habermas and others) has shown us that
things are not that simple - 'Sein das verstanden werden kann, ist
,
Sprache 28 (Gadamer, 1 986: 478). Considering Mannheim's rootedness
in the hermeneutical tradition (Hekman, 1 986) and the absence of a dis
cussion of hermeneutics in classical critical theory, one must conclude that
Mannheim provides a more fruitful orientation than critical theory for
addressing oneself to the fundamental issues of contemporary debate in
social theory.
* * *
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40 RAD I CAL CON S E RVATISM A N D T H E FUTU RE OF POLITICS
While Mannheim stressed the inner logic of political thinking, we now have
to look at how radical conservatism took form as a consequence of the
logics of conservatism and how social and historical circumstances deter
mined the outcome of this logic. The focus will be on twentieth-century
German conservatism for several reasons, some of them already
mentioned. It was here that the dynamics and 'dilemmas' of modern con
servatism were intensified and caused the first form of radical conservatism
- the so-called 'conservative revolution' . Secondly, this form of radical
conservatism had a strong influence on the political reality, ending in the
Third Reich. Thirdly, in the German Weimar Republic questions of
modernization, technology, nihilism and authenticity were at the centre
of public attention, questions that once again are highly relevant in the
Western fin-de-siecle world. My point is far from being ethno- or
Germano-centric. Rather, I will show that the thinking called the con
servative revolution today is revived in political and intellectual discussions
all over the world, and that if all the forms of radical conservatism we see
all over the world do not have an explicit ideology, the conservative
revolutionary ideology could very well serve this place.
I will start my exposition by focusing on how social factors influenced
the formation of political thought - the generational factor, masculinity,
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CONSERVATI SM A N D POL ITICS 41
social strata and economic and social reality, that is, focusing the dynamics
of thought. After this I will discuss the main themes of the conservative
revolution, thus reconnecting to the logic of thinking.
'Let it grow', that is, be true to the 'roots', to let public matters grow
according to their 'nature', was the basic idea in nineteenth-century
conservatism, the A ltkonservatismus that Mannheim analysed. 29 However,
after World War I, the dilemmas of conservatism became sharply visible.
What had begun to 'grow' was not desirable, therefore 'to make' became an
option and a radicalization and renewal among the right began. The
ideology, the content had come into conflict with itself. The values
traditionally defended by conservatism came into conflict with the ambition
of 'letting it grow'.
Originally, nineteenth-century conservatism was almost a cousin to
liberalism. Both were devoted to the questions of freedom and causes of
change ('rationalizing the irrational'). Indeed, the conservatives accepted
'evolution', a break with the status quo since there was real progress
everywhere - the promises of science, technology and social reforms. 30
The conservatives included those who had turned against the French
revolution after first having supported it (Klemperer, 1 957: 1 9). The
conservatives accepted the revolution, but also criticized it: it was based
upon an assumption that humanity could make the world in its own image.
Instead, we must discover the order and follow it, not try to create a new
order, which might lead to terror. The conservatives prefer the known to
the unknown. Organic growth is better than arbitrary rule. The con
servatives also addressed the question of freedom. They meant that it is
context-bound, not an abstract value. Social freedom means obeying the
rules of the country. 'Freedom' was thus not only a liberal project.
The old conservatism also included irrationalism and pessimism. It
agreed with romanticism in that 'Life' must be saved! The ground for
history and existence was order which can never be rationally created. It just
'is'. It also shared the pessimism of Joseph de Maistre who saw the French
revolution as God's punishment. Utopia is not on Earth, but in heaven.
Only by praying does the individual get wisdom and dignity (Lindbom,
1 996). Conservatism was, therefore, clearly intertwined with theology.
However, the dilemma of conservatism was already inherent from the
start: principles or expediency? Values or structure? The latter won in
29 The 'organic' orientation (visible in the metaphors of 'roots', 'growing', etc.) was the
common denominator among several conservative thinkers, developed through their various
reactions to the French revolution - Edmund Burke, Juan Donoso Cortes, etc.
30 This general statement has to be modified a little. On the one hand, there were the pure
reactionary thinkers who rejected every idea of 'progress'; on the other hand, there were men
like Edmund Burke who represented a more 'modern' and 'half-liberal' form of conservatism.
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Germany, with Hegel and Bismarck as the leading figures; freedom became
the freedom to obey. The party transformed from an independent Junker
party to a vehicle of the state, devoid of ethics and religious orientation,
that is values and principles.
At the end of the century writers like Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky
appeared to be complaining about the lack of depth in modern times. They
can be read as criticizing the dominating materialism, and as defenders of
the irrational and invisible. In philosophy and social science, writers like
Vilfredo Pareto, Juan Donoso Cortes and Georges Sorel declared that
'progress' was an illusion. Pareto ( 1 980) was not normative, but considered
this as a fact shown in his historical-sociological studies; Sorel ( 1 969)
considered it as a bourgeois myth; Donoso Cortes saw the idea of progress
as a way of fooling people to believe in paradise at the end of the road,
where only real hell awaited ( 1 979; Herrera, 1 995; 1 32). Although this was
a conservative critique, it came into opposition with mainstream, old
fashioned authoritarian conservatism.
Especially in Germany, this critique had many potential listeners. The
rationalist and liberal traditions were not very strong. It was not a
homogeneous nation state like France or England. Rather, it consisted of
many regions often dominated by pre-capitalist and pre-modern structures.
The new radicalized conservative critique was, as Thomas Mann said, both
anti-nihilist and conservative; in the spirit of Nietzsche it wanted to both
destroy and preserve (Klemperer, 1 957: 38).
The year 1914 came as a blessing from above. For many the emerging war
signified a break with the old and weakened Wilhelmine Reich and a link to
a glorified past, a way to restore an imagined golden age and a modern way
at the same time - that is, modern war technology. This event is often called
'the ideas of 1 9 14', ideas which would form a whole generation.
Now, we have to distinguish between 'generation' as a descriptive and
mobilizing concept. Mannheim aimed at using it as a pure descriptive
concept, but he also hoped that his project was in tune with the times, thus
catching the ears of the young truth-seeking generation. Sadly, even if his
project had validity (Geltung) , Hitler had the actuality (Aktualitat) (Petersen,
1 996). Furthermore, Mannheim, Lukacs and other intellectuals in early
twentieth-century Budapest were looking desperately for an answer to their
cultural needs. The so-called Sunday Circle in Budapest (Karadi & Vezer,
1985; Gluck, 1 99 1 ) was informally chaired by Georg Lukacs. During the late
1 9 1 0s the members gathered on Sundays for informal talks and discussions.
The dominant influences were of a very wide range - Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy,
Simmel, Max Weber, mysticism, etc. What the members wanted was life,
vitality, renewal - needs that also formed the conservative revolutionaries
that were to appear in the 1 920s. This eclecticism expressed both the natural
search for a cultural and intellectual identity of a young generation; the
Zeitgeist; and the dilemma of Hungarian intellectuals: they were critical of
both the undeveloped, half-feudal character of the Hungarian society, and of
capitalism and the emerging modern industrial society with its alienation
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could be read as a kind of 'program' for the Sunday Circle. Here is a short
passage:
I could very well refer to many predecessors whose ways are ours: the Weltan
schauung and life-feeling of Dostoyevsky, Kierkegaard's ethics, the German
Logos, the Hungarian spirit, Lask, Zalai. Furthermore, I could mention the
aesthetic attitude of Paul Ernst and Riegl, the new French poetry . . . Bartok as
our guides. (Mannheim, 1 970: 67)
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36 It was published in 1 9 1 5.
37 Cf. the development of Hendrik de Man during World War II - a leading Belgian social
democrat who thought that only Hitler could save the working class. See, for example,
Sternhell, Neither Left nor Right ( 1986) and Chapter 4 below.
38 Hans Freyer developed this theme in his important book Revolution von Rechts ( 1 93 1 ).
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middle classes had nothing, hardly even a job. Because of their idealism,
they could not become Marxists, thus there was a chance for a Republican
conservatism. But the Versailles treaty changed this. Here 'the war-guilt
clause' made it possible to hold Germany responsible for the war and force
it to pay for the costs with both land and money (Woods, 1 996: 27).
Germans had signed the treaty and they had betrayed Germany, thus there
were enemies, the 'inner Englishmen', and the chance for a Republican
conservatism was gone.
Besides the generational factor and the social place for radical conser
vative values - the middle class - the gender aspect is so obvious that it
tends to be neglected. The radical conservatives were men. Militarism and
nationalism are, at least genealogically, masculine values (Nagel, 1 997). One
has not to accept all of Klaus Theweleit's ( 1 995) psychoanalytical argu
ments to see how the problem of nihilism was intertwined with genderized
factors - glory, heroism, etc. - in the Freikorps-literature. 39
The masculinity complexes in the Youth Movement had been observed
already by its own historian, Hans Bluher (Mosse, 1 964: 1 76ff.). In his
book Die Deutsche Wandervogelbewegung als erotisches Phiinomen, from
1 9 1 2, he wrote about an erotic energy, 'Eros', that deepened the friendship
between its members. Gymnastics and nude bathing were mechanisms for
strengthening the inner cohesion of this male society.
This male culture probably went hand in hand with a fear of the female.
Thus, already in 1933 there appeared an openly anti-feminist essay in a
national socialist journal by Julius Evola. 40
The concept 'conservative revolution' first appeared in the Berlin paper Die
Volksstimme in 1 848 in reference to contemporary political turbulence. The
first more frequent and serious use of the term, however, appeared among
Russian writers, among them Dostoyevsky, as a metaphor for what was to
be done in the world where God had died.
The first German to use the phrase was Thomas Mann. In an essay from
1 92 1 on Nietzsche, Mann wrote 'Conservatism needs nothing more than
spirit in order to be more revolutionary than any form of positivist-liberal
enlightenment, and Nietzsche was right from the start . . . nothing less than
a conservative revolution' (quoted from Lenk, 1 989: 1 1 1 ) . However, it was
Hugo von Hoffmansthal, in a speech in 1 927 on 'Writing as the spiritual
room of the nation', who brought the concept wider attention (Stern, 1 965;
Gay, 1 970; Broch, 1 984). Von Hoffmansthal was expressing a widespread
39 Junger and other writers, ex-soldiers who continued the life of war in the nomadizing
Freecorps, smashing bolsheviks, republicans, Jews, etc. The subject in this literature is the love
of war, its sensations, excitements, brutality, etc.
40 'Feminismus und heroische Tradition', Der Ring, 6 June 1933. Here one can read that
'der Feminismus list] ein Symptom der Entartung im strengsten Wortsinn'.
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41 lung is interesting since he is almost the only prominent Christian among the con
servative revolutionaries. ludaism and Christianity are blamed for having introduced the idea
of progress, and for their egalitarian components. On lung, see Struve (1 974).
42 Some other important works are: von Klemperer (1 957), Sontheimer (1 962), Lebovics
(1 969), Stern ( 1 965), Dupeux (1 985), Lenk (1 989) and Sieferle (1 995). The most well-known
work in English is probably Herf ( 1984), the most detailed work in English is Woods (1 996).
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CONSERVATISM A N D POLITICS 47
suggests that all share a central Leitfigur, a central idea and image. By using
this method he is able to see issues that are invisible from a traditional left
right perspective, and, above all, the central role of the conception of time
and history as circular, nonlinear. Thus, their favourite metaphors are the
Ring, the Circle, the eternal Return, the cycle of Life itself; the negative
metaphor, progress, is conceived as the 'arrow'. This is perhaps best
illustrated by a poem by Ernst Junger's younger brother Friedrich Georg:
Kyklos! Kyklos!
[. . .J
Wiederkehr! Wiederkehr!
[ . . .J
Heil meiner Schlange!
[. . .J
In der Mitte ruht jeder Kreis.43
(Quoted from Mohler, 1 989: 1 0 1 f.)
43 'Cycle! Cycle! Return! Return! Long live my snake! Every circle rests in its middle'.
44 During 1 949-53 he was Ernst Junger's private secretary, then correspondent in Paris.
From 1964 to 1 985 he was the director for the Siemens-stiftung in Munich. Currently he is also
one of de Benoist's good friends and advises the extreme right Republikaner party in Germany.
45 This is, of course, not the whole truth: among the conservative revolutionaries we can find
full-blooded Realpolitikern like the Strasser brothers and the national bolshevik Ernst Niekisch.
46 This slogan is frequently used by the nouvelle droite in France, and by the journal Junge
Freiheit in Germany. Perhaps the most impressive attempts to write an 'un-political' cosmol
ogy which can serve the role as a 'spiritual' base for fascism and radical conservatism are the
works of the Italian philosopher Julius Evola, particularly his main work Rivolte Contro II
Mondo Moderno published in 1 969. For an introduction to Evola, see Hansen ( 1 99 1 ) and
Sheehan ( 1 98 1 ). I have consulted the German translation (Evola, 1993).
47 For a generational and international approach to the ideas of 1 9 1 4, see Wohl (1 979).
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48 Moeller van den Bruck's Das Dritte Reich must be one of the most furious attacks
on liberalism ever: 'Liberalism was "the terrifying power of the nineteenth century'" (von
Klemperer, 1957: 1 63, quoting Moeller, Das Dritte Reich, p. 68). Moeller van den Bruck
was also the German editor of Dostoyevsky's works, and he called him a true conservative
revolutionary in Das Recht der jungen Volker ( 1 9 1 9). The relationship between
Dostoyevsky and the conservative revolution is a long and complicated story, too long
to discuss here.
49 For a demonstration of the modernism among certain thinkers within Weimar radical
conservatism, see Herf ( 1984) and Bohrer ( 1 978).
50 Mosse ( 1964) gives a good description of this anti-modernist stream. For these groups,
Volk, blood and soil (and most often anti-Semitism) are placed in the foreground, while the
modernists treat these factors as of secondary importance.
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left then and now, we must ask if there are any differences. Many writers
have emphasized the similarities. Kurt Sontheimer (1 962: 393), for example,
argues that '[t]he spiritual [seelische] dynamics of the leftist intellectuals in
their fight against war, capitalism and intellectual obscurity was similar to
the spiritual dynamics of the viilkischen irrationalists'. There might be a
point in this, but it neglects some basic differences. As I said earlier, the left
has emphasized the need for a change of 'material' structure, the right being
more interested in a 'spiritual reawakening'. There is also a slight difference
between 'anti-capitalism' and 'pro-socialism'. While the left was the latter, it
also embraced the former. But for the right, anti-capitalism did not
primarily mean being in favour of socialism. Rather, for them 'anti
capitalism' was a reaction against Britain and finance capital, to a large
degree synonymous with the Jews. But these differences do not erase their
shared anti-liberalism.
