Practices of Ethnic Separatism – Tudor

Practices of Separatism

(Excerpt from “The Philosophy of Identity”)

By Lucian Tudor

 

Introductory Note: The following text is an excerpt from a larger essay titled “The Philosophy of Identity: Ethnicity, Culture, and Race in Identitarian Thought.” While this discussion of types of separatism can stand on its own, we believe it is important for readers to have some awareness of the context in order to not have misunderstandings. In earlier parts of “The Philosophy of Identity,” Lucian Tudor discussed the forms and importance of ethno-cultural identity, the necessity of having ethno-cultural groups live in distinct areas in order to maintain their cultural integrity and traditionality (thus rejecting “multiculturalism” and the “melting pot”), and why doing so is not in and of itself “racist” or “xenophobic.”

It is important to realize, in this regard, that the term “separatism” here is used in a very general sense, referring to any form of systematic or structural separation of ethnic and racial groups. It does not necessarily imply any form cultural or ethnic isolationism, for Tudor had already discussed the importance of inter-cultural dialogue and contact, and we can add to that also that foreigners visiting one’s country and having areas of inter-ethnic contact are acceptable as well. What really counts in the case of separatism is that there is no massive mixing which will threaten the existence of distinct ethno-cultural groups, that the various ethno-cultural groups have their own territory to exist in – which is the exact opposite of the Western-style multicultural system.

Finally, we can say that Tudor’s discussion of types of separatism is useful in understanding why the New Right rejects old-fashioned nationalism in favor of the imperial or federalistic model of separatism. While nationalists claim that their model is the only valid way to maintain ethno-cultural integrity, there have been many successful examples of the imperial-federalist model throughout history where multiple ethnic groups lived in the same country in relative harmony or were able to cooperate. Even in the present day, one can see successful examples of multi-ethnic states using the ethno-federalist or ethno-regionalist (also communitarian in many localities) structure in Switzerland, Kazakhstan, Russia, and China. – Daniel Macek (Editor of the “New European Conservative”)

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1. The Class and Caste System

Evidently, racial and ethnic separatism has taken on a variety of forms throughout history. The first and commonly recognized form of separatism is the creation of a class or caste system, where a social order composed of multiple races or ethnic groups separates the population into different classes or castes. Belonging to a class or caste is determined in such societies by racial, ethnic, or cultural background. Class systems based only on ethnocultural background can be seen frequently in history wherever one people conquers others, although of course it should not be assumed here that conquest necessarily results in a hierarchical class system.

A class or caste structure of racial separation, likewise being typically the result of conquest, can be seen in Greco-Roman civilization, in certain ancient Near Eastern civilizations (such as Egypt or Persia), and in many parts of Central and South America after European colonization. Similar systems have also been developed in apartheid states during and after the Colonial Era. [38] Such class or caste systems are often seen as being essentially negative because they involve domination and the subjugation of one or more races by another. However, they also had the positive effect of preserving the racial types which have formed, even after miscegenation (the new, mixed racial types; mulattos and mestizos), due to the fact that they discouraged race mixing by class separation.

It should also be mentioned here that another very well-known example of a caste system which included racial separation into its principles is the one established in ancient India. However, in the case of India, it is interesting to note that Alain Daniélou has argued that its caste system cannot be seen as “racist” (involving unfair subjugation), but rather that it is a natural and just racial ordering; thus the racial aspect of the Indian caste system is not racist because, unlike racist systems, it is not based on subjugation and supremacism but on a harmonious and organized coexistence which involves separation.[39]

2. Nationalism

Another form of separatism is what is commonly recognized as ethnic “nationalism,” which has its primary basis in ethnocultural identity, although it is often accompanied by racial identity where interracial contact exists. Nationalism is defined, in the most simple terms, as the belief that ethnic groups or nationalities (in the cultural sense) are the key category of human beings and that they should live under their own independent states. It implies complete and total separation of ethnic groups into separate nations. Nationalism is often associated with ethnic chauvinism, inter-ethnic hostility, imperialism, and irredentism, although it is important to remember that there have been certain select forms of nationalism throughout history that were not at all chauvinistic and imperialistic, so it is erroneous to assume that it always takes on these negative features.

Concerning the issue of “ethno-nationalism,” one must be careful to distinguish between “racial nationalism,” on the one hand, and actual ethnic nationalism, in which race plays a role but in which it is not the primary element. For some theories of racial nationalism, the biological race is seen as the foundation of the nation, and any ethnocultural factors are regarded as being mere emanations of the race or as being secondary and unimportant when compared with the racial factor (thus it commits the biological reductionist or determinist error; more specifically, it can be said to be racial reductionist). [40] Ethnic nationalism in the proper sense, on the other hand, regards the ethnocultural factor as primary, but still acknowledges that the ethnic group’s identity is linked to race to some extent, and that thus the racial type must be maintained if the ethnos is to survive.[41]

However, we should note that “nationalism” is a problematic term because it has been defined in different and sometimes contradictory ways. In one, very generic sense, nationalism means simply the desire of a people to live separately from others, under its own state and by rule of leaders of its own ethnic background—in essence, a basic ethnic separatism and desire for independence. In this sense, nationalism is a very ancient idea and practice, since all across history one can find many cases where a people of one particular ethnic background desired to be independent from the rule of another different people and fought for this independence.

This is not, however, the way nationalism is always defined, and aside from the fact that it is sometimes defined as being necessarily chauvinistic, it is also often defined in a certain manner that makes it particularly an early modern phenomenon.

In particular, many Identitarian (or New Right) as well as Traditionalist authors have defined nationalism as a form of state in which the “nation” is politically or culturally absolutized, at the expense of smaller local or regional cultural differences, and regarding other nations as completely foreign and of lesser value. This form of “nationalism” is exemplified by the Jacobin nation-state and form of sovereignty (since the French Revolution was a key force in initiating the rise of this state form), and is identified by the elimination of sub-ethnic differences within its borders and the regard for differences with other peoples or nationalities as absolute. Naturally, this form of nationalism has the consequence of creating hostility and conflict between nations because of these ideological and political features. [42] Thus, Benoist, in a statement which summarizes the Identitarian position on this matter, rejects nationalism and proposes in its place a view which reconciles patriotism with the idea of a right to difference: “The identity of others is no longer in principle a threat to mine. I am ready to defend my identity because this defense is a general principle, whose legitimacy I also recognize for others. In other words, if I defend my ‘tribe,’ it is also because I am ready to defend those of others.” [43]

3. Traditionalist Imperial Federalism

The Perennial Traditionalists propose a form of ethnic separatism based on the model of the traditional imperial state, which has manifested itself numerous times across history, including well-known examples such as the Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Russian Empire. In the imperial system, peoples and ethnic groups (“nationalities”) are generally organized in a federation in which each people lives in its own region within the empire. The traditional empire is therefore incompatible with nationalism because it is organized as a supranational federalistic union with a central spiritual authority.

Furthermore, the empire in the traditional sense must not be assumed to be imperialistic, for the traditional empire unified peoples without destroying their particular cultures and ethnic characters. [44] According to Evola,

The scheme of an empire in a true and organic sense (which must clearly be distinguished from every imperialism, a phenomenon that should be regarded as a deplorable extension of nationalism) . . . safeguarded the principles of both unity and multiplicity. In this world, individual States have the character of partial organic units, gravitating around . . . a principle of unity, authority, and sovereignty of a different nature from that which is proper to each particular State . . . due to its super-ordained nature, would be such as to leave wide room for nationalities according to their natural and historical individuality. [45]

In the imperial state, which Evola asserts is the true traditional model of the state, ethnic or national groups are thus separated federally; different peoples live under the same state and serve the same ultimate monarchical authority, but they live in separate parts of the kingdom or empire. To quote one of his key works: “The Middle Ages [and also certain ancient civilizations] knew nationalities but not nationalisms. Nationality is a natural factor that encompasses a certain group of common elementary characteristics that are retained both in the hierarchical differentiation and in the hierarchical participation, which they do not oppose.” [46]

It is worth noting that many Perennial Traditionalist authors such as Julius Evola and Frithjof Schuon reject nationalism as an anomaly—a deviation from valid state forms—not only because they are proponents of the imperial model, but also because they regard ethnicity and race (in the biological sense) as secondary qualities in human beings. [47] That is to say, although they are still acknowledged as having some level of importance, they are insignificant when compared to the values of religious type, elitism, aristocracy, or caste (in its spiritual sense; the racial aspect is still acknowledged but regarded as secondary). Furthermore, Evola has argued that “the notions of nation, fatherland, and people, despite their romantic and idealistic halo, essentially belong to the naturalistic and biological plane and not the political one; they lead back to the ‘maternal’ and physical dimension of a given collectivity.” [48]

However, it should be noted here that many ethnically and racially conscious authors have argued that some conservative scholars have pointed out that race, nationality, and people were regarded in many ancient and traditional societies as possessing a character which surpassed the material plane. According to the studies of conservative scholars of religion such as Mircea Eliade, the religious view of archaic and traditional societies often endowed ethnicity and culture with a spiritual (in the religious sense), mythical, and transcendent dimension. [49] Thus, the traditional view in general cannot be confined to that of well-known Traditionalists such as Evola, Guénon, or Schuon.

4. Identitarian Separatism

The New Right and the Identitarian movement is influenced by Perennial Traditionalist thought, especially in regards to the idea of empire in the traditional sense; Identitarians, for the most part, also support the idea of a federalist empire as their primary model of the state and of ethnic separatism. However, there are a number of key differences between the two groups. First, Identitarians naturally regard the depreciation of ethnic identity by certain Traditionalists such as Evola to be an error. Identitarianism regards ethnic, racial, and cultural identity to be an important part of human existence, not only on the material plane (which is not as demeaned by them to the extent we see among Traditionalists), but also—in accord with Eliade and other conservative religious scholars—on the mythical and spiritual plane.[50]

Of course, there are various other philosophical issues on which there are disagreements—particularly in regards to religious doctrine, the structure and form of polity, and the importance of feminine values—but this is no place to discuss those in depth. [51] The most important point of disagreement which we must recognize here is with the particular construction of the imperial federalist state, which becomes evident when we look at the details of the Identitarian ideal in this regard.

The concept of federalism in Identitarian thought proposes the idea of a federation or confederation which is based upon the principle of subsidiarity, whereby decision-making power is granted to the lowest authorities. In this system, local and regional political structures hold the power that is due to them, while the central authority rules primarily when decisions affecting the whole state must be made. This form of state and sovereignty “implies plurality, autonomy, and the interlacing of levels of power and authority.” [52] Of course, the Traditionalist concept of the empire also involves the practices of subsidiarity and allowing decisions to be made at lower levels. However, for Traditionalists, subsidiarity is more limited in practice, and their concept of sovereignty leads them to assert the importance of the ultimate authority of the sovereign (the central ruler) far more.

The Identitarian conception of the federal state is accompanied by the juridical element of the “right of the peoples.” Hence the fact that, according to this conception, ethnocultural groups of all levels and types have the right to live with freedom and separately from others in different states and territories in the federation. Thus, while the traditional imperial state is used as a reference for the ideal political organization of peoples, in this scheme it is also accepted that “each nation or region, in conserving its freedom, has the right to leave the Federation at any moment.” [53] Furthermore, the Identitarian vision of the empire can also be said to be a “democratic empire” because it involves practicing what is known as organic democracy.

