Archeofuturism Page 2
We should avoid being backward-looking, concerned with restoration and reaction, for it is the last few centuries that have spawned the pox that is now devouring us. It is a matter of returning to archaic and ancestral values, while at the same time envisioning the future as something more than a mere extension of the present. Against modernism, futurism. Against attachment to the past, archaism. Modernity has failed, it is crumbling, and its followers are the real reactionaries.
* * *
We are standing face to face with the barbarians. The enemy is no longer outside but inside the City, and the ruling ideology, paralysed, is incapable of spotting him. It stammers, overcome by its own moral disarmament, and is giving up: this is the time to seize the reins. Present society is an accomplice to the evil that is devouring it. For this reason, if the ideas our current of thought espouses will prove an effective alternative, they will be accused by the chorus of false virgins of two demonising anathemas: subversion and sedition. Why not?
We should expect this. We should engage in battle without complaining about censorship and persecution, and without being surprised, should the ruling ideology betray its own principles to fight against its absolute enemy.
With respect to the system, and especially the intellectual Left – its most faithful guard dog – our current of thought and its associated political forces now find themselves in much the same situation Leftists and anarchists were facing in May ’68[9] with respect to the establishment. Still, there are some considerable differences: on the one hand, radical Leftists and anarchists at the time were leading a struggle for workers’ empowerment, a backward-looking, symbolic battle with no real stakes; on the other, more traditional Leftists and the Right-wing ruling power at the time ultimately shared the same egalitarian ideology, while disagreeing as to how and to what extent this should be applied. As for the far Left of today, as we shall see, it serves to accelerate official ideology and praxis, while concealing the role it plays through pseudo-dissent: actually, in no way does it challenge the dominant global model of civilisation or economy.
* * *
By contrast, the situation our forces find themselves in with respect to the system is similar to that which existed in the 1930s: no point of agreement is possible (except on the part of the potential traitors of the parliamentary Right, which form a rather significant portion of the ruling class): the only strategy is all-out war. In adopting a revolutionary stance, aimed at the overthrowing of a civilisation, we must be ready to face total war – a fight without quarter. Clearly, the enemy will seek to get rid of us by any means, just as we will have to make sure that his return to the political scene is made utterly impossible.
As Hölderlin’s famous verse goes, ‘This is the midnight hour of the world.’[10] And when the sun rises, the morning will have to belong to us. Giorgio Locchi[11] used to say much the same thing: we are living in the interregnum between the collapse of a system and the creation of the new metamorphic universe.
There is a present need to develop a worldview that may serve as the common denominator for our current of thought on a European level, and which in the face of an emergency may enable us to overcome minor disputes caused by differences in doctrine or attitude. The notion of Archeofuturism may certainly contribute to this. As Nietzsche already prophesised, ‘The man of the future is he who will have the longest memory.’[12]
* * *
Clearly, I remain loyal to the overall notion of ‘nationalism’, understood however in its European, continental understanding as opposed to the French, which we have inherited from the dubious philosophy of the Revolution. To be a nationalist today is to assign this concept its original etymological meaning, ‘to defend the native members of a people.’ This entails a break with the traditional idea of nation and citizenship we have inherited from the egalitarian philosophy of the Enlightenment. To be a nationalist today is to embrace the notion of a ‘European people’, which exists and is under threat, but is not yet politically organised for its self-defence. It is possible to be a ‘patriot’, someone tied to his sub-continental motherland, without forgetting that this is an organic and vital part of the common folk whose natural and historical territory – whose fortress, I would say – extends from Brest to the Bering Strait.
It is quite true that the form of present-day Europe, this ‘thing’, must be fought. Yet, the historical tendency of the European peoples to unite in the face of adversity must be defended to the very end. Some of my positions in this book, in favour of the establishment of a United States of Europe or Eurosiberian Federation, may shock certain people. But let there be no doubt: I am not a partisan of the spineless Europe of the Amsterdam Treaty, nor am I an enemy of France. Again, what I am suggesting here are paths: I am providing weapons to launch the debate and trying to point to some ‘value guidelines’ – in no case am I offering a closed doctrine.
The European youth – the genuine one – needs ideas to face the imminent danger, not video-centric revelries or humanitarian whimpers in a climate of sophisticated censorship and repression. The ‘Mitterrand generation’ is dead, engulfed by ridicule and paralysed by failure. Now is the time for a dissident generation to rise. It is up to her to imagine the unimaginable.
* * *
If it is to survive, our folk – whether in Toulouse, Rennes, Milan, Prague, Munich, Antwerp or Moscow – must revert to and embrace ancestral virility. Otherwise, as is already happening, we shall be submerged by more vital, more youthful and less well-meaning peoples with the complicity of a delinquent bourgeoisie that – whatever it may do – will itself be swept away by the tide it has so heedlessly caused.
Let us dare to think the unthinkable. Let us explore and continue along the path paved by an early riser and visionary: a certain Friedrich Nietzsche. From Resistance to Revolution, from Revolution to Rebirth.
