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white_rage
25-07-02, 07:11
ALEXANDR DUGIN


JULIUS EVOLA E IL
TRADIZIONALISMO
RUSSO



1. La scoperta di Evola in Russia

L'opera di Evola è stata scoperta in Russia negli anni 60 dal gruppo assai ristretto degli intellettuali dissidenti anticomunisti, detti "i dissidenti di destra". Era una piccola cerchia di persone che avevano rifiutato volutamente la partecipazione alla vita culturale sovietica e avevano scelto l'esistenza clandestina. La contestazione della realtà sovietica è stata presso di essi così totale perché si cercavano i principi fondamentali che avrebbero potuto spiegare le radici di questo giudizio negativo assoluto. E’ su queste vie di rifiuto del comunismo che si sono scoperti certi lavori di autori antimoderni e tradizionalisti: soprattutto i libri di Réné Guénon e di Julius Evola. Due personaggi centrali animavano questo gruppo – il filosofo musulmano Geidar Djemal e il poeta non conformista Evgeni Golovin. Grazie ad essi, i “dissidenti di destra” hanno conosciuto i nomi e le idee di questi grandi tradizionalisti del nostro secolo. Negli anni 70 sono state fatte le prime traduzioni dei testi di Evola (“La Tradizione Ermetica”) sempre nel quadro della medesima cerchia e sono state distribuite sotto forma di samizdat. La qualità delle prime traduzioni era assai scadente perché esse venivano eseguite da appassionati poco competenti, ai margini del gruppo degli intellettuali tradizionalisti propriamente detti. Nel 1981 è apparsa nel medesimo ambiente la traduzione di "Heidnische Imperialismus", il solo libro disponibile presso la Biblioteca Lenin di Mosca. Questa volta la distribuzione per samizdat è stata assai ampia e la qualità della traduzione migliore. Poco a poco si è formata la vera corrente dei tradizionalisti che è passata dall’anticomunismo all’antimodernità, estendendo il rifiuto totale della realtà sovietica al mondo moderno in quanto tale, coerentemente con la visione tradizionalista integrale. Bisogna notare che le idee dei tradizionalisti in questione a quell’epoca erano molto lontane dall’altra branca dei “dissidenti di destra” che erano cristiani ortodossi, monarchici e nazionalisti. Dunque Evola era più popolare tra le persone che si interessavano di spiritualismo in senso lato – yoga, teosofismo, psichismo, etc. Nel corso della perestroika tutte le forme di dissidenza anticomunista si sono manifestate alla luce del sole e, a partire dai “dissidenti di destra”, si è creata la corrente ideologica, culturale e politica della Destra – nazionalista, nostalgica, antiliberale e antioccidentale. In questo contesto e seguendo lo sviluppo della glastnost le idee propriamente tradizionaliste, i nomi di Guénon ed Evola si sono introdotti nel complesso culturale della Russia. I primi testi di Evola sono apparsi negli anni 90 presso la cosiddetta stampa “patriottica” o “conservatrice” di grande tiratura e l’argomento del tradizionalismo è divenuto il tema di polemiche virulente e assai animate nel campo della destra russa nel senso più lato del termine. Le riviste "Elementy", "Nach Sovremennik", "Mily Anguel", "Den" etc. hanno cominciato a pubblicare parti degli scritti di Evola o articoli ispirati alle sue opere dove il suo nome era più volte citato. Poco a poco il campo dei “conservatori” è stato strutturato ideologicamente e si è prodotta la separazione tra la Destra arcaica, nostalgica, monarchica e l’altra Destra più aperta, non conformista e meno “ortodossa” – una sorta di “novye pravye” in russo, che si può tradurre come “nuova destra”, ma precisando che si tratta di un fenomeno molto originale e molto differente dalla ND europea. Questo secondo partito dei “patrioti” lo si potrebbe qualificare come “terzaforzisti”, “nazional-rivoluzionari” etc. La linea di rottura passa precisamente nell’accettazione o nel rifiuto delle idee di Evola o piuttosto dello spirito di Evola che non si può qualificare solamente come “conservatore” o “reazionario” ma come quello della Rivoluzione Conservatrice, come la “rivolta contro il mondo moderno”. Recentemente il primo libro - "Heidnische Imperialismus" – è stato pubblicato a grande tiratura in 50.000 copie. Una trasmissione televisiva sul primo canale è stata dedicata a Evola. Dunque si può dire che per la Russia comincia la scoperta di Evola su larga scala. Quello che era un nucleo intellettuale estremamente marginale prima della perestroika in Russia è divenuto ora un fenomeno ideologico e politico importante. Ma è evidente che Evola scriveva i suoi libri e formulava le sue idee in un contesto temporale, culturale, storico ed etnico molto differente. Dunque si pone il problema: che cosa c’è di valido in lui per la Russia attuale e quale parte della sua opera deve essere adattata o respinta nelle nostre condizioni? Questo richiede almeno una breve analisi delle divergenze e delle convergenze tra il tradizionalismo di Evola e la tradizione sacra e politica propriamente russa.

2. Contro l'Occidente moderno

Inizialmente bisogna precisare che il rifiuto del mondo moderno profano e desacralizzato che si manifesta nella civiltà occidentale del ciclo finale è comune a Evola e a tutta la tradizione intellettuale russa degli slavofili. Autori russi come Homyakov, Kirievsky, Aksakov, Leontiev, Danilevsky tra i filosofi e Dostoevsky, Gogol, Merejkovsky tra gli scrittori criticano il mondo occidentale pressoché negli stessi termini di Evola. Si trova presso di essi la medesima avversione al regno della quantità, al sistema della democrazia moderna, al degrado spirituale e alla profanità totale. Così si vedono spesso delle corrispondenze sorprendenti tra la definizione delle radici del male moderno – massoneria profana, giudaismo deviato, avvento delle plebi, divinificazione della ragione – in Evola e nella cultura “conservatrice” russa. In qualche modo, la tendenza reazionaria è qui comune, dunque la critica dell’Occidente da parte di Evola è completamente comprensibile e accettabile in la linea generale dai conservatori russi. Oltre a questo si trova sovente in Evola la critica formulata in un modo più vicino alla mentalità russa che a quella europea – lo stesso gusto per la generalizzazione, l’evocazione frequente di motivi mistici e mitologici, il vivo sentimento del mondo spirituale interiore a partire dal quale si percepisce organicamente la realtà immediata moderna come perversione e deviazione. In generale, per la tradizione conservatrice russa lo stile della spiegazione mitologica degli avvenimenti storici e anche contemporanei è quasi obbligatorio. Il richiamo al livello super-razionale o non razionale si comprende perfettamente in Russia dove piuttosto è l’eccezione un argomentare razionale. Si può inoltre notare l’influenza esercitata dai conservatori russi su Evola: nelle sue opere egli cita spesso Dostoevsky, Merejkovsky (il quale, d’altronde, egli conobbe personalmente) e alcuni altri autori russi. D'altro canto, questi frequenti riferimenti a Malynsky e a Leon de Poncins lo fanno parzialmente rientrare nella tradizione contro-rivoluzionaria tipica dell’est europeo. Si può anche citare i suoi riferimenti a Serge Nilus, l'editore dei famosi “Protocolli” che Evola ha riediti per l’Italia.
Nello stesso tempo è evidente che Evola conosceva assai male la cultura conservatrice russa nel suo insieme che, d’altronde, non lo interessava particolarmente a causa della sua idiosincrasia anticristiana. A proposito della tradizione ortodossa egli ha detto appena qualche parola non significativa. Dunque l’affinità tra la sua posizione nei confronti della crisi del mondo moderno e l’antimodernismo degli autori russi è dovuta piuttosto alla comunanza delle reazioni organiche – eccezionale e individuale nel caso di Evola e tradizionali nel caso dei russi. Ma grazie alla spontaneità delle convergenze antimoderne la testimonianza di Evola diviene ancora più interessante e più preziosa. Sia quel che sia, questa parte critica di Evola rientra perfettamente nei quadri della corrente ideologica della Destra russa e apporta molto a questa visione della decadenza storica, dando formule nuove a volte più complete, più radicali e più profonde. Sotto questo aspetto le idee di Evola sono accolte molto positivamente nella Russia attuale dove l’antioccidentalismo è un fattore ideologico e politico estremamente potente.

3. Roma e Terza Roma

L'altro aspetto del pensiero evoliano è avvertito dai russi come un soggetto intimo ed estremamente importante: si tratta della sua esaltazione dell’idea imperiale. Roma è per Evola il punto cruciale della sua Weltanschauung. Questa forza sacra, vivente e immanente che si manifesta attraverso l’Impero è stata per Evola l’essenza dell’eredità tradizionale dell’Occidente. I resti del palazzo di Nerone e delle antiche costruzioni romane sono stati da lui percepiti come la testimonianza diretta della sacralità organica e concreta la cui unità e continuità sono state sbriciolate dal “castello” kafkiano del Vaticano cattolico guelfo. La sua formula ghibellina è chiara: l’Impero contro la Chiesa, Roma contro il Vaticano, la sacralità organica e immanente contro le astrazioni devozionali e sentimentali della fede, implicitamente dualista e farisea. Ma il complesso simile si ritrova naturalmente nei russi, il cui destino storico è profondamente legato all’Impero. Questa nozione è stata dogmaticamente fissata nel concetto ortodosso di starets Philophe – “Mosca – Terza Roma”. Bisogna notare che la “prima Roma” in questa visione ciclica ortodossa non è la Roma cristiana, ma Roma imperiale, perché la “seconda Roma” (o “nuova Roma”) era per i cristiani Costantinopoli, la capitale dell’Impero cristiano. Dunque l’idea stessa di “Roma” presso gli ortodossi russi corrisponde alla comprensione della sacralità come immanenza del Sacro, come “sinfonia” necessaria e inseparabile tra autorità spirituale e potere temporale. Per i tradizionalisti ortodossi la separazione cattolica tra il Re e il Papa non è concepibile e rivela l’eresia, chiamata precisamente “eresia latina”. In questa concezione russo-ortodossa si ritrova l’ideale puramente ghibellino in cui l’Impero è talmente valorizzato teologicamente che non si può concepire la Chiesa come qualcosa di estraneo e isolato da esso. Questa centralità della sacralità del Regnum nella tradizione russo-ortodossa si basa sull’epistola di Paolo dove vi è la questione del “katehon”, “colui che sostiene”, identificato precisamente con il Sacro Impero, l’ultimo ostacolo contro l’irruzione dei “Figli della Perdizione” – equivalenti dei Gog e Magog biblici. Dunque la concezione di Mosca Terza Roma, che è in qualche modo consustanziale al pensiero tradizionale russo, corrisponde perfettamente all’ideale evoliano ghibellino. Ancor di più, la denuncia del cattolicesimo e del suo ruolo nefasto nella decadenza dell’Occidente è in Evola quasi identica alle accuse dei cristiani ortodossi contro l’ “eresia latina”. Anche in questa occasione si vede la convergenza perfetta tra la dottrina di Evola e l’attitudine “normale” del pensiero conservatore russo. E ancora una volta, l’esaltazione spirituale e lucida dell’Impero nei libri di Evola diviene inestimabile per i russi alla ricerca della loro identità autentica e tradizionale. "L'imperialismo sinfonico" dei russi ortodossi riconosce facilmente la propria immagine nell’ “imperialismo pagano” o piuttosto “ghibellino” di Julius Evola. Si può aggiungere ancora un dettaglio importante. Si sa che l’autore di “Terzo Reich” Arthur Mueller van den Bruck è stato profondamente influenzato dagli scritti di Dostoevsky per il quale l’idea di Terza Roma era centrale. Si ritrova presso van den Bruck la stessa visione escatologica dell’Impero Finale, in corrispondenza simbolica con le idee “paracletiche” dei montanisti e con le profezie di Ioachim de Flora. Mueller van den Bruck, le cui idee sono stata a volte evocate da Evola, ha adattato la concezione di Terza Roma della tradizione russo-ortodossa alla Germania, elaborando il progetto politico-spirituale ripreso in seguito dai nazional-socialisti. Dettaglio interessante: Erich Mueller, discepolo di Nikisch, che era stato assai ispirato da van den Bruck, ha suggerito che se il Primo Reich tedesco era stato cattolico, il Secondo Reich protestante, il Terzo Reich avrebbe dovuto essere precisamente ortodosso! Ma Evola partecipò egli stesso largamente al dibattito intellettuale della cerchia della rivoluzione conservatrice tedesca (l’ "Herrenklub" di von Gleichen, di cui egli era membro, era la continuazione dello Juniklub fondato da Mueller van den Bruck) dove argomenti simili erano vivacemente discussi. Ecco l’altra via intellettuale che unisce la corrente conservatrice russa e il pensiero di Evola. Evidentemente non si può qui parlare di concezioni identiche, ma vi è quanto meno un’affinità straordinaria e dei ravvicinamenti “naturali” sorprendenti che spiegano inoltre la facilità di assimilazione del messaggio di Evola in Russia dove le sue vedute appaiono molto meno stravaganti che in Europa dove il conservatorismo tradizionale resta per la maggior parte cattolico e nazionalista in senso moderno e assai raramente imperiale e legato al Sacro.

4. Evola visto da Sinistra

In Evola vi è un altro aspetto molto interessante che si manifesta nella prime e nelle ultime tappe della sua vita. Lo si qualifica a volte come “anarchismo di destra” che è evidente nelle sue opere artistiche di gioventù e soprattutto in “Cavalcare la tigre”. Contemporaneamente la sua posizione antiborghese coerente e permanente lo isola considerevolmente dalla Destra convenzionale occidentale. D'altra parte anche in seno alla Tradizione egli fu sempre attratto dai domini poco consueti che rientrano più o meno nella prospettiva della Via della Mano Sinistra. Indubbiamente, nell’insieme dei suoi scritti è molto saliente ciò che si potrebbe tentare di chiamare la “sinistra” del messaggio evoliano. L’anticonformismo totale verso la realtà moderna occidentale, la contestazione radicale dei valori borghesi avvicinano Evola a certe branche della sinistra. Questo fenomeno non è la manifestazione della sua natura personale. Vi è qui un lato sintomatico estremamente importante. La Rivolta evoliana contro il mondo moderno possiede degli aspetti distruttivi come ogni rivolta, d’altronde. Il suo radicalismo intransigente lo spinge alla rottura con il conservatore abituale che difende per inerzia i valori di ieri contro i valori di oggi. Per Evola lo “ieri” non del tutto ideale. Il suo orientamento va molto più lontano, verso il mito primordiale, verso l’Iperborea perduta, verso la Trascendenza, verso l’Eterno Presente. Questa ricerca dell’assoluto qui e ora obbliga a superare i limiti convenzionali e anche a sgretolare le forme secondarie della Tradizione adattate al kali-yuga. Evola non accetta una parte del Sacro, lo vuole Tutto, immediatamente. Questa Rivolta gli fa prendere posizioni “anarchiche”, contestare la legittimità delle forme tradizionali svuotate di ogni vita. E’ d’altronde la posizione autentica dell’adepto dei Tantra, quella che egli spiega perfettamente ne “Lo Yoga della Potenza”. Ma paradossalmente la stessa antinomia è propria alla corrente della sinistra radicale e la fenomenologia esistenziale ed estetica delle due rivolte, per quanto differenti, le unisce in un certo caso quasi perfettamente. La rivoluzione, la guerra, la crisi, il ribaltamento sociale provocano sempre un trauma profondo che necessariamente obbliga l’essere umano a incontrare la realtà ontologica profonda che supera i cliché profani della vita “normale”. Ernst Juenger, al quale Evola si interessò molto, sviluppò nei suoi romanzi e scritti politici questo problema del reincontro dell’uomo moderno, profondamente alieno, con la realtà superiore nella situazioni di crisi estrema. D'altronde, Evola attraversò egli stesso dei periodi di crisi personale al limite del suicidio. Dunque la sete dell’assoluto è in logico rapporto con le esperienze “negative” e talvolta anche “antinomiche”. Queste considerazioni spiegano anche l’interesse di Evola per certi personaggi giudicati dagli altri tradizionalisti (Guénon, Burkhardt, etc.) nettamente “contro-iniziatici” - Alister Crowley, Giuliano Kremmerz, Gustav Meyrink etc. A sinistra, soprattutto all’estrema sinistra, si ritrova facilmente il medesimo complesso, la stessa passione, la stessa esaltazione dell’esperienza traumatica e nello stesso tempo lo stesso ifiuto del conformismo, la stessa avversione viscerale in rapporto alle norme e alle convenzioni, la stessa rivolta contro l’abituale. D'altra parte, la cultura ideologica della “sinistra rivoluzionaria” non è priva di accostamenti esoterici che a volte sono gli stessi come nel caso dei tradizionalisti e della “rivoluzione conservatrice”. Citiamo a titolo di esempio Theodore Reusse, attivista di sinistra e iniziatore alla massoneria dello stesso Guénon! Il lato “sinistro” di Evola richiama il paradosso politico della Russia attuale dove i neocomunisti, antiliberali fanno fronte comune con i conservatori russo-ortodossi. Cosa che si può anche pensare di certi aspetti del bolscevismo russo storico in cui si sono sviluppate per vie eterodosse e contraddittorie le tendenze profonde della sacralità russo-ortodossa – l’avversione per il mondo occidentale borghese, la ricerca del Regnum, i fattori escatologici, l’esperienza diretta, rivoluzionaria e immediata della Verità. Più ancora, vi erano all’alba della corrente comunista russa accostamenti esoterici estremamente curiosi con i rappresentanti delle correnti spirituali locali ed europee. Si può dire che tra Evola e la Russia esistono non solo le corrispondenze a livello di corrente ideologica “conservatrice”, “di destra”, ma anche certi lati della “sinistra” russa, nella sua dimensione profonda e paradossale, possono essere comparati con gli scritti di Evola e anche chiariti grazie al suo metodo di ricerca della struttura dei fenomeni traumatici. Il fatto stesso che il comunismo abbia vinto nel paese più conservatore e più tradizionalista d’Europa ci obbliga a rivedere gli schemi abituali conservatori a proposito della natura profana e moderna del comunismo, come tappa avanzata della degrado dell’attuale civiltà. D'altronde, le previsioni dei conservatori e contro-rivoluzionari (come Léon de Poncin) concernenti la necessità della vittoria della quarta casta proletaria in tutto il pianeta sono smentite dal trionfo attuale della civiltà borghese (presunta terza casta) nella Russia postsovietica. Lo stesso Evola commise il medesimo errore accettando la posizione radicalmente antisocialista e anticomunista, propria dei conservatori reazionari con i quali, a livello metafisico, egli era in pieno disaccordo, dovuto alla differenza profonda tra la Via della Mano Sinistra che gli era propria e la Via della Mano Destra che (a volte) indirettamente e parzialmente ispira i conservatori convenzionali. In altri termini la “sinistra metafisica” in Evola non ha potuto trovare la manifestazione dottrinale coerente a livello politico e il lato “anarchico” ed “esoterico” restano in qualche modo sovrapposti assai contraddittoriamente alla sua fedeltà alla “reazione” politica. Lo stesso equivoco esiste nelle sue relazioni col fascismo e col nazional-socialismo dove egli criticava l’aspetto politico di sinistra e contemporaneamente tentava di rafforzare l’aspetto “metafisico di sinistra” (insistendo ad esempio sul paganesimo contro le relazioni con il Vaticano). La storia politica degli anni 80-90 mostra che il comunismo non era l’ultima forma di decadenza della caste. Dunque Evola aveva torto nel predire la vittoria dei sovietici e di conseguenza di prendere la posizione radicalmente anticomunista e di non riconoscere il lato paradossale e in qualche modo tradizionale della Rivoluzione. Malgrado il suo interesse particolare per “L’Operaio” di Junger, Evola ha falsamente identificato, seguendo la logica della Destra non rivoluzionaria, le caste tradizionali con le classi della civiltà occidentale. A questo proposito, si può richiamare l’avvertimento estremamente importante di George Dumezil riguardante il fatto che nella società tradizionale indoeuropea, dunque ariana, i lavoratori appartengono alla terza casta e non alla quarta. Oltre a ciò, i mercanti, (cioè i proto-capitalisti) non appartengono del tutto al sistema delle caste in tale società e tutte le funzioni di distribuzione dei beni e del denaro sono stati appannaggio dei guerrieri, degli kshatryas. Ciò significa che la classe dei mercanti non corrisponde assolutamente alla struttura della società ariana ed è storicamente sovrapposta ad essa con la mescolanza culturale e razziale. Dunque la lotta antiborghese dei socialisti possiede implicitamente la dimensione tradizionale e indoeuropea, cosa che spiega perfettamente le tendenze “antigiudaiche” (addirittura antisemite) di un gran numero di teorici socialisti a partire da Fourrier, Marx e fino a Stalin. Questa considerazione mostra la giustificazione dell’elemento socialista (e pure nazional-comunista) nelle correnti della Rivoluzione Conservatrice – specialmente in Spengler, Sombart, van den Bruck, junger e fino a Nikisch. E’ fuori di dubbio che con questo ambiente tedesco d’anteguerra Evola aveva ottime relazioni intellettuali, cosa che ahimè, non lo ha aiutato a sfumare le sue posizioni e a rettificare le sue vie dottrinali e tradizionaliste. Questa contraddizione in Evola è notevole se si confrontano “Orientamenti” e “Gli Uomini e le Rovine” da un lato, e “Cavalcare la Tigre” dall’altro. "Evola di sinistra" non è ancora scoperto e riconosciuto. Ma ancora una volta - la Russia e la sua storia conservatrice e rivoluzionaria, paradossale e rivelatrice, antica e moderna ci aiuta a comprendere Evola nelle sue idee esplicite e soprattutto il senso implicito del suo messaggio che rimane da scoprire e assimilare. Non solamente in Russia, ma in questo ultimo aspetto anche in Occidente.

