ALAINDEBENOIST Alain de Benoist Answers Tamir Bar-On I accept with pleasure the invitation extended to me by Arthur Versluis to answerthearticlebyTamirBar-On.ImustneverthelesssaythatnormallyI wouldnothaveansweredit.Thistext,themajorityofwhichissimplechatter,in factcontributesnothingwhatsoevertotheintelligibilityofthenouvelledroite(ND— NewRight)andfulfillsnoneoftherequirementsofacademicorscientificresearch. As is often the case among Anglo-Saxon authors, it is a simple impressionistic compilationofdisparatedata,withnoconcerneitherforlogicalsequenceorfor conceptualcoherence.Themethod,classical,towhichtheauthorhasrecourse, consistsinreferringtosourcesonlytofindconfirmationofhispresuppositions, systematicallyrulingoutanythingthatmightcontradictthem.Thismethodisboth thatoflampooning(Bar-OndoesnotwriteontheND,butagainsttheND)andthat ofamodernformofsophistryreminiscentoftheeristicdialecticsofSchopenhauer, certainlynottheargumentativepertinencethatwasdefinedbyChaïmPerelman. Experiencehasshownmethatansweringsucharticlesisingeneralasheerwasteof time.ItisthereforeonlyoutofcourtesythatIwillmakeanexception. X X X Butfirstofall,twocomments.Hereisthefirst.Bar-Onhasbeeninterested in the ND since the year 2000, the date when he presented his Ph.D. dissertation at McGill University in Montreal.1 He has since written two JournalfortheStudyofRadicalism,Vol.8,No.1,2014,pp.141–168.ISSN1930-1189 ©2014MichiganStateUniversity.Allrightsreserved. 141 This work originally appeared in Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 8.1, Spring 2014, published by Michigan State University Press. 142 AlaindeBenoist booksaboutit,ofwhichthefirsthasaridiculoustitle.2Approximately100 Ph.D. dissertations and books have been written to date on the ND.3 When one is working on an author or on a contemporary school of thought, it is common practice to contact the concerned parties, to question them directly, to have them explain their thinking, to see how they respond to objections. I myself often receive researchers who are working on the ND. I do not make it my business to know whether they are favorable or hostile to it. I endeavor only to answer their questions. NothingofthekindwithBar-On,whohasnevermadecontactwithmeor withanyotherrepresentativeoftheND. Concerning the sources that he has consulted, one is struck by their outstandinglyselectivecharacter.Ihavepublishedtodate90books,2,000 articles, and 400 interviews. Bar-On has clearly not made the effort to become acquainted with them. In the article to which I am here responding, out of 98 references and footnotes, he mentions the titles of onlyfourofmybooks,asinglearticle,andasingleinterview.Hemakesa direct quotation from only two of these books: Mémoire vive, which is a book of memoirs published in 2012, and Vu de droite, already more than 35 years old. That is rather meager to represent the views of the ND! All the other references are to secondary sources, commentaries picked up here and there, commentaries about commentaries, and so forth. If one now takes the book Rethinking the French New Right, one notices that there too the secondary sources are greatly favored to the detriment of primary sources. The bibliography mentions only 10 of my books (along with 21 articles), and the most important books (Les idées a` l’endroit, L’éclipse du sacré, L’empire intérieur, La ligne de mire, Communisme et nazisme, L’écume et les galets, Dernière année, Critiques—Théoriques, Le sfide della postmodernita`, Nous et les autres, C’est-a`-dire, Carl Schmitt actuel [Carl Schmitt Today (London: Arktos, 2013)], Cartouches, Des animauxetdeshommes,Auborddugouffre,EdouardBerthoulesocialisme héroïque,etc.)arenotevenmentioned. No less significantly, Bar-On also ignores all the works of other ND authors and intellectuals: Jean-Claude Valla, Michel Marmin, Anne Jobert, Yves Christen, Jacques Marlaud, Pierre Le Vigan, Charles Champetier,Micheld’Urance,ThibaultIsabel,Jean-FrançoisGautier,and so on. He does not mention their books and does not even cite their This work originally appeared in Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 8.1, Spring 2014, published by Michigan State University Press. AlaindeBenoistAnswersTamirBar-On 143 names. He speaks of Marco Tarchi as the principal representative of the Nuova Destra, but does not cite any extracts from his many works on politicalscience.AmongtherepresentativesoftheItalianND,heseemsto know nothing about Giuseppe Giaccio, Maurizio Cabona, Stenio Solinas, Giuseppe Del Ninno, Alessandro Campi, Franco Cardini, and so on. On the other hand, he does not hesitate to present as “ND thinkers” charactersthathavenotbelongedtotheNDfordecades.Thisisthecase, for instance, of Guillaume Faye, who left the ND more than 30 years ago because he no longer agreed with its orientations, who has since attacked itfrequently,andwhotodayiswritingtheexactoppositeofwhathewrote when he was part of it. The fact that he belonged to the ND in