Are you right about the ALT-RIGHT?
When the alt-right is mentioned in mainstream media, most of you link the word with white supremacy, Nazism, anti-Semitism and other deplorable groups. You are not right, but you are not wrong either. The alt-right is a group of deplorables, but traditional extreme right-wing groups hate them just as much as you do.
There are extremist members in every political organization; this article won't deny the fact that some alt right members have opinions that fit into the description of extreme right-wing tendencies, but that is not the norm or standard. Some of the political commentators that news organizations label as alt right, like Sargon of Akkad or Milo Yiannopoulos, have more in common with the fathers of the classical liberal ideology than members of BLM and most of the Western left. The core of the alt-right is neither a political ideology nor political party; it is a digital tribe, a counterculture born as the nemesis of the progressive consensus of the postmodern society.
The current Western political culture is defined by the social democratic consensus, based upon the cultural revolution of the 1960´s and the New Left pushed by the baby boom generation. They were born in a world dominated by the Cold War rhetoric, decolonization, economic growth, technological progress and rising living standards. They rebelled against their parents’ society, basing themselves in neo-Marxists intellectuals like Marcuse and Foucault, who pushed for a liberation from tradition, authority and the conservative capitalist culture. It was the seed that would bring up pacifism, anti-colonialism, drug abuse, third wave feminism, the end of moral authority of the church, political correctness and sexual liberation. Through the rest of the century, these ideologies would slowly become mainstream.
The coming of the XXI century meant the beginning of the end of the political influence of the baby boom generation. After 50 years of baby boomers’ control, the Western world´s power is only a shadow of its former self. The Y generation, our generation, will be the first one to enjoy worse living standards than those of their parents for the first time since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Western economic power is in decline, purchasing power of the middle-class consumer is stagnated and Islamic terrorist attacks have become part of our daily lives. This is the context of the foundation of the Alt-right.
Besides, the internet offered the Y generation a platform where information was transmitted freely, and the traditional media along with the political consensus could be criticized. Certain social media, like YouTube or 4chan, hosted political debates without the control of political correctness, and ideas previously forgotten experienced a resurgence. The same way urbanization brought the appearance of urban subcultures, digitalization caused the appearance of digital subcultures, among which stands the alt right.
It was the combination of these factors: the downfall of the West, the cultural monopoly of socially progressive thinking and the freedom of thought offered by the internet, which created the alt right. The baby boomer hippies had an enemy on tradition, an ideological reference on Neo-Marxist thinking and cultural expression through music in festivals. The Y generation´s Alt-right has an enemy on political correctness, an ideological reference in revolutionary conservatives like Schmidt, Spengler or Ebola and cultural expression through memes and social media. Thus, the alt right is neither a neo-Nazi group nor a white supremacist community, but the antithesis of the cultural revolution of the 60s; a deplorable youngster´s rebellion against progressive thinking and political correctness. They are the anti-hippies of 21st century.
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