2,406 words
Jeffrey M. Bale & Tamir Bar-On
Fighting the Last War: Confusion, Partisanship, and Alarmism in the Literature on the Radical Right
Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2022
Professors Jeffrey M. Bale and Tamir Bar-On have taken a look at the response to the increasingly vocal political Right in the Western world. What they found is that the establishment has used the specter of fascism as a shadow to box against since 1945. Politics is the application of the friend/enemy distinction, so shadowboxing against a phantom enemy is a good way to go about domestic politics without stumbling into a civil war.
The charge of fascism continues to be thrown about in an increasingly reckless manner, however. As a result, the American political scene is polarizing dangerously around a hysterical Establishment. The term is now used by the Establishment in Western societies against right-of-center politicians and those who don’t go along with the dubious schemes of, say, the DC security bureaucracy, among others. Furthermore, they point out that Left-wing movements such as Maoism have a much higher body count than anything on the Right, and Islamism is a far more dangerous and active movement than the “fascists.”
In other words, the Establishment is still fighting the Second World War. In their minds, it is always 1939, Hitler must be stopped at Munich, and the Brownshirts and Fifth Columnists are everywhere.
Bale and Bar-On describe the difference between Right and Left. It boils down to different ways of viewing society. Those views bifurcated along two poles during the French Revolution.
The Left:
Rationalism: Human reasoning can resolve fundamental social problems.
Human nature is basically good: Society is the problem, not the actions of an individual.
Optimism regarding progress: Since humans are good and they use reason, all problems are fixable in the long term.
Egalitarianism: All individuals have rights which cannot be abrogated.
Cosmopolitanism: All human beings are interchangeable regardless of race, language, or culture.
Republicanism: Ending monarchies, which was a radical idea in the eighteenth century.
Secularism: Religion should be kept out of secular affairs. (p. 101)
The Right:
Philosophical anti-rationalism: The idea that there are limits to reason and that people do non-rational things.
Human nature is essentially “evil”: The ideas of Original Sin and Calvinism apply here. In other words, individuals commit evil acts on their own, and society’s structure is irrelevant to crime’s causes.
Pessimism regarding progress: Flawed human nature makes it very likely that big schemes to improve society usually become disasters.
Elitism: Natural hierarchies are needed to maintain order.
Particularism: Human beings are not interchangeable. There is no generic human but there are Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, etc.
Monarchism: Support for the French monarchy in particular.
Clericalism: In France this meant support for the Catholic Church. (p. 102)
Since the eighteenth century, it has become clear that republics without an established church can otherwise be Right-wing, so the last two points are unique to the events in France from 1789 until Napoleon fired his first grapeshot in 1795. In other words, the definitions provided by Bale and Bar-On roughly align with the ideas of Seth David Radwell in his excellent book, American Schism.
Otherwise, charges of “fascism” are loosely and widely applied to ordinary Americans. The reason why this smear can be used in this way is that fascism has had a bad reputation since the end of the Second World War, and there are few consequences (for now) for using the term. Also, “fascism” is very loosely defined. Bale and Bar-On examine the academic literature on the subject and found that there is no overarching definition of fascism written by the fascists themselves. Books like Mein Kampf are unique windows into Hitler’s worldview regarding Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Treaty of Versailles, and the Soviet Union, but they don’t align with the ideas of the French or Italian fascists of the same time.
Other definitions are wide-ranging. Some reflect the ideas unique to the circumstances of the 1930s (nationalism + socialism = fascism). Some definitions are related to imperialism, although the National Socialists in Germany were very much against the French and British empires. All the definitions are distorted by academia’s universal and lock-step Left-wing ideological worldview.
Some of the definitions of fascism are quite petty. Bale and Bar-On look at the late Madeleine Albright’s book on fascism and found that her ideas boiled down to the fact that she didn’t like Trump, so therefore he was a fascist. They didn’t mention the fact that most of her understanding of fascism seems to be based on the Charlie Chaplin movie The Great Dictator, so they actually went easy on her.
