15 Minute Coffee
Fifteen minutes conversations designed to explore the complexities of the human experience with curiosity and empathy.
15 Minute Coffee
#42 - Dr. Vittorio Bufacchi - Part 1
Dr. Vittorio Bufacchi is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at UCC and a former Irish Research Council awardee. In this first part of a two-part conversation, we delve into the rise of the far-right and its implications for liberal democracy.
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Website: https://vittoriobufacchi.com/
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As a political philosophy, the far right as a problem with liberal democracy, because liberal democracy assumes fundamental equality. Human rights are based on fundamental equalities. And I think the far right has a problem with that equality.
Hello and welcome. Welcome to 15 Minute Coffee. My name is Alan O'Donovan and I'm your host.
So today we're joined with Dr. Vittorio Guacci, who is a senior lecturer in philosophy and he's also a leading thinker on political philosophy in Ireland and around the world. Vittorio, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you, Alan, thank you for the invitation. No problem. Delighted to have you on.
I suppose I want to start with an open sort of question on philosophy. And I know philosophy wants held a sort of central role in politics, culture and the world, but today it doesn't seem to get as much of a. It doesn't seem to have as much of an influence on the world.
So when do you think that is and what led you personally to pursue philosophy? That's a good question. I do still think that philosophy is central to everything and especially to politics, but not many people perceive that. So why is that? I think to some extent the discipline of philosophy and philosophers are to blame.
I think we've made discipline so technical that people feel excluded from it and we don't make enough effort to translate what we do in philosophy in a language that everyone can understand. Now, I've always been aware of that and a lot of the work that I do tries to bridge that gap. Hence the reason why I publish fairly regularly in newspapers and I often just write about philosophy, but without the jargon and the technical language.
At the same time, I think there is a wave of anti intellectualism in politics in general, and philosophers obviously are punished by that. You know, we're seen as being irrelevant. We're seen as being part of an elite that is out of touch with the people and the masses.
I don't think that's true. I actually think that everyone has strong principles and values and that's what philosophy actually tries to make sense of. So I think there is room with this work to be done to make philosophy more relevant and I think everyone would benefit from it.
I know you mentioned there you've wrote about societal issues in newspapers and in the media. So how I came across you was a piece you wrote about the rise of the far right, which I know is a topic you've sort of spoken on in the past. How do you think philosophy helps us understand the rise of that sort of far right faction in Ireland and also around the world.
Yeah, there's a lot of talk of the far right. The one thing that philosophy does, if it does it well, is to bring clarity to the concepts that we use. And so when we come to understand politics, issues like democracy, issues like liberalism, even the left, the right, the far right, the far left, and these are constant, need to be clearly defined.
And I think that the philosophy, the way I understand philosophy, is that if we do anything, we try to bring some linguistic clarity to the concept that we use. So I wrote two articles in the Irish examiner on the far right, and my goal was merely to say, okay, exactly what do we mean by those words? And I think it is important to understand exactly what they are. So in terms of the far right, we need to understand what it means before we look at specific context, like Ireland or the United States.
One can understand the far right in terms of a political philosophy or an ideology. And if you approach it as an ideology, then you're trying to work out what are the key principles that distinguish it from other political philosophies or ideologies. And I think in terms of the far right, it comes down to a rejection and a critique of liberal democracy and also putting a lot of emphasis not only on nationalism, but on ethno nationalism.
So this is the idea that you define nationalism in ethnic current. And I think that's important because once you go down to the root of ethnicity, then that explains why the far riot is associated with white supremacy and also Christian values. But there's, I think, another way to understand the far right, which is far right is a mentality, not just an ideology.
And as a mentality, the far right is giving us a vision of the social order, and it's a way of thinking. And what distinguishes the far right and far right right mentality, as far as I'm concerned, is that it starts from a position of inequality. The far right believes in natural and social hierarchies.
And these can be defined both in gender terms and in racial terms. And this is why, as a political philosophy, if I write as a problem with liberal democracy, because liberal democracy assumes fundamental equality. Human rights are based on fundamental equalities.
