Societal order through nature? Reflections on the domination of nature in right-wing ideologies

The starting point of the presentation is the recognition that right-wing ideologies are focused on images of nature, which naturalize apparent differences between gender, race and nations in such a way that they appear immutable (Stögner 2017: 139). Patriarchal gender relations, racism and eugenic views of the different 'value' of human life arise from this idea of the 'natural' inequality of people (Salzborn 2020: 24-25). In right-wing extremism, nature therefore serves to divide and rule. While right-wing ideologies in german-speaking countries structure people and societies essentialistically based on 'nature' and an imagined 'natural order', the effects of the man-made climate crisis are increasingly transforming 'nature'. The climate crisis shows the interdependence of all people on one another as well as on 'natural' resources and highlights their vulnerability (Görg 2010: 348). One consequence of the climate crisis is a sense of urgency and an end-time attitude (Speit 2021: 14). The domination of nature, which for a long time provided stability within societies, becomes unstable due to the climate crisis (Hogh 2021: 1023). These developments lead to a feeling of insecurity and instability. From the perspective of theories of societal nature relations, I argue in the lecture that right-wing extremism seeks to create an alternative stability through the domination of nature: 'nature' is used therein to distinguish between white men, who seem to dominate 'nature' and thus derive a claim to societal domination over women and racialized persons, who are imagined as mere 'nature' and thus as objects of domination that 'may' be commanded. They are categorized at the bottom of the 'natural order' – which in turn is headed by white men. For the male subject, the subjugation of nature under the self is constitutive (Horkheimer/Adorno 2020: 55). As the male subject loses dominance over external nature in the climate crisis, it shifts this towards a stronger domination of people as 'nature', which is expressed in right-wing ideologies. In turn, white men can use the 'domination of nature' in right-wing ideologies to create the social stability that they are losing as a consequence of the climate crisis.