Aurel Kolnai’s The War against the West remains one of the most insightful analyses of Nazi thought ever written. First published in 1938 it was a revelation for many readers. Quite different in tone and approach from most other analyses of Nazism available in English, it was remarkable for the thoroughness with which it discussed the writings of Nazi thinkers and for the seriousness with which it took their views. In this edited collection published eighty years after the original book, a team of distinguished scholars reassess this classic text and also consider its continued relevance to contemporary politics. They address issues such as the comparison of Nazism and communism, anti-Semitism, British and American perceptions of the Reich before the war and the Nazi legal theory of Carl Schmitt. This book is a vital source for historians of Nazism and Fascism.
Author(s): Wolfgang Bialas
Series: Routledge Studies in Fascism and the Far Right
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2019
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of
Abbreviations
Chapter 1:
Introduction
Kolnai’s The War Against the West: an attempt at contextualisation
Disconcerting and perplexing remarks made by Kolnai
Contemporary reviews of the book
Overview
References
Part I: Topics addressed in Kolnai’s The War Against the West
Chapter 2: Aurel Kolnai’s comparison of National Socialism and communism in the context of contemporary comparisons of dictatorships
Introduction
The War Against the West
Between anti-Bolshevism and philo-Bolshevism
Reasons for the higher esteem in which Bolshevism is held in The War Against the West
Notes
References
Chapter 3: Nazism, Christianity and the development of political religion theory in Kolnai’s The War Against the West
Nazism as political religion
Nazism as religious politics
Conclusion
Notes
References
Chapter 4: Aurel Kolnai’s reflections on anti-Semitismin contemporary context
Preliminary remarks
Kolnai’s The War Against the West
Dialectic of Enlightenment
The War Against the West or Dialectic of Enlightenment?
Notes
References
Part II: Comparing Kolnai with contemporary attempts of coming to terms with Nazism
Chapter 5: Aurel Kolnai’s The War Against the West and British attempts to understand Nazism before the war
The War Against the West in Britain
British approaches
Kolnai’s contribution
Notes
References
Chapter 6: Aurel Kolnai’s The War Against the West and the American debate on Nazism
The moral philosopher as political propagandist
Relevance and resonance in the United States
The American debate on Nazism up to 1938
The American reception of The War Against the West: Kolnai as Vansittartist
Kolnai prefiguring United States wartime strategies and rhetoric
Factors leading to the ‘false lullaby of appeasement’
Conclusion
Notes
References
Chapter 7: Aurel Kolnai and Franz Neumann: Normative criticism and structural analysis of National Socialism
Note
References
Part III: Kolnai’s work and the reception of The War Against the West
Chapter 8: Aurel Kolnai’s The War Against the West contextualised
In defence of Christian Europe
Concrete conservatism
Notes
References
Chapter 9: Aurel Kolnai’s The War Against the West: Contours of a contemporary analysis and critique of National Socialism
National Socialism as a threat of annihilation against the West
Analysis and criticism of National Socialist ideology
National Socialism and race
Kolnai’s analysis of National Socialism and the National Socialism of Germany: capitalism or socialism?
National Socialism and war
References
Chapter 10: Nazi sexual politics: Aurel Kolnai on the threat of re-primitivism
Background
The core problem: vitalism
Nazi sexual politics
Re-primitivism
Concluding remarks and contemporary significance
Notes
References
Part IV: Kolnai’s political and moral philosophy
Chapter 11: Aurel Kolnai’s War against Carl Schmitt’s War: The war of wars
Schmitt in The War Against the West
The concept of practice
Practice and wars
The dilemma
A purely moral justification of war
Morality as a two-edged weapon
Resisting tyranny as the political justification for war
Notes
References
Chapter 12: The viability of Kolnai’s moral phenomenology:
Moral awareness and anti-Utopianism
Recovering the ‘human world’
The utopian mentality
Kolnai’s ethical phenomenology
Nazi ideology and moral nihilism
Moral awareness
Meta-ethics
Moral conflicts
Conclusion
Notes
References
Chapter 13: The War Against the West and Kolnai’s post-war moral and political philosophy
Introduction
The moral theory of The War Against the West
The rejection of universality
The amoralism of despair
The heresy of moralism and the primacy of race
The vitality and impatience of a youthful philosophy
Conclusion: life gone mad
Themes of Kolnai’s later moral and political works
Introduction: commonalities and continuities
The asymmetry of morality
Life is not ‘made of morality’
The Aristotelian equivocation
Right and Left: the utopias of ‘is’ and ‘ought’
Common men and plain men
Abhorrence of personality in utopianism
Interestingness as a mode of value experience
Motion and straying
Kolnai’s thought in the context of twentieth-century conservatism
Introduction
Sir Karl Popper
Michael Oakeshott
Conclusion
Notes
References
Index
