On Late Fascism: Derrida, Toscano and the Return of Absolute Hostility
Ross Abbinnett
What the paper says
The article examines the question of the return of fascism to the political mainstream in European liberal democracies. This is done through a reading of Alberto Toscano’s work on late fascism, and his contention that to understand the popularity of the contemporary ultra right we have to give up the idea of a direct analogy with the classical fascist period. The article develops the argument that although Toscano presents a powerful account of the aesthetic simulacra through which ultra-right parties have re-packaged fascist ideology, they retain the absolute racial hostility that is essential to the mass appeal of all fascist movements. This argument is developed through a rereading of Derrida’s late writings on the nature of political inheritance, which maintains that there is a quasi-messianic significance to the return of fascism that opens the possibility both of ultra-reactionary and ethico-political responses to the developing global crisis.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.