5. La questione cristiana

Ciò che pone i maggiori problemi nell’assimilazione degli scritti di Evola in Russia è la sua impostazione risolutamente anticristiana. Secondo lui l’intera tradizione cristiana è l’espressione della degenerazione ciclica, una radice della decadenza dell’Occidente tradizionale e la “sovversione” dello spirito del Sud, della mentalità “semitica” proiettata al Nord europeo ariano. E’ in questa questione che vi sono degli aspetti inaccettabili del suo messaggio per il contesto del tradizionalismo russo. Qui bisogna quantomeno distinguere due aspetti differenti del problema. 1) Da un lato Evola conosceva soprattutto la forma cattolica della tradizione cristiana – quella che era propria all’Occidente. Qui la critica severa di Evola del ruolo del cristianesimo occidentale nel processo di caduta della civiltà europea è assai giusta (quantunque non senza certe generalizzazioni poco fondate). Oltre a questo nell’ottica della Chiesa Ortodossa, e soprattutto nell’ottica della Chiesa Russa dopo la caduta do Costantinopoli e l’adesione del Patriarcato di Costantinopoli all’Unità Cattolica, si trovano sovente gli stessi motivi nella denuncia dell’ “eresia latina”. Il devozionismo, il razionalismo scolastico e il papismo del Vaticano sono gli oggetti di critica costante dell’Ortodossia contro il cattolicesimo con più o meno le stesse conclusioni riguardanti la responsabilità della “deviazione cattolica” nella desacralizzazione dell’insieme europeo che è giunto al rigetto quasi totale della tradizione e all’avvento dell’era laica. La tradizione cristiana ortodossa differisce molto dalla tradizione cattolica nei punti essenziali dogmatici, rituali e (quello che è più importante nel caso nostro) metafisici. Lo spirito ortodosso è contemplativo, apofantico, esicastico, comunitario e risolutamente anti-individualista. Il fine nettamente dichiarato dell’Ortodossia è la “deificazione” dell’uomo per via ascetica descritta nei termini puramente esoterici e utilizzando i procedimenti iniziatici. Questa via della deificazione è assolutamente un’altra cosa rispetto al misticismo exoterico occidentale dove si esalta l’umanesimo. Si tratta della visione tradizionale della realizzazione metafisica. In altri termini l’Ortodossia non è la religione intesa nel senso di Guénon (ripreso in seguito da Evola), perché non mira alla “salute dell’anima individuale”, ma alla realizzazione puramente spirituale e metafisica – dunque sovraindividuale e sovrapsichica. L'Ortodossia non è l’exoterismo necessitante dell’esistenza di società iniziatiche esteriori per giungere alla completa realizzazione spirituale (l’assenza storica di società iniziatiche fuori dalla Chiesa nei paesi ortodossi lo testimonia in una maniera sorprendente). E’ piuttosto la tradizione completa inglobante esoterismo ed exoterismo come nel caso dell’Islam. L`esempio più vicino a questa particolare della Chiesa Orientale si trova nello sciismo iraniano dove non vi è più distinzione netta tra il dominio esoterico ed exoterico (a questo proposito vedere Henri Corbin “L’homme de la lumiere”). La differenza essenziale tra la tradizione cattolica e quella ortodossa rende la posizione anticattolica e “antiguelfa” di Evola pienamente comprensibile e accettabile. Oltre a ciò, certe obiezioni formulate da Evola contro l’insufficienza metafisica dell’attitudine della Chiesa Occidentale aiutano molto gli ortodossi a ritrovarsi coscientemente nella propria tradizione, cosa che manca fatalmente al cattolicesimo. 2) L'altro aspetto di questo problema consiste nel rigetto da parte di Evola della tradizione cristiana primordiale, nel sua disprezzo per la natura del cristianesimo delle origini che egli qualificò sempre come “plebeo”, “semitico”, e pre “antitradizionale”. Egli si inscrive definitivamente nella tradizione romana precristiana e anticristiana ripetendo nei tratti generali le accuse alla Chiesa da parte dei filosofi pagani e neoplatonici. Certi elementi li ha attinti dalle fonti anticlericali massoniche tramite Arturo Reghini etc. Egli tende a identificare la tradizione cristiana con la tradizione giudeo-cristiana cosa che è esatta solo in parte e storicamente si applica soprattutto all’origine e alla particolarità della tradizione propriamente cattolica, tanto che la Chiesa orientale (o le Chiese Orientali) deve essere qualificata elleno-cristianesimo. (Un’analisi eccellente di questa differenza fondamentale si trova tra gli autori russi come Nikolaev "V poiskah sa Bojestvom", V.Lossky "Theologie mystique" et plus recemment chez les auteurs francais Jean Bies "Voyage au monte Athos" et Michel Fromaget "Corps, ame, esprit"). La tradizione della devozione passiva, della ricerca della salvezza individuale, l’egalitarismo postumo, etc., non caratterizzano l’essenza della Tradizione Cristiana contrariamente alle affermazioni di Evola. Ma è un argomento troppo complesso per essere trattato in questo scritto. Si solamente constatare che agli occhi dei cristiani orientali questo aspetto della critica di Evola non solo non è accettabile, ma resta poco comprensibile, perché i motivi propriamente giudeo-cristiani sono assai rari e marginali nell’Ortodossia. La Chiesa bizantina e dopo la sua caduta la Chiesa russa hanno ereditato la parte più sublime della tradizione ellenica incorporandola nell’insieme armonico della Rivelazione evangelica. Nella Chiesa orientale gli apostoli “gnostici” e controgiudaici sono particolarmente venerati – si tratta di S.Paolo, di Giovanni apostolo, di Andrea (patrono della Chiesa russa), etc. Al contrario, S.Pietro o S.Giacomo (i poli giudeo-cristiani del cristianesimo delle origini) hanno dei ruoli secondari. Lo spirito della Chiesa orientale resta molto caratterizzato dal marcionismo o monofitismo implicito. Il Cristo qui è soprattutto Pantakrator e lo Zar, il Dio della Seconda Venuta terribile e onnipotente. Eè anche lo spirito aristocratico e ascetico attivo ed eroico. Il punto culminante dell’affermazione cosciente di questa natura della Chiesa orientale era la santificazione di S.Gregorio di Palama, l’eminente esoterista cristiano la cui dottrina esicastica della Luce Increata e della deificazione ha scandalizzato tanto i cattolici che il settore filocattolico dell’Ortodossia. Questo stesso esicasmo è proprio alla maggioranza dei santi russi – S.Serge di Radohej, S.Nil Sorsky etc, fino agli artisti delle icone – Andrei Rubliev recentemente canonizzato come santo dal concilio della Chiesa Ortodossa russa. Dunque nel rifiuto assoluto del cristianesimo in quanto tale Evola pone un serio ostacolo alla sua assimilazione da parte del tradizionalismo russo. L'accettazione letterale del suo appello per il ritorno al paganesimo darebbe solamente effetti ridicoli a causa dell’assenza totale in Russia di residui della tradizione slava precristiana le cui parti migliori si ritrovano piuttosto nella particolarità della tradizione ortodossa specificamente russa che nei frammenti incoerenti di miti e culti il cui senso e la cui logica sono completamenti dimenticati. L'adattamento dell’anticristianesimo di Evola alla realtà russa può prodursi attraverso l’accettazione della sua critica del cattolicesimo, dello spirito giudeo-cristiano con la ricerca simultanea degli aspetti positivi – eroici e virili – all’interno stesso della tradizione ortodossa e soprattutto nel dominio esoterico di questa, nel simbolismo delle icone, nell’esicasmo, nei procedimenti iniziatici della deificazione. Si può essere d’accordo con il rifiuto dello spirito “semitico” e con l’elogio dello spirito “ariano” ed “ellenico”. Ma in Russia tutto ciò è obbligato a rimanere nel quadro dell’Ortodossia cristiana, perché tali sono le condizioni storiche e “geografico-sacrali” della civiltà russa.

5. Le radici iperboree degli slavi

Vi è in Evola un aspetto estremamente importante concernente le origini iperboree della Tradizione. Si trova la stessa idea in altri tradizionalisti, soprattutto in Guénon e in B.G. Tilak e anche presso il saggista tedesco Hermann Wirth. D’altronde Evola parla di Guénon e Wirth come due dei tre personaggi che lo hanno influenzato più di altri (il terzo era Guido de Giorgio). E’ il punto fondamentale della sua dottrina. Il grande merito di Evola consiste nel fatto che egli tentava di rianimare il mito iperboreo, di proporlo come realtà spirituale concreta, come l’orientamento per eccellenza non solamente nelle ricerche esoteriche, ma anche come fattore metapolitico e quasi esistenziale. Questa riattivazione dell’argomento iperboreo è l’aspetto più sorprendente della sua Weltanschauung. Ancora una volta questa idea di Evola appare estremamente vicina al tradizionalismo russo, perché il popolo russo essendo un popolo indoeuropeo, dunque ariano, deve prendere necessariamente coscienza del suo più lontano passato per riaffermare la sua identità e trovare in se stesso l’essenza spirituale. Bisogna riconoscere che, malgrado la sua importanza fondamentale, tale questione non era quasi mai stata posta in modo serio nel tradizionalismo russo, salvo alcuni intuizioni assai vaghe di saggisti prerivoluzionari che si occuparono delle origini degli slavi. La visione tradizionale delle origini presuppone la conoscenza delle leggi cicliche e delle corrispondenze cosmiche. In questo caso, l’opera di Evola ci fornisce molte informazioni preziose sull’argomento. Evola stesso era piuttosto interessato allo studio delle influenze iperboree nell’Europa occidentale e nel Vicino Oriente, applicando i metodi di Guénon, di Bachofen e di Wirth per ricostruire la tipologia ciclica delle civiltà a partire dall’età dell’oro fino ai giorni nostri (“Rivolta contro il mondo moderno”). Nelle sue opere dedicate al problema delle “razze spirituali”, egli ha concretizzato certi dati tradizionali riguardanti i tipi di uomini europei nelle loro particolarità fisiche, psichiche, spirituali. Ovunque sottolineò la centralità del tipo “iperboreo”, “nordico”, “apollineo”. Queste ricerche aiutano a comprendere le relazioni che esistono tra la dinamica storica (compresa nella prospettiva tradizionale) e lo status quo critico della nostra situazione moderna. Egli ha disegnato le grandi linee dell’itinerario delle correnti iperboree in corrispondenza con le etnie e le regioni europee. Evidentemente tutto ciò si applica soprattutto alla realtà europeo-occidentale o mediterranea. Gli spazi etnici e geografici dell’Eurasia nord-orientale restano fuori dal quadro delle sue ricerche. Ma il metodo e i principi della ricerca elaborati da Evola così come l’esempio di loro applicazione alla realtà concreta, ci dà la possibilità di compiere un lavoro simile in rapporto alla Russia e ai suoi legami con le tendenze iperboree. Si può affermare che Evola è su tale questione estremamente importante per la Russia perché egli apre delle vie di ricerca delle origini primordiali che prima di lui erano sconosciute e quasi impensabili. E’ l’altra ragione di grande interesse per Evola in Russia dove egli ispira fortemente gli “studi iperborei” applicati alla Russia e all’Eurasia. (A titolo di esempio si può citare A. Dughin “Continente Russia”, Parma, Ed. del Veltro, 1991, e dello stesso autore “Rusia – Misterio del Eurasia”, Madrid, Grupo libro 88, 1992, dove si prova a definire le linee dello studio “iperboreo” dell’Eurasia).

