{"id":3998,"date":"2012-04-11T22:39:11","date_gmt":"2012-04-12T02:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gornahoor.net\/?p=3998"},"modified":"2022-05-23T14:13:47","modified_gmt":"2022-05-23T18:13:47","slug":"freedom-and-destiny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/?p=3998","title":{"rendered":"The idea of pre-existence"},"content":{"rendered":"

To continue the translation of \u2018Classical and Romantic ethics\u2019, we present the next two segments. In the first, Julius Evola<\/strong> describes how Catholicism recapitulates within itself the choice between Tradition and modernity. In the second, he provides a succinct summary of the Traditional path. Evola writes:<\/p>\n

\nThe central view of Catholicism is that God, though creating man from nothing, allowed a miracle to happen, through which this being created from nothing is free, in the sense that he can rejoin himself to the root of his own being, to God, or else to deny the root, to constitute himself, to dissipate himself, to degenerate into a useless free will of a creature. This same doctrine, with due transpositions, can be applied to relations between the individual being and the spiritual entity, of which he is the creation and the human manifestation. We mean that the individual being, within given limits, uses equally his free will and that the same alternative is posed to him: either to will his own nature, to deepen it, and realize it until rejoining the pre-human and super-individual principle that corresponds to it; or else to give himself over to arbitrarily construct a mode of unnatural being, deprived of connections with those deepest forces or even in contradiction with them. This is exactly the existing opposition between the traditional, especially Nordic-Aryan, ideal and the modern ideal of civilization. For the former, the essential task is to know and to be oneself; for the latter, the task is instead to \u201cconstruct oneself\u201d, to become what one is not, to shatter every limit in order to make everything possible to everyone: liberalism, democracy, individualism, ethical activist Protestantism, anti-racism, anti-traditionalism.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a fascinating and insightful passage. Here he shows that Catholicism<\/strong>, while expressing itself in theological rather than metaphysical terms, represents a tipping point<\/a>. The two possible understandings of that doctrine correspond precisely to the opposition between the Traditional and the modern worldview. That self-understanding could have tipped either way. Despite the efforts of popes Pius IX (Syllabus of Errors<\/cite>)<\/a> and Pius X (On the Doctrine of the Modernists<\/cite>)<\/a> to limit the effects of modernism over a century ago, it seems that the trend now is to fully embrace modernism; that was confirmed with Vatican II which opened up to the modern world rather than continue its opposition. Nevertheless, it is still too slow for modern minds.
\n
\nHere, Evola precisely represents the difference between the two world views. The Traditional man strives to actualize his True Self, his given nature. The modern man does not believe in such essences or formal causes, hence he does not have an essence. This is perfectly expressed by John Paul Sartre, one of the recent creators of the modern mind. Without an essence, he can be whatever he chooses. Hence, we see recent trends in the direction of gender-neutral child rearing<\/a> or trans-gendered beauty contests<\/a>. These trends are logical and rational within the modern worldview, so attempts to argue against them on the basis of their absurdity are futile. Even claiming that biological givens override human choice is useless. First of all, biological differences are regarded as unjust; the purpose of technology is to overcome such injustices. Besides, a biological defense of human nature has nothing at all to do with the Traditional understanding of it.<\/p>\n

It is also important to note that the movements that Evola opposes are the very ones that most people today would define as the ultimate achievement of the West; hence, they define Western civilization to most minds. Evola continues:<\/p>\n

\nAs it was traditionally taught, the doctrine of pre-existence therefore brings us beyond both fatalism as well as a poorly understood and individualistic freedom. Passing on to the more immediate consequences, in realizing his own nature, the individual harmonizes his human will with the super-human will that corresponds to it, he \u201cremembers\u201d himself, he establishes the connection with a principle that, being beyond birth, is likewise beyond death and every temporal condition: therefore, according to the ancient Indo-Aryan conception, this is the way by which, through action, he seeks to achieve \u201cliberation\u201d and to realize the divine. Dharma<\/em>—which signifies his own nature, duty, fidelity to blood, tradition, and caste—connects itself here, as we explained in our other book [\u201cRevolt\u201d], to the sensation of being joined here from afar and does not signify limitations, as “evolved spirits” believe, but liberation. Led back to this traditional vision of life, all the principal causes of race acquire a higher and spiritual significance and the objection based on birth as either by chance or destiny loses every force.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is little to add here. The idea of pre-existence cannot be understood as fatalism, while it stands in opposition to the modern idea of freedom from essences. When this is understood, man understands his True Will, he remembers who he is, which is the unmoved mover, the silent observer, beyond the contingent events of space and time. He achieves ultimate liberation which is the realization of the divine, the stage of theosis<\/em>. This connection with Dharma is not a limitation as believe the many moderns who consider themselves to be evolved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To continue the translation of \u2018Classical and Romantic ethics\u2019, we present the next two segments. In the first, Julius Evola describes how Catholicism recapitulates within itself the choice between Tradition and modernity. In the second, he provides a succinct summary of the Traditional path. Evola writes: The central view of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,4,13],"tags":[663,416,134],"class_list":["post-3998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholicism","category-evola","category-tradition","tag-dharma","tag-sintesi-di-dottrina-della-razza","tag-true-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3998","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3998"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16182,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3998\/revisions\/16182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}