By ALEXANDRE MARUCA*

Notes on the rise of the extreme right based on a reading of Anselm Jappe

1.

Since the first decade of the 2000s, it has been possible to identify the political strength of figures linked to the extreme right around the world. Victor Orban, Georgia Melloni, Jair Bolsonaro and now the return of Donald Trump in the United States. Several ultraconservative politicians have become popular in different countries and under the most varied conditions.

In Brazil, this phenomenon was most evident in the 2018 presidential election. From this election, through the significant vote for Jair Bolsonaro in 2022 to the Pablo Marçal phenomenon in São Paulo, many hypotheses have emerged, one of the most prevalent being a lack of credibility in politics and traditional politicians (Beraldo, 2018). This lack of credibility may be caused by national events such as Operation Lava Jato or the low correlation between campaign promises and achievements by politicians (Concli, 2017).

However, these assumptions do not account for all the causes when similar phenomena are observed occurring in several countries such as the USA (Donald Trump), France (Marie Le Pen), Great Britain (Brexit), Italy (Giorgia Meloni).

Explanations that take into account the rise of the far right in different countries also consider distrust in the traditional political environment (Martínez-Vargas, 2017), reflections of the 2008 economic crisis, which has not yet been fully resolved (Polo, 2023), the immigration issue present in Europe and the United States (León, 2024); excessive neoliberalism, which by making people increasingly “entrepreneurs of themselves” would result in a feeling of insecurity and a search for a strong and protective figure (Filho, 2020), among others.

It turns out that, even if these propositions are true, they do not necessarily explain the situations as a whole in countries like El Salvador, India and even Brazil.

And regarding the US economy in 2024, even though it is true that Americans' purchasing power may have been compromised in recent months due to inflation, this does not seem to explain Donald Trump's first election, when wages were rising under Obama, despite a certain increase in inflation (BBC, 2024). And yes, the type of employment matters. It is true that job insecurity is potentially a driver of feelings of insecurity and anger. But would this alone justify the size of Donald Trump's vote in 2024 among various economic segments of the American population?

Looking back at Brazil and economic issues, the catharsis of June 2013, which generated energy that was later channeled by the right in 2015 and 2016 (Alonso, 2023, p. 262), did not occur in a downgraded economic outlook. Macroeconomic indicators were very favorable, with very low unemployment rates and a Gross Domestic Product that was much more positive than that of the rest of the world (Lisbon, 2014) (Central Bank of Brazil, 2013).

2.

These often somewhat disjointed events demonstrate a dispersed dissatisfaction with no clear intentions.

Anselm Jappe's critique of the subject can serve as a theoretical basis to help understand the phenomenon. Anselm Jappe develops his work based on a critique of capitalism, which in its most advanced phase would result in the formation of a somewhat weakened subjectivity and a feeling of existential emptiness that can even have an air of revolt, considering the entire social environment in which the subject is involved (Jappe, 2021, p. 270).

There is a discontent that unifies the different places where the movement takes place. It does not seem to be a concrete discontent against someone, a class or a situation that has a date and time, but a generalized feeling of revolt against what is in place (Jappe, 2021, p. 259).

For this author, the condition for the formation of this subjectivity already existed potentially since the beginning of the development of capitalism and became more acute as the capital form developed.

For Jappe, capitalist society, based on the disproportionate movement of valorization of value, leads to a situation of fragile balance and self-destruction, the most current example of which is the environmental issue (Jappe, 2021, p. 15).

In parallel to the structural changes brought about by the various phases of capitalism, there is the development of a fragile subject whose perception of uselessness in the face of a world in which everything and everyone is interchangeable is increasingly common (Zacarias, 2018, p. 48).

The form given by abstract labor in which people are replaceable, in which only quantity is relevant (and not quality), prevails in developed capitalist society. And in this environment of increasing irrelevance, the individual nurtures a feeling of nullity that is compounded by the lack of perspective and uncertain future, provided by precarious employment and security conditions.

Abstract labor is the basis for the valorization of value, under which the particularities and concreteness of labor are reduced “to a simple expenditure of human energy” (Jappe, 2021, p. 160).

These conditions are inserted in a context of society of the spectacle, a concept developed by Guy Debord (Debord, 2013), in which the subject is also framed in a situation of passivity and impotence in the face of the movement of goods, or commodity fetishism, in Marxist terms (Debord, 2013, pp. 28, 139).

Guy Debord was influenced by Lukács' theory of reification, also linked to the passivity of the worker subjected to the rhythm of machines and the rationality of industry (Lukács, 1989).

It can be said that Jappe's critique of the subject of subjectivity was in a way enlightened by the theoretical apparatus developed by Guy Debord.

3.

Thirty years after the release of The Society of the Spectacle Anselm Jappe published his study on Guy Debord, focusing mainly on this work (Jappe, 1999). His subsequent works then cite, sometimes sparsely, his vision of the formation of the subject under the conditions of developed capitalist society.

