Alain de Benoist
Alain de Benoist | |
---|---|
Born | Tours, Indre-et-Loire, France | 11 December 1943
Alma mater | University of Paris |
Era | Contemporary philosophy |
Region | Western philosophy |
School | Nouvelle Droite |
Notable ideas | Modernization and secularization of Christian values, repaganization of the West, pensée unique, Nouvelle Droite, ethnopluralism |
Alain de Benoist (
Principally influenced by thinkers of the
His work has been influential with the alt-right movement in the United States, and he presented a lecture on identity at a National Policy Institute conference hosted by Richard B. Spencer; however, he has distanced himself from the movement.[6][7]
Biography
Family
Alain de Benoist was born on 11 December 1943 in Saint-Symphorien (now part of
During the
Early life (1957–1961)
De Benoist was still in high school at
Aged 17 in 1961, de Benoist met François d'Orcival,[8] with whom he became the editor of France Information, an underground pro-OAS newspaper.[16] The same year, he started to attend the University of Paris and joined the far-right student society Federation of Nationalist Students (FEN).[13][8] In 1962, he became the secretary of the group's magazine, Cahiers universitaires, in which he wrote the main articles along with d'Orcival.[8] As a student in law and literature, he began a period of political activism and developed a passion for fantastique cinema.[10] According to philosopher Pierre-André Taguieff, de Benoist possessed an intellectual curiosity that was lacking among his elder colleagues like Dominique Venner (1935–2013) or Jean Mabire (1927–2006), and the young journalist led them to discover a conceptual universe "that they could not imagine", no more than its "possible ideological exploitations".[17]
Radical political activism (1962–1967)
De Benoist met
Between 1963 and 1965, de Benoist was a member of the
After a visit to
In two essays published in 1966, Les Indo-Européens ("The Indo-Europeans") and Qu'est-ce que le nationalisme? ("What Is Nationalism?"), de Benoist contributed to define a new form of European nationalism in which the European civilization — to be understood as the "white race"[24] — would be considered above its constituting ethnic groups, all united within a common empire and civilization superseding the nation states. This agenda was adopted by the European Rally for Liberty (REL) during the 1967 French legislative election (de Benoist was a member of the REL national council), and later became a core idea of GRECE since its foundation in 1968.[25]
The successive failures of the far-right movements de Benoist had supported since the early 1960s — from the dissolution of OAS and the
Nouvelle Droite and media fame (1968–1993)
This article is part of Conservatism in France |
Part of a series on |
Fascism |
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The
De Benoist's works, along with others published by the think tank, began to attract public attention in the late 1970s, when the media coined the term Nouvelle Droite to label the movement.
Although de Benoist had announced his retirement from political parties and elections to focus on metapolitics in 1968,[25][26] he ran as a candidate for the far-right Party of New Forces during the 1979 European Parliament election.[36] In the 1984 European Parliament election in France, de Benoist announced his intention to vote for the French Communist Party, and justified his choice by describing the party as the most credible anti-capitalist, anti-liberal, and anti-American political force then active in France.[37]
De Benoist met Russian writer
Intellectual re-emergence (1994–present)
In 1979 and 1993, two press campaigns launched in French liberal media against de Benoist damaged his public reputation and influence in France by claiming that he was in reality a "closet Fascist" or a "Nazi". The journalists accused de Benoist of hiding his racist and anti-egalitarian beliefs in a seemingly acceptable public agenda, replacing the doomed hierarchy of races with the less suspicious concept of
In a 2002, in a republication of his book View from the Right, de Benoist reiterated what he wrote in 1977 that the greatest danger in the world at that time was the "progressive disappearance of diversity from the world", including biodiversity of animals, cultures and peoples.[40] De Benoist is now the editor of two magazines: the yearly Nouvelle École (since 1968) and the quarterly Krisis (since 1988).[48]
Although the extent of the relationship is debated by scholars, de Benoist and the Nouvelle Droite are generally viewed as influential on the ideological and political structure of the Identitarian movement.[49][50] Part of the alt-right has also claimed to have been inspired by de Benoist's writings.[49]
Views
In his early writings, de Benoist was close to pro-colonial movements and followed an ethno-biological approach of social science,
Political scientist
Identity
In 2006, de Benoist defined identity as a dialogical phenomenon, inspired by
If scholars like
Ethnopluralism
De Benoist rejects the
Liberalism
De Benoist is a critic of the primacy of
According to scholar
De Benoist is opposed to the
Monotheism
De Benoist has supported ties with Islamic culture in the 1980s,[66] on the grounds that the relationship would be distinct from what he saw as the consumerism and materialism of the American society and from the bureaucracy and repression of the Soviet Union alike.[67] He also opposes Christianity as inherently intolerant, theocratic, and bent on persecution.[68]
Influences
De Benoist's influences include
Critics
Critics of de Benoist like
Private life
An
Selected works
- Salan devant l'opinion (under the pen name of Fabrice Laroche) (Saint-Just, 1963).
