Review of Alexander Dugin’s Putin vs. Putin – Tremblay

Review of Alexander Dugin’s Putin vs. Putin

By Rémi Tremblay

 

Putin Vs. Putin: Vladimir Putin Viewed from the Right
by Alexander Dugin
Arktos Publishing, 316 pages

 

Few leaders evoke as much fascination as Vladimir Putin. In a world led by mediocrities like Barack Obama, David Cameron, Stephen Harper, and the other poltroons of political correctness and monotone rhetoric, the athletic and mysterious Russian president stands out.

Enigmatic, strong, and unapologetic, this former judo expert and secret service agent has many in the West wondering who Vladimir Putin really is. Still, despite its title, Putin Vs Putin: Vladimir Putin Viewed from the Right was not written in order to answer these questions or even to describe Putin’s reign, but rather it was written to give a Eurasianist critique of the Russian president and his achievements.

This man, born in Saint-Petersburg, became the interim president of Russia in 1999, at the climax of the Yeltsin era, a period known in Russia not only for its corruption, but also for its liberal policies and its opening up to the Western world. In Moscow, the liberal oligarchs, who had built their fortunes at the expense of ordinary Russians when the USSR collapsed, were in power. Simply put, they were above the law. Yeltsin was their toy and, seeing his inevitable downfall, they decided to support Putin, believing that his patriotism and populism were only facades that could serve to bolster their power. Like his predecessor, they were sure, he would become their puppet.

Putin’s muscular intervention in Chechnya during his first year as president brought him the legitimacy his predecessor never enjoyed, and helped him build a trademark of manly patriotism. The oligarchs who pushed him to become president, like Boris Berezovsky, Roman Abramovich, and Alexander Mamut, soon realized their mistake, and the relationship between them and their protégé soon soured.

Putin never denounced the oligarchs as a whole, and the liberal tendency they supported in Moscow remains powerful, despite a lack of popularity among the general population. But Putin at least managed to put a few in check by taking back what they had stolen, jailing some, and forcing others to take the road to exile.

Putin’s first term saw many achievements that fitted the Eurasianist agenda, policies it should be noted that were backed by the population. He took the media out of the hands of the most notorious oligarchs, prevented Russia’s disintegration, reformed the Federation Council, introduced the rigid structure of the federal districts, and so on. But between election periods, Putin has proved to be quite liberal and even conciliatory towards the West.

In 2003, Putin started asserting Russia’s sovereignty. He refused to join the American invasion of Iraq, instead siding with Paris and Berlin in opposition to it. This assertion of sovereignty, at first implicit, became resoundingly explicit at his 2007 Munich speech, when he demanded the end of unipolarity and called for a multipolar world.

On this basis, the Russian president engaged in independent and active geopolitics, signing many treaties and pacts with other Eurasian countries, including the Eurasian Economic Community, the Common Free Market Zone, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation. However, Dugin regrets that those treaties and alliances are generally based on economics rather than a common worldview or a common historic destiny.

His strong actions made a break with the weakness of the Yeltsin years. Putin himself came to embody Russia in the same way that Louis XIV did France, when he declared, L’etat c’est moi (I am the state). He managed to eliminate the opposition around him: the liberal oligarchs, the leftists, and, it must be added, the ultranationalists. The creation of this void around himself was encouraged by the population, who, having never known democracy, demanded instead an effective authoritarian leader.

In 2008, after two consecutive terms, Putin had to step down due to constitutional limits. Dimitri Medvedev, a pro-Western liberal, replaced him.

Despite what many people feared, Medvedev’s term did not weaken Putin’s legacy nor change the outlook of the Russian state. Instead this partial return to the failed policies of the Yeltsin era, which was encouraged by the Obama administration, prepared the way for Putin’s return to the Presidency in 2012. However, this is something that has left many questions unanswered.

As he moves through his third term, Putin must realize that he has essentially failed. Economically, his few improvised policies, lacking proper planning, have seen the economy grow. But he has not solved the most important problem: Russia still does not have a real economy. Many fields, notably in the high-tech sector, have yet to be developed. Immigration and corruption are growing concerns, and, even in the field of geopolitics, he has failed. Despite some minor successes, Putin has failed to stop NATO’s expansion in Eastern Europe. Several pro-American governments have been established in neighboring countries such as Georgia and Ukraine.

According to Dugin, Putin is far from the image of the hardcore nationalist created by Western media propaganda. He is a man of halves: half-liberal, half-Eurasianist. He has made many steps in the right direction, but somehow he never seems to reach the end goal. Putin is essentially a realist, as defined by Machiavelli and Carl Schmitt. He has not found an ideology, but rather reacts instinctively to events and circumstances.

Despite his flaws, Putin is, according to Dugin, the best leader possible; especially when compared to the standard Western politician.

Putin Vs Putin: Vladimir Putin Viewed from the Right is not a biography but a Eurasianist analysis of Putin’s reign and of the challenges to be overcome in the future. It is an excellent introduction to Russian politics, thanks to the many footnotes, which introduce the main protagonists of the Russian political scene and the many influences at work in Moscow.

 

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Tremblay, Rémi. “Putin vs. Putin: Eurasianism and Beyond.” Alternative Right, 15 May 2015. <http://alternative-right.blogspot.com/2015/05/putin-vs-putin-eurasianism-and-beyond.html >.

 

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Creation of Intellectual Eurasianism – Vona

Thoughts on the Creation of Intellectual Eurasianism

By Gábor Vona

Leader of the Hungarian political party “Jobbik” (For Better Hungary)

 

“Actually, the truth is that the West really is in great need of »defense«, but only against itself and its own tendencies, which, if they are pushed to their conclusion, will lead inevitably to its ruin and destruction; it is therefore »reform« of the West that is called for instead of »defense against the East«, and if this reform were what it should be—that is to say, a restoration of tradition—it would entail as a natural consequence an understanding with the East.” — René Guénon [1]

1. Euroatlantism and Anti-Traditionalism

Today’s globalized world is in crisis. That is a fact. However, it is not quite clear what this crisis is. In order to get an answer, first we need to define what globalization means. For us, it does not mean the kind of public misconception which says that the borders between the world’s various economic and cultural spheres will gradually disappear and the planet becomes an organic network built upon billions of interactions. Those who believe in this also add that history is thus no longer a parallel development of great spheres, but the great common development of the entire world. Needless to say, this interpretation considers globalization as a positive and organic process from the aspect of historical development.