6. Evola e l'Impero euro-sovietico di Jean Thiriart

L'adattamento delle idee di Evola alla Russia e la scoperta tramite il suo metodo tradizionale della sacralità russa, pone una serie di questioni interessanti sulla dottrina della Terza Via in generale, sia livello metafisico che a livello geopolitico e politico. Questi due livelli sono sempre in realtà intimamente legati e la stessa vita di Evola testimonia l’importanza assoluta di scoprire questa corrispondenza “naturale” e sacra che il mondo moderno tende sempre a negare o a nascondere. Nell’impegno politico di Evola non vi è niente di casuale o convenzionale. Le sue idee esoteriche e le sue opinioni politiche sono in perfetta armonia. Egli è uno straordinario esempio di coerenza e di fermezza di spirito di fronte al caos moderno che cerca sempre di sviare gli uomini nella loro ricerca della verità. Si può dire che vi è una logica rimarchevole tra il tradizionalismo metafisico di Evola e la sua difesa dell’idea politica imperiale, antimoderna, “iperborea” ed europea. La sua posizione ideologica decolla direttamente dall’individuazione delle due forme del degrado spirituale dell’Occidente nel capitalismo americano (il polo occidentale) e nel comunismo sovietico (il polo orientale). Dunque, politicamente egli è contro il mondo borghese e il mondo socialista, geopoliticamente egli è contro l’estremo Occidente (Stati Uniti, Francia, Inghilterra, dunque i paesi atlantisti) e contro l’Oriente comunista (il blocco euroasiatico socialista). Da ciò deriva logicamente una certa simpatia innegabile sebbene sfumata per il fascismo e il nazional-socialismo a livello politico e per la difesa dell’Europa centrale germanica a livello geopolitico. In questa visione molto coerente, La Russia (e il mondo slavo) politicamente, geopoliticamente e pure razzialmente occupano la posizione del nemico naturale, da qui questa affermazione estrema che “gli slavi non ebbero mai la tradizione” ("Heidnischer Imperialismus"). Si può supporre che questa visione geopolitica aveva in Evola i fondamenti nella geografia sacra o piuttosto in una certa versione della geografia sacra propria all’occidente imperiale prima ellenico, poi romano e infine germanico che vedeva negli spazi eurasiani le terre della barbarie, popolate dagli “untermenschen” slavo-tartari. Questa stessa concezione è stata ripresa dalla cattolicità occidentale, soprattutto dopo lo scisma. Questo terzaforzismo di Evola (né Occidente, né Oriente, – Europa) è intimamente legata agli altri aspetti già menzionati che impediscono di integrare pienamente e senza sfumature la sua dottrina nel tradizionalismo russo-ortodosso. La valutazione del socialismo come qualcosa di essenzialmente antitradizionale va di pari passo con la scarsa stima per la civiltà slava. Questi due aspetti sono intrinsecamente legati. Se nel caso di Evola vi è corrispondenza diretta tra visione metafisica e dottrina politica, vi erano altri rappresentanti della stessa tendenza politica che seguivano la stessa linea senza alcun riferimento esoterico, ma in piena conformità con i principi che essi stessi ignoravano totalmente. Il terzaforzismo geopolitico e politico del Terzo Reich (quello, ahimè, non di van den Bruck, ma di Adolf Hitler) e in minore misura lo stato fascista italiano hanno fondato la loro ideologia, nei tratti generali, sulla medesima base dottrinale. Da ciò l’attacco contro l’URSS e la guerra contro le potenze atlantiste – Inghilterra e Stati Uniti. Si può dire che la stessa visione è propria fino ad ora agli ambienti dell’estrema destra europea indipendentemente dal fatto che i loro rappresentanti leggano o meno “Orientamenti” o “Gli Uomini e le Rovine”, per non parlare di “Rivolta contro il mondo moderno”. E’ positivo richiamare il caso estremamente interessante dell’evoluzione politica dell’ideologia di “Giovane Europa” di Jean Thiriart che apparteneva a questi movimenti terzaforzisti di estrema destra in senso lato del dopoguerra, tentando di applicare il concetto di patria nella realtà concreta dell’Europa democratica e denazificata. Thiriart dagli anni 60 rappresentava la versione “secolarizzata” e “razionalizzata” della dottrina di Evola, privata dei suoi lati metafisici, ma conservante la coerenza puramente politica. Evola stesso cita Thiriart ne "Gli Uomini e le Rovine". Thiriart cominciò con la ristretta formula “Né Occidente, né Oriente – Europa Imperial”, dunque con la formula identica alla visione di Evola Nel corso degli anni 70 e 80, dopo essersi ritirato dalle lotte politiche, Thiriart è arrivato alla conclusione che i due termini negativi di questa formula non sono più eguali. Egli ha riconosciuto nel sistema socialista sovietico molte più affinità con i propri ideali che non nel mondo capitalista. La stessa cosa egli ha trovato nelle correnti della Rivoluzione Conservatrice tedesca, nel fascismo di sinistra europeo ed italiano, nella repubblica Sociale e anche nel nazional-bolscevismo russo, etc. A partire da questo egli proclama lo slogan un po’ provocatorio dell’ “Impero euro-sovietico da Vladovostock fino a Dublino”, affermando con ciò la compatibilità politica e geopolitica del terzaforzismo europeo con il socialismo euroasiatico. Queste idee hanno influenzato molto l’ambiente nazional-rivoluzionario nelle correnti politiche europee. Bisogna notare che tutto questo è stato fatto nello spirito del pragmatismo politico più freddo, senza alcun appello alla Tradizione. Ma si può, teoricamente almeno, trovare l’esatta corrispondenza metafisica con l’operazione geopolitica di Thiriart. Questo significherebbe la revisione del pensiero evoliano dal punto di vista “eurasista” e nell’ottica del tradizionalismo russo-ortodosso. Come Thiriart è rimasto fedele al suo primo impulso di impegno politico (egli era, d’altronde, un combattente delle SS) cambiando del tutto la sua visione geopolitica, si può pure restare fedeli alla profonda essenza metafisica del messaggio di Evola, adattando certi suoi aspetti alla visione “euroasiatica” con tutte le implicazioni necessarie. Thiriart e anche certi rappresentanti della ND europea e delle correnti NR hanno optato risolutamente per la designazione del nemico unico assoluto che è il capitalismo cosmopolita e la dominazione geopolitica degli Stati Uniti. Il campo socialista è stato piuttosto percepito come “il possibile alleato”. Se si farà la trasposizione di questa valutazione politica al livello spirituale più elevato si arriverà all’apprezzamento sommariamente positivo della tradizione russo- ortodossa, alla scoperta della componente slava dell’insieme indoeuropeo e anche al riconoscimento nel bolscevismo russo di tendenze antimoderne e in qualche modo tradizionali. In questo caso, si giungerà alla formula “Oriente contro Occidente”, “socialismo e socialismo nazionale contro capitalismo”, “eurasisti contro atlantisti”, “Russia con l’Europa germanica e continentale contro gli Stati Uniti e i paesi anglosassoni” etc. Parallelamente si opera la revisione delle idee di Evola che corrisponde esattamente alla lettura “russa” dei suoi scritti (più l’accentuazione del suo aspetto rivoluzionario, di “sinistra”). Terza Roma, Terzo Reich e Terza Internazionale si mostreranno di colpo come simboli intimamente legati tra loro, come le tre forme differenti, ma complementari della Rivolta contro il mondo moderno – non sempre coscienti delle loro implicazioni trascendenti e a volte deviate e pure parodistiche. Ma forse nell’età oscura in cui noi ci troviamo, in questo kali-juga, non ci si devono aspettare dalla realtà esteriore le realizzazioni splendenti e sublimi delle verità tradizionali. Certi aspetti ripugnanti delle ideologie contemporanee e soprattutto la loro messa in pratica possono a volte nascondere i tesori spirituali come i “guardiani della soglia” della tradizione tibetana, mostruosi e aggressivi, custodiscono il deposito prezioso della Tradizione (questa metafora è stata utilizzata una volta dal prof. Claudio Mutti a proposito dell’aspetto esteriore dei regimi comunisti; bisogna precisare che egli stesso è tradizionalista guénoniano ed evoliano, russofilo e nello stesso tempo estimatore delle idee di Jean Thiriart!). Si può aggiungere che malgrado molto confronti in rapporto al lato esoterico del nazional-socialismo e molte parole severe a suo riguardo, Evola stesso accettò la partecipazione alla lotta intellettuale precisamente in questo campo ideologico, provando a “correggere i nomi” (secondo l’espressione esoterica della tradizione cinese) e ad aprire le prospettive del tradizionalismo autentico, non dal di fuori, ma dall’interno del movimento che rappresentava, sia pure approssimativamente, la Rivolta per l’Assoluto. Dunque, "i guardiani della soglia" del neo-spiritualismo ariosofista non impedirono ad Evola di mescolarsi attivamente nel combattimento spirituale al fianco dei nazional-socialisti. Bisogna riconoscere che Evola stesso non compì un’evoluzione simile a quella di Thiriart. Resta comunque il fatto che il suo ultimo libro dottrinale è "Cavalcare la tigre" e non "Orientamenti". L'Impero euro-sovietico da Vladivostock fino a Dublino, il campo della rivolta paradossale dei “rossobruni” eurasisti in cerca del Regnum si oppone totalmente alla modernità, - a questa modernità che si concretizza escatologicamente nel “dominio assoluto del capitale” e nella “mentalità semitico-mercantile”, nell’avvento finale del tipo sociale che non appartiene né alla terza, né alla quarta casta tradizionale indoeuropea - tutto ciò si può dedurre dalla lettura “russa” di Evola, dalla lettura “rivoluzionaria” di Evola che sbriciola la scolastica tradizionalista impotente, accademica, e rincuora e rivivifica il suo spirito che, d’altronde, non è morto.

7. Conclusione

Julius Evola fu un uomo geniale. Più ancora, egli fu l’uomo archetipico che visse nel suo destino personale la sorte della Tradizione nel mezzo delle tenebre escatologiche. La sua eredità è più che preziosa. I suoi errori carichi di significato come le sue autentiche rivelazioni. Egli testimoniò la qualità dell’attuale realtà, mostrò eroicamente l’orientamento che porta al di là. Il suo messaggio è necessario per l’Europa. Egli è anche necessario per la Russia che attraversa il suo momento storico cruciale in cui la questione della sua identità tradizionale e sacra si pone in ogni anima russa. Grazie alla luce delle sue idee, anche se non conveniamo su tutte, noi possiamo restaurare la nostra tradizione metafisica, trovare le chiavi dimenticate o perdute. Questo spiega la popolarità di Evola nella Russia attuale. Questo spiega anche la ragione delle polemiche appassionate che provocano le traduzioni dei suoi libri e dei suoi articoli. L’incontro della Russia con Evola non è una questione di erudizione, di estremismo politico marginale o un affare di “spiritualisti”. Gli aspetti che tocca Evola sono le realtà viventi, le forze sacre che si risvegliano nell’attesa dell’ “Azione Trascendente” della quale Evola ha parlato profeticamente nei suoi primi libri. Evola è l’ultimo eroe dell’Occidente. Ma si sa che nell’ottica escatologica “l’ultimo è sempre il primo”. Dunque il messaggio di Evola conclude un certo ciclo, ma apre l’altro – speriamo che questo sia il ciclo della Rivolta Assoluta contro il mondo moderno.

Traduzione dall'inglese a cura di "Belgicus"

white_rage
25-07-02, 07:14
http://english.pravda.ru/columnists/2002/06/04/29701.html

white_rage
31-07-02, 07:17
Articolo in 16 parti di Troy Southgate, da Pravda.ru (in inglese)



1. REVOLUTION-COUNTER-REVOLUTION - TRADITION

In the opening chapter of his work, Evola can be forgiven for appearing to

sound like a typical Catholic fundamentalist. According to the Baron,

socio-political subversion (eversio) was introduced into Europe for the

first time with the 1789 and 1848 revolutions. Catholic writers like

Chesterton, Belloc and a whole array of popes and cardinals would agree

with him. Indeed, Evola even suggests that the term ‘reactionary’ should

be adopted by those who realise the true extent to which the forces of

liberalism, Marxism and democracy are advancing their secret agenda. We

are informed that if this term had not been so furiously rejected by the

conservative opponents of revolution, our European nations would have been

relatively more salvageable. But now that several decades have passed

since the book was first published, had the author still been alive he may

well have been surprised to learn that his ideas have found significant

expression within the ranks of those who have become known as

‘conservative revolutionaries’. For Evola, therefore, perhaps the

apparently conflicting terminology in this phrase would have been a

misnomer. On the contrary, it was used throughout the twentieth century by

men such as Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Michael Walker, Armin Mohler and

Otto Strasser. In fact Evola tells us himself that ‘conservative

revolution’ should not be connected with the term ‘reaction’ because the

former has distinctly positive and energetic connotations. Revolution in

this sense, he admits, simply means restoring order and thus avoiding

entirely its chaotic antithesis. He even defines revolution (revolutio) -

not as a departure from prevailing trends - but as a return to origins.

Thus revolution, in his evaluation of the term, indicates a replenishment

of that which has gone before.

But the word "conservative" can also be very misleading. Evola argues that

"it is necessary to first establish as exactly as possible what needs to

be 'preserved'". He is also under no illusion that capitalists have long

used this term with which to advance the interests of their own class,

rather than "committing themselves to a stout defence of a higher right,

dignity, and impersonal legacy of values, ideas and principles." This

suggests a kind of aristocratic benevolence, a chivalric sense of duty and

sacrifice. Evola also believes that the State must not concern itself with

economic matters, rather assuming a transcendent role in opposition to the

class-oriented obsessions of both the bourgeoisie and Marxists alike.

Furthermore, he tells us, "what really counts is to be faithful not to

past forms and institutions, but rather to principles of which such forms

and institutions have been particular expressions." So, therefore, the

success of tradition lies in our ability to create new forms from the

etymological drawing-board which inspired those of the past, a process

which works its way down through the generations as though divinely

inspired. In other words it is not the transitory or - in the case of

historical personality cults - even the idolatrous facets which are of

value, but those which are everlasting and permanent. Indeed, Evola pours

scorn upon the very term ‘historical’ because such matters rise above and

beyond the whole notion of history altogether. Mircea Eliade has discussed

this idea at length in The Myth of The Eternal Return [Princeton, 1991],

echoed here by Evola: "These principles are not compromised by the fact

that in various instances an individual, out of weakness or due to other

reasons, was able to actualise them or to even implement them partially at

one point in his life rather than another." The designers and schemers of

the modern age, of course, dismiss these aspects as having been a

consequence of the period in which they were apparently expressed. So

therefore tradition and historicism are totally irreconcilable. The

author’s own homeland also comes in for some criticism, with Evola firmly

believing that Italy has no material or ideological connection with

tradition and that her only hope lies in a spiritual renewal.

Returning to the dangers of revolution - at least in the purely negative

sense as defined above - we are reminded of the more positive, Hegelian

analysis: "the negation of the negation." In other words, eradicating that

which in itself has been the great eradicator is a worthwhile objective.

On the other hand, Evola is being slightly pedantic when he criticises the

adoption of the "revolutionary spirit," lest it sound too progressive or

wild. His denunciation of the unfulfilling legend of technological

advancement, however, is very accurate indeed: "Those who are not subject

to the predominant materialism of our times, upon recognising the only

context in which it is legitimate to speak of progress, will be on guard

against any orientation in which the modern 'myth of progress' is

reflected." Indeed, there are many such examples, all of which contend

either blindly or knowingly that the past must be eradicated for the good

of the present. This, says Evola, is "history’s demolition squad." It is

rather surprising, therefore, to consider that in his youth Evola offered

his support to Italian Futurism. Not, of course, that Marinetti’s pledge

to raze libraries and museums to the ground was ever designed to be an

attempt to destroy the perennial essence which always transcends the

purely anachronistic. The contentious issue of Fascism is also tackled by

Evola and is here regarded as being valid only when it concords with

tradition. To stand vigorously in favour of Fascism simply for its own

sake, is akin to the fulminating negativity inherent within many of its

anti-fascist opponents.
2. SOVEREIGNTY - AUTHORITY - IMPERIUM

According to Evola, "every true political unity appears as the embodiment

of an idea and a power, thus distinguishing itself from every form of

naturalistic association or 'natural right', and also from every societal

aggregation determined by mere social, economic, biological, utilitarian,

or eudemonistic factors." He goes on to point out that, for the Romans at

least, the very idea of an imperium of sovereign power was something

perceived to be highly sacred. This functioned by way of a mystical

trinity comprised of the Leader (auctoritas), the Nobility (gens) and the

State (res publica). Evola’s interpretation of the imperium is certainly

supported by those historians who - like Edward Gibbon and Oswald Spengler

- have allowed the Holy Roman Empire its own unique and symbolic niche in

both time and space. That it prevailed until its disastrous collapse at

Constantinople in 1453, of course, is demonstrative of the way in which

the very idea of imperium survived the various cycles of history in which

it found itself. Evola also reminds us of De Maistre’s assertion that a

"power and authority that are not absolute, are not real authority or real

power" at all.

The author then turns his mind to judicial matters, stating that, whenever

the State rises above the merely temporal laws of the nation, it assumes

the role of an independently organic entity. In other words, Evola is

basically suggesting that in cases of national emergency, for example, the

State can flex its muscles and prove just how transcendent it really is by

overriding the laws of the judiciary. This notion will fill the average

supporter of democracy and egalitarianism with some horror, but Evola is

referring to a central principle of authoritative order rather than

advocating that a fascist dictatorship rule over the masses with an iron

fist (although he does suggest that a temporary dictatorship can often get

things back on track). Indeed, this is rather similar to the way Cicero

analyses Natural Law and the fact that it only applies to those who seek

to transgress its permanently entrenched codes.

Evola also refutes the idea that power should rise up to the State from

the grass roots, for example in the way that Muammar al-Qathafi explains

the concept in The Green Book. As far as he is concerned, the State is not

the expression or embodiment of the people at all. This "political domain

is defined through hierarchical, heroic, ideal, anti-hedonistic, and, to a

degree, even anti-eudemonistic values that set it apart from the order of

naturalistic and vegetative life." But this is almost like a paradox. If

the State completely transcends the ordinary functions of what most people

consider to be the role of a State, then surely Evola’s vision is one of

anarchic authority? Evola may have disagreed with the use of the term

"anarchy," but surely the State for him is more mystical than fully

tangible in the purely ordinary sense? By this, I am implying that the

State is present as a guiding authority at the helm of a nation or empire,

but absent in terms of the way it is perceived by most people. Anarchy, of

course, does not mean that authority is non-existent, it simply refers to

the absence of rule. Therefore Evola’s concept of the mystical State may

well be altogether detached from the socio-economic version which writers

like Peter Kropotkin (The State: Its Historic Role), Michael Bakunin

(Marxism, Freedom & The State) or Herbert Spencer (The Man Versus The

State) have gone to such great lengths in order to analyse and dissect.

Evola makes a profound distinction between the political and social

aspects of the State, arguing that it emanates from a specific family

(gens) and thus rejecting the idea that states can arise from the

naturalistic plane. At first, this appears to be a contradiction in terms,

because, surely, the family is a naturalistic phenomenon? On the contrary,

Evola is referring to an altogether different interpretation of the term

"family," that of the Mannerbunde (or all-male fraternity). Given the

nature of the Mafia, of course, Italians should find it that much easier

to appreciate the subtle differences in terminology. Evola was also a

Freemason and wrote extensively on the Mithraic sun-cult, both prime

examples of the Mannerbunde and possessing deep initiatic qualities which

- by way of a series of trials and degrees - take the male apprentice way

beyond his maternalistic upbringing on the exoteric plane. Thus a

significant change takes place both within the man himself and the way he

is then perceived by others. But this interpretation is not designed to

leave women out of the equation, it simply states that whilst men are the

natural frequenters of the mystical, or political, domain, women are the

pivotal masters of society. It lies completely "under the feminine aegis."

Those readers who are familiar with Evola’s Revolt Against The Modern

World [Inner Traditions, 1995] will grasp the higher significance of what

Evola is trying to say. Indeed, in the present work he summarises these

metaphysical concepts thus: "The common mythological background is that of

the duality of the luminous and heavenly deities, who are the gods of the

political and heroic world on the one hand, and of the feminine and

maternal deities of naturalistic existence, who were loved by the plebeian

strata of society on the other hand. Thus, even in the ancient Roman

world, the idea of State and of imperium (i.e., of the sacred authority)

was strictly connected to the symbolic cult of the virile deities of

heaven, of light and of the super-world in opposition to the dark region

of the Mothers and the chthonic deities." If we follow Evola’s line of

thinking, we soon arrive at the medieval idea of the divine right of

kings. This, he tells us, was a development which - contrary to the

earlier imperium - was not consolidated "by the power of a rite."