Even if the new radical conservatism of the conservative revolution was
a way to come to terms with the dilemmas of conservatism, it could not
escape from new dilemmas. A discussion in the Weimar Republic on the
goals and strategy of the New Nationalism highlights this.
As I have mentioned, the new conservatism was critical of the 'struc
tural' orientation of the old conservatism, and could be said to be wanting
to turn to a 'value-conservatism'. But then they have to formulate what
values they want to defend. That is, they need some kind of 'programme'.
However, a programme must set up some basic values, and then the
strategy for realizing them has to be formulated. Once again, an instru
mental rationality appears.
Between 1 925 and 1 929 these issues were discussed widely, and especially
by Ernst Junger (Woods, 1 996: 75ff.). Junger wrote in 1 926 that 'we' must
have a programme, an aim. But what was the aim? Most of the new
conservative intellectuals agreed on what they were against - liberalism,
Jews, Freemasons, etc. And their aim was to create a new Germany. But
what should this new nationalism contend? No one had an answer. Partly,
the rise of fascism in Italy influenced many to attack the idea of a pro
gramme, and instead to focus on acts, the deed as being the spirit of the
new nationalist revolution. The focus on the deed also reincarnated the
glorification of the experiences of World War I . Wilhelm Kleinau wrote in
1 927: 'Fascism possessed something far more valuable than a programme:
it possessed the will to act and basic principles in the form of attitude and
character' (quoted from Woods, 1 996: 85). Thus, in the end the
conservative revolution was anti-programmatic since it did not want to
play in the same arena as liberalism. It wanted a nationalist leader who, by
definition, could suspend programmes if they did not serve the Nation.
Programmes only cause splits and conflicts, things not desirable in the new
nation. There was no 'aim', but rather a 'basic attitude': unity in the
struggle for nationalism and ('German') socialism. Of course, in the end
this attitude could not resist national socialism.
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2
On a more general level, the dilemma of both old and new conservatism
can be put this way: how can we construct the living? Conservatism aims at
defending the organic state of the thing, letting it grow. But can you
construct anything that is organic? Construction better fits mechanical
matters. Ernst Junger's paradoxical formulation of this dilemma was
exactly this: 'organic construction'. Junger operates with a distinction
between the depth and the surface. l When we see reality, we see Forms of
something more essential Kraft. The problem of politics is, thus, to give
-
this Kraft a proper form, to let life, the vital force, reach a more 'authentic'
stage. This is in accordance with Heidegger's view - to use technology
(Gestell) under the right 'banner'. It reveals how the whole issue of
modernity is present in this context. The old conservatism was originally
anti-modernist, but during the rationalization of the irrational it accepted
progress. The new radical conservatism, therefore, could go in two direc
tions, and indeed it did. There was an anti-modernist critique of
civilization, big cities, modern technology etc. 2 Oswald Spengler was the
key player. But the pro-modernist 'wing' was much more important,
Junger being the big name here. We could use Dupeux's ( 1 993) distinction
between 'cultural pessimism' and 'voluntarism' here. The former said 'no'
to the new world, the latter 'yes' but only came up with the glorification of
action.
We need to go further with the distinction between conservatism and
radical conservatism. While I have been mainly occupied with the develop
ment of the distinction, we also have to summarize the theoretical differ
ences. It seems like a good idea to look at Kurt Lenk's ( 1 989: l 3ff.)
description of what is meant by 'conservatism'. A common method is to
reserve the term for the pure aristocrat-clerical reaction to the French
revolution. Thus, it has clear ties with the nobility and the old bureaucracy.
This 'historical-specific' meaning can declare that conservatism is dead. 3
However, I have already taken it as given that this interpretation is
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homogenization, that is, the same signs and meanings appear all over the
world. This comes into conflict with what Benjamin Barber ( 1 995) has
called 'Jihad',4 the defence of local and cultural specifities.
As I see it, radical conservatism is not a homogeneous 'movement'.
Rather, it is a basic attitude that can take different forms. For example,
there is indeed a radical conservative critique of both fascism and nazism,
above all of their 'unspirituality' and totalitarianism. Men like Schmitt and
Junger probably saw themselves as superior beings, able to control some of
the extremism in the NSDAP party, sometimes, as in the case of Schmitt,
by being an extremist himself. The leftists within the radical conservative
movement in pre-World War II Germany were at odds with Hitler because
he betrayed the socialist ideas of the Nazi movement: some were killed
by the Nazis (e.g., Gregor Strasser), some were imprisoned (e.g., Ernst
Niekisch), and some left the country (e.g., Otto Strasser and Karl O.
Paetel). Oswald Spengler had a very different reason for distancing himself
from the Nazis - he disliked the 'democratic' and 'socialist' trends they
embodied in the form of mass politics! (Woods, 1 996: 1 28f.). Heidegger
seems to have had similar reasons - that the Nazis betrayed their original
conservative-revolutionary ideas (Bourdieu, 1 99 1 ; Safranski, 1 994).
As I have already said, the big names for the conservative revolutionaries
were Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Freidrich Nietzsche. But what were the
elements in the thinking of these two writers that gave spiritual inspiration?
An attempt to answer this question can indirectly highlight our contem
porary political and cultural situation.
Practically all of the conservative revolutionaries mention Nietzsche as
their mentor. A compliment by Ernst Junger is typical: 'the lonely
Nietzsche, whom we have to thank for practically everything that moves us
most profoundly' (quoted from Woods, 1 996: 29). Thomas Mann was
another admirer. In Nietzsche, Mann saw the genuine conservative revolu
tionary. In his Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man ( 1 983), Mann finds in
Nietzsche (and also in Luther, Goethe and Schopenhauer) the idea of the
anti-democratic right of the individual. In an essay from 1 9 1 5 (on Zola) he
asks polemically: 'What is power if not the same as right?' (quoted from
Schroter, 1 968: 97f.).
We could go on for a long time. It is obvious that this generation saw
Nietzsche as an anti-democratic, anti-capitalist thinker who wanted to
defend and restore Life. Of course, this is part of Nietzsche's project.
However, Nietzsche was often ambivalent and changed his positions. Both
4 This choice of metaphor is both unhappy and incorrect: unhappy because it could
strengthen already latent anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiments; incorrect because the original
meaning of Jihad is 'the obligation to extend Islam' and thus 'holy war' is only one
interpretation of this original meaning.
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Aschheim ( 1 995) and Antonio (1 995) have shown how the radical right had
to transform Nietzsche, how it emphasized Nietzsche's aristocratic attitude,
his critique of bourgeois values, capitalism and democracy, while totally
neglecting his radical individualism and anti-nationalism. Of course,
Elisabeth F6rster-Nietzsche's (his sister) well-known falsifications made
this easier. She truly helped the Nazis to depict Nietzsche as their philo
sopher. As Alfred Baeumler, the second chief ideologist of the NSDAP (the
first being Arthur Rosenberg), wrote:
If today we see German youth on the march under the banner of the swastika,
we are reminded of Nietzsche's 'untimely meditations' in which this youth was
appealed to for the first time. It is our greatest hope that the state today is wide
open for youth. And if today we shout 'Heil Hitler' to this youth, at the same
time we are also hailing Nietzsche. (Quoted from Wistrich, 1 995: 8)
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Of his novels The Brothers Karamazov ( 1 943) is probably the one most
read by the conservative revolutionaries. It is quite easy to understand
why. It is a gold mine of ideas: the insight that if you are an intelligent
sceptic, you are wise enough to doubt the reasons for your scepticism; 'evil'
and 'good' are relative, bound to situations. But most central is the tale of
'The Grand Inquisitor'. Here we are told a story where Jesus Christ
appears again. The secular interpreter of Christianity is the Grand
Inquisitor, who becomes furious because of the return of Christ. Christ
wants to give people inner liberty, the right to choose, but the Grand
Inquisitor knows that this is too heavy a burden for the masses. They have
to believe in revelation and authority. The weak people cannot have
freedom, as this can only end in tyranny; thus, they have to obey, believe in
authority and its definitions of good and evil. This might describe
Dostoyevsky's own two alternatives. My guess is that the conservative
revolutionaries recognized their own options here: either being members of
the elite which knew it was wrong, or being among those who had been
fooled. They probably identified themselves with the Grand Inquisitor.
These three men were the master thinkers of the conservative revolution,
undoubtedly the first great ideologists of radical conservatism. I want to
highlight their common basic orientation, including an existential theme so
strong that it is more connected to their inner experiences than to social
and historical conditions. This inner experience has often been called
'decisionism' (Krockow, 1 99 1 ) and I think that this is still a viable
orientation.
Why these three men? Because they represent decisionism in different
ways, and I think that this is the most important link to the political
activism which is at the centre of what could be reconstructed as the
conservative-revolutionary ideology. Their judgement of the Weimar
Republic was that it could not decide what it wanted to be. In this context,
all three men are radical conservatives: they share what Mannheim would
have seen as a form of chiliasm - they want a unity between what they
think, do and their goals. However, in a more general context, Carl
Schmitt is not so 'radical'. He is extremely conservative, focusing more on
order, state and authority than on a need for national rebirth. My main
reason for including Schmitt among the conservative revolutionaries,
despite this fact, is that almost all positive interpretations of his works are
clearly radical conservative.
'Decisionism' means the glorification of the act of deciding and a faith in
the value of the decision in itself, totally independent from its contents.
Their ways to this attitude differed. Carl Schmitt wanted (although these
are not his own words) to bring theology and existential matters into
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What if it were possible that the human, that peoples ( VOlker) in their greatest
practices ( Umtrieben) and legacies ( Gemachten), are linked to beings (Seinden)
and yet had long fallen out of Being (Sein) without knowing it, and that this was
the innermost and most powerful source ( Grund) of their decline ( Verfalls)?
(Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, quoted from Ward, 1995: xx)
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was not dead, and this was connected to their anti-liberalism since to call
for something universal, the ideas of 1 789, human rights, Reason etc.,
means to free oneself from the burden or liberty to decide.
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PART II
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3
According to many, indeed too many to mention, the world has gone
wrong. Suffering, discontentment, protest and critique go hand in hand
with the everyday-life acceptance of taking care, earning enough money,
etc. During the last decade we have seen the return of a furious attack on
the all too 'Western' character of the West. The attack comes from a 'new
right' which deploys many ideas of the 'conservative revolution'. Most
explicitly, this attack, or counter-movement, is present in France and
Germany. This has nothing to do with the 'old right' which in these
countries, and above all in the USA, identifies itself as the true defender of
the West. Even if the old and the new right have some common views on,
for example, multiculturalism and nationalism, the new right views the
West that it belongs to as having gone too far towards commodification
and individualization, and that there is a strong need for reorientation and
a national rebirth.
In this chapter I want to attempt to grasp the 'meta-political' sources in
this kind of political thinking, the personal reactions and experiences that
drive people to a new radical right. One central feature is the fear of, and
turning against, reflexivity, which may end in a pathological hyper
reflexivity. By doing this, I think I also clarify one of the reasons why the
ideas of the new right might be attracting more and more people. I also
want to demonstrate some connections between 'conservative revolution',
'technocratic conservatism', radical conservatism and the new right, and
how the critique of reflexivity can be found in many separate discourses:
political thinking, theology and psychiatry. The connection is the stress on
anti-reflexivity, which reveals that all of these traditions of thought
together constitute a strong critique of modernity. First of all, I have to
give a preliminary definition of 'reflexivity' and 'anti-reflexivity' since their
meanings can differ.
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Our ideas of or about future conduct are our tendencies to act in several
alternative ways in the presence of a given environmental situation . . . . Ideas, as
distinct from acts, or as failing to issue in overt behaviour, are simply what we do
not do; they are possibilities of overt responses which we test out implicitly in the
central nervous system and then reject in favour of those which we do in fact act
upon or carry into effect. . . . Intelligence is largely a matter of selectivity.
Delayed reaction is necessary to intelligent conduct. The organisation, implicit
testing, and final selection by the individual of his overt responses or reactions to
the social situations which confront him and which present him with problems of
adjustment, would be impossible if his overt responses or reactions could not in
such situations be delayed until this process of organising, implicitly testing, and
finally selecting is carried out. (Mead, 1 947: 99)
Thus, delayed reaction takes place in time, where the individual can make
use of his or her social, cultural and normative competencies. He or she
can make judgements which can be rationally argued for, and also predict
possible reactions to his or her actions and propositions.
To defend reflexivity is a classic intellectual strategy. However, this does
not force us to deny and de-emphasize non-reflective activity. For example,
the abilities of playing ball-games, having sex, etc. can be destroyed by
reflection, and if one suffers from insomnia, for example, the worst thing
one can do is to start thinking about it. Ecstasy belongs to the realm of life
where thinking indeed plays a minor role. As long as we discuss individual
matters, non-reflexive activity does not cause any problems. However,
things look different when we move to the collective level.
On a collective social level there can also be reflexivity. According to
many social theorists (Giddens, 1 99 1 ; Beck, 1 992; Lash, 1 993), we now live
in the second form of modernity where institutions (governments,
corporations, etc.) have to take into account the effects of, and reactions
to, their actions. So far so good. However, what really bothers me is
collective anti-reflexivity. When, for example, the leading Russian 'national
bolshevik' Alexander Dugin ( 1 992) talks about the 'collective uncon
scious', I where the collective includes only its own ethnos, he wants to
replace modern, individual reflexivity with an irrational pre-cognitive sense
of belonging to a Nation. Not reflexivity, but pure reflex is the goal, when
Russians are supposed to form an 'organic democracy', that is a func
tioning body where the brain works without reflection. The large mass is
asked to give up subjective identities and rational capacities. When the
Nation or the State demands something, there is no room for delayed
responses, since these entities should be sacred, that is beyond reflection.
There is also the imperative of not missing the chances of the Moment, a
moment that will perhaps never appear again. This is probably one of the
strongest causes for Heidegger's affiliation with the Nazis. Hitler was a
revelation. A 'no' to him could mean that the moment could be lost
I This term stems from Carl Gustav lung, who claimed that every Volk had its specific
'collective unconscious'. Thus he distinguished between the Aryan and lewish people (Volker).
See Ramsay (I 992}.
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2 As Aschheim ( 1994) points out, e.G. lung has a very similar interpretation of Nietzsche
here.
3 Cf. 'Our knowledge will take its revenge on us, just as ignorance exacted its revenge
during the Middle Ages' (Nietzsche, quoted in Sass, 1992: 324).
4 The so-called 'Asconians', that is the anarchists, libertarians, feminists, etc., united in the
dance, at Monte Veritas in Ascona, Switzerland during the first two decades of this century,
can be regarded as true Dionysian Nietzscheans (see Green, 1986). On the rightist readings of
Nietzsche, and how they had to transform him, see Aschheim, 1 995.