In the West, fascism, if one can apply the term to all conservative or Right-leaning thought, is usually two basic things: a reverence for Christianity in some form, and viewing the State as being based on a core ethnic or racial group such that the government’s primary is to align its policies with the needs of the core ethnic group.
Islamism
Bale and Ber-On argue that, if viewed through the lens of the French Revolution’s idea of Left vs. Right, Islamism is a Right-wing movement, and which is quite violent. They show that Ba’athism, a political ideology based on fascism to a degree, was quite progressive. Its leading thinkers were often Arab Christians who sought to eliminate any religious divide in their societies and align those societies with the Arab race and language.
Islamism is a poor term for what are several purifying and violent tendencies in Islam. Bale and Bar-On remedy this flaw by describing Islamism in depth. They point out and define three strains of Islamism: Wahhabism, Salafism, and Deobandism.
Wahhabism is a puritanical revivalist movement that arose in Arabia during the eighteenth century. It started out by criticizing the sacralization of tombs, the veneration of Islamic saints, and astrology. They aligned with the Saud family in 1774, and in recent decades have sought to impose their worldview on Islam with violence backed by petrodollars.
Salafism is a movement which seeks to emulate the example of the first Muslim adherents. By the early twentieth century, it was increasingly radical. Its greatest proponent was Sayyid Qutb, who wrote the book In the Shade of the Qur’an. This movement was the ideological inspiration for the 9/11 terrorists and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Deobandism originated in South Asia as a response to what was believed to be the corrupting influence of British colonialism. They also sought to merge modern, Western technology with Islamic ideas. They encourage active participation in politics and a literal interpretation of the Qur’an. This ideology was adopted by Afghanistan’s Taliban after being spread there by the Deobandists when they instructed Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
These three movements have monastic adherents who separate themselves from a fallen world as well as public activists who wish to impose their views on other Muslims. They also have two strategic thrusts which can be complimentary or opposing. They seek to either attack the “far enemy,” the United States in particular, or the near enemy, such as Arab nationalists, monarchists, or those Muslims who follow a different path. All to a degree were inspired by genuinely violent American White Nationalists who pioneered concepts such as “leaderless resistance” in the 1970s and ‘80s.
The Biden regime’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan will certainly embolden Islamists in the future. We may already be seeing a resumption of Islamist terrorism since the fraudulent election of 2020. Recently, Salmon Rushdie was stabbed at an event in New York by an Islamist fanatic, and there have been other shootings. Islamism’s global death count is upwards of 80,000 since its full emergence in the 1990s, and this tally well surpasses the number of slain caused by “fascists” since 1945.
Islamism has a global and imperialist impulse. They seek to conquer. The Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual guide, an alleged “moderate” named Yusuf al-Qaradawi, wrote:
Islam will return once more to Europe as a conqueror and as a victorious power . . . I assume the next time the conquest will not be achieved by the sword but by . . . spreading the ideology [of Islam] . . . [The Islamic Caliphate] deserves to lead the umma to the plains of victory. (p. 112)
The Establishment’s War on “Fascists”
While European and American governments claim that “fascism” is always about to emerge, it never does. The specter of fascism is enhanced by Leftist academics and legacy media that have lost any sense of reality, as well as cynical political operatives in the Democratic Party in particular. The authors quote Greg Johnson in a chapter header:
Right-wing violence does not [currently] weaken the system. It strengthens it. That is why the system goes out of the way to manufacture Right-wing violence. (p. 165)
The professors argue that the Biden regime and the Establishment are the ones using authoritarian and fascist tactics. Instead of addressing any of Donald Trump’s concerns about deindustrialization or immigration, they chose iron-fisted suppression. FBI agents violated their oaths of office in order to manufacture charges against Trump. Mid-level bureaucrats colluded with Trump’s political enemies to impeach him. The media was openly hostile, so much so that they misinformed the public about “resistance” in his administration and other matters.
You can buy Greg Johnson’s The Year America Died here.
