Of Alain de Benoist

Source: The Rebel newspaper
What should we rebel against nowadays?? Faced with the rise of single thought, faced with the swelling of an extraordinary wave of what we do not hesitate to call planetary conformism, in the face of the various pathologies that afflict our societies, in the face of the various threats that weigh on them and that darken their future, you are spoiled for choice. However, it seems to me that most of these phenomena that we try to oppose have a common cause. That is, it seems to me that these phenomena reveal themselves as consequences of a very specific ideology, secular and multifaceted, which I propose to call “the ideology of the Identical”. The ideology of the Identical is an ideology that develops starting from what is common in all men. More precisely, it develops by taking into account only what men have in common and interpreting it as the Identical, and that means, in other words, that such an ideology can only aspire to leveling out. The Ideology of the Identical often refers to equality, but to a purely abstract equality: in the absence of a precise criterion that allows it to be concretely determined, equality is nothing else, Indeed, than a different name of the Identical. The ideology of the Identical therefore considers universal equality between men as an equality in itself, disconnected from any element of concreteness that would allow it to be ascertained. It is an ideology allergic to everything that specifies and characterizes singularity, which interprets every distinction as potentially derogatory, which considers contingent differences, transitory, inessential or secondary. Its driving force is the idea of ​​Unico, which is what the Other cannot tolerate, and intends to reduce everything to unity: One God, unique civilization, unique thought. […]
To eradicate diversity, to bring humanity back to political and social unity, the ideology of the Identical often appeals, in its profane formulations, to theories that see in the social superstructure, in the consequences of domination, in the influence of education or the environment, the cause of these distinctions, which he sees as a temporary evil. The source of social evil is thus placed outside man, as if the exterior were nothing other than the product and extension of the interior. By modifying external causes, the internal forum of man could thus be transformed, or even bring out its true “nature”. To achieve this, both authoritarian and coercive methods will be used, both to social conditioning or counter-conditioning, both to "dialogue" and to the "appeal to reason", without on the other hand obtaining more results in one case than in the other - failure is always attributed not to an error in the starting hypotheses, but to the still insufficient nature of the means employed. The underlying idea is that of a peaceful or perfect society, or at least of a society that would become "just" if all the external variables that prevent the advent of the Identical were made to disappear. The ideology of the Identical is largely dominant today. One could even say that it is the fundamental norm from which all the others derive, is the unique norm of an era without norms that does not want to have others. But it also has a history: it was born first and foremost in the theological field, taking shape in the West in the Christian idea according to which all men, beyond their individual characteristics, beyond the particular context of their individual existence, they are holders of a soul in similar relationship with God. All men are equal by nature and dignity having been created in the image of the one God. The corollary, which was extensively developed by Saint Augustine, it is that of a fundamentally one humanity, the components of which would all be called upon to develop in the same direction, achieving an ever greater convergence between them. This is the Christian root of the idea of ​​progress. Became earthly through the slow process of secularization, this idea will give life to the idea of ​​a reason common to all - "one and whole in each", Descartes will say – in which every man would participate by reason of his humanity. I clearly do not have the time to examine now the way in which the ideology of the Same has generated within Western culture all the normative/repressive strategies that Michel Foucault has described exhaustively. I will only remember that the nation-state, throughout its historical journey, he was more concerned with assimilation than integration, aiming to reduce differences by standardizing global society. This trend was continued and accelerated by the Revolution of 1789 That, faithful to the geometric spirit, it decreed the suppression of all those intermediate bodies that the Ancien Régime had allowed to survive. Since then what matters is only humanity and, similarly, a citizenship whose exercise is conceived as participation in the universality of public affairs. Jews become “citizens like others”, women "like men like others". What characterizes them individually, belonging to a sex or a people, it is considered non-existent or is hidden, confining it to the private sphere. The great modern ideologies thus adapt to an ideal of establishing or restoring general unity. They will thus dream of the unification of the world by the market or of a "homogeneous" society free from any "foreign" social negativity, or, Still, a humanity reconciled with itself that has finally rediscovered its essence. The political ideal will be the progressive elimination of the borders that arbitrarily separate men: we will call ourselves "citizens of the world", as if the “world” were – or could be – a political entity. With modernity, as everyone knows, this tendency towards homogeneity has been taken to the extreme in totalitarian societies and by a central power that considers itself the only possible source of legitimacy. In Western postmodern societies, the same result is achieved with the commodification of the world, milder process, right, but no less effective for this, given that the degree of homogeneity of current Western societies greatly exceeds that of the totalitarian societies of the last century. Nowadays this ideology of the Identical is spreading in every area. From it comes the progressive eradication of cultural specificities and different lifestyles; it is at the origin of the growing confusion of male-female social roles, just as it is at the origin of uncontrolled mass immigration, which brings with it very serious social pathologies every day. It's it, In the end, which we find in the advent of the new religion of human rights, which claims to subject the entire Earth to its legal and moral diktats.