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hard to transform him into a defender of reflexive modernity. The path that
Klages took seems to be a more reasonable option, from the intellectual
anti-intellectualist point of view.
Nietzsche is one of the founders of modern philosophy, and in what
follows I locate some of his heirs insofar as they relate to anti-reflexive
reactions, that is, radical conservatism that combines anti-bourgeosie
reactions and the critique of the homogenization of culture with anti
reflexivism, that is an attempt to create impulse-driven actions within a
nationalist, mythic framework.
In France, the 'new right' has been almost synonymous with the writer and
editor Alain de Benoist. It is rather well known that he tries to apply
Antonio Gramsci's sketch of the struggle of cultural hegemony to a rightist
context. Obviously, the left was in certain aspects successful in doing this
for their purposes. Of course, it did not conquer the political power, but
nowadays it is quite dominating, at least if you believe what the new right
says, 5 in the newspapers, television, the book market and what is still left
of a 'public sphere'. The central concept in de Benoist's discourse is
'culture'. He wants to restore the value of what he sees as lost, (Indo-)
European, that is pre-ludaic-Christian culture. Culture is also the primal
battlefield of hegemony. He wants to stop 'the reduction of all cultures
,
[Kulturen] to a single "world-civilization" [ Weltzivilization] (de Benoist,
1985: 33, original emphasis). Thus, in his foregrounding of culture, its
opposite, civilization, is also hinted at. Of course, these concepts are used
in their classical German conservative sense. Culture stands for spiritual
growth, civilization for materialism, atomism, individualism and econo
mism, and, particularly important in this context, for hyper-intellectualism.
For the new right in France, universities and schools are seen as factories,
where people learn a lot, but forget why they should. This leads to a
paralysation of thinking: 'I know people who have learnt so much that it
makes them unable to write anything. . . . Today, one has doubt. And
more important, one has anxiety over doing the wrong thing' (de Benoist,
1 985: 3 1 ). Instead of bringing order to the world, intellectualization leads
to an inner chaos where nothing is possible. The domination of economy,
regarded as 'the base' in both liberalism and Marxism, strengthens this
tendency since it is the best example of reflexivity: calculations, expecta
tions, etc. De Benoist's nouvelle droite differs from the 'old' right: 'Between
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68 RAD I CAL CONSERVATISM AN D T H E FUTU RE OF POLITI CS
the true right and the economist right, writes Julius Evola, there is no
identity, rather a total contrast' (de Benoist, 1 985: 1 43). The saviour is
culture, and the over-civilized culture has to be brought back home to its
roots, to the popular culture of a homogenized territory. Reflexivity means
reduction, one sees only the abstract, general side in a world of differences.
It is hard, if not impossible, to reflect upon the unique and concrete, that
which just 'is' and nothing more. Hence, de Benoist pleas for 'ethno
pluralism', against 'world-civilization', a world where each 'culture' (ethnic,
religious, racial, etc. belonging) has the right to develop in its safe territory
(we will get back to this in Chapter 4 below). 6 Since 'culture' is the centre
of everything, it is in this place that he anchors his form of concrete,
radical conservatism.
This strategy, 'cultural struggle', has been politically realized in Austria,
where the leader of the ultra-nationalist FPC> party, Jorg Haider, has
written a book on it (Haider, 1 993). It is striking how central 'culture' as a
point of reference and orientation has become during recent decades.
Maybe Fukuyama (1 992) is right in one respect, namely the victory of
capitalism. Even in 'socialist' countries like Vietnam and China the
economy is basically capitalist. In the Western world, social democracy is
busy cutting down welfare costs in order to make the capitalist economy
run more smoothly. Even if the class society has not disappeared, it has at
least been redefined.
Sociology has not only described, but also been part of this process.
Pierre Bourdieu ( 1 988), for example, has invested tremendous effort in
order to show how style, taste and consumption are signs and creators of
class differences. The most frequent example is Gerhard Schulze's (1 993)
concept of the Erlebnisgesellschaft, a society where everyone hunts new
sensations, illusions, play, etc. He dates the birth of this society back to
1 968 when cultural features like the length of the hair, musical taste, etc.
came into the foreground due to the end of scarcity in the Western world
and the rise of mass consumption. It now seemed like not power and
economic wealth, but taste was what made people differ from each other. I
say 'seemed' because the change was due to a new sensibility to aesthetic
matters.
Even if sociology, like every discourse, has a constructive, practical
aspect, this description of course also represents something real. During the
Cold War and the happy days of the welfare state project the role of
economy as generating action and identity was over-emphasized, and the
ideological dimensions of the political turbulence of the late 1 960s also.
Thus, aesthetic and cultural aspects were almost hidden. But as soon as
'culture' turns a central point of orientation they become visible. Of course,
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we run the opposite risk if social and political aspects are viewed as
expressions of culture. I am not criticizing Bourdieu's and Schulze's
different approaches here. On the contrary, Schulze's work is especially
illuminating in many respects.
Schulze, a German sociologist, takes Ulrich Beck's ( 1 992) thesis on
'individualization' as given. That is, a post-industrial condition where
individuals have to construct their own biographies without being able to
use social norms which could give rise to a self-evident identity. Less and
less is 'given' or transmitted from the social and historical context.
However, Schulze shows that this does not mean the end of the social -
new communities, groups and contexts are formed due to similarities in
taste. New forms of competition might then occur where the goal is not
primarily to secure political or economic interests, but the hegemony of a
definition of what kind of taste, which sensations and what consumption
can satisfy the aesthetic needs.
On the one hand, thus, Schulze might be blinded by the culturalist light,
and on the other hand, he might be describing new central processes in
society. In this context, he is interesting because he obviously dislikes what
he sees. Individualization does not only mean freedom, but also the burden
of living without self-evidence. There is too much contingency and so
individuals have to reflect too much, worry too much about themselves. He
thinks that a revival of cyclical time might help here, that is, we can take
what was given yesterday as still valid today, recognize repetition instead
of hunting for the new. 7 Reflexivity is part of the problem, not the solution.
7 Cf. the Marxist fonn of cultural criticism in the 1970s. For example, Krovoza (1976)
argues that there are limits to the capital logic of production (cumulative types of process) and
the reproduction of human beings, that is socialization, which represents non-cumulative types
of process; Negt and Kluge ( 1974) call for the necessity of pre-economic, social human beings
capable of producing 'the emancipatory minimum'.
8 The need for 'understanding' and 'translation' is not 'out there'. The most recent example
of this is the creation and separation of one language (Serbocroatian) into three (Serbian,
Croatian and Bosnian) in the fonner Yugoslavia.
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Technocratic conservatism
The critique of reflexivity and the call for a more authentic culture can be
found in many discourses, and I now turn to 'technocratic conservatism',
which refers to the standpoints that three former radical conservatives -
Arnold Gehlen, Helmut Schelsky and Hans Freyer - developed after
World War II. Their conservatism was 'deradicalized' (Muller, 1 987), that
is, they no longer saw any radical utopias and alternatives to a modern,
differentiated and complex society. In this context, technocratic conser
vatism is interesting, since it thought that reflexivity was a burden, and that
contemporary society had already 'solved' this problem. The solution was
that modern institutions had institutionalized the necessary minimum of
reflexivity so that ordinary people did not have to bother about complex
matters.
In his post-war works, Arnold Gehlen stresses that the insecure, unstable
human being needs institutions to secure him or her from the dangers of
reflexivity. Institutions at the same time alienate and release people, but
alienation is not only negative, it is also positive objectification, which
creates a distance from too much reflection. When one asks for 'meaning',
something is already false (Terkessidis, 1 995: 26f.), so this way people are
freed from the eternal asking and having troubles.
In a famous broadcast discussion from 1 965, Gehlen and Adorno dis
cussed the subject 'Is sociology a science of human beings?' (Adorno and
Gehlen, 1 975). Adorno's arguments make Gehlen's sociology more visible.
One dominant, underlying theme is the rise of modern institutions and the
problem of reification. Their different ideas are condensed in a short
passage:
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9 Cf. the discussions on democracy, participation and elites between John Dewey and
Walter Lippman (Westbrook, 1991).
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governed society could defend freedom. Thus, one can count them among
'The Macchiavellians' (Burnham, 1 943), to whom we can perhaps even add
Francis Fukuyama today.
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Therefore, there must be order, but, several hundred years after Hobbes,
how? The state must be the ordering principle. That is, of course, Schmitt's
answer. As Terkessidis ( 1 995) has pointed out, the demand for order is
caused by the fear of chaos. Chaos is, of course, that state of nature where,
according to Hobbes, everyone fights each other. Just like in Hobbes,
Schmitt calls for the state to prevent this. The state is there to fill a void,
something that is, like God, beyond questioning. But 1 789, after Hobbes,
marked the rise of reflexivity, institutionalized in the parliament. Therefore,
Schmitt is against parliamentary democracy whose purpose is to settle
arguments through discussion and compromise. The task, according to
Schmitt, is to construct and build a new state which is the organic
expression of a people, and thus cannot be called into question. The state
becomes the mythological and quasi-religious equivalent of the people. But
it depends on a people as an organic community. This community can exist
only if two premises are at hand:
The first premise rests upon the will to define the essence of one's own
people and to declare minorities as strange, or enemies. Here, Schmitt is a
romanticist, postulating volkisch essences.
Schmitt's central distinction between friend and enemy as the central
dimension in politics is famous. We can only know ourselves through the
enemy, he says. The enemy has two dimensions. First, the general political
dimension, which leads to cultural relativism, people standing against other
people, and no universal principles at hand in order to judge which are
right. The second, geopolitical dimension is Schmitt's concrete enemy,
above all Britain, the Jews l l and the USA. These enemies advocate 'uni
versalism', which, according to Schmitt, means an ideological transforma
tion of a particular interest into an absolute claim. Instead, every nation is,
in its own eyes, superior to the other nation. Thus, each state should
protect its own interests (its particular culture), and thus by definition has
the right to exert influence in the surrounding territories, that is, to protect
its Groj3raum (Schmitt, 1 98 1).
10 Cf. Schmitt (1 985a: 1 3f.): 'Any real democracy depends, not only on the treatment of
that which is unequal as unequal. . . . The political power of a democracy shows itself in its
ability to eliminate or keep away that which is strange and unequal, which threatens
homogeneity.' While this is a radical-democrat standpoint in an undifferentiated society, it
becomes the opposite in a differentiated, complex society.
I I In the original 1941 edition of Land und Meer, Schmitt's anti-Semitism is obvious.
However, in the 1981 edition these passages are gone, without any mentioning of the
omissions.
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Schmitt advocates 'concrete' analyses and finds that modern power and
authority, society as a whole, is abstract. Even the state and the nation
become abstract if they do not know where to go. Who are 'we' then?
According to Schmitt, only 'the enemy' can provide such an answer. Then
the state is depending on a relationship. If we know whom we might fear,
we can know what they fear of us, and during this exchange we can get
to see ourselves. To recognize the enemy also means to recognize the
possibility of war. In such a light, different kinds of 'peace project', such as
the United Nations and the European Union, become suspect. When, in the
name of peace, they attacked Iraq, this was 'the first pacifist war'
(Maschke, 1 99 1 ). War can be in the service of peace only by taking refuge
in the principle of 'humanity'. Then, according to Maschke, the enemy
becomes a criminal, punishable in a court, and not a brother with equal
rights.
Schmitt and Schmittians have a point here, at the same time as they are
totally crazy. Their point is that ideals like 'humanity' might conceal
something more fundamental. But they do not escape from the dangers of
fundamentalism this way. Logically, the state as they see it can only be
based on similarity, and the 'different' is the enemy. The step to xeno
phobia and exclusion is obviously anything but gigantic.
A Schmittian slogan could be 'liberate the state!'. The state should not
be subordinated to ideals, the parliament, etc. No, it should incarnate the
feelings - the language, culture and habits - of the people who live in
the territory controlled by it. Reflexive intellectuality can, of course,
exterminate these reactions and feelings of organic communities.
Radical conservatives are, as many have pointed out, modernists. Unlike
the old conservatives, they say 'yes' to modern technology and efficiency,
but they also differ from other modernist camps when they do not want to
say 'yes' to reflexivity. Instead, they dream of a modernized illusion, the
possibility that something - the nation and/or the state - can just 'be',
exercising its power without being questioned. The new rightists do not
seem to think that when God is dead, everything is permitted. Rather,
nothing is possible (de Benoist, 1 985: 32). There must be an 'it is', a
foundation. This foundation is not based on normativity, nor on tran
scendental criterias. 'It' is pure power and strength. It has not to be
reflected upon, for if that happens it becomes clear that 'it' is nothing. It is
real, as long as it stays (to use Jacques Lacan's concepts) real and
imaginary. 1 2
The rightists are close to the communitarian standpoint here: 'freedom'
is nothing that can exist 'outside' communities (Kaltenbrunner, 1985: 7 1 ),
freedom is the freedom to belong to something. The new and young con
servatives are of the same opinion. Like the old ones, they practise political
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Sacrifice
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\ 3 This shows that anti-Semitism cannot only have emotional, but also intellectual reasons.
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To sum up: I am not discussing whether there is a real need for some
kind of sacrifice in modern society. I have just wanted to demonstrate how
the critique of reflexivity is connected to this issue. Sacrifice is beyond
reflection, and means obeying God, law or community; it is not to be
hindered by 'delayed reaction'. Reflection might lead to critical questions
about the necessity of sacrifice. Therefore, some tendencies in society today
might very well lead to a stronger anti-reflexive reaction.
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Life-world or system?
Reflexivity
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There is certainly a longing for the sacred, the 'it is' . But is it possible
today to create a sacred 'state'? I think the chances are relatively small.
Rather, the market can provide sacred products - the identity industry,
identity movements, new pseudo-sacred sects and churches, etc. Indeed, the
modern world has turned into an inner world, where people go hunting
solutions to their own life traumas. The public sphere has become frag
mented and mediated by strange modes of communication where face-to
face interaction and communication become obsolete (Sennett, 1 978). But
we have learned from history that such prophecies, whose function it is to
give us security, might be radically false. 14
14 According to Max Weber (1974: 1 55), prophecies belong to the religious sphere, and the
modern, scientific man should 'bear the fate of the times like a man'.
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This seems to be true, as well for the old value-conservatism as for radical
conservatism, but to a lesser degree for mainstream structural conserva
tism. In fact there is a certain connection between the first two, especially
in the link between the Spanish conservative thinker Juan Donoso Cortes
( 1 809-53) and Carl Schmitt.
