In order to open a wider \u201cwindow\u201d of observation and study of Metapolitics, it is necessary to examine it through its initial conception by the pioneering members of the GRECE group, in order to understand more precisely some of the contradictions and antinomies that operated and operate in the broader space of the far Right and the nationalist Right. Alain de Benoit was the most famous writer of the French New Right and he claimed clearly and unequivocally that, among other things, this pioneering and advanced reservoir of thought had at the same time two essentially and apparently opposite sources of inspiration: the para-Marxist \u201cFrankfurt School\u201d but also the fiercely counter-revolutionary and traditionalist French Action (\u201cAction Fran\u00e7aise\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an interview seven years ago, the great French thinker stated that shortly before the formation of GRECE he had severed his relations with the Far Right, but also with wider political activity, because he felt a strong fatigue from the prefabricated ideas with which people in this wider space were working. On the contrary, he wanted to \u201csystematically inventory all areas of knowledge, with the aim of providing guidance towards the development of a new conception of the world, a conception capable of clarifying the historical moment in which we are living.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Already in this statement of his, and more specifically where he mentions “concept of the world”, one can discern a particular “reading” of Gramsci, with which it can be said that the superiority of theory over practice, of thought over action, according to traditional fascist terminology, is established. We had to emphasize this point emphatically not with the intention of attributing a guilty tone to Benoit’s perception through diametrical associations but because in the criticism of his competitor Guillaume Fay, Benoit and the entire GRECE were criticized for the use of “bilingualism”: for puns, mixtures and indirect references combined with arbitrary and extreme fringes of assuming responsibility, with a relative similarity to the way in which the images of the National Socialist regime are approached by the alternative nationalist Right. That is, through a balance between humor and seriousness, irony and sincerity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The development of a new conception of the world according to Benoit’s proposal seems to have occupied the position of the central issue for him, as did his obsessive preoccupation with thought rather than action, an element that confirmed the criticism of GRECE by Guillaume Fay. He had turned to the ideological group since the time of writing his thesis in Political Science at the corresponding Institute of Paris. Since 1973 Fay has been the number 2 leader of GRECE, equal and organizationally equal to Benoit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During this period, the group was increasingly influenced by the ideas of the German Nobel Prize-winning biologist Konrad Lorenz and his compatriot, the conservative philosopher, sociologist and anthropologist Arnold Gehlen (1904-1976). The latter’s philosophical anthropology became extremely important for GRECE in shaping its critique of liberal ideology and individualism. According to Gehlen, an individual cannot be separated from his culture and is nothing more than an individualized expression of that culture. “If culture is stripped away, the only nature that remains is animalistic. Culture is what gives identity and therefore provides sense, meaning, direction, connection, which outside culture are equivalent to absolutely nothing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although GRECE also conducted ideological research in the field of biological tribalism in the 1970s, in the following decade it moved away from it, turning to a differential approach focusing on the \u201crights to difference\u201d (on the rationale that identity can only be maintained through difference). Such a conception of identity, coupled with Gehlen\u2019s emphasis on culture, is at the heart of the claim that the threat to culture is existential in nature. It is also linked to the ethnoplegic structure of the main argument that has become extremely popular among Right-wing populists: namely, the idea that all cultures (or peoples, or races in the alternative nationalist Right\u2019s view) are valuable. Also, that they cannot be prioritized when observed from the outside and must be kept at a distance from each other for the sake of their preservation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The emphasis on culture constitutes a highly differentiating element of Metapolitics in the approach of GRECE and Benoit, in the sense that Metapolitics is a struggle that supports and secures politics, but not a struggle inferior to the struggle for power in politics. In other words, political power can be considered subordinate in comparison to the preservation and perpetuation of cultures. In the texts of Benoit and other thinkers of the group, it is apparent that the supreme stake, whether related to the perpetuation of culture or otherwise, is the aforementioned \u201cconcept of the world\u201d. Indeed, if we allow ourselves a comparison free from all scholasticism, we could say that between Benoit and Fay, the former reads Gramsci as a Hegelian philosopher while the latter as a Marxist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The aforementioned differences in reading the Gramscian approach on the part of Benoit and Fay do not constitute a clearly defined differentiation, a specific characteristic, but there is Fay’s clearly expressed accusation against Benoit and more generally against the whole of GRECE of neglecting the political struggle. This detailed and repeated criticism particularly characterizes Fay’s discourse. In this regard, according to O\u2019Mera, while the activities of GRECE were extremely effective during the 60s and 70s, their influence