"Reactionary modernism" is a term coined by Jeffrey Herf

Jeffrey Herf

Jeffrey Herf is a professor of history at the University of Maryland. His specialty is in 20th century European intellectual history, especially in Germany....

 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

Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...

 and the values and institutions of liberal democracy

Liberal democracy

Liberal democracy, also known as constitutional democracy, is a common form of representative democracy. According to the principles of liberal democracy, elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive...

" which was characteristic of the German Conservative Revolutionary movement

Conservative Revolutionary movement

The Conservative Revolutionary movement was a German national conservative movement, prominent in the years following the First World War. The Conservative Revolutionary school of thought advocated a "new" conservatism and nationalism that was specifically German, or Prussian in particular...

 and Nazism

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

. Herf's application of the term to describe Fascism

Fascism

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

 has been widely echoed by other scholars.

Herf now applies the term to the government of Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

 under the Ayatollahs, the government of Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

 under Sadam Hussein, and Islamist groups such as Al Qaeda. Other scholars, including Paul Berman

Paul Berman

Paul Berman is an American writer. His articles have been published in numerous periodicals, such as: The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review and Slate...

, have also applied Herf's term to Islamism.

Cultural critic Richard Barbrook

Richard Barbrook

Richard Barbrook is an academic in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Languages at the University of Westminster.-Education:Barbrook studied for a BA in Social & Political Science at Downing College, University of Cambridge, a MA in Political Behaviour at University of Essex and a...

 argues that members of the digerati

Digerati

The digerati are the elite of the computer industry and online communities. The word is a portmanteau, derived from "digital" and "literati", and reminiscent of the earlier coinage glitterati...

, who adhere to the Californian Ideology

Californian Ideology

The Californian Ideology is a set of beliefs combining bohemian and anti-authoritarian attitudes from the counterculture of the 1960s with techno-utopianism and support for neoliberal economic policies...

, embrace a form of reactionary modernism which combines economic growth

Economic growth

In economics, economic growth is defined as the increasing capacity of the economy to satisfy the wants of goods and services of the members of society. Economic growth is enabled by increases in productivity, which lowers the inputs for a given amount of output. Lowered costs increase demand...

 with social stratification

Social stratification

In sociology the social stratification is a concept of class, involving the "classification of persons into groups based on shared socio-economic conditions ... a relational set of inequalities with economic, social, political and ideological dimensions."...

.