Juan Donoso Cortes is a true religious conservative thinker. If one
separates politics from theology there can only be terror and chaos. His
main thesis is that God exists, and if so, the history of humankind is a
history of decline and omnipotence (Cortes, 1 979). Every revolution is a
revolution against God. The revolutions of the nineteenth century were
caused by the desire of the masses to be as rich as the upper classes. Before
the socialist revolutions, the bourgeoisie wanted to have as much as the
aristocracy; before that the aristocracy wanted what the kings had; and the
kings wanted to be God. Thus, every upheaval against the order is a denial
of God.
According to Donoso Cortes our civilization has turned from an
affirmation of God into a denial: from that God is so sublime that he
cannot do anything on earth, to that he is everything that is done on earth,
that is, that God is humanity. Then God almost ceases to have any
existence since there is no room for a divine law. However, he is an
optimist: 'Humanly speaking, Catholicism owes its success to the sound
ness of its logic, and, even if it were not led by the hand of God, its logic
would suffice to make its triumph even to the remotest corners of the
world' (Cortes, 1 979: 252). Herein lies the strength of Donoso Cortes's
analysis: while it is quite easy to show contradictions in liberal and socialist
thought, political theology is more logical. At least it is, if one believes in
Catholicism.
Carl Schmitt was a devoted reader of Donoso Cortes. Schmitt saw in the
Weimar Republic a denial of order, that God was thought to be
everywhere, and thus nowhere. To create political order there has to be real
politics, the ability to say aloud who is the enemy and who is the friend.
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This was not the situation in the liberal world - here one discussed instead
of decided, and the discussion was based on an idea of a universal
'humanity'. To Schmitt, 'humanity' is a liberal illusion since it conceals the
real nature of politics, and also an atheist idea - law and order are related
to 'reason' instead of the serving of God. Schmitt's Political Theology
( l 985b) is two-fold. It has a practical-political side and a theoretical
analytical side. The former emphasizes that the theological aspect of
politics should be more visible, the latter wants to show that all politics has
theological aspects: 'All significant concepts of the modern theory of the
state are secularized theological concepts' (Schmitt, 1 985b: 36). He
probably has a point here. For example, the problem of 'sovereignty' has a
theological element, and even such a secular social scientist as Max Weber
has to leave room for a theological experience in his analysis of power
(Herrschaft) 'charisma' is something other than tradition or rationality, a
-
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Another aspect of political theology is the question 'How can the state
become "holy", "sacred", that is unquestionable?', which I discussed in the
previous chapter. A total State with a homogenized people must be sacred,
beyond doubt and reflexivity. This is not only a fancy theoretical point to
be found in the writings of Carl Schmitt. Far from it. One good illustration
is Italian Fascism, which in a work by Emilio Gentile ( 1 996) has been
analysed as the 'sacralization of politics'. Seen from this perspective,
fascism was a political religion. It is not too far-fetched to think about
Stalinism, Maoism, Nationalism, or, on the other hand, anti-theological
projects like cosmopolitanism and consumerism.
Anti-economism, so strong in conservative thinking, is also a part of
socialism. However, socialism and Marxism are ambivalent. On the one
hand, they say that the economy is the 'base', thus a change must begin
here. On the other hand, they criticize capitalism for reducing the worker
to a commodity, that is, a pure economic entity.
This ambivalence, or the dilemma of Marxism, is one reason for 'left'
'right' convergencies. That is, one reason why so many people labelled as
'leftists' have ended as extreme 'rightists'. One of the best examples is
perhaps Hendrik de Man, a Belgian Social Democrat who published the
widely read Zur Psychologie des Sozialismus in 1 928. ' Here, de Man
wanted to throw Marx out of socialist thinking, replacing 'economism'
with an 'ethical socialism' based on the writings of Goethe, Nietzsche,
Sorel and Bergson. Even though it was widely read, and translated into
many languages, it did not have much practical effect. During the 1 930s, de
Man developed his ethical socialism into 'plannism', a proposal for a plan
which was accepted by the Belgian social democrats, and also influenced
the French Socialists. The 'Plan' suggested a mixed economy, with support
from the middle class and a socialism within the nation. It tried to secure
that history was on the side of the socialists and not of the fascists and
nazis. De Man wrote: 'There is about our Plan an atmosphere of youth,
which is explained by our repeated and unequivocal affirmation of a
positive and decisive will to achieve' (de Man, 1 935: 39). De Man's ethical
socialism had now turned into a voluntarist, almost mythological revolu
tionary nationalism. Sternhell ( 1 986: 2 1 2) draws the following conclusion:
'However, in seeking to fight fascism with its own methods and on its own
ground, the new socialism . . . itself came to resemble fascism.' And this is
what actually happened a few years later, when many of the former French
socialists became fascists, and when de Man saw Hitler as the only one
who could save the Belgian working class. 2
I On de Man's many transitions, and the continuations within these, apart from Sternhell
( 1986), see Dodge ( 1966) and Pels (1993).
2 The rest of the story is that de Man became a minister in occupied Belgium, was
sentenced to death after the war as a collaborator, and ended his life in Switzerland in a car
crash in 1 953. He had then just published his last book, a pessimistic piece called Vermassung
und Kulturverfall ( 1 95 1 ), where he uses the concept of 'post-history', often wrongly ascribed to
Arnold Gehlen. For a critical discussion of 'post-history', see lung ( 1 989).
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Hendrik de Man found his way into the hearts of thousands of young workers .
. . . Thus, 'the socialism of personality' of the young generation has taken over in
relation that kind of socialism which is based on the belief in 'the development of
the economic society-formations as a natural-historical process'. (Lindstrom,
1 930: 1 1 8)
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3 In Germany, however, the SPD were not smart enough to do this, which left the field
open for the NSDAP to use it for its purposes (see Mosse, 1964).
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Apart from the VOlkischness Carl Schmitt's concept of the 'political', that
is the need for an 'enemy', pops up again. It condenses different themes:
heroism, relationism and pluralism. Here there is good ground for
conspiracy theories. Radical conservatives and open fascists have always
been good at this. Today, the United Nations and International Monetary
Fund (or Jews) are seen as agents for a conspiracy to abolish nations and
cultural differences. Even the Freemasons and the Illuminati are depicted
as the secret masters. 2
2 Julius Evola is totally obsessed with the idea of secret societies, and Umberto Eco's novel
Foucault's Pendulum (1 989) can be seen as an ironic commentary on the works of Evola. A
recent example of the revival of this idea is Pat Robertson's book, The New World Order
( 1 99 1), where he picks up fascist ideas from the I 920s.
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Here is a crucial point: is the enemy anyone but one's own Ethnos or a
specific Nation? Are not the 'specifities', the difference that radical conser
vatives speak so warmly about, just another form of universalism - the cult
of the irrational, the local, which indeed can be quite identical? Once again,
we see how even radical conservatism has to share some of the basic
assumptions of liberalism. Of course, the reverse is also true. Liberalism
cannot do without some particularism and even decisionism: at moments
of crisis and turbulence someone has to make the decision that it is worth
defending, even militarily. A decision that could have been made by the
president in Weimar Germany before the Nazi seizure of power!
In a way, Kultur and Zivilisation are revived in their old German
meaning in the discourse of the critique of one-world civilization. This is
not a symmetric relationship. The radical conservatives want to defend
Kultur against the enemy, while the enemy, the defenders of Zivilisation, do
not admit that they should threaten Kultur, instead they claim that they
defend this as well. Benjamin Barber ( 1 995) has discussed this. The title of
his book, Jihad vs. Me World, lets us know that he is discussing the
antagonistic relationship between the defenders of two kinds of logic. The
former, Jihad, means a bloodthirsty identity politics, cultural relativism
and authoritarian nation states. 3 It understands itself as a defence against
'McWorld' - the logic of capitalism hunting for more and more profits, a
world that will end with all differences eradicated. Over the whole world
there shine the signs of MacDonalds, MacIntosh, Donald Duck, MTV,
Pepsi and Coca-Cola. 4 Barber himself does not want to defend the one
against the other; he sees both the interrelatedness between them, and the
horror of both. Thus, he proposes a 'third way', the logic of liberal
democracy. Only God knows if it has a chance. However, I will return to
this question.
Culture and Civilization are interrelated - there will be no CuIturellihad
without Civilization/McWorld and vice versa. For example, it is hard
for 'culture' to function without money or computers; it is hard for
'Civilization' to function without Culture. 5
The critique of the one-world civilization is not totally without a point.
There are many of us old enough to have experienced life in communist
countries. We noticed the absence of Western brands in clothing, cars,
culture, food, drinks, etc., even if you could get Pepsi in the Soviet Union
and listen to Roxy Music in Budapest. For example, Mickey Mouse was
absent. Instead, they had more handmade local icons and figures. But now
Mickey Mouse and the others have taken over. There are many of us that
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feel ambivalent about this. The homemade icons and figures of yesterday
had more of an aura, less of pure exchange-value. Of course, they did not
grow out of self-governing communities. On the contrary. But today there
are not a few people who think that the Pizza Hut restaurant in Moscow
disturbs the soul of the city!
Once again the distinction between conjunctive and communicative
culture and thinking becomes important. Jihad favours conjunctive culture
and knowledge. The VOikisch arguments are not very communicable; in the
end it means tribalism (Bauman, 1 992). McWorld is based on communi
cative knowledge and culture. It consists of abstract and universal signs
with a low degree of Seinsverbundenheit.
This discourse of the new right and contemporary radical conservatism
can appeal to, and probably aims at attracting, old leftists who now see
their old anti-colonial discourse in new clothes. Here, possibly, is new
ground for new political constellations. Not only in Iraq is the Internet
viewed as an All-American media, the devil, serving the interests of the
USA; in France also, many think the same thing. The percentage of French
individuals having access to the Internet is about one per cent. 6
The dichotomy between Culture and Civilization is related to the oppo
sitional pair Ethnos and Demos which reflect two fundamental principles
that define, hold together, build and legitimate a nation. Speaking in terms
of ideology, radical conservatives defend the first one, liberals the second
one. The principle of Ethnos says that the basis of a nation should be the
homogenized Ethnos, the Volk; a nation should consist of only those who
share a common cultural heritage. The principle of Demos is that the
nation consists of its citizens who share the idea that anyone can be a
citizen as long as he or she respects the rights of others. Of course, these
principles do not exist in a pure form in the empirical reality. They are
conceptual constructions, sometimes used in ideological battles, that are
made to better understand the world. This conceptual construction
hopefully 'touches' the real motivations and understanding of social and
historical actors.
The linguistic origin of Ethnos and Demos is Greek: Ethnos means a
nation in Greece; Demos means the people, or rather the common people.
Thus, if you stress Ethnos you stress the ethnical aspect of a nation, if you
stress Demos, you stress the rights of all citizens, even the poor, to be a
part of the decisions made within the nation, the rights of the majority.
These two principles can be found on the mythical level, and sometimes
also at the discursive and constitutional-legal levels. Thus, I first want to
define what I mean by 'myth' in this context.
A myth consists of fragments, parts and narratives known through the
historical consciousness. Frequently, the myth is a story about the origin of
the nation and its glorious past. There are many examples: the Serbian
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myth o f Kosovo as the sacred heartland o f the Serbian nation and the
absolute enemy being Turkey; the American myth of the brave men of
the Revolution; the operas of Richard Wagner and their appeal to
Germans for creating a myth of origin; the Swedish myth of the first Svea
Kings; Finland's national epos (Kalevala); the Hindu fundamentalist myth
of India as the original home of the Aryans, etc.
A myth is never 'true'. It is a simplification of historical events, and can
also consist of pure falsifications. The most important aspect of the myth is
that it works - it creates an 'imagined community', it makes the multiple
past into a unitary icon.
As we saw above, Karl Mannheim ( 1 9 82) made a clear distinction
between two forms of knowledge: 'conjunctive' and 'communicative'.
These are the extreme poles of human knowledge and exchange, and they
never appear in their pure forms in reality. All knowledge is more or less
conjunctive, more or less communicative. The most conjunctive form of
knowledge would be the shared feelings and symbols in a dyad - between
lovers or between a parent and a child. The most communicative form of
knowledge would be abstract symbols that can be understood by everyone
and everywhere, for example mathematical and formal signs. There is a
clear connection between these poles of knowledge and Ethnos and Demos:
Ethnos is constituted as the specific characteristics of an ethnic community
and is contrasted to the different - other Ethnos. Thus, it is closer to
conjunction than to communication. Demos comes near to communication
since everyone who accepts its discursive norms and regulations can
become a member. In the end, Demos is understood as universal, rational
and non-personal as communication. However, making these connections
neglects the dialectics of Ethnos and Demos, conjunction and communica
tion.
On the one hand, an Ethnos can have some degrees of communication
and can repress those members who claim the right to be different. On the
other hand, a Demos, a totally universal community, is hard to imagine: it
would at the same time be universal and void of meaning. Where, then,
could meaning come from if not from Ethnos or something similar?
The political articulation of Demos is, of course, liberalism. Liberalism
emphasizes universalism, rationalism, individual rights and parliamentary
democracy, and liberal thought sees a nation as consisting of individuals
with equal rights. Ethnos as a political principle would be best represented
by radical conservatism.
Michel Wieviorka ( 1 996: 23) has a good point when he speaks of the
Janus face of the Nation: it can be both a part of the project of modernity,
and a defender of tradition, that is anti-modern. The first is often identified
with the 'French' model, the latter with the 'German' model. But this is too
simple - a nation always has both sides, that is an Ethnos in the form
of dominating values, habits, or 'Culture' and a Demos in the form of
influence of the public will. Even the aspect of Demos, openness and
modernization, has Ethnos. For example, the nations building the modern
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On 'centrisms'
Ethnocentrism or Demokratur?
* * *
My attempt so far in this section of the book has been to make clear the
dominating themes of radical conservatism. These themes might potentially
have a strong appeal today:
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radical conservatism uses 'geopolitics', and will seek out some real geo
political scenarios to see how radical conservatism is connected to these.
Since radical conservatism views politics as the heart of society and
emphasizes the need for enemies, foreign politics becomes the most
important forum. ' Geopolitics' is a favourite concept, a radical
conservative reply to the dangers of globalization and the situation after
the breakdown of Eastern European socialism. In order to construct a new
identity, Joachim Weber ( 1 992) argues that Germany must decide its place
in the world. He criticizes mainstream politicians for caring only about
economic matters, and consequently neglecting the fact that welfare is
dependent upon national strength. He writes: 'In the beginning there was
geography' (1992: 3 1 ) . Political categories like ideology, freedom and
democracy are only derivations of this basic fact. Here we notice the strong
constructivist aspect of geopolitics. There is, of course, a geographical
factor in politics, but the strength of this is dependent upon how politics is
conceived and practised - the cynicism of geopolitics makes ideas like
universal rights, humanity, etc., seem passe. In the longing for concrete,
down-to-earth soberness, the ideal and normative aspects of politics are
thrown out, for the latter are viewed as part of the abstract nature of
civilization.