And I think the far right has a problem with that equality. They believe that there are hierarchies that, for natural grounds, suggest that some people are better superior to others. And the other.
The other thing that I think defines the mentality is a certain attitude towards violence. And I think the far right is different from other political movements to the extent that violence is seen as legitimate or necessary. So the masculinity that goes with the far right, the virility, these are attached to violence.
So now the question is, if that's what the far right is, a mentality and an ideology, how, you know, why and how does it come out in politics today? Well, if you look at the United States, those issues of natural hierarchies, of natural inequalities and violence, well, American history is full of that. You know, we tend to forget that the civil rights movement was still fighting for issues for African Americans up to the 1960s. The 1960s is yesterday.
And so, and there's a whole history of obviously slavery in America. It's not a coincidence that the far right has more. Is more attractive in the states, in the south, because those are the state that had that history of slavery.
And of course, violence. I mean, as people say, violence is as American as apple pie. And what about Ireland? Why do we now talk about the far right in Ireland? And people seem surprised that there is this resurgence of the far right in Ireland.
Well, I'm not surprised in the sense that the far right has always been around in politics. The far right, as I define it, is as old as the critique of the Roman republic going back in history. I think there are two issues here.
One is that, and this may sound as a big claim, but I would argue that some of the major trades of the far right were incorporated by the politics of the two major parties in Ireland after the war. And so there was a need for a far right. And what I'm, I'm talking about the way that the Irish state treated minorities and women.
So the whole scandal of child abuses in schools, scandals of the way women were treated in Maclin laundries, and also very strong Catholic values. Now, for many years after the war, Ireland was a form of theocracy. So who's the need for a far right? Things have changed, of course.
Absolutely changed. Hence there is the need for the far right to actually establish itself, I suppose, just starting with photography. But one thing I always found about Ireland is how quickly we move from that theology sort of into a very.
Like, you look at the abortion referendum, you look at the, the marriage rights are from like, it seemed to be a very quick sort of shift to the other other, not extreme. But, you know, then the spectrum. And I wonder, is that an element too, where, you know, there's a lot of people who maybe are still thinking, you know, Ireland.
They're thinking of Ireland in the 80s and they're not. They don't recognize the island that exists now. I think, you're absolutely right.
So those two issues that you raised about abortion and acceptance of the LGBTQ community in Ireland, I mean, that, in a sense, you could argue that came overnight with a referendum. But, of course, things took a long time to happen. But there are people who still find that shift a bit too quick, and they're holding back to a different vision of Ireland.
So the far right is reactionary by definition. And so being reactionary, it's reacting against those changes. And.
And so, yes, I think that all contributes to the reason why the far right now is coming out and saying, okay, the old politic is not working anymore because they are permitting changes that we don't like, and now they're looking for someone else to. Who fly their flag. But, I mean, I've been in Ireland 25 years.
I mean, the country has changed so much, and as far as I'm concerned, has changed for the better. 25 years ago, this was a very different country, which I found quite difficult in many ways. My friends in the LGBTQ community telling me that they were afraid of losing their jobs in schools if their identity came out, and women and abortion, having to travel to the uk, you know, that's gone.
And. Yes, but that's. That it is opening up the possibility of this reactionary attitude.
And of course, and then we go back to the ethno nationalism, because Ireland is not a poor country. It's a rich country, and rich countries will attract foreigners. But people have moved around the world since the beginning of time, and when Ireland was a poor country, the Irish moved all over the world.
And in doing so, they have contributed to the culture and economy of many places around the world. And now people are coming into Ireland, not all of them are white. And then that ethnationalism comes out, and it's nasty.
And it's nasty because it is as fundamentally questioning assumptions of liberal democracy. Are we all equal as human beings? Do we have equal rights? Do we have equal human rights? What I find threatening about the far right is that they're questioning that fundamental politic, which, as a philosopher, as a political philosopher, it's something that I've always defended.
