John Dunn

First posted on Sunday, 20 May 2012 at 11:55



Alain de Benoist, French new right theoretician







There have been some highly significant political and theoretical developments under the auspices of the new right in France over recent decades. These have been given fresh impetus more recently as a similar tendency has arisen in Russia called Eurasianism or the Fourth Political Theory.

Why are these important? Well they offer the only coherent political theoryin opposition to the dominant political and cultural paradigm of the West, namely neo-liberalism.

The failure of new right ideas to penetrate the Anglo-Saxon psyche is a measure of the closed intellectuality in the USA and UK predominantly, where political theory is largely undeveloped in the universities. Official and state-funded intellectuals end up being confined by pseudo-moral conventionalities to pragmatic questions that always reinforce the cultural hegemony of the ruling class.

Any thinking that does take place is safely nationalised within the walls of academe, and the exclusion of debate by the school system, media and economic life generally means that there is little fertile ground upon which ideas that challenge the dominant paradigm can fall and take root.Read more

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