{"id":3705,"date":"2012-01-30T23:57:55","date_gmt":"2012-01-31T04:57:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gornahoor.net\/?p=3705"},"modified":"2021-01-30T04:21:12","modified_gmt":"2021-01-30T09:21:12","slug":"we-antimoderns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/?p=3705","title":{"rendered":"We Antimoderns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"annotation\">In 1930, <strong>Julius Evola<\/strong> launched the periodical <em>La Torre<\/em> which was subsequently shut down by the Fascist government of Italy. This was just after the publication of the Italian edition of <em>Pagan Imperialism<\/em>, but before <cite>Revolt against the modern World<\/cite>. This essay, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.juliusevola.it\/documenti\/template.asp?cod=527\"><cite>Noi Antimoderni<\/cite><\/a> is from the inaugural issue. While there is nothing unexpected here, it sets the scene for his subsequent works. The translation will appear in two parts. <a href=\"?p=3716\">See Part Two &rarr;<\/a> <br \/><span style=\"color:green\">Commentaries are marked off with a green bar.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In many ways today, a dark threat, understood in an always more precise sense, looms over the entire civilization of the West.\u00a0In the crisis, without insisting on this or that special form, but rather on the structure of the entire modern world, it seems to foretell the symptoms of the end of a world, the decline of a culture.<\/p>\n<p>\nWhile <strong>Rene Guenon<\/strong>, analyzes the imbalance and discomfort characteristic of this era, he, in fact, shows how its characteristics are precisely those of the Dark or Iron Age, foretold by ancient traditions.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"commentary\"><p>\nThere are two important points to keep in mind:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The so-called crisis is entwined in the very structure of the modern world. It is not a question of fixing a limited problem, winning an election, or purging the West of some group or form of thought.<\/li>\n<li>Its characteristics can be known in advance by those who understand cosmic cycles. Everything that happens does so for a reason, by following certain principles, or rather, by the denial and neglect of real principles.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Spengler<\/strong> indicates how today there is in existence a fatally inflexible law, for which, like any organism, each civilization, after its rise and prospering, its fall and its petrification into a lifeless barbaric grandeur follow.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAfter <strong>Netzsche<\/strong>, <strong>Keyserling<\/strong>, <strong>Kalergi<\/strong> indict the immoralism and the irrealism of the European soul, while <strong>Benda<\/strong> notes the treason of the intellectuals, the enslavement of the classes that were the legacy of a spiritual tradition, due to passion and political hatred.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nIn fact, ancient certitudes totter everywhere, principles are uncertain everywhere, traditions are lost, spirits are divided, and dark, uncontrollable, and irrational forces impel and overwhelm men and society, playing with them through ideas, interests and passions that they delude themselves into pursuing.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"commentary\">\n<p>Haven&#8217;t we had enough kvetching and jeremiads? We know things are awry, so what is the point of indulging in criticisms of this injustice or that stupid policy? There is a time for righteous anger and a time for sober reflection. <i>Pace<\/i> this critique, there must be men who stand above them.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>They know the ancient certitudes.<\/li>\n<li>They are certain about their principles.<\/li>\n<li>They seek to recover their traditions.<\/li>\n<li>Their spirits are unified in solidarity each other and continuity with their ancestors.<\/li>\n<li>They are aware of the dark and chaotic forces within themselves and learn to master them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Those who insist on simple or one-dimensional answers will get lost here.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>That civilization, of which the Modern man was so proud, and in the name of which he believed the <em>myth of progress<\/em> and had marched to the conquest of the world, that civilization is now faced with a <em>reductio ad absurdum<\/em>, and with a reversal of the values which it had claimed for itself.\n<\/p>\n<p><!--more Please click to continue &rArr;--><\/p>\n<p>\nHaving thrown itself into the conquest of matter, it served its purpose only at the cost of materializing the spirit, of excluding any higher form of life, of amalgamating individuals in the tyranny of collective bodies, we would almost say <em>subhumans<\/em> in their lack of face, rationality, and light, in their subjection to energies that from time to time, as though galvanizing with a temporary life fearful of dead or automated bodies. It hurls them against each other.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe Christian attempt to give the West a religious tradition can only be considered a failure.\u00a0Nostalgia, as shown in spirits like <strong>Maritain<\/strong>, <strong>Guenon<\/strong>, or <strong>Berdyaev<\/strong>, turn to the feudal and Catholic Middle Ages, putting aside perhaps the insurmountable distance between then and now, when Europe really had begun to organize itself under the two great symbols of Action and Contemplation.\u00a0What does it matter that Christianity (without realizing it) served as a vehicle for the transmission of a Transcendent Wisdom, <em>prior to every age<\/em>, and that the Church in its Rites, Symbols and Dogma conserved its deposit, if for some time now, there has been no consciousness corresponding to it?\n<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"commentary\"><p>\nEvola&#8217;s criticism is misguided here. There is no question of returning to the material conditions of a bygone age, but rather of recovering its essence. Maritain became infected with modernist ideas. Berdyaev, although not a Traditionalist <i>per se<\/i>, was nevertheless a man of Tradition. He called for a <i>new<\/i> Middle Ages. Guenon had a deeper understanding of Tradition and was beyond certain prejudices, as he adhered to a strict intellectuality.