Traditional Catholics would disagree wholeheartedly with this conclusion,

at least right up until the Reformation and Henry VIII’s well-documented

break with Rome. And if the divine right of kings is one step removed from

the imperium, the next logical stage of decline is that of Socialism and

the demos; which Evola describes as "the degradation and contamination of

the political principle." Furthermore, he argues, "[b]oth democracy and

socialism ratify the shift from the masculine to the feminine and from the

spiritual to the material and the promiscuous."

Evola is often portrayed by his opponents as a "fascist," but it may

surprise many of them to learn that he relegates "romantic and idealistic"

concepts such as the nation, the homeland, and the people to the purely

naturalistic and biological level. These issues, he contends, have

replaced a political principle that is representative of a far higher and

more penetrating tradition. By refusing to accept the legitimacy of

feudalism or the authority of the Holy Roman Empire, he argues,

nation-states tried to create their own pockets of authority. Thus, the

struggle between popes and princes, kings and noblemen, led a vast

centralisation of power which was epitomised by the Third Estate. This is

where Evola returns to what he perceives as the crucial - and destructive

- role played by the 1789 French Revolution, whereby the final vestiges of

tradition were erased from the face of Europe. The process was aided by

the 1848 Revolution and the onslaught of the First World War, pitting

nation against nation in the name of "patriotism." Furthermore, he says,

elevating a national identity or geographical territory to a kind of

mystical status completely erodes both authority and sovereignty. Nations

are associated with female terminology - Motherland, for example - and

therefore "attributed to the Great Mother in ancient plebeian

gynecocracies and in societies that ignored the virile and political

principle of the imperium." Evola goes on to compare the political unit of

the nation with the position of the soul in comparison to the body. In

other words, it assumes an "inner form," which totally goes beyond the

popular understanding of the way a nation is defined. It is true, after

all, that nations do not arise purely by themselves and so the hidden -

spiritual - component is the true guiding force. The nation is only

perceived as an independent entity with a life of its own once the

political aspect has been significantly weakened: "From the political

class understood as an Order and a Mannerbund a shift occurs to to the

democratic ruling classes who presume to 'represent' the people and who

acquire for themselves the various offices or positions of power by

flattering and manipulating the masses." This, according to Evola, is due

to the lack of real men in contemporary society and - paying his respects

to Carlyle in the process - he goes on to warn us that we live in a "world

of domestics that yearns to be ruled by a pseudo-hero.' Indeed, there is

little doubt that the parliamentary system, for example, never fails to

deviate from the idea of the nation as myth, despite the fact that the

political sphere is never regarded as being sovereign in itself. Evola

attacks universal suffrage because he sees it as the consequence of "the

degradation of the ruling class." It is certainly a fact that the reforms

of the nineteenth century were achieved at the expense of the ruling

classes, but, from an Evolian perspective, the scales were tipped at both

ends. The consequence of this formative episode in European history,

modern democracy, saw the true political unit replaced with a corrupt and

bastardised system based entirely on materialism.

But what of those nations which have actually followed the political

principle to the letter? We are informed by Evola that the nation will

always be potentially compromised, whilst "on the one side stand the

masses, in which, besides changing feelings, the same elementary instincts

and interests connected to a physical and hedonistic plane will always

have free play; and on the other side stand men who differentiate

themselves from the masses as bearers of a complete legitimacy and

authority, bestowed by the Idea and by their rigorous, impersonal

adherence to it. The Idea, only the Idea, must be the true fatherland for

these men: what unites and sets them apart should consist in adherence to

the same idea, rather than to the same land, language, or blood." This is

a pretty bold statement, given that Evola is usually - and wrongly -

associated with certain elements of the Far Right. Perhaps this is why the

Assassins and their Knights Templar contemporaries found that they had so

much in common? That which is most important, therefore, is not one’s

adherence to a nation or a race - which instantly means that one must

love, respect and work for the best interests of his compatriots without

question - but one’s loyalty and fidelity to the very essence and spirit

of tradition. In Evola’s own words: "The true task and the necessary

premise for the rebirth of the 'nation' and for its renewed form and

conscience consists of untying and separating that which only apparently,

promiscuously, or collectively appears to be one entity, and in

re-establishing a virile substance in the form of a political elite around

which a new crystallisation will occur." This, of course, is very

different to the sheep-like mentality of most nationalist groups. One only

has to look at the recent revival in England of a pseudo-patriotism built

upon the most base and plebeian values of modern culture. Aligning oneself

with existing national stereotypes, of course, is hardly making an attempt

to transcend the sterile values which are embraced by the masses. The Idea

that Evola talks about is based upon "strength and clarity, rather than

'idealism' and sentimentality." The nation has to be integrated with the

political, so that the whole concept is raised to a much higher level by

replacing the degenerative ruling classes with a new, elite aristocracy of

cadres.
3. PERSONALITY - FREEDOM – HIERARCHY

In this chapter the author begins by attacking liberalism, the chief

scourge behind the French Revolution. Many have tried to define

liberalism, including Traditional Catholics like Pope Pius XI

[Quadragesimo Anno], Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre [They Have Uncrowned Him],

Fr. Felix Sarda y Salvany [What Is Liberalism?] and Rev. Fr. Stephen P.

DeLallo [The Sword of Christendom], although today the word is wrongly

associated with anarcho-capitalists and right-wing libertarians. So how

does Evola define the term?: "The essence of liberalism is individualism.

The basis of its error is to mistake the notion of the person with that of

the individual and to claim for the latter, unconditionally and according

to egalitarian premises, some values that should rather be attributed

solely to the former, and then only conditionally. Because of this

transposition, these values are transformed into errors, or into something

absurd and harmful." Egalitarianism - another mainstay of the 1879

Revolution - is completely dismissed by Evola due to its fundamentally

ridiculous belief in the equality of all individuals. It not only

relegates the person to the level of a mere part within the broader

egalitarian mass, which Evola rightly shows to be a contradiction in

terms, it obliterates human diversity by suggesting that no one person is

significantly different to another. From the judicial perspective, of

course, it is surely wrong to establish a form of fake "justice" by

ensuring that everybody is legally bound in an unjust manner. It is also

entirely out of step with Natural Law. Evola explains: "the lower degrees

of reality are differentiated from the higher ones because in the lower

degrees a whole can be broken down into many parts, all of which retain

the same quality (as in the case of the parts of a non-crystallised

mineral, or those parts of some plants and animals that reproduce

themselves by parthenogenesis); in the higher degrees of reality this is

no longer possible, as there is a higher organic unity in them that does

not allow itself to be split without being compromised and without its

parts entirely losing the quality, meaning, and function they had in it."

When Evola speaks of parthenogenesis, of course, he is referring to those

invertebrates and lower plants which engage in a form of sterile

self-reproduction. The allegedly "free" individual, therefore, is

considered to be inorganic and much lower than its organic superior.

Meanwhile, the true person is he who continues to remain "unequal" due to

his own distinct features and abilities. Natural individuation is not the

same as crass individualism. At the same time, however, Evola does not

infer that everyone deserves the "right" to be regarded as a person. Thus,

he dispels the liberal myth that all of us possess some form of "human

dignity" regardless of who we are. In fact there are several different

levels of dignity each contained within a just and specific hierarchy. So

once again, Evola is dismissing the egalitarian idea of a "universal

right," brotherhood of equality or an automatic entitlement of some kind.

In times gone by, however, "'peers' and 'equals' were often aristocratic

concepts: in Sparta, the title homoioi ('equals') belonged exclusively to

the elite in power (the title was revoked in cases of misconduct)."

Moving on, the notion of freedom - a favourite catchword of those engaged

in the struggle between classes - is regarded in the same manner. It is

something we enjoy as a consequence of who we are as a person, rather than

simply because we happen to be a member of humanity. Evola remarks that

freedom does not come in any one form, but is actually multifarious and

homogenous. He goes on to suggest that the freedom "to do" is quite

different from the freedom "for doing." Indeed, whilst the former has to

function within a controlled and standardised system of liberal "equality"

(which inevitably leads, therefore, to one class disregarding the freedoms

of others), the latter has more in common with Aleister Crowley’s often-

misunderstood expressions "do as thou wilt" and "every man and woman is a

star." In other words, by possessing the freedom "to do," one can follow

one’s own unique course and act in accordance with one’s true nature.

So how does the individual relate to society as a whole? Tradition accords

with the ultimate supremacy of the individual, or what Ernst Junger has

defined elsewhere as "the anarch" or "sovereign individual" [see Eumeswil,

Quartet, 1993]. Evola even puts the sovereignty of the person before the

State, because he views people not "as they are conceived by

individualism, as atoms or a mass of atoms, but people as persons, as

differentiated beings, each one endowed with a different rank, a different

freedom, a different right within the social hierarchy based on the values

of creating, constructing, obeying, and commanding. With people such as

these it is possible to establish the true State, namely an anti-liberal,

anti-democratic, and organic State." This vision, however, depends upon

the advancement of the person through various stages of individuation and

self-awareness. Natural inequality, therefore, will lead to an organic

structure of society at the very helm of which stands the "absolute

individual." This figurehead, says Evola, is completely different to the

mere concept of the individual because it encapsulates that which is most

qualitative within man. The "absolute individual" is fundamentally opposed

to the concept that society itself is the ultimate manifestation of

humanity. It is the sheer pinnacle of a transcendental sovereignty which

represents the synthesising nature of the imperium. Moreover, of course,

the idea can become manifest within the framework of the nation and seems

defiantly opposed to present trends like globalisation and

multi-racialism: "Thus, it is a positive and legitimate thing to uphold

the right of the nation in order to assert an elementary and natural

principle of difference of a given human group over and against all the

forms of individualistic disintegration, international mixture and

proletarisation, and especially against the mere world of the masses and

pure economy." To achieve this process, Evola declares that the State must

be established from the nation itself.

But if one is seeking to fully align himself with the principles of

Evolian thought, a person who is free in the true sense of the word must

never be constrained by national, racial or family ties. This does not

imply that he should actively seek to turn himself against them, on the

contrary, the importance is to follow one’s own path. Indeed, this course

- which must lead towards the creation of the New Man - requires great

discipline and understanding. Many who try, however, will fall by the

wayside: "he who does not have the capability to dominate himself and to

give himself a code to abide by would not know how to dominate others

according to justice or how to give them a law to follow. The second

foundation is the idea. previously upheld by Plato, that those who cannot

be their own masters should find a master outside of themselves, since

practising the discipline of obeying should teach these people how to

master their own selves." People are therefore different, although Evola

does make a distinction between the ruthlessness of "natural selection"

and that of respect. In ancient societies the people who were most

respected and admired were those with special abilities and qualities, not

simply animalistic strength and brute force. The secret, of course, is to

ensure that "power is based on superiority and not vice versa." It is

certainly not necessary to bludgeon people into submission in order to get

them to respect true leadership and ability. In the light of what Evola

really thinks about such matters, therefore, you have to wonder why on

earth Evolian Tradition was ever compared to Fascist totalitarianism in

the first place.

The fact that Evola so openly acknowledges that there are various stations

in life will outrage liberals, Marxists and advocates of democracy alike.

But he is, nevertheless, absolutely correct. Forcing people to accord with

a societal conglomeration which has been enshrined in law by a coterie of

dogmatists and architectural levellers, is simply not allowing people to

discover and thus accomplish their true destinies. Evola believes that

historical events have often been determined by the manner in which "the

inferior" - which is not used in a derogatory sense - regard their

"superior" counterparts. Indeed, to believe that humanity can somehow be

subjected to a form of international utilitarianism is naive and misguided

in the extreme. Humans are prone to "emotional or irrational motivation"

and, inevitably, this will usually be the dominant factor which shapes the

course of their lives. The Evolian - and, thus, traditional - approach to

organisation lies in what is described as the "anagogical function" of the

State and its latent ability to both engender and co-ordinate the

individual’s sacrificial capacity to ally himself with a higher principle.

The success of man’s organisational capacity, therefore, is not based

purely on economics or prosperity but depends on whether the organic

hierarchical balance has been maintained effectively. Within the liberal

system, of course, the balance is upset by the fact that he "who becomes

an individual, by ceasing to have an organic meaning and by refusing to

acknowledge any principle of authority, is nothing more than a number, a

unit in the pack; his usurpation evokes a fatal collectivist limitation

against himself." Liberalism, therefore, may appear to defend freedom but

it is actually a means of subverting it altogether. Marxism functions in

the same way and both ideologies stem - once again - from the French

Revolution: "when Western man broke the ties to Tradition, claiming for

himself as an individual a vain and illusory freedom: when he became an

atom in society, rejecting every higher symbol of authority and

sovereignty in a system of hierarchies." Fascism, by falsely claiming to

restore the traditional equilibrium, actually worsened the situation by

initiating a crude and materialistic form of totalitarianism.
The worst example of liberalism is its dependence upon economic

exploitation. Evola charts the decline of economic stability from the

death of the feudal system - when "the organic connection . . . between

personality and property, social function and wealth, and between a given

qualification or moral nobility and the rightful and legitimate possession

of goods, was broken" - and the onset of the Napoleonic Code, right

through to the desanctification of property and the arrival of the

unscrupulous capitalist. So what, according to Evola, is the role of the

traditionalist in light of the modern evils which were unleashed over two

hundred years ago? Our response must be founded upon a return to origins:

"To go back to the origins means, plainly and simply, to reject anything

that in any domain (whether social, political, or economic) is connected

to the 'immortal principles' of 1789, as a libertarian, individualistic,

and egalitarian thought, and to oppose it with the hierarchical view, in

the context of which alone the notion, value, and freedom of man as person

are not reduced to mere words or excuses for a work of destruction and

subversion."
4. ORGANIC STATE – TOTALITARIANISM

Evola now attempts to make a distinction between the totalitarian and

organic State. The democracies have gone to great lengths in order to

portray the traditional State "in a heinous way," ensuring that opponents

of democracy are instantly equated with brutality and fascism.

Totalitarianism, being a relatively modern word, is inevitably applied to

past systems in a purely retrospective manner. Evola, however, seeks to

approach the question of totalitarianism by examining the way in which the

term is actually defined by the democracies. Therefore whenever the author

refers to the more positive aspects of "totalitarianism," these components

are said to accord with the organic State: "A State is organic when it has

a centre, and this centre is an idea that shapes the various domains of

life in an efficacious way; it is organic when it ignores the division and

the autonomisation of the particular and when, by virtue of a system of

hierarchical participation, every part within its relative autonomy

performs its own function and enjoys an intimate connection with the

whole." It is not difficult to see how this differs fundamentally with the

individualism and liberalism of the modern age. Evola rightly points out

that more traditional societies were even able to accommodate a loyal

opposition. In stark contrast to the representative party system of today,

the early English Parliament was far more pluralist and was often heard to

refer to "His Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition."

But the organic State also had a spiritual or religious dimension, whereby

the political was formulated in accordance with a more penetrating and

unitary outlook. This, says Evola, is what makes the organic synonymous

with the traditional. In the minds of the liberals and the communists, of

course, this healthy approach to former societies and a more pluralist

style of organisation inevitably means that tradition is wrongly equated

with "fascism." Evola, on the other hand, is able to counter this

fraudulent analogy by explaining that "totalitarianism merely represents

the counterfeited image of the organic ideal. It is a system in which

unity is imposed from the outside, not on the basis of the intrinsic force

of a common idea and an authority that is naturally acknowledged, but

rather through direct forms of intervention and control, exercised by a

power that is exclusively and materially political, imposing itself as the

ultimate reason for the system." Having lived through Mussolini’s Italy,

of course, Evola was more than aware of the shortcomings relating to the

Corporate State. Totalitarian dictatorship also fails to accept the

organic chain that runs between the upper and lower poles of traditional

society, replacing pluralism, decentralisation and participation with the

fuhrer-princip. Furthermore, the totalitarian State "engenders a kind of

sclerosis, or a monstrous hypertrophy of the entire

bureaucratic-administrative structure." The Orwellian ministries of Nazi

Germany spring to mind, becoming "all-pervasive, replacing and suppressing

every particular activity, without any restraints, due to an insolent

intrusion of the public sphere into the private domain, organising

everything into rigid schemes." But these characteristics are not a purely

modern phenomenon, on the contrary, as Oswald Spengler notes in The

Decline of the West [Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 73]: "the great

cultures accomplish their majestic wave-cycles. They appear suddenly,

swell in splendid lines, flatten again and vanish, and the face of the

waters is once more a sleeping waste." Thus, a similar pattern emerged

during the death-throes of Persia and Greece and, according to Edward

Gibbon: "the demise of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of

immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause

of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and as soon as time

or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric

yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of its ruin is simple

and obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed,

we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long." [The Decline

and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chatto & Windus, 1960, p. 524-5]. Similarly,

Evola likens the degenerative process to a living organism: "after

enjoying life and movement, a stiffening sets in when they die that is

typical of a body turning into a corpse. This state, in turn, is followed

by the terminal phase of disintegration."
The way in which the organic or traditional State is perceived is also

important. Fascism and Marxism tend to lead to blind statism, but Evola

believes that the organic State must be granted a degree of "Statolatry."

In other words, rather than seeking to worship the State for its own sake,

"[t]here is a profound and substantial difference between the deification

and absolutisation of what is profane and the case in which the political

reality derives its legitimisation from reference points that are also

spiritual and somehow transcendent." This is the difference between the

materialist and the spiritual, the totalitarian and the organic. The

spiritual element acts like a societal adhesive, binding together the

unitary whole to which the people are willingly attached without coercion

or repression. In contemporary Western societies it is considered normal

in certain occupations and ceremonies to undertake an oath. But despite

being a remnant of the distant past, the oath today has been stripped of

its sacred implications and has become empty, meaningless and contractual.