Notes:

[38] On the matter of historical examples, see Isaac, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity and Elav-Feldon, Isaac, and Ziegler, The Origins of Racism in the West. On the race-based caste and class systems in Central and South America, one classic mainstream resource is Magnus Mörner, Race Mixture in the History of Latin America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967).

[39] See Alain Daniélou, India: A Civilization of Differences. The Ancient Tradition of Universal Tolerance (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2003). On race in the Indian caste system, see also the preface to Arvind Sharma, Classical Hindu Thought: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

[40] See, for example, the commentaries on race and biological breed in William Gayley Simpson, Which Way Western Man? (Costa Mesa, CA: Noontide Press, 1986).

[41] For a commentary on this matter, see for example Tomislav Sunic, “Culture: The Missing Link in Euro-American Nationalism,” The Occidental Observer, July 20, 2009, http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2009/07/sunic-euro-american-nationalism/.

[42] See Alain de Benoist, “Nationalism: Phenomenology and Critique,” Counter-Currents Publishing, May 16, 2012, http://www.counter-currents.com/2012/05/nationalism-phenomenology-and-critique; Michael O’Meara, New Culture, New Right, 228ff.; Edgar Julius Jung, “People, Race, Reich,” in Europa: German Conservative Foreign Policy 1870–1940, ed. and trans. Alexander Jacob (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2002). See also the overview of Evola’s position in the chapter “Nations, Nationalism, Empire and Europe” in Paul Furlong, Social and Political Thought of Julius Evola (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2011).

[43] Benoist, “Nationalism.”

[44] See Alain de Benoist, “The Idea of Empire,” Telos, no. 98–99 (December 1993): 81–98.

[45] Julius Evola, Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2002), 277.

[46] Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World, 338–39.

[47] See Frithjof Schuon, Castes and Races (Bedfont, Middlesex, UK: Perennial Books, 1982).

[48] Evola, Men Among the Ruins, 127.

[49] See for example Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 1987); The Myth of the Eternal Return (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005); Myth and Reality (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1998). Other scholars who could be mentioned in this regard are Georges Dumézil, Rudolf Otto, Gilbert Durand, and Alexander Dugin.

[50] See for example Alain de Benoist, On Being a Pagan (Atlanta: Ultra, 2004), and the entry “Paganism” in Faye, Why We Fight, 205ff. Of course, it should be noted here that not all Identitarians are pagans; there are, in fact, many Christians with similar views among the Identitarians. Furthermore, many Identitarians recognize that Christianity and paganism can in fact be reconciled; they are not necessarily in complete conflict. These facts have been pointed out, for example, in the discussion of the New Right’s position on religion in Rodrigo Agulló, Disidencia Perfecta: La Nueva Derecha y la batalla de las ideas (Barcelona and Madrid: Áltera, 2011). In this regard, we can also mention that there have been historical examples of pagan ideas and values being reconciled with Christianity, as has been shown in many scholars’ works, including Eliade’s.

[51] For an in-depth critique from the Identitarian perspective of Radical Traditionalist thought, specifically that of Julius Evola, see especially Alain de Benoist, “Julius Evola, Reaccionario Radical y Metafísico Comprometido: Análisis crítico de su pensamiento político,” Elementos: Revista de Metapolítica para una Civilización Europea, no. 16 (June 2011): 25ff. http://issuu.com/sebastianjlorenz/docs/elementos_n__16. In this analytical work, Benoist establishes that he agrees with some of Evola’s ideas, such as his critique of nationalism, the support of the imperial idea, the basic anti-egalitarian idea, and certain ethical principles. However, Benoist also criticizes and rejects a number of other ideas and attitudes in Evola’s thought, including many (although not all) of his metaphysical and religious principles, his rigid elitism, his contempt for social and popular principles, his rejection of the value of collective identities (such as ethnicity), his lack of true organicism and rejection of the value of community solidarity (in the anti-individualist sense), and his hostility to feminine values. (Benoist, like other Identitarians, advocates a gender differentialism, as opposed to Evola’s position, which can truly be described as sexist.) Benoist acknowledges Evola as an intellectual worthy of study, but emphasizes that his thought must be examined critically.

[52] Alain de Benoist, “What is Sovereignty?,” Telos, no. 116 (Summer 1999): 114. Benoist has also explicated his views on these matters in “The Idea of Empire” and “The First Federalist: Johannes Althusius,” Telos, no. 118 (Winter 2000): 25–58. Other notable studies of sovereignty and federalism from the Identitarian perspective can be found in the following works: the entries “Empire” and “Sovereignty” in Faye, Why We Fight, 130–32 and 247; the chapter “Imperium” in O’Meara, New Culture, New Right; the articles in Sebastian J. Lorenz, ed., Elementos: Revista de Metapolítica para una Civilización Europea, no. 37, “Federalismo Poliárquico Neoalthusiano” (November 2012). http://issuu.com/sebastianjlorenz/docs/elementos_n__37_federalismo.

[53] Faye, Why We Fight, 131.

 

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Excerpt from: Tudor, Lucian. “The Philosophy of Identity: Ethnicity, Culture, and Race in Identitarian Thought.” The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Fall 2014), pp. 99-106. This essay was also republished in Lucian Tudor’s book, From the German Conservative Revolution to the New Right: A Collection of Essays on Identitarian Philosophy (Santiago, Chile: Círculo de Investigaciones PanCriollistas, 2015).

See also: The other excerpts from Lucian Tudor’s essay titled “Identity and Politics: Organic Democracy” and “The Vision of a Multipolar World.”

 

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Critical Analysis of Evola’s Thought – Benoist

“Julius Evola, Radical Reactionary and Committed Metaphysician” by Alain de Benoist (PDF – 366 KB):

Julius Evola, Radical Reactionary and Committed Metaphysician

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De Benoist, Alain. “Julius Evola, Radical Reactionary and Committed Metaphysician: A Critical Analysis of the Political Thought of Julius Evola.” The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Spring 2015), pp. 17-62. Document retrieved from: <http://files.alaindebenoist.com/alaindebenoist/pdf/julius_evola_radical_reactionary.pdf >.

 

Report on the Jean Parvulesco Symposium – Wyeth

Report on the Jean Parvulesco Symposium in Bucarest, 2015

By Alex Wyeth

 

A symposium on the French writer Jean Parvulesco led by Vlad Sauciuc and the Romanian branch office of the TV news channel Russia Today was held in the Hotel Crystal Palace of Bucharest on February 28th and 29th 2015.

From his Moscow apartment relayed via Skype, Alexander Dugin joined the symposium to share the memories of his friend Jean Parvulesco, whom he met in the late 1980s at the occasion of his first contacts with representatives of the French New Right. Alexander Dugin recognized the fact that the real identity of Jean Parvulesco will always remain a mystery, but added that if we were to try to define his true identity, he would think of a manifestation of the Celtic bard Talesin entrusted with a secret mission (undoubtedly in reference to Jean Parvulesco description of Julius Evola as a secret agent of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II). In his second conference, Alexander Dugin explained the core concepts of Jean Parvulesco’s geopolitical ideas, especially that of the eschatological Endkampf that would conclude centuries of occult warfare between the the Altantist order and the Eurasist order beyond the scene of world politics.

Natalia Melentiyeva, Alexander Dugin’s wife, joined the conference and, as a philosophy professor, introduced the key concepts of Neoplatonism, the true philosophia perennis common to most esoteric hermeneutics of the three monotheistic religions, in order to show how the philosophy of Plato and Plotinus can help deciphering the main themes of Jean Parvulesco’s novels. She also explain how each culture can be said to have its specific logos, which explains why each nation or ethnic ground needs to define its own Fourth Political Theory.

Jean Parvulsco’s son, Constantin Parvulsco, shed light on the mysteries of Jean Parvulesco early life: escape from the communist regime in Romania swimming across the Danube river, labor camp in Yugoslavia, escape and rescue from a mysterious virgin in Medjugorje, student life in Paris with the artistic avant-garde, armed struggle in Spain and Africa, mystical experiences, meetings with Ezra Pound, Julius Evola, Martin Heidegger, Mircea Eliade or Dominique de Roux, late literary career and militant involvement with the French New Right as well as various secret societies.

Stanislas Parvulesco, Jean Parvulesco’s grandson talked about the links between Eurasianism and South America with an inspiring speech on the resistance against globalization, and neo-liberal capitalism, with references to Peron and Chavez, as well as to the struggle of native American tribes to maintain their traditions.

As an expert on René Guénon and his Traditionalist school, Claudio Mutti talked about Jean Parvulesco’s friendship with other well-known Romanian figures, such as Jean Vâlsan, Vasile Lovinescu, Mirchea Eliade or Emil Cioran. His second speech was dedicated on Romanian sacred geography, with abundant references to Vasile Lovinescu’s book on the Hyperborean Dacia.

With his flamboyant style, Laurent James gave a very interesting speech on the influence of the French writer Dominique de Roux on Jean Parvulesco, followed by the recitation of a beautify people on Romania written by Dominique de Roux and most probably inspired or even written by Jean Parvulesco. Laurent’s second speech was fascinating compilation of Roman Catholic prophesies focused on Petrus Romanus, the last pope, who may herald the end of the papacy and a return of the Latin Church to Orthodoxy.

Finally, Alex Wyeth gave a first speech focused on Jean Parvulesco’s meetings with Julius Evola in 1968 to show that Jean Parvulesco could be seen as a true disciple of Julius Evola through three core themes that can serve as keys to decipher Jean Parvulesco’s cryptic novels, namely Tantrism (reinterpreted in a Western hermetic or Catholic frame), the Holy “Eurasianist” Empire and the Order of differentiated men leading the ultimate underground battle against the princes and principalities of dissolution. His second speech gave an example of the occult geopolitical influence of secret societies and their link to Eurasianism through the example of Martinism in Russia.

Many other fascinating topics have been discussed shedding light on Jean Parvulesco’s life and work from many different angles.

Beside conferences, the speakers have been received with the legendary hospitality of their Romanian friends, meeting fascinating people as diverse as representatives of Romanian parliament as well as the Russian embassy, Hesychasts inspired by René Guénon, National Bolshevik activists, legionaries of the Romanian Iron Guard, scholars and members of esoteric orders united by the mysterious figure of Jean Parvulesco as well as by the core principles of Eurasianism and Alexander Dugin’s Fourth Political Theory.

 

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Wyeth, Alex. “Report on the Jean Parvulesco Symposium Bucarest 2015.” Open Revolt, 8 March 2015. <http://openrevolt.info/2015/03/08/jean-parvulesco-symposium/ >.

 

Interview with John Morgan – Leonard

A Blaze through the Gloom; an Interview with Arktos Media’s John Morgan by Nathan Leonard

 

Introductory Note: One of the byproducts of living in this highly technological age is that we are so constantly flooded with information from such a variety of media around us that we often become confused. Although our ability to communicate ideas has developed a phenomenal reach, when we stop to examine much of the information that takes up our time, we find that it is composed of fleeting ideas which are designed for short-term consumption of passing fads in which we get caught up for a short time and then remember later with nostalgia and a dash of ironic disdain. Much of what is promoted to us is a commercial transaction in some form or another. This is why it doesn’t last. Yet, part of our identity becomes intrinsically tangled in every shallow trend that sweeps us away.

