Crackpot History and the Politics of Cultural Despair

Lecture 1 in a series entitled “Reflections Beneath a Dark Sun: Myth, History, Politics and Paganism”.

This opening lecture introduces the theme of the series: the politics of fascism and where they may intersect with paganism, mysticism and occultism. Dr. Alexander looks at the philosophical questions in their peculiarly German cultural and historical context, arguing that many of the forces at work in late 19th and early 20th century Germany are also at work now, globally. He suggests that we must address the fact that new forms of racial and religious mania are being given fatal political expression.

Philosopher of the taboo Stephen Alexander does an annual lecture-seminar at Treadwell’s. This year’s series looks at the darkly romantic temptation to seek out ways to tear apart the material reality of modern life, to make manifest “unbound powers of being”. His aim is to identify the nihilism in us all: not to say things because we think them, but so that we will not have to think them anymore; to rid our speech and our acts, our hearts and pleasures, of fascism. Dr. Stephen Alexander did his Ph.D. at Warwick University on D.H. Lawrence and continental philosophy. His work focuses on transgression, shock and forbidden subjects.

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