Archeofuturism

L'Archéofuturisme #1

by Guillaume Faye, Michael O'Meara (Contributor)

Archeofuturism, an important work in the tradition of the European New Right, is finally now available in English. Challenging many assumptions held by the Right, this book generated much debate when it was first published in French in 1998. Faye believes that the future of the Right requires a transcendence of the division between those who wish for a restoration of the traditions of the past, and those who are calling for new social and technological forms - creating a synthesis which will amplify the strengths and restrain the excesses of both: Archeofuturism. Faye also provides a critique of the New Right; an analysis of the continuing damage being done by Western liberalism, political inertia, unrestrained immigration and ethnic self-hatred; and the need to abandon past positions and dare to face the realities of the present in order to realise the ideology of the future. He prophesises a series of catastrophes between 2010 and 2020, brought about by the unsustainability of the present world order, which he asserts will offer an opportunity to rebuild the West and put Archeofuturism into practice on a grand scale. This book is a must-read for anyone concerned with the course that the Right must chart in order to deal with the increasing crises and challenges it will face in the coming decades. Guillaume Faye was one of the principal members of the famed French New Right organisation GRECE in the 1970s and '80s. After departing in 1986 due to his disagreement with its strategy, he had a successful career on French television and radio before returning to the stage of political philosophy as a powerful alternative voice with the publication of Archeofuturism. Since then he has continued to challenge the status quo within the Right in his writings, earning him both the admiration and disdain of his colleagues.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Futurism, History, Society, Far Right

252 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

French political scientist, writer and journalist.

Faye was on of the main theorists of the French movement the "Nouvelle Droite". He was a member of Alain de Benoist's organisation GRECE until he parted from the organisation in 1986.

In 1987 he withdrew from politics and worked as a DJ for the radiostation "Skyrock"

In 1998 he re-entered politics with a book comprising diverse essays.

Reviews

[strategian]

Another entry into the mad bastard political theory genre, this time combined with the schizo French erraticism that makes jumping from a page about how neoliberalism doesn't work to one about why we need to reopen state brothels to one insisting normies haven't taken REAL drugs and don't understand them make sense.

I think this might be the most dangerous genre of writing intellectually because it's extremely easy to sprinkle in a few names and seem superior. You can be kind of lulled into a sense of confidence with the writer because he talks about Heidegger and he does seem to have an understanding of Nietzsche: then he hits out with statements calling medieval Europe "imperialist theocracy" or insists that the 19th century was the dawning of the era of egalitarianism.

Does egalitarian have a different meaning in French or something? For a guy so hung up on semantics you would think he'd try to have a more clear definition of what the fuck he spends more than a hundred pages schizophrenically ranting about. Apparently egalitarian ideology has caused the political and financial class to become out of touch with the prolet- sorry, the Folk. And it's also responsible for progressivism? Or is progressivism the key tenant of egalitarianism? And egalitarianism is opposed to communism. Or wait maybe it supports communism? And liberalism is sympathetic to communism... But also has been driven mad by its destruction of communism?

It's a funny book and the writer is funny in the sense that constantly bragging about knowing famous people you can't name out of politeness in your manifesto for after the race war is funny, or that bragging about making porno inside metaphysical repudiation of Christianity is funny. And I will admit: a critique and discussion of the French New Right from within is pretty historically interesting. Shame it's supplanted by a schizophrenic tirade explaining that we need to turn the world into shitty young adult fiction dystopia.

[Matthew W · Rating 5 out of 5]

First, although this book is far from perfect, it is certainly an important revolutionary work. Faye looks to the future of Europe, while analyzing what led to failure in the past. Faye is also symbiotic of our times, openly admitting in the book that he has acted in pornographic films and indulged in hard drugs. That being said, Faye certainly understands the epidemic diseases that are polluting the Occidental work.

Archeofuturism is also an important works because Faye covers all aspects of culture, from cinema to the self-masochistic behavior of modern Europeans. Faye has also studied the important works of his enemies, as well as the great minds of the west. Archeofuturism also provides an eclectic collection of important figures/events that will give the reader a lead into other important works.

Essentially, Faye hopes to use the EU (when things reach an all-time apocalyptic low) to eventually from a United States of European. Long gone are the days of petty disagreements and wars between European nation states. If Europe is to survive the colonization of individuals from the South (Africans, Asiatics, etc.), all countries will need to unite and resist. Naturally, the Slavic nations will play an imperative role in this.

Archefuturism is an excellent work to consume after first reading Yockey's "Imperium."

It is ok to look for heroes from the past, but when it comes down to it, the only thing that really matters is the future. Individuals like Faye know this and are forming theories that are practical for today's world. Anyways, I highly recommend Archeofuturism to anyone that cares about preserving Europe and European culture.

[Esdaile · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a flawed work, a deeply flawed work and in some respects a disgraceful one but flawed and disgraceful works have a habit of becoming historically significant despite or even because of their very flaws if their approach or honesty is not matched by more staid and respectable writers of the day. So it may well prove with this book.


Faye relishes provocation. Faye used to be a member of GRECE, the flagship organization of the French New Right. The core of Faye's critique of GRECE today is a major argument in this book and those unfamiliar with the ideological/historical background may be bewildered.
It is a paradox, and one about which Faye is aware in his book, that the European New Right in general has failed to make an impact at the very time that the march of events might have been expected to play into its hands: the end of the cold war, the decline of political Manicheanism (East versus West) , the decline of nationalism as a relevant political alternative to liberalism. It is as a counter to this and other failings that Faye wrote his Archeofuturism.
Archeofuturism, and probably like all his books (the only other book by Faye which I have read is Nouvel discours à la nation européenne, which has not been translated) suffers from coming from the pen of a man more at home before a gathering than a keyboard. It is unbalanced and paradoxically, given the content, in some respects extremely provincial and theoretical in its approach and design. At the same time, it owes nothing to the respectability and detachment from reality which can make cowards of many writers. This is not to say that the book lacks structure. It has a very definite if unorthodox structure. It consists of three theses as Faye calls them: 1) the end of civilization as we know it owing to what Faye calls a “convergence of catastrophes”; 2) the necessity for revolution, notably in the European mindset, 3) propositions for the post-catastrophic world (and the title of his book expresses the essence of Faye's solution).
An imbalance in this book consists in the importance which Faye attaches to a number of issues which are of ephemeral interest and which do not bring us to the core of the issues which Faye seeks to discuss. Many of the “ideologically dissident statements” are astonishingly provincial, that is to say caught up with French internal issues which are already out of date and even at the time would not have greatly interested many people outside France. This book is nothing if not pessimistic (albeit out of disaster emerges the new and better world, this is a core believe of a man who is happy to call himself a revolutionary and a Nietzschean) less a clash of civilisations, although he seems to write at times in a similar vein to Huntingdon, with his view of Islam especially as a challenge in itself to the hegemony of European civilization, than what he terms a “convergence of catastrophes”. Like Huntingdon, Faye regards Islam as a single cultural, religious, political bloc with a an expansionist will. There is no mention at all in this book of the internal divisions among different Mohammedan nations-for Faye, there exists just one Islamic bloc determined to destroy the European. Whatever Faye's strengths, nobody will claim that subtlety is one of them. To be politically relevant, one had to look forward and not back and to adapt to radically changed circumstances. GRECE stressed from the beginning the importance of what it called “the right to be different” arguing less in terms of European superiority than in terms of European uniqueness, Europe's right to the nurture of its own identity and destiny. The great enemy was seen not so much as military or political threats as such, as the forces which sought to attenuate, reduce, trivialise and ultimately abolish differences. The great enemy in this respect was neither Islam nor communism but “the American way of Life”, the manifest destiny to reduce all peoples to consumers, whose sole struggles were ones of economic competition. There is a problem with any non-specific assertion of superiority. Superiority can only be understood within a frame of reference. It is meaningless for example to claim that a frog is “superior” in general to a toad but not meaningless at all to claim that a frog is superior to a toad as a swimmer. While egalitarians and their opponents may quarrel over whether or not one can be superior to another, they are quick to forget the equally important and essential question, superior in what respect. The multi-pluralism of much writing and speeches given by members of GRECE and their supporters in the 1980's rightly noted an ambiguity in the word without pursuing adequately the obvious point that superiority of one culture to another makes abundant sense when the terms of reference are properly explained. That European civilization has been superior in terms of transport to other cultures, to take one simple example, is hardly subject to debate. Faye spends no time in fleshing out his arguments about superiority and in what respects the European is “superior”. This is a pity because it would provide the book with a stabilising effect. As it is, Faye assures us that he believes the European is superior and rushes on the next point. Rights to be different are likely to conflict with the rights of others to be different. The right to conflict is therefore the right to survival of identity and it is Faye's point that such a right can only be preserved by those who actively engage in the politics.

