Acid Fascism
Nostalgia, Psychedelia, and Radical Right Masculinity
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Abstract
What comes after the New Man? An urgent dilemma for twenty-first-century anti-fascism is the global resurgence of a radical right masculinist consciousness that is at once nostalgic for strictly codified and hierarchical symbols of manhood while culturally immersed in accelerative, amorphous, and acentric digital networks. I trace this precarious and unsettled ultra-masculinity back to the material context of fascist psychedelic experimentation with consciousness in the sixties counterculture, through the example of the Lyman Family, to contend that Acid Fascism provides a new and important way to think about an emerging desire for an experimental—rather than utopian—reactionary manhood. Alt-right subjectivity requires a theoretical approach toward technological acceleration that is at ease with morphing affective complexions of nostalgic and paranoid masculine sensibility.
Contributor Notes
Jac Lewis is in his final year of his studies for a Doctor of Philosophy (Languages and Translation Studies) with Cardiff University researching the historical and philosophical relationship between ideology critique and medical nostalgia. The title of the project is A Bruising Ideology: Posthumanity and the Nostalgic Drive. His work has focused on integrating the fields of posthumanist philosophy, nostalgia and fascism studies. He has published and presented papers on nostalgic and paranoid masculinities with Exeter University and Wales Arts Review. Email: jacsalewis@gmail.com; ORCID: