The European Intellectual Origins of the Alt-Right

This article places the intellectual inspirations behind the white nationalism of the Alt-Right in a Transatlanticcontext. It does so by first focusing on the late 1960s and the rise of New Right Movements throughoutEurope that sprang up as a response to the New Left, which involved a hatred of liberal internationalismand multiculturalism, a thorough critique of global capitalism, and, in one way or another, promoted anidentitarian form of race-based politics. The pivotal New Right figure here is Alain de Benoist whose key ideasthis paper will summarize. The paper then shows how Benoist’s thought made its way into United States bythe 1990s. I will conclude by unpacking a strange argument that it was in fact cultural Marxists, and specificallyEuropean émigré thinkers fleeing the Nazis, who provided a model for how the alt-Right could pursue a culturalrevolution that would overthrow liberal understandings of race and identity

Keywords:

European, Intellectual origins, Alt-right, Radical thought Civilization,

PDF

___

Amend, A. (2018). Analyzing a terrorist’s social media manifesto: The Pittsburgh synagogue shooter’s posts on Gab. Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved from https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/10/28/analyzing-terrorists-social-media-manifestopittsburgh- synagogue-shooters-posts-gab?fbclid=IwAR1X5OVAjNj7v0ktp46Kwm 6SGhKP5naLEKmhFyKblMcK0F4_fEPjKSqhoVg
Bannon, S. (2016). This is how Steve Bannon sees the entire world. Buzzfeed. Retrieved from https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/lesterfeder/this-is-how-steve-bannon-sees-the-entire-world
Bar-On, T. (2011). Transnationalism and the French Nouvelle Droite. Patterns of Prejudice, 45(3), 199‒223.
Beinart, P. (2017). The racial and religious paranoia of Trump’s Warsaw speech. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/07/trump-speechpoland/ 532866/
Benoist, A. (1992). Tradition. Telos, 94, 82‒88.
Benoist, A. (1998). Hayek: A critique. Telos, 110, 74‒104.
Benoist, A. (2004). On identity. Telos, 128, 9‒64.
Breivik, A. (2011). Introduction: What is political correctness? (Breivik Manifesto 2083). Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/breivikmanifesto/2083/introduction/04
Buet, P., & Feder, J. L. (2017). The man who gave white nationalism a new life. BuzzFeed. Retrieved from https://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/the-man-who-gave-white-nationalism-anew- life?utm_term=.ljReLpLpv-.gsdQBmBm7
Camus, R. (2012). Le grand remplacement. Neuilly-sur-Seine: Editions David Reinharc.
Clover, C. (2016). The unlikely origins of Russia’s manifest destiny. Foreign Policy. Retrieved from https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/27/geopolitics-russia-mackinder-eurasia-heartlanddugin- ukraine-eurasianism-manifest-destiny-putin/
Cohen, W. D. (2017). How Stephen Miller rode white rage from Duke’s Campus to Trump’s west wing. Vanity Fair. Retrieved from https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/stephen-millerduke- donald-trump
Dugin, A. (2012). Interview with Alexander Dugin. Counter-Currents. Retrieved from https://www.counter-currents.com/2012/07/interview-with-alexander-dugin/
Foer, F. (2017). It’s Putin’s world. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ archive/2017/03/its-putins-world/513848/
Friberg, D. (2017). The birth of Arktos and its role in the Alt-Right. Alt-Right: Reclaiming Our Heritage. Retrieved from https://vikupbitauto.ru/2017/05/31/the-birth-of-arktos-and-its-role-inthe- alt-right/
Gilbert, A. (2018). The far-right book every Russian general reads. The Daily Beast. Retrieved from https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-far-right-book-every-russian-general-reads
Hamburger, J., & Steinmetz-Jenkins, D. (2018). 1968-2018: Vie et mort du néoconservatisme. Libération. Retrieved from http://www.liberation.fr/debats/2018/04/26/1968-2018-vie-et-mortdu- neoconservatisme_1646114
Harkinson, J. (2016). Trump’s newest senior adviser seen as a white nationalist ally. Mother Jones. Retrieved from https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/12/trumps-newest-senior-adviserseen- ally-white-nationalists/
Hildreth, M. (2018). Is Stephen Miller a white nationalist? America’s Voice. Retrieved from https:// americasvoice.org/blog/stephen-miller-white-nationalist/