From our aspect, however, globalization is an explicitly negative, anti-traditionalist process. Perhaps we can understand this statement better if we break it down into components. Who is the actor, and what is the action and the object of globalization? The actor of globalization — and thus crisis production — is the Euro-Atlantic region, by which we mean the United States and the great economic-political powers of Western Europe. Economically speaking, the action of globalization is the colonization of the entire world; ideologically speaking, it means safeguarding the monopolistic, dictatorial power of liberalism; while politically speaking, it is the violent export of democracy. Finally, the object of globalization is the entire globe. To sum it up in one sentence: globalization is the effort of the Euro-Atlantic region to control the whole world physically and intellectually. As processes are fundamentally defined by their actors that actually cause them, we will hereinafter name globalization as Euroatlantism. The reason for that is to clearly indicate that we are not talking about a kind of global dialogue and organic cooperation developing among the world’s different regions, continents, religions, cultures, and traditions, as the neutrally positive expression of “globalization” attempts to imply, but about a minor part of the world (in particular the Euro-Atlantic region) which is striving to impose its own economic, political, and intellectual model upon the rest of the world in an inorganic manner, by direct and indirect force, and with a clear intention to dominate it.

As we indicated at the beginning of this essay, this effort of Euroatlantism has brought a crisis upon the entire world. Now we can define the crisis itself. Unlike what is suggested by the news and the majority of pub­lic opinion, this crisis is not primarily an economic one. The problem is not that we cannot justly distribute the assets produced. Although it is true, it is not the cause of the problem and the crisis; it is rather the consequence of it. Neither is this crisis a political one, that is to say: the root cause is not that the great powers and international institutions fail to establish a liveable and harmonious status quo for the whole world; it is just a consequence as well. Nor does this crisis result from the clashes of cul­tures and religions, as some strategists believe; the prob­lem lies deeper than that. The world’s current crisis is an intellectual one. It is a crisis of the human intellect, and it can be characterized as a conflict between tradition­al values (meaning conventional, normal, human) and anti-traditionalism (meaning modern, abnormal, subhu­man), which is now increasingly dominating the world. From this aspect, Euroatlantism — that is to say, global­ism — can be greatly identified with anti-traditionalism. So the situation is that the Euro-Atlantic region, which we can simply but correctly call the West, is the crisis it­self; in other words, it carries the crisis within, so when it colonizes the world, it in fact spreads an intellectual virus as well. So this is the anti-traditionalist aspect of the world’s ongoing processes, but does a traditionalist pole exist, and if it does, where can we find it?

2. Eurasianism as a Geopolitical Concept

Geographically speaking, Eurasia means the continental unity of Europe and Asia, which stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific. As a cultural notion, Eurasianism was a concept conceived by Russian emigrants in the early 20th century. It proved to be a fertile framework, since it has been reinterpreted several times and will surely continue to be so in the future as well. Nicolai Sergeyevich Trubetskoy is widely considered as the founder of Eurasianism, while Alexandr Dugin is referred to as the key ideologist of the concept. Trubetskoy was one of the greatest thinkers of the Russian emigration in the early 20th century, who attempted to redefine Russia’s role in the turbulent post-World War I times, looking for new goals, perspectives, and meanings. On the one hand, he rejected Pan-Slavism and replaced the Slavophile ideology with a kind of “Turanophile” one, as Lajos Pálfalvi put it in an essay.[2] He tore Russian thinking out of the Eastern Slavic framework and found Genghis Khan as a powerful antetype, the founder of a Eurasian state. Trubetskoy says that it was the Khan’s framework left behind that Moscow’s Tsars filled with a new Orthodox sense of mission after the Mongol occupation. In his view, the European and Western orientation of Peter the Great is a negative disruption of this process, a cultural disaster, while the desirable goal for Russia is to awaken as a part of Eurasia.

So Eurasianism was born as a uniquely Russian concept but not at all for Russia only, even though it is often criticized for being a kind of Great Russia concept in a cultural-geopolitical disguise. Ukrainian author Mikola Ryabchuk goes as far as to say that whoever uses this notion, for whatever reason, is basically doing nothing but revitalizing the Russian political dominance, tearing the former Soviet sphere out of the “European political and cultural project”.[3] Ryabchuk adds that there is a certain intellectual civil war going on in the region, particularly in Russia and also in Turkey about the acceptance of Western values. So those who utter the word “Eurasianism” in this situation are indirectly siding with Russia. The author is clearly presenting his views from a pro-West and anti-Russian aspect, but his thoughts are worth looking at from our angle as well.

As a cultural idea, Eurasianism was indeed created to oppose the Western, or to put it in our terms, the Euro- Atlantic values. It indeed supposes an opposition to such values and finds a certain kind of geopolitical reference for it. We must also emphasize that being wary of the “European political and cultural project” is justified from the economic, political, and cultural aspects as well. If a national community does not wish to comply, let’s say, with the role assigned by the European Union, it is not a negative thing at all; in fact, it is the sign of a sort of caution and immunity in this particular case. It is especially so, if it is not done for some economic or nationalistic reason, but as a result of a different cultural-intellectual approach. Rendering Euro-Atlantic “values” absolute and indisputable means an utter intellectual damage, especially in the light of the first point of our essay. So the opposition of Eurasianism to the Euro-Atlantic world is undeniably positive for us. However, if we interpreted Eurasianism as mere anti-Euro-Atlantism, we would vulgarly simplify it, and we would completely fail to present an alternative to the the anti-traditionalist globalization outlined above.

What we need is much more than just a reciprocal pole or an alternative framework for globalization. Not only do we want to oppose globalization horizontally but, first and foremost, also vertically. We want to demonstrate an intellectual superiority to it. That is to say, when establishing our own Eurasia concept, we must point out that it means much more for us than a simple geographical notion or a geopolitical idea that intends to oppose Euro-Atlantism on the grounds of some tactical or strategic power game. Such speculations are valueless for me, regardless of whether they have some underlying, latent Russian effort for dominance or not. Eurasianism is basically a geographical and/or political framework, therefore, it does not have a normative meaning or intellectual centre. It is the task of its interpretation and interpreter to furnish it with such features.

