“New Right” or New Culture?
The following is a translation of the first chapter of «Pour une renaissance culturelle» (“For a Cultural Renaissance”) (1979) written by Pierre Vial. Vial explains how the term "New Right" was applied to his group by the media during an intense press campaign in 1979, though they preferred to call themselves the "New Culture." He describes GRECE as a cultural and intellectual organization that emerged in 1968-1969, primarily expressing itself through two journals: Nouvelle École and Éléments. Vial argues that GRECE's mission was to break with the old right's demons (like totalitarianism and colonialism) while building a comprehensive new doctrine. He defends the group against what he sees as unfair criticism and misrepresentation in the media, emphasizing that their goal was cultural renaissance rather than political maneuvering. Vial also outlines GRECE's opposition to both capitalist and Marxist materialism, advocating instead for a return to European pagan values and cultural diversity, with the ultimate aim of creating a sovereign Europe independent of superpower influence.
This book is currently out of print. You can find used copies pretty easily online. I have created a PDF of the original French version. If you would like a copy, email me at alex@arktos.com. No English translation exists yet. TN denotes translator note.
Translated by Alexander Raynor
A groundswell! From June 22 to November 15, 1979, the major press, both French and international — from Pravda to Playboy — devoted more than five hundred articles to the "New Right." "New Right"? A label used during this press campaign to designate a new school of thought that appeared in France in 1968-1969, and which, since that date, has expressed itself essentially through two journals of ideas, Nouvelle École (directed by Alain de Benoist) and Éléments (directed by Michel Marmin), and a cultural association: le Groupement de Recherche et d’Etudes pour la Civilisation Européenne (The Research and Study Group for European Civilization) (G.R.E.C.E.).
For the leaders of G.R.E.C.E., whose collective work this book represents, this label of "New Right" calls for a certain number of reservations. Words, as we know, are never innocent. In the introduction to an essay titled, precisely, Vu de droite (View from the Right) (Copernic, 1977), Alain de Benoist noted: "Personally, the question of whether I am or am not on the right is completely irrelevant to me. For now, the ideas defended in this work are on the right; they are not necessarily of the right. I can even easily imagine situations where they could be on the left. It's not the ideas that would have changed, but the political landscape that would have evolved. We'll see what becomes of it over time. On the other hand, one cannot perpetually sit on the ceiling. So let's accept this term 'right': words, after all, are not things. And let's say that in France, at the end of the seventies, at a time when everyone (or nearly so) claims to be on the left, being 'on the right' is still the best way to be elsewhere." We too could fully subscribe to this opinion.
So much for the "right." And in what way is it "new"? First, because of the age of its representatives: thirty years old on average. Then because of its deep orientations and general ideas: the "New Right" was born from an undeniable desire to break with the "old right" — as much with its old demons (totalitarianism, colonialism, nationalism, racism, moral order) as with its indifference towards established ideas. The press did not fail to highlight this in the aftermath of the press conference organized on September 18, 1979, in Paris, by various representatives of the "New Right" — Michel Marmin, Alain de Benoist, Claude Chollet and myself —: we are witnessing today the emergence of a new generation that does not recognize itself in fashionable ideologies. And its goal, its reason for being, is to build a body of doctrine touching, without any exception, on all areas of science and the life of the mind.
Indeed, the "New Right" in no way represents a phenomenon of political maneuvering. Its objectives, like its activities, are purely intellectual and cultural. This is why those who speak on its behalf, and who have suddenly been awarded this label, prefer, for their part, to use the expression "New Culture."
By retracing the main stages of ten years of cultural struggle led by G.R.E.C.E., this book intends to clarify a debate. This clarification seems necessary to us in order to finally put an end to an ambiguous situation, due mainly to the dogmatism and intolerance that the opponents of the "New Right" have continuously shown towards it for so many years already.
After maintaining silence about the new current of thought represented by G.R.E.C.E., its opponents have endeavored — without much success so far — to attempt to disqualify it. The enterprise follows a most simple method: first, they present the opinions of the "New Right" in a distorted, even caricatured way; after which, they justify the refusal of debate, the refusal of dialogue, by alleging the infamous or odious character of the caricature they themselves have drawn. The aim is to dishonor. It is also to incite hatred. Finally, and above all, it is to prevent people from reading — and from referring to the texts.