Faye stresses that GRECE (and he willingly includes himself here) ignored the reality of the Islamic threat and that ethnopluralism paved the way for an inactive, “head in the sand” response to the long term significance of massive Mohammedan immigration into Europe.
“Like in the Middle Ages or Antiquity, the future requires us to envisage the Earth as structured in vast, quasi-imperial unity in mutual conflict or cooperation.” (p.77). Seen in this light, Faye's admiration for atomic power implied in this work (and more explicitly indicated elsewhere, dramatically in his comic book notre avant guerre, where he gleefully depicts a degenerate Europe being destroyed in mushroom clouds ) and futuristic technology in general is the ghost in the machine of Faye's project. However, unlike most modernisers, Faye does not duck the dilemma of reconciling a world of modern technology with a world of tradition, be it racial, political or other. Faye's solution is what he calls “archeofuturism” the title of his book and the project to which he believes European revolutionaries (and Faye believes we must be revolutionaries to save European civilization and not conservatives) the assimilation of the future with the past, building a future not as modern or post modern but archeo-modern, a modernism acutely aware of and with its roots in a deep and profound past. There will be a small elite of rulers with access to the highest forms of modern technology while the majority of less gifted will make do with crude forms of technical accomplishment-a completely two tier society in fact. This seems difficult to reconcile with Faye's expressed support for populist initiatives.
Faye cites the unlikely figure of Peter Mandelson as an “archeofuturist without knowing it” as someone who has recognised that democracy as we know it from the Mother of Parliaments is tired and no longer able to cope with the challenges which European man and indeed humankind is facing. Faye's examination of the real issues behind the palaver of most contemporary politicians is refreshing. Here is a taste: “The new societies of the future will finally abolish the aberrant egalitarian mechanism we have now, whereby everyone aspires to become an officer or a cadre or a diplomat, even though all evidence suggests that most people do not have the skills to fulfil those roles. This model engenders widespread frustration, failure and resentment
In respect of nationalism, Faye has remained true to the original position of GRECE: he rejects nationalism in favour of a grand imperial project. We are according to Faye, living in revolutionary times and revolutionary times call for a new direction and a new beginning. This reviewer would add that nations have their term of life: there is a time when they are born and a time when they disappear. National division in face of the crises of our times is a fatal return to the past, according to Faye. Europe must be transformed from within to withstand the challenge of the South.
Another conflict or contradiction which Faye examines is that which he sees as inherent in the notions of growth and progress. Growth and progress lie at the heart of every liberal and left leaning project. They are essential to capitalism but they were never rejected by communism. Quite the contrary.
Faye sketches a scenario of extreme pessimism to justify his view of a forthcoming two-tier world of technocratically advanced and traditional societies. The “post catastrophic” world will be one, Faye believes, divided between the futuristic achievements of an elite and the archaic conditions and status of the majority, it will be archeofuturistic. Before we examine this idea more closely, it is worth taking a moment to consider the notions of growth and progress which Faye dismisses as overhauled. H Faye fails to distinguish between growth and progress but because they are different they require a different approach. Growth is an organic facet of nature. Progress is a description of a dynamic relation with departure and end as necessary points of reference. Modern liberal society speaks of both without a frame of reference, that is to say growth and progress without respectively end or aim. Growth is an organic process which one would expect to proceed according to natural laws and which will or should cease w hen its natural course has reached its alloted end. In nature organisms grow to predefined lengths and quantities. Growth which is not part of the natural code, abnormal growth that is to say, is usually dangerous and may be fatal. Cancer is an obvious example. The very idea that growth should be “stimulated” or “promoted” should be regarded with the deepest suspicion, since it is likely to be the reference to a project which is in the deepest way possible, unnatural. The underlying assumption of capitalist and communist societies of the desirability of growth (without end?) as good for and in itself is quintessentially pathological.
Progress, unlike growth, contains the connotation of volition. It refers necessarily (if the word is to have any meaning) to a specific end. It is usual to regard radicals as “progressive” and conservatives as sceptical. The argument is that radicals supposedly believe that progress continues ad infinitum, whereas conservatives insist that “you cannot change human nature”. Dismissing progress is absurd, just as accepting it is, so long as Progress is presented as an abstract. The question must always be posed “progress to what?” Progress without a destination is meaningless because progress itself can only be measured in relation to a point of departure and a point of arrival. Leaving aside my regret that Faye does not distinguish between growth and progress, there is much to be said for his argument that the rewards of progress/growth are not at all what they seem.- Again, and this is characteristic of the entire book, it is much less Faye's understanding or analysis as his ability to highlight the importance of certain issues at stake which constitute the essential value of Archeofuturism. The issue which Faye focusses on here, and which modern politicians deftly avoid, is who is making an audit of the costs of the sacrifice to growth and progress? Who has made a balance sheet so to speak of the profit and loss? And Faye is contemptuous of those who argue that “progress is inevitable”. “I am Nitezschean” Faye notes in response to this, meaning that life is shaped by those with the will and energy and faith to shape it. This reminds me of AK Chesterton's remark in his work The New Unhappy Lords that he hates no word more in the English language than the word “inevitable”. Faye's rejection of what he calls “the paradigm of economic development” is simple:
“An intellectual revolution is taking place: people are starting to perceive, without daring to openly state it, that the old paradigm according to which the life of humanity on both an individual and collective level is getting better and better every day thanks to science, the spread of democracy and egalitarian emancipation is quite simply false.... Today, the perverse effects of mass technology are starting to make themselves felt: new resistant viruses, the contamination of industrially-produced food, shortage of land and a downturn in world agricultural production, rapid and widespread environmental degradation, the development of weapons of mass destruction in addition to the atomic bomb-not to mention that technology is entering its Baroque age.” (pp 162/163). The last comment excepted (which is pure Spengler), this writing must strike the impartial reader as familiar. It is a fairly good example of the pessimism of environmentalist writers in general and it has been said many times before Faye contemptuously dismisses the French Green movement in these words, “the political platform of the Green movement contain no real environmentalist suggestions, such as the transport of lorries by train instead of on highways, the creation of non-polluting cars (electric cars, LPG, etc.) or the fight against urban sprawl into natural habitats, liquid manure leaks, ground water contamination, the depletion of European fish stocks, chemical food additives, the overuse of insecticides and pesticides, etc. Each time I have tried to bring these specific and concrete issues up with a representative of the Greens, I got the impression that he was not really interested in them or that he had not really studied them.” (p 145) It is not clear (possibly a fault of the translator's) whether Faye is referring to one or several spokesmen. It is not my experience at all that environmentalists are not interested in these issues. A cursory review of the activities and commitments of environmentalists tells another story. Faye's statement that the French Greens have no “real” (whatever he may mean by “real” environmental intentions is in the same biased and arrogant vein. It is Faye's own environmentalist bona fides more than those of the French Green party which I suspect might benefit from sceptical scrutiny. His attack on the environmentalist m,ovement is hypocritical and mendacious.
Faye claims to deplore ecological degradation and predicts imminent ecological collapse but the reader may be forgiven for doubting the writer's sincerity. This cynical combination of doom mongering and a refusal to either see or create efforts to prevent catastrophe amount to a gleeful anticipation of catastrophe. There is no question that that is exactly what the book looks forward to. This is the classic ploy of Marxism and if Faye is a Nietszchean as he says he is, he is also a Leninist. He hints in this book and elsewhere at the manipulation of “useful idiots” including those who are pro European for pacifistic reasons. Faye's environmentalism is indeed problematical because it can be seen here and more strongly elsewhere in his writings and speeches that Guillaume Faye is an admirer of nuclear power. Faye darkly refers to a confession made to him by Brice Lalonde of the French Green Party, who “discretely informed me” (rather indiscretely where Faye is concerned, the book contains several private remarks of this kind made to Guillaume Faye in the course of a convivial lunch or drink) that the “true target of the greens is nuclear energy” (p.145). It is not clear whether Lalonde is supposed to be implying that this target is the only target of the greens. It is true that nuclear energy does draw an arguably disproportionate amount of political effort by Green activists and is one subject which seems to unite Greens everywhere. Conservative critics of environmentalism frequently point out that the Green opposition to nuclear energy is illogical or hypocritical because the alternatives are supposed to be worse. Faye does exactly that:”The fight against nuclear plants thus goes against environmentalism. The Greens are voicing few protests against the black sea of petrol and the carbon dioxide emissions by which we are engulfed, but go off as soon as the slightest nuclear incident occurs.” (pp 145/146). Does Faye expect his readers to believe this? Does he believe it himself? Unsurprisingly, Faye omits mention of the reason for Green ire against nuclear power-firstly the relation of nuclear energy to nuclear weapons and secondly the permanence of nuclear contamination. Other forms of energy may cause pollution and desolation today. Nuclear contamination does so for hundreds of thousands of years. It is not one of the least of ironies that the manner of Faye's writing and his approach to issues is typical of the movement from which he has broken away. The crowning ability of both Guillaume Faye and Alain de Benoist which makes both of them always worth readable, always likely to surprise and provoke, is their ability to look at an issue from a fresh perspective and strike at the roots of apparently historical, spontaneous or “innocent” proposals. Faye begins this work with a sharp critique of GRECE for being too theoretical but in what sense is Faye himself not theoretical? His Archeofuturism is a fantasy and a proposal. There is nothing in this book which could not have been written, perhaps should have been written, by a member of GRECE today. Like GRECE too, Faye shies away from one of the most critical issues facing anyone on the radical right, namely the Jews. Are they friend or foe or neither? It has been noted that GRECE's hectic anti-Americanism was in some ways the only permitted alternative and was indeed a code for anti-semitism. Faye has moved away from GRECE on two issues which could be expected to bring him closer to Jews and even Zionism: one is his toning down of anti-Americanism and the second is his extreme hostility, indeed his setting as a priority and nec plus ultra of European survival the defeat of Islam. It should come as no great surprise that Faye subsequently (after this book was published) aligned himself with Zionist groups. Faye
presents the reader with many of the truly important issues of our time. It is for another to provide not so much answers as a response. Perhaps someone much younger than either Faye or this reviewer will read this book and know that they are able to provide that response. In that case, this book will have shown itself to be of the past and the future, in a word archeofuturistic.

[Sebos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very very mixed bag. Very French, very Nitzschean, larpy.

Should've been called Nitzscheofuturism, since the 'archeo' part is hardly mentioned besides a really strange idea of two-story economy, where one part of the population lives in ultra-technological spaces while the other (most of the peoples) live in a rural medieval-like spaces. You have an order of magnitude more mentions of post-enlightenment (+ a lot of French postmodernist) concepts than anything really archaic (ancient greece, rome, anything pre-decartes). Despite critiquing the 'political correctness' and the false dissidents that only pretend to be 'politically incorrect' it seems like the author also tries to be political correct by taking the frame and lingo of his own proclaimed enemies.

Most of the comments regarding Christianity are honestly dumb, but there aren't too many of these.
Whenever he approaches any notion of sexuality, author turns into a plain coomer, with that sci-fi story being the peak.

Having said all that, there is value in there in critiquing a 'right-wing' French New Right and the tactics they employed, funnily enough it reminds me of the struggles current online right faces. Things like focusing on irrelevant problems and being highly abstract, the atomization of factions or just not being able to reach an average person are tackled directly.

It really is an uneven work.

[Ryan (Glay)]

Basically a mish mash of all sorts of Rightist ideas thrown into one book. In his vison of a post-Liberal/post-Catastrophe world Faye even finds space for resurrecting the Nazi idea of sending all 'non-native' Europeans to Madagascar, which was unexpected and disturbing ...

Faye produces a utopianism of the Right that is as bad as any Leftist utopianism.
"Imagine if a catastrophe happened and then we could _____ (fill in whatever political fantasy you want here)

This doesn't mean Faye's wild political fantasies make the book an un-interesting read. Written in 1998 his predictions of the American Hyper-Capitalist Hyper-Liberal world running out of steam due to economic decline, in the early decades of the 21st century are fairly accurate. Faye also predicts an environmental/global warming crisis and in his vison of a post-catastrophe world only a small percentage of the population can live the hyper-technological/consumer lifestyle of our present age while the majority of the population goes back to living a traditional agrarian 'back to the land' existence.

It's interesting how much Faye's ideas (and those of the GRECE and Nouvelle Droite movements he was a part of) contrast with what most people might think of the Far-Right. For instance, Faye situates spirituality back into native Pagan religions rather than Christianity. My understanding is this anti-Christian aspect is premised on the idea that the values of Liberalism especially 'Equality' are viewed as essentially just secularized Christian ideas about the equality of all people before God. Also Faye is actually Pro-EU, wanting the seemingly contradictory idea of more regional autonomy but also a powerful and united expanded (with Russia and E Europe) EU government that can compete like an Empire on the world stage. It's a vision of Europe that sounds something like the Holy Roman Empire, who if manifested would likely rival it in decrepit ineptitude.

Also very laissez-faire on porn/sex (legalize brothels) and drug policy.

Faye does Fiction in the last section trying to paint a picture of what this world looks like with some delegate of the 'Euro-Siberian' state chatting with some Indian woman on a hyper-sonic train but this is skippable.

He has fantastic Footnotes at the end of each section though which give very informative descriptions of many intellectual and political figures you may not know much about.

[Kate Priest · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first half is a diagnosis of Enlightenment thinking. The author manages to say nothing that hasn't already been said better by other 20th century philosophers, and makes a particularly heinous misreading of Nietzsche's concept of eternal return. I managed to grit my and read on until the fourth chapter but decided to abandon thereafter, as Faye indulges in the most base right-wing arguments against positive discrimination, homosexuality, etc. The sole highlight is his critique of rap and techno music, which is thoroughly hilarious:

"From a musical point of view, rap – like techno – is a very poor genre. It is not open to any renewal. Its range of harmonies is too small and its rhythms too repetitive. Its lyrics, written by talentless people with public funding, are worthless, plaintive and falsely violent. NTM is nothing but subsidised propaganda and gratuitous provocation:[133] an aping of the tough Black bands active in the Bronx in the 1970s, minus the musical talent, power and sincerity. Utter impostors. The same goes for all contemporary rappers. It is working for the moment, but won’t last long. MC Solaar is a good writer of lyrics trapped in a musical deadlock.
As for techno, it is not music but percussion. This ‘music’ also won’t last long. It is devoid of any content. Techno and rap, like hip-hop, will go the same way as twist and disco, because they do not belong to any aesthetic or musical current, but merely provide a social look – and looks are transient things.
Rock’n’roll, on the other hand, is eternal, for it can take various forms and rests on a range of harmonies. It has managed to survive and remain in fashion. What is now spreading across the world, though, are ethnic forms of music: Latin, Asian, Celtic, Greek, Arab, African, etc. – renewed forms of popular music."

Also worth mentioning that this book has no proper bibliography, only a haphazard list at the end of each chapter that summarizes the ideas of mentioned individuals.

