Alain de Benoist

Founding member of the ethno-nationalist think thank GRECE and of the New Right, Alain de Benoist delivers here an interesting reflexion upon the Rights of Man; to him a 'dogma', an 'opinion' which, like the belief in God a few centuries ago, became now so entrenched it is impossible to criticise. At a time of cultural relativism and triumphing non-interventionism, I personally found such jeremiads baffling, but, whatever! Let's focus on the content instead of his silly naggings.

The Rights show more of Man? Bluntly: de Benoist rejects here their 'supposed' universalism.

He starts by rhetorical criticisms. Thought of as being natural and inalienable (innate, then) he shows that such rights are obviously nothing of such but the product of a specific culture (Western, Christian, influenced by Enlightenment philosophy) which has been having a certain view of what constitutes an individual; a view clashing with others, embodied by other cultures (eg. pagan antiquity). The concept 'natural' is, in itself, for him controversial enough to justify such a reject. Interesting so far, but... completely useless! Useless, because no one claims that they are so! Their 'innate' feature is indeed nothing else than a frame of thinking, not an argument rooted in nature and biology. De Benoist makes here a straw man argument then, but, at least giving us an interesting historical overview.

Delving into their history, he then mock their abstract nature that has often let them to be the subjects of different and contradictory interpretations. This lack of consensus is enough, for him, to negate them. He especially note that, the most fervent defenders of the said rights were often the same betraying them the most (American and French revolutionaries, from feminism to slavery). He thinks he has a point. He is wrong. It is precisely their abstract nature which constitutes their strength. To bounce upon his own examples, from women to slaves, oppressed people of all kind in fact reclaimed them so as to successfully campaign for their own cause (a fact that, obviously, he doesn't mention...).

The thing is, as far as de Benoist is concerned, because they are the specific product of a specific culture at a specific time they cannot be universal. You get it, he is falling head on right into the trap of all whose blinded by the fear of ethnocentrism: he is unable to conceive that ideas, a set of values, don't necessarily belong where they are born, but, on the contrary, can resonate loudly with others, elsewhere. So it is with Human Rights: born out of the revolutionary minds of bourgeois and liberal French white men in a corner of Europe more than two hundred years ago, they nevertheless became the voice of all oppressed people around the globe ever since then, so as to legitimate their revolts.*
He never gets that.

The problem, then, is that following such a fallacious way of thinking he denounces American interventionism which he accuses of imperialism against pluralism. That's a double blunder. First, because the expansion of the values embodied by the Human Rights across the planet is not the product of the American only - and certainly not through military conquests following wars! Many NGOs and peaceful international organisations, for instance, are doing a remarkable job on that score - through he obviously doesn't mention them. Then, because by condemning military interventions (Kosovo, Afghanistan, Irak) he falls right into another trap: denouncing the ones who act against barbarism, he neglects the ones who have to endure it.

Now, he may claim not being a cultural relativist. The fact is, he is convinced that individuals are defined by the community they belong to - its customs, traditions, values, norms. Of course, he does admit that such features can sometimes be barbaric and oppressive! But admitting this he just grants us the right to be outraged. In fact, what does he suggests to improve the fate of the oppressed? Absolutely nothing. Here again, he fails to see the ultimate end-path of his logic - to deny the universality of the Human Rights is to deprive whole people around the world a powerful tool to reject and fights the features oppressing them. Trapping others in a community with its own code of values, and then distancing himself from such a community for fear of ethnocentrism, is to exclude, even if unconsciously, a common humanity. Is it any wonder, then, that his non-interventionism dangerously flirts with totalitarianisms of all kinds? From Milosevic to Saddam Hussein and the Talibans, he is among those who would rather denounce military interventions than facing the dictators. Is it any wonder, too, that his logic has him to turn a blind eye upon some barbaric cultural practices? Indeed, he may reject cultural relativism, yet his thinking leads right into it as illustrated in his own example:

'when a woman is stoned to death in a Muslim country and the defenders of Human Rights are enraged by her fate, we may ask what are the reasons for such a condemnation. Is it the mode of execution (stoning), the fact adultery is passible of death penalty (or simply reprehensible) or because of the death penalty itself? The first reason seems purely emotional . The second can at least be debated (whatever our feelings about the death penalty, on which ground should we impose to the members of a given culture to don't consider adultery as an offense, and so to freely evaluate for themselves the gravity of the punishment?). As for the third, it makes all countries still having the death penalty, starting with the USA, a violator of the Human Rights'

Let's pass over the cultural relativism, in here clearly hypocritical, equating adultery with first degree murder (whatever your opinion, indeed, on the death penalty in the USA). Let's focus instead on the typical attitude of such 'defenders of pluralism': at no point whatsoever does he even think to consider the situation from the point of view of the main concerned that is, the woman (not a man, incidentally...) being stoned to death. Empathy for a victim? Zero. Again, there are campaigners in such countries against the appalling treatment of women and the death penalty itself. Them not belonging to the same culture as his (a Westerner) doesn't mean they can't embrace the same values, or being victim of oppression too - he may want to listen to differing viewpoints, and then chose carefully which side to defend...

Now, such anti-universalist discourses are easy to denounce. There are so full-up to the brim with inconsistencies, self-contradictory statements, and hypocrisy that it would be way too long to deal with them all in here. And yet! Despite the barbarism such stance inevitably leads to (eg. from doing nothing against totalitarian regimes to equating adultery with crimes deserving death, all in the name of pluralism and anti-Imperialism) such cultural relativism coupled with non-interventionism are gaining ground. Should we worry?

Here's nonsense from beginning to end (although well argued, give him that) but being sadly the moral zeitgeist of our times. Don't be fooled! Read it. Debunk it. And reclaim the 'philosophes'!

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*: I first read this book in 2012, when Malala Yousafzai, a 14 years old young girl, was shot at her school by the Talibans. Her crime? Using the 'philosophes' to denounce the oppression girls and women had to go through in her remote corner of north-west Pakistan. She was eventually saved by Pakistani doctors, and... a Western medical team (she was hospitalised in England at some point...). What the defender of pluralism, non-universalism, and non-interventionism like de Benoist would have made of such a situation? I have no idea... show less

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 show more 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. show less

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 show more won't appreciate reading that the Gods are figments of mankind's imagination. show less

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 show more 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. show less