Globalization, Alienation and the Cultural Patterns of Right-Wing Extremism

After celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the end of WWI, it appears that history is repeating itself. Nationalism and populism are spreading throughout the world (again). The capitalist system is facing crisis after crisis, and the global ecological system is on the brink of collapse. In respect to politics, it seems obvious that a large number of people do wish a “strong leader.” The European “refugee problem,” growing Anti-Semitism, Trump’s protectionist politics, Bolsonaro's election in Brazil, and Erdogan’s visions of a new Ottoman Empire are just a few examples of how the new (old) movement of nationalism, right-extremism, and populism attracts, inter alia, former non-voters in particular.

This session will investigate the societal and individual conditions that support these political extremist tendencies. How is it possible to explain these socio-cultural regressions against the background of our knowledge about the Third Reich’s barbarian and totalitarian ideology, the genocide against the Jewish people, and the horrors of the factory-like slaughtering of humans in Auschwitz? The aim of the session is to understand culturally different socio-historical explanatory patterns. It sets off from the work of Critical Theorists and from studies of the Authoritarian Personality, the Dialectics of Enlightenment, Authority and Family as it addresses forms of alienation and reification, with a focus on analyzing the cultural differentiation of contemporary right-wing movements and politics. Where are the socio-cultural and historical variations? National and cultural differences and similarities of the new right-extremism will be analyzed and discussed.