Political Voices and Everyday Choices: Aesthetic Modes of Political Engagement in Right-Wing Extremism

Abstract

This article explores what it means, from the individual’s point of view, to engage in right-wing extremism. Recent literature on political engagement showed that many individuals today feel excluded from formal democratic institutions, and thus turn to modes of political engagement centred on small-scale, often individual, actions that remain submerged in everyday life. Analysing the stories of two right-wing extremists, this article argues that this “aesthetic” mode of political engagement is essentially about (re)gaining a sense of control over their own lives in a world that seems to elude and ignore them. While these conclusions are based on observations of extreme right activists, this article argues that they can be extended to other contemporary social movements (anarchists, Islamists, environmentalists, feminists, etc.), revealing a paradigmatic shift from a “modern” conception of politics – based on rational debate, public space, search for consensus, liberal democracy, etc. – to an “aesthetic” conception of politics, which revolves more around affects and emotions, and is inscribed in the private sphere of actors’ daily experience. This forces us to rethink our conception of what is “political” and, as social scientists, to look for politics in somewhat unusual places.