This is because the State and various other national institutions have

become a merely temporal form of authority, rendering the more spiritual

expressions of verbal fidelity completely irrelevant. The gulf between the

contractual and the traditional is demonstrated by the way in which the

"Official Secrets Act" is designed to secure the loyalty of the individual

to the State. In feudal times, of course, the intrinsically transcendent

nature of the oath became manifest by way of the sacramenum fidelitatis.

This was infinitely more binding than giving one’s allegiance to a

company, an institution or a squadron.

But when the traditional State is said to represent a unitary organism it

must not be compared, warns Evola, to the humanistic vision epitomised by

Hegel’s "Ethical State." Indeed, when Hegel perceives the individual to be

part of a universal code of ethics, he is looking at humanity through

rose-tinted spectacles. The unworkable liberalism which pervades this

idealistic interpretation will only lead to one thing: totalitarianism in

the name of "tradition" and "order." Therefore the "ethical" State

inevitably leads to the "fascist" State, with the destructive multi-party

system being replaced with an even more dangerous one-party dictatorship.

Muammar al-Qadhafi, whose vision of the "organic" State conflicts with

that proposed by Evola and other traditionalists, defines the party thus:

"It is the modern dictatorial instrument of governing. The party is the

rule of a part over the whole" [The Green Book, Tripoli, 1977, p. 11]. On

this point Evola agrees, suggesting that once the party has ascended to

power it simply tries to advance the interests of its own faction. It is

therefore divisive and threatens the stability of that which must be

unitary and transcendent. The solution to this problem, it seems, lies in

the re-establishment of an elite suited to maintaining the balance of

sovereignty and authority. Evola suggests that this can be done from

within by both installing and enduring a period of interregnum, although

National-Anarchists prefer to advocate the foundation of new decentralised

communities on the periphery from which elite cadres recreate the very

essence of true aristocracy.
5. BONAPARTISM - MACHIAVELLIANISM - ELITISM

Bonapartism is a rather unusual term and one which Evola borrows from R.

Michels, author of the 1915 work Political Parties: A Sociological Study

of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. Michels demonstrates

how representative democracy and "government of the people" leads to the

control of the State by a self-interested minority. This view is echoed by

J. Burnham in The Machiavellians, who explains that the so-called "will of

the people" is eventually superseded by the domination of a bureaucratic

clique. Thus Bonapartism begins with a popular demand for more freedom and

equality and ends in the totalitarian "dictatorship of the proletariat."

Evola likens this process to a people who have catastrophically "led and

disciplined themselves." After the decline of its aristocratic nobility,

ancient Greece witnessed the same systematically repressive phenomenon.

Power simply became detached from a higher, spiritual authority, leading

to fear and brutality. Evola then turns to Otto Weininger, who once

"described the figure of the great politician as one who is a despot and

at the same time a worshipper of the people, or simultaneously a pimp and

a whore." Indeed, by seeking to appeal to the masses the modern leader

easily commands their respect and adulation. Not in the way that

traditional societies gave their loyalty to the organic State, however,

because instead of engendering a healthy diversity between the various

levels (not classes) of society Bonapartism forces the politician to

become a "man of the people." Therefore he is perceived as a common man,

rather than as someone exceptionally transcendent and symbolic. This,

Weininger called "mutual prostitution." Authority is perfectly useless

unless it is attached to a central idea which runs throughout the social

fabric and acts as a point of reference. This affects the individual

because one "is restricted not so much in this or that exterior freedom

(which is, after all, of little consequence) but rather in the inner

freedom - the ability to free himself from his lowest instincts."

Bonapartism - which Evola interprets here as a political, rather than

militaristic, term - is equated with dictatorship because this is the

logical result of its democratic ethos. It completely erodes the

traditional values of human existence, refusing to "distinguish clearly

between the symbol, the function, and the principle, on the one hand, and

man as an individual, on the other." Instead, it rejects "that a man be

valued and recognised in terms of the idea and principle he upholds" and

simply views man in terms of "his action upon the irrational forms of the

masses." Similarly, Evola points out the errors which began with

Social-Darwinism and consequently found expression in Nietzsche’s concept

of the Superman (Ubermensch): "most people, even when they admit the

notion of aristocracy in principle, ultimately settle for a very limited

view of it: they admire an individual for being exceptional and brilliant,

instead of for being one in whom a tradition and a special 'spiritual

race' shine forth, or instead of whose greatness is due not to his human

virtues, but rather to the principle, the idea, and a certain regal

impersonality that he embodies."

Machiavellianism - despite its frequent portrayal as an aristocratic

notion - is also a highly individualist philosophy. Indeed, although the

concept of The Prince rejects democracy and the masses, it makes the fatal

mistake of encouraging power and authority to reside in the hands of man.

In other words, man is himself the be all and end all of Machiavellian

doctrine. Such men are not connected to a chain of Tradition, they are

merely interested in deploying their political capabilities to advance

their own interests. His very position is maintained by lies, deceit and

manipulation, becoming a rampant political monster to which everything

must be methodically subjected. This is clearly very different to the way

in which traditional aristocracies functioned and indicates that

Machiavellianism is a consequence of the general decline. True elitism,

argues Evola, degenerates in four stages: "in the first stage the elite

has a purely spiritual character, embodying what may be generally called

‘divine right’. This elite expresses an ideal of immaterial virility. In

the second stage, the elite has the character of warrior nobility; at the

third stage we find the advent of oligarchies of a plutocratic and

capitalistic nature, such as they arise in democracies; the fourth and

last elite is that of the collectivist and revolutionary leaders of the

Fourth Estate."
6. WORK: THE DEMONIC NATURE OF THE ECONOMY


When Evola discusses the "demonic nature of the economy," we are instantly

reminded of the capitalist free market and communism’s deterministic

assessment of man as economic unit (homo economicus). In the modern age

economic forces have become the new gods of Mammon, creating a dangerous

and cataclysmic antithesis to the spiritual aspirations of the ancient

world. We have already examined how Evola warns against the lack of

hierarchical authority, and in this chapter he demonstrates how both

capitalism and Marxism have completely subverted the organic nature of our

whole existence: "as long as we only talk about economic classes, profit,

salaries, and production, and as long as we believe that real human

progress is determined by a particular system of distribution of wealth

and goods, and that, generally speaking, human progress is measured by the

degree of wealth or indigence - then we are not even close to what is

essential." Thus work and the modern economy are depicted as the

penultimate goals of human endeavour, rather than man accepting that his

natural interests must lie ultimately in the satisfaction of his own

material needs. This is not to suggest that food, clothing and shelter are

the most important facets of human existence, simply that they are the

most basic prerequisites of all. Man also needs to be satisfied both

spiritually and as part of a structure which: "neither knows nor tolerates

merely economic classes and does not know the division between

‘capitalists’ and ‘proletarians’; an order solely in terms of which are to

be defined the things worth living and dying for. We must also uphold the

need for a true hierarchy and for different dignitaries, with a higher

function of power installed at the top, namely the imperium." But this

vision is hardly being fulfilled today. Everything is geared towards

economic production and, inevitably, wage-slavery. Evola does not believe

in the formulation of a new economic theory, instead he explains that the

current obsession with economic matters can only decline once people

change their attitudes completely: "What must be questioned is not the

value of this or that economic system, but the value of the economy

itself." This is a fundamental part of National-Anarchist thinking, too, a

total rejection of the Left-Right spectrum which, once again, ever since

the French Revolution has imposed upon us a wholly superficial antithesis

between two allegedly opposed economic ideologies. Those so- called

"backward" nations which, thus far, have avoided economic development are

said by Evola to "enjoy a certain space and a relative freedom." By

seizing upon the issue of class, Marxists have deliberately obscured the

components of the ancient world by smearing them with an economic grime.

In traditional societies, of course, the economy was simply one area

within an all-encompassing hierarchical structure. Terms like "capitalist"

and "proletarian" did not exist and class struggle was redundant: "Even in

the domain of the economy, a normal civilisation provides specific

justification for certain differences in condition, dignity, and

function." Marxism, says Evola, did not come about due to the need for a

resolution to the social question, on the contrary, Marxism itself has

exacerbated the problem by creating the myth of the class system. In

traditional societies "an individual contained his need and aspirations

within natural limits; he did not yearn to become different from what he

was, and thus he was innocent of that Entfremdung (alienation) decried by

Marxism." Leninists, Trotskyists and other advocates of the class struggle

will recoil in horror at this statement, but Evola is denouncing the

materialist desires of the common economic agitator rather than supporting

the aspirations of the "ruling class." Indeed, economic determinism is

considered to be unhealthy and detrimental because "it can legitimately be

claimed that the so-called improvement of social conditions should be

regarded not as good but as evil, when its price consists of the

enslavement of the single individual to the productive mechanism and to

the social conglomerate; or in the degradation of the State to the ‘State

based on work’, and the degradation of society to ‘consumer society’; or

in the elimination of every qualitative hierarchy; or in the atrophy of

every spiritual sensibility and every ‘heroic’ attitude." There is little

doubt, therefore, that the appliance of the economic worldview comes at a

great cost. Evola implores us to express our real selves and to unleash

our true potential. Each of us has a different function and a unique

position to fulfil. Class conflict, therefore, is a diversion which has

been thrust in the path of the unitary and the organic. In terms of the

way in which we approach work, Evola tells us that an American attempt to

extract more labour from a Third World workforce by doubling their wages,

was met with "a majority of the workers cutting their working hours in

half." Compare this traditionalist attitude with that of the modern-day

office or factory worker who perpetually competes for overtime with his

colleagues. Indeed, whilst traditional societies are merely interested in

satisfying their basic needs, those in the West endure increasingly long

hours, exhaustion, bad diets and severe health problems in their pursuit

for computers, televisions and cars. Evola notes that, prior to the rise

of the mercantile economy and the gradual evolution of capitalism, "the

acquisition of external goods had to be restricted and that work and the

quest for profit were justifiable only in order to acquire a level of

wealth corresponding to one’s status in life: this was the Thomist and,

later, the Lutheran view." Work was always designed to satisfy man’s basic

needs and provide him with the time he needed in order to pursue more

worthy and meaningful pursuits. But when the acquisition of wealth becomes

such an obsession that it imprisons the individual within an economic

straightjacket, something is clearly very wrong indeed. Success,

therefore, is not determined by the credit in one’s bank account or the

growth of industry and technology, it relates to the way in which an

individual is able to progress in a more spiritual sense. Living in

accordance with one’s own intrinsic nature (dharma) is far preferable to

pushing oneself beyond the boundaries of normal behaviour through greed

and materialism. This trend is epitomised by the restless nature of the

capitalistic economy and its exploitative pursuit of new global markets.

In the knowledge, of course, that once it has run its inevitable course

the lack of available resources will herald its total collapse.

The emergence of capitalism has often been equated with the Protestant

work ethic, and is here dismissed by Evola for the simple reason that

labour has been transformed from a means of subsistence to an end in

itself. It is not only the Right who are obsessed with work, of course, it

is the Left too. One thinks of endless marches organised by the likes of

Militant Labour and the Socialist Workers Party, during which the only

objective is to enslave the proletariat to the employment system: "The

most peculiar thing is that this superstitious and insolent cult of work

is proclaimed in an era in which the irreversible and relentless

mechanisation eliminates from the main varieties of work whatever in them

still had a character of quality, art, and the spontaneous unfoldment of a

vocation, turning it into something inanimate and devoid of even an

immanent meaning." Evola sees this process as the very proletarianisation

of life itself. There are certain parallels here with Richard Hunt’s

advocation of the "leisure society," in which man can rediscover the

natural and qualitative values of his existence. But Evola warns his

readers that we must not "shift to a renunciatory, utopian, and miserable

civilisation," but rather "clear every domain of life of insane tensions

and to restore a true hierarchy of values."

But whilst the individual is inadvertently eroding his own freedoms by

viewing work as the ultimate goal in life, the State is also endangering

its own existence through the encroaching scarcity of resources to which

increasing productivity leads. Evola argues that the way forward lies in

"autarchy," and that "it is better to renounce the allure of improving

general social and economic conditions and to adopt a regime of austerity

than to become enslaved to foreign interests or to become caught up in

world processes of reckless economic hegemony and productivity that are

destined to sweep away those who have set them in motion." On this point,

however, Evola is perhaps forgetting that the decline of capitalistic

economies is inevitable and therefore it is futile to postpone their

collapse by implementing a policy of protectionism. This strategy may

indeed enable a country to stave off the effects of an impending economic

catastrophe, but given that all capitalist systems rely on the

internationalist system, this simply would not work in the long term.
7. HISTORY - HISTORICISM

Evola now turns his attention to the way in which history is so often

presented as a religious tenet of the modern age, representing the switch

from a world of being towards that of a world of becoming. Indeed, whilst

the former relates to an organic and stable form of civilisation, the

latter denotes a chaotic and constantly evolving process in which

"rationalist, scientific, and technological civilisation" acts as the pied

piper of our rapid decline. Rationalism was perceived by Hegel as reality

itself. Likewise, reality is also rational. But traditional values, says

Evola, cannot be analysed or defined in this way because they are based on

something far beyond the comprehension of mere philosophy. Historicism

often regards those episodes which it cannot account for as

"anti-historical." This has been said of historical phenomena which appear

to obstruct the process of development in accordance with the rationalist

worldview. This is why historicists and modernists are fond of portraying

conservatives - in the true sense of the word - as "reactionaries" and

enemies of progress. Furthermore, it is not men who make history at all.

Traditionalists like Evola have learnt to recognise and accept the

transcendental forces which are never taken into consideration by

rationalist historians: "only an obsolete 'historicism' can be so

presumptuous to reduce everything to a linear development." Indeed, both

Marxism and Christianity adopt this method and the cyclical nature of the

universe is therefore ignored.
8. CHOICE OF TRADITIONS

Whilst the word "tradition" is used to describe Evola’s cosmological

stance against the modern world (and that of certain other Traditionalists

like Guenon, Nasr and Schuon), he also accepts that during certain key

periods of his existence man has often used a series of more commonly

known traditions in order to act as a unifying force. These forms of

tradition relate to specific "suggestions and catchphrases" which are used

to revitalise or regenerate a civilisation, although they can often assume

a very "non-traditional" form. Using the example of Italy, Evola points

out that professional subversives from the ranks of liberalism, communism

and Freemasonry have distorted certain words to ensure that they are

equated with patriotism and national pride. So to disagree with their

objectives, therefore, is to invoke accusations of "treachery" and

"disloyalty." This makes it rather difficult for traditionalists to adopt

traditions of their own without incurring the systematically-engineered

confusion that sometimes accompanies them. Due to the fact that national

traditions are associated with the historical realities of a country’s

particular development, attempting to place such terminology in its true

context will inevitably lead to the adoption of the modern view that a

country’s tradition is based upon its whole history. This is why Evola

recommends the deconstruction of the mythology which surrounds national

patriotism itself. Italian pride consists in glorifying the Italian

Commune, the Renaissance and the Risorgimento. French patriotism is based

upon the principles of the French Revolution and the upheavals of 1848

which followed it. An atmosphere of petty-nationalism and xenophobia also

fuels the flames of justification for the two destructive world wars which

decimated Europe. Revolution and conflict is based on the struggle between

diametrically-opposed ideas or economies, not upon racial or national

antagonism. Evola suggests that Frederick I, for example, fought against

the Italians because he saw it as his imperial duty and not because he

simply happened to despise the Italian people or wished to subvert them to

his will. Ironically enough, Frederick was committed to the

re-establishment of Roman law and many Italians even fought alongside him.

This completely demolishes the idea that the aforementioned episodes in

Italian history were somehow "patriotic." The importance of struggle is

characterised by the idea and not by the perceived national loyalties of

those involved. Think of those Englishmen who fought in Hitler’s SS, for

example, or the Muslims who travelled from around the world in order to

fight against the Americans in modern-day Afghanistan. The "traditions" of

those who are committed to the obliteration of the ancient world, then,

are highly questionable and - at the very least - intrinsically selective.

By charting the progress of the Italian Renaissance through to its logical

conclusion, the so-called Enlightenment, Evola demonstrates that "in the

same sense in which Renaissance Italy becomes the mother of geniuses and

artists, it also becomes the forerunner of subversion. And just as the

communes represent the first rebellion against an alleged political

despotism, the civilisation of the Renaissance likewise represents the

'discovery of man' and of freedom of the spirit in the creative

individual, as well as the principle of the intellectual emancipation that

constitutes the 'basis of human progress'." The Risorgimento is not

dissimilar in that it represented a paradoxical alliance between Masonry

and patriotism: "The representatives of what at the time was still

traditional Europe regarded liberalism and Mazzinianism in the same way as

today’s liberal and democratic parties regard communism; the truth is that

the subversive intentions of the former were not much different from the

latter’s, the main difference being that liberalism and Mazzinianism

employed the national and patriotic myth at the early stages of the

disintegrating action." The Risorgimento, therefore, was a

pseudo-tradition and at the very root of its secret machinations lay the

destruction of Tradition itself. The Carbonari was not fighting "Austria"

at all, it was engaged in a bitter attempt to topple the Austrian dynasty

and, thus, one of the final vestiges of Tradition in Europe. But this is

not to suggest that the House of Austria had an impeccable track record.