- Le courage est leur patrie (under the pen name of Fabrice Laroche, with François d'Orcival) (Saint-Just, 1965).
- Vérité pour l'Afrique du Sud (under the pen name of Fabrice Laroche, with Gilles Fournier) (Saint-Just, 1965).
- Les Indo-Européens (G.E.D., 1966).
- Rhodésie, pays des lions fidèles (with François d'Orcival) (Table Ronde, 1966).
- Avec ou sans Dieu : l'avenir des valeurs chrétiennes (with Jean-Luc Marion) (Beauchesne, 1970).
- L'Empirisme logique et la Philosophie du Cercle de Vienne (Nouvelle École, 1970).
- Nietzsche: Morale et « Grande Politique » (GRECE, 1973).
- Konrad Lorenz et l'Éthologie moderne (Nouvelle École, 1975).
- Vu de droite. Anthologie critique des idées contemporaines (Copernic, 1977). (grand prix de l'essai de l'Académie française 1978)
- Les Bretons (Les Cahiers de la Bretagne réelle, n°396 bis, 1978).
- Les Idées à l'endroit (Libres-Hallier, 1978).
- Le Guide pratique des prénoms (under the pen name of Robert de Herte, with [sic] Alain de Benoist), coll. « Hors-série d'"Enfants-Magazine" » (Publications Groupe Média, 1979).
- Comment peut-on être païen ? (Albin Michel, 1981).
- Les Traditions d'Europe (Paris: Labyrinthe, 1982).
- Orientations pour des années décisives (Labyrinthe, 1982).
- Fêter Noël. Légendes et Traditions (Atlas-Edena, 1982).
- Démocratie : le problème (Labyrinthe, 1985)
- (in collaboration with Andre Béjin & Julien Freund) Racismes, Antiracismes (Paris: Librairie des Méridiens, 1986)
- (with Thomas Molnar) L'éclipse du sacré: discours et résponses (Paris: Table ronde, 1986)
- Europe, Tiers monde, même combat (Robert Laffont, 1986).
- Le Grain de sable. Jalons pour une fin de siècle (Labyrinthe, 1994).
- Nationalisme : Phénoménologie et Critique (GRECE, 1994).
- Démocratie représentative et Démocratie participative (GRECE, 1994).
- Nietzsche et la Révolution conservatrice (GRECE, 1994).
- L'Empire intérieur (Fata Morgana, 1995).
- La Ligne de mire. Discours aux citoyens européens, t. 1 : 1972–1987 (Labyrinthe, 1995).
- Famille et Société. Origine, Histoire, Actualité (Labyrinthe, 1996).
- La Ligne de mire. Discours aux citoyens européens, t. 2 : 1988–1995 (Labyrinthe, 1996).
- Céline et l'Allemagne, 1933–1945. Une mise au point (Le Bulletin célinien, 1996).
- Horizon 2000. Trois entretiens avec Alain de Benoist (GRECE, 1996).
- La Légende de Clovis (Cercle Ernest Renan, 1996).
- Indo-Européens : à la recherche du foyer d'origine (Nouvelle École, 1997).
- Ernst Jünger. Une bio-bibliographie (Guy Trédaniel, 1997).
- Communisme et Nazisme. 25 réflexions sur le totalitarisme au XXe siècle (Labyrinthe, 1998).
- L'Écume et les Galets. 1991–1999 : dix ans d'actualité vue d'ailleurs (Labyrinthe, 2000).
- Jésus sous l'œil critique des historiens (Cercle Ernest Renan, 2000).
- Bibliographie d'Henri Béraud (Association rétaise des Amis d'Henri Béraud, 2000).
- Dernière Année. Notes pour conclure le siècle (L'Âge d'Homme, 2001).
- Jésus et ses Frères (Cercle Ernest Renan, 2001).
- Louis Rougier. Sa vie, son œuvre (Cercle Ernest Renan, 2002).
- l'Action française. Une bibliographie, BCM, 2002
- Qu'est-ce qu'un militant ? (sous le pseudonyme de Fabrice Laroche, réédition d'un article paru en 1963) (Ars Magna, 2003).
- Critiques-Théoriques (L'Âge d'Homme, 2003).
- Au-delà des droits de l'homme. Pour défendre les libertés (éditions Krisis, 2004).
