A Left Sacred or a Sacred Left? The College de Sociologie, Fascism, and Political Culture in Interwar France

This paper examines the Collège de Sociologie's project to construct a new sacred sociology against the background of a rising fascism and the perceived crisis of democracy in 1930s Europe. The paper discusses the Collège's problematic reevaluation, on the wave of Durkehim, of affective forces and irrational energies as manifestations of the sacred and as the fundamental elements driving people's participation in communal life. The paper concludes that the Collège's idea of the sacred as ambiguously moving between the opposed poles of attraction and repulsion exposed the perilously fascinating side of fascism. The Collège's focus on the ambiguity of the sacred dramatizes the need for new conceptual tools to reevaluate fascism's logic and scope. It also indicates the importance of rethinking the political in order to challenge the seduction of a sacred right.