On the contrary, along with Russia and Germany its primary importance lay

in opposing the rise of liberalism and modernism. This is demonstrated by

the spirit of unity which permeates a letter sent to Wilhelm I by Bismarck

in 1887: "The struggle today is not so much between Russians, Germans,

Italians, and French, but rather between revolution and monarchy. The

Revolution has conquered France, affected England, and is strong in Italy

and in Spain. There are only three emperors who can oppose it . . . An

eventual future war will have less the character of a war between

governments, but more so that of a war of the red flag against the

elements of order and preservation." Beneath the surface of all dynasties,

churches and governments, of course, lie the denizens of the single idea

and the common struggle. A contemporary example on a far smaller scale,

perhaps, is the tactical support offered by Alexander Dugin’s eurasianists

to Vladimir Putin’s government. The main point of this chapter, however,

is the undermining of the popular fantasies which surround national

"traditions." Once we can stop focusing on the kind of nationalism served

up by the historicists, therefore, it will be easier to accept the

validity of an Idea.
9. MILITARY STYLE - ‘MILITARISM’ - WAR

Evola tells us that militarism is the enemy of democracy. This divergence

of beliefs came about as soon as economics had replaced things like

Prussianism and the Order of Teutonic Knights. Modern democracy, having

originated in England, has led to the rise of a society in which "the

primary element is the bourgeois type and the bourgeois life during times

of peace; such a life is dominated by the physical concern for safety,

well- being, and material wealth, with the cultivation of letters and the

arts serving as a decorative frame." It is the bourgeoisie who are

presently in control of the State and, despite the absence of a

militaristic spirit in modern society, whenever an "international crisis"

looms on the horizon they have no qualms about using militaristic

techniques in order to advance their own interests. This is precisely the

same form of shameless hypocrisy which usually regards warfare as

"something materialistic and soulless." But Evola makes a distinction

between the soldier and the warrior. Indeed, whilst the former is a paid

mercenary who sees warfare purely as a means of self-enrichment, the

latter is a specific aristocratic caste which is altogether superior to

the bourgeoisie. In the present atmosphere soldiers are used to maintain

"the peace," although in reality capitalism uses its Establishment

shock-troops to crush its opponents and maintain its own position on the

economic ladder. This means that the mercenary is employed by the merchant

class, rather than a warrior caste "with its own spirituality, values, and

ethics" playing an active role in the nature of the State. But Evola is

not suggesting that "the military must manage the affairs of the State . .

. but rather that virtues, disciplines, and feelings of a military type

acquire pre-eminence and a superior dignity over everything that is of a

bourgeois type." Furthermore, he does not believe in the control of one’s

everyday affairs by a military clique: "Love for hierarchy; relationships

of obedience and command; courage; feelings of honour and loyalty;

specific forms of active impersonality capable of producing anonymous

sacrifice; frank and open relationships from man to man, from one comrade

to another, from leader to follower - all these are the characteristic

living values that are predominant in the aforementioned view." Evola

follows this up by explaining that external warfare compliments that

occurring within the self. This is the spiritual battle which is waged by

the individual in defiance of his own shortcomings, described by Evola in

Revolt Against the Modern World as the "big holy war" and the "little holy

war"; a jihad which is fought upon two fronts. This also has important

similarities to the Hermetic concept "as above, so below." War against

one’s enemies is a macrocosm of that taking place within the individual.

For the man who is born to be a warrior, this kind of asceticism becomes a

way of life. It is not a form of mindless violence in which death and

destruction become the central pillars of one’s very existence, it is "the

calm, conscious, and planned development of the inner being and a code of

ethics; love of distance; hierarchy; order; the faculty of subordinating

the emotional and individualistic element of one’s self to higher goals

and principles, especially in the name of honour and beauty." Herein lies

the difference between the soldier and the warrior.

The decline of the warrior ethos, according to Evola, is due to the fact

that democracies have diminished the importance of the political in favour

of the social. Previously, of course, Evola had referred to the Mannerbund

or all-male fraternity. Without this vital heroic element, the modern

State has inevitably become very inferior when compared to those of the

past like Sparta. Western society is now in the hands of the bourgeoisie

and lacks that key ingredient of atmospheric tension which acts as a

safeguard against complacency and deterioration. Evola is not implying

that warfare and struggle are eternal concepts, but simply that the

individual must seek out the active life in opposition to the pacifism and

decay that comes with "peace." Therefore "the nations in which such

premises are sufficiently realised will be not only the ones better

prepared for war, but also the ones in which war will acquire a higher

meaning." By sheer contrast, the democracies now claim to be fighting

against war itself and use a force of their own in a purely defensive

capacity. The ranks of those who fight however, are filled not with the

bourgeoisie but with the paid mercenaries of the army and police. These

soldiers do not fight for an idea or a higher principle, but for "material

well-being, economic prosperity, a comfortable and conformist existence

based on one’s work, productivity, sports, movies, and sexuality." Modern

warfare is also based upon the war of the machine, rather than on the

physical or spiritual combat of warriors. This leads to a complex and

technological manifestation of the heroic ideal, rather than offering the

prospective warrior a just cause for which to fight. Evola attacks the

manipulative propaganda and lies which have been used throughout the

process of modern warfare, something which leads to the relativisation and

systematic repackaging of the "cause" itself. But what does Evola say

about the attitude and motivation of the true warrior?: "A warrior

tradition and a pure military tradition do not have hatred as the basis of

war. The need to fight and even to exterminate another people may be

acknowledged, but this does not entail hatred, anger, animosity, and

contempt for the enemy. All these feelings, for a true soldier, are

degrading: in order to fight he need not be motivated by such lowly

feelings, nor be energised by propaganda, smoky rhetoric and lies." These

elements have only come to the fore since the natural warrior caste was

replaced by an army of enlisted mercenaries drawn from the ranks of

society at large. Mussolini once wrote about the spirit of the trenches in

which class divisions were eradicated in the name of a common cause, but

Evola believes that today the masses have to be deceived before they will

agree to fight for the ruling class. Modern conflicts are irrational, too,

in that they are artificially constructed in order to justify the

ever-increasing expansion of capitalism. The wars of the past were quite

different, in that they had a sovereign quality as the necessary

determining force for the deployment of what Evola describes as "[c]learly

defined goals." Perhaps the antithesis of the just war is the very

irrationalism which lies at the core of the ultimate form of modern combat

we know today as nuclear war.
10. TRADITION - CATHOLICISM - GHIBELLINISM

Catholicism is perceived by many to be the pinnacle of Tradition. Evola

accepts that it contains many Traditional aspects, but goes on to say that

in order to be seen as a legitimate form of authority and sovereignty it

must become fully integrated within the sphere of Tradition itself.

Catholicism alone is inadequate and represents only a minimal current of a

far wider Tradition. Here, Evola opts to discuss the implications of this

fact in both a political and contemporary context, despite using examples

from the past.

Religion falls into various categories and cannot match the supreme and

unitary nature of Tradition. In fact religion is simply an exoteric

version of a deeper, esoteric undercurrent. Christianity, for example,

panders to the masses, whilst Tradition is reserved for the spiritual

elite: "In effect, nobody with a higher education can really believe in

the axiom 'There is no salvation outside the Church' (nulla salus extra

ecclesiam), meaning the great civilisations that have preceded

Christianity (the still-existing millennia-old non-European traditions,

such as Buddhism and Hinduism, and even relatively recent ones such as

Islam) have not known the supernatural or the sacred, but only distorted

images and obscure 'prefigurations' and that they amount to mere

'paganism', polytheism, and 'natural mysticism'." This statement would

undoubtedly arouse in the more "traditional" Catholic a feeling of

revulsion and anger, perhaps even accusations of "ecumenicalism." However,

Evola is not advocating the unification of all religions, but the

acceptance that there is a common Tradition which lies in each. He goes on

to say that for a Catholic "to persist in the sectarian and dogmatic

exclusivism about this matter would amount to being in the same

predicament of one who wished to defend the views of physics and astronomy

found in the Old Testament, which have been made obsolete by the current

state of knowledge on these matters." Catholicism, then, is only

"traditional" in the sense that certain aspects tend to accord with

Tradition itself. The same can be said of Islam or Judaism.

We now turn our attention to the centuries-old debate concerning

Catholicism and Ghibellinism. The Ghibellines (like their Guelph rivals)

were a political force in northern and central Italy between the twelfth

and fifteenth centuries. These opposing groups began in Germany as

partisans in a struggle for the throne of the Holy Roman Empire between

two dynastic houses: the Welfs on the one hand (who were dukes of Saxony

and Bavaria), and the Hohenstaufens on the other (who were rulers of

Swabia). During the thirteenth century the Welf leader, Otto of Brunswick,

was involved in a fratricidal struggle for the imperial crown against

Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, and the all-German battle soon moved south

to Italy. The name Guelph is derived from Welf, whilst Ghibelline is a

corruption of Waiblingen, an area of land belonging to the emperors of

Hohenstaufen. According to the Ghibelline view of the world, as elucidated

by Evola, "the Empire was an institution of supernatural origin and

character, like the Church. It had its own sacred nature, just as, during

the Middle Ages, the dignity of the kings themselves had an almost

priestly nature (kingship being established through a rite that differed

only in minor detail from Episcopal ordination). On this basis, the

Ghibelline emperors - who were the representatives of a universal and

supranational idea, embodying a lex animata in terris (a living law on

earth) - opposed the hegemonic claims of the clergy and claimed to have

only God above themselves." The struggle between the Ghibellines and the

clergy is usually discussed in political terms, but was actually a form of

spiritual combat waged at the very highest level. Humanity, during the

medieval period, was caught between two distinct paths: action and

contemplation. Evola tells us that this relates to the Empire and the

Church respectively: "Ghibellinism more or less claimed that through the

view of earthly life as discipline, militia, and service, the individual

can be led beyond himself and reach the supernatural culmination of human

personality through action and under the aegis of the Empire. This was

related to the character of a non-naturalistic but 'providential'

institution acknowledged in the Empire; knighthood and the great knightly

Orders stood in relation to the empire in the same way in which the clergy

and the ascetic Orders stood in relation to the Church." This sounds like

an analogy of the political soldier, but Evola is keen to demonstrate that

such Orders "were based on an idea that was less political than

ethical-spiritual, and partially even ascetic, according to an asceticism

that was not cloistered and contemplative, but rather of a warrior type.

In this last regard, the most typical example was constituted by the Order

of Knights Templar, and in part by the Order of the Teutonic Knights."

This subject is discussed at length in Evola’s Revolt Against The Modern

World, during which the author explained how the Emperor waged a

calculated holy war against the pro-Guelphist clergy and how even the

Crusades became an active consolidation of the imperial idea; just as the

Empire had been in times of peace. The Ghibellines, he said, were engaged

in an occult struggle "against papal Rome that was waged by Rome itself"

(p.300). Indeed, the head of the Church is known as pontifex maximus; a

title which is taken directly from the leaders of early Rome. Indeed,

according to Evola the Emperor Julian opposed Christianity due to its

"upholding of an anarchical doctrine; with the excuse of paying homage to

God alone, they refused to give him homage in the person of those who, as

legitimate leaders of men, were his representatives on earth and drew from

him the principle of their power. This, according to Celsus, was an

example of impiety."

Evola’s whole point is that in ancient times the religious clergy were

answerable to the Emperor himself; not simply from a political

perspective, but also in a theological capacity: "It was only during the

Middle Ages that the priest nourished the ambition, not of being king, but

of being the one to whom kings are subject. At that time, Ghibellinism

arose as a reaction, and the rivalry was rekindled, the new reference

point now being the authority and the right reclaimed by the Holy Roman

Empire." But this does not presuppose that religion must be at the service

of the State like those of "a Masonic, anti-clerical character," on the

contrary, this leads to totalitarianism and the Concordats which were

conveniently arranged in both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The

separation of the spiritual and political spheres is epitomised by the

Christian maxim "render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is

God’s," something which was quite unknown in ancient times. Needless to

say, throughout history the Catholic Church has played a very large role

in secular affairs by using politics as a mere wing of the religious

establishment. Although in the later Middle Ages the Church did recognise

the divine right of kings, Evola considers these "atheistic" monarchs to

have been at the forefront of the liberal ideas which later found

expression in the French Revolution of 1789. Once the State had vacated

the domain of the spirit and become secular, however, it turned against

the Church. But this was different to the rebellion of the Ghibellines,

because this current "did not pursue the subjection of spiritual authority

to temporal powers, but rather upheld, vis-à-vis the exclusivist claim of

the Church, a value and a right for the State, different from those that

are proper to an organisation with a merely human and material character."

However, lest one wrongly imagine that Evola somehow wishes to revive the

Ghibelline struggle against the Church, the author carefully points out

that the key point is to resist the secular State in all its forms. Only

in this way can politics be ascribed to a higher level.

Catholicism today is in great decline. Not least because it is always

forced to compromise with the prevailing ideologies among which it finds

itself. Liberalism is gradually eroding the last vestiges of Catholic

tradition in the same way that it is eating away at the edifice of

Tradition in general. The likes of the Protestant Reformation and Vatican

II have taken their toll, and we now see modernist popes tolerating

bastardised currents like Liberation Theology, supporting the burgeoning

New World Order and kneeling before the might of International Zionism.

Evola tells us that "the decline of the modern Church is undeniable

because she gives to social and moral concerns a greater weight that what

pertains to the supernatural life, to asceticism, and to contemplation,

which are essential reference points of religiosity." It is certainly not

fulfilling any kind of meaningful role, either: "For all practical

purposes, the main concerns of Catholicism today seem to turn it into a

petty bourgeois moralism that shuns sexuality and upholds virtue, or an

inadequate paternalistic welfare system. In these times of crisis and

emerging brutal forces, the Christian faith should devote itself to very

different tasks." In the medieval period the Church possessed a more

traditional character, but only due to the fact that it had appropriated

so many Classical elements and, by way of Aristotle, lashed them firmly to

the theological mast being constructed by Thomas Aquinas during the

thirteenth century. Catholicism, however, will never reconcile itself with

the problem of how to deal with politics and the State because it relies

upon separation and dualism. Tradition, on the other hand, is integralist

and unitary.

Evola notes that certain individuals and groups have sought to incorporate

the more traditional aspects of Catholicism within the broader and far

more encompassing sphere of Tradition itself. Evola’s French philosophical

counterpart, Rene Guenon, for example. Catholics, however, are far too

dogmatic and would merely seek to make Tradition "conform" to their own

spiritual weltanschauung. This, says Evola, is "placing the universal at

the service of the particular." Furthermore, of course, the

anti-modernists who are organised in groups such as The Society of St.

Pius X and the Sedavacantist fraternity do not speak with the full weight

and authority of the Church. They are, therefore, powerless because "the

direction of the Church is a descending and anti-traditional one,

consisting of modernisation and coming to terms with the modern world,

democracy, socialism, progressivism, and everything else. Therefore, these

individuals are not authorised to speak in the name of Catholicism, which

ignores them, and should not try to attribute to Catholicism a dignity the

latter spurns." Evola suggests that because the Church is so inadequate,

it should be abandoned and left to its ultimate doom. He concludes by

reiterating the fact that a State which does not have a spiritual

dimension is not a State at all. The only way forward, he argues, is to

"begin from a pure idea, without the basis of a proximate historical

reference" and await the actualisation of the Traditional current.
11. REALISM - COMMUNISM - ANTI-BOURGEOISIE

Intellectuals are often attracted to communism because it claims to be

anti-bourgeois, despite communism itself claiming to despise the

intellectual for his bourgeois origins. According to Evola, however, this

is misleading and such people are deluding themselves. Evola also accepts

that the word "bourgeois" relates to far more than economics; something

representing a specific cultural niche in which everything is "empty,

decadent, and corrupt." The role of the traditionalist must be to overcome

these materialist concepts. Indeed, the perennial attraction of communism

indicates that it would be a big mistake to combat Marxist values with a

"bourgeois mentality and spirit, with its conformism, psychological and

romantic appendices, moralism, and concerns for a petty, safe existence in

which a fundamental materialism finds its compensation in sentimentality

and the rhetoric of the great humanitarian and democratic worlds - all

this has only an artificial, peripheral, and precarious life." This is why

conservatism has always been so ineffective, and why the adoption of a

true anti-bourgeois spirit is so essential in the ongoing replenishment of

Tradition. For Evola, the solution lies in realism.

In its efforts to overcome the unreality of bourgeois society, Marxism

simply relegates the individual to an even lower level. This results in

the systematic spawning of homo economicus, a process in which "we go

toward what is below rather than above the person." It represents a

collective reduction of the human type, rather than a raising of the

individual consciousness. So how does Evola’s realism differ from the kind

of "neo-realism" advocated by left-wing philosophers such as Sartre? The

latter, of course, brings human existence into line with transient

concepts such as psychoanalysis. This is achieved by creating a kind of

psycho-collectivisation, whereby man’s various personality traits are said

to originate from below. Evola, on the other hand, accepts "that existence

acquires a meaning only when it is inspired by something beyond itself."

Therefore the political, economic and psychological aspects of Marxism are

identical and adhere to a decidedly false sense of "realism."

Given the confusion which has been generated by the Marxists and their

misleading interpretation of "realism," perhaps another solution is needed

to counteract the unreality of the bourgeoisie; one which seeks to go

higher, rather than lower? Evola explains: "It is possible to keep a

distance from everything that has only a human and especially subjectivist

character; to feel contempt for bourgeois conformism and its petty

selfishness and moralism; to embody the style of an impersonal activity;

to prefer what is essential and real in a higher sense, free from the

trappings of sentimentalism and from pseudo-intellectual super- structures

- and yet all this must be done by remaining upright, feeling the presence

in life of that which leads beyond life, drawing from it precise norms of

behaviour and action." This means that a new breed of individuals must

bear the task of combining strong anti-Marxism with a committed opposition

to bourgeois society: "Lenin himself said that a proletarian, left to

himself, tends to become a bourgeois." It is therefore not necessary to

become a communist in order to reject the trappings of conformity and

sterility, although the shortcomings of Fascism and its well-documented

reliance upon the bourgeoisie suggests that it, too, is incapable of

providing real solutions to the problem. Evola also notes that "[e]ven

those who call themselves monarchists can only conceive of a bourgeois

king."