3. Intellectual Eurasianism – Theories and Practice

We have stated that we cannot be content with anti-Euro-Atlantism. Neither can we be content with a simple geographical and geopolitical alternative, so we demand an intellectual Eurasianism. If we fail to provide this intellectual centre, this meta-political source, then our concept remains nothing but a different political, economic, military, or administrative idea which would indeed represent a structural difference but not a qualitative breakthrough compared to Western globalization. Politically speaking, it would be a reciprocal pole, but not of a superior quality. This could lay the foundations for a new cold or world war, where two anti-traditionalist forces confront each other, like the Soviet Union and the United States did, but it surely won’t be able to challenge the historical process of the spread of anti-traditional­ism. However, such challenge is exactly what we consider indispensable. A struggle between one globalization and another is nonsensical from our point of view. Our problem with Euro-Atlantism is not its Euro-Atlantic but its anti-traditionalist nature. Contrary to that, our goal is not to construct another anti-traditionalist framework, but to present a supranational and traditionalist response to the international crisis. Using Julius Evola’s ingenious term, we can say that Eurasianism must be able to pass the air test.[4]

At this point, we must look into the question of why we can’t give a traditionalist answer within a Euro-Atlantic framework. Theoretically speaking, the question is reasonable since the Western world was also developing within a traditional framework until the dawn of the modern age, but this opportunity must be excluded for several reasons. Firstly, it is no accident that anti-traditionalist modernism developed in the West and that is where it started going global from. The framework of this essay is too small for a detailed presentation of the multi-century process of how modernism took roots in and grew out of the original traditionalist texture of Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian thinking and culture, developing into today’s liberal Euroatlantism. For now, let us state that the anti-traditionalist turn of the West had a high historical probability. This also means that the East was laid on much stronger traditionalist foundations and still is, albeit it is gradually weakening. In other words, when we are seeking out a geopoliti­cal framework for our historic struggle, our choice for Eurasianism is not in the least arbitrary. The reality is that the establishment of a truly supranational traditionalist framework can only come from the East. This is where we can still have a chance to involve the leading polit­ical-cultural spheres. The more we go West, the weaker the centripetal power of Eurasianism is, so it can only expect to have small groups of supporters but no major backing from the society.

The other important question is why we consider traditionalism as the only intellectual centre that can fecundate Eurasianism. The question “Why Eurasia?” can be answered much more accurately than “Why the metaphysical Tradition?”. We admit that our answer is rather intuitive, but we can be reassured by the fact that René Guénon, Julius Evola, or Frithjof Schuon, the key figures in the restoration of traditionalist philosophy, were the ones who had the deepest and clearest understanding of the transcendental, metaphysical unity of Eastern and Western religions and cultures. Their teaching reaches back to such ancient intellectual sources that can provide a sense of communion for awakening Western Christian, Orthodox, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist people. These two things are exactly what are necessary for the success of Eurasianism: a foundation that can ensure supranational and supra-religious perspectives as well as an intellectual centrality. The metaphysical Tradition can ensure these two: universality and quality. At that moment, Eurasianism is no longer a mere geopolitical alternative, a new yet equally crisis-infected (and thus also infectious) globalization process, but a traditionalist repsonse.

We cannot overemphasize the superior quality of in­tellectual Eurasianism. However, it is important to note here that the acquisition of an intellectual superiority ensured by the traditionalist approach would not at all mean that our confrontation with Euroatlantism would remain at a spiritual-intellectual level only, thus giving up our intentions to create a counterbalance or even dominance in the practical areas, such as the political, diplomatic, economic, military, and cultural spheres. We can be satisfied with neither a vulgar Eurasianism (lacking a philosophical centre) nor a theoretical one (lacking practicability). The only adequate form for us is such a Eurasianism that is rooted in the intellectual centre of traditionalism and is elaborated for practical implementation as well. To sum up in one sentence: there must be a traditionalist Eurasianism standing in opposition to an anti-traditionalist Euroatlantism.

The above also means that geopolitical and geographical positions are strategically important, but not at all exclusive, factors in identifying the enemy-ally coordinates. A group that has a traditionalist intellectual base (thus being intellectually Eurasian) is our ally even if it is located in a Euro-Atlantic zone, while a geographically Eurasian but anti-traditionalist force (thus being intellectually Euro-Atlantic) would be an enemy, even if it is a great power.

4. Homogeneousness and Heterogeneousness

If it is truly built upon the intellectual centre of metaphysical Tradition, intellectual Eurasianism has such a common base that it is relevant regardless of geographical position, thus giving the necessary homoge­neousness to the entire concept. On the other hand, the tremendous size and the versatility of cultures and ancient traditions of the Eurasian area do not allow for a complete theoretical uniformity. However, this is just a barrier to overcome, an intellectual challenge that we must all meet, but it is not a preventive factor. Each region, nation, and country must find their own form that can organically and harmoniously fit into its own traditions and the traditionalist philosophical approach of intellectual Eurasianism as well. Simply put, we can say that each one must form their own Eurasianism within the large unit.

As we said above, this is an intellectual challenge that requires an able intellectual elite in each region and coun­try who understand and take this challenge and are in a constructive relationship with the other, similar elites.

These elites together could provide the international intellectual force that is destined to elaborate the Eurasian framework itself. The sentences above throw a light on the greatest hiatus (and greatest challenge) lying in the establishment of intellectual Eurasianism. This challenge is to develop and empower traditionalist intellectual elites operating in different geographical areas, as well as to establish and improve their supranational relations. Geographically and nationally speaking, intellectual Eurasianism is heterogeneous, while it is homogeneous in the continental and essential sense.

However, the heterogeneousness of Eurasianism must not be mistaken for the multiculturalism of Euroatlantism. In the former, allies form a supranational and supra-cultural unit while also preserving their own traditions, whereas the latter aims to create a sub-cultural and sub-national unit, forgetting and rejecting traditions. This also means that intellectual Eurasianism is against and rejects all mass migrations, learning from the West’s current disaster caused by such events. We believe that geographical position and environment is closely related to the existence and unique features of the particular religious, social, and cultural tradition, and any sudden, inorganic, and violent social movement ignoring such factors will inevitably result in a state of dysfunction and conflicts. Intellectual Eurasianism promotes self-realization and the achievement of intellectual missions for all nations and cultures in their own place.

5. Closing Thoughts

The aim of this short essay is to outline the basis and lay the foundations for an ambitious and intellectual Eurasianism by raising fundamental issues. We based our argumentation on the obvious fact that the world is in crisis, and that this crisis is caused by liberal globalization, which we identified as Euroatlantism. We believe that the counter-effect needs to be vertical and traditionalist, not horizontal and vulgar. We called this counter-effect Eurasianism, some core ideas of which were explained here. We hope that this essay will have a fecundating impact, thus truly contributing to the further elaboration of intellectual Eurasianism, both from a universal and a Hungarian aspect.

Notes:

[1] René Guénon: The Crisis of the Modern World. Translated by Marco Pallis, Arthur Osborne, and Richard C. Nicholson. Sophia Perennis: Hillsdale, New York. 2004. Pg. 31-32.