John Morgan is Editor-in-Chief of Arktos Media, which publishes books that ask deeper questions about our identity and that challenge us to think differently about our role in history. Arktos has utilized innovations of globalism to provide information much different than what usually bombards us on a daily basis; ideas that cannot be blown away by winds of change for they are established in the very nature of life itself. We were fortunate to conduct the following interview with Mr. Morgan by way of email correspondence. – Nathan Leonard (from Heathen Harvest), 7 July 2014.

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Heathen Harvest: Thank you for accepting this interview, John. To start, what does the name “Arktos” mean, and how does it relate to the types of books Arktos publishes?

John Morgan: Arktos is a centaur in Greek mythology. It is also the Greek word for bear, and was additionally the Greek name for the constellation of Ursa Major (Ursa is Latin for bear), which contains the Big Dipper, and which can guide one toward the North Star. Arktos was also the root of the word “arctic”. We wanted a name that was evocative of the ancient European tradition and also of “northernness”, to borrow a term coined by C. S. Lewis to describe Wagnerian art. While in Arktos we are interested in all traditional cultures, we do see ourselves as being primarily rooted in our own European heritage, and we could think of nothing more poetic than Arktos to convey that. Also, it is much less of a mouthful than Integral Tradition Publishing, which was the name of the company some of my colleagues and I had previously! As one can see from perusing the sorts of books we have published to date, many of them deal with aspects of myth and tradition, both European and otherwise.

HH: Arktos will be co-sponsoring the 2014 Identitarian Congress in Budapest this October. What is this event going to be about?

JM: We’re still working on the overall theme, as we haven’t confirmed all the speakers and participants yet. Essentially, we want to discuss the issues that unite all traditionalists, nationalists and identitarians across North America and Europe. There are so many groups, movements and thinkers across the world that are pursuing similar goals, but they rarely have the opportunity to gather in one place to compare notes and ideas, and simply to network. So, our event will be an attempt to fill that need. We also want to explore the idea of Europe as something beyond the petty nationalisms of the past, which led to the tragedy of 1914 (among others), the consequences of which are still being seen today, and also beyond the type of liberalism that has been imported here from the United States. All of our speakers will be addressing these issues, albeit in very different and unique ways.

HH: Why is Budapest the location for the conference? Is it related to your living there? Is there a movement toward traditional thinking there?

JM: The fact that Arktos is now based here was certainly a factor, yes, since it means that my colleagues and I can take care of some of the advance logistical work involved. However, on a broader level, Budapest, and Hungary more generally, is an ideal location for a gathering of traditionalists and nationalists, since Hungary is probably the country with the most vitality in relation to those fields at the present time, and certainly in Europe. Ideas that are often dismissed out of turn in other Western countries are still being openly discussed and taken seriously here. Not to mention the fact that Budapest is one of the most beautiful capital cities in Europe. So, in every way, this was really the ideal location for an event of this nature.

HH: How did you first get into publishing?

JM: For a long time, I had realized that there was a great need for someone to provide an outlet for ideas such as those of the European New Right, the Conservative Revolution, and traditionalism, among others, in English. Prior to Arktos, such resources were few and far between, and often hard to find. In 2006, some friends who felt the same need managed to raise some capital, which allowed us to start our first venture, the aforementioned Integral Tradition Publishing, at the end of that year. We merged Integral Tradition Publishing into Arktos at the end of 2009, as part of a continuation of our goals. It wasn’t really something I had imagined happening, much less being a part of, prior to that time, so the fact that we were able to get this project off the ground and make it work, and that I’ve been able to dedicate most of my time to it over the past five years, is something I’m quite proud of.

HH: Are there any specific writers that inspired you in the establishment of Integral Tradition Publishing or Arktos, perhaps because you wanted them to have a wider exposure or to be introduced to English language audiences?

JM: Certainly. Going into it, we very much wanted to see more of Julius Evola’s works in English, as well as books by Alain de Benoist (only one of his books had been translated prior to Arktos), Guillaume Faye, and Alexander Dugin (the latter two of which were completely untranslated before we started). All of those authors are now in our catalog. There was already quite a bit of Evola in English before Arktos, but there was still a great deal of material left to do, particularly his political writings, which were largely unavailable before we went to work. As for Benoist, Faye and the other thinkers of the European New Right, I find it unbelievable that no one had attempted to translate them before. Benoist in particular – he’s been writing for half a century, and it’s amazing that no one got to him before us. I strongly suspect it’s due to him being called a “Rightist” (a label he rejects). If he had been a French Marxist, I’m sure everything down to his grocery lists would have been translated long ago.

HH: Are you personally a writer? If so, do you plan to publish any books in the future?

JM: I sometimes enjoy writing, although I haven’t published much apart from a short story that I wrote many years ago. I’ve occasionally written essays for Counter-Currents and a few other websites. I would like to write something more substantial in the future, yes, although my Arktos work takes up a lot of my time and energy as it is. But one of these days, yes, I would like to do something of my own.

HH: The recent election results of Members of European Parliament were described as “a political earthquake” because some members of nationalist or “Euroskeptic” parties gained seats. Do you think this represents a major shift in European thinking? What will the impact of the elections be?

JM: It’s a positive sign, to be sure, but no, I don’t think this indicates a “major shift”. If you look at most of the parties that did well – the National Front in France, Wilder’s Freedom Party, UKIP – these are liberal parties that merely have a degree of “acceptable” nationalism and anti-immigrationism as part of their platform. They don’t represent the values of the “true Right”, as Evola phrased it. Plus, as others have observed, Euroskeptic parties have a tendency to do better in the European elections than they do in the national ones, since everyone knows that the European Parliament has little in the way of real power, so they feel more comfortable doing “protest voting” in it. It’s doubtful you will see these parties do as well in their respective national elections. A French friend of mine told me that he is sure that most of the people who voted for the National Front did so as a protest vote rather than out of a real passion for their platform. So, yes, it’s good that Europeans decided to send a message of discontent to Brussels, but I’m wary of getting too excited about this just yet.

The party I find the most relatable to my own perspective in Europe today is Jobbik. They did manage to get 15% of the vote here in Hungary, but that’s actually down from the 20% they got in the national elections just last month, no doubt because part of their platform is to get Hungary out of the EU and thus many of their supporters don’t bother voting. But still, they will be sending three MEPs to parliament again, which is good.

HH: Along these same lines, are you aware of any emerging artistic movements in Europe (literary, musical, visual, or otherwise) characterized by traditionalist, nationalist, or identitarian sentiments?

JM: Unfortunately, no, not many, although that doesn’t necessarily mean there aren’t any, but just that I don’t know of any. If there’s something in a language other than English, I may just not know about it. There certainly isn’t much in English, as I’ve looked. The Mjolnir magazine from the UK, which just released its inaugural issue, which contains fiction, poetry and art consistent with our principles, is a step in that direction. Apart from that, no, I can’t think of anything. There are some individual artists and bands working here and there, of course, like Michael Moynihan and Annabel Lee in the U.S., but I wouldn’t call that a movement, and I think that’s a problem. People on the Right are very good at complaining, and of coming up with brilliant critiques of the world as it is, but they aren’t very good at proposing alternatives or of describing exactly what it is they want. A thriving alternative culture could provide that. I always find it discomforting when I go to a Rightist Website and find photos of the “great White men” of the past, which usually includes people such as Goethe and Beethoven, but it always consists entirely of people who are dead. Where are the great artists of our movement today? They are few and far between, and those that there are are shrouded in obscurity. (The American novelist Tito Perdue, who has been published by Arktos, is one of them, in my opinion.) We shouldn’t seek to turn our culture into a museum piece, where we just talk about how great our forefathers were. We need to get creative and produce new and original visions, and that’s something I hope to continue to provide an outlet for through Arktos.

HH: Liberalism controls the arts. I have met some artists who downplay their non-liberal political or philosophical leanings for fear of potential negative consequences. To what extent do you think a traditionalist art movement is stifled by the dominant ideologies of today? Do you think there are historical examples comparable to the present situation that may be instructive in undermining these systems of control?

JM: It depends on what you mean by “traditionalist”. If you’re using it in the sense of the school of Guénon and Evola, then no, I see nothing obstructing artists from utilizing those forms, ideas and symbols. The recently-deceased Sir John Tavener, who produced several works of music openly based on the writings of Frithjof Schuon and René Guénon, as well as works derived from the Orthodox Christian tradition, and who is one of the most highly regarded modern composers in the world, indicates that there is no inherent bias in the “establishment” against that sort of traditionalism. However, if you’re using the word “traditionalist” in the broader sense which also includes things related to conservatism (in the best sense of that term) and the political Right, then yes, I don’t think it’s news to anyone that there is a strong bias against them in the mainstream artistic establishment.

The recent debacle involving the artist Charles Krafft is a reminder of that, as if we needed one. But my response to that is, so what? We’re living in an age in which putting up a website or self-publishing a book are only a few mouse-clicks away. It’s obvious that, because of innovations in technology, everything is becoming much more decentralized and that the “authorities” in the various fields have become much less important in deciding what gets disseminated or what becomes popular. There’s no reason why anyone who has a particular idea or vision can’t get it out there somehow. That’s one of the few advantages, for people of our mentality, in living in a time like this. You can put just about anything out there and find an audience. Even the aforementioned Charles Krafft has said that his business has actually gone up since the “scandal” erupted, since his new-found notoriety has gotten him a customer base he never would have had otherwise. So, no, you may not see million-dollar grants from foundations going to artists who embrace unpopular forms and ideas anytime soon, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t many, many other avenues and opportunities for expression open to people, if they only want to make use of them. I think the only problem is a lack of creative people in “the movement”, such as it is, or at least of creative people willing to engage with it in a substantive manner. There are some exceptions, of course. If you want to “undermine the systems of control”, there’s nothing stopping you. Technology has already given us that ability.

HH: Can you explain more fully the distinction between traditionalism as a school of Guénon and Evola versus traditionalism in the broader sense of conservatism and the political Right? For instance, you mentioned earlier that Alain de Benoist rejects his characterization as a Rightest, so how is he to be classified? On the other hand, in what sense should we understand Evola’s “Fascism Viewed from the Right”?

JM: This is something that should be readily apparent to anyone who has read either Guénon or Evola, but I’ll attempt to summarize. There can be no connection between modern-day party politics and Tradition in the sense in which Guénon and Evola understood it. For a traditionalist, only one form of government can be traditional: a monarchy in tandem with a traditional priesthood (traditional meaning from a legitimately revealed source). This, of course, was how all civilizations everywhere in the world were governed prior to 1789, but there can be nothing traditional about any other form of politics, even if elements of it can be utilized. So, conservatism, as it’s understood in the United States today, has no connection to traditionalism, even if here and there we might find some overlap, such as in a concern over certain values. As for the Right, it depends on which Right we’re talking about. When it comes to the “Right” of Republicans and libertarians, of course not, since they are the opposite of everything traditional. Even the European New Right is in no way a “traditionalist” movement, even though its thinkers have derived some inspiration from the traditionalists.

Evola himself sometimes used the term “true Right” to describe his own views, which he once defined as being those principles which were considered correct and normal everywhere in the world before 1789. Guénon, for his part, was completely uninterested in the politics of his day, and there’s no indication that he ever engaged with politics in any way, since he regarded everything of modern extraction to be unworthy of anything apart from rejection to the furthest extent possible. Evola, as is well-known, was a critic of Italian Fascism during its reign, although he himself was never a Fascist, and both during and after the Fascist period he always said that he had only ever supported Fascism insofar as it represented traditional principles – which he felt it largely failed to do. In Evola’s later life, of course, he held that apoliteia was the only sensible course – complete disengagement from the political world, except insofar as how it might be beneficial to an individual’s self-development, by engaging in a manner that was disinterested in any result that might follow from such activity. So, in Evola titling his book Fascism Viewed from the Right, he was making it clear that he was analyzing Fascism from the perspective of the “true Right”, not from that of the Right of our time – a point he makes quite clear in the book itself.