In his Réponse à la Nouvelle Droite (Response to the New Right) (Stock, 1979), a work whose content — by the author's own admission — has only an extremely distant relationship with the title, Georges Hourdin, director of La Vie (formerly Catholic), writes: "We were wrong to imagine that because right-wing thought had ceased to occupy center stage, it had disappeared forever. It was only lurking in the shadows, waiting for the moment to try to impose its sordid vision of the world. It is here, alive and well again, and we feel the muzzle of the beast blowing on our lives." What is "right-wing thought" for Mr. Hourdin (who emphasizes, by contrast, the "genius" character of Marx's work)? It's a beast. One can appreciate the sense of nuance and the charitable nature of this definition. Mr. Hourdin has his counterpart in the person of J. Grunewald, director of Tribune juive (TN: Jewish Tribune), who, in turn attacking the "New Right," writes without blinking: "Let us be proud, in the face of this theory, to show intolerance" (September 21, 1979). This does not prevent B. H. Lévy from asserting, in The Testament of God (Grasset, 1979), that monotheism constitutes the best bulwark against intolerance and totalitarianism...
On the secular side, the ideological fortification is just as firmly assured. In Le Matin (September 29, 1979), Laurent Dispot claims that the "New Right," by not aligning itself directly with the ideology of Human Rights — that theoretical Man in whose name of freedom concrete men have so often been massacred — puts itself "outside the law" in one fell swoop. As early as July 31, 1979, Le Matin had already noted that, for left-wing parties, any debate is excluded with men and "ideas whose expression should not even find a place in democratic society."
In short, intellectual terrorism is still very much alive. The tribunals of the Inquisition remain vigilant. And Gérard Spiteri, who can hardly be suspected of particular sympathy towards the "New Right," was able to write: "In the positions taken in response to this affair, the substantive debate has been sidestepped in favor of reductive anathemas" (Les Nouvelles littéraires, July 26, 1979).
Against the "New Culture" — let's stick with this term once and for all — defamation has most often taken the form of an almost systematic distortion of its viewpoints. I will cite two examples in this regard, which I have already had the opportunity to allude to in an article published by Le Monde (August 24, 1979). G.R.E.C.E. has been accused, on one hand, of advocating a sort of "social Darwinism," and on the other hand, of supporting a worldview based on "biological materialism." Social Darwinism: this would mean justifying the social system by considering that the best positions are automatically held by the most gifted. However, since its creation, G.R.E.C.E. has not ceased to denounce the false hierarchies of the mercantile society in which we live, notably emphasizing that economism and bourgeoisism secrete indefensible privileges, as they are based on money. Biological materialism: this would mean asserting that man, like other animals, is entirely conditioned by his genetic heritage. However, G.R.E.C.E., clearly denouncing the error of biological materialism (as well as any other form of materialism or reductionism), affirms that within his constitution, man is perfectly free in his behaviors, that there exists a human specificity irreducible to any "biological" explanation — in short, that man, far from being the passive receptacle of "natural" forces, is on the contrary, based on his own capacities, a creator of forms, the "lord of forms" of which Jünger speaks. At the human level, there is therefore no absolute determinism, whether biological, economic, or otherwise. The greatness of man is to be, alone, capable of constructing himself and constructing the world to his measure.
Given what precedes, should we despair of seeing a true debate of ideas established in France? We don't think so. There are signs that suggest we may still be able to wipe the slate clean of mutual anathemas, old dogmas, and old clichés. This is what Pierre Billard, in Le Point, has called the "great laundering of ideas." It takes the form of a questioning of outdated certainties and convictions, a questioning that, moreover, is emerging in the most diverse circles. And of which the "New Culture" is one of the most striking examples.
For its part, whenever G.R.E.C.E. has engaged in a debate or developed its point of view, it has always been careful to avoid making inappropriate associations or attributing intentions. It criticizes, when necessary, the ideas of its adversaries; these are then the ideas that its interlocutors actually support — not ideas imagined for the needs of discourse or demonstration. Conversely, G.R.E.C.E. has the right to expect said interlocutors to reciprocate. We said it earlier: for now, we are far from that. Intellectual honesty is not, in this country, the most evenly distributed thing in the world. Regarding the gratuitous assertions and approximations that flourish under Georges Hourdin's pen, Pierre de Boisdeffre, who is nevertheless far from sharing our point of view, recently noted in La Croix: "Georges Hourdin has hardly read — 'hardly' is an euphemism — Alain de Benoist, nor the special issues of Nouvelle école". This is indeed the least one can say.