<\/p>\n<p>It matters quite a bit if Christendom was the bearer of a Transcendent Wisdom. At the very least, it provides us with an understanding of Tradition that is &#8220;close to home&#8221; in space and time. The exercise of extracting the Traditional elements from the thought, rites, symbols, and dogmas is very valuable and less prone to misunderstanding than the abstract study of Asian traditions. Conversely, we are dubious about the claim of any man to be a Traditionalist if he cannot recognize Tradition in those elements.<\/p>\n<p>We agree that for quite some time, there has been no consciousness of such a Tradition in the visible representatives of Christianity today. <em>A fortiori<\/em>, the Middle Ages are an embarrassment to them, and the pagan and Traditional elements in it were explicitly rejected by the Reformation. Hence, those of a nostalgic bent are disappointed and are forced to hold many mental reservations.<\/p>\n<p>However, Evola&#8217;s assertion that the Middle Ages were <em>never<\/em> conscious of the Traditional element is simply absurd. A Tradition, by its very nature, requires a conscious elite to maintain it, and when that is lost, the Tradition is lost. It cannot run mechanically or automatically. Thus, Guenon&#8217;s explanation that Christianity was originally an esoteric movement makes more sense. He points to <cite>The Divine Comedy<\/cite> as an initiatory poem, as well as other writings from the period. This is not to defend Christianity, but rather the notion of Tradition itself, as well as the intelligence and integrity of our European ancestors.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Christianity today is no longer of value to people than as a small faith and morality that everyone professes and everyone betrays; it is mediocre and bourgeois in Catholicism, weakened and stimulating practical achievements in the social rigour in Protestantism? It is only this regard that those who speak of <em>Tradition<\/em> and of the <em>Return to Tradition<\/em>, in fact, know even less of those who deny what Tradition is.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"commentary\"><p>Here Evola goes for the low lying fruit, repeating what has been said by others ad nauseum. At least he only takes a paragraph to do so. What is the value of criticizing the worst elements rather than the appreciating the best? In Ancient Greece and Rome, the bulk of the population consisted of serfs, slaves, and outcastes. Does he judge paganism by their superstitions or by the few priest-kings and warriors? Always remember there are different castes and types of men, who embody a Tradition to a greater or lesser degree. We should always look to the greatest exponents.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Henri Massis<\/strong>, who brought up the symbol of the <cite>Defence of the West<\/cite> and raised the alarm against the asianization of the Latin world, in reality, does not know what the East is nor what could be of value in the West as a principle of reintegration. He does not know how much of what he denies is in what he affirms, nor how much of what he affirms is in what he denies.\u00a0We then are silent about everything that for some time we proclaimed concerning traditions and traditionalism, whether on this or that basis, those who exalting a Vatican Rome, others a Masonic Rome, or a Mazzinian and Giobertian Rome, who, raising strange taboos to the right and the left, launching attacks in the void, preparing with wordiness and the most implausible mess.\u00a0Here, as elsewhere, the confusion of tongues is complete; the power of diagrams, formulas, and words, that, as entities created by Magic, no longer depending on those who created them, is almost without limit.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nNeither is sufficient.\u00a0An amorphous need to escape to the Ahrimanic embrace of materialism, no longer meeting those supports that were given by the surviving traditions only on the assumption of interior and living relationships, has created an even more dangerous perversion in the unbalanced Western soul: <em>neo-spiritualism<\/em>.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nFrom the various revivals of a suspect mysticism to the introduction of always more counterfeit exotic doctrines; from the newest spiritualistic superstition to the morbid interest in the problems and complications of the unconscious and psychoanalysis; from Intuitionism and Surrealism to the various messianic forms and to pseudo-religious and pseudo-occultists of the 1700s that swarmed at the margins of Protestantism; from humanitarian and universalistic ideologies to those of a <strong>Religion of Life<\/strong> and a <strong>Superman<\/strong> who, strange to say, almost always ends in associations of women and sub-men: from all of these forms a common meaning is revealed.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nIt is the unraveling of the European soul, it is its self-release, its escape.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nDiverted by an insane drive for liberation, it evades the real, not for a super-real, but rather for a sub-real and a pre-real in which the sense of individuality is dissolved, and a cloudy, ecstatic coalescence with sub-human forces abolishes the law of pure action and clear vision.\n<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"commentary\">\n<p>With the void left by the loss of the Tradition in the Middle Ages, many false and counterfeit traditions rush in. No point to belabour them &#8230; you see them them as counterfeits or not. The reference to Ahriman is interesting, the result of his time with the Anthroposophists in the Ur and Krur groups.<\/p>\n<p>As we would expect he opposes the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.meditationsonthetarot.com\/solar-and-lunar-initiation\">path of ecstasy<\/a> in favour of <strong>pure action<\/strong> and <strong>clear vision<\/strong>. The former follows the latter, lest we forget.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1930, Julius Evola launched the periodical La Torre which was subsequently shut down by the Fascist government of Italy. This was just after the publication of the Italian edition of Pagan Imperialism, but before Revolt against the modern World. This essay, Noi Antimoderni is from the inaugural issue. While &hellip; <span class=\"continue-reading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/?p=3705\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evola"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3705"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13770,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3705\/revisions\/13770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}