Since 'time' and linear history, according to radical conservatism, can no
longer provide meaning and guidance, particularly in times of turbulence,
'room', space and geography become the key dimensions of orientation,
identity and security. 1 Geography is the new 'base', but the new ideologists
of geopolitics do not hesitate to link geographical territory to concepts like
Dasein, Volk or organic community. What they argue about are thus their
own constructions. Furthermore, this geopolitical, decisive, militant
attitude seems to be a strong connecting link between German and
Russian radical conservatives. 2 Their plea for a 'politization' means, in the
end, geopolitics, which can also provide an affirmation of their masculinity.
The relation to nationalism marks the complicated nexus of the radical
conservative project. While the conservative revolutionaries saw, and see,
nationalism and the myth of the great nation as no more than a means to
an end - a magic organic community - the people they address might listen
to them because they think that the restoration of the nation will solve their
problems, that the nation is itself the end, regarded as the correct
representation of the Volk. Carl Schmitt, for example, was more interested
in the nation as an efficient myth; he was only secondarily interested in a
postulated German 'essence'. Likewise, contemporary radical conservatives
I Here we find another important homology between the radical conservatives and authors
discussing 'post-history', for example Jean Baudrillard ( 1 985) and Arnold Gehlen (1 980).
2 Geopolitics as a discipline or perspective was created by Rudolf Kjellen, developed by
Karl Haushofer and practised by Rudolf Hess, and later by Henry Kissinger. Of course, it is
not per se a 'fascist doctrine'; in its more neutral form it examines the geographical factor in
world politics. The master geopolitical thinker today is Jordis von Lohausen (see especially
Lohausen ( 1 98 1 ), where the extremely constructivist nature of rightist geopolitics is striking).
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Germany
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where it helped pave the way for national socialism. The question now is
whether it disappeared totally after 1 945. Probably not. The intellectuals -
Heidegger, Junger, Schmitt, Freyer and others - continued to have an
influence on later generations. Several surveys after the war have also
indicated that there are still strong sympathies for national socialism and
'rightist' radical views. However, the year 1 989 is crucial here as it saw the
reunification of Germany, the emergence of the question of national
identity and a neue Rechte, a new basis of support for extremist parties
such as the Republikaner, and a renewed intellectual interest in the con
servative revolution. The year 1 989 can stand as a symbol of all this: it
represents an important turning-point ( Wende).
The German playwright and author Botho StrauB aroused great attention
with the publication of his essay 'Anschwellender Bocksgesang' in Der
Spiegel ( 1 993). The title is rather difficult to translate. Anschwellender
roughly means 'swollen' or 'expanding' while Bocksgesang literally means
'buck song', which in turn is derived from the Greek term for 'tragedy'. The
attention StrauB received was mostly of a negative nature, as someone who
was, up to that point, regarded as a person of the 'left' but now confessed
his allegiance to the right. The essay has been re-published in a longer and
more sprawling version in the anthology Die selbstvewusste Nation (edited
by Heimo Schwilk and Ulrich Schact, 1 994), where it is the point of
departure for a number of writers grappling for the answer to the question
'On what ideas and themes should the 'new right' base itself?' The 'new
right' is no new phenomenon. The label was first applied in the 1 960s, but
only recently has it become more than a marginal political phenomenon.
What StrauB's essay, which begins the anthology, is really about is
difficult to say, but it has a mysterious power of attraction as it is thought
to contain a deep insight into the 'spirit of the times' (Zeitgeist). He
confesses, as stated above, his allegiance to the right because it is only from
there that one can best understand the tragic contemporary circumstances
in which we live, where humanity's bloody side once again routinely
confronts us. Liberal democracy's self-understanding, the 'ideas of 1 789',
are thought to be entirely inadequate. Racism and contempt for foreigners
are interpreted by StrauB as the emergence of that which has been repressed
and as religious purification rituals. He continuously appeals for a depart
ure from the 'mainstream', that is to say, the postulated liberal hegemony in
Germany. 4 He believes that liberal ideology proves deficient or fails in,
among other things, its ability to understand what ethnic war (in the former
Yugoslavia and Soviet Union) is about: the defence of one's own language
and culture, blood offering and the mystical community, that is, Ethnos and
conjunction. Furthermore, StrauB is of the opinion that the liberal is only
liberal in that he or she takes a stand against anti-liberalism. In other
words, liberalism is not a full-rounded position but partial in that it is
4 This is typical of radical conservatism - to give the impression that it is the only true
opposition to the liberal hegemonic world-view.
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5 See the discussion in the Introduction above - if you want to 'revise' just a tiny bit of the
'allied scheme of history', that is, to be politically incorrect, you can easily be accused of being
a full-blown 'revisionist' or even a 'proto-fascist'.
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6 In Sweden it is well known that the coalition between the Social Democrats (SAP) and
the Peasants' Party (Bondeforbundet) soaked up the potential energy which could so easily
have been exploited by extreme right-wing movements.
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7 Even if the right criticizes utopias, in the sense of one hundred per cent heavenly worlds,
it still has its own utopia: a break with the liberal mechanical engineering, and a beginning of
the world as an organic greenhouse.
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8 In Ein Meister aus Deutschland, Heidegger und seine Zeit ( 1994), Rudiger Safranski
discusses Heidegger's preferences for such avalent verbs. Avalent verbs are verbs that take on
the characteristic of a subject, without there being a subject for them, such as 'it's raining'.
These verbs contain no information on origin, intention, etc., but rather express local and
impersonal processes more tied to 'nature' than 'culture' (Stjernfelt, 1 995).
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concept of collectivities, and there is less talk about the individual and
more in favour of the People, the Nation, Destiny and Community. The
anti-economism of the new right means that the political is seen as the
primary dimension of life - in an empty world the will to fill the world with
meaning is revered. The primacy of politics is also reflected in the new
right's cynical, power-oriented realm.
I must mark out a small reservation. The German new right is far from a
unified tendency. Up to this point I have chosen to highlight the com
monalities of a shared mentality among a number of German intellectuals.
I believe there is a widening rift emerging within the new right. Zitelmann,
WeiBmann and the group centred on the weekly journal Junge Freiheit can
be seen as a type of 'reformist' phalange which accepts (sometimes against
its will) parliamentary democracy and a mixed economy. Today they are
careful about calling themselves a part of the 'right' . Of significance is that
when I met Junge Freiheits's editor-in-chief, Dieter Stein, in 1995 and
broached the question of the currency of the 'conservative revolution', he
shrugged and said that it is just an empty slogan, far from today's reality.
This sounded odd, for only a couple of years previously Junge Freiheit was
the battleground for a new generation anxiously thirsting after the con
servative revolutionary ideas of the Weimar era. Stein and Zitelmann have
either reached, or are approaching their thirtieth year and seem to be
distancing themselves from their earlier, youthful, revolutionary excesses.
This allows them to enter into public debate.
Ironically enough, it is the previous generation in the German new right
who represent the 'revolutionary' wing. Among this generation one finds
Armin Mohler and Gunther Maschke. In common with their French
brother Alain de Benoist, they believe that they are above left/right
classification. Here we clearly see a line of descent from the conservative
revolution's left-wing movement, national bolshevism. A second important
difference is that while the 'reformists' often attack 'ecological hysteria',
the more revolutionary oriented give the environmental question central
importance and hold fast to a strong anti-capitalist perspective.
Another dividing-line among the radical conservatives, or the new right,
could be one between hard-core anti-liberals like Maschke, and 'softer'
anti-economists like Rudiger Safranski and Botho StrauB. Maschke has
even stated the aim of his vision of a new right as creating freedom, which
he says is 'a wholeness-problem, to freedom belongs the mission to con
sciously figurate one's area of life, and not only being subsumed under
uncontrollable economic processes' (Stjernfelt, 1 995).
Austria
J6rg Haider became chair of the FPO in 1986 and transformed this small,
old liberal party into a nationalist populist party. The result was that in
1986 the party increased from 1 per cent to almost 1 0 per cent of the vote
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9 For example, one Swedish Social Democrat, used the rhetorics of the unique nature of
the 'Nordic Volksgemeinschaft' (an old Nazi slogan) as an argument against the European
Union.
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1 06 RAD I CAL CONSERVATISM A N D T H E F U T U R E OF POL ITICS
in France and Scandinavia. The reasons for this are probably its anti
socialism and the fact that the political establishment has used neo- or
post-Keynesian models without much success. But when it comes to the
ideological core, the political vision as stated by the party ideologists
sounds very Schmittian:
France
10 For example, children born in France no longer become French citizens if their parents
are immigrants.
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Russia
The Soviet Union, which now belongs to the past, was initially planned as
the first socialist territory in the emerging revolution, and the working class
had, according to Marxism, no objective interests in defending a Nation. It
was the first historical agent of true internationalism and universalism.
However, the Soviet Union was very Russian in a number of senses. As
Orlando Figes (1 997) has shown, the bolsheviks had to adapt their strategy
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108 RAD I CAL CONSERVATISM A N D THE FUTU RE OF POLITICS
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Kazhaks 6,534,61 6
Russians 6,226,549
Germans 957,518
Ukrainians 896,240
Uzbekians 332,0 1 7
Tatars 327,892
Ujgurs 1 85,301
Belorussians 1 82,601
Koreans 103,3 1 5
Azerians 90,083
Poles 59,956
Turks 49,567
Tjetjens 49,507
Greeks 46,746
Basjkirs 4 1,847
Dunganes 30,1 65
Tadjiks 25,514
Kurds 25,425
Ingusjs 1 9,914
Armenians 1 9, 1 19
Jews 18,492
Udmurts 1 5,855
Kirgizes 14, 1 1 2
Lezgins 1 3,905
Marians 1 2,201
Lithuanians 1 0,942
Bulgars 10,426
Others 204,639
1 3 Schmitt loves the emphasis on room, and blames what he sees as a contempt for this
dimension as an anti-Rome affect! 'Room (Raum) is the same word as Rome (Rom). Here we
have the reason for the hate against the room, this hate is only a transfered anti-Rome affect'
(Schmitt, 1 99 1 b: 3 1 7). In a recently published book (Schmitt, 1 994) it is apparent why he loves
the 'room' - he hates the abstractifying tendency in modern civilization and wants to establish
the power of power as a relation visible and tied to a place, instead of as an abstract, general
mechanism or 'principle'.
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14 See the interview with Dugin in Corriere della Serra, 1 5 February 1 994. Dugin states
here that 'Evola is in vogue in Russia. Russia returns to tradition, and traditionalism is in
polar opposition to atheism, materialism, the predominance of economism and liberalism.
Every criticism of the modern world is eagerly read by those who return to tradition after the
reign of Marxism. The fact that Evola was a "pagan" and fascist is certainly repugnant to
many, but his texts are a different matter.' The monotony of the arguments is striking! Dugin
( 1 992) uses lung's concept of 'the collective unconscious' repeatedly to support his cultural
relativism.
1 5 In the radical-conservative journals of today we find many articles eager to point out
that the first Bosnian Muslims were from the nobility that converted because they wanted to
keep their privileges (see, for example, Manousakis, 1 992).
16 This is expressed in its most extreme form in the article 'The war in Iraq is a war against
Europe', in Elementy, by the former Austrian general lordis von Lohausen. Lohausen is also a
frequent contributor in Elementy.
1 7 It is interesting to note that also Gunther Maschke (199 1 ) has declared his sympathies
with Iraq. At the bottom of this, we once again find a basic anti-Americanism: 'America is a
power foreign to the room [raumfremde Macht] . . . and its mass-culture results in de
orientation' (Maschke, in an interview in Junge Freiheit, quoted from Herzinger, 1 993a: 1 399).
18 Vasily Andreev, 'Nationalism in Russia', Jamestown Prism, 5 April 1 996.
19 Moskovskiye Novosti, no. 9. 1 996.
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AN I NTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE 111
called 'Conservative Revolution'. Dugin has also become more and more
interested in Julius Evola (Dugin, 1 997), and this bears testimony to the
central role of political theology in radical conservatism. Evola's Tradi
tionalism is also perfect for a 'global' religion since it claims to be the Only
True Origin of Everything (see Chapter 7 below).
Among the dominant politicians there is no real radical conservative.
For example, Zhirinovskij, the 'liberal democrat', 20 is not a radical con
servative. This crazy populist is probably just a representative of himself
(Umland, 1 994). However, there are some logical connections. We have
mentioned Zhirinovskij's friendship with Saddam Hussein and his strong
nationalism. He is also a communitarian in a good Russian spirit. Another
important person is Alexander Lebed, who recently declared that '[Western
democracy] doesn't completely suit our historical experience, our
,
traditions, our national character . 2 1 No comment.
However, there is a person who has much more influence and power
than people like Zhirinovskij, Dugin and Limonov - the leader of the
Russian Communist Party, Gennady Zyuganov, did not have any support
from the economic establishment and therefore did not win the presidential
election. He probably knows that the only chance for the new/old
bolsheviks to seize power again is by becoming open nationalists. There
fore, there have been many discussions on the question of whether there
are discrepancies between what he says and what he does. However, the
collection of some of his texts in English My Russia (Zyuganov, 1 997) -
-
20 The modern fascists are eager to label themselves as 'democrats': Movimento Sociale
Italiano (MS!) in Italy, 'Sverigedemokraterna' in Sweden (,Swedish democrats'), and KPD
stands not only for the German communist party, but also for the 'Kreuzberger Patriotische
Demokraten'!
2 1 Associated Press in Lawrence Journal- World, 9 March, 1997.
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1 12 RAD I CAL CO N S E RVATISM A N D THE FUTURE OF POLITICS
course, the 'NWO is tied to the "global strategy" of the United States and
the concept of the Larger Atlantic Space' ( 1 997: 1 29). Only the Jews are
missing in his conspiracy theories; in all other aspects Zyuganov fits
perfectly into a fascist world-view. It is 'only' the Bilderberg Club, the
trilateral system, etc. that are said to be the secret agents of the NWO. 22
But in another context the Jews do appear: 'Jewish influence grows not by
the day, but by the hour. The Jewish Diaspora traditionally controlled the
financial life of the [European] continent and is becoming more and more
the owner of the controlling interest in all the stocks of Western civilization
and its socioeconomic system' (Zyuganov, quoted in Remnick, 1 997: 3 1 5).