This concern for clarification, this desire to create positive foundations for a truly fruitful intellectual debate, led G.R.E.C.E. to organize, between October 25 and December 4, 1979, a large information campaign on the theme "New Right" or New Culture? On this occasion, some sixty meetings were held throughout France in the span of a few weeks.
It is precisely with the same intention that we have decided to reissue, in the form of the present work, a book published in 1977 by G.R.E.C.E., which was titled Dix ans de combat culturel pour une renaissance (Ten Years of Cultural Struggle for a Renaissance). The objective is indeed always the same: to allow those who are interested in our ideas and our work to form their own opinion by referring to precise and indisputable sources.
Of course, this reissue is much more than a simple repetition. The content of Pour une renaissance culturelle differs quite considerably from that of Dix Ans de Combat Culturel pour une Renaissance. In the following pages, you will find new texts and themes, concrete reflections of the work undertaken and completed over the past few months. For the most part, these texts are extracted from the dossiers that the journal Éléments has devoted to subjects of capital importance for understanding the contemporary world: Les équivoques de l'écologie (The Ambiguities of Ecology) (No. 21-22), L'agonie de la ville (The Agony of the City) (No. 24-25), Le retour des dieux (The Return of the Gods) (No. 27), L'économie totalitaire (The Totalitarian Economy) (No. 28-29), L'Allemagne (Germany) (No. 30), La guerre culturelle (The Cultural War) (No. 31).
In this regard, I would like to mention here the decisive role of Éléments in spreading the ideas of the "New Culture." Born in 1968 (it was then just a simple liaison bulletin), Eléments became, in December 1970, the quarterly internal journal of G.R.E.C.E. Then, in September 1973, another transformation: Éléments then became the central organ of G.R.E.C.E. Finally, in December 1978, Éléments became an independent review, published by the Society of Publishing, Press, and Advertising, with its editorial team continuing to receive collaboration from G.R.E.C.E. Today, Éléments main contributors are Lucien Chanteloup, François Dirksen, Guillaume Faye, Pierre Gripari, Alain de Benoist, Joël Lecrozet, Francis Louth, Jean Mabire, Laurence Terry, Fabrice Valclérieux, Jacques Delort, Grégory Pons, and Charles Bressoles. Its editorialist is Robert de Herte (TN: Robert de Herte is one of Alain de Benoist’s pseudonyms). The direction of the review, ensured until December 1978 by Jean-Claude Valla and Roger Lemoine, is now handled by Michel Marmin and myself.
Éléments is the work of a team - a collective of cultural reflection and work. The same is true for this book, for which I take responsibility as the Secretary General of G.R.E.C.E., but which, in fact, is the product of a more general reflective work, in which all those who, for ten years, have contributed to creating a new school of thought, bearing a new culture, have participated.
At the forefront of these "awakeners" is, of course, Jean-Claude Valla, who was Secretary General of G.R.E.C.E. from June 1, 1974 to September 15, 1978. This is why it seemed important to me to place at the beginning of this work the interview during which, in 1977, he defined the reasons for being, the commitments, and the objectives of G.R.E.C.E. This text has lost none of its relevance, quite the contrary. As for the chapters that follow, they will allow the reader to see, with texts in hand, the diversity and originality of the viewpoints presented by G.R.E.C.E. This introduction will not be complete if it does not also indicate how G.R.E.C.E., through its action, heralds the revolution of the 21st century.
"I believe that a society cannot live long without collective belief!" Ten years after May 1968, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the French Head of State, notes (Paris-Match, September 14, 1979) the failure of a certain type of society to which he is closely associated. This failure relates less to material living conditions - the economic crisis that seems to be looming on a global scale does not seem to have truly called into question the paradigm of abundance - than to a state of mind, a mentality, characterized mainly by disenchantment, disengagement, incommunicability, sadness, and boredom. Evidently, the professionals of politicking are being taken less and less seriously. Their quarrels, their rivalries increasingly leave indifferent those who, not consenting to live only from day to day, seek to give meaning to their lives. Each day, it becomes a little clearer that the fundamental problems, which are destined to determine the future of our contemporaries, are discussed elsewhere than in the circles of politicians. We live in a society that provides means of living, but not reasons for living. We live in a “state of spiritual void."
