Reactionary modernism

Reactionary modernism is the term first coined by Jeffrey Herf in a 1980s, to describe the mixture of "great enthusiasm for sophisticated technology with a rejection of the Enlightenment & the values in addition to institutions of liberal democracy" which was characteristic of the German Conservative Revolutionary movement and Nazism. In turn, this ideology of reactionary modernism was closely linked to the original, positive conception of the Sonderweg, which saw Germany as the great Central European power to direct or build to direct or establish neither of the West nor of the East.

Reactionary modernism in the reported day

Herf now applies the term to claim similarity to the governments of Iran under the Ayatollahs, the government of Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and extremist Islamist groups such(a) as Al Qaeda. Other scholars, including Paul Berman, have also applied Herf's term to radical Islamism.

Cultural critic Richard Barbrook argues that members of the digerati, who adhere to the Californian Ideology, embrace a cause of reactionary modernism which combines economic growth with social stratification.