began to decline from the 80s onwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We must note that this period was approximately the same in which the National Front of the legendary Jean-Marie Le Pen began to gain visibility, publicity and at the same time political importance. It has been mentioned that the National Front adopted many ideas of the French New Right, but the correlation between the two bodies can also be understood in light of the following fact: About twenty to thirty fighters of GRECE abandoned it in order to become members of the Front, as it was now evident that this vigorous political formation was clearly gaining considerable momentum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the occasion of this event, Fey later wrote with a clearly critical attitude against Benoit that the people who left GRECE did so with the sole purpose of going somewhere where finally \u201csomething was happening\u201d. While Benoit in his further political career proceeded to adopt less provocative rhetoric and positions (in fact, in the 90s he went so far as to warn and reprimand Le Pen for the \u201cheartbreaking\u201d use of immigrants as scapegoats for the social ills of France, calling the old fighter\u2019s attitude \u201crepulsive\u201d!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the contrary, Fey, after a temporary distancing from politics and likewise from post-politics, began to lean towards a more radical wing of the revolutionary right. A landmark of this transformation is his book \u201cArchaeofuturism\u201d (1998), published twenty-six years ago, in which he once again contains a harsh criticism of the people of GRECE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In short, he states that they (not excluding himself) never really read and studied Gramsci, because if they had done so they would have fully understood the importance of cooperation between intellectuals, political activists and organizations. Post-politics as it was understood and applied by GRECE was not something that could be carried out and accomplished simply and solely in the realm of ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the essential background of the critique he exercises against \u201cintellectualism\u201d as a \u201cfalse struggle\u201d in his work \u201cWhy We Fight\u201d. His claim that what we need is a \u201creturn to the authentic\u201d can be read both as an affirmation and a confirmation of the biological and racial bases of his identity struggle (an affirmation that is objected to Benoit\u2019s cultural and \u201cdifferential\u201d positions), but it can also be read as inextricably linked to an idea of \u200b\u200bpractice, of giving greater priority to practice over theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is required according to Fay is not so much a continuous intellectual critique (as occurs in Benoit’s “anthological” discourse) but a challenge to action: “One does not fight for ideas, one fights for a people!” Consequently, the concept of metapolitics becomes, as he defines it in his dictionary, “an effort of propaganda (\u2026)”, “the necessary complement to any direct form of political action, although in no case can or should it replace such action”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One does not fight for ideas (ideologies, worldviews, systems of thought) but with ideas for \u201ca new world\u201d. This is the final way of Fey\u2019s approach to the ideological-political struggle of the Nationalists. With this approach, he positions himself competitively, avoiding abstractions (capitalism, liberalism or false anthropology) against clearly distinguished real and tangible enemies: Against the \u201cGlobal South\u201d, which is invading Europe. As O\u2019Meara clarifies, Fey perceives \u201cthe gatekeepers of these invasion movements as a lesser threat than that of the confrontational gatebreakers of the invaders\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although GRECE\u2019s activities amount to numerous educational and informative seminars, periodicals, as well as a myriad of books, activities that effectively and actively constitute a vast ideological and political environment, Fay insists that it is necessary to subordinate ideology to utility: What is required is an \u201cideological re-pulverization, a grinding (\u2026) a grinding that will be both a synthetic affirmation of a general doctrine and at the same time a thorough definition of concepts, arguments and propaganda.\u201d In other words, an active and applicable ideological and political dictionary is needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One does not fight for ideas (ideologies, worldviews, systems of thought) but with ideas for \u201ca new world\u201d. This is the final way of Fey\u2019s approach to the ideological-political struggle of the Nationalists. With this approach, he positions himself competitively, avoiding abstractions (capitalism, liberalism or false anthropology) against clearly distinguished real and tangible enemies: Against the \u201cGlobal South\u201d, which is invading Europe. As O\u2019Meara clarifies, Fey perceives \u201cthe gatekeepers of these invasion movements as a lesser threat than that of the confrontational gatebreakers of the invaders\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although GRECE\u2019s activities amount to numerous educational and informative seminars, periodicals, as well as a myriad of books, activities that effectively and actively constitute a vast ideological and political environment, Fay insists that it is necessary to subordinate ideology to utility: What is required is an \u201cideological re-pulverization, a grinding (\u2026) a grinding that will be both a synthetic affirmation of a general doctrine and at the same time a thorough definition of concepts, arguments and propaganda.\u201d In other words, an active and applicable ideological and political dictionary is needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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