[1] Julius Evola (1898-1974) was the most important Italian member of the traditionalist school, which is to say that he opposed modernity in favour of an approach to life consistent with the teachings of the ancient sacred texts. Toward this end he also became intellectually involved with the Fascist and National Socialist movements in their heyday (although considered both to be woefully deficient). His most important book, available in English, is Revolt Against the Modern World.
[2] F. T. Marinetti (1876-1944) was the founder of the Futurist movement in Italian art, which derided tradition in favour of technology and social change.
[3] Faye is likely referring to a famous section of a longer poem, Jocelyn, by this name which was written in 1801 by the French poet Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869). De Lamartine is regarded as the first poet of the Romantic school in France. ‘The Labourers’ describes the life of common farmers, depicting their family and working lives as being in accordance with the glory of God and the natural world. It has been translated by F. H. Jobert in Jocelyn: An Episode (London: Edward Moxon, 1837), pp. 358-375. It is worth noting that de Lamartine was a Pantheist and regarded Islam as the greatest religion.
[4] Raymond Ruyer (1902-1987) was a French philosopher who wrote primarily about the philosophical implications of the discoveries of modern science and his own form of gnosticism. He opposed existentialism and the Leftist trends in the philosophy of his time. He has never been translated into English and, as Faye writes, is largely forgotten in France today. Faye will discuss Ruyer at greater length later in this book.
[5]New Right.
[6]Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) was an important German jurist and legal philosopher who was part of the Conservative Revolution of the Weimar era. Ernstfall, one of his key concepts, is often translated as ‘state of exception’ or ‘emergency case’. Schmitt’s use of this concept is complex, but in brief, Schmitt regarded the rule of law in any society as always being a temporary state of affairs and that modern, liberal concepts of law in particular are insufficient when confronted with a situation that falls outside the routine situations which they were designed to regulate. As such, it
is the responsibility of the leaders of a society to determine when the law must be suspended in order to deal with an exceptional situation. Schmitt regarded the National Socialists’ abrogation of the Weimar constitution as being a legitimate use of the Ernstfall. Schmitt discusses this idea at length in his book Political Theology.
[7] Guy Debord (1931-1994) was a French Marxist philosopher and the founder of the Situationist International whose ideas have become influential on both the radical Left and Right. The spectacle, as described in his principal work, The Society of the Spectacle, is one of the means by which the capitalist establishment maintains its authority in the modern world – namely, by reducing all genuine human experiences to representational images in the mass media, thus allowing the powers-that-be to determine how individuals experience reality.
[8]Combat was originally an underground newspaper published by the French Resistance during the German occupation of the Second World War. Many Left-wing intellectuals who would become highly influential in the post-war period wrote for it, including Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, André Malraux and Raymond Aron. The paper continued to function for many years after the war as a mouthpiece for the French Left.
[9]May 1968 was when a series of strikes by radical Left-wing student groups in Paris, under the influence of Guy Debord and the Situationist International, were joined by a strike by the majority of the French work-force, shutting down France and nearly bringing down the government of Charles de Gaulle. Although the strikes ended in failure and had evaporated by July, they are still seen as the decisive moment when traditional French society, including the old Leftist and Communist parties, were forced to give way to the more liberal attitude that has come to define France in subsequent years.
[10]The author is here most likely referring to Hölderlin’s poem ‘Bread and Wine’. The night is used to symbolically represent our age, when the ancient gods of Greece and Christ have left the world and it is only the poets who attempt to keep their memory alive until their return. Many translations exist. Martin Heidegger discusses this poem at length in his famous essay ‘Why Poets?’, translated in Off the Beaten Path (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
[11]Giorgio Locchi (1923-1992) was an Italian journalist who was a founding member of GRECE and an occasional collaborator with Alain de Benoist. He also wrote on Wagner and Nietzsche. He remains untranslated.
[12]This quote is the motto of Terre et Peuple, a group composed of intellectuals who have broken away from GRECE or the Front National. Faye has contributed to their journal.
1. An Assessment of the Nouvelle Droite
Why did I suddenly quit the Nouvelle Droite and its most precious flower, GRECE,[1] in 1986? The answer is a very simple one. No, I was not recruited by the CIA, nor did I lose my mind through the bite of a rock’n’roll-singing mosquito. Firstly, some work projects prevented me from contributing to the activities of GRECE as a militant; secondly, I noticed that the tone and general orientation of the movement were losing momentum and turning it into a kind of clique and club. And thirdly, the Nouvelle Droite was taking ideological turns with which I increasingly disagreed and which threatened to marginalise it, despite the (always verifiable) worth of its members – and there was nothing I could do to change its course. Twelve years later my diagnosis has been confirmed: the influence of the Nouvelle Droite has declined. Why?