the past enables Bar-On to pretend to believe that he is still a representative of it and that his current writings involve the ND or can be attributed to it. Thisisintellectuallyindefensible.Norisitespeciallyhonest. The vast majority of the citations made by Bar-On, therefore, refer to secondary sources, often to authors who themselves have never read anything by the ND and who discuss it only by hearsay. This way of operating, which consists in referring to the opinion of others without ever taking the trouble to verify its pertinence or validity, characterizes writings of a polemical nature. In privileging the secondary sources, Bar- On is using and abusing the argument of authority (argumentum ad verecundiam), which consists in attributing value to an argument or an opinionbecauseoftheauthoritythatislenttoitsauthor,notthecontents ofthisargumentortheveracityoftheopinion. Secondcomment.Bar-On,fromthebeginningtotheendofhisarticle (andhisbooks),treatstheNDasaschoolofpoliticalthought.Hemakesa politicalanalysisofit.Helendsitpoliticalintentionsandevena“desireto create a revolutionary new political order” (sic). He wonders where it should be categorized politically. He does not ask himself for a moment about the meaning of what the ND has called “metapolitics.” Now, it is wellknownthattheNDisnotapoliticalpartyormovement,butaschool ofthoughtwhoseonlyworkfornearly50yearshasconsistedinproducing tensofthousandsofpagesofbooksandperiodicals,organizingseminars, colloquia, conferences or summer schools, while refraining from taking any political position, while refusing to give any guidance on voting. In relation to the current political scene, the ND has always adopted a This work originally appeared in Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 8.1, Spring 2014, published by Michigan State University Press. 144 AlaindeBenoist position of observer, never of actor. It produces analyses and thought; it offers a theoretical corpus; it accomplishes intellectual and cultural work. Nothingelse. Bar-On especially does not approach the ND in terms of philosophy. Now,anystudyoftheNDthatdoesnotsituateitselffirstonphilosophical groundistherebycondemnednottounderstandanythingaboutit.Allthe conceptsusedbytheNDareindeedfirstofallphilosophicalconcepts.The current of thought that the ND defines as its “principle enemy,” universalism(orindividuouniversalism),isfirstaphilosophicalcurrent.If onedoesnotbeginbyaskinghowtheNDsituatesitselfinrelationtothe PresocraticsandinrelationtoAristotle,ifonedoesnotdefineitsconcept of human nature (and nature as a whole), one is doomed by that very act to be just talking to oneself. In the eyes of the ND, what are the philosophical roots of the axiomatics of interest? What does the nominalism of William of Ockham mean to it? What critique does the NDmakeofthethoughtofDescartes?Whatdoesittake(andwhatdoesit leave) of the works of Leibniz, Hegel, Wittgenstein, Russell, or Gadamer? How is its critique of totalitarianism similar to that of Hannah Arendt? WhatdoestheNDretainfromKarlMarx’scritiqueofcapitalism?Whatis the ND’s position concerning Platonism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, Gnosticism,historicism?WhyistheNDinterestedinthetheoryofforms formulated by d’Arcy Thompson? What is its viewpoint in the field of historiography, and what role do authors like Vico, Herder, or Meinecke playinit?Howdoesitunderstandthenotionofparadigmputforwardby Thomas Kuhn? Why does it attach importance to the philosophy of Clement Rosset, the theses of Michael Sandel, the sociology of Marcel Mauss, the psychology of Jean Piaget, the philosophy of law of Michel Villey? What is its point of view on Montaigne, on Hölderlin, on Ludwig von Bertalanffy, on Arthur Koestler, on Walter Benjamin? What does it retainfromthewritingsontheimaginaryofaGastonBachelardoraGilbert Durand, from the philosophy of Henri Lefebre or that of Merleau-Ponty? HowdoesitsituateitselfinrelationtoPeterSloterdijk?Whatisitsconception oftemporality?What,accordingtoit,aretherootsofthe“disenchantment” (Entzauberung)oftheworld?Whatarethephilosophicalbasesofitscritique oftheideologyofwork?Thesearethekindsofquestionsthatarerighttoask firstifonewantstodiscusstheNDseriously.NopositionoftheNDcanbe This work originally appeared in Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 8.1, Spring 2014, published by Michigan State University Press. AlaindeBenoistAnswersTamirBar-On 145 analyzed without taking into account the problematics of the political philosophy,moraltheory,sociology,andepistemologytowhichitrefers. Interested only in politics, Bar-On disregards all the work accomplished by the ND in fields as important, and as diverse, as epistemology, theoretical physics, polemology, linguistics, economic science, history of religions. He totally ignores its many studies that have treated the philosophy of law, the theory of secularization, feminism, urban sociology, ecology, the history of art and