What comes before action: The Legitimization of Violence in the Revolutionary Right

Abstract

Throughout the 20th century, the Revolutionary Right – in its highest representatives, Fascism and Nazism – felt more modern than its antagonists because it was starting from the latest discoveries in science in order to build a new political proposal, finally adapted to the transformations of contemporary society. Only by understanding this passage, is it possible to understand the fascination that fascism and other Right-wing totalitarian movements or regimes managed to exert over their era. But the relationship they entertained with scientific logic was paradoxical and selective: on the one hand, they used it to arrive at unquestionable certainties, so as to define real political dogmas to be imposed on society as a whole; on the other hand, they rejected its primary raison d’être, namely, the effort to constantly question the results achieved in a continuous revision of their own certainties.