[Charles Haywood · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sometimes think of my project to pass Reaction through the refiner’s fire as beginning with the raw material of a simple stout tree, which has grown straight but has many branches. My task is to examine and prune those branches, and to plane down the tree to its core, creating a smooth and solid piece of wood, to which can be fitted a forged head—a lance of destiny, we can call it. This book, Guillaume Faye’s "Archeofuturism," is one of those branches, and today we will lop it off, though perhaps some of its wood can be used to fuel the forging furnace. That said, this book is mostly insane. But not completely. And, if I am being honest, it prefigures, in part, my own preoccupation with a future that combines the politics of Reaction with the technology of tomorrow.

I had heard occasionally of this book, but very vaguely. It’s well regarded in circles in which I do not travel. One can guess this from the short forward, by someone named Michael O’Meara, who beneath his signature lists “two vital books” he has written, one called "Toward the White Republic." Very evidently, we are not in Kansas anymore. The author is French, of course, and not of the American scene. George Hawley’s excellent "Right-Wing Critics of Conservatism" spends quite a bit of time on the European New Right, primarily a French phenomenon of the 1970s and 1980s, referred to as the Nouvelle Droit, with which Faye is connected. It’s still around, but today has little impact, and is dying out. Its core leader was, and is, Alain de Benoist, and their thought usually features what is to American ears an odd blend—opposition to immigration from outside Europe, combined with anti-racism (declaimed a bit too loudly to persuade their enemies); opposition to America, viewed as a cultural and economic enemy; dislike of the free market; and, to cap it all off, violent opposition to Christianity and an endorsement of various ill-defined forms of what is supposed to be paganism, but boils down more or less to testosterone-laced pantheism.

All this overlaps, it appears, with elements of the “white nationalist” movement in America (there really is such a thing, although it’s tiny and the term itself has been ruined by its use as a propaganda term of abuse), and with other European thinkers that are even farther afield, such as Julius Evola, the thought of whom Steve Bannon is famously acquainted with, to what end exactly is not clear. (Bannon is at this moment in Europe drumming up support for a new populist right-wing coalition; yesterday he signed up Matteo Salvini, the leader of the Italian League and, according to the New York Times, the most important politician in Italy today, so we have apparently not heard the last of him.) The Nouvelle Droit is therefore not “right” in any recognizably American sense, and, to compound the confusion, de Benoist today regards himself explicitly as a man of the Left, and says he would have voted for Bernie Sanders. Regardless of where we can pigeonhole their thought, some of it is now available in English, due to the efforts of Arktos Press, started by a Swedish businessman to spread such “alt-right” works (a press of which I heard from Hawley), and who published the copy of "Archeofuturism" that I read—though the first translations of Nouvelle Droit works into English were done by Telos Press, a left-wing publishing house. Go figure. (I will note that the translator here did an excellent job with the footnotes; without them, most references to events and people would be incomprehensible to an American.)

However, we are not here to survey the Nouvelle Droit, but its second-most famous member, Faye. He was one of the original core members of the Nouvelle Droit, but he split from them and mostly disappeared from view around 1985, only resurfacing with the publication of this book, in 1998. (In the meantime he did things like radio comedy acting and starring in pornographic films. Like I said, go figure.) "Archeofuturism" is a set of somewhat disjointed and rambling essays, but with a solid core of repeated assertion of what Faye believes, and why. In fact, while it is not well organized to convey a coherent message, a coherent message nonetheless comes through quite clearly. Two men hover over nearly every page—Friedrich Nietzsche, whom Faye seems to regard as the ultimate seer, and Carl Schmitt, largely for his vision of the "Ernstfall," Schmitt’s thought about how emergencies justify actions by the state that could not otherwise by justified, in particular suspension of the rule of law (as Mark Lilla has pointed out, Schmitt was fond of the Roman practice of temporary dictators, though Faye does not mention this specifically).

What Faye wants, at its broadest level, is for humanity to recapture the “victorious life,” which is certainly a Nietzschean-sounding phrasing. The overall frame of the book is a specific rejection of the modern world, the “catastrophe of modernity.” This means, for Faye, the denunciation of all mainstream political thought, Left and Right (the former is unalloyed evil; the latter, “traditionalism,” is just neutered, weak, and stupid). Faye insists that what we want, and what we will get, is “a return to archaic and ancestral values, while at the same time envisioning the future as something more than a mere extension of the present. Against modernism, futurism. Against attachment to the past, archaism.”

"Archeofuturism" is not a set of recommendations for creating a new world, though. It’s more like a future history (and in fact it ends with a long fiction piece looking backward from 2073). Faye is telling us what is certain to happen, and what he is trying to do is prepare us for it, not really guide or change the future. I’ll go through it blow-by-blow, but Faye’s claims can be boiled down to their essence as follows. First, the entire global political and economic system is going to collapse before 2020. Billions will die. Second, from the ashes will arise six megastate blocs, consisting of ethnically/racially similar people (Europeans; Africans; Muslims; East Asians; North Americans; South Americans), which will be autarkic as between each other and which will contain within them numerous smaller states, organized around sub-cultures of the culture that characterizes the megastate bloc, each of which will have very high degree of autonomy. Migration between blocs will not occur, though limited travel will. Third, 90% of the people in each imperial bloc will live like fifteenth-century peasants, with era-appropriate technology, health care, and life expectancy. 10% will live awesome techno-futurist lives completely separately from the peasants. Everybody will be happy in his sphere. The end. For, Faye says, this is the natural state of man, and striving for any other state is a fool’s errand.

Here also, Faye first formally defines “Archeofuturism.” Faye loves neologisms. This seems to be a big thing among radical thinkers, who think (perhaps correctly) that using new words avoids constraining thought. (He cites Foucault for the proposition that words “have a crucial importance,” “to state and describe is already to construct.”) The key philosophy that underlies Faye’s thought he terms “vitalist constructivism.” Vitalist constructivism is meant to be the opposite of egalitarianism and to embody a “Faustian spirit” (meant as a good thing) of progress, to embody a “will to power” that stands for “an organic and non-mechanistic mentality,” though he defines it at some further length. Anyway, Archeofuturism is “a future society that combines techno-scientific progress with a return to the traditional answers that stretch back into the mists of time. . . . It is necessary to reconcile Evola and Marinetti [the apostle of Italian Futurism], and do away with the notion of ‘modernity’ produced by Enlightenment ideology.” The problem I face is that when I hear this it that it sounds pretty good. It’s in the details that we get lost in the weeds, and then realize the weeds are nightshade.

Faye begins, before we talk about the specifics of the future, with a long explanation, or apologetic, about his relationship and break with the Nouvelle Droit. At first, this seems of only modest interest (who cares what obscure Frenchies did in the 1980s?), but if you realize that what he describes is relevant to any group that is pushing discourse outside the Overton Window, it becomes quite insightful and potentially useful. His first major claimed flaw is that the ND attempted to apply the principles of Antonio Gramsci, by achieving dominance of a society’s cultural institutions, from which is to follow political power, but failed to grasp that all such actions must take place within a political frame, not just an intellectual one, or they are ephemeral. He specifically objects to the ND’s willingness to endorse “Third-Worldist and pro-Islamic positions,” evincing “post-colonial masochism,” when those were rejected by any normal people likely to be interested in the ND, as well as refusing to endorse a coherent economic plan, which is something average people demand. The ND refused to talk about concrete things, that is, and preferred abstractions hoping to influence the upper crust of intellectual culture, which focus does not lead to power.

His second major flaw is that the ND, when censored by those who held the levers of power in the media and the academy (as conservatives are today in America), did not fight by implementing “disorienting and provocative action,” but rather was complacent. Faye says if they had fought, if they had “sought to launch provoking debates and formulate radical ideas,” the media would have had to cover them, because “the media must necessarily attack—and hence advertise—everything that opposes their system.” There is some truth to this—Exhibit A is Donald Trump. On the other hand, Exhibit B is the successful blackout of the Sweden Democrats, and any facts that would support them (such as that essentially 100% of the very many rapes now committed in Sweden are committed by young immigrant men) by the Swedish establishment. (As of yesterday, we can see that blackout is not suppressing the Sweden Democrats effectively, though.) And Exhibit C is the opening skirmishes by the American Lords of Tech in their formal plan to totally quash all conservative thought on all tech platforms, with proof of concept being the total depersoning of Alex Jones. I don’t think the ND or anyone else is Donald Trump—there is only one, for now—so I suspect Faye is wrong here, and it is not generally true that “[t]alent always prevails over censorship, when it is accompanied by daring and intelligence.” It certainly didn’t work under Communism, and there is no reason to believe that our neoliberal overlords will be any less censorious in the teeth of rising opposition than Communism was.

His third major objection to the ND is their attempt to turn paganism into an actual religion, rather than a mere internal feeling to be encouraged. This alienated many potential supporters, who are “sentimentally tied to local traditions” (by which he means Catholics). And paganism as religion was a silly distraction from real, concrete political problems, which the ND then failed to address, in the eyes of those who could have added to their power. Faye’s fourth major objection is that contrary to mainline ND thought, actually the United States “is better regarded as a rival and opponent (inimici) than as an enemy (hostes).” And certainly it is not the case that “Africa, Asia, and Latin America” should be viewed as allies of Europe against the “Yankees.” Finally, and related to the first claim, Faye strongly holds that the ND should be “ethno-nationalist,” not “ethno-pluralist.” The immigration of, or rather colonization by, other cultures is a disaster for Europe (and, Faye notes, is purely one-way). It creates “rapid ethno-anthropological alteration; the erosion of European cultural roots; and strong economic and social setback, leading to poverty and endemic crime.” These three factual claims are difficult to argue, certainly, and it’s bizarre to think that when Faye wrote, the problem was some tens of thousands of alien invaders, not the million in a year that Angela Merkel and George Soros have blessed the continent with recently.

The weeds show up here, though. Faye has a solution for the problem of “ethno-anthropological alteration,” which is to deport anyone who’s not of “European stock,” including those here for generations. To Madagascar. Which, you will remember, was the Nazi idea before they decided on another, not that Faye adverts to that dubious historical precedent. I suppose this is a common enough historical action and solution (there are no Prussians in East Prussia today), but whatever your political orientation, it’s not something most people could countenance nowadays. No observant Christian could stomach it, certainly. You have to hand it to Faye, though—he does offer internal consistency. My stock objection to even any attempts to limit inbound immigration has been that they are inadequate unless the desiccated Europeans experience a renewal of virtue, something they appear far from. No point in being Japan, a homogenous country that will soon be homogenously empty. Faye thinks this problem will solve itself, because as part of the coming catastrophes, so many people will die, and there will be so much violence (started by the undesirables, no less) that mass deportations won’t seem like such a big deal, and at the same time those catastrophes will bring out, and bring back, the natural moral fiber of those of European stock (pan-European—from the Bering Strait to Brest; the English do not seem to figure). Note that he does not say “superior” moral fiber—as with those on the American right who not-very-convincingly say they are white “separatists,” not white “supremacists,” Faye is careful to never say that any of the forthcoming ethnically based megastate blocs is necessarily better—just different. “One land, one people: this is what human nature requires.” So he skips the problem of convincing people today that deportations are good idea, substituting a magic wand of a future time of troubles. Which is, as I says, consistent, if not persuasive as such.

Still, even with the unpleasant taste Faye’s program of deportation leaves, the reader keeps getting pulled back to the things that Faye says that do make sense. It is true, unfortunately, that every modern multiracial society is actually “multiracist.” It is, for the most part, true that Islam “is an intrinsically conquering, theocratic and antidemocratic religion that seeks—as General DeGaulle had foreseen—to replace each church with a mosque.” It is probably true that Islam, in the terms of Carl Schmitt, is an “objective enemy: he who identifies you as an enemy for the very reason that you exist, whatever you may do,” though even Faye admits that part of his objection to Islam is that paganism, like his own, is still less approved of by Islam than Christianity. That said, Faye was certain that European multiculturalism would collapse by 2008, and yet, Europe staggers along, so his actual predictions of disaster haven’t been proved right.

The problem, I think, is Faye’s identification of culture with ethnic groups. While it is a complete myth that Europe has been, in any time in the past thousand years, the result of significant movements of people, it is true that Europe is the result of many influences, under the overarching rubric of Christendom. Not only is there far less ethnic commonality among Europeans than Faye suggests, a strong, vibrant culture has a nearly infinite capacity to absorb those from outside, without falling into the error of tribal identity politics—as long as those allowed in from outside are forced, directly or indirectly, to conform to the new culture and to mostly abandon their (in the case of non-Westerners, inferior) cultures. (Needless to say, modern Left “multiculturalism” is the exact opposite.) For example, I am sure Faye loves Alexander Pushkin, who is as Russian as they come, but after all, Pushkin’s great-grandfather was from Cameroon, and served the Tsar as a military engineer. This conformity doesn’t have to be a state-coerced adoption of a new culture, although it could be, and probably has to be with massive immigration; informal pressures, such as the need to adopt the new culture in order to advance in society, can work just as well—witness the old American melting pot, or the gradual adoption of Islam and Islamic culture across the lands conquered by the Arabs. Not for Faye, though—for him, the choice is binary, and based on ethnicity, by which he means mostly (undefined) race. Which is both foolish, and antithetical to the Christian view of all men as brothers that was essential to making the West what it was.

But Faye can never admit that. It cannot be over-emphasized how opposed to Christianity Faye is. Like Nietzsche, he rejects any inherent human dignity, and says that “love thy neighbor like thyself” is “an apology for weakness and a pathological form of emasculation and self-blame.” He also blames Christianity for suggesting that science should benefit everyone, rather than just the elite, resulting in despoliation of the planet. Although he does not say so directly, Faye basically envisions the future as pre-Christian Scandinavia with rockets, having “a certain harshness, a resolute frankness, a taste for pride and honour, pragmatism, a rejection of all non-selective social organizations,” along with a willingness to use violence. Etc. Faye seems to forget that for as much as Vikings fascinate us, they were a predator society that produced nothing at all, except awesome sagas. They are not a template for civilizational progress.

Thus, Faye claims that the Romans executed “dangerous criminals and the physically or mentally disabled” by throwing them off the Tarpeian Rock. I don’t think this is correct—it was traitors, primarily. The translator notes, not infrequently, quotations or minor facts that Faye gets wrong because he was working from memory, although he does not note that this claim is incorrect. I think this slip is revealing, though—what Faye wants, though he only says it here, is for the physically or mentally disabled to be killed. (The Romans did expose disabled babies, a practice ended only by Christianity, and which has returned today, but I have never heard that they killed disabled adults, much less by such a dramatic method.) Faye’s future time of blood is really an eternity of blood.

So, on the details of how we are getting to Archeofuturism. As far as the predicted collapse, Faye’s belief is that we are facing an imminent “convergence of catastrophes.” There is much florid language surrounding this idea, such as “the century of iron and fire is looming near,” but the specific alleged causes of this convergence are three. First, environmental collapse of unspecified origin, but derived ultimately from overuse of permanently limited resources by trying to give everyone a high standard of living. Second, economic collapse due to an aging population, which is caused by “anti-natalism,” a function of Left modernity. Third, destruction of the European social fabric by colonization by immigrants from the South, primarily Muslim ones. This is both a cultural destruction and a huge increase in crime, ultimately leading to “urban revolts,” which will combine with environmental and financial collapse to create a firestorm of anarchy and destruction, with the ultimate re-imposition of order in Europe by local warlords (and righteous Russian invasion).

[Review continues as first comment.]

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s been a while since I read an actually interesting book by a fascist. Guillaume Faye helped lead the French Nouvelle Droit in the seventies and eighties. To simplify greatly, the Nouvelle Droit exemplified the possibilities of the “suit” strategy in the far right’s “suits and boots” dichotomy. They were very “intellectual” fascists (they didn’t like being called fascists, but fuck them) looking to change politics by changing culture. The Nouvelle Droit achieved a great deal of visibility and prominence for a while in France, where they like their intellectual novelties. But it was in terminal decline for a while by the late nineties, with Faye having jumped ship some time before to work in mainstream media.