contemporary art, literature,andthetheoryofcinematographicwriting.4Inoteadditionally thathedoesnotintroduceanyperiodizationthatwouldallowsituatinga subjectinitscontext,whichis,however,arequirementwhenoneintends tospeakofaschoolofthoughtthathasbeeninexistencetodayforalmost halfacentury. X X X Let us now come to the article by Bar-On. He himself sums up his approach with the following question: “How to situate the ND on the political map?” This is in actual fact the only thing that interests him. Howtosituate,classify,catalogtheND?Whatlabeltoputonit?Whatthe NDsaysinterestsBar-Ononlytotheextentthatitmayallowhimtoreach thisobjectiveofanexclusivelytopographicorcartographicorder. Butwhyisthisimportant?Inthegeneralopinionofeveryonewhohas seriouslylookedintoit,theNDhasacertainnumberofcharacteristicsof theLeftandacertainnumberofcharacteristicsoftheRight.TheNDhas also entered into dialogue with many left-wing authors: Paul Piccone in the United States, Jacques Julliard or Jean-Marie Domenach in France, Danilo Zolo or Costanzo Preve in Italy, and so on. It is, therefore, an atypical school of thought. Some classify it to the right, others to the left, but what does this change in the overall understanding of the picture? WhethertheNDis“totheright”or“totheleft,”howdoesthatalterwhatone shouldthinkaboutitsorientations?Whatisonetryingtodemonstratewhen onestrives,asdoesBar-On,toprovethat“theright-wingpositioningofthe NDremains”?Thatthisisenoughtodelegitimizeit,becauseitwouldbeless honorableorless interesting to be positioned to the right than to the left? ThisisdistinctlytheimpressionthatonegetsinreadingBar-On.Toshow thattheNDremainsa“right-wing”schoolofthoughtisawayforhimto This work originally appeared in Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 8.1, Spring 2014, published by Michigan State University Press. 146 AlaindeBenoist discredit it, which says a lot about his presuppositions. If Bar-On wants toconnecttheNDwiththeRight,itisbecausehethenhopestobeableto connecttheRightwiththeextremeright,theextremerightwithfascism,and so on. For this, he is prepared to take every shortcut, to make every simplification, and to disregard everything that contradicts his thesis. There onerecognizesthefundamentallypolemicalcharacterofhisprocess. The truth is that in the case of the ND as any other school of thought, or any author taken in isolation: the only question that is worth asking about it is to know what the value of truth of its proposals is. To this question, one can of course reply positively or negatively. If one replies negatively, then one must demonstrate how the positions of the ND are false or wrong. This implies first presenting the ideas of the ND in an objective and exhaustive manner (and not selective), then making a rigorous analysis of them, and finally resorting to a demonstration of the errors that one is attributing to it (demonstration that, itself, should provide the proof of its correctness). But all this is perfectly foreign to Bar-On, who demonstrates at no time that the positions of the ND are false or wrong. In a general way, Bar-On never asks himself about the valueoftruthofthethoughtortheworksoftheauthorsthathecites.He is interested only in the container, not in the contents. This is how his thesisisdevoidofanyscientificvalue.Allthatinterestshim,onceagain,is toknowwhatlabeltoputontheND.Whataderisoryobjective! The very title of his article is problematic in itself: “The French New Right: Neither Right, nor Left?” In reading this title, the reader gets the impression that Bar-On will answer an assertion of the ND, namely the claim of being “neither left nor right.” Now, this claim was never formulated by the ND. I have myself constantly criticized the formula “neither right nor left,” not only because it refers to precedents in the history of ideas with which I do not identify, but also because it quite simply does not mean anything. Rather than “neither right nor left,” I have often written, it would be better to say “both right and left”: “both...and,”andnot“neither...nor.” TheNDdoesnotsaythatrightandleftdonotmeananything.Itbyno means denies the historical existence of a right and a left, or rather of different rights and different lefts. It simply observes that this dyad has lost any operative value to analyze the field of ideological or political This work originally appeared in Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 8.1, Spring 2014, published by Michigan State University Press. AlaindeBenoistAnswersTamirBar-On 147 discourse, because “right” and “left” have today become transversal tendencies that cut across almost all the political families. What the ND does say is that the new divides that have been emerging for the last few decades no longer coincide with the old left-right distinction. How to analyze in terms of right and left the proliferation of environmentalist claims,theriseofpopulism(doesitrepresentanideologyorastyle?),the