Jay, M. (2010). Dialectic of counter-enlightenment: The Frankfurt School as scapegoat of the Lunatic Fringe. Salmagundi, 168-169, 30‒40.
Johnson, G. (2012). New right versus old right. Counter-Current. Retrieved from https://www.counter-currents.com/2012/05/new-right-vs-old-right/
Johnson, G. (2017). Postmodernism versus identity. Counter-Current. Retrieved from https://www.counter-currents.com/2017/08/postmodernism-vs-identity-2/
Kennedy, D. (2016). The French ideologue who inspired the Alt-Right. Daily Beast. Retrieved from https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-french-ideologues-who-inspired-the-alt-right
Lind, W. (Ed.). (2004). Political correctness: A short history of an ideology. Retrieved from http://www.nationalists.org/pdf/political_correctness_a_short_history_of_an_ideology.pdf
Lowndes, J. (2017). From new class critique to white nationalism: Telos, the Alt Right, and the origins of Trumpism. Konturen. Retrieved from http://journals.oregondigital.org/index.php/konturen/article/view/3977/3755
Mammone, A. (2008). The transnational reaction to 1968: Neo-fascist fronts and political cultures in France and Italy. Contemporary European History, 17(2), 213–236.
McEvers, K., & Spencer, R. (2016). “We’re not going away”: Alt-Right leader on voice in Trump administration. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2016/11/17/502476139/were-not-goingaway- alt-right-leader-on-voice-in-trump-administration
Müller, J. W. (2003). A dangerous mind: Carl Schmitt in Post-War European thought. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.
Oliver, S. (2017). Unwrapping the ‘Cultural Marxism’ nonsense the Alt-Right loves. Vice. Retrieved from https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/78mnny/unwrapping-the-conspiracytheory- that-drives-the-alt-right
Ravid, B. (2017). We just want to preserve our identity - like Israel and Trump, ‘Le Pen party official tells Haaretz. Haaretz. Retrieved from https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premiumle- pen-party-official-we-just-want-to-preserve-our-identity-like-israel-and-trump-1.5491481
Sildman, S. (2017). Trump’s speech in Poland sounded like an Alt-Right manifesto. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/world/2017/7/6/15927590/trump-alt-right-poland-defend-westcivilization- g20
Snyder, T. (2017). On tyranny: Twenty lessons from the twentieth century. Danvers, Massachusetts: Tim Duggan Books.
Sommerlad, J. (2018). What is the migrant caravan and why is it dominating the US midterm elections? Independent. Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/migrant-caravan-what-ismexico- trump-where-today-map-border-midterm-elections-a8608236.html
Steigmann-Gall, T. (2017). Star-spangled fascism: American interwar political extremism in comparative perspective. Social History, 42(1), 94‒119.
Steinmetz-Jenkins, D. (2014). Between two rights: Julien Freund and the origins of political realism in France. Patterns of Prejudice, 48(3), 248‒264.
Thiessen, M. (2017). Trump’s defense of Western civilization is not Alt-Right. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-defense-of-western-civilization-is-not-altright/ 2017/07/12/aea2afe6-6650-11e7-9928-22d00a47778f_story.html?utm_term=.ec4c8a5a5b4a
Trump, D. (2018). Remarks by president Trump to the people of Poland. Whitehouse Briefings. Retrieved from https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trumppeople- poland/
Umland, A. (2010). Aleksandr Dugin’s transformation from a lunatic fringe figure into a mainstream political publicist, 1980–1998: A case study in the rise of late and post-Soviet Russian fascism. Journal of Eurasian Studies, 1(2), 144‒152.
UN News. (2018). Idea of ‘homogenous’ Polish culture is a myth: UN human rights expert. Retrieved from https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/10/1022342
Williams, T. C. (2017). The French origins of “You will not replace us”. The New Yorker. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/04/the-french-origins-of-you-will-not-replace-us
Zwarg, R. (2017). Die Kritische Theorie in Amerika: Das Nachleben einer Tradition. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

İstanbul Üniversitesi Sosyoloji Dergisi-Cover

ISSN: 1304-2998
Başlangıç: 2020
Yayıncı: İstanbul Üniv. Edebiyat Fak. Sosyoloji Böl.

Arşiv