I have already discussed how communists harbour an ironic grudge towards

the intellectual, but Evola demonstrates that the only answer to the

intellectual/anti-intellectual debate is to put forward a third option:

the Weltanschauung, or worldview. This is "based not on books, but on an

inner form and a sensibility endowed with an innate, rather than acquired,

character." In other words, a mentality which does not remain fixed in the

mind or submerged in theories, but realised in a more practical sense

through the deployment of the will. Thought alone is incapable of taking

on a life of its own or significantly changing anything. Here we return to

the traditional idea of an organic civilisation which is expressed not by

culture, but through a deeper understanding of eternal values. Thus,

intellectualism and culture are merely used to express the more

fundamental worldview, not designed to evolve into determining

characteristics of humanity in their own right: "this is sheer illusion:

never before as in modern times was there such a number of men who are

spiritually formless, and thus open to any suggestion and ideological

intoxication, so as to become dominated by psychic currents (without being

aware of it in the least) and of manipulations belonging to the

intellectual, political, and social climate in which they live." The

worldview of which Evola speaks, of course, is Tradition. This represents

the basic impetus which must beat firmly within the heart of all those who

wish to bring to an end the contaminating era of the bourgeoisie.
12. ECONOMY & POLITICS - CORPORATIONS - UNITY OF WORK

In Chapter 6, Evola attacked mankind’s dependence upon the economy and

suggested that change must come from within. In this chapter, the author

presents an alternative economic plan by which the forces of anti-

Tradition can be kept at bay. Recalling the fact that the State represents

"an idea and a power," Evola has little hesitation in rendering it

superior to the economic sphere. This is because he feels that the State

is endowed with an overriding spiritual perspective and that it is there

to both guide and judge all economic concepts, although this does cause

one to wonder whether such power and authority can be expressed in an non-

statist context. Especially in light of the seemingly irredeemable nature

of the world’s states today and the fact that no one State can last

forever.

Evola’s solution to the economic crisis - as well as the fact that it

needs to be brought in line with Tradition - is a form of corporativism

"based on the principles of competence, qualification, and natural

hierarchy, with the overall system characterised by a style of active

impersonality, selflessness, and dignity." This opinion has been formed by

the author’s self-confessed admiration for the craft guilds of the Middle

Ages and, before them, the Roman system of proto-corporativism. He rightly

points out that the medieval artisan had a great love for his work, unlike

the contemporary wage-slave who labours under great strain and duress.

Evola goes into this concept in Revolt Against The Modern World, too,

contesting that work only becomes slavery once it is viewed as a laborious

task. It is also a fact that one’s adherence to a common objective gives

even the most seemingly ordinary task a higher degree of significance:

"The commitment of the workers was matched by the master of the art’s

competence, care, and knowledge; by their effort to strengthen and to

raise the quality of the overall corporate unit; and by their protecting

and upholding the code of honour of their corporation." Issues such as

capitalist exploitation were unheard of, at least until the advent of the

Industrial Revolution.

Corporativism is usually regarded as a Fascist objective, but Evola argues

that it cannot work under such a system because Fascism itself continues

to tolerate the trade unions. This means that the class system is still

being perpetuated and thus the unitary whole is threatened with division.

After all, what use are trade unions if everyone is pulling in the same

direction? The workers’ co-operative is another example of just how

redundant trade unionism has become. Evola also believes that Fascism and

Marxism fail to "reconstitute" the unifying concept of work itself,

seeking to replace class division with a series of bureaucratic

ministries. German National-Socialism, however, was more successful than

Italian Fascism because "it understood that what mattered most was to

achieve that organic solidarity of entrepreneurs and workers within the

companies, promoting a down-sizing that reflected to a certain degree the

spirit of traditional corporativism." Evola is praising the fact that

German bosses took a more hands-on approach to the question of leadership,

and it is a fact that the German civil service, for example, remained

exactly the same after Hitler’s ascension to the throne of German

politics. So it was a change of attitude, rather than a profound economic

change of any kind. But I feel that Evola’s enthusiasm is slightly

misplaced, particularly as Hitler’s economic drive was geared towards

putting the country on a total war footing and that the NSDAP itself had

been financed by German Big Business.

So what is necessary for this proposed shift in attitude? Evola advocates

"the deproletarianisation of the worker and, on the other hand, the

elimination of the worst type of capitalist, who is a parasitical

recipient of profits and dividends and who remains extraneous to the

productive process." Evola therefore accepts that such despicable

creatures have become easy targets for communist agitators, and that

capitalism itself must be vigorously opposed by those who wish to

transcend both systems. Evola believes that capitalists should become more

involved with their businesses, rather than sitting at home counting their

shekels and raking in the profits. But this will not alter the fact that

they will continue to own the means of production, so perhaps Evola is

being more than a little optimistic when it comes to "loyal workers who

are free from trade union control and are proud to belong to his company."

We are then introduced to what Evola believes to be the ideal relationship

between the State and the economy. Again, modern conditions and the

servile nature of industrial capitalism are identified as being the main

obstacles to a more healthy attitude towards work. He feels that the real

problem lies in the way an employee is "inclined to regard his work as

mere necessity and his performance as a product sold to a third party in

exchange for the highest possible remuneration." Work, he argues, must

cease to be monotonous, repetitive and dull. Furthermore, workers must

have "the right of co-direction, co-management, and co- determination"

that is presently lacking in the majority of occupations. These sentiments

appear to echo the co-operative ideas of Robert Owen and the Rochdale

Pioneers, which took shape during the nineteenth century. In other words,

workers must have a real stake in the business concerned, rather than be

considered as a mere cog in the capitalist machine: "This would be the

best way to ‘integrate’ the individual worker into his company, motivate

him and raise him above his most immediate interest as a mere rootless

individual. In this way we could reproduce in a company’s life the type of

organic belonging that was proper to the ancient corporative formations."

This microcosmic representation of the State within the field of economics

all sounds very well, although one must remember that any economic idea

that plans to attach itself to the present economic system must inevitably

rise and fall in accordance with the very system itself. The West is

dying. This means, therefore, that all solutions which advocate forms of

participation within the current system - including distributist guilds

and workers’ co-operatives - merely represent a temporary postponement of

the inevitable crash. The real solution lies on the periphery.

Evola criticises the politicisation of the workplace by trade unionists, a

process which - he believes - only serves to divide, confuse and worsen

the lot of the average worker. This activity, he contends, is used as a

springboard from which to attack the State. I believe that Evola is right

to condemn Marxist interference, but wrong to suppose that the industrial

sphere can ever be reformed. In the words of Nietzsche: "That which is

falling must also be pushed." Indeed, the vast majority of our fatcat

executives are hardly likely to admit to their shortcomings and start

expressing the type of leadership and initiative which Evola believes will

transform the very nature of the economy. I believe that Evola is being

just as idealistic as the Fascists and the Marxists. The decline of the

West is inevitable, and, in terms of having run its civilisational course,

will represent the completion of the Kali Yuga and thus the very end of

the macrocosmic cycle.

But the author does accept that modern companies cannot be truly

autonomous within the present economic climate, because "[n]o matter how

powerful and wide-ranging they are, these companies must deal with forces

and monopolies that control to a large degree the fundamental elements of

the productive process." Evola believes that certain restraints have to be

placed upon the ruthlessly competitive sharks of international capitalism,

but his solution to the problem merely involves increasing the power and

authority of the State. He also believes that such a State can be created

within a modern context, but thirty years after Evola’s death this seems

very unlikely. He also suggests that capitalists should be "ostracised" by

the State, but surely this is impossible given that the State itself is

little more than an elaborate front for the interests of Big Business and

international finance? Evola’s fear of leftist subversion means that he is

forced to accept a kind of pallid reformism or - in his words - a

"revolution from above" (a concept not dissimilar to the "revolution of

the centre" proposed by French fascists and elements of the Nouvelle

Droit), when in reality he should be supporting the emergence of new

centres of Tradition on the periphery. After all, as the Romanian author

Mircea Eliade demonstrated in The Myth of the Eternal Return (Princeton,

1991) the founding of new symbolic centres is perfectly in tune with

Tradition.

The feudal system is cited as a worthy example of economic autonomy and

unitary collaboration between the various complimentary sections of

medieval society, although he does suggest that it needs updating so that

it can be applied in a modern setting. The overriding atmosphere of

defensive perpetuity and the bonds of loyalty which characterised the

feudal period are said by Evola to have strengthened both responsibility

and decentralisation. Despite the intermittent shortcomings of feudalism,

it is pretty hard to deny the fact that it had many worthy attributes. On

the other hand, however, Evola still fails to prove that anything remotely

similar can be re-established today. At least at the centre and within the

current economic system. Likewise, Evola believes that the traditional

caste structure can also be reapplied to the modern State: "The ultimate

goal of the corporative idea, understood in this fashion, is to

effectively elevate the lower activities concerned with production and

material concerns to the plane that in a qualitative hierarchy comes

immediately after the economic one in an ascending direction; in the

system of ancient or functional castes, this plane was that of the warrior

caste, which ranked higher than the merchant caste and the workers’

caste." Up until very recently, the caste system was still in operation

throughout India (and still prevails in the more rural areas of the

North), but modern government legislation has resulted in the lower castes

(Untouchables) receiving positive discrimination and other liberal reforms

designed to create the kind of "egalitarianism" that we are used to seeing

in the West. The caste system is a highly complex and functional system

and has been around for many thousands of years, but I doubt whether it

can be applied to a modern society. Only by establishing centres on the

periphery can traditional methods be realised in the modern world. Evola’s

comments about caste and hierarchy are extremely valid, but the process of

degeneration can never be reversed at the centre.

The author also suggests that a Corporate House of Representatives be

created. Not something which is managed in a bureaucratic manner like that

administered previously by Italian Fascism, but a system in which

everything finds its true level in relation to everything else. At the

same time, it "should not have the traits of a political assembly. It

should merely constitute the Lower House; political concerns would be

dealt with in an Upper House, ranked above the former." Again, Evola

remains strongly opposed to political interference within the sphere of

socio-economic activity. But even his "Lower House" sounds rather

bureaucratic once it is compared to a basic workers’ co-operative,

although the objective here is obviously to unite all such concerns into a

single, unitary whole. Modern-day Libya has a similar arrangement in that

its professional, educational and various other categories are united

within a series of congresses. Not that Evola would agree, of course, with

the fact that real power and authority in Libya’s "state of the masses"

emanates from below, rather than from above.
13. OCCULT WAR - WEAPONS OF THE OCCULT WAR

And now we come to one of the most interesting chapters of the book, in

which Evola questions whether the various areas of human existence have

been affected by higher forces. In other words, by those of the

supernatural or occult dimension. The decline of the West, in particular,

is said to be a direct result of the hidden forces at work. Evola

explains: "The occult war is a battle that is waged imperceptibly by the

forces of global subversion, with means and in circumstances ignored by

current historiography. The notion of occult war belongs to a

three-dimensional view of history: this view does not regard as essential

the two superficial dimensions of time and space (which include causes,

facts, and visible leaders) but rather emphasises the dimension of depth,

or the ‘subterranean’ dimension in which forces and influences act in a

decisive manner, and which, more often than not, cannot be reduced to what

is merely human, whether at an individual or a collective level." This

seems clear enough. Indeed, the current of which Evola speaks transcends

the governmental domain and concerns the forces which lie far beyond the

purely exoteric plane. By "subterranean," Evola is alluding to the fact

that such activity takes place not within the human subconscious, but as

part of a deliberate plan which has been meticulously formed by capable

and intelligent agents of subversion. But this third dimension should not

be seen as some kind of ridiculous or convenient fantasy designed to

account for the erosion of Tradition, it is a concept which is fully

steeped in reality. Catholics regard the decline of traditional values and

the onset of liberalism and moral decline as part of a divinely

orchestrated process, although Evola believes that such a view need not

rely on abstract metaphysics or theology. He cites the Classical idea in

which the forces of the cosmos are waged against the forces of chaos: "To

the former corresponds everything that is form, order, law, spiritual

hierarchy, and tradition in the highest sense of the word; to the latter

correspond every influence that disintegrates, subverts, degrades, and

promotes the predominance of the inferior over the superior, matter over

spirit, quantity over quality."

History undoubtedly has a more secretive side. Indeed, at times it becomes

impossible to explain certain aspects in terms of their possessing a basic

or fundamental causality. Evola is careful to warn against inventing

ridiculous or fantastical notions to account for this more covert analysis

of history: "The fact that those who have ventured in this direction have

not restrained their wild imaginations has discredited what could have

been a science, the results of which can hardly be overestimated. This too

meets the expectations of the hidden enemy." Evola then mentions

Disraeli’s well-known nineteenth-century admission, concerning the unseen

forces that govern the world and create the necessary conditions for their

own pernicious advancement. This brings us on to one of the most famous -

or infamous - documents of all time, The Protocols of The Learned Elders

of Zion, in which it is alleged that a secret Jewish cabal is intent on

world domination. Evola does not defend its authenticity, however, he

agrees with Rene Guenon that secret organisations of this nature are not

likely to write everything down in great detail and that - similar to the

conclusions expressed in Professor Cohn’s Warrant For Genocide - it was

probably a Tsarist police conspiracy. But he does go on to say that "the

only important and essential point is the following: this writing is part

of a group of texts that in various ways (more or less fantastic and at

times even fictional) have expressed the feeling that the disorder of

recent times is not accidental, since it corresponds to a plan, the phases

and fundamental instruments of which are accurately described in the

Protocols." But what of the contention that the individuals behind the

conspiracy are apparently Jews: "One of the means employed by the occult

forces to protect themselves consists of directing their opponents’

attention towards those who are only partially responsible for certain

upheavals, thus concealing the rest of the story, namely a wide sequence

of causes."

Evola also discounts the theory that the conspiracy is being waged by

agents of the Judaic religion, particularly as the occult forces

themselves inspired the Renaissance, Darwinism and other rationalist

developments which fly directly in the face of such principles. The fact

that Israeli troops can often be seen battling in the streets of Jerusalem

with fanatical Zionist rabbis also demonstrates that the hidden powers

cannot possibly be genuinely connected to Judaism. The Protocols also

allege that Judaism is working in close allegiance with Freemasonry,

although Evola only accepts that the foundation of the Grand Lodge of

London in 1717 brought it into line with the grand plan of subversion.

This is correct. Masons on the European mainland differ significantly from

their English cousins and many associated with the Grand Orient look upon

Egypt as being the traditional fount of ancient knowledge and wisdom,

rather than to specifically Jewish sources. This is reflected in the

absence of the Memphis-Mithraim rite from the practices of the Grand

Lodge. But at the same time, however, Judaeo-Masonry has often been used

as a vehicle for global subversion and Evola compares this process with

the regression of the caste system. When the rot gradually sets in at the

very top, it tends to infect the whole body and thus sets off a new chain

of events. Furthermore, "[r]egardless of the role played by Jews and

Masonry in the modern subversion, it is necessary to recognise clearly the

real historical context of their influence, as well as the limit beyond

which the occult war is destined to develop by employing forces that not

only are no longer those of Judaism and of Masonry, but that could even

totally turn against them."

Using some of Rene Guenon’s ideas, Evola now attempts to examine some of

the methods which are used by the global subversives. Firstly, "scientific

suggestion" is used in order to explain history purely in terms of key

events being influenced by political, social or economic factors.

Secondly, whenever the first method becomes impossible the hidden forces

decide to use the "tactic of replacement" instead. This involves the

dissemination of certain philosophical ideas which can be used as a

diversion for those events which defy a positivist explanation. It

functions as a means of preventing the intellectuals from understanding

the true nature of what is really going on in the world. This leads us

towards the third strategic category: the "tactic of counterfeits." This

latter stage is essentially designed to explain away those factors of the

conspiracy which unavoidably find their way into the mainstream and cause

a backlash. This development, according to Evola, can often take the form

of a Traditional reaction to the degeneration of society, although the

occult powers then use terms such as "anachronism," "anti-history,"

"immobilism" and "regression" in order to counteract this process and thus

prevent their enemies from winning popular support.

The fourth ploy is the "tactic of inversion," in which the enemy

concentrates its efforts on attacking the spiritual realm: "After limiting

the influence that could be exercised in this regard by Christianity,

through the spread of materialism and scientism, the forces of global

subversion have endeavoured to conveniently divert any tendency towards

the supernatural arising outside the dominant religion and the limitation

of its dogmas." This means that the individual is encouraged to lose him

or herself in shallow distractions such as psychology and spiritualism,

rather than try to advance in a truly superior and supernatural way. Evola

criticises the West’s distorted analysis of Eastern mysticism, and the

fact that the traditional wisdom of the Orient has often been repackaged

within Masonry or Theosophy and forcibly reconciled with Western values.

And, due to this process of dilution, it has been easily torn to shreds by

the secret denizens of the conspiracy and thus laughably rejected as pure

superstition. Another method is the "tactic of ricochet," through which

those sympathetic to Tradition are falsely assured that by attacking the

remaining traditionalist structures they are somehow advancing their own

cause: "Those who do not realise what is going on and who, because of

material interests, attack Tradition in like-minded people sooner or later

must expect to see Tradition attacked in themselves, by ricochet." Modern

States, of course, use infiltration in order to sow the seeds of

ideological discord. This can lead to personality clashes, greed and self-

advancement at the expense of the very Idea itself.

The sixth category is the "scapegoat tactic," which results in the

targeting of individuals or groups which usually turn out to be mostly

blameless. The Protocols, for example, may seem fairly accurate when it

comes to identifying the Masons and the Jews as the source of all our

problems, but to scapegoat people to this extent is misleading and

unrealistic. The next step - the "tactic of dilution" - relates to the use

of nationalism as a means of bringing people down to a common level,

rather than of restoring true perspective and hierarchy. This process

"dilutes" the Traditional components inherent within nationalistic ideas

and redirects them in accordance with the objectives of the secret powers.

One method is the way in which revolutionary nationalists have eroded all

traces of that which preceded their ascending to power, thus helping to

bring down the final vestiges of Tradition. Using an example from the

psychoanalytical sphere, Evola tells us that "[a]mong those who are

capable of a healthy discernment there has been a reaction against the

coarsest forms of this pseudo-science, which correspond to pure or

‘orthodox’ Freudianism. The tactic of dilution was employed again; the

formulation and spread of a spiritualised psychoanalysis for more refined

tastes was furthered. The result was that those who react against Freud

and his disciples no longer do so against Jung, without realising that

what is at work here is the same inversion, though in a more dangerous

form because it is subtler, and a contaminating exegesis ventures more

decidedly into the domain of spirituality than in the case of Freud."