shift of social democracy toward social liberalism, the debates about European construction, the emergence of bioethics, the opposition of the social and the “societal,” the contestation of development and growth, the evolution of China, the recent wars in the Near East? Is Islamism of the right or the left? And the single European currency? And produ- ctivism?Reductionism?Sovereigntism?Communitarianism?Bar-Ondoes not pose any of these questions. He recognizes only that certain “left- wing”authorsalsofeelthattheright-leftdividehastodaybecomealmost empty of meaning. He cites the opinion of Etienne Balibar and of Slavoj Žižek.Hecouldhavecitedmanyothers. Remainingistheproblemofdefinitions.Whenonespeaksofrightand left,onemustgiveameaningtothesewords,otherwiseoneisjusttalking tooneself.Nowithappensthatpolitologistshavenevermanagedtofinda criterionthatwouldallowdistinguishing,ontheonesidealltherights,on the other all the lefts: no matter what framework of analysis is adopted, therearealwaysexceptions.Bar-On,whodoesnotciteanyoftheirworks, however numerous, does not stop at this difficulty.5 He takes shelter underthesoleauthorityofNorbertoBobbio,whoseopinionhethinkshe can harness for the thesis that he wants to demonstrate. He does this without questioning the pertinence of this opinion, the limits of this authority, or the reception of the book by Bobbio and the critiques that havebeenaddressedtoit,principallyinItaly(becauseinFrancethework has aroused very little interest).6 Nor does he take into account the fact thatthisbookisforthemostpartaworkofcircumstances.7 Norberto Bobbio (1909–2004) is a specialist in the philosophy of law, of a rather sinuous previous political history.8 He was for a long time in contact with Carl Schmitt, with whom he exchanged a major correspondence—of which Bar-On is apparently ignorant. In the book that Bar-On discusses, which largely agrees with that of Marco Revelli, Sinistradestra,hemakestheoppositionbetweenequalityandinequalitya This work originally appeared in Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 8.1, Spring 2014, published by Michigan State University Press. 148 AlaindeBenoist criterion for generally distinguishing between left and right.9 He also questions the relationship between the notion of equality and those of liberty, democracy, and authority, and makes a clear distinction between “extremism”and“radicalism.”Itispreciselythismethodofbinarythinking adoptedbyBobbiotostudytheright-leftdyadthathasbeencontested,either in the name of other divisions (liberty-equality, progressive-conservative, puritanism-permissiveness,etc.),orbycenteringtheanalysisontheproblems rather than on the positions. It has also been pointed out that Bobbio’s approachleadstosayingnothingaboutthe“center”which,intheEuropean countries,hasplayedaconsiderablepoliticalroleinconnectionwiththerise ofthemiddleclasses,andwhichisallthemoredifficulttoclassifyasright orleftasitisforeigntothe“idealtypes”inthesenseofMaxWeber. Based on this idea that “right (cid:2) inequality,” Bar-On writes: “ND thinkersaremoreontherightthanleftbecausetheyrejectadministrative and legal equality, the republican heritage of the 1789 French Revolution, and what they call the ‘religion of human rights.’” In reading this, one is astounded. The ND actually does not reject “administrative and legal equality”: it insists on the contrary on the necessary administrative, legal, and political equality of all citizens. Nor does it reject the republican heritageoftheRevolutionof1789:thisiseventhemostpositivethingthat it retains from it (while it criticizes Jacobinism and the influence of Enlightenment thought on the Revolution). Neither has the ND ever defended “the notion that individuals and cultures [sic] are not equal in terms of their ‘fitness to rule’”; (whatever can that mean?). As for the critiquethattheNDmakes,notoftherightsofman,butoftheideologyof the rights of man, mentioning it makes strictly no sense if one does not sayofwhatitconsistsandespeciallyinthenameofwhatitisformulated. Now, it is enough to refer to the texts of the ND—and first of all to my book Au-dela` des droits de l’homme. Pour défendre les libertés [Beyond Human Rights (London: Arktos, 2011)]—to observe, not only that this critiqueisnotareactionarycritiqueaiming,forexample,todenymanthe possibility of enjoying a certain number of basic freedoms, but that it is founded on the contrary on the idea that, considering its philosophical presuppositions, the ideology of the rights of man, which has indeed becometodayasortofnewcivilreligion,isabadwaytodefendfreedoms. What the ND says is that political freedoms must be defended politically, This work originally appeared in Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 8.1, Spring 2014, published by Michigan State University Press. AlaindeBenoistAnswersTamirBar-On 149 and not by arguments of a moral and legal type exclusively borrowed from the Western tradition of the “universal abstract subject.” This critique is comparable, not to that of Joseph de Maistre or Bonald, but rathertothatofKarlMarx.10 “Using Bobbio’s classification,” writes Bar-On, “the leader of the ND Alain de Benoist is on the right because he argued in Vu de droite that egalitarianism is the major ill of the modern world.” Here, Bar-On is evidently confusing equality and egalitarianism, which are, however, very different notions. I have at length insisted on the difference between equality and egalitarianism in my preface to the new edition of Vu de droite (2001). Bar-On, moreover, defines equality, among others, by “the idea that individuals are equal morally, spiritually or biologically.” May I be permitted to say to him, as a historian of ideas, that I know of no theoretician who has ever imagined that he could define equality in such an extensive manner (not even of course Plato, Rousseau, or Marx). It appears consequently very difficult to reproach the ND for not agreeing with such a wild idea, which evidently pertains to a mystical and timeless visionofequality. But, to defend his point of view, Bar-On is not content to travesty the ideas of the ND. He also travesties those of Norberto Bobbio. When he writes, for example: “For Bobbio, equality simultaneously connotes legal or administrative equality, the liberal notion of equality of opportunity, the socialist meaning of equality of condition, and the moral, spiritual, and biological [sic] equality of humans beings in a universal spirit,” he is simply and plainly lying. Here is what Bobbio writes: “When one states thattheleftisegalitarianandtherightisinegalitarian,thisdoesnotatall meanthat,tobeontheleft,itisenoughtoproclaimtheprinciplethatall men must be equal in everything, independently of any discriminating criterion whatsoever; such an attitude would convey not only a utopian vision[...]but,evenworse,wouldbeapuredeclarationofintentionsto whichitdoesnotseempossibletogivearationalmeaning.”11Furtheron, Bobbiostressesthat“naturalinequalitiesexist,andifsomeofthemcanbe corrected, most cannot be eliminated.” He adds that “it is correct to call egalitarians those who, while not being ignorant that men are at once equal and unequal, put the primary emphasis on that which brings them closer together for a good life in common.” Bobbio, in other words, does This work originally appeared in Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 8.1, Spring 2014, published by Michigan State University Press. 150 AlaindeBenoist not at all believe that political equality implies the biological, moral, spiritual, or natural equality of men. He also insists on the fact that equality is always a “social good,” contrary to freedom (that is why the conceptsoffreedomandequalityarenotsymmetrical),andthatitimplies arelationshipandaformofreciprocity. Bobbio further distinguishes political equality from “equality as a value,” but also from the tendency to believe in the “equality of everyone in everything.” He specifies that equality must not be postulated on the basis of a value judgment that would imply seeking it for itself, for example, because it would in itself be preferable to inequality. The question, he says, must be approached in a “relative and not absolute” manner. What is desirable in the matter of equality must also be clearly distinguishedfromwhatisfeasible,whetherinrespectofthedistribution of tasks, employment, revenue or goods (material and cultural), or the criteria of this distribution (merit, competencies, rank, efforts, justice, etc.).Bobbiohimself,finally,alsocondemnsegalitarianismveryclearly,in which he sees a “totalitarian inclination,” something that Bar-On is careful not to point out. The ND does not say anything else. In the exact sense that Bobbio gives the political notion of equality, it is thus obvious that the ND, contrary to what Bar-On states, is absolutely not inegalitarian. X X X Bar-OnthenwantstodemonstratethattheND’sconceptoftheworld is an “ambiguous synthesis of the revolutionary right or Conservative Revolution (CR) and New Left (NL) ideals.” Whence his extraordinary statementaccordingtowhich“theND’sworldviewcouldbesummarized [sic]inthefollowingformula:ConservativeRevolution(CR)(cid:3)NewLeft (NL) (cid:2) ND.” Such a formula is simply ridiculous. Let us note first that theassimilationoftheCRtothe“revolutionaryright”isintellectuallyand historically false. It can strictly apply only to the national-revolutionary currentoftheCR,inanycaseverymuchaminoritycurrent,notatallto the other currents, starting with the Jungconservative current, by far the most important. But that is only a detail there. To summarize the inspiration of the ND to the CR and “New Left ideals” demonstrates a quite exceptional shortsightedness. The ND has shown certain interest in This work originally appeared in Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 8.1, Spring 2014, published by Michigan State University Press.