New right

Ideological and political current that emerged in the developed countries in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Initially it included groups of leftist intellectuals disillusioned and disoriented by the collapse of the myth of the supposedly imminent worldwide triumph of Communism. These intellectuals underwent a transformation from Communism to traditionalism because, though these currents may seem incompatible, certain conventions of behavior, aesthetic tastes and the culture of violence in both currents are in fact quite closely related. Subsequently, a number of Philo-fascist ideologues joined this movement, hoping in this way to legitimize before public opinion their neo-pagan concepts and thus win recruits among the young. The n.r. condemns the hypocrisy and other vices of contemporary civilization, criticizes its “mass culture” and its “de-nationalization”. The n.r. appeals to so-called “race values” and to the more primitive and zoological instincts; it glorifies ethnocentrism and racism; and it cultivates hatred, xenophobia and violence. The social base of this movement is made up of certain groups of intellectuals and students, especially in the technical and teaching professions, the middle strata who are reeling from industrial and technical restructuring, and professional soldiers alarmed at the prospect of disarmament and the reductions in armed forces following the end of the Cold War. N.H. struggles against the fundamentalist, chauvinist and racist conceptions of the n.r., that today represent the principal danger in the ideological and political sphere, as the fomenter of ethnogeny-religious conflicts and local wars, and as the abettor of the professional assassins who protagonist of such wars.