Diagnosis: A Considerable Loss of Influence
Once, every issue of Éléments[2] was an ideological barrage that sparked outraged reviews from the mainstream press. Today, the magazine has taken on an almost secretive tone and is ignored by the wider educated public and the decision-makers. Likewise, the ‘Colloques parisiens’[3] no longer receive the media coverage they enjoyed in the 1980s. While they may still attract roughly the same number of people, have they not become the nostalgic meetings of an association of veterans? Besides, I doubt whether GRECE is still as capable as it was in previous years of filling the halls of large cities in France and Belgium with weekly conferences and seminars. The only recent instance in which the Nouvelle Droite had any relevance was the debate launched on Krisis magazine regarding the fraud of contemporary art: a central problem that shocked the little subsidised masters and gigolo-artists of mainstream non-art. Alas, this media visibility was short-lived and insufficient: ultimately it was largely ignored by the wider public, unlike the heated polemics on central issues we continued to spark up until the mid-1980s, and which spread everywhere, from the United States to the USSR.
Today even the most interesting writings from the Nouvelle Droite only circulate in the narrow milieu of its followers, while the platitudes, virtuous and verbose inanities, and self-righteous quibbles of people like Ferry,[4] Serres[5] and Conte-Sponville,[6] just like Bourdieu’s[7] idiocies and the talentless gloom of Bernard-Henri Lévy[8] – mediocre mediatised intellectuals sponsored by the current soft totalitarianism – are spreading through the insolent self-importance of idiots. This is a defeat. But losing a battle does not necessarily mean losing the war.
In brief, the Nouvelle Droite has been confined to the periphery of the debate. Regrettably, it has turned into an ideological ghetto. It no longer sees itself as a powerhouse for the diffusion of energies with the ultimate aim of acquiring power, but rather as a publishing enterprise that also organises conference but has limited ambitions. Clearly, behind this process of marginalisation lie both external causes (a hostile or indifferent milieu) and internal ones (due to the movement itself). The latter are more crucial. One can only recover from a temporary defeat by acknowledging it as such and assuming responsibility for it. Ambition comes from modesty: no progress can be made without self-criticism. Those who blame others, enemies and the political climate for their own failures do not deserve to win. For it is in the logic of things for enemies to oppress you and circumstances to prove hostile. The mistake lies in exorcising reality by adopting the morals of intention as opposed to those of consequences, through unrealistic arguments: ‘You know, we have as many people as before at the colloques’; ‘It is full of young people at the Université d’été.’[9] Hell! We should stop issuing reassuring reports that only serve to conceal reality. It is necessary to avoid sterile polemics and accept positive self-criticism. The question is: why is the Nouvelle Droite, which possessed an impressive ideological armoury, objectively going downhill? Are we witnessing its final decline or merely a standstill that foreshadows its relaunching?
I will attempt to answer this question, but first, two preliminary observations are in order. The first is that no one, within what might vaguely be defined as the ‘ideological Right’ in Europe, has yet managed to acquire the kind of intellectual influence the Nouvelle Droite had at the turn of the 1980s. Its only potential heir is the pan-European intellectual movement ‘Synergies’,[10] which is led – amongst others – by Robert Steuckers, and which strikes me as being on the right track, for it pursues ambitious aims. Still, the match is not over. A second observation: in 1998, the only genuinely tangible influence of the Nouvelle Droite on society at large is that exercised by its runaway members now in the Front National,[11] which they have driven to take an anti-American course – a real mental revolution for this milieu. On the other hand, the influence of the Nouvelle Droite can be detected in the formulation of a widespread cultural and economic hostility towards Americanisation (‘the French exception’) – hostility which remains largely ineffectual, given the indolence of political decision-makers. So overall, the concrete ideological impact of the Nouvelle Droite has been rather meagre.
From 1986 I started to feel that there was no longer any real fervour left, and that a clique spirit and literary pagan romanticism were prevailing over historical will. I could see that the chief aim consisted no longer in the establishment of a school of thought, the exercising of concrete ideological influence, and the development of a radical thought through ‘shocking ideas’, but rather in a sort of elegant intellectualism and the entrenchment of a
‘community’, a noble thing when it relies on an established power, but a demobilising one when reduced to the tautology of a clique.
It is necessary to analyse the causes of this decline, which – having taken place in less than a decade – was far more sudden and striking than the old Action Française...[12] How and why did the main alternative ideological movement to have emerged in post-War Europe turn out to be merely a comet? What lessons can we gain from this? And what should we do now? Can the mechanism be put into motion again?
Certainly, no one knows what will remain in future history of the mass of texts produced by the Nouvelle Droite and its followers. No doubt, there will be some continuations, restatements, and reinterpretations. Perhaps a revolution in 2050? But let us simply stick to the present for the time being, before moving on to discuss the strategies for a restoration.
The Causes of the Loss
of Influence of the Nouvelle Droite
It is quite true that cultural societies, theoretical magazines, and new intellectual systems must all face great obstacles which did not exist only twenty years ago: the end of the pyramidal spread of knowledge, the firepower of the cultural entertainment industries that marginalise and conceal all new or rebellious thought, the net-like multiplication of medias of all sorts, etc. These external causes, however, do not explain everything. The Nouvelle Droite might have turned obstacles into opportunities by adapting its communication strategy to the new milieu. It failed to do so – we failed do so. We failed to see the meteor that was approaching.