Trad Futurisms
This book project utilizes the concept of reactive world-building to examine how far/alt-right futurists build potential worlds through philosophies of traditionalism. Focusing on futurity as a world-building endeavor, we trouble the dominant inclination to assume that far/alt right traditionalists are only historically focused nostalgics reacting to a world in rapid change. We argue that trads are not nostalgics but world-builders, both on and offline. Drawing on the work of architectural design theorists Carlo Ratti and Matthew Claudel, we engage their concept of futurecraft to think beyond cityscapes to digital worlds, often the preferred gathering places for far/alt-right traditionalists. In doing so, we demonstrate that the radical philosophies crafted in digital worlds have tangible futures offline.
Co-Author
Robert C. Saler serves as Associate Dean for Evaluation and Assessment, Associate Professor of Theology and Culture, Executive Director of Center for Pastoral Excellence and the Lilly Endowment Clergy Renewal Programs at Christian Theological Seminary (CTS) in Indianapolis.
Trad Futurity
In this future world built on traditionalist philosophies, far-right media users and influencers place rurality, simplicity, and obedience at the center. At the same time, most trad futurists paradoxically use technological platforms to disseminate their vision for the future that is founded in the aesthetics and social mores of an imagined “traditional” worldview. Decrying tech yet utilizing it to create visual and social models of the future, trad futurists are neither neo-luddites nor are they transhumanists; rather they occupy a space in which the digital is mobilized to create philosophically crafted potentials for the analogue future.