“Archaeofuturism” was Faye’s return to far-right political writing. In it, he attempts to both right the ship of the French far right and inject energy into its project. The Nouvelle Droit went wrong because it got too academic, too self-obsessed, too weird, Faye argues, citing in particular erstwhile ally Alain de Benoist’s odd religious ideas- pagan, anti-Christian, but friendly to Islam. Catastrophe is coming, Faye declares, and modernity, defined here as the combination of industrial society and egalitarian culture and politics, is doomed. One way or another we will get “archaeofuturism” – a return to archaic cultural values, social structures, and politics combined with ever-advancing science and technology. The role of the French (and broader European) far right is to help usher in and eventually rule the brave new archaeofuturist future.

Faye’s not wrong about catastrophe. As expected, he gets the valences wrong. The threat of climate change, the major thing he is right about, looms over the book, but typically low down on the list of things Faye worries about. Similarly, Faye highlights the rise of inequality, unemployment etc. He shared the anticapitalism of the Nouvelle Droit, which is to say, he was rhetorically opposed to capitalism’s culturally disintegrative tendencies and the rulers it promotes and pays lip service to its actual problems, while sharing many capitalist assumptions about worth and merit- the usual weak sauce bullshit of right anticapitalism.

But this is a right-wing book, after all, so his big worry is demographics, basically “the great replacement” the right goes on about. He takes it as given that European values and culture reside in some bio-mystical way in European genes and European land, and that allowing non-Europeans in means the death of Europe, etc etc. Islam plays the big boogie-man here, and as you often get with demon figures, there’s an admixture of admiration here. Islam, in Faye’s telling, is still a healthy, vibrant, “macho” culture, unlike weak, sickly, feminized, “ethno-masochist” Europe. If he didn’t see Islam as backwards (and wasn’t as attached to his European nativity), Faye might join his old pal de Benoist in being sort of positive about it. Of course, Faye lumps all billion or so Muslims together as sharing the same agenda, a real laugh after the last decade and a half of struggle within the Muslim world. Same with colonized people all over- they all want revenge on the colonizer and will get it through immigration. Faye doesn’t do subtlety or nuance.

Catastrophe will force archaic values to re-emerge, whether anyone wants it or not (Faye sees it as devoutly to be wished). Modernity, Faye argues, brings on the catastrophe, not so much through capitalistic profit motive but from its utopian promise that everyone can get along and live well. The planet can’t sustain it and people don’t want it- they want to advance their ethnic/religious interests, says Faye. Everything is ideology, for him and many on the far right. When modernity collapses, archaic values — hierarchy, order, valorization of warriors, a cyclical view of history, etc — will reimpose themselves upon the survivors. Faye waxes rhetorical about this at various points. He’s smart enough to avoid the usual “traditionalist” trap of valorizing everything old, or defining which culture’s folkways are really traditional and which aren’t (most of them are actually not that old in any event). Instead, Faye enlists the right’s best philosophical player, Nietzsche (and yes, he was on the right, sorry, don’t at me), and Nietzsche’s definition of the archaic values of classical Greece and Rome. That’s what we’ll all go back to, he says, though he also sees archaic values as those of medieval Europe, which doesn’t make a ton of sense and seems like a soupçon thrown to traditionalist Christians.

So does all this archaicism mean a return to archaic modes of production and technology? Yes and no. Probably Faye’s most important point and what really gets at the nut of what he contributes to the contemporary far right is that the great inequality for which the right should both prepare for and strive for is inequality in access to the fruits of science and technology. Most people should live at a roughly medieval technology level, Faye argues, but a minority should live with ever-advancing technology. Only a minority can truly benefit from technological society anyway, Faye insists. Any guesses as to the racial composition of who gets to follow a donkey cart and who gets to see the future? Well, here Faye vacillates a little. In some versions envisioning a racial hierarchy where whites and maybe East Asians get to live in future-world and browner people toil, more or less happily, in the primitive level they supposedly belong to, in others, every continental bloc/empire (it’ll all be empires, you see) will include both techno-people who run everything and a majority of happy peasants doing their folk dances in the villages, including the “Eurosiberian” empire he envisions.

This is, of course, daft, and has the classic tell of daftness (on the right, left, and center) that is overschematization- everything in the archaeofuture is clear, all could be understood easily from a simple map (like one for a video game) or PowerPoint presentation. It’s as utopian as the most hippie-dippie soft-left daydream and considerably more so than most Marxist ones, as it basically handwaves away any question of the means of production, as in, “where does the food come from?” or “where are the raw materials for all that tech coming from?” or “who cleans the toilets in the pristine future-cities?” Presumably, the peasants are farming, but Faye makes clear: intercourse between technoworld and peasant-lande is to be strictly limited, if not altogether forbidden.

Faye doesn’t bother with any of these questions. Part of this is that technology is just supposed to figure it out. The other part, I think, is more important. Faye humble-braggingly insists he’s not laying out a dogma or a plan, that the right of the future will have to sail the seas of uncertainty. That’s a smart move, both rhetorically and because it leaves unsaid his other implicit answer to questions of political economy: it’s supposed to be cruel. The techno-lords are better than the peasant-folke he patronizingly pats on the head, and so along with having nicer lives, the former will exploit and oppress the latter. They’ll do it for fun if not for profit. That’s the other part of “archaic values” – no sentimentality about the peasants and their dead babies, even while having a little sentimentality for their charming folkways. At first, in Faye’s telling, the violence of the archaeofuture would be defensive, beating back “the hordes” and making new ethno-empires. But we all know — I’m sure Faye knew — it would turn offensive, the quotidian, personalized violence of the plantation, the pimp and the john, the colonizer.

Reaffirming racialized (and gendered and class-based) inequality and its attendant cruelty as a positive value and the only meaningful response to the crises of the twenty-first century: this is what “Archaeofuturism” is about and is basically what the entire far right is about today. Take out some of the silly filigree and this is more or less what the entire right dreams of. In terms of laying out an agenda for the far right in the twenty-first century, Faye is much more lucid than many figures who get more attention than he did (he died last year). His writing makes a lot more sense and is much more applicable to today’s situation than anything Julius Evola (who died in 1974) wrote. Some of the snootier “identitarian” types, like Generation Europa, namecheck Faye as part of their inspiration from the Nouvelle Droite. But it’s Evola that gets the memes and his turgid “Revolt Against the Modern World” that zoomer fascists try to slog through, lips doubtlessly moving the while. This, when a fascist press went to all the trouble of translating Faye into English, complete with explanatory footnotes for readers who might not know what a Breton or a GDP is! Alas for him.

Many of the more interesting strategic/ideological points Faye makes “scan” from the perspective of an ambitious contemporary fascist organizer. Faye’s attitude towards homosexuality is that it’s deviant, but should be allowed to go ahead in (fun, kinky) secret but unprosecuted- sounds roughly like what Milo Yiannopolous would like. He departs from the Nouvelle Droit in seeing America less as an enemy and more as a potentially productive rival. Presumably, his American followers disagree with his assertion that America isn’t badly threatened by immigration, but that was a throwaway point, easily papered over.

Most controversially, he has little to say about Jews, and in other work came out in support of Zionism as a bulwark against Islam. On the one hand, this is a path some on the contemporary far right have taken. On the other, it illustrates one of the ways in which Faye is too clever for his own benefit. Without antisemitism, there’s a gaping hole in all far right thought: why did anything change, if premodernity was so great? Most fascists just say “the machinations of the Jews.” Faye doesn’t, and so squirms around alluding to “neo-trotskyites,” bitches about the Jacobins (the French right has a long memory), etc. The whole thing would be more wrong but also more consistent if he was an anti-semite, but given his other commitments, you can see why he took the stance he did.