The next tactic is the "deliberate misidentification of a principle with

its representatives." In other words, confusing an idea or a principle

with those purporting to represent or advance it. This leads to the

defilement or devaluation of the idea itself. Evola’s final evaluation of

subversive tactics examines the concept of "replacing infiltrations." This

is when an idea or an institution has degenerated so much that it becomes

unrecognisable. One thinks of the comparative emptiness of Grand Lodge

Masonry when compared to its Grand Orient rival, or the Church of

England’s systematic take-over by the organised homosexual lobby: "These

forces, while leaving the appearances unchanged, use the organisation for

totally different purposes, which at times may even be the opposite of

those that were originally its own."

Evola’s solution to this multifarious problem involves a Traditionalist

awakening during which its most devoted adherents realise the extent to

which the battle is being waged on the occult plane. However, he also

accepts that we do not presently have the men capable of fighting this

disease.
14. LATIN CHARACTER - ROMAN WORLD - MEDITERRANEAN SOUL

The historic tendency of the Italian people to react with hostility

towards Germanic culture is dismissed by Evola as a "misunderstanding, for

the most part caused by stereotypical phrases and superficial ideas." The

Italians, of course, prefer to depict themselves as being distinctly Latin

and Mediterranean. Evola - in a similar manner to that of Benito Mussolini

before him - questions the very idea of the Latin character, suggesting

that it relates more to art and literature than race. Evola prefers the

phrase "Romanic element," since it has a much wider base and is formed by

the Classical populations and languages which comprised the Roman Empire.

Therefore the Empire itself includes the Germanic peoples, too. But whilst

Evola is correct in this sense, it is also true that the Romans themselves

are obviously extremely indebted to the Ancient Greeks and borrowed many

of their ideas. So it can, therefore, be said that Rome was actually

forged from Hellenic civilisation. Evola then goes on to deplore the

revival of the neo-Classical element during the Renaissance period,

something which - he believes - led to the celebration of the Graeco-Roman

world’s most degenerative stage rather than its earlier Age of Heroism.
The Latin peoples are not that distinct from their Germanic neighbours at

all. The language and racial characteristics of the Mediterranean peoples,

for example, are both derived from Indo-Aryan origins: "a heroic-sacred

world that was characterised by a strict ethos, love of discipline and of

a virile and dominating spiritual attitude." The tide of anti-Germanic

feeling that engulfed the post-Roman world was propagated by the Catholic

Church and its hatred for the Ghibellines and, soon afterwards, by the

rise of Luther and Calvin. However, Evola points out that "in Germany,

despite its being mostly Protestant, the feelings of order, hierarchy, and

discipline are very strong, while in Italy, despite its being a Catholic

country, all this is present to a negligible degree, while individualism,

disorder, instinctiveness, and lack of discipline tend to prevail." He

goes on to suggest that, from a Faustian perspective, unlike a German, an

Italian would even be prepared to retract his agreement with the Devil.

This is certainly a very frank admission coming from an Italian, but it

does demonstrate that Evola’s Germanophile brand of imperial Tradition

completely transcends the petty squabbles which have dominated Europe for

so many centuries. Many of Evola’s countrymen, it is argued, despised the

German-Italian Axis which came to pass during the Second World War: "All

these people can be happy again, now that Italy has returned to itself -

the petty Italy of mandolins, museums, ‘O Sole Mio,’ and the tourist

industry (not to mention the democratic quagmire and the Marxist

infection), having been ‘liberated’ from the difficult task of forming

itself on the inscription of its highest traditions, which must be

described not as ‘Latin’, but as ‘Roman’."

The book then switches its attention to one of the greatest taboos of our

age: that of Race. Evola is not interested in biological racism, he notes

that several more races exist within each general category; be they black,

yellow or white: "These elementary races are defined in terms that are not

merely biological and anthropological, but psychological and spiritual as

well. To each of the racial components there correspond various

dispositions, forms of sensibility, values, and views of life which are

also differentiated." Evola disputes the fact that individuals belong to

the same one race, explaining that each contains differing strengths and

weaknesses. In Germanic peoples it is the Nordic element which seems to

occupy the highest rung of the ladder, something echoed by the Roman type

among the Italians. So Evola is basically suggesting that within each

individual there is a dynamic spark which is derived not from biological

sources but from a more spiritual tradition. Therefore the fact that

racial nationalists seek to incorporate all individuals within one solid

bloc goes completely against the Traditionalist worldview. Individuals of

the same "race" are markedly different, regardless of the seemingly common

ancestry which has been attributed to them by nineteenth-century

scientists and modern geneticists. In the midst of this racial

conglomeration, of course, lies the substance of the New Man. It is he who

epitomises the most superior quality of all.
One inferior facet which Evola believes to be detrimental to the superior

Roman spirit, is the Mediterranean type. But what does the term

"Mediterranean" actually mean? The author tells us that it "merely

designates a space, or a geographical area in which very different

cultures and spiritual and racial powers often clashed or met, without

ever producing a typical civilisation." So, unlike the Roman spirit, it

can be said that the "Mediterranean" concept never came to fruition in any

meaningful sense. Furthermore, he says, "psychologists have tried to

define the Mediterranean type, not so much anthropologically, but in terms

of character and style. In these descriptions we can easily recognise the

other pole of the Italian soul, namely negative aspects likewise found in

the Italian people, that need to be rectified." Evola then refers to the

excitable persona, the sexual promiscuity, the vain exhibitionism and the

gesticulative hot-bloodedness of the Mediterranean type, something quite

unlike the "anonymous heroes" of Rome. Herein, perhaps, lies the

fundamental difference between the Actor and the Act: "the best model to

follow would be that of the ancient race of Rome - the sober, austere,

active style, free from exhibitionism, measured, endowed with a calm

awareness of one’s dignity." The Roman spirit, therefore, is rather akin

to the Indo-Aryan concept of nobility. The Mediterranean soul, on the

other hand, has a ‘"tendency towards a restless, chaotic, and

undisciplined individualism. Politically speaking, this is the tendency

that, after asserting itself by fomenting struggles and constant quarrels,

led the Greek city-states to ruin." The solution, according to Evola, is

to awaken amongst the Italians a truly Roman - rather than Mediterranean -

ethos. This, he believes, will occur "in almost organic terms at the end

of dissolutive processes."
15. THE PROBLEM OF BIRTHS

This chapter deals with population growth. Evola postulates the view that

reducing the population would help us towards "a relaxation and a

decongestion that would limit every activist frenzy (first among them,

those that pertain to the overall power of the economy) and greatly

propitiate the return to normalcy, thanks to a new, wider, and freer

space." The Anarchist thinker, Richard Hunt, believes that such a

reduction can be achieved through implementing methods of birth control

and thus lead us towards a more natural society, although, given the

eventual collapse of internationalism capitalism, such a process would

surely happen naturally in the wake of widespread conflict and famine?

Evola, on the other hand, believes that "nothing is done about the

population explosion, because then man would have to act upon himself, his

prejudices and instincts." But he also criticises the purely materialistic

analysis as espoused by Malthus, because the worst thing about population

growth is not the increasing scarcity of resources but the acceleration of

production and the rampant capitalist economy: "The result is an

increasing enslavement of the individual and the reduction of free space

and of any autonomous movement in modern cities, swarming as though in

putrefaction with faceless beings of ‘mass civilisation'." Evola explains

that there is no safety in numbers, a slogan that has become one of the

watchwords of the modern epoch. Successful empires, he argues, arise not

from population growth but from the intuitiveness and ability of an elite

minority. Furthermore, geographical locations which find themselves

subject to a large-scale increase in population soon run contrary to

natural order: "The fact is that the inferior races and the lower social

strata are the most prolific" and inevitably leads to "a fatal involution

of the human race." Evola goes on to explain that the movement of peoples

for the purposes of cheap labour - such as that presently taking place

among those economic migrants currently flooding into the British Isles -

means that "the fatal effects will be inner crises and social tensions

representing manna from heaven for the leaders of Marxist subversion." No

wonder, therefore, that we constantly see the likes of the Socialist

Workers Party campaigning on behalf of these so-called "refugees."

At this point Evola launches a fierce broadside against Catholic

opposition to birth control. He denies that procreation - which, in his

opinion, is derived from Jewish sources - should have a religious or

theological dimension, and believes that the Church is being hypocritical

when it comes to encouraging the use of the sexual urge to create life:

"In every other instance besides sex, the Church praises and formally

approves . . . the predominance of the intellect and will over the

impulses of the senses." Indeed, Catholicism does tend to relegate the act

of sexual union to the level of an animalistic act which is considered

necessary for procreation. Abstinence and celibacy, says Evola, are far

more in tune with asceticism and the pursuit of the supernatural. At this

stage in the debate, Evola has not even mentioned the use of contraception

or abortion, so I would therefore agree with his alternative conclusions

about the more sacred nature of chastity. Birth control, he argues, is a

bourgeois concept and the New Man "by adopting an attitude of militant and

absolute commitment, should be ready for anything and almost feel that

creating a family is a ‘betrayal’; these men should live sine

impedimentis, without any ties or limits to their freedom." This approach

certainly makes sense, but I also feel that there is a strong case for the

perpetuation of the New Man through the foundation of alternative,

revolutionary-conservative families which live in accordance with

Tradition. Evola - inspired by Nietzsche’s idea that "men should be

trained for war and women for the recreation of the warrior" - may indeed

dismiss such a process as being little more than a form of "heroism in

slippers," but such families can also act as a beacon and a source of

inspiration for those warriors who remain unbound. Evola has considered

the idea of elitist families, without doubt: "the example of those

centuries-old religious orders that embraced celibacy suggests that a

continuity may be ensured with means other than physical procreation.

Besides those who should be available as shock-troops, it would certainly

be auspicious to form a second group that would ensure the hereditary

continuity of a chosen and protected elite, as the counterpart of the

transmission of a political-spiritual tradition and worldview: ancient

nobility was an example of this." However, he remains very sceptical and

considers the revival of such an idea utopian because it would be

difficult for a father to have control over his offspring amid the turmoil

of the West. This is very true, but the increasing success of

home-schooling in both America and the British Isles does prove that it is

realistically possible to build a network of alternative families who

reject the materialism of the West itself.

Evola’s solution is based upon the destruction of the egalitarian ideal

and, perhaps more surprisingly, of adopting an open mind towards the

possibility of a third world war. Any future conflict which is waged on

such a vast scale would inevitably reduce the population, of course, but I

believe that with the increasing collaboration taking place between the

West and its subjugated puppet-states abroad, our real hope lies in the

gradual disintegration of the internationalist system on the periphery.

This process of detaching the children from the nanny, for better or for

worse, will undoubtedly lead to the biggest death-toll the world has ever

seen. Indeed, it will not be invoked by birth control programmes or

inspired by government policy, it will actually lead to the removal of

government itself.
16. FORM AND PRESUPPOSITIONS OF A UNITED EUROPE (FINAL CHAPTER)

According to the author, support "for a united Europe is strongly felt in

various mileus today. It is necessary to distinguish where this need is

upheld on a merely material and pragmatic level from those situations in

which the issue is posited at a higher level, emphasising spiritual and

traditional values." Given the huge attention that the idea of a united

Europe has attracted during the last few decades, this chapter should be

of interest to a great many people. During the period in which this book

was written, Europe was entrenched in the Cold War and firmly divided

between the superpowers of the USA and USSR. Evola, therefore, believes

that - despite its decidedly economic agenda - the creation of the

European Economic Community (EEC) was a logical development. Evola then

pours scorn upon the ideas of Jean Thiriart who, during his lifetime,

sought to create a European empire of more than 400 million people.

Thiriart arrived at this figure by including the populations of Eastern

Europe, which at that time were under Soviet control. According to Evola,

the fact that the communist economies of Russia and China have an

influence upon the outcome of any militaristic strategy renders the whole

plan obsolete. The solution, says Evola, is firstly to withdraw from the

United Nations (UN) - which, perhaps, is easier said than done - and then

to reject the Soviet Union as much as America. Again, we are talking about

the situation which existed during the period in which Evola wrote the

book. Today, of course, we find ourselves on the verge of a one world

government controlled solely by the USA and its closest allies. So how,

exactly, does Evola propose that a united Europe be achieved in a

profoundly Traditional sense?

The way ahead must rely upon a completely organic strategy. Not a

nationalistic myth orchestrated by fascists, but something "which would

generate a unitary impulse and an elan that in European history - let us

admit it - finds scant antecedents." Indeed, it is undoubtedly a fact that

the history of Europe is one of division and conflict. Evola continues:

"What should be excluded is nationalism (with its monstrous appendix,

namely imperialism) and chauvinism - in other words, every fanatical

absolutisation of a particular unit." Therefore the future European empire

must replace the obsessive petty-nationalism which has plagued our

beleagured continent for so many centuries. In fact as we have already

seen, the very idea in which both "unity and multiplicity" were nurtured

did previously exist in the medieval period. The empire was a

transcendental concept which refused to become involved in the political

realm, concentrating its efforts upon the representation of an ultimately

spiritual power and authority. It was a dynamic form of organic

federalism; a flowing stream in which all fish were happy to be swimming

in the same direction. Whilst nationalism always results in fragmentation,

the coming imperium must lead to a unitary order of solidarity: "the

integration and consolidation of every single nation as a hierarchical,

united, and well- differentiated whole. The nature of the parts should

reflect the nature of the whole." Evola believes that a stable centre will

result in the increase of regional, linguistic and cultural diversity at

the grass roots. Unlike the present democratic EC infrastructure which is

centred in Maastricht, however, Evola’s model of European unity relies

upon authority from above rather than from below. Democracy itself, he

believes, should be erased from the face of Europe. A new focus or point

of reference must also come into being, one which, in previous centuries,

was represented by the monarchy. It must be spiritual in nature, too,

although, unlike Christian Europe during the Middle Ages, it should both

permeate and involve all nations. It must also, he contends, exclude

non-Europeans, although in the present day and age there is a lot to be

said for the ideas of Alexander Dugin and his belief in a Eurasian

alliance. The new centre, on the other hand, cannot be constructed purely

around what is commonly known as "European culture": Goethe, Von Humboldt,

and all the other representatives of a sophisticated culture should be

paid high honours, but it would be absurd to believe that their world

could supply an arousing and animating strength to the forces and

revolutionary elites that are struggling to unify Europe: their

contribution belongs to the mere domain of a dignified "representation,"

with an essentially "historical character." On the contrary, Europe also

has much to be ashamed of. And neither is the solution designed to create

a European bloc to rival America, Africa or Asia, because Europe itself

has influenced these continents to such as extent that it now risks

becoming part of a globalised world. A positive manifestation of European

unity was demonstrated by the various regions from which the soldiers of

the SS were recruited during the Second World War, although it remains a

great pity that their efforts were so misguided and self-destructive.

Evola warns us that "a European action must proceed in parallel with the

rebirth and the revolutionary-conservative reorganisation of the

individual European countries: but to recognise this also means to

acknowledge the disheartening magnitude of the task ahead."

The road to the new European imperium, Evola says, must be undertaken by

two groups. Firstly, he proposes that we should attract the remaining

families of the ancient nobility: "who are valuable not only because of

the name they carry, but also because of who they are, because of their

personality." Secondly, it is necessary to create a warrior caste: "These

men harbour a healthy intolerance for any rhetoric; an indifference

towards intellectualism and politicians’ gimmicks; a realism of a higher

type; the propensity for impersonal activity; and the capability of a

precise and resolute commitment." Evola accepts that such an Order

presently remains leaderless, but the removal of the political class and a

defiance of the modern world is an imperative. He concludes his work by

saying that we now require men who, "in spite of it all, still stand

upright among so many ruins."

Tomás de Torquemada
02-08-02, 06:47
Grazie per il pregevole materiale, caro white_rage...

Ci vorrà un pò per leggerlo, ma qualcosa mi dice che sarà tempo assai bene impiegato... :)

white_rage
02-08-02, 07:21
Caro Tomás , non e' tanto il materiale in se' ad essere eccezionale, quanto il fatto che una tale positiva recensione dell'Evola sia stata pubblicata, in ben 16 puntate, sulla Pravda.

Occorre capire che le rivoluzioni, in particolare quelle degli ultimi 3 secoli, inclusa la rivoluzione sovietica,e incluso il collasso dell'Unione Sovietica, sono state tutte delle macchinazioni artificiali.

Questi signori sono capaci di tutto e dell'opposto di tutto, e mentre la Russia e' in fin dei conti nelle stesse mani di prima, ora fa comodo parlare di Evola sulla Pravda (o far parlare David Duke, che ora vive in Russia: http://english.pravda.ru/columnists/2002/04/18/27774.html).

D'altro canto, gli USA si stanno a poco a poco (anzi rapidamente) trasformando in uno stato totalitario bolscevico. Stesse famiglie, differenti spartizioni dei possedimenti.

(Sono queste tutte parodie e manipolazioni mentali di massa. L'unica soluzione, a mio avviso, sara' quella di liberarsi una volta per tutte, in maniera definitiva, della oligarchia occulta parassitica senza nome e senza bandiera. Tuttavia, e' pur sempre meglio essere manipolati a suon di Evola che a suon di Berlusconi o di Bush).

Mi permetto un consiglio: per tradurre "al volo" da diverse lingue in modo approssimato ma grosso modo utile (inglese, francese, tedesco, portoghese, spagnolo, italiano), le consiglio l'eccellente browser Opera (www.opera.com). Basta selezionare il brano da tradurre e usare il bottone destro del mouse, quindi selezionare il il tipo di traduzione.

Cordiali saluti.



Originally posted by Tomás de Torquemada
Grazie per il pregevole materiale, caro white_rage...

Ci vorrà un pò per leggerlo, ma qualcosa mi dice che sarà tempo assai bene impiegato... :)