[2] Lajos Pálfalvi: Nicolai Trubetskoy’s impossible Eurasian mission. In Nicolai Sergeyevich Trubetskoy: Genghis Khan’s heritage. (in Hungarian) Máriabesnyő, 2011, Attraktor Publishing, p. 152.

[3] Mikola Ryabchuk: Western “Eurasianism” and the “new Eastern Europe”: a discourse of exclusion. (in Hungarian) Szépirodalmi Figyelő 4/2012.

[4] See: Julius Evola: Handbook of Rightist Youth. (in Hungarian) Debrecen, 2012, Kvintesszencia Publishing House, pp. 45–48.

 

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Vona, Gábor. “Thoughts on the Creation of Intellectual Eurasianism.” Journal of Eurasian Affairs, vol.2, no.1 (May 2014). <http://www.eurasianaffairs.net/some-thoughts-on-the-creation-of-intellectual-eurasianism/ >.

 

Intro to Feliks Koneczny – Giertych

Feliks Koneczny (1862-1949) by Rev. Wojciech Giertych (PDF – 2 MB):

Feliks Koneczny – Giertych

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Giertych, Wojciech. “Feliks Koneczny (1862-1949).” Lecture, Christendom College, Front Royal, Virgina, USA, 14 September 2012. Document retrieved from: <http://www.christendom.edu/news/2012/koneczny.pdf >.

 

Manifesto of the Spanish Identitarian Solidarist Resistence

Principles of the Spanish Identitarian Circle: Resistencia Identitaria Solidarista

Translated by Daniel Macek

 

1. Europeanism. The Identitarian Solidarist Resistence is before all a European and Europeanist Comradeship. It is born with the principal objective of defending European identity. The Identitarian Solidarist Resistence considers Europe as a nation to construct in a future which is already present. The current configuration of global equilibrium makes it so that only great geopolitical blocs are capable of being protagonists of history, effective centers of power and decision, and in its turn assuring that its inhabitants be political actors and not mere obedient observers of orders and interests alien to their reality and will. Also, economically, we advocate the creation of grand self-centered and self-sufficient spaces capable of breaking the current dynamic tending towards a uniform and sole global market whose power and direction, in very few hands, also translates into the economic-political power and direction of the planet.

But beyond these considerations, we advocate the construction of a one and united Europe on the grounds of common origin and identity.

Staying within the above arguments would not end up having us exit the logic of the dominant thought, justifying European unity by circumstantial and transitory economic or political reasons. The geopolitical and economic necessities, having their importance, do not stop being valid transitory reasons here and now, but without either a larger entity or connection. On the contrary, for us the unity of Europe is based on its own essence, by way of categorical imperative, it must be a unity here and always based on immutable values and not on changing circumstances.

The unity of Europe derives fundamentally from the common identity and heritage of all the peoples and countries which compose it, all those heirs of the Indo-European peoples which, since its initial Northern European core has extended itself across our continent, and later also on others, giving itself the form and nature by which it still differs from the rest of the world. Some punctual exceptions refer also to more archaic nuclei emerging before the common home, but without doubt they also belong to the same ethnocultural reality, or certain allogenic invasions which in reality have left little more than some demonyms and languages whose true nature is still debated.

For all these reasons we define the Identitarian Solidarist Resistance as an identitarian European comradeship, whose objective is the study and dissemination of the ethnic and cultural heriatge of the European people. It advocates, as a consequence of the previous points, the construction of a united political entity of Europe from the Canary Islands to Vladisvostok.

Recovering our most ancient and complete political form, we advocate the constitution of this unity under the form of Imperium, of a superior integration of the diversity, rejecting the form of a macro-Jacobin state, and, being against the current formula of European Union which we neither want nor support, we denounce its bureaucratic and globalist drift as well as its submission to the United States and its almost total absence of political and military will in the world.

2. Religiosity. The reaffirmation of the values and principles common to all Indo-European religions. We denounce foreign values which have been introduced in Europe by religions originally from the desert regions of the Near East. This does not impede us from recognizing that Catholicism and other forms of Euro-Christianity have absorbed in many cases values and principles belonging to our heritage, and have become part of the inner religious feeling of many Europeans. Therefore, together with a purely Indo-European religiosity, in the form of its depth and origin, would be the religious possibilities which we contemplate for the Europe of the future.

We denounce the presence on our soil the religious forms with a will for political expansion and alien to our tradition and history, which have frequently served as an ideological base for the attack on our Great European Fatherland. Islam and Zionism are not religions of Europe and therefore cannot be nor should be grounded in Europe, and have their place far from our borders. In the same way, we oppose all types of current pseudo-religiosity, based simply on “personal well-being” and directed towards all types of misfits, which with the name and under the umbrella of the so-called New Age, tries to make neurotic and neutralize a growing number of Europeans.

3. Immigration. As a consequence of the current phase of capitalist development where interest prevails over all other considerations, and where individuals and peoples, previously dispossessed of their personality and idiosyncrasies, have become interchangeable commodities, we witness the current wave of people foreign to our land and our tradition. From the economic point of view, we advocate the adoption of necessary policies in the countries of origin so that these distressing would not come to be produced and each person has possibilities to develop a dignified life in their place of origin. We are sure that the vast majority of these immigrants would not be here if they would be given opportune conditions in their countries of birth. For that reason we demand the replacement of the current system of exploitation – based on the miserly interests of anonymous multinationals and decadent local elites whose combinations gives place to the chaotic political and economic situations which provoke this painful exodus – by another founded on the values of solidarity and efficacy.

In addition to its economic aspect, immigration concerns us, and very much from the perspective of maintaining the identity of Europe. Accordingly, before the threat which is posed by the exorbitant number and brutal birthrate of these foreigners on European soil, we defend the immediate adoption of measures to stop the arrival of new collectivities of immigrants, as well as the study and possible application of a program of return in the most humanitarian conditions possible.

4. Ethnicism. The Identitarian Solidarist Resistance, as a European Identitarian movement, is manifested in favor of the defense of the personalities belonging to each one of the “carnal fatherlands” which compose our grand Europe. In a world with the tendency to individualism, to forgetting the past and the reality of peoples for the benefit of the universalisation of the global personality and the single market, the Identitarian Solidarist Resistance considers any positive identitarian reaction based on ethnic realities, as we also do the identitarian reactions which are based on membership to European nation-states.

This does not absolutely mean that we support the idea that each ethnicity goes to become its own and “independent” state. Considering that independence is the capacity to exercise a role in history and in the world according to one’s own will without giving in to interests of an foreign power, we are aware that only a united Europe could be such. Today neither Spain, nor France, nor Germany, nor Italy, nor the United Kingdom are sovereign states, since in all cases their decisions ultimately depend on Washington. Much less could it be that each one of the ethnic groups become micro-states, easy prey of the international dominion.