- Bibliographie générale des droites françaises. 1, Arthur de Gobineau, Gustave Le Bon, Édouard Drumont, Maurice Barrès, Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, Henry de Montherlant, Thierry Maulnier, Julien Freund (Éditions Dualpha, coll. « Patrimoine des lettres », Coulommiers, 2004), 609 p.
- Bibliographie générale des droites françaises. 2, Georges Sorel, Charles Maurras, Georges Valois, Abel Bonnard, Henri Béraud, Louis Rougier, Lucien Rebatet, Robert Brasillach (Éditions Dualpha, coll. « Patrimoine des lettres », Coulommiers, 2004), 472 p.
- Bibliographie générale des droites françaises. 3, Louis de Bonald, Alexis de Tocqueville, Georges Vacher de Lapouge, Léon Daudet, Jacques Bainville, René Benjamin, Henri Massis, Georges Bernanos, Maurice Bardèche, Jean Cau (Éditions Dualpha, coll. « Patrimoine des lettres », Coulommiers, 2005), 648 p.
- Bibliographie générale des droites françaises. 4, Marc Augier), Louis Pauwels(Éditions Dualpha, coll. « Patrimoine des lettres », Coulommiers, 2005), 736 p.
- Jésus et ses Frères, et autres écrits sur le christianisme, le paganisme et la religion (éditions Les Amis d'Alain de Benoist, 2006).
- C'est-à-dire. Entretiens-Témoignages-Explications (2 volumes) (éditions Les Amis d'Alain de Benoist, 2006).
- Nous et les autres. Problématique de l'identité (éditions Krisis, 2006).
- Carl Schmitt actuel (éditions Krisis, 2007).
- Demain, la décroissance ! Penser l'écologie jusqu'au bout (Edite, 2007).
- Dictionnaire des prénoms : d'hier et d'aujourd'hui, d'ici et d'ailleurs (Jean Picollec, 2009).
- Mémoire vive / Entretiens avec François Bousquet (Éditions de Fallois, Collection « Littérature », 2 mai 2012).
- Edouard Berth ou le socialisme héroïque. Sorel, Maurras, Lenine (Pardès, 2013).
- Les Démons du Bien, Du nouvel ordre moral à l'idéologie du genre (Pierre-Guillaume de Roux, 2013).
- Quatre figures de la Révolution Conservatrice allemande - Werner Sombart -Arthur Moeller van den Bruck -Ernst Niekisch - Oswald Spengler (Éditions Les Amis d'Alain de Benoist, 2014).
- Le traité transatlantique et autres menaces (Pierre-Guillaume de Roux, 2015).
- Au-delà des droits de l'Homme. Pour défendre les libertés (Pierre-Guillaume de Roux, 2016).
- Droite-gauche, c'est fini ! : Le moment populiste (Pierre-Guillaume de Roux, 2017).
- Ce que penser veut dire. Penser avec Goethe, Heidegger, Rousseau, Schmitt, Péguy, Arendt… (Éditions du Rocher, 2017).
- Contre le libéralisme (Le Rocher, 2019).
- Ernst Jünger : entre les dieux et les titans (Via Romana, 2020).
- La Puissance et la Foi : essais de théologie politique (Pierre-Guillaume de Roux, 2021).
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Camus 2019, pp. 74–75.
- ^ Bar-On 2016, p. 106.
- ^ Bar-On 2011, p. 335.
- ^ Bar-On 2001.
- ^ McCulloch 2006.
- ^ Kennedy, Dana (30 January 2017). "The French Ideologues Who Inspired the Alt-Right". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 22 May 2017.
- ^ Mohdin, Aamna (30 January 2018). "The alt-right are targeting disgruntled white male lefties to join their movement". Quartz. Retrieved 23 August 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Milza 2002.
- ^ a b Who's Who in France (in French). J. Lafitte. 2013. p. 250.
- ^ a b Duranton-Crabol 1991, p. 61.
- ^ Böhm 2008, p. 51.
- ^ Böhm 2008, p. 47: "Es ist allgemein bekannt, daß er der Großneffe von Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) ist..."
- ^ a b Taguieff 1994, p. 110.
- ^ Taguieff 1994, p. 114.
- ^ a b c Camus 2019, p. 74.
- ^ Lamy 2016, p. 86 n.1.
- ^ Taguieff 1994, p. 136.
- ^ a b c d Duranton-Crabol 1991, pp. 65–66.
- ^ Taguieff 1994, p. 137.
- ^ Taguieff 1994, pp. 143–144.
- ^ a b Shields 2007, p. 121.
