The Myth of National Rebirth

Griffin's concept of palingenesis, a myth of national regeneration from decadence, is the emotional and ideological engine of fascism. The nation is portrayed as having been great, having been humiliated and corrupted, and now being on the brink of glorious restoration.

This is the logic behind "Make America Great Again," behind the Italian fascist myth of a new Roman Empire, behind the Nazi myth of Aryan racial purity. Griffin argues that without this mythic dimension, this eschatological promise of rebirth, fascism cannot mobilize a mass movement.

“Fascism is a genuinely revolutionary, trans-class form of anti-liberal, and in the last analysis, anti-conservative nationalism built on a complex myth of national rebirth.”Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (1991)

Digital platforms amplify the myth of decline and rebirth through nostalgia economies. YouTube's recommendation system is documented to lead users down "radicalization pipelines" from mainstream conservative commentary to increasingly extreme nationalist content, with the myth of Western cultural decline serving as the affective throughline.

The aesthetic of "traditionalism" and "sovereigntism" that circulates in far-right digital communities, NRx (neoreaction), the Dissident Right, European identitarianism, is explicitly palingenetic: modernity is degradation; the premodern nation-state or ethnic community is the site of authentic human flourishing; digital organizing is the path to restoration. Griffin's analytical category maps precisely onto contemporary digital far-right movements.