The purpose of the second impeachment was not to imprison Donald Trump, but rather to criminalize his 75 million-plus supporters. In the wake of the semi-riot on January 6, 2021, the FBI arrested and imprisoned many supporters for what amounted to misdemeanors. Additionally, the Establishment selectively enforced laws. Leftist activists who occupy government buildings are quickly released, and antifa and BLM thugs were also protected. The George Floyd riots were effectively supported by the Establishment throughout 2020.
It is also likely that the FBI itself was instigating the violence. The authors point out the fact that the “kidnapping plot” against Michigan’s governor was instigated by FBI informants and was likely just one of the FBI’s many “dirty tricks” in that wicked agency’s long history of doing so. It is further likely that the FBI was sponsoring people on January 6 to commit acts of violence. They point to the fact that the worst of the rioters have remained free, while others who did far less radical things are still being detained. Furthermore, leaders of groups like the Proud Boys have been shown to be FBI informants.
Bale and Bar-On also point out that the 2020 election was highly irregular. Election officials changed the rules at the last minute, possibly in violation of the Constitution; mail-in ballots appeared by the box-load in the dead of night; and many of the swing-state results came down to ballot counts in cities controlled by corrupt Democratic party machines.
The danger from Trump’s supporters as well as genuine white advocates is also exaggerated. Indeed, the truth is often inverted. The legacy media has often insisted that violence comes from the Right in situations where it was obviously carried out by BLM or antifa thugs. Bale and Bar-On not only point out the genuine threat and violence of Islamism, but they also refer to BLM arson in particular and sub-Saharan crime in general as major problems. While the Establishment failed to protect ordinary Americans and businesses from the BLM rioting in 2020, they made sure they were protected by armed soldiers and police at Biden’s inauguration.
The Biden regime is as Orwellian as they come. He was (probably) elected by fraud, his inauguration was held in front of an empty field, his first actions were executive orders that bypassed the legislature and immediately created border and energy crises, and he sent the FBI to turn ordinary protestors into political prisoners. For its part, the media encouraged ordinary Americans to turn in January 6 protestors. The parallels between that and the East German Stasi’s use of citizen informants are obvious.
The Right
The Professors argue that the Far Right is starting to make an impact on the mainstream, though this fact is largely being suppressed in the legacy media’s narrative. Additionally, the Far Right is engaged with democratic processes and civically active. Despite the actions of a few lone wolves, “fascists,” as defined by the Establishment, are good citizens.
They argue that academics who study the Right should drop their biases and genuinely seek to uncover their subjects’ motivations. They argue that people concerned about their nation’s cultural, trade, industrial, and immigration policies should not be considered “Far Right” or “fascist” at all.
Bale and Bar-On also provide specific definitions of Rightist ideas. This includes in-group affinity and civic nationalism, as well as highlighting the differences between nativism, racial nationalism, racial separatism, and racial supremacy. They also describe the differences between the Dissident Right, the Alt Lite, and the Alt Right. They point out that many of the Right’s concerns are shared by people across the political spectrum. They also write considerably about the concept of civil nationalism, the concept whereby peoples of different racial and ethnic backgrounds can successfully live together under the same government by adopting a civil creed and supporting shared institutions.
The authors warn that the current Establishment’s suppression of Donald Trump’s reforming message and civic nationalism is driving more and more people into armed camps. The Establishment is creating the very thing it purports to loath through its own actions. Especially onerous, in their view, is Critical Race Theory’s jettisoning of the hitherto ideal of a “colorblind” society. Should the colorblind approach be abandoned, it will
compel most individuals to adhere to their own ethno-cultural tribes if only for basic self-protection (much like prisoners are often forced to do in jails). This noxious and divisive process is already seriously corroded democracy in recent decades, and if unchecked it may end up destroying it altogether. Unfortunately, the prospects for a successful repudiation of today’s harmful race- and gender-based identity politics and a return to the promotion of color blindness when evaluating individuals seem very unlikely, since too many powerful segments of society and activist groups have a vested financial or political interest in fostering such identity politics. (p. 299)
With this book, professors Bale and Bar-On have written the clearest and most informative account of the current polarization of the United States and greater Western Civilization since Wilmot Robertson’s classic The Dispossessed Majority. Many on the Right will welcome Balkanization and polarization; they might, however, one day look back on what could seem to future generations as a golden age of peace and civility. It is certain that these professors are classical liberals who appreciate individualism. But however one interprets this book, it is clearly a triumph of scholarship, insightfulness, and truth-seeking.
