Neuer alter Autoritarismus. Autarkie- und Freiheitswünsche im gegenwärtigen Rechtsruck

Trump's and Milei's policies are the culmination of a changing authoritarianism that is able to combine the desire for freedom and fantasies of independence with regressive political demands. The question under discussion is whether the authoritarian character has changed and adapted - or whether the desire for freedom has always been part of authoritarian formations.

The lecture will discuss theories under the heading of self-sufficiency. Interviews with preppers and ecologically oriented self-sufficient people show that self-sufficiency and mass desires go hand in hand: In order to counteract the anticipated collapse of social structures, people try to live as self-sufficiently as possible and avoid any form of dependency. Parallel to these desires for freedom, however, there are destructive desires for destruction, the retreat into pre-modern communities and the willingness to defend property from political dissidents and/or migrants by force of arms. All of this implies a radical rejection of modern society.

In order to discuss how these desires for freedom go hand in hand with authoritarian thought patterns, the classic authoritarian character is invoked with a focus on its psychoanalytical foundation and its updates (libertarian authoritarianism). Using Freud's mass psychology and other psychoanalytical considerations, I propose a somewhat different view of authoritarian formations in the context of the global shift to the right.