Going Dark
The Secret Social Lives of Extremists Julia Ebner
Bloomsbury 2021 Pb, 348pp, £10.99, ISBN 9781526616791
This is an odd book: part decent academic primer for extremist taxonomy, part a peculiar attempt at gonzo journalism. It starts, as much observation of far-right groups does, from the assumption that the far right presents a threat to democracy, and that the threat is growing. This is a valid position politically, but perhaps prone to bias. The threat of destabilisation is always prospective; it’s good to be wary, of course, but it can lead to an artificially enlarged feeling of fear.
The gonzo stuff is weak and at times, I think, counter-productive. In some of the exchanges Ebner has to plead a kind of naïve ignorance that makes a reasonably informed reader raise an eyebrow. She baulks at saying or doing what her interlocutors say and do. This feels like the liberal infiltrator’s dilemma: wanting to get among the target group but being reluctant to say anything illiberal in doing so.
The perceived growth of the far right in Europe and the US can at times appear like the “ticking time bomb” motif of teleological fear in the media; but Ebner’s evidence appears to show that the right is not growing alarmingly so much as restructuring (which might explain why so many of the recruits have already been part of other far-right groups) in the face of an increasingly progressive mainstream culture; think how Christian groups are active marketers – largely among other Christians – in an increasingly secular world.
There is also a hidden sub-plot to Going Dark: the actions (and their ramifications) of the tech giants, now they hold themselves out as arbiters of the Overton Window – what is politically acceptable. Her question: “Have we perhaps reached peak Silicon Valley?” is in this respect incisive. Much of the activity she charts is a response to big tech censorship, which paradoxically means that big tech is in part driving the creation of online platforms where alt-right, or terrorist groups (or extreme faith groups, or conspiracy theorists, or pæedophiles; the list is practically endless) can prosper and attract followers.
The larger paradox in the book is infinitely more tragic. While the right forms and reforms, brands and rebrands, collectively, the perpetrators of actual extreme violence are almost exclusively loners: Anders Brevik, Patrick Crusius, Brenton Tarrant. Something in Western far-right politics is very different from Islamic terrorism (its implicit comparator in the book). It would be interesting to hear what professional observers of extremism make of that. Noel Rooney
★★★