I myself am not advocating this position, as I don’t consider myself to be a traditionalist in the same sense as I described above. However, I always make this distinction because I think there is a lot of confusion about the term, and people often use it in a muddled or confused way these days. There are other perfectly valid uses of the word “traditionalism”, of course, but if one is attempting to use it in the sense that Guénon or Evola did, one must keep what I have just reiterated in mind in doing so.

As for Benoist rejecting the Rightist label, it is factual that the name “New Right” has never been applied by Benoist’s Groupement de Recherche et d’Études pour la Civilisation Européenne to itself, but was foisted upon them by hostile French journalists during the 1970s. Benoist himself has written that he regards himself as being, not neither Left nor Right, but rather both Left and Right. Which makes sense, because he has derived a great deal of inspiration from Marxist and other Leftist intellectuals, as well as from the Rightist tradition. I think it’s important for those who oppose civilization as it is currently constituted to bear in mind that there is just as much opposition to liberalism on the radical Left – among some Marxists, anarchists, ecologists, and postmodernists – as on the radical Right. One shouldn’t limit oneself by imposing artificial barriers to thought and ideas based solely on labels.

HH: Earlier you mentioned Charles Krafft as an artist affiliated with the Right, yet Krafft’s style could be called Pop Art or Post-modern, which seems contradictory to the ideals of traditionalism. Another example might be the paintings of the late Jonathan Bowden. Similarly, I’ve thought it paradoxical that industrial music and noise seem to open a door to martial imagery and “old” values like courage and honor. Do you have an opinion about how this almost hypermodern art relates to the “New Right” and anti-modernism? How would you define great art?

JM: I would agree about Charlie’s style, although to my knowledge he’s never called himself a traditionalist. I don’t even know if he would call himself a “Rightist”, for that matter. I cited him as an example since what happened to him shows what can happen if you use themes or motifs in your art that are not officially sanctioned by the establishment’s critics (unless “ironically”, of course), and most especially if you have disapproved friends or affiliations, as Charlie does. But no, it would be ridiculous to call Charlie’s art “traditionalist”, although he does sometimes incorporate traditional elements into his work, from Buddhism and Hinduism in particular. The same goes for Bowden’s art (and I like some of it). At the same time, personally I am not someone who thinks that we have to see Tradition as a static thing that has to be constantly reiterated in the same way and in the same style as it has before. Artistic forms, like reality itself, are constantly evolving and changing, and we shouldn’t always fear the new (although neither should we accept it unreservedly). For example, two of the greatest traditionalist (in a non-doctrinal sense) artists of recent decades for me would be the filmmakers Andrei Tarkovsky and Hans-Jürgen Syberberg. They were operating in a medium which is entirely a product of modernity in every way, and which, let’s face it, 99% of the time is used for degenerative purposes. And both of them, Syberberg in particular, are not only filmmakers, but avant-garde filmmakers who used highly unorthodox methods of a style that were often similar to that of the heights of “liberal” cinema (Surrealism, the French New Wave, and so forth). And yet for me, Tarkovsky’s Stalker, Nostalgia, and The Sacrifice, as well as Syberberg’s Parsifal, rank as some of the most spiritual works of art I have ever experienced. I think they communicate the essence of what Tradition is, even though they are entirely modern in conception and assume a form that is non-traditional. If something can convey such an experience of meaning, or open up new vistas of meaning and new ways of viewing reality, then it’s good in my judgment, even if it may be unorthodox. The modern itself can be used to undo, or perhaps alter is more accurate, itself.

HH: What types of books has Arktos been publishing recently? Are there any that you believe to be particularly noteworthy?

JM: Arktos has been a bit slow the past few months, although that’s about to pick up dramatically. Of recent titles, The Dharma Manifesto is quite interesting. This is an attempt to apply Vedic principles to the political situation in America today by a noted Hindu teacher, Sri Dharma Pravartaka Acharya, and is unique of its kind. We also reprinted the complete run of H. P. Lovecraft’s The Conservative, a political and cultural journal he edited and contributed to that’s not very well-known and has been unavailable for a long time. We’ve been issuing editions of Markus Willinger’s Generation Identity in other languages, as that was one of our most popular books in English and German last year. We also have published a number of books by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar through an agreement with his Art of Living Foundation. Sri Sri is one of the most popular gurus in India at present, and we are pleased to be able to make his books more accessible in the West. Also, my friend Brian’s book Zombology: Zombies and the Decline of the West (and Guns) will be out soon. That’s a study of the sociopolitical implications of the zombie phenomenon, what it says about our contemporary culture and how it has manifested, particularly in relation to American gun culture. We also have new books by Alexander Dugin (Putin vs. Putin, his critique of Putin as a leader), Alain de Benoist (On the Brink of the Abyss, his book on the 2008 financial crisis), Guillaume Faye (Sex and Perversion, his study of modern sexuality), and some titles by the well-known writer on Paganism, Richard Rudgley, among many others, coming out soon.

HH: We look forward to reading some of those. Thank you for the interview.

JM: Thanks for having me. We’re doing this work for people like you!

 

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Morgan, John B. “A Blaze through the Gloom; an Interview with Arktos Media’s John Morgan.” Interview by Nathan Leonard. Heathen Harvest Periodical, 7 July 2014. <http://heathenharvest.org/2014/07/07/a-blaze-through-the-gloom-an-interview-with-arktos-medias-john-morgan/ >.

 

Interview on Gerd-Klaus Kaltenbrunner – Grannenfeld

Gerd-Klaus Kaltenbrunner’s Work and Thought

An Interview with Martin J. Grannenfeld by Lucian Tudor

 

Introductory Note: Gerd-Klaus Kaltenbrunner (1939-2011) was an Austrian Catholic Traditionalist philosopher who was influential among conservatives and traditionalists in the Germanophone world. He is particularly well-known for his extensive corpus of works dealing with conservative, traditionalist, and religious theories and portraits of numerous thinkers involved in these philosophies. However, his works and thought are, unfortunately, not well-known in the Anglophone world. In order to help introduce Kaltenbrunner to the English-speaking world and to encourage further studies and translations, we have chosen to interview Martin Johannes Grannenfeld – a German Catholic Conservative and editor of the website Geistbraus – who is among those who have studied Kaltenbrunner’s works in depth and has been inspired by them.

Lucian Tudor: How did you first become acquainted with Gerd-Klaus Kaltenbrunner and his work?

Martin J. Grannenfeld: It happened by mere chance. Around 2003, I read about the mythological figure of Prester John, a mighty oriental Christian priest-king during the Middle Ages, who was prepared to help the crusaders with a great army. I was somewhat fascinated by this figure, thus I looked for literature about him – and in the Bavarian State Library in Munich I found a book named Johannes ist sein Name. Priesterkönig, Gralshüter, Traumgestalt by an author I didn’t know then – Gerd-Klaus Kaltenbrunner. From the very first sentence I was thrilled. Unlike many other scholars, Kaltenbrunner didn’t demystify the legend. Quite on the contrary, he revealed its metahistorical core, and outlined a fascinating, rich, and deeply symbolic cosmos of ways to see our world and the beyond. I understood immediately that I had found an author whose writings were different from everything I had read before, and who would certainly keep me occupied for quite a while.

Lucian Tudor: Kaltenbrunner has written extensive studies on Dionysius the Areopagite, Prester John, and Anne Catherine Emmerich. Can you tell us about these figures and what you found most significant about them in Kaltenbrunner’s books on them?

Martin J. Grannenfeld: Kaltenbrunner wrote two large books about Dionysius and Prester John. His work about Anne Catherine Emmerich is much shorter and less complex. He intended to write another extensive study about Melchizedek, the mysterious priest-king from the Old Testament, but there exist only drafts of this work.

His book about Prester John was written in 1989 and published in 1993. Its first sentence, “Prester John has never lived and is nonetheless one of the most influential figures of the Middle Ages,” can be regarded as a motto: the mystical, invisible world can be more real than the visible everyday life. Subsequently Kaltenbrunner drafted a complex picture of this metahistorical “John” – comprising not only Prester John himself, but also his spiritual ancestors John the Evangelist, his disciple John the Presbyter, and the esoteric school of “Johannides” – which is not primarily meant as a historical fact, but rather as a “Johannide,” i.e. a mythologic-symbolic way of thinking. In the second half of his book, Kaltenbrunner linked Prester John with the other great myth of the High Middle Ages: the Holy Grail – and interpreted some of the Grail epics against the background of the Johannide philosophy.

The other book, Dionysius vom Areopag. Das Unergründliche, die Engel und das Eine, was published in 1996. It is even more voluminous, comprising more than 1000 pages. Like the book about John, it focuses on one figure – Dionysius the Areopagite – and draws a specific theology out of this encounter. Like John, the figure “Dionysius” is composed from several single persons by the same name: a) Dionysius the Areopagite from the Bible, b) the author of the famous writings, c) the bishop of Paris from the 3rd century, d) the Greek God Dionysos, to whom the name Dionysius is dedicated. Starting with multifarious reflections on the Greek and Christian spiritual background of these figures, Kaltenbrunner finally sketches – inspired by Dionysius’ negative theology – a great picture of a hierarchical world, which comprises everything from the ugliest scarab up to the nine spheres of angels, and above all, the inexpressible and incomprehensible God – the “One,” as Dionysius calls Him.

Lucian Tudor: From your reading, what are the most important principles of Kaltenbrunner’s religious philosophy?

Martin J. Grannenfeld: 1. The Invisible is real. 2. History is full of symbolic meaning. 3. Legends, myths and tradition are important keys to the Eternal. 4. The esoteric core of all religions converges.

Lucian Tudor: How does Kaltenbrunner believe we should understand the Sacred and the mystical experience?

Martin J. Grannenfeld: Kaltenbrunner is strongly influenced by negative theology and Platonism. God only discloses Himself through the hierarchy – the great Jacob’s Ladder where the angels descend and ascend, and our knowledge of the Eternal with them. We can ascend the Ladder, but we can never reach God: the inner core of His essence is beyond our thinking and our language. Kaltenbrunner insists that Buddha, Lao-Tse, Shankara, and Meister Eckhart would have been able to communicate, because they were very far in their hierarchical way of understanding the divine mysteries.

Lucian Tudor: Kaltenbrunner appears to have been very knowledgeable about a variety of religious beliefs and sects; what led him, in particular, to Catholic religiosity?

Martin J. Grannenfeld: Kaltenbrunner, born 1939 in Vienna, was raised as a Catholic. However, after he grew up, his belief took a back seat, and his interest in politics, history and culture became more important. Catholic thinkers like Franz von Baader remained important for him, but it was only in the mid-nineties – after the publication of his Johannes and before his Dionysius – that he rediscovered his faith. Father Georg Alois Oblinger, a Catholic priest who accompanied Kaltenbrunner during his last years, told that one day, while strolling in his garden, Kaltenbrunner suddenly understood that God really existed. He had always had sympathy for the Catholic Church (at least in its traditional form, since he didn’t like the modern liturgy and the Popes Paul VI and John Paul II) – but he had looked to it simply in a cultural way, not in the way of a believer. His Dionysius is a striking testimony of his newly discovered faith: For example (inspired by the Old Testament story of Balaam’s donkey), he asks in all naivety if some sudden, irritated movement of our domestic animals might be caused by sudden encounters with angels, invisible for humans…?