How could it be otherwise? The society we know is a mercantile society. It is a society whose scale of values - for every society is based on a scale of values, whether consciously or not - is determined by economism. Economism: a system of organization of a social body that privileges the economic factor, considering it as a decisive element in defining relationships between individuals, as a central criterion for evaluating institutions and people, in short, as the engine of history. From this perspective, man is first and foremost a producer and consumer; his ties with those around him are essentially determined by this function; his happiness depends on the possibility he has (or doesn't have) to acquire the material goods he covets, in order to satisfy his "best interest." This raw materialism, both cynical and naive, is not the privilege of a single type of political regime. Although the technical means they use differ greatly, in both the West and the East, liberal capitalism and Marxist collectivism agree on the essentials: for both, it is the economy that is installed at the "command post."
This worldview is the culmination of a long process, historically linked to the rise of bourgeois values, of bourgeoisism. That is to say, to the will, progressively affirmed - the evolution lasted several centuries - among the possessors of economic power, to make themselves independent from political power, and, in a second phase, to subjugate it to their own ambitions.
Without being able to provide a detailed analysis of the phenomenon here, let's mention its main stages. In the 12th and 13th centuries, thanks to urban growth, the development of trade and the monetary economy, a class of merchants was formed in certain regions: Italy, Flanders, the Hanseatic cities. Their activities already bore the imprint of the capitalist mentality, as defined by Jean Imbert (Histoire économique des origins à 1789 (Economic History from the Origins to 1789), PUF, 1965): "Dominated by the pursuit of unlimited profit, without being concerned with religious or social objectives". The power of these merchants quickly became such that its holders sometimes managed to seize political power. This phenomenon remained localized, however - and did not call into question the general organization of society. Due to a social hierarchy based, implicitly, on a "trifunctional" ideology inherited from the Indo-European model, the economic function remained, in terms of values, at the lowest rank, behind the function of sovereignty - which temporal and spiritual leaders disputed - and the warrior function.
In the 16th century, the Reformation - some aspects of which are, moreover, eminently positive - brought to the merchants' will to power a kind of theological justification: God, henceforth, blessed the pursuit of wealth, which was the reward of workers and the righteous. Thus, until the 18th century, bourgeois pretensions could slowly mature, waiting for the philosophy of the "Enlightenment" to provide them with an ideological corpus capable of shaking, then destroying, the feudal society of the former regime. The latter, which had not managed to escape sclerosis (notably by cutting itself off from the popular substance), was replaced, with the Revolution, by another model of society. An eminently bourgeois model, dominated, as far as institutions are concerned, by economic and mercantile values. Napoleon's attempt to recreate, from the people, a new aristocracy, was ephemeral. The 19th century saw the triumph of bourgeoisism: savage capitalism, anarchic industrial development, exploitation of workers. These trends also secreted their relative antithesis: Marxism, while advocating the renewal of the ruling class, took up - by merely inverting it - the economizing postulate of liberalism: the economy constitutes the infrastructure, while politics and culture are mere superstructures.
It is this economic reductionism that was very superficially called into question in May 1968. The psychodrama that played out that year in the streets of the Latin Quarter had, it must be emphasized, a repercussion out of all proportion to its importance and its own nature. It indeed translated the clumsy, stumbling search for "something else" - a way of living other than that proposed by the thurifers of the mercantile society. This aspiration, mixed with more or less fanciful elements, was intrinsically positive. Society was rediscovering this elementary truth that man does not live by bread alone - by refrigerators and washing machines. An awareness was taking place "on the left," followed by self-criticism and aggiornamento (TN: Italian for “bringing up to date”; Pope John XXIII used the term in the context of spiritual renewal). The same was happening "on the right." It is no coincidence that le Groupement de Recherche et d’Etudes pour la Civilisation Européenne (G.R.E.C.E.) was born at the same time.
But the movement of May did not withstand its internal contradictions. It failed to fully trace back the chain of causes and effects. G.R.E.C.E., on the other hand, wanted to truly put "imagination in power." Not, as the barricaders did, by trying to convince themselves that words can replace the realities of concrete life, but by undertaking a systematic quest, more methodical, more persistent, for the roots of a specific worldview. It was not enough to denounce the "consumer society," the degradation of societies into haphazard collections of consumer subjects. It was also necessary to uncover the egalitarian ideology at work in this process of petrification and materialization of individuals. To date, only G.R.E.C.E. has undertaken this task. And, in doing so, it has emphasized the need, in the face of egalitarian and commercial leveling, to rediscover the lost dimension: that of the past-present, that of collective identities. "The man of the future is the one who will have the longest memory": this phrase by Nietzsche long resonated on our path. Its author will have been a fraternal companion on the journey we have embarked upon. This phrase summarized an entire intellectual approach: to go to the most distant past, not to return to it but to connect with it — in order to build the most powerful of futures.
