Jean Du Toit

The contemporary technosphere, and particularly digital technology, continues to challenge traditional forms of sociality. Erich Fromm, with his related concepts of biophilia and necrophilia, provides a springboard for the critical consideration of the relationship between the individual and their society under the conditions of advanced capitalism and technological totalization. The necrophilous character, beyond merely being an instantiation of an obsession with all that is dead and destructive, is closely intertwined with modern technological development that foregrounds progress without consideration of human needs and values. It entails a withered interpersonal relationship structure; one based in commodification, bureaucracy, and alienation. This affects not just the individual themselves, instantiating automaton conformity, but also how they view others and the world. The biophilic, in contrast, centres creative and productive character traits. In this chapter, the traits predominant in online communities of necrophilia (most pronounced in certain forms of contemporary politics online) are contrasted with those striven for in online communities of biophilia. The Bear community, a form of critical communitarianism, is identified as exemplar of such a biophilic community. This LGBTQ subgroup will be investigated to intuit liberatory praxis that is of importance for the broader social context, and which is in line with the biophilic ideal that Fromm proposes.

This article deploys an existential phenomenological perspective to examine the crucial contribution that philosophy can make for thinking through the contemporary environmental crisis. We argue for a generative and affirmative (re-)appreciation of the multifaceted connection between happiness, circumstance, and the natural. First, a relation is drawn between environmental destruction and contemporary consumer culture’s emphasis on happiness. The happiness sciences understand happiness in a limited anthropocentric way – it excludes unhappiness, and by implication thinking about nature’s destruction. There is a need to move beyond narrow and limiting psychological, spiritual, religious and even certain philosophical understandings of happiness and humanity that restrict “nature” to what is palatable for the happiness industry. A broader conceptualisation of happiness entails an increased awareness of the contextual to more constructively relate to the environment. This awareness, of always being rooted in the natural environment, is developed by Ortega y Gasset’s notion that “I am me plus my circumstances” to emphasize our continued interdependence with and reliance upon nature. We are irrevocably, primarily engaged with nature – an understanding that contrasts with a capitalist enframing of nature as a space to be held at a distance, and which can be endlessly monetised and extracted from for human happiness. Fundamentally the “nature” of the happiness industry, and the “nature” of capitalist enframing more broadly, cannot incorporate the reality of catastrophic climate change. However, through contextualised philosophical thinking in times of environmental crisis, we may embrace nature in all its complexity through awareness of existential circumstances to fully engage with nature not merely as tourists, conservationists, activists, lawyers, politicians, or consumers.

Digital networking technologies facilitated connection between lecturers and students during the physical isolation (global lockdowns) of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2023). However, we argue that the sudden pivot to online modes of education brought significant questions regarding online intersubjectivity and resultant alienation to the forefront. This form of intersubjectivity involves the virtual as an integral feature. We argue that Merleau-Ponty’s account of intersubjectivity (as a founding corporeity) and its related concept of ‘the flesh’ provides an essential theoretical framework for the conceptual analysis of these issues since the body-subject and digital technology artefact are co-implicit in the generation of the virtual. Furthermore, the tendency to treat the virtual as concrete from the basis of our embodiment results in virtual reification, and this in turn results in an alienated form of networked subjectivity. The current chapter investigates how reification constitutes the virtual, pointing us back to the nature of alienation (which, following Marx, we view as an intersubjective social relation). The virtual on this account involves not isolation and individual atomization, but rather a deficient mode of intersubjectivity in which the individual functions in a deficient and distorted intersubjective network (particularly in terms of teaching and learning).

Recent years have seen the global emergence of populist political formations, leading certain scholars to term our present age the “age of populism” and some politicians, such as Hungary’s current prime minister Viktor Orbán, to proclaim that “the era of liberal democracy is over”. Contemporary forms of populism are characterized by ‘us’ (often ‘the people’ in an ethnic or communal sense) versus ‘them’ (usually liberal elites, the establishment, minorities, or immigrants) forms of binary thinking. For some, the rise of contemporary populism inherently represents the resurgence of forms of reactionary populist nationalism, ranging from the ‘radical’ to the ‘extreme’ right, and the revitalization of forms of ideology that may be termed ‘neo-fascist’. The great challenge for contemporary democracies is that, in contrast to dictators who seize power via coups, the aforementioned political movements come to power via the ballot box. In light of the revitalization of such political formations, the current special issue serves to critically investigate contemporary forms of far-right populism and fascism in the Global South. Many contributors cast a critical perspective upon the political dimensions of the current proliferation of extreme forms of reactionary politics and the social conditions that gave rise, and are in the process of giving rise, to such movements. Other contributors explore the historical and theoretical roots of current forms of far-right populism and fascism (FRP/F), critical engagement with present-day problems that are resultant of their preponderance, as well as analyses of the cultural forces and tendencies that have led to, and are leading to, their contemporary ascendance. Some contributors also consider the question of whether it is possible to develop a general theory of FRP/F in contemporary society, present inquiries into the future development of FRP/F, or investigate opportunities for opposition to FRP/F in the present context.

This paper explores the existential motivation for the formation of extremist echo chambers through a phenomenological analysis. We advance two claims. Firstly, following Ortega y Gasset, that virtuality is a constant framework for experience. And secondly, following Merleau-Ponty, that there is persistent embodiment in online spaces. On this account virtuality is a permanent feature of embodiment, existing prior to technological intervention while at the same time being modifiable by technological artefacts. Understanding virtuality in this way allows us to analyse the existential phenomenological characteristics of extremist echo chambers online. We argue that due to the persistence of embodiment throughout, and the restructuring of the virtual axes of experience, such online spaces can and do influence political praxis in offline spaces.