Lucian Tudor: We often encounter nowadays people who ask for “scientific proof” that God and the supernatural exist. How does Kaltenbrunner address this kind of mentality?

Martin J. Grannenfeld: Mostly he ignores it. His Dionysius, the only major book he wrote after he became a believer himself, is obviously addressed towards an empathic, traditionalist reader. Kaltenbrunner’s concern was not primarily apologetics, but the conveyance of his spiritual insights to like-minded persons.

Lucian Tudor: Kaltenbrunner discussed in his works a vast variety of philosophers with differing viewpoints, some of them not even Christian. How did he reconcile his Catholic beliefs with his interest in the works of “Pagan” intellectuals such as Ludwig Klages and Julius Evola?

Martin J. Grannenfeld: Kaltenbrunner had an exceptional knowledge of Occidental thinkers, writers, and artists – some famous, some less known, some virtually forgotten. He wrote several hundred essay-portraits about them, most of which have been collected in his six “Europe” volumes, consisting of two series: Europa. Seine geistigen Quellen in Portraits aus zwei Jahrtausenden (three volumes, 1981-85) and Vom Geist Europas (three volumes, 1987-92). Kaltenbrunner had always pled for an “inspired Christianity” (“geistdurchwehtes Christentum”) without any ideological blinders. This explains why even after his rediscovery of faith he continued to be interested in all the different thinkers he had known and portrayed before. However, Julius Evola and the “Traditionalist” school founded by Rene Guenon held an exceptional position in Kaltenbrunner’s philosophy. Their concept of Integral Tradition, the Sacred, kingship, and priesthood was very close to Kaltenbrunner’s own views. Leopold Ziegler, the Catholic exponent of the Traditionalist school, was especially influential to Kaltenbrunner. His book about Prester John can in fact be read as a transformation of Guenon’s and Evola’s philosophy into the spiritual cosmos of Christianity.

Lucian Tudor: What are essential principles of Kaltenbrunner’s theory of Conservatism?

Martin J. Grannenfeld: Kaltenbrunner pointed out that conservatism cannot be a synonym for intellectual idleness. Referring to a poem by Goethe on breathing in and breathing out, he described conservatism as a sophisticated balance between things that stay and things that change. He thought that the real conservative has to be un-conservative in some matters, open to new solutions in order to prevent destruction of human culture and society as a whole. For example, nowadays, with war and poverty being absent from Europe, the contemporary conservative has to develop new ways of struggle, battle, heroism, and asceticism.

Lucian Tudor: How does Kaltenbrunner understand Tradition, specifically, and how does he believe that traditional values can be revived in the modern world?

Martin J. Grannenfeld: The concept of “Tradition” became important for Kaltenbrunner in the 80’s. As mentioned before, he got more and more influenced by Integral Traditionalism as taught by Guenon and his followers. Parallel to the shift from “conservatism” to “traditionalism,” Kaltenbrunner’s concern in changing today’s world declined. He focused more and more on the single, remote individual, who preserves Tradition during the “spiritual winter” – a human network scattered through space and time, but unified in spirit. During the last fifteen years of his life, he took the most radical consequence of this world-view, becoming a hermit, living on his own in the countryside, without a telephone, without even a door bell, just with his books and his large garden.

Lucian Tudor: Traditionalists are often associated with a “cyclical” view of history in which the world goes through lengthy stages, beginning with a Golden Age and ending in a Dark Age. This is opposed to the “linear” and “progressive” views of history, although there are arguably other perspectives. Considering his Traditionalist influences, could you tell us if Kaltenbrunner held the cyclical view of history or did he offer another view?

Martin J. Grannenfeld: Kaltenbrunner certainly never held the cyclical view in a strictly “pagan” or “Indian” sense that after a huge fire everything starts again. Nevertheless, Kaltenbrunner was a cultural pessimist – his favourite centuries lay a long time in the past: the Greek antiquity, the High Middle Ages, the Baroque Period or the days of Goethe. Unlike Guénon and Evola, however, he was not very interested in speculation about a prehistoric “Golden Age.” As a literary person, an era without written documents did not concern him too much – with the only exception of the first chapters of Genesis, especially about the Nephilim and Melchizedek, with whom he dealt in his Dionysius.

Lucian Tudor: What are the fundaments of Kaltenbrunner’s theory of culture?

Martin J. Grannenfeld: Kaltenbrunner never sketched an explicit theory of culture. Culture meant for him rather a never-ending dialogue with thinkers and poets from all times. He did not approach thinkers from a modern, patronizing, “enlightened” position, but as equals, at eye level, no matter how ancient and strange they may be. In the beginning of his Dionysius he even wrote a personal letter to his hero. Kaltenbrunner is certainly more attracted by non-mainstream authors, individuals, and often forgotten thinkers, but he also adored well-known and famous writers like Goethe, Novalis, and Angelus Silesius.

Lucian Tudor: What did Kaltenbrunner say about social ethics, the individual’s role, and holism?

Martin J. Grannenfeld: A common topos in Kaltenbrunner’s philosophy is, as abovementioned, the remote individual preserving knowledge for the society. Kaltenbrunner often mentioned that the world as a whole is threatened by nuclear, ecological, and spiritual destruction, and that the effort of an elite is required to prevent or at least attenuate the upcoming catastrophe. Hence his sympathy for ascetics, hermits, mystics, monks, thinkers and writers in general. Particularly, the ecological concern is quite special for Kaltenbrunner and distinguishes him from many fellow conservatives, who abandoned environmental issues after the political left took possession of this complex in the late 80s. In his last years, living in harmony with nature became more and more important for Kaltenbrunner – he grew ecological food in his own garden and did not even possess a car. But all this was not condensed into a theory (he did not longer write texts during his last 15 years), but mere practical exercise.

Lucian Tudor: What did Kaltenbrunner conclude about the problem of secret societies and conspiracy theories?

Martin J. Grannenfeld: Frankly speaking, Kaltenbrunner did not see secret societies as a “problem” at all, but as an important means for the conservation of ideas rejected by the mainstream. He wrote a short text on the matter in 1986, entitled “Geheimgesellschaften als exemplarische Eliten” (“Secret Societies as Exemplary Elites”), which was included into the second edition of his book Elite. Erziehung für den Ernstfall. In this sketch, he did not only describe Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, the Illuminati, etc., but also secret societies which managed to grow large and usurp a whole state – like the Bolsheviks in Russia, or formerly the Jesuits in Paraguay. However, he pointed out that this can be a possible escape from the typical loyalty conflict between the secret society and the state which every member has to face; his true sympathies lie without any doubt with the small, hidden groups without any political power. Kaltenbrunner’s text about secret societies could be regarded as a link between his earlier “conservative” and his later “traditional” views: getting less and less interested in changing the world in respect to the political, and more and more concerned about its spiritual renewal.

Lucian Tudor: Can you please summarize Kaltenbrunner’s position on political forms (monarchy, republic, democracy, etc.)? What political form did he see as ideal and did he believe that political corruption could be minimized in a certain system?

Martin J. Grannenfeld: In his heart of hearts, Kaltenbrunner was an aristocrat. Although he was sceptical about a restoration of the traditional nobility, he felt the necessity of a skilled elite in government, culture, and warfare. He did not directly reject democracy, but warned of the mediocrity which often accompanies it. In his early works, no specific sympathy for republic or monarchy is visible – aristocratic republics like Venice are approved by him as well. In the 80s, however, culminating in his Johannes, he is more and more absorbed by the idea of a universal Christian monarchy, with a supra-national emperor exercising spiritual-metapolitical leadership over the occidental Christianity – like it used to be in the best times of the Middle Ages, e.g. under the rule of Frederick Barbarossa or Emperor Charles IV.

Lucian Tudor: We are aware that very little of Kaltenbrunner’s work is available in English and he is not well-known in the Anglophone world. In your opinion, what is the best starting point from Kaltenbrunner’s works? Also, what would you suggest is the best book to translate first out of works?

Martin J. Grannenfeld: I would suggest the same book which happened to be my first one: Johannes ist sein Name – Kaltenbrunner’s great essay about Prester John. This is in my opinion his best written and most inspiring book, comprising everything that makes Kaltenbrunner so unique. It is shorter, more concise and also more optimistic than his later opus magnum Dionysius vom Areopag, and yet more intriguing and unconventional than his earlier political and cultural writings. I really hope that one day an English translation of this work (and of other works by Kaltenbrunner) will be available! This will be a big step to make this great thinker of our time better known.

Lucian Tudor: Thank you very much for the interview.

 

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Grannenfeld, Martin Johannes. “Gerd-Klaus Kaltenbrunner’s Work and Thought: An Interview with Martin J. Grannenfeld.” Interview by Lucian Tudor. Traditional Britain Group, 19 March 2015. <http://traditionalbritain.org/blog/gerd-klaus-kaltenbrunners-work-and-thought-an-interview-with-martin-j-grannenfeld/ >.

 

Evola’s Political Endeavors – Hansen

Julius Evola’s Political Endeavors by H.T. Hansen (PDF – 574 KB):

Julius Evola’s Political Endeavors

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Hansen, H.T. “Julius Evola’s Political Endeavors.” Introduction to Julius Evola, Men Among the Ruins: Postwar Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist, pp. 1-104. Rochester: Inner Traditions, 2002.

Note: On Evola’s theories, see also: “Against Nihilism: Julius Evola’s ‘Traditionalist’ Critique of Modernity” by Thomas F. Bertonneau, “Julius Evola on Race” by Tomislav Sunic, “Tradition?” by Alain de Benoist, “A True Empire: Form and Presuppositions of a United Europe” by Julius Evola, “The Defining Element of the Conservative Revolution” by Julius Evola, and various other articles by or about Evola.

