"Reactionary modernism" is a term coined by Jeffrey Herf in 1984 book, Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich, to describe the mixture of "great enthusiasm for modern technology with a rejection of the Enlightenment and the values and institutions of liberal democracy" which was characteristic of the German Conservative Revolutionary movement and Nazism.[1] Herf's application of the term to describe Fascism has been widely echoed by other scholars.[2]
Herf now applies the term to the government of Iran under the Ayatollahs, the government of Iraq under Sadam Hussein, and Islamist groups such as Al Qaeda.[1] Other scholars, including Paul Berman, have also applied Herf's term to Islamism.[3][4][5][6]
Cultural critic Richard Barbrook argues that members of the digerati, who adhere to the Californian Ideology, embrace a form of reactionary modernism which combines economic growth with social stratification.[7]