So this was an interesting read. The French right has long been a source of some of the more interesting and readable right-wing writing, in spite of (because of?) never getting a unified fascist movement off the ground. In terms of reading experience, it was better than the average right-wing screed, but contained long sections of Faye just spit-balling opinions that bogged things down. The end was also disappointing, a fictional “day in the life” of a mover-and-shaker in the “Eurosiberian Empire” of the archaeofuture- this sounds like it could be fun but was just a dull recitation of the points Faye already made. Above all, this was a clear presentation of what the twenty-first century far right is about, not in the sense that many contemporary fascists follow Faye’s blueprint, but that he prefigured much of their vision. ***

[Vagabond of Letters, DLitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

****1/2: still bound to the democratic-republican participatory paradigm

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cool terminology but nothing new. Meh.

[Stephen Borthwick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Faye's vision of the future is an incredibly fresh reimagining of mid-20th century pan-European ideas from a right-wing perspective. His critique of his compatriots of GRECE and FN is delivered with some measure of acrimony, but an acute sense of necessity. Faye's moral structure and cultural relativism are a distinct low-point of the overall idea he delivers in the text, but he is also keenly self-aware of his own ideas and ideological attachments, which robs critics of the opportunity to accuse him of any sort of pretensions.

As with most Arktos translations, the piece is thoroughly readable and engaging, albeit in terms of content somewhat fantastical in its expectations and desires. Perhaps its greatest strength is the clear recognition of the danger posed by Islam coupled with the clear import of Christianity to European culture, something which seems lost on the greater part of the French New Right. This is not to say Faye has any sort of developed sense of Christian morality or theology, but rather that he has hung close to Charles Maurras not-perfect-but-good-enough-for-a-modernist "alliance" with Christianity as an indispensable part of all European right-wing politics.

He could benefit from a parallel reading with Hilaire Belloc.

[Aleksandar Todorovski · Rating 4 out of 5]

What if?

This question is the premise on which the uncompromising and sharp toned Guillaume formulates his thesis about a not so futuristic post-apocalyptic scenario where a new "Euroseberian" political entity emerges after a series of converging disasters like climate change, continental civil war, epidemics, as well as an economic crisis which all culminate in the collapse of social order as we know it.

Not a lot of Authors would even fantasize about crossing the Rubicon of Political correctness in the way Faye does. The first roughly 80% of the book is written more as a political tractate and an intellectual embryo for future cultivation ( precisely what Faye does with his following works published by Arktos), while the second one is about a Fictional State Dignitary of the Empire who while on a train ride with an Indian exchange student tells about the cataclysmic events happening between 2014-2024 and the emergence of the new Euroseberian Empire, its Socio-Political system as well as its international relationships with the rest of the global powers, and what's left of the United States.

[Victor · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was not structured well, nor were brilliant arguments made. Many in the Alt-Right community speak highly of this book, however, I thought it was mediocre.

The main message in this book is that: Europe should remain white, a pan-European government should rule the continent in order to better protect it and that while we must hold onto some traditions, we must also accept science/technology and integrate it into our lives.

Not to mention, the last fifth of the book is some weird science fiction story that I completely skipped. I wanted to read a book on political theory, not a white version of Star Trek.

[Frederick Hammill · Rating 1 out of 5]

Garbage ideology coupled with masturbatory conversations. Filth and mocking of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[aslan · Rating 1 out of 5]

chokbar doesn’t even begin to cover it. Fondamentalement tragique et super mal écrit

[Guille · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reactionary books follow the barbell strategy. They're either terrible slop or mindblowingly good. This falls in the former category.

Faye notices issues with modernity, especially, with the ideological justification of contemporary politics. That's all fine. He fails to identify any accurate cause, focusing on simplistic and transient causes, or confuses cause and effect. To top it off, he keeps predicting some sort of impending doom. His "fatal point", which he estimates between 2010 and 2020, has not arrived. And to his "The present civilisation cannot endure. Its foundations are contrary to reality" I would oppose "The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent". Or, in this case, civilisation can remain stupid longer than you can remain alive. Faye died in 2019.

[Vincent Komaroff · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Il faut réconcilier Evola et Marinetti. Les Pensées organique, ressemblantes et radicales chez Nietzsche et Heidegger sont la source du nouveau concept d'archéofuturisme :

Penser ensemble la techno-science et la communauté immémoriale de la société traditionnelle.

Penser l'Homme Européen à la fois comme le deinotatos, le futuriste et l'être de mémoire.

Le futur requiert le retour des valeurs ancestrales et ce, pour toute la Terre"

Guillaume Faye

Chef d'oeuvre magistral. Notre planche de salut.

[Elliot Lake · Rating 2 out of 5]

I suspect that this was original in 1998, but the nouveau droite talking points raised here are too common nowadays, aside from some criticism pointed towards older movements regarding understanding of Anton Gramsci.

I found it trite and quite larpy. I also find the tone thoroughly angry and juvenile, although that may be the translation.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Way Right of Center and applying to some old ideas instead of looking forward.

There will be those who will love this and those that will hate it.

Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

[joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was Faye the OG accelerationist? He was way ahead, recklessly smashing facts and perceptions together. He acknowledges this recklessness as a positive strategy for finding the way forward: test and iterate, test and iterate, discard failures and mutate successes. He rapidly sketches out the concomitants of this approach to governance following the imminent collapse: a mass of small polities within massive autarkic federations, decisionism, violence, famine, rapid technological advance and retreat.

It’s a strange, at first reading rather crazed world picture that he paints: some areas worked up into high detail, others just blocked in or left blank. The idea of parallel technical/peasant worlds is most unconvincing, so that his Archeo- and his Futurism remain disconnected, and his account of the future-past Eurosiberia joins the list of steam-punky speculative histories of orderly and functional sci-fi futures: We, Brave New World, Lord of the World..

Having said that, Faye was one of those rare birds prophesying disaster from when the world was only going to get better. A lot of his thoughts are not remotely dated and describe problems unconceived of by most in the 1990s, so it’s got to be unwise to dismiss the places where he seems wide of the mark. And there are some freaky hits (a computer ai called GPT which generates a sexy virtual assistant.)

What he made of the apparently endless non-occurrence of the collapse while all the problems multiplying x100 I can only imagine.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A poignant analysis and presentation of a New Right European philosophy and outlook. I was impressed with the author's vision and articulation. While I disagree with a few of his ideas, his premise and analysis are very relevant and there is much to be said for his ideas especially regarding the unrestrained immigration that has beset Europe in recent decades and the threat to European culture on its home continent. Rather than nostalgically pining for a lost past, Faye gives visions for the future rooted in ancient principles and approaches. This book is bold, daring, and clearly controversial. I enjoyed it immensely.

[putperest · Rating 4 out of 5]

strong political thesis - very dorky in its details, but charming.

[Aspir · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book helped shape my future outlook on politics and necessary solutions for the coming age.

[Nikolai Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Guillaume Faye is a poet of political theory. One can almost hear the Centurion trumpets blaring in the background as his sentences and paragraphs march forward into the landscape of his imagined future.

I hesitate to describe Faye as a political philosopher because political philosophy is more concerned with theories of justice rather than soothsaying about the dynamics of the 21st Century. ArcheoFuturism isn't animated by concerns with distributive justice but rather with a prediction about the future. Equity, it is said, depends upon ample natural resources. Once physical resources are depleted, equity becomes an absurdity. The future, Faye argues, demands a reasoned method for an un-equal distribution of the world's resources so that a breakaway subset of Man can proceed forward both spiritually and technologically while the masses are consigned to live cyclically in a repetition of traditions that lock them in a contented, innocuous whirlpool that drives in the opposite direction; that is, backwards, into the past, then finally into an oblivion with more simian than human qualities.

Justice, as it is normally conceived of, plays no part in the new ArcheoFuturistic distributive model because the dynamic force is simply the Will to Power. The mandate to proceed forward to the highest destiny of Man justifies a partition of resources that is unequal. And as this dynamic plays out in the 21st Century, Faye envisions institutional collapse and widespread ethnic warfare, with a Balkanization of the planet based on race. Europe expands to Euro-Siberia. China in cooperation with Japan controls California. Africa, I believe, is partitioned between Asians and Europeans. Similarly, the resources of the balance of the solar system, particularly Mars, fall to a negotiated split between Asians and Europeans.