* * *
Like all journals of dissident ideas, Counter-Currents depends on the support of readers like you. Help us compete with the censors of the Left and the violent accelerationists of the Right with a donation today. (The easiest way to help is with an e-check donation. All you need is your checkbook.)
For other ways to donate, click here.
15 comments
This is the second review at CC in recent weeks that presents the work of a Left-wing Jewish academic without mentioning this fact, despite that knowing something about the author’s background might be informative for the reader in order to know what his motivations and biases might be. Tamir Bar-On is an Israeli Jew who has a professorship at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education in Mexico, a country that is not exactly known for its love of American Right-wing politics. It’s rather ironic that Bar-On is now attempting to accuse the “establishment” (which I guess doesn’t include him) of applying the “fascist” label too broadly, as in his previous books and articles, Bar-On has been on a crusade to prove that Alain de Benoist and the entire European New Right are merely fascists attempting to conceal their true sympathies through language. For his part, Prof. Bale received his PhD from UC-Berkeley, also not exactly known as a bastion of objective thought. This doesn’t necessarily mean this book is without value, but these things should be at least mentioned in any comprehensive review.
Well, Tamir Bar-On’s background is pretty obvious from the name. If he and the other guy can come from the Ivory Tower and yet write at least one book that’s fairly balanced, rather than the usual shrieking coming from those quarters, then I’d be inclined to give credit for an improvement over the usual.
I don’t deny that, but it should at least be mentioned in a review. These people aren’t looking to do us any favors. This isn’t a quibbling issue, either; Bar-On has previously written two entire books — one of which was subtly entitled “Where Have All the Fascists Gone?” — and many articles going to great lengths in trying to prove that the New Right is fascist, to the point that even other academics have called his conclusions into question. This is certainly relevant and should be taken into consideration whenever he writes about the Right.
The first point is more cogent than the second; if receiving a PhD from a ‘progressive’ university (as though there are many other options in most fields) disqualifies someone from even talking about the Right in a sensible manner, then we shall have no trained intellectuals nor can anyone with an academic research background write about the Right in a favorable light. My own credentials are little different.
I don’t know much about Bale, admittedly, but I think these things are important to keep in mind and mention in a review. Bar-On is the one who I know is suspect, as I already outlined. Of course I wouldn’t automatically discount people with degrees from progressive universities, since my own BA is from the University of Michigan — coincidentally, the same place where Bale got his, in fact we were both there at around the same time. But I think such things should be born in mind when considering academic works. I think I’ve made it clear where my own loyalties lie in my work over the past 15 years, but that’s less clear in the case of academics.
Thank you for mentioning the Jewish angle. All this book represents is the fact that the Jews are not a monolith when it comes to the timing and methods of White dispossession. Some think it should be slower and I’m guessing these guys are from that school of thought. But, in the end, all Jews agree that Whites should not be allowed to run their own countries in their own interests. Only Jews can do that. What I get from the author’s oerve is that they’re part of the ‘Let’s you and him fight’ school of ‘liberals’ (Jews and their running dog lackeys) making that case that Christians really need to make war on Muslims in a fight to the death in the name of ‘protecting diversity’ or some such nonsense.
Like Zemmour, there are Jews that think that a sea of brown bodies with Muslim loyalties may not be the best thing for Jews. These guys seem like that type. This fracture is displaying itself in a conflict around mass immigration. I think the theory is that mass migration has substantially destroyed White nations so that Whites will never run their own countries again and now would be a good time to stop bringing in immigrants openly hostile to Jews.
Nothing that involves an academic Jew does not involve some promotion of the Jewish cause.
Academics – in general – are not to be trusted without certification of their pro-Whiteness.
