The apocalypse is usually a fascist narrative. But this does not mean that it will not come.
The collapse of the climate will put tremendous pressure on the global economy, culture and our collective life support system. Some parts of the earth will become uninhabitable. Violence will become an increasingly important part of the lives of billions of people around the world.
It seems likely that some parts of Europe With its wealth, political power and relatively mild climate, it will be protected from the most severe direct climate impact.
Dilemma
But the vast majority of people in Europe and North America will not be immune to the sudden, unpredictable and irreversible contraction of their living standards. Inciting unprecedented climate migration.
On a global scale, in an extremely unbalanced manner, it will begin to look a lot like the end of the world. If this seems a bit alarmist, consider that the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic is almost certainly the first of many pandemics An increasingly destructive environmental crisis.
The climate collapse is not a single event, but a series of highly complex social stressors: shattered supply chain; alienation; Asylum-in-place order; Invasive State intervention in life; emergency legislation; and racismThese shock waves will be highly unpredictable, but their overall frequency and intensity may increase.
BEventually, the pattern of social shock will be transformed into turbulence. Each crisis will be inseparable from the previous crisis, and its impact will quickly spread to an uncontrollable extent.
With the narrative of long-term material progress further facing self-evident rebuttal and shrinking, people in Europe and North America Who will support Pledge to get them out of trouble.
Geopolitics
In fact, clarifying and explaining the ongoing man-made climate collapse disaster is likely to be the core challenge of political narrative in the 21st century and beyond.
Why do we say all this? Part of the reason is that the extreme right is almost certainly in a good position to provide a convincing account of the cause of the collapse and its drastic solutions, even if it is completely wrong.
In the long run, this may merge into any number of sports and political organizations, which may be labeled “ecological fascism” in advance.
widthHat may be so worried about fascism and Climate crisis The problem is how they seem to fit together perfectly: the collapse of the “natural order” through unstoppable catastrophic “decadent” growth seems to inevitably lead to the opportunity for a racist “palingenetic” movement for the rebirth of a nation or civilization.
Fascism needs a sense of crisis and huge violence to prevent or reverse it. Similarly, climate change seems to be insoluble in the current capitalist economic system and the current geopolitical order—as seen by the extreme right—compromising, hedging, and mediocrity may be such a crisis.
root
There are many aspects to the extreme right’s thinking about the environment. We can divide them into three categories: extreme right parties; various sports-based identity methods; and “black ball collapsers.”
The first group contains parts that clearly formulate strategies around our climate collapse in the future, and parts that will opportunistically advance its existing policies in times of crisis.
This may include The new ecological initiative of the French National Assembly; the right-wing Austrian People’s Party and the Green Party and Hungary’s Fidesz government formed an alliance.
Environmental politics is combined with the anti-immigration and far-right policies of the Italian five-star movement, and is used cynically by the American Immigration Research Center to promote anti-immigration policies.
The deep institutional roots of these organizations and their ability to organize politics within a nation-state are likely to make them key players in the early and correct response to climate collapse.
hate
However, some of these parties have also been involved Long-term climate Denial and their fundamental interest in maintaining relatively traditional capitalist modernity will prevent them from taking increasingly necessary actions.
At this point, they are likely to be understood from their rights as another example of a failed political center. As their supporter Withdraw from these groups, they Will not automatically join the progressive environmental movement, which seems to them too committed to social justice. Where will they go? Maybe, to the right.
Second Group– mobilesand Identityist – In the long run, this may be the most worrying group.
Their main focus-cultural politics and its changes-is flexible enough to generate widespread hatred of refugees, assuming these are increased by climate change.
In fact, the American identity movement adopted a far-right environmentalist versiont, where In one of the sticker activities, it summarized its connection with environmentalism: “Plant trees, save the ocean, expel refugees.”
Survivalist
In contrast, when right-wing and far-right parties look more and more like staunch defenders of the liberal capitalist order, the organizational flexibility of these groups, and perhaps more importantly, their relative youth, will allow them to thrive.
Political acumen and the ability to smoothly switch between the racist fear of immigration and the spectacle of declining natural order make this A sport The most serious threat.
Currently, these groups-at least their European variants- Look for In order to influence the country, although depending on the success of their broader metapolitical strategy, they may become an important substitute for the main left-leaning mainstream climate movement.
The last group are black ball collapsers. Blackpilled collapsers are far-right wingers who have given up all hope for traditional political solutions to the problems they see, and therefore have hope for climate change.
They think this might make their wish for chaotic melee (they imagine their victory) come true. They often use the language of survivalism and preparation, at least in the United States, they are fully consistent with existing militia organizations.
Black balls
One of the most important cultural changes of the past few years, both in the far right and in the wider culture, has been the mainstreaming of preparations.
As unexpected failure events become more frequent, so does the logic, and reasonable reasons to prepare for them become stronger.
In retrospect-from the internal writing of the COVID-19 pandemic-the transformation of these dark groups, such as the international group The base, recruiting personnel from the former military department of the United States preparing the scene seems to be their extraordinary vision.
The climate collapses, the long dark tunnel that our planet is entering, there is no clear solution, and the difference between these three parts is not too reliable.
TonThis is the tension between deadly violence and movement building but it This may not always be the case: the contradiction between the two can be resolved. As the 21st century progresses, the current clear distinction between identityists and blacks may begin to weaken.
life
In the context of global disasters, a core element of the anti-fascist strategy—pointing out the links between the movement and the terrorists they are trying to deny—may begin to become less effective.
central debate Anti-fascist oppositionIon to “Ecological Fascism” Must be it Not only may it have disastrous political consequences, but it is also unlikely to solve the climate crisis itself.
In fact, although the environmental problem on the far right has a long historyt, it A large number of different lessons have been learned from the “natural” box: It has been committed to destroying the natural environment when it came to power.
Eco-fascism does not care about the biocentrism defense of the sanctity of all life.
In this period of history, it is almost entirely concerned not with nature, but approaching nature: the protection of specific structures in nature and the social relationships that allow people to approach and participate in it. This is what we call “right-wing environmentalism.”
extreme
Right-wing environmentalism is built around stabilizing and resolving the contradiction between two opposing concepts of nature.
On the one hand, nature is conceived as something real and eternal, and its ultimate victory is guaranteed: nature is the central regulatory ideal of society. On the other hand, nature is almost always presented as something that has in fact been concealed.
Therefore, it must be restored through the deliberate and often extreme behavior of its most enthusiastic example—usually a particular race.
On the one hand, nature is eternal, pure, and irresistible. On the other hand, it has been inexplicably resisted by far-right enemies.
Globalization
Trying to resolve this potential contradiction in natural ideology is the core task of right-wing environmentalism.
What does this have to do with capitalism? Perhaps this kind of contradiction just hints at a deeper contradiction in far-right politics: the desire to enjoy the spoils of capitalist expansion without the social changes that usually come with such a process.
Without the operation of capitalism, racial rule cannot be achieved. However, capitalism also requires escalating production and resource extraction, destroying specific aspects of the life world in which the extreme right wants to take root.
In addition, capitalism relentlessly tends to globalize itself. The foundation-and the social form that followed it-was weakened by the power of 0f capitalism, which gave the foundation its own unique sense of superiority.
These authors
Sam Moore and Alex Roberts are far-right researchers and the authors of two upcoming books. Post-Internet extreme right (Dog Branch Press, 2021) and The rise of ecological fascism (Politics Press, 2021).They host podcasts 12 rules of what. This article is an excerpt from Post-Internet extreme right.
