openpolitics.com

Consider the concept of “European Enlightenment,” which has no singular philosophical meaning. As a taxonomical category, it could include philosophers as fundamentally opposed as Hume and Kant. Some of its figures, not least Kant, were the chief proponents of concepts that fascists roundly reject (namely, universal human dignity).

.. Nonetheless, European far-right politicians have subtly adopted talk of the Enlightenment as a way to smuggle in more bald-faced claims of European superiority. For example, Antwerp mayor Bart De Wever, an outspoken Flemish nationalist, recently started referring to the Enlightenment as “the software” of “the grand narrative of the European culture.” Borrowing from British philosopher Roger Scruton, he argues that “the European Enlightenment” and nationalism are complementary, rather than opposed. In De Wever, one finds significant overlap with Faye. For example, both condemn liberalism and socialism as leading to “open borders,” “safe spaces,” “laws that protect feelings,” and the dissolution of parental authority.

.. By contrast, consider the case of Steve King, a Republican member of the US House of Representatives from Iowa, who recently caused a controversy by asking how language like “white nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization” had “become offensive.” King apparently did not get the memo about striving for respectability. But the rest of his party did. Following a public outcry, congressional Republicans stripped King of his positions on the House Judiciary and Agriculture Committees. Though he had made similarly offensive statements in the past, the Republican Party saw an opportunity to assert its relative respectability. And so, King was thrown to the wolves for expressing views that many of his fellow party Republicans – beginning with its 2016 presidential nominee – no doubt share.

.. And yet, reading European fascists’ metapolitical dictionaries is deeply disconcerting, because one finds that much of the language – and the concomitant ways of thinking – has already achieved mainstream status.

Faye, for example, denounces anti-racism as a doctrine that “encourages discrimination in favor of aliens, the dissolution of European identity, the multiracialization of European society, and, at root, paradoxically, racism itself.” When that was written in 2001, it seemed ridiculous. To say that anti-racism is racism is a classic fascist inversion of ideals (war is peace, corruption is anti-corruption, authority is freedom). But now consider what has happened in the intervening years. The concept of “reverse racism” has become mainstream.

When Faye asserts that anti-racism is the “[t]ouchstone of the self-righteous” and “the most advanced expression of postmodern totalitarian ideology,” his diatribe becomes obviously unhinged. But aside from the level of hyperbole, is his argument really so different than the brilliant Columbia University linguist John McWhorter’s description of “Antiracism” as “a new and increasingly dominant religion?”

Or, consider the issue of “political correctness,” defined by Friberg as “a pejorative normally used for a set of values and opinions from which individuals are not allowed to deviate without falling victim to social and/or media sanctions.” In the two excerpts below, both from Friberg’s work, it is genuinely hard to tell whether the author is Friberg or one of any number of US-based “classical liberals” decrying the latest trends on college campuses:

.. To take a final example, attacks against so-called cultural Marxism seem to have become mainstream within academia. But, as Yale University’s Samuel Moyn recently pointed out, the term itself is a recycled anti-Semitic trope that has been bouncing around on fascist message boards for years.

In reading Faye and Friberg and seeing the many overlaps with contemporary political discourse, it is difficult to avoid the thought that the fascists are winning the semantic war. To be sure, many of the American and European liberals wringing their hands about the “far left” and gender studies would reject Nietzsche and be called, by the far right, “globalists.” These are not fascists. And yet, we should not forget how easy it has been for some thinkers and politicians – Germany’s FDP is our era’s Exhibit A – to drift there from neoliberalism.

THE FASCIST SINGULARITY
Similar slippages can occur in other areas. For example, some anti-nationalist public intellectuals are increasingly pressing for a debate about IQ differences between racial groups, if only to signal their own commitment to the truth. And others are urging us to recognize the Enlightenment as the signal achievement of civilization, as if it was the Europeans who invented reason and bestowed it on the rest of humankind. As Gingrich understood when he included terms like “debate” and “listen” on the positive side of his ledger, appeals to reason can serve almost any end. Hence, Friberg assures us that reason is on the side of limited immigration.

Likewise, fascist ideologues constantly hold up and defend meritocracy as an ideal. But so, too, do all of the “globalists,” as well as the libertarians in Silicon Valley. In the event of an environmental catastrophe, it is not difficult to imagine free marketeers opting for ultra-nationalism as the best survival strategy, or tech billionaires deciding that society should be run by the “winners” – that is, people like them.

.. In its original usage, the term “alt-right” encapsulated somewhat distinct anti-democratic ideologies, among them the philosopher Nick Land’s “Dark Enlightenment.” According to Land, democracy is inevitably corrupting, and democratic states thus should be replaced by “Gov-Corps” that are run as corporations and managed by a CEO. The guiding principle would be “No voice, free exit,” meaning that citizens would have no say in policymaking, but could leave whenever they wanted (as if self-exile – one of the harshest punishments throughout antiquity – is cost-free)

According to Quartz’s Olivia Goldhill, the Dark Enlightenment has attracted a number of prominent supporters in Silicon Valley, including, apparently, the venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who has been channeling some of its tenets in his speeches.

Scholars who write about the Dark Enlightenment have employed the term “fascism” to describe it. The danger now is that distinct far-right anti-democratic movements, from European and American ethno-nationalism to techno-corporatist strains like the Dark Enlightenment, are converging, albeit with supporters who have been drawn in for different reasons.

.. the objective of fascist metapolitical dictionaries like those by Faye and Friberg is to insinuate innocent-sounding terms into public discourse in order to make once-unacceptable anti-democratic ideologies seem benign, thereby lessening public opposition to, if not licensing, anti-democratic action. When the fundamental democratic principle of equal respect is recast as “political correctness,” it is no surprise that people would become more accepting of politicians calling entire immigrant groups “rapists” and “snakes.”

.. we do not know if it is possible to adopt the language of hysteria about leftists, unions, Marxism, gender, and immigrants without also adopting other parts of the fascist package.

.. Intellectuals from Klemperer to James Baldwin have warned us about the costs of defeat in the semantic war, which we lose by adopting the vocabulary of our enemies.