Ironically, this is the same theory we hear from radical American right
wingers, to which I will soon turn.
Furthermore, and this shows us how close Zyuganov comes to the ideas
of the conservative revolution, he does not defend the idea of 'progress'
any longer. On the contrary, 'it is clear that history moves in a cyclical,
spiral manner' (Zyuganov, 1 997: 1 24). The primary agents in this cyclical
history are civilizations, each one based on a different Ethnos.
USA
It is extremely banal to say that the USA is different from Europe, and a
tracking of radical conservatism therefore becomes more difficult than in a
European context. One reason for this is what Seymour Martin Lipset
( 1 996) has called the 'American exceptionalism' . This consists of the
alleged fact that America is the only nation founded on a creed, with a
strong patriotism defending central values like liberty, individualism and
laissez-faire ( 1 996: 3 1 ) . The USA is also unique in the negative attitudes
against various forms of government activity. For example, only 49 per
cent of the American population agree that wearing seat belts should be
required by law, while in other Western countries over 80 per cent agree
( 1 996: 75).
When looking at American politics, therefore, patriotism, individualism
and anti-government attitudes are of great importance. Factors that gain
radical-conservative support, like the threat to the nation state, immigra
tion, unemployment and corrupt politicians, do not look the same as they
do in Europe. Of course, there are many corrupt politicians in the USA
too, but this has not resulted in the emergence of strong populist parties in
this century. Large groups of the population simply do not vote. However,
22 Organizations such as the Bilderberg Club and the Trilateral Commission system are
networks (both formal and informal) with members from different countries who are worried
about the future of the global capitalist system. In almost every conspiracy theory from the
radical right you can read the alleged truth, about the hidden, secret force behind everything,
for example on the Internet or in the international magazine, Nexus. The 'truth' is almost
always something like 'they' are the real agents behind everything - 'they' being, most often,
Jews and freemasons.
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Ross Perrot and his Reform Party gained a lot of votes in the elections in
1 992. Although it is a kind of populist party, it can hardly be described as
radical conservative, since the radical aspect is virtually absent and the
Reform Party has no connections to extreme right-wing groups.
The fact that Peter Brimelow's book A lien Nation became a bestseller
shows that immigration has become a hot political issue. Illegal immi
gration, mostly from Mexico, is seen as a potential time-bomb in the light
of the widespread fear among white Americans that the Hispanics will
eventually be the largest ethnic group and that whites will become a
minority in their own country (Huntington, 1 996: 205). The USA is the
leading world power and there are no signs that this is likely to change in
the foreseeable future; therefore one ground for aggressive nationalism is
lacking. But nationalism can take an inward form, as an Ethnos-based
reaction against non-Caucasians.
However, there are elements in the USA that can be, and sometimes are,
included under a 'radical conservatism' label:
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who founded the Universal Negro Improvement in 1 9 14, was the first
important leader of a black movement. In 1 937 he characterized his
own movement as 'fascist' (Gregor, 1 974: 361). He was a racist, a
nationalist (the 'Black Nation') a modernist and a radical. He and the
Ku Klux Klan also agreed on one issue: the need for 'repatriation', that
is, that the black people should 'return' to Africa. The relationship
between extreme Zionism and nazism is striking. 23 The more famous
Malcolm X was often contradictory, but overall he was a radical,
promoting the 'roots' of the black people; he was anti-capitalist but not
a communist. In this context, we can also see new unholy alliances, or
constellations, when we meet black people who are members of Aryan
Nations since they have one common enemy - the Jews. Some black
activists believe the Holocaust is a Jewish myth that conceals the real
problem - the black ghettos.
7 Neo-nazis and other militant and anti-federalist groups, such as the Ku
Klux Klan, are often regarded as radical conservatism.
23 The two groups agreed on the need for solving the 'Jewish question' by sending all
European Jews to a place in the Middle East or north Africa (Rosenberg, 1 996).
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the IMF, etc., and that action is needed to protect traditional American
values?4 Another recession will cause more unemployment and more
farmers will go bankrupt, under which circumstances the federal govern
ment may be blamed for only protecting its own interests and become once
again the target of terrorist bombers.
Like everywhere else, the future of politics in the USA is impossible to
predict. Now I will discuss the question of possible new political
constellations in the USA - radical conservatism can also appear where we
normally do not expect to find it.
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the absolute and the American idea, and that political standards replace
aesthetic quality and universal values.
In practice, this can lead to discussion on whether one should read
Shakespeare or black authors. Are there absolute aesthetic criteria above
the political? The neo-conservative author Roger Kimball says 'yes' in his
book Tenured Radicals ( 1 99 1 ), and sees the main enemy as Stanley Fish,
professor of English and Law at Duke University. Fish is an extreme
relativist. His world is a world of completely incommensurable and contrary
systems of values (Fish, 1 995). Expressions are read as mere expressions of
social and cultural belonging. Thus, the world is full of enemies, not only
the WASP ideology, but also every other discourse that dares to use
universal concepts like 'reason' and 'understanding'.
Deconstructionist intellectuals like Fish view themselves as 'leftists' .
After the 'postmodern turn' the 'revolutionary' activity moved from the
political sphere to texts, and reading and writing became 'political' matters.
Thus, the neo-conservatives have a point: the differentiations of modern
society - between, for example, morality, law, politics and aesthetics - are
reduced to one, single battlefield. It is a bad reductionism to view the
qualities of a book only as a question of its social and cultural genesis. On
the other hand, the neo-conservatives go too far when they see the aesthetic
quality as totally disconnected from other surrounding and crossing fields
and they use their own power to reserve the criteria of 'beauty' for
European artists. A different way could be to replace the criteria of
'beauty' with, for example, 'experience-enriching'. This could be a way of
overcoming both neo-conservatism and identity politics.
Identity politicians and their intellectual relativist megaphones forget that
'identities' are created by the classificatory logics of modernity. When the
struggle for equal rights is transformed to the rights of a black person, a
woman, etc., then the mirror-image of its 'opposite' (the classifying Power)
rises. A Swedish literature critic, Stefan Jonsson, has swallowed the whole
ideology:
There is a kind of politicizing deconstructionism that reads Western literature
backwards and reveals how the Western knowledge subject has classified reality
and conquered it. This subject has built up self-image and outlook by placing
itself in the middle and by marginalizing other worlds. Women, coloured and
others in other ways deviant are reduced to objects for this normalizing subject
of knowledge, a subject that stands for objectivity, search for truth, universal
norms and general criteria for quality and competence. (Jonsson, 1 993: 1 59)
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Richard, shouting out one of his hits. An African student asked: 'There is a
picture of a black person there. Are the black people the only persons
making the noise?' He saw the poster as racist since he had never heard of
Little Richard. It was this student, who certainly had experienced real
racism, that reduced 'The King of Rock 'n' Roll' to any black person at all.
The point is that racism is an infernal game. Anti-racism can increase
racism by viewing the colour of the skin as an essential quality and in this
way it serves the mechanisms of racism.
A second example was when I showed a class Spike Lee's movie Jungle
Fever. Its theme is, above all, institutional racism and that ethnic barriers
are placed deep in the souls of people. A black girl in the class started
crying after the movie. It had constructed something - the colour of her
skin - that had never been important for her before.
These examples point to the constructivism of identity politics - they
strengthen and expand the classifications, and in the end confirm the
'Power' . Here is a parallel to an over-interpreting psychoanalysis: a dis
agreement between you and me is caused not by different logical conclu
sions but by unconscious interests!
Both of these examples point to another fact: so far it is mostly 'gender'
(in the wake of 'class') that has entered everyday life and science. We are
still waiting for sexuality (homo- or hetero-) and ethnic belonging to grow
into distinctions used for legitimation and the defence of certain views.
Here, the USA is ahead of the rest of Europe. Who knows, perhaps even
taste and eating habits (vegetarian or not?) will be upgraded into con
stituting categories? Anyway, I think that identity politics will also grow
stronger in Europe. Of course, there is something very legitimate and
understandable in identity politics. The minorities are in many ways
repressed. But its relativism and simplifying contents are hard to swallow.
Furthermore, it points to a state of the war against everyone, or pure
tribalism (Bauman, 1 992: 1 36ff.).
Speaking normatively, my point is that hermeneutic understanding is an
alternative to the one-dimensionality of both identity politics and neo
conservatism. Regarding the analytical question of new possible political
constellations, my point is that it is identity politics, not neo-conservatism
that becomes a possible partner to radical conservatism, or rather, that
constitutes a form of radical conservatism.
Canada
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118 RADICAL CONSERVATISM A N D TH E FUTU RE OF POLITICS
Libya
There are old historical ties between European fascism and radical
conservatism and movements in the Arab world. For example, the Ba'ath
Party, the governing party in both Syria and Iraq, is a pan-Arabist move
ment that emerged as a direct response to European fascism when it came
to the fore in the 1 930s (Laqueur, 1 996: 1 62). We have also noted the
sympathies for Saddam Hussein among European radical conservative
intellectuals today.
But is would be too easy to see all Arabist movements and Muslim
movements - which are far from identical - as expressions of radical
conservatism. Even if most of them are a response to the 'threat' of the
West, they cannot be seen as Ethnos movements, even if they strongly
oppose the Demos principle. Despite all intolerance and hatred, shown
in especially Shia fundamentalist Islam, their members are defined by
faith and actions, and not by Ethnos. Many of the movements are also
reactionary anti-modernist, even if they have to deal with the issues of
modernity and technology, if and when they gain power, like the mullahs in
Iran. Thus, if we can at least say that there are strong affinities between
radical conservatism and most Arabist projects, then we should be able to
look for some more obvious affinities in order to sharpen our view. The
most obvious example, as I see it, is Libya and its leader Muammar
Muhammed al-Qadaffi.
The existence of the Libyan state and its leader are hard to separate. He
is in almost absolute power, he has written down the philosophy of the
nation, he is the nation, or rather, the state. Qadaffi's 'third way' - 'the
third universal theory' - beyond capitalism and communism is codified in
his famous Green Book. On the issue of parliaments he writes:
A parliament i s a misrepresentation of the people, and parliamentary govern
ments are a misleading solution to the problem of democracy. A parliament is
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Carl Schmitt's point was roughly the same: a parliament is not 'identical'
with the people, and is therefore undemocratic.
The laws of society, including the constitution, have a divine link.
Qadaffi knows political theology: 'Religion embraces tradition, which is an
expression of the natural life of the peoples. Thus, religion, embracing
tradition, is an affirmation of natural law' (Qadaffi, 1 988: 57). Natural law
is simply either tradition or religion. Qadaffi recognizes both and here he
comes close to the romantic notion of Volk as articulated by Herder and
Rousseau, a tradition also including most radical conservatives. The nation
is 'the sense of belonging and a common destiny' (Qadaffi, 1 988: 93). Like
Hans Freyer, Qadaffi sees the nation, not a class, as the actor in history.
Although he is theological, he is too much of a secularist, and this might
explain why his ideas are rejected by more fundamentalist leaders. Qadaffi
makes an enormous, implicit claim: to be the founder of a new universalist
theory, on the same level as the Koran and the Communist Manifesto. One
of his European admirers - Henning Eichberg26 - praises him for his
suggestions on direct democracy, world revolution and socialism (Eichberg,
1 996: 1 1 8f.). He also suggests that the reason for the US declaration of
Libya being a 'terrorist state' is that Libya is the only country in the world
that supports the American Indian Movement, and that Qadaffi represents
an astonishing synthesis of socialist change and vOlkisch tradition.
Although Qadaffi's plan for a world revolution has failed, his success in
Libya proves that radical conservatism can be a real political force.
China
The countries of East and South-East Asia all prove that there is a 'second'
way to modernity. Here we find countries with authoritarian regimes,
'socialist' or not, that have successfully entered the international capitalist
system (China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan) and
a fully modernized country which has managed to keep the old cultural
and symbolic framework (Japan). Either there is an absence of political
democracy or of a 'one-world civilization'. What is of interest here is that
we have a number of authoritarian regimes discovering the value of the
myth of the nation. In the context of radical conservatism the question is
whether countries like Vietnam and China will walk in this direction. I
think it is a possible scenario, and I will take China as an example.
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* * *
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7
'Retrogardism' is not a big movement in art. Those who have heard about
it probably have come in contact with it through the Slovenian artist
collective Neue Slowensiche Kunst (NSK). The most well-known members
are the music group Laibach (the German name of the capital of Slovenia
- Ljubjana). This group has often been accused of being 'totalitarian' and
'fascist'. If you have seen or heard them, this accusation is easy to under
stand, and they also admit that 'Nazi Kunst' belongs to their cultural
heritage. However, the 'leftist' Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst,
Slavoj Zisek, has defended them and argued that their main ambition is
politically radical and correct. If one goes beyond the immediate surface, it
is obvious that Laibach and NSK are not 'fascists'.
However, I have noticed that the concept of 'retrogardism' has appeared
somewhere else. It was in the promotional literature for the journal Junge
Freitheit's Summer University in 1 993, where the publishing house Arun
advertised its poetry series 'Retrogard'. The Arun publishing house
primarily produces radical conservative literature, and it is therefore not at
all remarkable that one is suspicious of their publications.
This concept also appeared recently in a Swedish book, and the authors '
were accused of being almost fascists. I Thus, I think it is a good idea to
bring retrogardism and radical conservatism together, to see if there are any
likenesses and differences. In this comparison I also construct a third ideal
type Zivilisationskritik here used as a description of post-war attempts
- -
I In fact, I was one of the critics who was accused of claiming this. Since this is of marginal
interest in this book, I choose not to tell this silly story.
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N EW POL ITICAL CONSTELLATIONS? 1 27
claim; rather, all you can do is to associate, but these associations are quite
obvious.
Laibach describe their purpose as: 'To provoke maximum collective
emotions and release the automatic response of masses.' The consequence
is 'the effective disciplining of the revolted and alienated audience;
awakening the feeling of total belonging and commitment to the Higher
Order'. This is the very notion presented in Junger's Der Arbeiter ( 1 932)
and in his idea of 'total mobilization'.
'The need for authority is stronger than the will for independence. ' This
comes very near to the 'affirmationism' of both Junger and technocratic
conservatism.
Laibach also often use the potion of the 'Organic', and one gets the feeling
that they really hail this as an essential value.
'Politics is the highest and all-embracing art'. We have discussed the issues
of the 'aesthetization of politics' and political 'existentialism' or 'expressiv
ism' as hallmarks of radical conservatism.
3 As is well known, this is the title of a popular film trilogy in which people, with the aid of
a time machine, travel back and forth in time. In this way the purported cyclical element of
time is shown. Precisely this cyclical element is extremely important for retrogardism and, as I
will argue later, also for Zivilizationskritik.