Inspired by the traditional concepts of European politics – eclipsed with the arrival of Modernity – we demonstrate against any uniformising and centralist idea of the state, and we demand that each one adopts a deferential internal composition with the plurality that it integrates. Definitively, we demonstrate ourselves in favor of the process of European unification to be realized by each one of the existing states, and the maintenance of the personality belonging to each ethnic community.

5. For a society based on the popular community constructed upon the pillars of family-tradition. Modern society is disintegrated. In fact, it can be said that there no longer exists society as such. The word “society” is no more than a euphemism for referring to a heterogeneous set of individuals united only by mere common interest; individuals who compete between themselves to occupy the best places in that so-called “society.” Individualism leads to the separation of material interests, to the separation of the most profound interests, and as a logical consequence, to the division of the people.

For all those reasons, the Identitarian Solidarist Resistance defends the popular community as the base and foundation of the state.

The popular community, contrary to the “society,” is homogeneous and organic. It is homogeneous inasmuch as it is composed of people united not by interest, but rather by bonds forged by millennia of common history, traditions, and heritage, who share the same principles and the same fundamental aspirations, which makes it an indivisible whole. And it is organic because it is not founded on an artificial union, but rather on the bonds of common heritage and tradition, a union of individuals who by their nature tend to share their destiny.

The popular community is not founded as a type of “social contract,” but rather on the same superior bonds which make up a family, which is the basis of community. From the family, it is followed in organic order, the clan or the neighborhood, which groups together several families by affinity, to the clan, the people, or the city, from this to the region, and finally the national-popular community, an organism which encompasses all of the previous ones as concentric rings. But on the basis of all these groups, we find the common heritage as a fundamental nexus of union; a common past, which allows facing a common destiny.

6. The defense of the land trough a responsible economy against consumerism and the “welfare culture.” The Identitarian Solidarist Resistance conceives the economy as an instrument in the service of the national community and not the community as an instrument in the service of the economy, as it happens with today’s society, in which everything revolves around economic parameters.

The current market system is constructed in the form of a circle of production and consumption that must revolve indefinitely and at an increasing velocity, since otherwise the system suffers, possibly even reaching collapse. The production-consumption relationship has been closed in on itself; it no longer depends on the real needs of the community, nor on the capacity of environment to support the level of production that the system requires. One produces and consumes simply to keep the cycle of the system in movement.

The Identitarian Solidarist Resistance denounces the capitalist international and the globalisation of the economy, since under the guise of “development aid,” it transfers its centers of production to countries with cheaper labor, favoring exploitation in these countries, and a rate of artificial standstill in the communities of origin.

Globalisation is also responsible for another, even more disagreeable phenomenon: illegal immigration, which no more than another tactic to cheapen production. The phenomenon of illegal immigration consists in reality of a massive “importation” of cheap labor to industrialized countries, in conditions of genuine slavery. The Identitarian Solidarist Resistance cannot but denounce this repugnant slave trade that is hidden behind illegal immigration, and injury that this practice poses for the dignity and the rights of workers, as much local as foreign ones.

7. As a necessary consequence of all the above, we summarize that we situate ourselves in dialectical opposition to the so-called New World Order and the values and principles which this mandates and wants to impose by force on the whole globe, so that we defend the resistances to the process of planetary uniformisation. The first and most consistent defense against this New World Order is the battle for the maintenance of our identity, personality, and heritage, considering as our own any Identitarian movement emerging on European soil.

 

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Translated from: “Principios de Resistencia Identitaria Solidarista,” Resistencia Identitaria Solidarista, 21 April 2015, <http://resistenciaidentitariasolidarista.blogspot.com/2015/04/noticias-de-ris_21.html >.

 

The Sole “Anti-Fascist” Thought – Benoist

The Sole “Anti-Fascist” Thought

By Alain de Benoist

Translated from the Spanish by Lucian Tudor

 

Translator’s Note: The present article is a translation of “El pensamiento único ‘antifascista’” (originally published at El Manifesto, 9 February 2015). The Spanish version was a translation of an excerpt from the French “Les méthodes de la Nouvelle Inquisition” (“The Methods of the New Inquisition”), a speech delivered at a colloquium organized by GRECE in November, 1997. The French version was later republished as “Pensée unique, nouvelles censures” in Alain de Benoist’s book Critiques – Théoriques (Lausanne & Paris: L’Age d’Homme, 2003).

The term “pensée unique” in French or “pensamiento único” in Spanish, which is translated here as “sole thought” and “single thought,” is difficult to render in English without losing its original meaning. In French, Italian, and Spanish it refers to a form of thought which has been made obligatory or compulsory for everyone in society; so it is asserted to be the “sole thought” which is allowed.

***

Some time ago Jean-François Revel has spoken of “devotion” to qualify the opinion about an idea solely in terms of its conformity or its power of attraction in respect to a dominant ideology. We could add that devotion represents the zero degree of analysis and understanding. It is precisely because devotion dominates that today ideas which are denounced are not refuted, but rather that it suffices to declare them inconvenient or unbearable. Moral condemnation is exempt from an analysis of the hypotheses or of the principles under the prism of truth and falsehood. Now there are no just or false ideas, but rather appropriate ideas, in sync with the spirit of our time, and ideas which do not conform are denounced as intolerable.

This attitude appears even more reinforced by the strategic obsessions of the actors of the “right thought.” It matters little in this sphere whether an idea is just or false: what is important is to know which strategy it can serve, who draws upon it and with what purpose. A book can thus be denounced, even though its content corresponds with reality, with the only excuse that it runs the risk of converting ideas considered intolerable into “acceptable” ones or of favoring those which one wants to silence. It is the new version of the old slogan, “do not cause Billancourt to despair!” [Translator’s note: This is the exclamation with which Sartre hoped that he had camouflaged the truth, lest the workers of Renault of Billancourt would despair and falter in their revolutionary fervor]. Needless to say that with this approach, the place where we express ourselves is more relevant than that which we go to speak: There are admitted places and “unrecommended” places. All criticism presents itself, therefore, as an attempt for disqualification that is obtained by resorting to words that, in place of describing a reality, function like others as so many signs or operators for maximum delegitimization. Our singular strategists thus betray their own mental system, which only attributes value to ideas to the extent that they can be manipulated.

In the past, this work of delegitimization was carried out to the detriment of the families of more diverse thought – we think, for example, about the grotesque campaigns in the times of McCarthyism. But currently it is being done, without doubt, in a single direction. It has to do with crossing out as illegitimate all thought, all theory, all intellectual construction that contradicts the philosophy of the Enlightenment which, with all the shades that one wants, constitutes the support on which current societies are legitimized. For that, politically correct thought essentially resorts to two impostures: anti-racism and anti-fascism. We will say a few words regarding these two.

