There seems to be much misunderstanding of Evola’s moral position. As he claims, he is drawing on<\/p>\n
doctrines [which] are in truth of a fundamental value, currently almost forgotten, that placed evil in matter.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Apparently contemporary readers really have forgotten them, even those who falsely believe themselves to be relying on Evola in their Traditionalism and paganism. Perhaps such men need to rethink their relationship to Evola. As an example of such an attitude, we need do no more than quote the first line of Porphyry’s biography of Plotinus:<\/p>\n
Plotinus, the philosopher our contemporary, seemed ashamed of being in the body.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In sharp contrast to that, we need look no further than the recent Hollywood film, The Little Fockers<\/em> to see the modern mind at work. In it, the European family patriarch is portrayed as humourless and up-tight. Finally, he is defeated by his son-in-law, after which he is informed that he is really a Jew. The benefit of that, as he is told, is that farting, belching, sexing and all such bodily functions — things that used to embarrass the patriarch — are now “good”.<\/p>\n
Contrast that to the Traditional, aristocratic attitude of a Plotinus. Make up your mind once and for all where you stand: with Tradition or with the modern world.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nHenry Chadwick writes in Interpreting Late Antiquity<\/a>: [all emphases are mine]<\/p>\n
Porphyry, biographer and editor of Plotinus, began the Life of his master with the famous sentence that Plotinus always seemed ashamed of being in the body. His concern was with the soul which, true to Plato, he saw as being midway between the inferior flesh and the superior incorporeal mind [that is, spirit]. Moral choices are therefore decisions whether to follow the higher reason or lower bodily appetite.<\/em> The self (for which Plotinus uses the word autos<\/em>) therefore has levels and power of movement. But the true self is divine and the body no more than its temporary instrument (IV 7.1.20ff.).<\/p>\n
Naturally the union of soul with body makes for interaction between them. When ashamed we blush, when terrified we go white with fear. Conversely there are pressures which the body can put upon the soul, drawing it downward toward material satisfactions. But the soul’s true home is in that higher realm which is not governed by the determinism of fate.<\/em> Self-knowledge is synonymous with the soul’s being identical in being (homoousios<\/em>) with mind (IV 4.28.56; IV 7.10.19). Thereby salvation is the divinizing of the soul<\/em>, a mystical union comparable to the merging of two torches ( 6.9.18ff.) “in the measure possible to the human soul” (12-9-9.45ff.). The route by which one returns to true being is self-knowledge (VI 5.7), and is a restoration of the unity from which the soul has fallen into multiplicity and has been torn apart in a “scattering” (VI 6.I.5). As the soul moves toward the good, it recovers freedom, which is a liberation from the constraints of the body<\/em> (VI 8.6-7). Plotinus noted explicitly that in his doctrine of the soul’s retaining its divine nature “undescended” he was departing from the normal view of the Platonic schools (IV 8.8.I). Origen (Prin. 3.4) shows that the idea was not new with Plotinus.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There seems to be much misunderstanding of Evola’s moral position. As he claims, he is drawing on doctrines [which] are in truth of a fundamental value, currently almost forgotten, that placed evil in matter. Apparently contemporary readers really have forgotten them, even those who falsely believe themselves to be relying … Continue reading