Nigel Fielding - The National Front

ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: RACISM AND FASCISM

Volume 12

THE NATIONAL FRONT

THE NATIONAL FRONT

NIGEL FIELDING

First published in 1981 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd

This edition first published in 2016

by Routledge

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1981 Nigel Fielding

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-138-93422-1 (Set)

ISBN: 978-1-315-66966-3 (Set) (ebk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-93833-5 (Volume 12) (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-67569-5 (Volume 12) (ebk)

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Nigel Fielding

by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd

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and printed in Great Britain by

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Thetford, Norfolk

Nigel Fielding 1981

No part of this book may be reproduced in

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publisher, except for the quotation of brief

passages in criticism

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Fielding, Nigel

The National Front. (International

library of sociology).

1. National Front

I. Title II. Series

329.941 JN1129. N372 80-40172

ISBN 0 7100 0559 8

It can be argued that to discuss the NF at all is to encourage it, and that no book, academic or otherwise, should deal with the subject. I find this absurd. The argument is absurd both in terms of my personal stance, which is that we must know all we can about those we oppose, and sociologically, for the sociological importance of deviant groups is undeniable. Nevertheless I have not written a page-by-page condemnation of the NF, and some may find my examination of the subject too dispassionate. My reply is that while my instinct was to reject these beliefs as forcefully as they were expressed, to have done that either in the contacts with members or in writing the book would have prevented me from building up a picture of the beliefs and their significance for members. It seems necessary to me that we appreciate how deeply felt these beliefs are, for we must tackle them realistically and in recognition of the fact that their advocates are as human as ourselves. Yet to conclude that such a stance implies doubt about the authors motives, or that the book fails to make clear the contradictory and harmful aspects of the ideology, implies a determination so zealously to condemn those committed to an opposing ideology as to preclude discussion altogether. Such argument has more in common with isolationism than with opposition. It is on this objective of deepening the perception of a discredited ideology, rather than in a methodological sense, that I make my contention that this is not a neutral book.

I would like to acknowledge the sympathy, insight and encouragement of David Downes and, particularly, of Paul Rock throughout this enterprise.

In recent sociological analysis there has been an increasing tendency to present deviance as meaningful to the individual who commits it. The result of this focus on the meaning to the individual has been an interest in exploring the returns to individuals of deviant behaviour. Such a concern implies a new regard for the individuals will in analyses of deviant motivation. It brings with it the necessity of examining the beliefs which the individual holds about the outcome and significance of his actions. Attempts have been made to reconstruct the perceptual world in which the deviant moves in order to appreciate more fully his deviance. Such an interpretative sociology is informed by such analytic insights as Schutzs distinction between first and second order constructs. The utility of an analysis which defers to meaning is mediated by his insistence that in attempting such a method one analyses the subjects world rather than ones own subjective description of it. Thus, an approach in terms of meaning must be careful of its procedure, employing in the derivation of the theoretical constructs of the second degree the interpretations that people have of their actions and the world they inhabit. Distinctions must be made between the pre-interpretations employed by those involved in action and the social-scientific construction of interpretation in light of the actors biographical situations and stock of knowledge at hand.

Howard Beckers approach to the sociology of deviance revolves around the various meanings given to deviant behaviour by the parties to the process. The suggestion that deviance is not a quality of the act but of the attribution of a label to the act fixes attention on the process by which meaning and significance are accorded. Beckers discussion of the learning process by which the marijuana user comes to interpret his physical sensations according to their correct Some sociologists have gone on from this concern with the observable facets of behaviour to infer the hidden and subjective motivation of behaviour in terms of a political struggle between parties having different interpretations of meaning and who wish to have their interpretation officially supported. Political deviance is important to this field because it is an area in which the deviants perception of social reality not only differs rather abruptly from that of the majority but also does so in an unusually coherent manner. The case of the political deviant points to the need for knowledge of the way the individual considers action in the light of beliefs about ends and commitment to ideological demands.