Well, CC is going really soft on all issues….from reviews of Billie Eilish last album, to reviews of mainstream literary and political garbage.
This site used to be sooo good, and now is going down with a whimper, not with a bang.
Anything in particular that you’d prefer? I can see what I can do on that.
Morris van de Camp: “Some definitions [of fascism] are related to imperialism, although the National Socialists in Germany were very much against the French and British empires”
I’m not sure regarding their views of the French empire, but the German National Socialists certainly weren’t intrinsically opposed to the British Empire. Hitler himself was actually a pretty unabashed admirer of the British Empire.
True, the German National Socialist regime became, of necessity, opponents of the British Empire because they were at war with it. However, this was a war Hitler had never wanted and had indeed sought to avoid.
At any rate, being in favor of empire surely doesn’t entail being in favor of all empires. Hitler was certainly in favor of a German empire (i.e. the Third Reich and Lebensraum in the East), just as Mussolini, leader of the other main regime usually classed as ‘fascist’, was a champion of Italian empire in North Africa.
_____________
Morris van de Camp: “In the West, fascism, if one can apply the term to all conservative or Right-leaning thought, is usually two basic things: a reverence for Christianity in some form, and viewing the State as being based on a core ethnic or racial group.”
If “fascism… can be appl[ied]… to all conservative or Right-leaning thought” then ‘fascism’ just becomes a synonym for ‘right-wing’ or ‘conservative’ and hence redundant. This is the same as the left’s tendency to smear anyone who disagrees with them as ‘fascist’.
As for fascism entailing “a reverence for Christianity in some form”, neither Fascist Italy nor National Socialist Germany were especially reverent towards Christianity, in any form. (Only the ostensibly fascist regime in Austria, prior to Anschluss, had a reverence for one form of Christianity, namely Catholicism.)
Hitler, in particular, had a very negative view of Christianity, at least if you regard his ‘Table Talk’ as a reliable source, where his pronouncements often echo those of Nietzsche in ‘The Antichrist’.
This clearly isn’t a very useful definition of ‘fascism’ as the term has been used historically and outside of the USA.
That cited definition of fascism is not only not useful, it is factually incorrect. More importantly, it was NOT the definition of fascism that we used in our book. On the contrary, we argue that fascism represented an attempt to conjoin certain elements of both right-wing and left-wing thought – specifically illiberal nationalism (or biological racism, in the case of the Nazis) and a non-Marxist conception of socialism – in order to forge a new revolutionary ideological amalgam opposed to both “plutocratic” capitalism and communism. The same is true of genuine neo-fascist ideological currents in the postwar era. Moreover, fascism did NOT, in most national contexts, display any particular reverence for Christianity. Rather, fascism was a secular revolutionary ideology that, to the extent that it intersected with religion, was arguably more philosophically aligned with various forms of paganism. So that too was a mischaracterization of our own views.
The main argument of our book is that interwar-style fascist movements and their postwar successors have virtually no chance of coming to power, either electorally or by means of violence, contrary to the hysterical Establishment propaganda about fascism supposedly being “on the march.” In short, that the overwrought “brown scare” narrative that has often been peddled by Western governments, academics, and left-wing activists since the end of World War II to justify demonizing and repressing their domestic political opponents has very little basis in reality. So it challenged a great deal of consensus thinking on these subjects.
Finally, it was depressing to note that John Morgan (and certain others) cavalierly dismissed our book because one of the authors happens to be Jewish (and had previously characterized the nouvelle droite as “fascist,” a view he has since revised) and the other – me – got a Ph.D. from a “progressive” university. Using the latter logic, no one who gets an advanced degree from a top research university can or should be taken seriously because nowadays those institutions are all “progressive.”