 

Conservative Critique of Spengler – Tudor

The Revolutionary Conservative Critique of Oswald Spengler

By Lucian Tudor

Oswald Spengler is by now well-known as one of the major thinkers of the German Conservative Revolution of the early 20th Century. In fact, he is frequently cited as having been one of the most determining intellectual influences on German Conservatism of the interwar period – along with Arthur Moeller van den Bruck and Ernst Jünger – to the point where his cultural pessimist philosophy is seen to be representative of Revolutionary Conservative views in general (although in reality most Revolutionary Conservatives held more optimistic views).[1]

To begin our discussion, we shall provide a brief overview of the major themes of Oswald Spengler’s philosophy.[2] According to Spengler, every High Culture has its own “soul” (this refers to the essential character of a Culture) and goes through predictable cycles of birth, growth, fulfillment, decline, and demise which resemble that of the life of a plant. To quote Spengler:

A Culture is born in the moment when a great soul awakens out of the proto-spirituality of ever-childish humanity, and detaches itself, a form from the formless, a bounded and mortal thing from the boundless and enduring. It blooms on the soil of an exactly-definable landscape, to which plant-wise it remains bound. It dies when the soul has actualized the full sum of its possibilities in the shape of peoples, languages, dogmas, arts, states, sciences, and reverts into the proto-soul.[3]

There is an important distinction in this theory between Kultur (“Culture”) and Zivilisation (“Civilization”). Kultur refers to the beginning phase of a High Culture which is marked by rural life, religiosity, vitality, will-to-power, and ascendant instincts, while Zivilisation refers to the later phase which is marked by urbanization, irreligion, purely rational intellect, mechanized life, and decadence. Although he acknowledged other High Cultures, Spengler focused particularly on three High Cultures which he distinguished and made comparisons between: the Magian, the Classical (Greco-Roman), and the present Western High Culture. He held the view that the West, which was in its later Zivilisation phase, would soon enter a final imperialistic and “Caesarist” stage – a stage which, according to Spengler, marks the final flash before the end of a High Culture.[4]

Perhaps Spengler’s most important contribution to the Conservative Revolution, however, was his theory of “Prussian Socialism,” which formed the basis of his view that conservatives and socialists should unite. In his work he argued that the Prussian character, which was the German character par excellence, was essentially socialist. For Spengler, true socialism was primarily a matter of ethics rather than economics. This ethical, Prussian socialism meant the development and practice of work ethic, discipline, obedience, a sense of duty to the greater good and the state, self-sacrifice, and the possibility of attaining any rank by talent. Prussian socialism was differentiated from Marxism and liberalism. Marxism was not true socialism because it was materialistic and based on class conflict, which stood in contrast with the Prussian ethics of the state. Also in contrast to Prussian socialism was liberalism and capitalism, which negated the idea of duty, practiced a “piracy principle,” and created the rule of money.[5]

Oswald Spengler’s theories of predictable culture cycles, of the separation between Kultur and Zivilisation, of the Western High Culture as being in a state of decline, and of a non-Marxist form of socialism, have all received a great deal of attention in early 20th Century Germany, and there is no doubt that they had influenced Right-wing thought at the time. However, it is often forgotten just how divergent the views of many Revolutionary Conservatives were from Spengler’s, even if they did study and draw from his theories, just as an overemphasis on Spenglerian theory in the Conservative Revolution has led many scholars to overlook the variety of other important influences on the German Right. Ironically, those who were influenced the most by Spengler – not only the German Revolutionary Conservatives, but also later the Traditionalists and the New Rightists – have mixed appreciation with critique. It is this reality which needs to be emphasized: the majority of Conservative intellectuals who have appreciated Spengler have simultaneously delivered the very significant message that Spengler’s philosophy needs to be viewed critically, and that as a whole it is not acceptable.

The most important critique of Spengler among the Revolutionary Conservative intellectuals was that made by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck.[6] Moeller agreed with certain basic ideas in Spengler’s work, including the division between Kultur and Zivilisation, with the idea of the decline of the Western Culture, and with his concept of socialism, which Moeller had already expressed in an earlier and somewhat different form in Der Preussische Stil (“The Prussian Style,” 1916).[7] However, Moeller resolutely rejected Spengler’s deterministic and fatalistic view of history, as well as the notion of destined culture cycles. Moeller asserted that history was essentially unpredictable and unfixed: “There is always a beginning (…) History is the story of that which is not calculated.”[8] Furthermore, he argued that history should not be seen as a “circle” (in Spengler’s manner) but rather a “spiral,” and a nation in decline could actually reverse its decline if certain psychological changes and events could take place within it.[9]

The most radical contradiction with Spengler made by Moeller van den Bruck was the rejection of Spengler’s cultural morphology, since Moeller believed that Germany could not even be classified as part of the “West,” but rather that it represented a distinct culture in its own right, one which even had more in common in spirit with Russia than with the “West,” and which was destined to rise while France and England fell.[10] However, we must note here that the notion that Germany is non-Western was not unique to Moeller, for Werner Sombart, Edgar Julius Jung, and Othmar Spann have all argued that Germans belonged to a very different cultural type from that of the Western nations, especially from the culture of the Anglo-Saxon world. For these authors, Germany represented a culture which was more oriented towards community, spirituality, and heroism, while the modern “West” was more oriented towards individualism, materialism, and capitalistic ethics. They further argued that any presence of Western characteristics in modern Germany was due to a recent poisoning of German culture by the West which the German people had a duty to overcome through sociocultural revolution.[11]

Another key intellectual of the German Conservative Revolution, Hans Freyer, also presented a critical analysis of Spenglerian philosophy.[12] Due to his view that that there is no certain and determined progress in history, Freyer agreed with Spengler’s rejection of the linear view of progress. Freyer’s philosophy of culture also emphasized cultural particularism and the disparity between peoples and cultures, which was why he agreed with Spengler in terms of the basic conception of cultures possessing a vital center and with the idea of each culture marking a particular kind of human being. Being a proponent of a community-oriented state socialism, Freyer found Spengler’s anti-individualist “Prussian socialism” to be agreeable. Throughout his works, Freyer had also discussed many of the same themes as Spengler – including the integrative function of war, hierarchies in society, the challenges of technological developments, cultural form and unity – but in a distinct manner oriented towards social theory.[13]

However, Freyer argued that the idea of historical (cultural) types and that cultures were the product of an essence which grew over time were already expressed in different forms long before Spengler in the works of Karl Lamprecht, Wilhelm Dilthey, and Hegel. It is also noteworthy that Freyer’s own sociology of cultural categories differed from Spengler’s morphology. In his earlier works, Freyer focused primarily on the nature of the cultures of particular peoples (Völker) rather than the broad High Cultures, whereas in his later works he stressed the interrelatedness of all the various European cultures across the millennia. Rejecting Spengler’s notion of cultures as being incommensurable, Freyer’s “history regarded modern Europe as composed of ‘layers’ of culture from the past, and Freyer was at pains to show that major historical cultures had grown by drawing upon the legacy of past cultures.”[14] Finally, rejecting Spengler’s historical determinism, Freyer had “warned his readers not to be ensnared by the powerful organic metaphors of the book [Der Untergang des Abendlandes] … The demands of the present and of the future could not be ‘deduced’ from insights into the patterns of culture … but were ultimately based on ‘the wager of action’ (das Wagnis der Tat).”[15]

Yet another important Conservative critique of Spengler was made by the Italian Perennial Traditionalist philosopher Julius Evola, who was himself influenced by the Conservative Revolution but developed a very distinct line of thought. In his The Path of Cinnabar, Evola showed appreciation for Spengler’s philosophy, particularly in regards to the criticism of the modern rationalist and mechanized Zivilisation of the “West” and with the complete rejection of the idea of progress.[16] Some scholars, such as H.T. Hansen, stress the influence of Spengler’s thought on Evola’s thought, but it is important to remember that Evola’s cultural views differed significantly from Spengler’s due to Evola’s focus on what he viewed as the shifting role of a metaphysical Perennial Tradition across history as opposed to historically determined cultures.[17]

In his critique, Evola pointed out that one of the major flaws in Spengler’s thought was that he “lacked any understanding of metaphysics and transcendence, which embody the essence of each genuine Kultur.”[18] Spengler could analyze the nature of Zivilisation very well, but his irreligious views caused him to have little understanding of the higher spiritual forces which deeply affected human life and the nature of cultures, without which one cannot clearly grasp the defining characteristic of Kultur. As Robert Steuckers has pointed out, Evola also found Spengler’s analysis of Classical and Eastern cultures to be very flawed, particularly as a result of the “irrationalist” philosophical influences on Spengler: “Evola thinks this vitalism leads Spengler to say ‘things that make one blush’ about Buddhism, Taoism, Stoicism, and Greco-Roman civilization (which, for Spengler, is merely a civilization of ‘corporeity’).”[19] Also problematic for Evola was “Spengler’s valorization of ‘Faustian man,’ a figure born in the Age of Discovery, the Renaissance and humanism; by this temporal determination, Faustian man is carried towards horizontality rather than towards verticality.”[20]

Finally, we must make a note of the more recent reception of Spenglerian philosophy in the European New Right and Identitarianism: Oswald Spengler’s works have been studied and critiqued by nearly all major New Right and Identitarian intellectuals, including especially Alain de Benoist, Dominique Venner, Pierre Krebs, Guillaume Faye, Julien Freund, and Tomislav Sunic. The New Right view of Spenglerian theory is unique, but is also very much reminiscent of Revolutionary Conservative critiques of Moeller van den Bruck and Hans Freyer. Like Spengler and many other thinkers, New Right intellectuals also critique the “ideology of progress,” although it is significant that, unlike Spengler, they do not do this to accept a notion of rigid cycles in history nor to reject the existence of any progress. Rather, the New Right critique aims to repudiate the unbalanced notion of linear and inevitable progress which depreciates all past culture in favor of the present, while still recognizing that some positive progress does exist, which it advocates reconciling with traditional culture to achieve a more balanced cultural order.[21] Furthermore, addressing Spengler’s historical determinism, Alain de Benoist has written that “from Eduard Spranger to Theodor W. Adorno, the principal reproach directed at Spengler evidently refers to his ‘fatalism’ and to his ‘determinism.’ The question is to know up to what point man is prisoner of his own history. Up to what point can one no longer change his course?”[22]

Like their Revolutionary Conservative precursors, New Rightists reject any fatalist and determinist notion of history, and do not believe that any people is doomed to inevitable decline; “Decadence is therefore not an inescapable phenomenon, as Spengler wrongly thought,” wrote Pierre Krebs, echoing the thoughts of other authors.[23] While the New Rightists accept Spengler’s idea of Western decline, they have posed Europe and the West as two antagonistic entities. According to this new cultural philosophy, the genuine European culture is represented by numerous traditions rooted in the most ancient European cultures, and must be posed as incompatible with the modern “West,” which is the cultural emanation of early modern liberalism, egalitarianism, and individualism.

The New Right may agree with Spengler that the “West” is undergoing decline, “but this original pessimism does not overshadow the purpose of the New Right: The West has encountered the ultimate phase of decadence, consequently we must definitively break with the Western civilization and recover the memory of a Europe liberated from the egalitarianisms…”[24] Thus, from the Identitarian perspective, the “West” is identified as a globalist and universalist entity which had harmed the identities of European and non-European peoples alike. In the same way that Revolutionary Conservatives had called for Germans to assert the rights and identity of their people in their time period, New Rightists call for the overcoming of the liberal, cosmopolitan Western Civilization to reassert the more profound cultural and spiritual identity of Europeans, based on the “regeneration of history” and a reference to their multi-form and multi-millennial heritage.

Notes

[1] An example of such an assertion regarding cultural pessimism can be seen in “Part III. Three Major Expressions of Neo-Conservatism” in Klemens von Klemperer, Germany’s New Conservatism: Its History and Dilemma in the Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968).

[2] To supplement our short summary of Spenglerian philosophy, we would like to note that one the best overviews of Spengler’s philosophy in English is Stephen M. Borthwick, “Historian of the Future: An Introduction to Oswald Spengler’s Life and Works for the Curious Passer-by and the Interested Student,” Institute for Oswald Spengler Studies, 2011, <https://sites.google.com/site/spenglerinstitute/Biography>.

[3] Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West Vol. 1: Form and Actuality (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926), p. 106.

[4] Ibid.

[5] See “Prussianism and Socialism” in Oswald Spengler, Selected Essays (Chicago: Gateway/Henry Regnery, 1967).

[6] For a good overview of Moeller’s thought, see Lucian Tudor, “Arthur Moeller van den Bruck: The Man & His Thought,” Counter-Currents Publishing, 17 August 2012, <http://www.counter-currents.com/2012/08/arthur-moeller-van-den-bruck-the-man-and-his-thought/>.