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4 As Altgiird writes, 'included are also the expressions which the Nazis under occupation
forced on Slovenia' (1995: 1 6).
5 One such extreme cosmopolitan is Ian Chambers (1 994). Chambers believes that most of
our time's greatest problems have their root in the derivation of identity from specific
geographical locations. The evil is, in his own words, 'symbolically rooted cultural practices
and their reproduction' (see above, Chapter 5).
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6 Here I am struck by the similarity between Mehren's conceptual dichotomy and those
which the German philosopher and graphologist Ludwig Klages presents in his book Der
Geist als Widersacher der Seele (1 969). Some of Klage's dichotomies are dream/awake, picture/
concept, spirit/soul. The terms to the left in the dichotomies are those which Klage promotes,
those to the right he despises.
7 See Andersson (1 994) and Goodrick-Clarke ( 1992) who describe many interesting links
between occultists, among them persons interested in runes, and influential circles in Hitler's
Nazi party.
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In its more universal sense tradition can be considered to include the principles
which bind humanity to Heaven, and therefore religion, while from another
point of view, religion can be considered in its essential sense as those principles
which are revealed by heaven and which bind humanity to its Origin. In this case,
tradition can be considered in a more restricted sense as the application of these
principles. (Nasr, 1 98 1 : 68)
Zivilisationskritik
The Italian philosopher Julius Evola and the French author Rene Guenon
are often named in the same breath as representatives of Integral Tradi
tionalism. Quite correctly, there are notable similarities between them.
8 Seyyed Hossein Nasr was born in Tehran and is currently professor of Islamic Studies at
George Washington University in Washington DC. He is probably the leading repository of
the Traditionalist ideas' heritage today. Nasr is given a thorough and excellent introduction
and interpretation in Stenberg ( 1996), who also says that 'Nasr says that Evola collaborated
with Guenon and wrote works in a similar spirit' ( 1 996: 1 07, footnote 60).
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Despite the fact that both have very interesting biographical histories, I will
concentrate on their writings. 9
Evola's innumerable articles and books comprise an unusual hodge
podge of racism, aristocratism, anti-Semitism, anti-modernism and Hindu
mythology. He was not only a philosopher and author but also an artist
who was among the first Italian Dadaists, a translator (of some of the
works of Ernst Junger, among others) and an alchemist. 1O
Baron Evola was an aristocrat in both the literal and poetic meaning of
the term. He strongly despised the modern world, democracy and bour
geois culture, seeing this as leading to the Fall, where the true and eternal
spiritual disappears. His aim was to live through the inevitable apocalypse
in order to return to the era of Gold and the Sun where archaic com
munities will live with the gods and the Eternal. He saw himself as a
servant, as a kshatrya (warrior), that is, a person who is both prepared for
this age and also strong enough to survive the Fall. Evola ( 1 993) felt that
modern humanity was all too fixated on earth, Mother Earth. Man, and
Man for Evola is a man, as anti-feminism is a central aspect of his thought,
should turn his sights towards the sun, that which lies in the centre and
gives us life and power. Man did this in the Golden Age. Here Evola
follows Hindu mythology which sees history as an eternal cycle containing
four eras, in which the Golden Age (Krya yuga) is the best. We currently
live in the darkest and lowest period Kali yuga. This is the era of the
pariah, characterized by secularism, dependent and feminine individuals.
But in the twilight, the apocalypse, the smoke of Ragnar, the return to the
Golden Age is promised. An important sign of the current era's decadence
is that people think that the 'soul' should have something to do with the
'spirit'. The soul lulls us, while the spirit can awaken us. As is evident, anti-
9 I will, though, give some brief biographical details. Julius Evola lived from 1 898 to 1 974.
He became disabled and wheelchair-bound after an air raid on Vienna in 1 945. His contact
with fascists and Nazis was copious; among other things, he wrote the preface to the Italian
translation of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. His relationship with Mussolini was rather
ambivalent, but Mussolini was deeply impressed by Evola's work. Mussolini especially
admired Evola's 'spiritual racism' as a counterweight to the Nazi biological racism (Sheehan,
1 98 1 : 50). During the Third Reich he often resided and worked in Germany and was
frequently published in Nazi journals and magazines. He often lectured to circles within the
Waffen-SS which had occult interests. It would, though, be all too simplistic to dismiss him as
a 'fascist'. More accurately, he was an uncomfortable thinker for most people.
Rene Guenon was born in France in 1 886 and died in Cairo in 195 1 , where he resided from
1 930. He converted to Islam early on and was initiated, probably by Ivan Agueli, into the
mystic tradition of Sufism. He is now regarded as one of France's foremost authors, and as far
as I know, has never been accused of being a fascist. No, he, like Evola, was first and foremost
a Traditionalist, and the book title that is most telling about his writing is La crise du monde
moderne ( 1 927). Victor Nguyen's article (1 984), which places Guenon in the context of
France's 'counter revolutionaries', should also be mentioned.
10 Umberto Eco's novel Foucault's Pendulum ( 1989) is of great interest in this context. Eco
is quite versed in Evola's thought and the novel can be seen as a simultaneous criticism and
demonstration of Evola's writing. I wish to thank Henning Eichberg for making me aware of
this.
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I I Even Evola ( 1 993: 229ff.) discussed the hyperborealic Point of Origin and the North
Pole. He built his arguments on Guenon, Indian, Celtic and Scandinavian mythology.
Originally, according to Greek mythology, the hyperborealians were 'a legendary people who
lived in the far North and enjoyed long and happy lives and worshipped Apollo' (Svensk
Uppslagsbok).
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N EW POLITICAL CONSTELLATIONS? 1 33
Time is like a circle which is endlessly described: The declining arc is the past, the
inclining arc is the future. . . . You cannot reverse time with a sound signal. The
past presents its future, it advances in a straight line - yet, like a serpent
swallowing its own tail, it ends by coming full circle.
12 This is close to Spengler's ( 1996) view of human history and Mohler's definition of the
leitmotif of the conservative revolution.
13 Eliade met Evola twice, once in 1937 and again in 1 950 (Eliade, 1988: 1 52f.).
14 Junger ( 1 995: 220) states that Eliade wrote his letter to him in 1952 and that prior to
this, Carl Schmitt had recommended Eliade's journal Zalmoxis to him (see Eliade, 1 988: 8ff.).
Antaios, Zeitschrift fur eine Freie Welt published six issues per year from 1959 to 1979 and in
addition to the editors, among the most diligent co-workers were Junger's younger brother
Friedrich Georg and Julius Evola.
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N EW POLITICAL CONSTELLATIONS? 1 35
Radical conservatism
For many reasons (which will be elaborated on later) the German 'meta
physician', author and translator of Baudrillard, Gerd Bergfleth, is of
interest in this context. In his essay 'Heimat und Erde' ( 1 994), he develops
figures of thought which fit in quite well with Heidegger's Sein and Evola's
and Guenon's mythical 'Place of Origin' and 'Original Being'.
The essay begins with a quote from Carl Schmitt, the message of which
is that human thought must once again be based on its earthbound Dasein.
That is, back to earth, back to 'place'. To Bergfleth, Heimat, the home, is
most comparable to childhood, that which for us adults is situated in the
past, but is lost and remains an enigma. I elect to overlook a great deal of
the nearly right-wing extremist meanderings to be found here and to
concentrate on his more philosophic reasoning. Like Carl Schmitt ( 1 98 1 ),
Bergfleth believes that there is a pervasive contempt for the earth today.
This is due to the fact that capitalistic naval powers (Britain and the USA)
seek to force all countries to be capitalistic and liberal. He sees one of the
causes of this to be Calvinism, which preaches that surplus capital must
continuously be reinvested in production instead of being consumed for the
glory of the old gods, as was the case earlier in history. 1 5 To turn our gaze
again towards earth, Bergfleth wants to make current again an inflam
matory term in German, Heimat. He declares this to be an Original
German word and posits that behind the Heimat that in happy times we
can experience, lies an Original-Heimat - comparable to hyperborealism in
Evola and Guenon and Being in Heidegger. Just as with Heidegger, the
lover of avalent verbs (see above), Bergfleth wants nothing more than to
catch a glimpse of the Original, that which just 'is', independent of our
subjectivity and our consciousness.
To Bergfleth, what matters is regaining contact with the metaphysical
Heimat, something that he believes residents of Northern Europe should
find easier than those who live further south. The metaphor for
'Northerner's' privileged closeness to the undisturbed forest is Oden (or
'Wotan'), the wanderer. This myth also popped up in a flood of books
which, during the 1 980s, tried to pinpoint 'Sweden', its spirit, its mystery,
its mentality. If I remember correctly, among others an historian of ideas
speculated that 'Swedishness' resided in the deepest recesses of a pine
forest.
Bergfleth is not any clearer in this essay, but we get the impression of the
directions in which he looks for solutions. Klaus Vondung ( 1 988) has
pointed out how strongly influenced Bergfleth is by French postmodernism.
1 5 This idea he most likely derived from Georges Bataille, on whom he wrote two books.
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1 36 RAD I CAL CON S E RVATI SM A N D THE FUTU RE OF POLITI CS
* * *
16 The studies of the historian of religion, Georges Dumezil, have influenced many radical
conservatives.
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N EW POLITICAL CONSTELLATIONS? 1 37
17 It is interesting to note that Mohler ( 1989), in his book on 'the conservative revolution'
argues, that its central idea was a cyclical, nonlinear conception of time (see above, Chapter
2).
18 Cf. Chapter 6 above, on how US right-wing groups now want to create the myth of
origin - the Anglo-American Republic.
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1 38 RAD I CAL CONSERVATISM A N D TH E FUTU RE OF POLITICS
1 9 Sternhell's text is, as far as I know, only published in Hebrew, therefore I have to trust
Rosenberg's summary of his text.
20 At least this was the case in the early 1990s.
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N EW POLITICAL CONSTELLATIONS? 1 39
(from where he was expelled), and one of the founders of the Green Party
in Germany. It is not incorrect to label him as an ecofascist: in an interview
from 1 990 he said that: 'Deep down in the soul of the people there is a cry
for a green Hitler' (Geden, 1 996: 23). Today, he has moved towards the
PDS, the heir to the old Communist Party (SED) in East Germany. He
argues that communism and ecology are 'identical' in their origin and
goals, and in their anti-Western attitude (Geden, 1 996: 23). Perhaps he is
right.
Another reason for increasing nationalism in Europe is the EU project.
Many people, from all over the classical political spectrum, have fears of
this project. The resistance is a mix of xenophobia ('hordes of Germans
will buy our beautiful country'), 'socialism' ('we cannot control our own
welfare state system'), and old-fashioned nationalism ('the EU is a threat
to the Nordic Volksgemeinschajt,21 ).
Another new political constellation, not identical with the ones
mentioned so far, is what Walter Laqueur (1 996) calls 'political religion'.
This receives nurture from the Sinnkrise, the crisis of Meaning, in the
world. The examples are many: Islamic fundamentalist regimes in Iran and
in Sudan, the anti-Western armed opposition in Algeria, the Christian
Fundamentalists in the USA, the Hindu fundamentalist movement in
India, and the role of the Orthodox church in the Serbian Republic in
Bosnia. Here, the church represents the real interests of the Bosnian Serbs.
Milosovic is regarded as a traitor, and the church talks of Saint Karadzic.
The monasteries and the churches are full of former soldiers, serving both
God and Saint Karadzic.22
However, the prospects for democracy as we know it are not too bad.
There seems to be an irreversibility in the process of democratization. The
number of countries moving from dictatorship to democracy clearly
outnumber countries which have moved in the opposite direction. But we
know nothing about the future, and, for example, Huntington's ( 1 996)
warnings of how 'multiculturalism' weakens the Western alliance should be
taken seriously; that is, democratic values are not only ideology or utopia,
but also institutions, and these institutions are, in the long run, guaranteed
only if the geopolitical agents are ready and willing to defend them.
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PART III
CONCLUSIONS
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8
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We can learn things from the objects we study. In the case of radical
conservatism I have agreed that it has some insights: the unavoidable
issues of decisionism, myth and the irrational, and the reality of geo
politics. Even if these issues are treated to an extent in other political
ideologies, they are either condemned or under-emphasized.
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TH E SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE 1 45
Utopie (1 985) was to make a synthesis possible which could save the
democratic republic. Anyway, what I want to make clear here is that
the sociology of knowledge, as I interpret it, has critical potentials in this
context. The guiding idea for radical conservatism is the centrality of
politics since liberalism, being the political arm of capitalism, means the
hegemony of purely economic individualism. Here we can raise two main
objections. Not only fascism, but also liberalism and socialism, are differ
ent forms of true political thinking since they relate the questions of what
has yet become and what might be becoming. Thus, political thinking has to
be connected to an open dialogue. This open dialogue is not, as radical
conservatism thinks, an act of avoiding decisions, but the art of securing
rational and non-barbaric decisions. Furthermore, since all knowledge
presupposes understanding, a denial of the open dialogue betrays this basic
human condition. It is the contribution by a conservative philosopher -
Gadamer - that has made us conscious of this: that when we understand
something we must already have understood it as something before, we
must have a hint what to expect.
Radical conservatism can also be criticized from the viewpoint of a
formal theory of sociability and also sociology in general. 1 This theory
makes clear that human beings are not only economic beings - as in neo
liberalism and in economic thought - or political beings, which is the
standpoint of radical conservatism. No, the individual is also a social
being, and a denial of this is both a self-contradiction and an invitation to
terrorism. To put it very succinctly, sociability is triadic: it is a relation
between at least three persons, while the dyadic relation is pre-social, a
mirroring relation between two people. This is indeed an argument against
all forms of cultural relativism and Sonderweg-thinking: social exchange
and interaction is always 'more' than pure conjunction, the almost private
interaction between two people. As soon as there is a triad, communication
is there.
If we consider the sociologists linked in one way or another with radical
conservatism, we see that Arnold Gehlen and technocratic conservatism
look strong when confronted with, for example, Theodor Adorno's
extremely strong messianic utopianism (see p. 71). But when confronted
with less extreme forms of social and political thought it is a different
matter. Since we live in a (post)modern society, existing institutions are not
always per se the perfect answer to processes of conflict, mediation of
actions, etc. Sometimes, for example, new social movements can make
people aware of the need for changing or even abolishing institutions, not
as an effect of a plan of divine historical Reason, but as a simple empirical
handling of concrete matters.
Sociologists like Vilfredo Pareto and Robert Michels, with their theses
on myths and elites, highlight the dark side of society, and this is a
I See Dahl ( 1 997) for a proposal for 'a formal theory of sociability'.
