Alain de Benoist
Alain de Benoist (/də bəˈnwɑː/ də bə-NWAH, French: [alɛ̃ də bənwa]; born 11 December 1943), also known as Fabrice Laroche, Robert de Herte, David Barney, and other pen names,[1] is a French political philosopher and journalist, a founding member of the Nouvelle Droite (France's New Right), and the leader of the ethno-nationalist think tank GRECE.
Alain de Benoist
11 December 1943
Modernization and secularization of Christian values, repaganization of the West, pensée unique, Nouvelle Droite, ethnopluralism
Principally influenced by thinkers of the German Conservative Revolution,[2] de Benoist is opposed to Christianity, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, neoliberalism, representative democracy, egalitarianism, and what he sees as embodying and promoting those values, namely the United States.[3] He theorized the notion of ethnopluralism, a concept which relies on preserving and mutually respecting individual and bordered ethno-cultural regions.[4][5]
His work has been influential with the alt-right movement in the United States, and he presented a lecture on identity at a National Policy Institute conference hosted by Richard B. Spencer; however, he has distanced himself from the movement.[6][7]
Influences[edit]
De Benoist's influences include Antonio Gramsci, Ernst Jünger, Martin Buber, Jean Baudrillard, Georges Dumézil, Ernest Renan, José Ortega y Gasset, Vilfredo Pareto, Karl Marx, Guy Debord, Arnold Gehlen, Stéphane Lupasco, Helmut Schelsky, Konrad Lorenz, the Conservative Revolutionaries including Carl Schmitt and Oswald Spengler, the non-conformists of the 1930s, Johann Gottfried Herder, Johannes Althusius, interwar Austro-Marxists, and communitarian philosophers like Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor.[55]
Critics[edit]
Critics of de Benoist like Thomas Sheehan argue he has developed a novel restatement of fascism.[69] Roger Griffin, using an ideal type definition of fascism, which includes "populist ultra-nationalism" and "palingenesis" (heroic rebirth), argues that the Nouvelle Droite draws on such fascist ideologues as Armin Mohler in a way that allows Nouvelle Droite ideologues like de Benoist to claim a "metapolitical" stance but which nonetheless has residual fascist ideological elements.[70] In response to accusations of fascism, de Benoist notes his support of direct democracy and localism, as well as his opposition to authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and militarism, characteristics of historical Fascism.[71] De Benoist's critics also claim his views recall Nazi attempts to replace German Christianity with its own paganism.[72] They note that de Benoist's rejection of the French Revolution's legacy and the allegedly abstract Rights of Man ties him to the same Counter-Enlightenment right-wing tradition as counter-revolutionary Legitimists, fascists, Vichyites, and integral nationalists.[73]
Private life[edit]
Identifying as neo-pagan,[74] de Benoist married Doris Christians, a German citizen, on 21 June 1972. They have two children.[15][9] He is a member of Mensa International, a high-IQ society whose former president of the French branch was a member of the patronage committee of Nouvelle École.[75] De Benoist owns the largest private library in France, with an estimate of 150,000[76] to 250,000 books.[1]