- ^ Duranton-Crabol 1991, p. 73.
- ^ Shields 2007, p. 121; de Benoist Oct. 1965, pp. 9–12: "The legal segregation removed (and it will be removed everywhere, we must not be under any illusions) is immediately replaced by a de facto segregation over which the legal, and therefore peaceful, means have no more influence." (Europe-Action 34).
- ^ a b c d De Benoist 1966, pp. 8–9: "Race is the only real unit encompassing individual variations. The objective study of history shows that only the European race (white race, caucasian) has continued to progress since its appearance on the rising path of the evolution of the living, unlike races stagnant in their development, therefore in virtual regression ... The European race does not have absolute superiority. It is only the most capable of progressing in the direction of evolution ... Racial factors being statistically hereditary, each race has its own psychology. All psychology generates value." (Qu'est-ce que le nationalisme?)
- ^ a b c Taguieff 1993, pp. 4–6.
- ^ a b Camus & Lebourg 2017, pp. 132–133.
- ^ Spektorowski 2003, p. 116.
- ^ Griffin 2000, p. 35.
- ^ Duranton-Crabol 1991, p. 76.
- ^ Taguieff 1994, p. 300.
- ^ a b Bar-On 2001, p. 339.
- ^ Bar-On 2001, pp. 333–334.
- ^ Taguieff 1994, pp. 203, 407.
- ^ Bar-On 2016, p. 39.
- ^ Taguieff 1994, p. 246.
- ^ Duranton-Crabol 1988, p. 124.
- ^ Bar-On 2001, p. 343.
- S2CID 153968851.
- ISBN 9783643905420.
- ^ a b c Bar-On 2011.
- ^ de Benoist, Alain (March 1994). "The "European New Right' An Interview with Alain de Benoist." The Journal of Historical Review. pp 28–38.
- ^ de Benoist, Alain (April 1996). "Monotheism vs. Polytheism". Chronicles, pp. 20–23; (July 2003). "The Modern Conception of Sovereignty", pp. 21–23
- ^ de Benoist, Alain (Summer 2003). "Democracy Revisited: The Ancients and the Moderns". The Occidental Quarterly. pp. 47–58.
- ISSN 0765-3697.
- ^ Bar-On 2016, pp. 149–151.
- ^ González Cuevas 2009, pp. 276–277.
- ^ Sanromán 2006.
- ^ Camus 2019, pp. 73, 75.
- ^ a b Camus 2019, p. 73.
- ISBN 9780190212599.
- ^ de Benoist 1970, p. 88: "What makes a population move towards greater quality is that valuable men, the elites, can in turn procreate and transmit, according to the laws of heredity, their exceptional abilities and gifts." (Avec ou sans Dieu ?)
- ^ François, Stéphane (9 March 2015). "Polémique Valls-Onfray : Les néodroitiers ont contribué à structurer le FN, sans en devenir la matrice". Libération (in French). Retrieved 18 August 2019.
- ^ Taguieff 1994.
- S2CID 143809038.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Camus 2019, pp. 75–76.
- ^ France;Ideas and bombs The Economist 23 August 1980
- ^ Camus & Lebourg 2017, p. 124.
- ^ Bar-On 2016, p. 186.
- ^ a b c d e Camus 2019, p. 78.
- ^ Camus 2019, p. 76.
- S2CID 144595116.
- ^ "European Son : An Interview with Alain de Benoist" (PDF). Retrieved 22 October 2015.
- ^ Albertini, Dominique (8 April 2016). "La passion russe de l'extrême droite". Libération (in French). Retrieved 18 August 2019.
- ^ De Benoist, Alain (1982). Orientations pour des années décisives. Paris: Labyrinthe. p. 76.
Certains ne se résignent pas à la pensée d'avoir un jour à porter la casquette de l'Armée rouge. De fait, c'est une perspective affreuse. Nous ne pouvons pas, pour autant, supporter l'idée d'avoir un jour à passer ce qui nous reste à vivre en mangeant des hamburgers du côté de Brooklyn.
- ^ Rone Tempest, "French Revive a Pastime" Los Angeles Times, 15 February 1991.
- ^ Under cover story The Guardian (London) 14 August 1987.
- ^ The disharmonic convergence: the far left and the far right as strange bedfellows,s Whole Earth Review 22 June 1988
- ^ Intolerance, American-Style;Given This Country's History of Religious Animosities, Thomas Fleming Writes Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania) 21 December 1997
- Social Research. 48 (1): 45–73.
Pages 66–67: To summarize: De Benoist's fascism is at odds with Evola's metaphysics but agrees with his social and political philosophy.... [F]or de Benoist, the organic State is an ideal that men can set for themselves and perhaps, with force, establish.