Racism is an ideology which postulates the inequality between races or which attempts to explain the whole history of humanity based solely upon the racial factor. This ideology has practically no defense nowadays, but we pretend to think that it is omnipresent, assimilating to it xenophobia, attitudes of rejection or distrust in respect to the Other, and even to a simple preference for endogamy and homofiliation. “Racism” is presented as the emblematic category of residual irrationalism, rooted in superstition and prejudice, that which would impede the emergence of a society which is transparent before itself. This criticism of “racism” as fundamental irrationality simply and plainly recycles the liberal fairytale of a pre-rational world which is the source of all social evils, as was demonstrated now more than half a century ago by Adorno and Horkheimer in saying that it reflects the ineptitude of modernity to face the Other, that is, difference and uniqueness.

Denouncing “racism” as a pure irrationality, that is, as a non-negotiable category, the New Class betrays at the same time its distance in respect to reality, but also contributes to the neutralization and the depoliticization of social problems. In effect, if “racism” is essentially a “madness” or a “criminal opinion,” then the battle against racism has much to do with courts and psychiatrists, but, however, it now has nothing to do with politics. This allows the New Class to forget that racism itself is an ideology resulting from modernity by the threefold bias of social evolutionism, scientistic positivism, and the theory of progress.

“Anti-fascism” is a completely obsolete category to the same extent as is “fascism,” to which it intends to oppose itself. The word is today a catchall term without any precise content. It is an elastic concept, applicable to anything, employed without the least descriptive rigor, which ends up being declined into “fascistic” and even into “fascistoid,” which allows itself to be adapted to all cases. Leo Strauss has already spoken of Reductio ad Hitlerum to qualify this purely polemical form of discrediting. The manner in which, nowadays, any non-conformist thought is crossed out as “fascist” on the part of censors who themselves could hardly define what they understand by that term, forms part of the same discursive strategy.

“There is a form of typically European political correctness which consists of seeing fascists everywhere,” observed Alain Finkielkraut on this point. “It has become a habitual procedure for a cohort of whistleblowing scribblers,” added Jean-François Revel, “to throw to Nazism and revisionism all individuals whose reputation they want to besmirch.” One can observe the consequences of that every day. The most trivial incident of French political life is judged today under the prism of “fascism” or the Occupation. Vichy “becomes an obsessive reference” and is converted into a phantasm which allows maintaining a permanent psychodrama, and given that they prefer the “duty of memory” to the duty of truth, this memory is regularly appealed to for justifying the most dubious comparisons or the most grotesque understandings. “This everlasting incrimination of fascism,” wrote Jean-François Revel, “whose excess is so shocking, which ridicules its authors in place of discrediting its victims, reveals the hidden motive of political correctness. This perversion serves as a substitute for the censors, for those left orphaned by the loss of that incomparable instrument of spiritual tyranny which was the Marxist gospel.”

Revealing of these effects is the outbreak of hostilities provoked by the exploitation of the Kremlin archives, which began to cause the breakdown of some statues of legendary “heroes.” Equally revealing is the result of observing in what manner the simple verification that the Communist system had ended the lives of more people than any other system in history (a hundred million dead!) today raises the virtuous indignation in milieus that “do everything to conceal the magnitude of the catastrophe” – as if this verification is equivalent to the trivialization of Nazi crimes which are by definition incomparable with anything, as if the horror of the crimes of Communism could be attenuated by the supposed purity of its original intentions, as if the two great totalitarian systems whose rivalry and complementarity characterized the 20th Century would not be inscribed into a relationship out of which one or the other would become unintelligible, as if, in the end, some dead weigh more than others.

But we must also emphasize that contemporary “anti-fascism” – which, paraphrasing Joseph de Maistre, we could qualify not as the opposite of fascism but rather as fascism in the opposite sense – has totally changed in nature. In the 1930s, the theme of “anti-fascism,” exploited by Stalin on the margins of the authentic fight against true fascism, would serve the Communist parties for questioning capitalist bourgeois society, accused of serving as the breeding ground of totalitarianism. It was then about showing that the liberal democracies and the “social traitors” were objectively potential allies of Fascism. However, currently it is exactly the opposite. Today, “anti-fascism” serves before all as an alibi for those who have vigorously joined the single thought and the system. Having abandoned all critical attitude, having succumbed to the advantages of a society which would offer them sinecures and privileges, they want, embracing the “anti-fascist” rhetoric, to give the impression (or make the illusion) of having remained loyal to themselves. In other words, the “anti-fascist” posture permits the Penitent, the central figure of our time, to forget his retractions by employing a wildcard slogan which does not cease to be a commonplace one. Yesterday’s strategic tool with which mercantilist capitalism was attacked, “anti-fascism,” has been converted into a mere discourse in its service. Thus, while the forces of potential opposition are prioritarily mobilized against a phantasmagoric fascism, the New Class which exercises the reality of power can sleep soundly. Making reference to a value which it not only no longer supposes to be a threat for current society, but rather which, on the contrary, reinforces what it is, our modern “anti-fascisms” have been converted into its watchdogs.

It is so true that for politicians, the denunciation of “fascism” is today an excellent way to remake a reputation for oneself. The most corrupt use and abuse it to minimize the importance of their malfeasances. If “fascism” is the absolute evil, and they denounce it, that means that they are not entirely bad. False accounts, unfulfilled electoral promises, grafts and corruptions of all sorts become lamentable faults but, in short, secondary ones in relation to the worst. But not only the Left or politicians need a nonexistent “fascism” that embodies absolute evil. Also, all of modernity on the decline needs a bête noire that allows it to make the social pathologies which it itself has engendered acceptable, under the pretext that however bad things go now, they would never have a point of comparison with those things that took place in the past.

Modernity is thus legitimized by means of a phantasm of which, paradoxically, we are told at the same time that it is “unique” and that it can return at any time. Confronted with its own emptiness, confronted with the tragic failure of its initial project of human liberation, confronted with the counter-productivity that it generates everywhere, confronted with the loss of references and with generalized senselessness, confronted with nihilism, confronted with the fact that man becomes increasingly more useless from the moment in which his abstract rights are proclaimed, modernity is left no other recourse than to divert attention, that is, to wield nonexistent dangers to impede the rising awareness of the truth. The recourse to the “absolute evil” functions then as a prodigious means of forcing the acceptance of the evils which our contemporaries are faced with in their daily lives, evils which, in comparison to this absolute evil, become contingent, relative, and, in the last instance, accessories. The exacerbated opposition to the totalitarianisms of yesterday, the unending tiresomeness about the past, prevents analyzing the evils of the present and the dangers of the future, at the same time that they make us enter into the 21st Century with a strong hindrance, with an eye fixed on the rearview mirror.

