Archaism and the Contemporary Right-Wing Populism in Europe

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the correlation of archaism and contemporary right-wing populism in Europe. The authors argue that Europe's right-wing populist movements use a variety of archaic practices in their political struggle. The intellectual history of the concept of "archaism" is analyzed. The authors focus their attention on two different interpretations of the archaism - metaphysical and communicative. The first is built around the concept of "arche" and its interpretation in political philosophy, the second is concentrated within the communicative theory of Habermas. The emphasis is placed on the fact that the archaism has a much broader interpretation than accepted in the academic community. The authors propose to comprehend the primordiality of the archaism in terms of its opposition to modernity. They believe that replacing the instrumental rationality with communicative one allows to derive a modern type of archaism, which manifests itself in the practices of contemporary right-wing populism. The authors come to the conclusion that archaism and right-wing populism in Europe are inextricably intertwined with the post-truth politics and its accompanying elements.