ABSTRACT
When de Benoist made his opening to the left in the 1980s, some on the right thought he had lost his mind. Almost a century before Mussolini scandalised the Italian left with his switch to pro-war leftism:
Mussolini was beginning to create a fascist synthesis between disgruntled leftists, syndicalists, ultra-nationalists and war veterans. Is de Benoist creating a post-fascist synthesis or merely reinventing fascism in new forms? This chapter seeks to assist in the answer to this question by highlighting the major influences and fundamental worldview of ENR intellectuals. I begin with a general overview of the ENR’s ideals and influences. This will be followed by an examination of the ENR’s metapolitical orientation and an appraisal of the ENR’s valorisation of the “right to difference.” I conclude the chapter with an examination of the type of world the ENR intellectuals fear and how these fears were reflected in the works of a number of diverse cultural critics in the past.
