The Three Ages of the Flame by Marco Tarchi for Solferino

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The Three Ages of the Flame by Marco Tarchi for Solferino

One of the figures of right-wing culture has always been the fight against the system (at least in words)   and the rejection of the founding categories of modernity, on the other. Is it – still – like this?

“Even in this case, the expression shows its limits. The fight against the system (which one? Democracy or something else?) has certainly not been the trademark of the liberal and conservative right and, in the first of the two cases, there are no traces of the rejection of modernity either. If we speak of a fascist or traditionalist culture – and they are not the same thing –, or that in any case has its ancestry in one or the other strand, the discussion may change, but in that case the answer is simple: in the third age of the Flame, only traces or waste remain”.

With respect to the cultural hegemony of the 'left', is it necessary to build a 'counter-hegemony' or operate in a broader and more metapolitical context?

“The objective could only be the latter, but it would be a question first of all of starting from a clear vision of the world and of society and of building a strategy aimed at making its presuppositions germinate in the collective mentality, in the spirit of the times, in the cultural atmosphere. Different images can be used, but the substance is the same. And the soil on which to sow would be pre-political, eminently cultural, in the anthropological sense”.

Is it still possible to form a 'cultural policy', that is, a non-Marxist version of the protection of Italian culture?

“'Non-Marxist' is a negative definition, insufficient to promote a coherent worldview. It would take us back to the 1970s, to the attempts to create a common front among those who were defined as 'independent intellectuals', to the promotion of magazines such as Intervento or La Destra . Which offered interesting but disconnected contributions and did not leave traces or activate synergies. What is needed is an organic project, clear in its premises and equipped with intellectual and material means that are up to the task”.

Is there room for 'nonconformist' intellectuals? Or do we automatically become conformists to the 'new' wind that blows?

“What were the objectives of the electoral 'turn to the right'? Security, defense of identity and traditional ways of life? Rejection of the progressive vision of 'ethical issues' and growing migratory flows? Peaceful living, reduction of tax burdens, bureaucracy, ecological constraints on industrial growth? Patriotic or Western pride? Alignment with Atlanticist geopolitical designs? In the vote of a little less than half of those who decided to cast a ballot, there was an inextricable tangle of different motivations. How could it translate into a room for maneuver for intellectuals determined to oppose the spirit of the times and not simply to maintain or improve the living conditions of those who have settled into it?”

Can we build a lasting (meta)political project, a spur and an incentive, that will trace the path?

"I don't put limits on the possibilities, but it seems like an unlikely scenario to me. Politics and ideas have long since divorced, and I don't see any recomposition on the horizon. The consensus that the so-called governing right is looking at today is firmly linked to the maintenance of the current system, and to the improvement of its economic performance, certainly not to its dismantling."

barbadillo.it/116605-ma…Ko-fi.com/thejournaloflingeringsanityMarco Tarchi: “L’anticonformismo si pratica anche con lo studio. E con l’interventismo extra moenia”