I suppose that in the ArcheoFuture Europeans and the quasi-Europeans of America will no longer watch television, in as much as it is well known that only the Japanese and Koreans are able to manufacture televisions worth watching at all. So, in the future, Europeans will have to watch other white goods, such as the Electrolux washing machine or, perhaps, their Phillips vacuum cleaners. Similarly, Asian women will have to carry their secret caches of cosmetics and other necessities in pockets or in their bare fingers, in as much as they will no longer have access to the Ferragamo and Chanel handbags of Italy and France.

The ArcheoFuture is a catastrophe. Faye describes a dystopia. There is nothing that is normatively desirable in his universe. It is likely that models of distributive justice will have to be devised for a future that will be frustrated with increased resource constraints. And the Will to Power will continue to operate as it always has to order the distribution of resources among individuals within the box we call civilization. However, to PROPOSE that we abandon justice is different from recognizing that justice will become more difficult in the 21st Century. In fact, it should be conceded that we do not today live in a system in which serious effort is made towards distributive equity. We live in a world of slogans and dreams. Faye suggests that we should WANT to abandon those dreams.

Indeed, it is my experience that we have abandoned justice already in too many sectors and for too many varieties of people. Visit any jail in America or attempt to walk through a poorer neighborhood in Southeast Asia. The dreams of distributive justice that have been knocked about and discoursed upon in classrooms in the major capitals of the planet have failed to achieve practical effect in reality. How is it that we can be exhorted to abandon what we have barely even begun?

Nonetheless, this is an important book, not because of its prescriptions, but because it may, in a positivistic way, amount to an accurate description of the developing mindset of many Americans, Europeans and even East Asians. The 21st Century, I believe, will begin to advance towards the resource choke points that were imagined in "Soylent Green" and similar works. Inequality will once again attempt to achieve conventional legitimacy. However, even in the midsts of catastrophe, one would hope that some communities would persist that continue to believe in the possibility of utopias.

Guillaume Faye postulates that the current iteration of civilization will fail within our lifetimes. He describes a "jump" phenomenology consistent with chaos theory: once acceleration and velocity reach zero, order degenerates into chaos. The parabola of the rise and fall of society isn't symmetrical. The other side goes to free fall. We've all heard the peak oil theory; and after a few runs through it, we've dismissed it. But now, I've begun to reconsider the validity of the peak oil hypothesis. USD as the reserve currency is simply a restatement of oil. Once oil as a control mechanism begins to fail, Guillaume Faye's ArcheoFuture may begin its march towards a horrific realization.

[Alexander Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Faye certainly has a lot to say in this book - some of it good, some of it outright nonsense. The numerous critiques of liberal democracy are far from ground-breaking, but they do have (at times) a brevity absent in the tomes that inspired them. I particularly liked Faye's explanation of the "spherical" view of history, which rises above the cyclical/linear dialectic by means of (you guessed it, students of Hegel) synthesis.
The core idea of Archeofuturism, that we are approaching the end of neoliberal globalist hegemony and moving towards a world of multipolarity, may well be a prophetic notion. Faye does a good job of defining "archaism" and "futurism" with etymology and synthesizing the two in past, present and future. Unfortunately, as the book goes on, this simple thesis begins to feel hampered by Faye's indulgent fantasies. His vision of a globalized, demonetized scientific infrastructure existing side-by-side with traditional societies employing human-animal hybrids is far from compelling, in my opinion. Ultimately, Faye's greatest failure in this book is his inability to establish a consistent philosophical foundation. There's a consistent "Nietzschean will to power for me, Platonic justice for thee" bait-and-switch going on which bumps this down to three stars for me.
In summary: Yockey, Spengler and many others from the Naughty List did it first and did it better, the "Dark Enlightment" did it more recently and also did it better, but if you've already burned through the heavy stuff and are looking an avant-garde dissident take, this is worth reading.

[macshek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Opowiadanie z tylu do wyrzucenia, jedyna zbazowana rzecz stamtad to: "This hadnt benefitted the protestant churches, which had collapsed." Poza tym stek simpiarstwa ktory zostal wprawdzie uzytecznie spozytkowany na krotka lekcje przewidywanej historii i jakichs futurystycznych technologicznych inwencji, ale poza tym jest glownie forma upustu dla racemixing degen fanaberii horny francuza.
Natomiast jezeli chodzi o czesc wlasciwa, jest jej bardzo malo do zarzucenia. Faye stawia wiele rozsadnych tez, zdaje sie, ze dobrze wyrokuje nad owczesnymi problemami. Pozycja dobra dla tego momentu w zyciu, kiedy odkrywa sie brak satysfakcji z liberalno-lewicowych zapatrywan politycznych, ale rownoczesnie posiada sie na tyle zdrowego rozsadku, zeby potrafic myslec za siebie (Faye broni zupelnej legalizacji domow publicznych..).
Jezeli zas chodzi o najbardziej kontrowersyjny element tej ksiazki, tj. zasadnicza wizje swiata archeofuturystycznego, to osmiele sie wysnuc stanowisko w pewnym sensie obronne co do ww koncepcji. Otoz jak dla mnie caly sens tego obrazu polega na wywolaniu pewnego rodzaju 'anchor effect' polaczonego ze swoistym 'pat on the back' dla wspolwyznawcow ideologii niepoprawnej politycznie (patrz: Faye napisal i opublikowal cos zupelnie oderwanego od rzeczywistosci, twoje jest bardziej racjonalne i ma wieksza szanse sie przyjac, wiec sie nie boj). NAWET JEZELI autor zrobil to zupelnie serio, jezeli to o czym mowie to jakis niezamierzony odprysk interpretacyjny, to WLASNIE TAK powinno sie ta pozycje traktowac dla wiekszego dobra.
Pozdro

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Get the idea Faye went in search of a new "ism" and Archeofuturism sounded suitably oxymoronic to be 1998 edgy. Long-term, influential member of the French "New Right", Faye predicted a return to classical values, remade for the modern man. And was he that far off? Look to the the imagery of segments of the modern new right/alt right - Greek hero worship, a return to traditional paganism, might-makes-right philosophising. Much of Faye's manifesto is coveting controversy, including his critiquing of the GRECE movement, but he is honest about his use of shock to wake people from complacency so they participate in the political process. Interesting guy, perhaps becoming more relevant as the power within the right shifts from the preppy neocon WASP to the philosophical warrior archetype.

[Thaddeus Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the written embodiment of that edgelord kid who is an equal opportunity offender, except he's actually kinda cool and has some points occasionally. Unabashed racism. Honest and open consideration of whether Islam is a friend or foe. "One does not profess to be Pagan. One _is_ pagan." No couching, no holds barred.

Don't agree with Faye's desires for the future or even all of his critiques. But boy, these are some vigorous ideas that get the noggin joggin, and willing to jump out of conventional political paradigms. I put a flag almost every other paragraph. Simultaneously a page-turner, and satisfying after a few paragraphs.

This book is exactly what this book should be.

[Jeremy Palmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Faye has written an masterpiece on a future we can hope for. He starts with a complete critique of the French new right. He then goes on the lay out what a EuroSiberian empire would entail. The last quarter of th book is written as a day in the life of this future EuroSiberian empire. Most alt-right literature focuses on the problems of modernity while offering very few solutions. Faye focuses on the mistakes of the past and how we can address them. It's not esoteric at all but rather focuses on what is both practical and possible.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is certainly bold. The idea of Russia somehow merging with the Europe is unhinged - not just in light of recent events - and its other speculative predictions are equally dubious but at least the diagnosis of (then) current problems is on point. I kept thinking this would make for a great backdrop for a film or book and at the end there is a short story set in this imagined future world and it's absolutely hilarious. Still think someone should write a good one based in that wacky Russo-European world.