It is important to note the relativity of the concept of privation. A given element is never privation in itself, but always in relation to the good of autonomy. The passage to that good makes what was positive as spontaneity something negative and “in potential” in respect to the other point. So for the man who does not want to move from the logical point of view to that of Will, the concept of privation is not intelligible.

Let us try to illustrate Evola’s point with a homely example. Suppose Charlie has a problem with drugs; he is powerless with respect to cocaine. He is not autonomous because the desire for the drug controls his actions. But that is relative to Charlie because Cologero has no such problem. Thus, it is not the cocaine as a positive force, but rather a privation, a lack within Charlie, that accounts for the addiction. So it is unconscious, “spontaneous” will that makes of cocaine a positive reality, seemingly outside Charlie. However, as Charlie develops a conscious Will and autonomy, that “positive” addiction is recognized as a negative, as a privation, something that can be overcome.

By believing that the present doctrine explaining privation is surpassed by postulating a distinct reality, he is not taking a step forward but a step backward, since he is making use of the logical category of causality with which this very reality becomes conditioned, logically posited by the I.

The realist cannot resist the urge to postulate an external reality: Charlie’s problem is genetic or something of that nature. This doesn’t address the problem, but pushes it back into more obscurity. The realist forgets that causality is not a property of the World, but is a category of thought by which I organize and control the World.

What is the difference between a real and an imagined thing? Represented, they are both the same; but beyond that, the representing activity to which the real thing corresponds is an activity in respect to which they are impotent. There are elements on which I cannot act… We do not resolve the problem of interpreting this non-power, because we do not pose it; hence we are accused of being intellectualistic, abstract, and irrelevant in respect to what is really important to every research of such a type at this point. This is a fundamental point: we claim that the explanation of the fact that one is impotent in certain situations by making recourse to an “other” is a pseudo-explanation, and therefore a vicious circle for this reason: in us the concept of “other” gets its meaning and its foundation from the concept of “non-power”, which is what comes first, and out of which objectivity, thing in itself, God, etc. are only so many symbols and intellectual interpretations…Privation explains the concept of objective reality but not objective reality the concept of privation.

So I have a representation of things in my mind and then note my lack of power of some things. I start with the awareness of my lack, and then postulate the existence of the “other”, all claiming to “explain” my awareness of privation. The awareness is certain, but there are many conflicting theories about the “other”. That is why Evola considers them to be pseudo-explanations.

The explanation that magical idealism demands is completely different: it is an explanation by means of action, a resolutive explanation. It is to ex-plicate, or to actuate, to make perfect: to make what is in potential pass into act, what is imperfection into perfection, what is insufficiency into sufficiency, according to a synthetic, creative, primordial process. This is the only true explanation. Everything else is a pastime.

If knowing is the Unmoved Mover, according to Guenon, and given the fundamental metaphysical principle “to know is to be”, then to “know myself” is to “be myself”. To be myself, I must actualize myself. To be the True Man, I must actualize all my possibilities. There is no distinction here between knowing and doing, contemplation and action: knowing cannot exist apart from acting. It is only by doing can I know myself, through the reflection of the I in the World. By creating myself, I reveal myself. Quietism, or the surrender to impotency, is just a form of escapism.

We will fiercely combat all intellectual and philosophic rhetoric whereby man restrains himself to talk about his impotency (which we mean when speaking of “truth”, “objectivity”, “rationality”, etc.) rather than to finally jump to his feet, to grasp himself and, burning up his impotency, to make himself what he is in himself:

a God, a builder of the world.