- ^ Griffin 2000.
- ^ Alain de Benoist. Alain de Benoist Interview with Arthur Versluisâ.
- ^ Sunic, Tomislav (Winter 1995). "Marx, Moses, and the Pagans in the Secular City". CLIO. 24 (2): 169–188.
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.
- ^ Backes, Uwe; Moreau, Patrick (2011). The Extreme Right in Europe: Current Trends and Perspectives. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. p. 335.
- ^ de Halleux, André (1992). "Démètre Théraios (éd.), Quelle religion pour l'Europe ? Un débat sur l'identité religieuse des peuples européens. 1990". Revue Théologique de Louvain. 23 (2): 255–256.
- ^ Taguieff, Pierre-André (1981). "L'Héritage nazi. Des Nouvelles Droites européennes à la littérature niant le génocide". Les Nouveaux Cahiers (reproduced in PHDN). Retrieved 5 June 2020.
- ^ "Alain de Benoist". France Culture (in French). 13 May 2012. Retrieved 31 July 2019.
Bibliography
- Bar-On, Tamir (2001). "The Ambiguities of the Nouvelle Droite, 1968–1999". The European Legacy. 6 (3): 333–351. S2CID 144359964– via Taylor & Francis.
- Bar-On, Tamir (2011). "Intellectual Right - Wing Extremism – Alain de Benoist's Mazeway Resynthesis since 2000". In Backes, Uwe; Moreau, Patrick (eds.). The Extreme Right in Europe (1 ed.). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. pp. 333–358. ISBN 978-3-525-36922-7.
- Bar-On, Tamir (2016). Where Have All The Fascists Gone?. Routledge. ISBN 978-1351873130.
- Böhm, Michael (2008). Alain de Benoist und die Nouvelle Droite: ein Beitrag zur Ideengeschichte im 20. Jahrhundert. LIT Verlag Münster. ISBN 978-3-8258-1711-4.
- ISBN 9780674971530.
- ISBN 9780190877613.
- Duranton-Crabol, Anne-Marie (1988). Visages de la Nouvelle droite: le GRECE et son histoire. Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques. ISBN 9782724605617.
- Duranton-Crabol, Marie-Anne (1991). "Du combat pour l'Algérie française au combat pour la culture européenne". In Rioux, Jean-Pierre; Sirinelli, Jean-François (eds.). La Guerre d'Algérie et les intellectuels français. Éditions Complexe. pp. 59–78. ISBN 9782870273777.
- González Cuevas, Pedro Carlos (2009). "Las "otras" derechas en la España actual. Teólogos, "racionalistas" y neoderechistas". Bulletin d'Histoire Contemporaine de l'Espagne (in Spanish) (44). Aix-en-Provence: ISSN 0987-4135.
- S2CID 143890750.
- Lamy, Philippe (2016). Le Club de l'Horloge (1974-2002) : évolution et mutation d'un laboratoire idéologique (PhD thesis). University of Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis.
- McCulloch, Tom (2006). "The Nouvelle Droite in the 1980s and 1990s: Ideology and Entryism, the Relationship with the Front National". French Politics. 4 (2): 158–178. S2CID 144813395.
- ISBN 9782213651064.
- Sanromán, Diego L. (2006). "Contra la muerte del espíritu: últimos avatares de una nouvelle droite a la española" (PDF). Nómadas. Critical Journal of Social and Juridical Sciences (in Spanish). 13 (1). Madrid: ISSN 1578-6730.
- Shields, James G. (2007). The Extreme Right in France: From Pétain to Le Pen. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415372008.
- Spektorowski, Alberto (2003). "The New Right: Ethno-regionalism, ethno-pluralism and the emergence of a neo-fascist 'Third Way'". Journal of Political Ideologies. 8 (1): 111–130. S2CID 143042182.
- JSTOR 3770354.
- Taguieff, Pierre André (1994). Sur la Nouvelle Droite: jalons d'une analyse critique. Descartes et Cie. ISBN 9782910301026.
Further reading
- Bar-On, Tamir (2013). Rethinking the French New Right: Alternatives to Modernity. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-96633-1.
- Fascism, edited by Roger Griffin (1995), pp. 346–348.
- The Beast Reawakens by Martin A. Lee (1997), pp. 208–213.
- ISBN 978-0-13-089301-7.
- Rueda, Daniel (2021). "Alain de Benoist, ethnopluralism and the cultural turn in racism". Patterns of Prejudice. 55 (3): 213–235. S2CID 244558523.
- ISBN 9780544791343.