Twentieth-century cultural anthropology was founded on a relativist assumption, that is, the belief that ideas, the values ​​and behaviors characteristic of each people or culture cannot be understood and appreciated except in the context of that people or culture. This assumption, which partly arose from the organicist representations of the romantic political philosophy of the last century, it too is nowadays increasingly forgotten in the name of this ideology of human rights, which claims to educate the entire world by subjecting all cultures to the same fundamental values, which are nothing other than the specific values ​​of a particular culture. Under the guise of generosity, a new imperialism therefore begins, because those who try to erase differences everywhere are actually trying to make all cultures resemble their own. It is a law that has been repeated throughout history. Furthermore, the ideology of the Identical is perfectly contradictory. At the very moment in which it is said to be unifying, establishes an insurmountable rift between humanity and the rest of the living, while within human societies, because of his individualistic principles, causes an ever greater disintegration of the structures of common life. The universalist objective is in fact always linked to individualism, since this ideology cannot posit humanity as fundamentally one unless it is conceived as composed of individual atoms, seen in the most abstract way possible, that is, outside of any context and mediation. This is why it aims to make everything that stands between the individual and humanity disappear: popular cultures, living communities, intermediary bodies, different lifestyles. The ideology of the Identical spreads by eliminating differences, but at the same time also eliminating what holds them together, that is, the flexible structures within which differences are inscribed, which are also different. Targeting differences that are always organically ordered, it gives rise to atomization and division at the same time. In the absence of a frame that encloses it, the fever of the One leads to the dissolution of the social bond. This increase in individualism, which the liberals congratulate, it also led to the advent of the Providence State, which they instead complain about. It is a paradoxical observation, which however is the consequence of perfect logic. The more community structures collapsed, the more the State had to take charge of individuals' demand for solidarity. Vice versa, the more it guaranteed their safety, the more it exempted them "from having family or community relationships which previously constituted indispensable protection". Dialectical movement and vicious circle: on the one hand the differentiated society falls apart, on the other, the homogenizing State advances with the same rapidity as individualism. The more isolated individuals there are, the more the state can treat them uniformly. […] Whoever speaks in the name of "humanity" inevitably places his opponents outside of humanity. […] Not only does the difference always return, there being no two living beings that are identical in all respects, but it comes back with all the more force the more we try to suppress it. Hostile to difference, the ideology of the Identical inevitably leads to indifferentiation. Ora, indifferentiation is always a sign of social disintegration, and this disintegration can only produce aggressive and hostile behavior in turn. The men, Indeed, they are afraid of the Identical at least as much as they are of the Other, if not more. The dominant ideologies believe ecumenically that the homogenization of the world could only lead to peace since it would allow for better "understanding". But we soon realize that, on the contrary, this homogenization gives rise to identity conflicts, it awakens secular irredentisms and generates spasmodic nationalisms. Within companies themselves, the ideology of the Identical generalizes the mimetic rivalry described excellently by René Girard, exacerbating the desire to stand out all the more forcefully the more the distinction is prohibited, and this is the reason why it can be said that the Identical intimately foments war. At best it generalizes indifference and boredom. At worst, leads to violent reactions and the unleashing of passions. The ideology of the Identical materializes before our eyes today in the phenomenon of globalization. We already had the opportunity to talk about it a few years ago, but we feel the need to return, since globalization – also called globalization – now constitutes, whether you want it or not, the background of our present history. Made possible by the collapse of the Soviet system and the rapid development of electronic means of communication, Globalization represents a process of progressive unification of the Earth. But this is not just any unification. What is happening before our eyes operates within the logic of capital and the ideology of the market. In other words, the Earth tends to unify in the form of a large market. The market is by definition the place where differences are neutralized, through the reduction of that universal equivalent which is money to more or less large quantities. The market transforms everything into goods, While, on the contrary, what cannot be transformed into a commodity escapes the market. With globalization, developed countries move from a market society to a market society. This means entire fragments of human life that were previously out of control, starting from artistic and cultural productions, are now included in the market, While, in parallel, the market model is internalized in the conscience, little by little bringing with it a generalized reification of social relations. It is clear that it is not the "cosmopolitan" left that has brought globalization to fruition, this being rather the work of the liberal right. It is the latter that facilitated and then accompanied the fulfillment of the secular tendency of capitalism to spread more and more - the market having no other limits than itself. Capitalism thus proved to be more effective than communism in breaking down borders, confronting those who fought him yesterday in the name of an internationalist ideal with a painful alternative. The consequences of this unregulated commercial globalization, without control and direction, of this machine that advances alone, overwhelming everything in its path, they are well known. First of all, this is the tendency towards planetary homogenisation, to the standardization of lifestyles and behaviors through a generalization of an anthropological model that brings man back to his producer-consumer dimension.