[7] See Fritz Stern, The Politics of Cultural Despair (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1974), pp. 238-239, and Alain de Benoist, “Arthur Moeller van den Bruck,” Elementos: Revista de Metapolítica para una Civilización Europea No. 15 (11 June 2011), p. 30, 40-42. <http://issuu.com/sebastianjlorenz/docs/elementos_n__15>.

[8] Arthur Moeller van den Bruck as quoted in Benoist, “Arthur Moeller van den Bruck,” p. 41.

[9] Ibid., p. 41.

[10] Ibid., pp. 41-43.

[11] See Fritz K. Ringer, The Decline of the German Mandarins: The German Academic Community, 1890–1933 (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1990), pp. 183 ff.; John J. Haag, Othmar Spann and the Politics of “Totality”: Corporatism in Theory and Practice (Ph.D. Thesis, Rice University, 1969), pp. 24-26, 78, 111.; Alexander Jacob’s introduction and “Part I: The Intellectual Foundations of Politics” in Edgar Julius Jung, The Rule of the Inferiour, Vol. 1 (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellon Press, 1995).

[12] For a brief introduction to Freyer’s philosophy, see Lucian Tudor, “Hans Freyer: The Quest for Collective Meaning,” Counter-Currents Publishing, 22 February 2013, <http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/02/hans-freyer-the-quest-for-collective-meaning/>.

[13] See Jerry Z. Muller, The Other God That Failed: Hans Freyer and the Deradicalization of German Conservatism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 78-79, 120-121.

[14] Ibid., p. 335.

[15] Ibid., p. 79.

[16] See Julius Evola, The Path of Cinnabar (London: Integral Tradition Publishing, 2009), pp. 203-204.

[17] See H.T. Hansen, “Julius Evola’s Political Endeavors,” in Julius Evola, Men Among the Ruins: Postwar Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist (Rochester: Inner Traditions, 2002), pp. 15-17.

[18] Evola, Path of Cinnabar, p. 204.

[19] Robert Steuckers, “Evola & Spengler”, Counter-Currents Publishing, 20 September 2010, <http://www.counter-currents.com/2010/09/evola-spengler/> .

[20] Ibid.

[21] In a description that applies as much to the New Right as to the Eurasianists, Alexander Dugin wrote of a vision in which “the formal opposition between tradition and modernity is removed… the realities superseded by the period of Enlightenment obtain a legitimate place – these are religion, ethnos, empire, cult, legend, etc. In the same time, a technological breakthrough, economical development, social fairness, labour liberation, etc. are taken from the Modern” (See Alexander Dugin, “Multipolarism as an Open Project,” Journal of Eurasian Affairs Vol. 1, No. 1 (September 2013), pp. 12-13).

[22] Alain de Benoist, “Oswald Spengler,” Elementos: Revista de Metapolítica para una Civilización Europea No. 10 (15 April 2011), p. 13.<http://issuu.com/sebastianjlorenz/docs/elementos_n__10&gt;.

[23] Pierre Krebs, Fighting for the Essence (London: Arktos, 2012), p. 34.

[24] Sebastian J. Lorenz, “El Decadentismo Occidental, desde la Konservative Revolution a la Nouvelle Droite,”Elementos No. 10, p. 5.

 

—————

Tudor, Lucian. “The Revolutionary Conservative Critique of Oswald Spengler.” Tankesmedjan Motpol, 7 November 2014. <http://www.motpol.nu/english/2014/11/07/the-revolutionary-conservative-critique-of-oswald-spengler/ >.

Note: See also the mentions of various other Right-wing critiques of Spengler which are discussed by Karlheinz Weißmann in the editorial on Oswald Spengler in Sezession im Netz (May 2005): <http://www.sezession.de/wp-content/uploads/alte_nummern/sezession_spengler.pdf > (See alt. link).

Additional Note: This essay was also republished in Lucian Tudor’s From the German Conservative Revolution to the New Right: A Collection of Essays on Identitarian Philosophy (Santiago, Chile: Círculo de Investigaciones PanCriollistas, 2015).

 

Worldview and Intellect – Evola

The Proper Relationship between Worldview and Intellect

By Julius Evola

 

After mentioning intellectuals and realism, it is still necessary to make one point. I have suggested that the flirtation of some intellectuals with communism is paradoxical, since communism despises the figure of the intellectual, whom it regards as a member of the hated bourgeois. Incidentally, a similar attitude may be shared even by those who are on the opposite front to communism. It is indeed possible to be opposed to any exaggerated appreciation of culture and intellectualism, considering what they amount to in the contemporary world. To make a cult of them, to define their representatives as a higher social stratum, almost an aristocracy  —  the “aristocracy of thought,” which is believed to be the true one, legitimately replacing the previous forms of the elite and the nobility — is a characteristic prejudice of the bourgeois era in its humanistic or liberal sphere. The truth is that this culture and intellectualism are nothing but the products of dissociation and neutralization within a wider order of things. As this has not gone unnoticed, anti-intellectualism has been almost a biological reaction, playing a relevant part in recent times: unfortunately it has pursued false or problematic directions.

I will not, however, dwell on this last point, as I have already discussed it in another context, when dealing with the error of “anti-rationalism.” Here I only want to point out that if we desire to overcome bourgeois “culture,” there is a third possible reference point beyond both intellectualism and anti-intellectualism: a worldview (the German Weltanschauung). A worldview is based not on books, but on an inner form and a sensibility endowed with an innate, rather than acquired, character. It is essentially a disposition and an attitude, instead of a culture or a theory—a disposition and an attitude that do not merely concern the mental domain, but also affect the domain of feelings and of the will, forge one’s character, and manifest themselves in reactions having the same instinctive certainty, giving evidence of a sure meaning of life. Usually, a worldview, rather than being an individual affair, proceeds from a tradition and is the organic effect of forces that have shaped a certain type of civilization; at the same time, a pane subiecti [from the subject’s perspective] the worldview manifests itself as a sort of “inner race” and an existential structure. In every civilization but the modern one, it was a “worldview” and not a “culture” that permeated the various strata of society; where culture and conceptual thought were present, they never enjoyed primacy, for their function was as simple expressive means and organs in service of the worldview. Nobody believed “pure thought” was supposed to reveal truth and to supply meaning to life: the role of thought consisted in clarifying what was already possessed and what preexisted as direct feeling and evidence, before any speculation was formulated. The products of thought had only a symbolic value, acting as signposts — thus, conceptual expression did not have a character privileged over other forms of expression. In previous civilizations the latter consisted of evocative images, symbols, and myths. Today things may go otherwise, considering the growing, hypertrophic cerebralization of Western man. However, it is important not to mistake the essential for the accessory, and that the above-mentioned relationships are acknowledged and retained; in other words, wherever “culture” and “intellectualism^” are present, they may play an only instrumental role, expressing something deeper and more organic, namely a worldview. The worldview may find clearer expression in a man with no formal education than in a writer, just as it may be more strongly represented in a soldier, an aristocrat, or a farmer who is faithful to the earth than in the bourgeois intellectual, the typical “professor,” or the journalist.

Concerning all this, Italy is at a disadvantage, as those with all the power in the media, academic culture, and in critical journals, and who thereby organize real, monopolizing, quasi-Masonic societies, are the worst type of intellectual, who knows nothing of the meaning of spirituality, human wholeness, or thinking that reflects strong principles.

“Culture” in the modern sense ceases to be a danger only when those who deal with it already have a worldview. Only then will an active relationship toward it be possible, because one will already have an inner form enabling him to discern confidently what may be assimilated and what should be rejected — more or less as happens in all the differentiated processes of organic assimilation.

All this is rather evident, and yet it has been systematically misjudged by liberal and individualistic thought: one of the calamities of “free culture” made available to everybody and expounded by this ideology is the fact that in this way many whose minds are incapable of discrimination according to proper judgment, and who still lack their own form and worldview, find themselves at the mercy of similar influences. This deleterious situation, which is flaunted as a triumph and as progress, proceeds from a premise that is exactly the opposite of the truth: it is assumed that, unlike men who lived in the “obscurantist” epochs of the past, modern man is spiritually mature, and thus capable of judging for himself and of being on his own (this is the same premise of modern “democracy” in its polemics against any principle of authority). But 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. But these considerations would take us too far.

My comments concerning the “worldview” supplement the aspects of the problem I have dealt with when I mentioned the new realism; they specify where this problem must be situated and resolved, in an antibourgeois mode — for there is nothing worse than a merely intellectual reaction against intellectualism. If the fog will lift, it will become clear that the “worldview” must be the unifying or dividing factor, staking out spiritually insurmountable barriers. Even in a political movement it constitutes the primary element, because only a worldview has the power to produce a given human type and thus to impart a specific tone to a given community.

With communism there have been situations in which something began to reach such depths. Quite correctly, a contemporary politician spoke of an inner and deep change that, by manifesting itself in the form of an obsession, is produced in those who truly adhere to communism; their thinking and conduct are altered by it. In my view, it is an alteration or a fundamental contamination of the human being: in such cases it affects the plane of existential reality, which is not what happens with those who react from bourgeois and intellectualist positions. The possibility of revolutionary-conservative action depends essentially on the measure in which the opposing idea, namely the traditional, aristocratic, anti-proletarian idea, is able to reach such existential levels — thereby giving rise to a new realism and allowing Tradition, as a worldview, to give form to a specific type of antibourgeois man as the nucleus of new elites, beyond the crisis of all individualistic and unrealistic values.

—————

Excerpt from: Evola, Julius. Men Among the Ruins: Postwar Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist. Rochester: Inner Traditions, 2002, pp 221-223.

 

Living with Our Tradition – Venner

Living in Accordance with Our Tradition

By Dominique Venner

Translated by Giuliano Adriano Malvicini

 

Every great people own a primordial tradition that is different from all the others. It is the past and the future, the world of the depths, the bedrock that supports, the source from which one may draw as one sees fit. It is the stable axis at the center of the turning wheel of change. As Hannah Arendt put it, it is the “authority that chooses and names, transmits and conserves, indicates where the treasures are to be found and what their value is.”

This dynamic conception of tradition is different from the Guénonian notion of a single, universal and hermetic tradition, which is supposedly common to all peoples and all times, and which originates in a revelation from an unidentified “beyond”. That such an idea is decidedly a-historical has not bothered its theoreticians. In their view, the world and history, for three or for thousand years, is no more than a regression, a fatal involution, the negation of of the world of what they call “tradition”, that of a golden age inspired by the Vedic and Hesiodic cosmologies. One must admit that the anti-materialism of this school is stimulating. On the other hand, its syncretism is ambiguous, to the point of leading some of its adepts, and not the least of them, to convert to Islam. Moreover, its critique of modernity has only lead to an admission of impotence. Unable to go beyond an often legitimate critique and propose an alternative way of life, the traditionalist school has taken refuge in an eschatological waiting for catastrophe. (1) That which is thinking of a high standard in Guénon or Evola, sometimes turns into sterile rhetoric among their disciples. (2) Whatever reservations we may have with regard to the Evola’s claims, we will always be indebted to him for having forcefully shown, in his work, that beyond all specific religious references, there is a spiritual path of tradition that is opposed to the materialism of which the Enlightenment was an expression. Evola was not only a creative thinker, he also proved, in his own life, the heroic values that he had developed in his work.

In order to avoid all confusion with the ordinary meaning of the old traditionalisms, however respectable they might be, we suggest a neologism, that of “traditionism”.

