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Alain de Benoist (French: ; born 11 December 1943) is a French academic, philosopher,[1] a founder of the Nouvelle Droite (New Right), and head of the French think tank GRECE. Benoist is a critic of neoliberalism,[2] free markets, and egalitarianism.[3]
Alain de Benoist was born in Saint-Symphorien (now part of Tours, Indre-et-Loire) and attended the Sorbonne. He has studied law, philosophy, sociology, and the history of religions. He is an admirer of Europe and paganism.
Benoist is the editor of two journals: Nouvelle Ecole (New School) since 1968, and Krisis since 1988. His writings have appeared in Mankind Quarterly, Tyr, Chronicles, and various newspapers such as Le Figaro. The New Left journal Telos has also published Benoist's work. In 1978, he received the Grand Prix de l’Essai from the Académie française for his book Vu de droite: Anthologie critique des idées contemporaines (Copernic, 1977). He has published more than 50 books, including On Being a Pagan (Ultra, 2005, ISBN 0-9720292-2-2).
In 2013 he spoke at a National Policy Institute[4] gathering and gave an interview with American Renaissance.[5] Prior to that, English translations of his books began to be published by Arktos Media.[6]
From being close to French-Algerian movements at the beginning of his writings in 1970, he moved to attacks on Ernest Renan, José Ortega y Gasset, Vilfredo Pareto, Guy Debord, Arnold Gehlen, Stéphane Lupasco, Helmut Schelsky, Konrad Lorenz, the German Conservative Revolutionary movement and the Non-conformists of the 1930s.[8]
Against the
In the age that is heavily laced with the Biblical message, many modern pagan thinkers, for their criticism of biblical monotheism, have been attacked and stigmatized either as unrepentant atheists or as spiritual standard-bearers of fascism. Particularly Nietzsche, Heidegger, and more recently Alain de Benoist came under attack for allegedly espousing the philosophy which, for their contemporary detractors, recalled the earlier national socialist attempts to "dechristianize" and "repaganize" Germany. See notably the works by Alfred Rosenberg, Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts(München: Hoheneichen Verlag, 1933). Also worth noting is the name of Wilhelm Hauer, Deutscher Gottschau (Stuttgart: Karl Gutbrod, 1934), who significantly popularized Indo-European mythology among national socialists: on pages 240–54 Hauer discusses the difference between Judeo-Christian Semitic beliefs and European paganism.
English titles include: – "On being a pagan" (Ultra 2004) – "The problem of democracy" (Arktos 2011) – "Beyond human rights" (Arktos 2011) - "Carl Schmitt Today" (Arktos 2013) – Other titles in english translation forthcoming from Arktos Media.[6]
His critics, such as Thomas Sheehan, argue that Benoist has developed a novel restatement of fascism.[21] Roger Griffin, using an ideal type definition of fascism which includes "populist ultra-nationalism" and "palingenesis" (heroic rebirth), argues that the Nouvelle Droite draws on such fascist ideologues as Armin Mohler and Julius Evola in a way that allows Nouvelle Droite ideologues such as de Benoist to claim a "metapolitical" stance, but which nonetheless has residual fascist ideological elements.[22] Benoist's critics also claim his views recall Nazi attempts to replace German Christianity with its own paganism.[23]
Benoist is also a proponent of the idea of integral federalism, in which the nation state is surpassed, giving way to regional identities and a common continental one at once ("What the ND wants is a federal Europe, founded on the principle of subsidiarity and participatory democracy at every level, where the political clearly predominates over the economic, where the financial markets do not rule everything, and where commercial and merchant values are put back in their proper place"[19]). This would be distinct from what he sees as the consumerism and materialism of American society, as well as the bureaucracy and repression of the Soviet Union. This vision looks to a Europe of specific peoples, each with their own cultures and heritages.[20]
Benoist considers himself both left and right-wing ("I happen to define myself as a “man of right-left,” as a rightist from the left and a leftist from the right, i.e., as an intellectual who simultaneously refers to the ideas of the left and the values of the right."[17]), and throughout his career has continued to adapt and alter his views: in his preference for Martin Heidegger over his first influence, Friedrich Nietzsche; his support of multiculturalism rather than disappearance of immigrants' identities (though he does not support immigration itself); his interest in ecology; and a less aggressive view of Christianity. He has said that he hopes to see free-debate and greater popular participation in democracy, although he is also critical of modern liberal-democracy.[18]
Benoist has devoted an entire book to refuting biological racism (Des animaux et des hommes), and has written three books against racism. His views on racism are thus: “Racism is a theory that postulates, either that qualitative inequalities exist among the races such that one can distinguish generally ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ races, or that the value of an individual is defined entirely by his or her racial belonging, or again that race constitutes the central determining factor in human history. These three postulates may be held together or separately. All three of them are false” (Manifesto). He opposes political violence, saying he is building "a school of thought, not a political movement."[16] While he has complained that nations like the United States suffer from "homogenization," he has also distanced himself from some of Jean-Marie Le-Pen's views on immigration.[3]
De Benoist has made pointed criticism of the United States: "Better to wear the helmet of a Red Army soldier," he wrote in 1982, "than to live on a diet of hamburgers in Brooklyn."[14] In 1991, he complained that European supporters of the first Gulf War were "collaborators of the American order."[15]
He also opposes Gustave Thibon, or from feeling agreement with certain aspects of the social teachings of the Church." He also opposes reconstructivism: "The New Right has never preached a “return” to paganism or a “return” to roots, or a return to anything for that matter. Instead, we wish to go beyond current society, but we wish to envision the future though the lens of a clear consciousness of the past. These two approaches are quite different: ! Let us say simply that one can “futurize” the present only by “historicizing” the past."return is not synonymous with recurrence
[12]
Arthur Schopenhauer, Richard Wagner, Immanuel Kant, Ethics, Metaphysics
Metaphysics, Existentialism, Friedrich Nietzsche, Hannah Arendt, Jean-Paul Sartre
Loire, Departments of France, France, Indre-et-Loire, Lyon
United Kingdom, European Union, Italy, Canada, Spain
France, Medicine, Paris, Philosophy, Music
National Front (France), Communism, Liberalism, French language, Greece
Politics, United Kingdom, Fascism, Austria, Belgium
Political philosophy, Philosophy, Ethics, Politics, Epistemology
Michel Foucault, Postmodernism, Post-structuralism, Slavoj Žižek, European Graduate School
Berlin, Jacques Derrida, Law, Politics, Jurisprudence