[ExI] Neo-fascist transhumanists? WAS: Manifesto of Italian transhumanists

[estropico]

>  From: "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin at rawbw.com>
>
>  In the long URL below, Fabio  has evidently written
>  > The label "fascist" (or "neo-fascist") is generally rejected, but not by all [1].
>  but I cannot read the footnote.

Here's a better translation of the footnote than Google's (I hope!):

Adriano Scianca
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=adriano-scianca&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B3GGIC_enGB230GB230
is an AIT member and an outspoken overhumanist* that doesn't seem to
have a problem in publicly declaring that "being a fascist is more fun
than being a boring liberaldemocratic" and adds, in answer to the
question "Why are you a fascist?", that "in European fascism I find a
cultural exuberance, an enthusiasm for experimentation, a
philosophical vivacity, a debate on the really central themes of our
times that I cannot see in the opposite political side, where all I
see is the recycling of puerile phylosofies two thousand years old…"
http://www.mirorenzaglia.com/index.php?itemid=70

* I've settled on the neologism "overhumanism" to describe this
peculiar version of transhumanism. "Superhumanism" would be a more
correct translation, but it's too close to transhumanism (Wikipedia
redirects from one to the other) and I feel there's a need of
stressing the difference...

>  Are there really significant numbers
>  of people who call themselves either of these labels?  Are any of
>  them, calling themselves "fascist" or "neo-fascist" in the Italian
>  Transhumanist movement? (If there are, they should keep a low
>  profile about these names, since they certainly give a bad impression.
>  Or so I suppose.)

First of all, as clarified in the note above, "fascist" is a label
that is generally publically rejected (the example above being an
exception). In the article I also add that "...however tempting it is
to simply brand Vaj and the overhumanists as fascists or neofascists,
that is not the whole story, even if that is undoubtably their
cultural and political background. A more apt description would be
that of followers of the French "Nouvelle Droite"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nouvelle_Droite

That's the reason why I added a question mark to the title of this
thread, btw. To understand the narrative of this *offshoot* of
neofascism requires an understanding of what the French Nuovelle
Droite is (or was, given that it has sank back into obscurity after
some initial success in the late '70s/early '80s). I strongly
recommend the Wikipedia link and also a look at two texts I quote in
my article:

Richard Wolin, "The Seduction of Unreason: The Intellectual Romance
with Fascism from Nietzsche to Postmodernism"

Stanley G. Payne, "A History of Fascism 1914-1945"

Both are in English, obviously, and also available and searcheable on
Google Books (searchstring: "nouvelle droite").

According to Wolin: "Their agenda [the Nouvelle Droite's
intellectuals] has been relatively straightforward: in a postwar era
during which the extreme right had been delegitimated owning to the
misdeed of fascism and the taint of collaboration, they have sought to
bring right-wing ideas into the political mainstream once again.
While, qua intellectuals, many Nouvelle Droite leader have remained
politically marginal, in retrospect one would have to avow that they
largely succeeded in their primary aims: to reestablish a discourse of
xenophobia and racial hatred that has had a deleterious influence on
French political culture of the 1980s and 1990s."

Payne illustrates, without meaning to, how some Nouvelle Droite
sympatisers might be attracted to transhumanism: "the Nouvelle Droite
is "extremely elitist, hierarchical and antiegalitarian but rejects
the mysticism and idealism of an Evola, affirming the importance of
science in modern life and relying heavily on the new sociobiology.
Unlike the classic right, the new right maintains a religious position
that is exclusively pagan, opposing equally Marxism and
'Judaeo-Christianity'. It attempts to create a political and
philosophical program on the basis of a certain kind of human
anthropology, which give it an intellectuality and a rigor normally
lacking in vitalist neofascism."

Last but definitively not least, a quote, taken from my article, from
Giorgio Locchi, "source of inspiration for the overhumanists and
author of "Political Expression and Repression of the Overhumanist
Principle", in which he explains that "one cannot understand fascism
without realising, or refusing to admit, that the so-called 'fascist
phenomenon' is nothing but the first political manifestation of a
larger spiritual and cultural phenomenon, which we can call
'overhumanism'". Further on, we find that "the 'overhumanist
principle', in relation to the world surrounding it, becomes the
absolute rejection of an opposite 'egalitarian principle' which
conforms that world. If the fascist movements recognised the 'enemy',
spiritual even before than political, in the democratic ideologies –
liberalism, parlamentarianism, socialism, communism, anarcho-communism
– it is because within the historic prospective instituted by the
overhumanist principle those ideologies represent as many
manifestations […] of the opposite egalitarian principle, all aiming
toward the same goal, with different level of understanding, and all
causes of the spiritual and material decadence of Europe, of the
progressive weakening of European man, of the disintegration of
Western societies." The introduction to the text is by Stefano Vaj and
in it we find that Vaj is in agreement with Locchi on the relationship
between fascism and overhumanism.

And yes, there are at least two AIT members that belong to this
current, the one that's not ashamed of publicly describing himself as
a fascist, and Stefano Vaj (who's also the association's unelected
"national secretary"). There are also a few others whose membership
status I'm not sure about (out of a full membership of 15, myself -for
now- included). My main bone of contention with the Italian
Transhumanist Association (AIT) is that Campa (the association's
founder and president) has made Vaj national secretary (without an
election, as there are going to be no internal elections before 2012,
by statute). In my opinion this is a PR disaster waiting to happen and
risks creating confusion between transhumanism and "overhumanism",
both in Italy and internationally. And that's exactly why I am
desperately trying to distance my website (www.estropico.com) from the
overhumanists. It is difficult to do so without appearing to attack
AIT, and for that I'm sorry as we had constructively collaborated
until the overhumanists' arrival, but I do make a clear effort, here
and in my article, to explain what my target is.

A final comment: these "overhumanists" are no jackbooted thugs (which
is what most of us think when we hear the term "fascist"). We are
talking about prolific writers whose articles frequently appear on a
number of (in my opinion, unsavoury) websites and sometimes on
national newspapers (party organs, usually), and Vaj is a published
author and a fine intellectual. The problem I have is not with who
they are but with what they write...

BTW, I'm working on a proper (as opposed to Google's) English
translation of my article, which I hope will be ready at some point in
March.

Cheers,
Fabio