It would therefore be an error to believe that the current “anti-fascism” represents nothing. On the contrary, it poses a negative legitimization which is fundamental for a society that no longer has anything positive to include in its balance sheet. “Anti-fascism” creates the identity of a New Class that cannot exist without invoking the scarecrow of the worst thing so that it is not reduced to its own emptiness. In the same manner that some do not find their identity any more than in denouncing immigrants, the New Class only finds its own in the virtuous denunciation of an absolute evil, whose shadow hides its ideological vacuity, its absence of references, its intellectual indigence, in the last analysis, that it simply no longer has anything more to contribute, neither original analyses nor solutions to propose.

Therefore, it turns out to be vital for the central core of the “right-thinking” [biempensante] to prohibit all questioning of the fundamental principles which constitute their support of legitimacy. For if things were otherwise, it would be necessary that the dominant ideology accepts being questioned. But it would not consent to that, since it shares the conviction with the greater part of grand messianic ideologies that if things go badly, if the anticipated success is not attained, it is never because the principles were bad, but, on the contrary, because they had not been sufficiently applied. Yesterday they told us that if Communism had not attained paradise on earth, it was because it had not yet eliminated a sufficient number of its opponents. Today they tell us that if neoliberalism is in crisis, if the process of globalization entails social disorders, it is because there still exist too many obstacles which obstruct the proper functioning of the market.

To explain the failure of the project – or to reach the desired objective – a scapegoat is needed. There need to be nonconforming opponents, deviant or dissident elements: yesterday, the Jews, the Freemasons, the lepers, or the Jesuits; today, the supposed “fascists” or “racists.” These deviants are perceived as disturbing, bothersome elements which obstruct the advent of a rational society, so that it is necessary to purge the social body by means of an appropriate prophylactic action. If, for example, xenophobia exists in France today, it is not due to any case of a badly controlled immigration policy, but rather to the existence of “racism” in the social body. In a society whose components are increasingly more heterogeneous, it is made essential to establish a kind of civil religion designating a scapegoat. The shared execration serves then as nexus which, while fighting an enemy, even if it be only a mirage, it allows the maintenance of a semblance of unity.

But there exists, in addition, another advantage to moral denunciation, and it is that against the “absolute evil” all means valid. Demonization, indeed, has not only had the consequence of the depoliticization of conflicts, but has also caused, likewise, the criminalization of the adversary. This becomes an absolute enemy which must be eradicated by all existing means. One then enters into a kind of total war – and it is so much so that it is claimed to be carried in the name of humanity. To fight in the name of humanity leads to placing one’s adversaries outside of humanity, that is, to practice the negation of humanity. From this perspective, the apology for murder and the call to lynching are also found to be justified.

Finally, what should be noted is that the disqualifying labels manipulated today in the name of political correctness are never claimed labels, but rather attributed labels. Contrary to what happened in the 1930s, when the Communists and Fascists openly claimed their respective denominations, today nobody reclaims the qualifications of “fascist” and “racist.” Their nomination thus has no objective, informative, or descriptive value, but rather a purely subjective, strategic, or polemical value. The problem that arises is to know what the legitimacy of their attribution is. As this legitimacy is always to be tested, it is deduced that the “test” is always derived from the very possibility of attribution.

The psychoanalyst Fethi Benslama wrote that “today fascism is no longer a bloc, an easily identifiable entity embodied in a system, in a discourse, in an organization which can be demarcated,” but that it “rather assumes fragmentary and diffuse forms inside the whole of society […], a form such that no one is sheltered in a worldview, guarded from this disfiguration from the other which makes it arise as a boisterous, joyful body, secretly expanded body all over the place.” Such declarations are revealing: if fascism is “secretly expanded all over the place,” “anti-fascism” can evidently accuse anyone.

The problem is that the idea according to which evil is all over the place is the premise of all inquisition and, likewise, the premise upon which conspirationist paranoia is supported, as it had inspired in the past the witch-hunts and the justifications of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Just as the anti-Semites saw Jews everywhere, the new inquisitors see “fascists” everywhere. And as the supreme cunning of the Devil is to make people believe that he does not exist, protests are never heard. Topping it off, a popular psychoanalyst is permitted to interpret the denial or the indignant rejection to put on the uniform that they try to offer us with such complacency, just like so many other supplementary confirmations: the refusal to confess is the best proof that one is guilty.

“A man is not what he hides, but rather what he does,” said André Malraux. Believing that “fascism” is all over the place, meaning nowhere, the new inquisition affirms on the contrary that men are before all what they hide – and that it aims to uncover it. It boasts of seeing beyond the appearances and of reading in between the lines, to better “confuse” and “unmask.” It is in this way that the presumption of guilt knows no limits. What is “unsaid” is decrypted, decoded, and detected. Speaking clearly, authors are denounced, no so much for what they had written, but for what they had not written and what it is assumed they had intended to write. The content of their books is not boycotted, content which is never taken into consideration, but rather the intentions which are believed to have been divined. The police of ideas then becomes the police of ulterior motives.

 

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De Benoist, Alain. “The Sole ‘Anti-Fascist’ Thought.” Tankesmedjan Motpol, 13 April 2015. <http://www.motpol.nu/lucian/2015/04/13/the-sole-anti-fascist-thought/ >.

 

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.

***

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!

 

—————-

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/ >.

 

Huntington, Fukuyama, & Eurasianism – Dugin

Huntington, Fukuyama, and Eurasianism

By Alexander Dugin

Translated from the Spanish by Lucian Tudor

 

The Anti-Americanism typical of the “Russian structure” is a continuation of the intellectual of the Slavophiles. These latter thought that one cannot fully assume Russian identity more than by getting rid of the footprint of the West, liberating oneself of this European [i.e., Western-European] manner of viewing oneself which became the norm after Peter the Great. But Europe today is no longer the Europe of the epoch of the Slavophiles, nor of the first Eurasianists. Europe is distinct from the West, that is, from the sphere of influence of the United States. Becoming Russian, today, is to liberate oneself at all levels from Western and American influence. Westernism is not solely an intellectual position, but simultaneously a contagious disease and a betrayal of the fatherland. It is for that reason that we must restlessly fight the West. In fighting against the West, the Russians affirm themselves as Russians, belonging to Russian culture, to Russian history, to Russian values.

