"When philosophy paints its grey in grey then has a shape of life grown old. By philosophy's grey in grey it cannot be rejuvenated but only understood. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of dusk." -- G.W.F. Hegel, 'Preface', Philosophy of Right.
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'Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainity and agitation distinquish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.' Marx
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French New Right
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February 21, 2006
I introduce this bit of text about the French New Right in order to begin to highlight the narrowness or closedness of Australian conservatism, and the way that it is an adversary culture that thrives on attacking its leftwing enemies rather than engage with ideas about substantive political and social issues.
Bryan Sylvian asks: asks: 'In what sense is the [French] New Right part of the right?'
ALAIN DE BENOIST I myself having wondered many times about that, but before answering such a legitimate question, it is necessary to give a satisfactory definition of the word "right," which isn't easy. For the "right" differs from country to country and from epoch to epoch. Moreover, the right is never monolithic: There always exist several rights (as there exist several lefts) andsome of these are closer to certain lefts than to the other ones on the right. Finally, many political or ideological themes and ideas have migrated in the course of history from right to left and vice versa. This makes it difficult to identify a common denominator that links all the different rights (as well as all the lefts). Many have tried to define such a denominator, but never with any unanimity, since their criteria were inevitably subjective and the exceptions too numerous.
The 'right' is a fluid concept in Australia, ranging from neo-liberals to social, cultural and politicial conservatives. So we can say that there are several rights whilst excluding liberalism from 'the right. '
Alan de Benoist then makes a good point. He says that:
"...the traditional basis of conventional political affiliations--- whether generational, sociological, or religious---is in the process of disappearing. Today, to know that someone is "on the left" or "on the right" doesn't tell us much about how he or she really thinks on today's concrete problems. The left-right cleavage is consequently losing its operative value in defining an increasingly complex political scene. Other more interesting cleavages, related to issues of federalism, regionalism, communitarianism, secularism, etc., are beginning to replace it."
He's right about that too. I also prefer the cleavages of federalism, civil society, multiculturalism etc. You don't really hear much about those issues being addressed by Australian conservatives apart from multiculturalism, which is held to be a bad thing. Australian conservatives are mostly newspaper commentators who go bash bash.
De Benoist goes on to say that:
As for the NR, [New Right] it has never identified itself with the traditionalist, counterrevolutionary right, nor with the fascist, Jacobin, or racist right, nor with the liberal conservative right. It has certainly drawn some lessons from the critique of Enlightenment philosophy, which has always been more common for the right than for the left. But in the matter of social criticism, it mainly refers to left-wing writers, whether on the mutualist wing of French socialism (Proudhon, Sorel, Pierre Leroux, Benoit Malon, et al.) or among the more modern "leftist" thinkers and writers, such as Ivan Illich, André Gorz, Herbert Marcuse, Cornelius Castoriadis, Noam Chomsky, Jeremy Rifkin, Benjamin Barber, Michael Walzer, or Naomi Klein.
Now that makes things interesting does it not? You don't hear any Australian conservatives talking like that. They spend more time bashing the left in the name of a cultural war, than trying to make sense of the world around them. The left are to be opposed, says Keith Windshuttle, because they supposedly regard Western culture as, at best, something to be ashamed of, or at worst, something to be opposed. So there is no point in engaging with their ideas.
De Benoist then gives some reasons why Anglo American conservatives do not read the French New Right to develop their intellectual grunt:
"...the main reason for this situation is quite possibly the paucity of culture or the lack of interest of most Englishmen and Americans in what is going on in Europe and elsewhere. It suffices to read the publications of the major academic book publishers to see that most of their references are English-language ones. Everything written in another language is more or less considered nonexistent."
Australia is a provincal culture. The continental ideas filter through the odd academic department (eg., philosophy, literature, French) but they remain there. They are mostly blocked by the gatekeeping Enlightenment liberals pouring antibiotics on the 'pomo virus'.
Why this reaction then? De Benoist gives an explanation:
"...there is perhaps a more profound reason for the NR's failure to penetrate the English-speaking world. In the United States and England, intellectuals have rarely had an important public role to play. Moreover, in contrast to German thought, Anglo-Saxon thought lacks a speculative dimension, being basically practical, if not scientistic. It adores quantitative data and "case studies," is marked by positivism and reductionism, and culminates in analytic philosophy, which, in my opinion, is the zero degree of philosophy. In such a view, politics is perceived as a matter of social engineering and "scientific" management."
Tis a utilitarian culture in Australia.
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