Alain de Benoist

Pretty decent post-Heideggerian assessment of alienation and contemporary malaise, basically piggybacking off of certain leftwing communitarian principles that are fairly intuitive (MacIntyre and Taylor, from what I’ve read of them anyway, offer accounts I assent to and find attractive in this regard - and Benoit picks up bits and pieces from them), but then Benoit and the whole New Right gang go and royally screw themselves over by endorsing restrictive immigration policies and various dog whistle-y talking points (I had to write ‘here we go…’ in the margins at a certain point as I had finally got to the part in the manifesto where its ridiculous and frankly off-putting title gets its justification - I knew all this talk of the beauty and wonder of diversity could only lead to segregationist bullshit, even if he tries to cover himself from such an accusation by saying that he endorses neither exclusion or assimilation, and then emphasising the EU's, or a future organisation like it, need to embrace Russia).

Read the first two chapters to satisfy your morbid curiosity when it comes to this New Right movement, or to read a fairly coherent rightwing approach to postmodernity, or skip right to the end to get to some of the fashy repercussions of this kind of talk. Maybe even read it just to enjoy someone dunking on (neo-)liberalism and Western ethnocentrism, because they’re both just the fucking pits. Frankly there’s a lot to chew on, in its criticisms and discussions of the IMF, urban aesthetics, the economic power structures of work, the trend of unbridled technological advancement abstracted from the goals of both concrete individuals and communities, Rawlsian liberalism, human rights, the fear of the Same, the need for the third world's independence and organic growth, women striving for/inhabiting the abstract values of men etc. etc. However I do have to say when it comes to right wing intellectual types worth checking out, just to see what the opposition is up to these days, this guy is certainly no Sloterdijk.… (more)

This manifesto is divided into three main parts which is further divded into short, bullet point style subchapters. The first two parts are mostly summaries of de Benoists takes on staple topics such as liberalism, identity, immigration, etc.. In the final part, de Benoist proposes a row of solutions on how to achieve what he believes to be a "European Renaissance". This is where he gets lost between concepts like debt relief, a European federation of sovereign nations as opposed to a Jacobin superstate (but without nationalism?), intercontinental Swiss style democracy, microregionalism, universal basic income, sustainability but also anti-urbanism. The reader is being laid off with a set of vaguely described scenarios which are just as confusing as they are irrational, sometimes resembling Kalergi's utopian Pan-European fever dreams.

Alain de Benoists is one of France's most erudite post-WW2 authors and absolutely worth reading but I would recommend you read some of his other titles such as "Beyond human Rights", "The Problem with Democracy" or his "View from the Right" series, which should be required reading for anybody engaging with the history of political ideas.… (more)

This book is more of a critique of judeo-christianity than an introduction to ancestral PIE traditions. And while I respect Benoist's endeavor to expose the religion of christ through a linguistic analysis of the Old Testament, I don't condone his unacceptable religious skepticism that comes packed with his crude interpretation of the pre-christian religious traditions. If you're a devout practitioner, among the several blasphemous and irreligious passages in this work, you sure as hell won't appreciate reading that the Gods are figments of mankind's imagination.… (more)