To go to the most distant past is to set out, as Renan did, on a pilgrimage to the Acropolis — or to go listen, in the heart of the Carnutes forest, to the beating heart of ancient Celtic lands. It is to have one's feet on the ground while one's head is in the stars. It is to keep reason while listening to the vital forces of popular culture. It is to seek the sacred where it is: in the freshness of a spring, the power of a memory, the grandeur of a project, the shade of great trees, the clear eyes of a child.
"Religious animal in relation with the infinite," "creature that contains eternity": this is, depicted in a few words by Louis Pauwels (Comment devient-on ce que l’on est ? (How Does One Become What One Is?), Stock, 1978), the man of great health - of "pagan" health. This is the portrait of the man who has neither decalogue nor catechism to guide him in life. Who intends to create new forms in the world beyond good and evil. Who takes the risk of freedom and who intends to meet the challenges he has set for himself. What is it about? To bridge the gap, maintained by fifteen centuries of Christianity, between body and spirit. To liberate the European mind from the idea of sin. To substitute a morality of honor for an unacknowledged dualism, which has cast a curse on everything that brings the joy of the flesh and the fullness of the spirit. To remake man into the author of a creation that continues ceaselessly, to the measure of his power and will. It is, in short, about recreating the conditions of the great Promethean challenge, where Apollo and Dionysus meet and unite by surpassing themselves. The song of the world is pagan: such is the message of the revolution of the next century.
Such an affirmation is based on the idea of diversity - of the happy diversity - of the world. Man cannot be reduced to a single model. By fighting for the right to difference, for the right of all peoples to the identity that fundamentally defines them, G.R.E.C.E. stands, by that very fact, against all reductionisms, against all totalitarianisms. Faith in a single truth, in a single god, the belief that a single factor - economy, race, sexuality, etc. - would constitute the global explanatory factor of the universe and history, inevitably leads to fanaticism. For us, on the contrary, it is about taking into account reality in all its dimensions. It is by insisting on the necessity of mutual respect that one can (and must) avoid unilateralism and intolerance. And this is why G.R.E.C.E. affirms the right of peoples to be themselves, their right to free themselves from any ideological grip perceived as psychic rape, alienation, and enslavement.
Can a program of action as ambitious as that of G.R.E.C.E. be realized by a simple "society of thought"? A historical example deserves reflection in this regard. It is that of the societies of thought which, in the 18th century, prepared minds for revolution - in America as well as in France. The work of these clubs, these organizations, allowed - through a kind of anticipation of praxis on Gramscian theory - to evolve mentalities, to transform minds in order to make them compatible with profound upheavals. A new consensus was established. The revolutionary events merely transposed into the life of societies a reality already present in the spirit of the times; they only felled a dead tree (cf. on this subject the book by Augustin Cochin, La Révolution et la libre pensée (Revolution and Free Thought), Copernic, 1979).
In striving for a cultural renaissance, G.R.E.C.E. intends to participate in the elaboration of a founding myth: that of a sovereign and liberated Europe, turned towards an imperial destiny and which, in liaison and union with the young forces of the Third World, will know how to thwart the imperialism of the superpowers. Is this wish too ambitious? A utopia? Not at all. There are no ambitions too great for resolute wills. History obeys no global law. It is only what men decide to make of it. Europe has already experienced renaissances. In the 8th and 9th centuries, a Carolingian renaissance flourished - it was the means for the Church to equip itself with the intellectual weapons it needed to influence, then control political power. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Renaissance, which first appeared in Italy and soon in neighboring countries, attempted to rediscover the ancient message. Botticelli's Primavera is a hymn to beauty and joy. Then, once again, the crackdown came, stifling the song transmitted from the depths of ages...
On closer reflection, the renaissance we are working towards cannot be fully compared to these historical precedents, which only give a marginal evocation of it. By liberating ourselves from all dogmatisms, it is, in the literal sense, about inventing a new world, a new worldview, new rules of life. To make a qualitative leap. To awaken the voice of Athena to set out to conquer the stars. This renaissance will be the revolution of the next century.