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* * *
Regardless what the reason is, the result is the same - international
competition and conflict, where the national myth can be the most effective
means of promoting the national case. Thus, in the end, Carl Schmitt's
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THE SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE 1 47
dream of the rebirth of politics, as he defines it, has come true. In the worst
case, Jihad, molecular war and Balkanization will be the dominant reality.
Of course, I cannot give any prescriptions on how to 'cure' conditions
favouring radical conservatism. But at least I think I can give a hint in such
a direction by using an example. The example again deals with the infernal
dialectic between 'racism' and 'anti-racism', a central political question of
our times.
The institutionalized anti-racism is a part of a great narrative which
nowadays has to respond to the problem of self-legitimation. This narra
tive is the one of the welfare state as the incarnation of the liberal ideas of
the Enlightenment and the idea of natural rights. The problems of legiti
mating these ideas was most openly shown in the Weimar Republic. The
problem can be stated very succinctly: the Right, the True, the Good, etc.
need more than to be declared as rational. Their rationality has to be
demonstrated and realized. In the context of racism, for example, we not
only need the anti-racist discourse, or abstract solidarity, we also need to
develop an extended 'we-feeling' (Rorty, 1 989). Here we have to make a
choice between two politically opposed ways of understanding and
defending solidarity: either the neo-conservative way of arguing that solid
arity and we-feeling can be reached only at the very concrete, interpersonal
level, the family being the prototype here; or the 'leftist' alternative which,
although recognizing the value of the distinctions produced in conser
vatism, wants to keep the idea of a generalized 'we' as an argument for
winning discussions which are not limited by the mechanisms dictated by
the market or the administrative context. I believe in this latter alternative
since the horizons of the family or the market are too limited to make
knowledge of a modern differentiated society possible. The 'we' is some
thing between atomized individuals or households and the abstract con
ceptions of 'humanity', 'state' or 'society'.
We can also place this problem within what I have called the hermen
eutic spiral. Racism can point to the ideological aspects of anti-racism as
being an expression of the colonization of the life-world. Anti-racism can
clarify the ideological aspects of racism as an expression of irrational fear
and its homologies with fascism. If racism and anti-racism are regarded as
a relation instead of 'standpoints' a spiral might appear which shows the
limitations of both positions.
We have another, similar problem today - the chances for universalism,
here understood as the recognition of the rights of every human being and
the idea of a global community where everyone can be integrated without
violating others' rights. This is not a new dream or utopia. Kant was one
of the pioneers in raising the question. Then came Hegel, a man with more
empirical sense than Kant, and problematized Kant's visions (Turner,
1 990). And so the story has continued - every attempt to formulate a
universalism has been deconstructed since particularity is extremely hard to
avoid. The best example is probably the attempts that go all the way back
to the Middle Ages and forwards to formulate the idea of 'Europe' as a
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TH E SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLE D G E 1 49
social agents is that it has mainly been the working-class struggle for rights
and democracy that has led to real parliamentary democracy.
If there can be a third way, guaranteeing the future of politics, we must
prove that there exists a form of human action that is neither work
(performed in the transactions of the market) nor violence (performed by
individuals, groups or nations and states when they are threatened).
Habermas's ( 1 98 1 ) conceptions of 'interaction' and 'communicative action'
are attempts to do exactly this, and my own arguments on sociability (see
Dahl, 1 997) come very near. This third form cannot be fully expressed in
homogenized acclamation of the decisions of the leader(s), or in class
determinated, interest-based communities, or in individualist calculation.
The third form, let us call it 'discourse', must be based on a development of
rational, public life based not on interest created in the market place, nor
on the arena where the gladiators meet and where the strongest and most
decisive wins. The third form can be seen as the democratic utopia, the
type of democracy not fully realized yet. Thurow ( 1 996: 242) has talked
about the antagonism between the principles of the market and democracy.
The former obeys the principle of the 'survival of the fittest', while the
latter rests on the principle of 'one man, one vote'. However, today it
seems as if it is the market that governs the political. An important issue
therefore is the question of how to include the economy in a democratic
institution.
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1 62 I N DEX
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1 66 I NDEX
Nagel, 4 5 parliamentarism, 28
nation, 2, 3, 10, 44, 49, 64, 74-6, 84, 87, 88, parliamentary democracy, 3, 1 2, 46, 74, 87,
90-2, 94, 96, 97, 1 00, 1 0 1 , 104, 105, 1 12, 9 1 , 97, 102, 1 04, 1 32, 144, 1 48, 149
1 14, 1 1 8, 1 19, 128, 146, 149 Perrot, Ross, 1 1 3
Nation of Islam, 1 1 3 perspectivism, 27, 65
National Bolsheviks/national bolshevism, 4, Persson, Hans-Ake, 105
64, 87, 108, 1 10 Petersen, Lars Axel, 42
national community, 3, 4 Peterson, Thomas, 1 22
national rebirth, 3, 56, 63 Peukert, Detlev, 46
national socialism/national socialists, 4, 45, phronesis, 22, 28, 1 22
46, 49, 57, 58, 85, 86, 99, 1 34, 1 36, 1 38 Pizza Hut, 88, 90
nationalism, 2, 5-7, 10, 44, 45, 49, 63, 67, 84, planned economy, 3, 4, 46, 1 00
85, 87, 95, 96, 104, 105, 107, 108, 1 1 1 , plannism, 84
1 13, 1 14, 120, 1 2 1 , 137-9, 146 Plenge, Johann, 43, 44
NATO, 97, 126 Poland, 6, 9
nazism, 54, 86, 101, 1 14 political education, 3 1
negative dialectics, 79 political existentialism, 75, 127
negative freedom, 76, 148 political knowledge, 3 1
negativity, 36, 38 political theology, 8 1 , 84, 97, 1 1 1 , 1 1 9
neo-conservatism/neo-conservatives, 103, Politikerverdrossenheit, 6, 146
1 1 5, 1 16, 1 1 7, 147 populism, 7, 94, 95, 122, 146
neo-fascist, 8 populist, 7, 1 7, 95, 104, 1 05, 1 07, 1 1 1 , 1 12,
neo-liberalism, 3, 97, 1 13, 145 1 14, 1 17, 122, 144
neo-nazis, 1 14 positive freedom, 76
Nevin, Thomas, 58 positivists, 39, 45
New Age, 143 post-colonial, 88
new right, 5, 63, 67, 99, 103, 104 posthistory, 72
New World Order, 87, 1 1 1 , 1 12 postmodernism, 8, 70, 100, 103, 128, 1 29,
Niekisch, Ernst, 54 1 35, 1 3 7
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 22, 42, 43, 45, 54, 55, poststructuralist, 93
65, 66, 67, 84 poverty, 8, 70, 97
nihilism, 8, 34, 35, 40, 45, 48, 58, 65, 144, 146 power, 24, 29, 54, 67, 92, 97, 1 16
Noll, Richard, 92 pre-cognitive, 2 1 , 64
Nolte, Ernst, 101 prejudice, 1 6, 18, 29, 30, 3 1 , 35, 70, 1 22
Norway, 1 05 pre-modern, 32, 42, 65, 78
nouvelle droite, 1 06, 107 PreuBer, Heinz-Peter, 8
NSDAP, 54, 55 progress, 4, 23, 32, 36, 4 1 , 42, 44, 47, 5 1 , 52,
NSK, 125, 1 26 94, 103, 1 12, 133, 1 37
Prokanov, Alexander, 108
occultism, 1 28, 1 36 proletariat, 25, 29, 48
old right, 63, 67 pro-modernist, 51
ontology, 57 Protestantism, 77, 103
oppressed classes, 32 proto-fascism, 12, 48, 73, 92, 1 1 3, 1 14, 1 26
organic, 2, 16, 17, 1 8, 19, 23, 3 1 , 37, 40, 4 1 , psychiatry, 63, 78
46, 48, 5 3 , 75, 87, 1 14, 127 public opinion, 25
organic community, 57, 74, 80, 87, 96, 97, 98 public sphere, 67, 69, 80
organic construction, 51
organic democracy, 3, 64 al-Qadafi, Muammar Muhammed, 1 1 8, 1 19
organic state, 57 Quebec, 107, 1 1 7, 1 1 8
Orthodox, 98, 108, I I I , 139
racism, 7, 70, 1 14, 1 17, 1 22, 1 3 1 , 1 32, 147
Paetel, Karl 0., 54 radical conservatism, 2-6, 8, 1 0-12, 23, 40,
paganism, 77, 1 07, 121, 129, 136 42, 44, 45, 47, 49, 5 1 -7, 59, 63, 67, 68,
Palaver, Wolfgang, 76, 77 70, 7 1 , 73, 75, 76, 78, 8 1 , 86-98, 104-8,
palingenetic ultranationalism, 3 1 10-1 5, 1 1 7- 19, 1 2 1 -3, 125, 127, 1 34,
pan-Germanism, 87, 1 05 137, 143-8
pan-Slavism, 87 radical localism, 1 14
Pareto, Vilfredo, 38, 42, 1 06, 145 radicalism, 4, 8, 9, 58, 86
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IN DEX 1 67
Rai, Shirin, 1 0 1 , 120, 1 2 1 Schmitt, CarJ, 4, 28, 37, 47, 48, 54, 56-8,
rationalism, 1 6, 27, 28, 29, 30, 37, 4 1 , 79, 73-7, 8 1 -3, 88, 96, 98, 99, 103, 106, 109,
91 1 10, 1 1 3, 1 19, 133, 1 35, 144, 146
rationality, 1 8 , 26, 29, 33, 49, 65, 82, 122, 1 34, Schopenhauer, Arthur, 54
1 36, 147 Schroter, Klaus, 54
rationalization, 1 7, 1 9, 30, 5 1 , 53 Schultz, Edmund, 55
Rawls, John, 76 Schulze, Gerhard, 68, 69, 78
reason, 2, 1 6, 1 8, 22, 28, 30, 59, 82, 98, 1 16, Schwilk, Heimo, 99, 1 02
145 Schonhuber, Franz, 8
reflection, 31, 37, 64, 71, 73, 77, 78, 79, 80 science, 4, 1 1 , 18, 1 9, 20, 2 1 , 25, 27, 3 1 , 37,
reflexivity, 63, 64, 65, 67, 7 1 , 72, 74, 75, 76, 4 1 , 42, 55, 66, 7 1 , 95, 1 1 7, 128, 143
78, 79, 84, 93, 95, 1 14, 1 2 1 scientific politics, 27, 28
Reich, Robert 8., 1 0, 93, scientism, 87
reification, 65, 7 1 , 73 second modernity, 79
relationist, 1 7, 26, 53 Seebacher-Brandt, Birgitte, 1 0 1
relativism, 2, 18, 20, 22, 35, 70, 74, 89, 97, Seele, 43, 65
1 1 1, 1 1 5, 1 1 7, 145, 148 Sein und Zeit, 57, 58, 1 34
religion, 2, 3, 6, 77, 82, 84, I I I , 1 19, 1 2 1 , 1 30, Seinsverbundenheit, 23, 36, 40, 90
1 32, 1 38, 1 39 Sennett, Richard, 80
Remnick, David, 1 1 2 separatist, 8, 1 14
Renaissance, 1 7, 98 Serbia, 90, 9 1 , 1 10, 1 38, 1 39
Republican Right, 1 1 3, 1 1 4 SieferJe, Rolf Peter, 44
Republikaner, 8 , 99, 1 03 Simmel, Georg, 42
retrogardism, 125, 1 27, 1 29, 1 30, 1 33, 1 34, Sittlichkeit, 33
1 37 slave morality, 66
revolution, 29, 43, 44, 57, 58, 8 1 , 84, 103, 107, social democracy, 1 7, 68, 85, 93, 97
1 1 6, 1 19, 1 20, Social Democrats, 85, 86
Rifkin, Jeremy, 148 social liberalism, 10, 33, 76, 97, 144
rightlrightist, 3, 6, 1 0, 39, 43, 75, 86, 87, 99, social question, 6
1 0 1 , 103, 104 Socialdemokratiska Arbetarpartiet, 85
Robertson, Pat, 1 1 3 socialism, I , 3, 5, 8, 27, 28, 29, 33, 40, 44, 68,
Romania, I , 4, 5 8 1 , 84, 96, 1 00, 105, 1 06, 1 1 9-21 , 1 37,
romanticism, 20, 28, 30, 3 1 , 41 1 39, 145
rootedness, 28, 32, 66 sociology, I I , 18, 19, 36, 37, 48, 68, 7 1 , 72,
roots, 2, 9, 17, 23, 28, 33, 38, 4 1 , 54, 68, 73, 79, 83
97, 98, 100, 106, 1 14, 1 29, 1 36, 1 37, sociology of knowledge, 10, 1 2, 1 6, 1 7, 24, 25,
146 26, 29, 3 1 , 35, 40, 86, 145
Rorty, Richard, 57, 70, 76, 147 Sombart, Werner, 44
Rosenberg, Arthur, 55 Sonderweg, 55, 102, 105, 108, 1 1 1 , 1 2 1 , 145
Rosenberg, Goran, 1 38 Sontheimer, Kurt, 49
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 1 19 Sorel, Georges, 38, 42, 84, 106
Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, 148 South Africa, 88
Russia, 3, 4, 7-10, 1 5, 45, 53, 55, 64, 88, 96, sovereignity, 82, 87
98, 102, 1 07-9, I I I , 1 20, 1 2 1 , 1 29, 1 32, Soviet system, 46
1 36 Soviet Union, 9, 10, 87, 89, 99, 107, 108, 1 10,
1 14, 1 20, 1 38
sacred, 64, 77, 80, 84, 91 Sozialdemokratur, 93
sacrify, 58, 76, 77 Spengler, Oswald, 1 8, 46, 48, 5 1 , 54, 55, 97
Saddam Hussein, 107, 1 1 0, I I I , 1 1 8 spiritual reawakening, 49
Safranski, Rudiger, 54, 58, 65, 104, 1 34 Stalin, Josef, 84, 1 0 1 , 108, 1 10, 120, 1 38
Sandel, Michael, 1 1 3 Stalinism, 84
Sandell, Hikan, 127, 1 29, 1 30 Stein, Dieter, 104
Sarkowicz, Hans, 57, 103 Stem, Fritz, 45
Sass, Louis A., 78 Sternhell, Zeev, 84, 1 06, 1 38
Schacht, Ulrich, 99, 1 02 Strasser, Gregor, 54
Scheler, Max, 43, 93 Strasser, Otto, 54
Schelsky, Helmut, 7 1 , 72 StrauB, Botho, 4, 77, 99, 1 00, 103, 1 04
schizophrenia, 78 Srauss, Leo, 1 1 3
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