The American Evil (1975) by Alain de Benoist and Giorgio Locchi

The essay “Il male americano” (Italian for The American Evil), published in 1975, offers a critical, polemical examination of American culture, politics, and social structures, emphasizing its contradictions and inherent flaws. The essay was written by Alain de Benoist and Giorgio Locchi under the pseudonyms “Robert de Herte” and “Hans-Jürgen Nigra,” respectively. The authors criticize the idea of American exceptionalism, detailing how the nation's historical myths, such as the "self-made man" and the "frontier," conceal a deeper moral and societal corruption. They highlight the hypocrisy within American puritanism, which promotes moral ideals but simultaneously justifies and celebrates vice, such as through the figure of the gangster. The essay argues that America’s obsession with individual success and materialism, paired with a strong sense of moral superiority, creates a society where the ideals of freedom and progress often mask exploitation and inequality. The text positions the American way of life as a form of cultural infantilization, where adults are treated as children, and the notion of success is reduced to superficial achievements devoid of deeper meaning. It critiques the American approach to both domestic and international issues, including its treatment of the indigenous people and its military interventions, painting a picture of a society that sacrifices true moral and spiritual values for transient material gain.

The essay was first published in the Italian language. However, as my friend, Stefano Vaj, pointed out to me, it was originally written in the French language under the title “Il était une fois l'Amérique” (Once Upon a Time in America) and then translated to Italian to be published. Thanks to my other friend, Alain de Benoist, I was able to get my hands on the original French so that I could translate it for you all.

Translated by Alexander Raynor.

about 48,000 words; about 4 hour reading time.

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Once Upon a Time in America

The text we publish below intends to be, in a deliberately polemical tone, a severe critique of America and Americans. Both by its general tone and the subject it relates to, it stands out significantly from what one is accustomed to reading in Nouvelle École. And, of course, it only commits its authors.

However, this article seemed to us to be of certain interest, both due to the theoretical premises that inspire it and its abundant documentation. Furthermore, it is likely to introduce an interesting debate on a fundamental subject. For this reason, precisely, we publish it, not as a "central theme," but as a "debate." It seems desirable to us that our readers can conceive and express the most varied opinions on it. We thank in advance those who will kindly send us their reading impressions, which we will publish in our future issues—hoping that, among them, will be some of our numerous subscribers and friends in the United States.

“A single nation managing to lower intelligence, morality, and the quality of humanity over almost the entire surface of the Earth has never been seen since the globe came into existence. I accuse the United States of being in a constant state of crime against humanity.”
(Montherlant, Le chaos et la nuit)

That Europe could one day aspire to nothing more than being governed by an American supervisory commission—Paul Valéry (Notes on the Grandeur and Decline of Europe, March 1927) had already predicted it with a kind of morose delight. Long before him, Friedrich Nietzsche had denounced in "Americanism" a mortal danger to Europe. Viewed in the context of their time, these prophecies continue to amaze us with their lucidity, for in Nietzsche's day, and even Valéry's, European nations still lived under the illusion of exercising unshakable domination over the world and their own future: excelsior! Today, these remarks describe nothing more than a mundane reality. Europe aspires only to be led and absorbed by America, a phenomenon it modestly calls "Atlanticism." It has no other aim than to offload onto the United States the responsibility it bears for itself and sometimes rages that it cannot do so as quickly and completely as it wishes.

More astonishing still, those who pride themselves on defending the tradition of an imperial and history-mastering Europe see no other outcome to their struggle than in the shadow (or with the support) of the United States. The ambiguity could not be deeper. It demonstrates the spiritual weakness of a Europe ready (even in its best elements) to take refuge in the false pretenses of a so-called "West" or an inexistent solidarity of "white races."¹

But perhaps, after all, this is not so surprising. After its metaphorical death, the great hypocritical and masked god that reigned over Europe reincarnated into the "Donkey-who-brays" (Nietzsche). It was inevitable that Europe would devote itself to its worship: a two-headed donkey, its heads lost in the same sky, one in the clouds of the American dream, the other in the fogs of Marxist utopia. Is this dream and this utopia not the ideological waste of the old European and Judeo-Christian civilization, schizophrenic since always? Moreover, if the "American ideology" is one of the wastes of European civilization, America itself is the material waste of Europe. All that Europe could not tolerate, all that, in Europe, could not tolerate Europe and could not tolerate itself—Puritans clashing with Anglicanism, Catholics persecuted by Protestants, Protestants persecuted by Catholics, Jews victims of pogroms, the poorly fed who grew to hate their land, asocial and marginalized individuals of all kinds, etc.—all of this gave birth to the American people. From its very origin, America was born out of a rejection of Europe, even a hatred of Europe, a desire for revenge against Europe.