For Europeans, as for other peoples, the authentic tradition can only be their own. That is the tradition that opposes nihilism through the return to the sources specific to the European ancestral soul. Contrary to materialism, tradition does not explain the higher through the lower, ethics through heredity, politics through interests, love through sexuality. However, heredity has its part in ethics and culture, interest has its part in politics, and sexuality has its part in love. However, tradition orders them in a hierarchy. It constructs personal and collective existence from above to below. As in the allegory in Plato’s “Timaeus”, the sovereign spirit, relying on the courage of the heart, commands the appetites. But that does not mean that the spirit and the body can be separated. In the same way, authentic love is at once a communion of souls and a carnal harmony.

Tradition is not an idea. It is a way of being and of living, in accordance with the Timaeus’ precept that “the goal of human life is to establish order and harmony in one’s body and one’s soul, in the image of the order of the cosmos.” Which means that life is a path towards this goal.

In the future, the desire to live in accordance with our tradition will be felt more and more strongly, as the chaos of nihilism is exacerbated. In order to find itself again, the European soul, so often straining towards conquests and the infinite, is destined to return to itself through an effort of introspection and knowledge. Its Greek and Apollonian side, which are so rich, offers a model of wisdom in finitude, the lack of which will become more and more painful. But this pain is necessary. One must pass through the night to reach the dawn.

For Europeans, living according to their tradition first of all presupposes an awakening of consciousness, a thirst for true spirituality, practiced through personal reflection while in contact with a superior thought. One’s level of education does not constitute a barrier. “The learning of many things”, said Heraclitus, “does not teach understanding”. And he added: “To all men is granted the ability to know themselves and to think rightly.” One must also practice meditation, but austerity is not necessary. Xenophanes of Colophon even provided the following pleasant instructions: “One should hold such converse by the fire-side in the winter season, lying on a soft couch, well-fed, drinking sweet wine, nibbling peas: ‘Who are you among men, and where from?” Epicurius, who was more demanding, recommended two exercises: keeping a journal and imposing upon oneself a daily examination of conscience. That was what the stoics practiced. With the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, they handed down to us the model for all spirtual exercises.

Taking notes, reading, re-reading, learning, repeating daily a few aphorisms from an author associated with the tradition, that is what provides one with a point of support. Homer or Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus, Montaigne or Nietzsche, Evola or Jünger, poets who elevate and memorialists who incite to distance. The only rule is to choose that which elevates, while enjoying one’s reading.

To live in accordance with tradition is to conform to the ideal that it embodies, to cultivate excellence in relation to one’s nature, to find one’s roots again, to transmit the heritage, to stand united with one’s own kind. It also means driving out nihilism from oneself, even if one must pretend to pay tribute to a society that remains subjugated by nihilism through the bonds of desire. This implies a certain frugality, imposing limits upon oneself in order to liberate oneself from the chains of consumerism. It also means finding one’s way back to the poetic perception of the sacred in nature, in love, in family, in pleasure and in action. To live in accordance with tradition also means giving a form to one’s existence, by being one’s own demanding judge, one’s gaze turned towards the awakened beauty of one’s heart, rather than towards the ugliness of a decomposing world.

Notes

(1) Generally speaking, the pessimism intrinsic to counter-revolutionary thought – from which Evola distinguishes himself – comes from a fixation with form (political and social institutions), to the detriment of the essence of things (which persist behind change).

(2) The academic Marco Tarchi, who has for a long time been interested in Evola, has criticized in him a sterile discourse peopled by dreams of “warriors” and “aristocrats” (cf. the journal “Vouloir”, Bruxelles, january-february 1991. This journal is edited by the philologist Robert Steuckers).

Excerpt from the book Histoire et traditions des Européens: 30,000 ans d’identité (Paris: Éditions du Rocher, 2002).

 

————–

Venner, Dominique. “Living in Accordance with Our Tradition.” Eurocontinentalism Journal, 5 Octoboer 2013. <http://eurocontinentalism.wordpress.com/2013/10/05/living-in-accordance-with-our-tradition-dominique-venner/ >.

 

Defining Element of Conservative Revolution – Evola

The Defining Element of the Conservative Revolution

By Julius Evola

 

Considering the interpretation imposed by the Left, the term “conservative” is as intimidating as the term “reactionary.” Obviously, it is necessary to first establish as exactly as possible what needs to be “preserved”; today there is very little that deserves to be preserved, especially as far as social structures and political institutions are concerned. […] The formula “conservative revolution” was chosen by German intellectuals immediately after World War I, even with very recent historical references. [2] As far as everything else is concerned, we must acknowledge the reality of a situation that is an easy target for the polemics of the Left, according to which conservatives are not the champions of ideas, but rather of the interests of a particular economic class (i.e., the capitalist one), which organized itself politically in order to perpetuate, for its own advantage, what is alleged to be merely a regime of privileges and social injustices. Thus, it has become all too easy to lump together conservatives, “reactionaries,” capitalists, and bourgeoisie; in this way, a “faux target,” to use a military term employed in artillery barrages, was successfully chosen. Moreover, the same tactic was employed at a time when the avant-garde of world subversion did not yet wave the flag of Marxism and communism, but instead were represented by liberalism and by constitutionalism. The efficacy of this tactic was due to the fact that yesterday’s conservatives (not unlike the contemporary ones, even though the former were of an undeniably higher caliber) limited themselves to defending their sociopolitical positions and the material interests of a given class, of a given caste, instead of committing themselves to a stout defense of a higher right, dignity, and impersonal legacy of values, ideas, and principles. This was indeed their fundamental and most deplorable weakness.

Today we have sunk to an even lower level; therefore, the “conservative” idea to be defended must not only have no connection with the class that has replaced the fallen aristocracy and exclusively has the character of a mere economic class (i.e., the capitalist bourgeoisie)—but it must also be resolutely opposed to it. What needs to be “preserved” and defended in a “revolutionary fashion” is the general view of life and of the State that, being based on higher values and interests, definitely transcends the economic plane, and thus everything that can be defined in terms of economic classes. In regard to these values, what refers to concrete orientations, positive institutions, and historical situations is just a consequence; it is not the primary but rather the secondary element. If things were set up in this way, by absolutely refusing to set foot in the field where the Left trains its aim on the “faux target,” its polemics would be rendered totally ineffective.

Moreover, what is needed is not to artificially and coercively perpetuate particular forms tied to the past, despite having exhausted their vital possibilities and being out of touch with the times. For the authentic revolutionary conservative, 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, adequate for a specific period of time and in a specific geographical area. And just as these particular expressions ought to be regarded as changeable and ephemeral in themselves, since they are connected to historical circumstances that are often unrepeatable, likewise the corresponding principles animating them have a value that is unaffected by such contingencies, as they enjoy a perennial actuality. New forms, corresponding in essence to the old ones, are liable to emerge from them as if from a seed; thus, even as they eventually replace the old forms (even in a “revolutionary” manner), what remains is a certain continuity amid the changing historical, social, economic, and cultural factors.

In order to ensure this continuity, while holding fast to the underlying principles, it is necessary to eventually throw away everything that needs to be discarded, instead of stiffening, panicking, or confusedly seeking new ideas when crises occur and times change: this is indeed the essence of the true conservative spirit. Therefore, conservative spirit and traditional spirit are one and the same thing. According to its true, living meaning, Tradition is neither servile conformity to what has been, nor a sluggish perpetuation of the past into the present. Tradition, in its essence, is something simultaneously metahistorical and dynamic: it is an overall ordering force, in the service of principles that have the chrism of a superior legitimacy (we may even call them “principles from above”). This force acts through the generations, in continuity of spirit and inspiration, through institutions, laws, and social orders that may even display a remarkable variety and diversity. An analogous mistake to the one I have just condemned consists of identifying or in confusing the various formulations of a more or less distant past with the tradition itself.

Methodologically, in the quest for reference points, a given historical form must be considered exclusively as the exemplification and more or less faithful application of certain principles: this is a perfectly legitimate procedure, comparable to what in mathematics is called the shift from the differential to the integral. In such a case there is no anachronism or regression; nothing has been turned into an idol, or made absolute, that was not already so, since this is the nature of principles. Otherwise it would be like accusing of anachronism those who defend certain peculiar virtues of the soul merely because the latter are inspired by some person in the past, in whom those virtues were exhibited to a high degree. As Hegel himself said, “It is a matter of recognizing in the apparitions of temporal and transitory things, both the substance, which is immanent, and the eternal, which is actual.”

With this is mind, we can see the ultimate premises of two opposing attitudes. The axiom of the revolutionary-conservative or revolutionary-reactionary mentality is that the supreme values and the foundational principles of every healthy and normal institution are not liable to change and to becoming: among these values we may find, for instance, the true State, the imperium, the auctoritas [authority], hierarchy, justice, functional classes, and the primacy of the political element over the social and economic elements. In the domain of these values there is no “history,” and to think about them in historical terms is absurd. Such values and principles have an essentially normative character. In the public and political order they have the same dignity as, in private life, is typical of values and principles of absolute morality: they are imperative principles requiring a direct, intrinsic acknowledgment (it is the capacity for such an acknowledgment that differentiates existentially a certain category of beings from another). These principles are not compromised by the fact that in various instances an individual, out of weakness or due to other reasons, was unable to actualize them or to even implement them partially at one point in his life rather than another: as long as such an individual does not give up inwardly, he will be acknowledged even in abjection and in desperation. The ideas to which I am referring have the same nature: Vico called them “the natural laws of an eternal republic that varies in time and in different places.” Even where these principles are objectified in a historical reality, they are not at all conditioned by it; they always point to a higher, meta-historical plane, which is their natural domain and where there is no change. The ideas that I call “traditional” must be thought of along the same lines.

The fundamental premise always revealed, more or less distinctly, in the revolutionary mentality is the total opposite. The truths it professes are historicism and empiricism. According to the revolutionary mentality, “Becoming” rules in the spiritual realm as well: everything is believed to be conditioned and shaped by the age and by the times. According to the revolutionary mentality, there are no principles, systems, and norms with values independent from the period in which they have assumed a historical form, on the basis of contingent and very human aspects such as physical, social, economic, and irrational factors. According to the most extreme and up-to-date trajectory of this deviant mind-set, the truly determining factor of every structure, and of what resembles an autonomous value, is the contingency proper to the various forms and development of the means of production, according to its consequences and social repercussions.

Note

[2] See the excellent study by A. Mohler, Die konservative Revolution in Deutschland, 1918—1932 (Stuttgart, 1950).

 

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Excerpt from: Evola, Julius. Men Among the Ruins: Postwar Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist. Rochester: Inner Traditions, 2002, pp. 114-117.

Note on further reading: For other good introductions to Revolutionary Conservative thought (particularly of the German type from the interwar period), see the following articles on our site: “The German Conservative Revolution & its Legacy” by Lucian Tudor, “Arthur Moeller van den Bruck: The Man & His Thought” by Lucian Tudor, “Hans Freyer: The Quest for Collective Meaning” by Lucian Tudor, “Othmar Spann: A Catholic Radical Traditionalist” by Lucian Tudor, “Race, Identity, Community” by Lucian Tudor, “Liberalism or Democracy? Carl Schmitt and Apolitical Democracy” by Tomislav Sunic, “History & Decadence: Spengler’s Cultural Pessimism Today” by Tomislav Sunic, and the “Interview with Robert Steuckers” by Troy Southgate.