Em the autophagic society (Jappe, 2021) Anselm Jappe outlines what he observes as transformations in subjectivity, rescuing ways of analyzing the world from Enlightenment thinkers to contemporary authors. In fact, the author points out ways of thinking and behaving that change over time as the social environment changes. This is in parallel with the development of a society that, in its excessive search for valorization of value, consumes itself, which the title of the book already reveals.

In this work, Anselm Jappe at a certain point refers to a limiting situation, which is the amok, to demonstrate how far the so-called crisis of the subject is capable of going.

“Amoque” can be described as the action of an individual who threatens the lives of others in schools, cinemas or public places in general and then kills himself (Jappe, 2021, p. 246). This death drive, according to the author, has multiplied since the 1990s, mainly in the United States (Jappe, 2021, p. 240).

This hatred without a clear destination would be caused by the perception of the individual's insignificance in the world: “What permeates this form of hatred is the certainty that the contemporary subject has of his own nullity and superficiality. It is the opposite of the situation of the exploited, who knew that the exploiter needed him and was, therefore, obliged to “recognize” him. This results in a feeling characteristic of our time, which is found in all individuals prone to madness: the impression of “not existing in the world”. This impression is in no way due to an individual failure or to a culpable “inability of the person to adapt to a changing society” (Jappe, 2021, p. 270).

When citing Götz Eisenberg and Alice Miller, Jappe recalls that berserker behavior occurs as an extreme form resulting from a cold society that subjects children to economic rationalities at a very early age. Children marked by indifference and who discover early on that “work, consumer goods and, especially, electronic “communication” devices are more important to their parents than they are” (Jappe, 2021, p. 256).]

The sense of revolt that causes the riot is borderline and does not spread throughout the social environment. However, it illustrates the formation of the subject in a society in which individuals find themselves increasingly left to their own devices, where relationships are atomized and the collective sense is greatly compromised.

Em In the mirror of terror Gabriel Zacarias – whose analysis has many points in common with that of Anselm Jappe – when dealing with the berserker, speaks of the intertwining between the society of the spectacle and narcissism (Zacarias, 2018, p. 51). The perception of omnipotence, characteristic of narcissism, is given by the relationship between the subject and the market when, potentially, everything can be achieved “within the reach of a click”. And in the case of the berserker, the “terrorist merely exchanges the click of the mouse for the click of the trigger and opts for an illusory restitution of power that no longer occurs through consumption, but through destruction” (Zacarias, 2018, p. 50).

The world offers itself to the subject (even if in a false form) who nurtures a feeling of omnipotence. Omnipotence that conflicts with real impotence, with the feeling of nullity provided by developed capitalist society.

It is important to remember that this “existential void” that Anselm Jappe refers to is not a characteristic linked only to neoliberalism. It is a potential characteristic of capitalism and the abstract form that is imposed with the development of the system through, mainly, money and abstract labor (Jappe, 2021, pp. 55,56, 160 and XNUMX).

For Jappe, the narcissistic subject “is prone to objectless hatred”. He finds himself devoured by the fear that his psychic structure may dissolve entirely, and aggression serves as a mechanism to preserve the ego” (Jappe, 2021, p. 259).

In the same vein of feeling of nullity in the face of reality, in Capitalist realism, released in 2009, Mark Fisher, when talking about British students, observes that they are not very engaged because, despite knowing that things are going badly, “they know they can't do anything about it” (Fisher, 2020, p. 43)

It is clear from the previous approaches that the perception of insignificance in the face of a world in which people are replaceable and of little relevance, whether in relation to society in general or in relation to the family nucleus, is present in several theorists. In certain cases this feeling can lead to extreme action such as an attack, but in most cases it does not. What is perceived is the spread of nihilism in the social environment, which can result in a revolt against the established order.

4.

It is quite common to find qualitative research in which there are indications of anti-system sentiments and disbelief in the political environment in general (Camila Rocha, 2024) (Borges, 2024) (Gallego, 2021) (Gallego, 2018). I believe it is possible to reflect on whether there is not something deeper, which flows into politics, but which goes beyond its borders. A feeling linked to the capitalist order, to the disposability of the subject. This, added to a number of other conditions, can help to understand the phenomenon. The sense of revolt based on Anselm Jappe's criticism may not even be the preponderant one, but permeates the entire social environment. A sense of revolt that is currently linked to the extreme right and its anti-system discourses.

*Alexander Maruca He holds a degree in social sciences from the University of São Paulo (USP).

References

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Beraldo, P. (June 23, 2018). Discredit in political parties affects 8 in 10 Brazilians. The state of Sao Paulo.

Borges, A. (March 14, 2024). Scielo. Source: Scielo: https://www.scielo.br/j/op/a/wTHTff4Y73WvPLPPBBvBSYn/?format=pdf&lang=pt

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