Jeffrey, it is great to see that an author of a book I reviewed actually read my review. I’ve always wondered if they did so. Regardless, I don’t feel in any way I’ve mischaracterized your views by my citation of a general right-wing reverence for Christianity. What I said was “…fascism, if one can apply the term to all conservative or Right-leaning thought, is usually two basic things: a reverence for Christianity in some form, and the view of the State being based on a core ethnic or racial group…” This is clearly not fascism itself or your definition of fascism. Instead it is a reference to the slur of “fascism” applied to ordinary conservatives who believe in the reverence thereof and a State policy of supporting its core ethnic group. My statement can mean reverence for Christianity in some form and some form of reverence. I deliberately wrote that statement so that the interpretation of “some form” could apply in both ways. I believe I did sum up your lengthy exploration of the academy’s (and other’s) differing definitions of fascism well. It was an entire chapter, and in that chapter you mentioned general right-wing views on ‘reverence and a core ethnicity’ and that insight jumped out at me.
I don’t understand the criticism of my review not mentioning the fact that you had a degree from a “progressive” university. I review many books by left-wing academics of past right wing figures and that issue has never come up as a problem. If I feel a left-wing author is doing a cheap shot, I say so in my review. Additionally, I didn’t think I needed to mention the fact that Tamir Bar-On is an Israeli Jew. I linked to his webpage in which he clearly explained his background. I don’t think one needs to mention that a person is Jewish unless that person is doing something like Paul Wolfowitz did in the run up to the Iraq War, or more recently – the people leading the first impeachment of Donald Trump. I also don’t think that a Jewish person pointing out the fact that Islamic fanatics living in the West can be dangerous is some form of Jewish subversion or trickery either. The fact that Islamism in its various public forms is dangerous is obviously true and by no means does acknowledging that fact mean Americans must pay for Israeli military hardware as they do currently.
But I digress. Look folks, this book is a towering intellectual achievement. It is the best book that I’ve read this year and the best book about the Political Right I’ve ever read. This book needs to be purchased, donated to libraries, and its authors need to be invited to our podcasts and interviewed in mainstream news outlets. Again, this is a great book, a real page-turner.
Dear Prof. Bale,
I didn’t cavalierly dismiss your book. I wouldn’t do that, since I haven’t read it (and I probably won’t be, unless an affordable paperback edition comes out, since $115 is a bit much for me). But that isn’t what I wrote, anyway. After pointing out Prof. Bar-On’s background, I wrote that “This doesn’t necessarily mean this book is without value, but these things should be at least mentioned in any comprehensive review.” If it depresses you that I would point out that Prof. Bar-On is Jewish, I’m not sure what else you would expect at a White Nationalist site. But I absolutely do consider it relevant to point out that, in several books and articles over a period of years, Prof. Bar-On has been on a crusade to prove that the French/European New Right is fascist, including getting in a debate with Alain de Benoist himself on the topic in the pages of the Journal for the Study of Radicalism in which Prof. Bar-On defended this view. All of the relevant articles are online. If Prof. Bar-On has since revised his position, that’s good and welcome news, but I wasn’t aware of it, since I am not an academic and therefore don’t keep up with all the literature in the field. Is there a reference or references you can point me to where he discusses this revision? If he has done so in a positive and fair manner, then I will revise my own view, but I will not apologize for pointing out that the co-author of a book which attacks the establishment for unjustifiably applying the “fascist” label to other types of Right-wing movements has himself spent a great deal of his professional career doing exactly that — completely unjustifiably, in my view, especially as I have been Mr. de Benoist’s publisher in English in the past — to the New Right. This is a fact that is absolutely relevant, and essential, for anyone approaching the book to know.
As for you, I mentioned the fact that you went to Berkeley merely as a possible point of interest, as I clarified in a further comment. I never said that this fact automatically makes your work without value. For that matter, I would have to discount my own work if I were to apply this standard, since like you I received my Bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan. The fact that you would even trouble to read a review of your book at a “disapproved” site such as this one suggests that you perhaps don’t harbor typical establishment prejudices.
It’s unfortunate that you found my comment depressing, but I hope this clarification explains why I felt it was necessary.
Thanks to Mr. Morgan and Mr. van de Camp for clarifying their views on these issues. First, to respond to Mr. Morgan, he was right to point out that in the past Tamir viewed the nouvelle droite as a new variant of fascism, which is not at all uncommon. I myself made such an assumption in a 1987 article, before I had spent several more years studying the many ideological currents of the postwar European right. Indeed, Tamir and I now both consider this interpretation to be overly simplistic if not unwarranted, which is precisely why such a claim was not made in our co-authored book. Also, it is true that Mr. Morgan acknowledged that we both attended the University of Michigan as undergraduates, which effectively means that he too attended a top-rated but clearly “progressive” research university. But given that fact, it is hard to understand why this matter should be worth mentioning at all in this context, since one can clearly matriculate at such an institution and still end up with very different political views. E.g., although Mr. Morgan and I do not agree on many, many matters, neither of us are “progressives.” Finally, although it is obviously true that CC is a WN website, it is no less true that there are considerable differences amongst white nationalists concerning the validity and salience of the so-called “Jewish Question.” There are also differences with respect to the way in which criticisms of Jews are formulated by different WN writers, ranging from the vulgar Daily Stormer “neo-Nazi” approach to the intellectualized Occidental Observer approach. Personally, I don’t think that it is morally justifiable, or intellectually useful, to evaluate publications on the basis of the ethnicity or religion of their authors, unless those authors are clearly deriving their intellectual arguments from their own ethnic interests or religious beliefs. As for Mr. van de Camp, I am appreciative that his review of our book was balanced and reasonable, especially in an era in which ad hominem attacks and political denunciations have become the norm, and that in his response he indicated how much regard he has for the scholarly value of our book. My main concern was that the readers of his review would assume from the way that passage was worded that we ourselves were defining fascism in that inaccurate way, rather than that in our book we often summarized other people’s arguments about fascism that we strongly disagreed with. Since one of the main purposes of our book was to provide precise definitions of controversial terms such as fascism, which have so often been misused and abusively applied by analysts and pundits in order to delegitimize political opponents, I wanted to make it perfectly clear what our conception of fascism actually was.
Dear Prof. Bale,
Thank you for your lengthy and thoughtful reply. I did ask a question in my initial response which you haven’t yet answered, however: Where has Prof. Bar-On written about his revised stance on the New Right? I would be very interested to consult this source, or sources, and possibly revise my own view of his work based on what I find.
I merely mentioned the fact of your alma mater as a point of possible interest. I made it clear even in my original comment that I wasn’t saying that you should be automatically dismissed because of it. The same goes for Prof. Bar-On’s ethnicity. I’m not so simple-minded as to believe that anything said by a Jew is suspect; however, given the penchant of Jews, particularly in academia, to undermine the Right, I think it is at least worth mentioning this fact in a review.
Thank you for your time, Professor. I’ll read your new book if and when an affordable edition is published!
John
Understood, Mr. Morgan. In response to your first point, I can only say that Tamir has acknowledged that his earlier views on de Benoist and the ND were wrong, not only to me personally but also in a footnote in our book (where I too admitted that my initial views about them were mistaken). Since the early 1990s, my opinion has been that the ND – along with many other innovative postwar examples of ideological evolution on the right, such as the ideas espoused by Jean-Francois Thiriart – represented a serious intellectual effort to escape from the fascist ideological ghetto and to develop fruitful new ideas in response to the radically changed situation in the postwar era, as opposed to some kind of disingenuous attempt to conceal or repackage fascism (which has long been a common view amongst left-wing activists and academics). Second, I sincerely hope that an affordable paperback edition of our book will be released at some point, since the price of the hardback is astronomically high (as if it were an obscure book containing translations from Babylonian cuneiform that would only appeal to 100 scholarly specialists rather than a book on a topic of tremendous contemporary salience). We were led to believe that a paperback version would be released at some point, but have since become extremely disillusioned with the self-defeating marketing strategy of the publisher. Had we been clearer about this, we would have found another publisher.
Comments are closed.
If you have a Subscriber access,
simply login first to see your comment auto-approved.
Note on comments privacy & moderation
Your email is never published nor shared.
Comments are moderated. If you don't see your comment, please be patient. If approved, it will appear here soon. Do not post your comment a second time.