Samuel Huntington described in a realistic manner the obstacles which inevitably face the supporters of a Unipolar World and the fanatics of the End of History. When the last formal enemy of the United States, the Soviet Union, disappeared, some imagined that the West had reached the conclusion of its liberal-democratic development and that it was going to access the “earthly paradise” of the techno-mercantile society. That was the idea of Francis Fukuyama when he wrote his famous piece about the End of History. Huntington had the merit of showing all that which contradicted the optimism then professed in the medias of globalist communication. Analyzing these phenomena, he arrived at the conclusion that they could be included under a single denomination: civilizations. This is the key word.

But that word also means the reappearance of a premodern concept in a postmodern form. The Islamic civilization, for example, existed before modernity. But in the modern epoch, colonization and secularism delegitimized the use of this term; now only Muslim “ethnic groups” were recognized. After decolonization, nation-states appeared which had a “Muslim population,” but it is only with the Iranian Revolution (where we find some traits characteristic of Traditionalism and of the Conservative Revolution) when the emergence of a Muslim state properly speaking was seen, where Islam was politically recognized as the source of power and law. Theorizing about the transition from State to Civilization, Huntington formulated a new political-scientific concept, named to thus implicitly take (and draw attention to) a new dimension of international politics which was born after the demise of the USSR. Following that, the Atlanticist milieus discovered that they would face an enemy which, unlike the Soviet Union, is not based on an explicitly formalized ideology, but which nonetheless has begun to question and undermine the foundations of the liberal and Americano-centric “New World Order.” The enemy is now the civilizations, and no longer only countries or states – a turning point.

Among all civilizations, only the Western civilization has presented itself as universal, pretending to be in this way “the civilization” (singular). In formal terms, now nobody replicates it, rather in reality the great majority of men and women who live outside of the European or American space reject this dominion, and continue to be rooted in different historical-cultural types. This is what explains the current resurgence of civilizations. Huntington concluded, concerning that, that the planetary dominion of the West will face new challenges. He advised being conscious of this danger, to prepare oneself for the reappearance of certain premodern forms in the postmodern era, and to try to protect oneself against them to guarantee the security of Western civilization.

Fukuyama was a globalist optimist. Huntington is a globalist pessimist, who analyzed the risks and measured the dangers. We can draw out a Eurasianist lesson from his analysis. Huntington was right when he said that civilizations will reappear, but he was wrong to be upset by it. In contrast, we should rejoice about the resurgence of civilizations. We should applaud it and support it, preparing the catalysts of this process and not passively observing it.

The clashes between civilizations are almost inevitable, but our task must consist of reorienting the hostility, which will not stop growing, against the United States and Western Civilization, instead of against neighboring civilizations. We must organize the common front of civilizations against one civilization which pretends to be the civilization in singular. This prioritary common enemy is globalism and the United States, which is now its principal vector. The more the peoples of the Earth will be convinced of that, the more the confrontations between non-Western civilizations can be reduced. If there must be a “clash” of civilizations, it has to be a clash between the West and the “rest of the world.” And Eurasianism is the political formula which suits this “rest.”

There is another point which, obviously, we cannot follow Huntington on: when he calls for the strengthening of transatlantic relations between Europe and the United States. The new generation of European leaders has already responded positively to this call – something which we may lament. The destiny of Europe is not on the other side of the Atlantic. Europe must clearly establish itself as a distinct civilization, free and independent. It has to be a European Europe, not American and Atlanticist. It must construct itself as a postmodern democratic empire, through the reclaiming of its cultural and sacred roots, as a part of its future as well as something residing in its past. A Europe which does not also rise up against the United States would betray its roots at the same time that it would condemn itself to not having a future. Europe also does not belong to the Eurasian space. Certainly, it can and should even be Eurasianist to the extent it adheres to this “universal idea that there is no universal civilization,” but it does not have to integrate itself into the geographic space of Eurasia. What Russians desire most is simply that Europe be itself, that is, European. Eurasianism does not consist of imposing its identity on others, but rather to help all the different identities to affirm themselves, to organically develop themselves, and to prosper. The Russian philosopher Konstantin Leontiev said that we must always defend the “flourishing multiplicity.” This is the preferred motto of the Eurasianists.

 

Translated from: “Huntington, Fukuyama y el Eurasismo,” Página Transversal, 6 January 2015.

—————–

Dugin, Alexander. “Huntington, Fukuyama, and Eurasianism.” Tankesmedjan Motpol, 4 April 2015. <http://www.motpol.nu/lucian/2015/04/04/huntington-fukuyama-and-eurasianism/ >.

The Nation-State & the Multipolar World – Dugin

The Nation-State and the Multipolar World

By Alexander Dugin

Translated from the Spanish by Lucian Tudor

 

One of the most important points of the Theory of Multipolarity refers to the nation-state. The sovereignty of this structure has already been challenged during the period of ideological support for the two blocs (the “Cold War”) and, in the period of globalization, the issue acquired a much sharper relevance. We see the theorists of globalization also talk about the complete exhaustion of the “nation-states” and about the necessity of transferring them to the “World Government” (F. Fukuyama, before), or about the belief that nation-states have not yet completed their mission and must continue existing for a longer time with the purpose of better preparing their citizens for integration into the “Global Society” (F. Fukuyama, later).

The Theory of Multipolarity demonstrates that nation-states are a Eurocentric and mechanical phenomenon, on a larger scale, “globalist” in their initial stage (the idea of individual identity, normative in the form of civility, prepared the ground for the “civil society” and, correspondingly, for the “global society”). That the whole of world space is currently separated into territories of nation-states is a direct consequence of colonization, imperialism, and the projection of the Western model over all of mankind. Therefore, the nation-state does not carry in itself any self-sufficient value for the Theory of Multipolarity. The thesis of the preservation of nation-states from the perspective of the construction of the Multipolar World Order is only important in the case that, in a pragmatic way, that impedes globalization (and does not contribute to it), and hides in itself a more complicated and prominent social reality. After all, many political units (especially in the Third World) are nation-states simply in a nominal form, and virtually represent diverse forms of traditional societies with more complex systems of identity.

In this case, the position of the defenders of the Multipolar World is completely the opposite of that of the globalists: If a nation-state effectuates the homogenization of society and assists in the atomization of the citizens, that is, implements a profound and real modernization and Westernization, such a nation-state has no importance, being merely a kind of instrument of globalization. That nation-state is not being preserved worthily; it does make any sense in the Multipolarist perspective.

But if a nation-state serves as an exterior support for another social system – a special and original culture, civilization, religion, etc. – it should be supported and preserved while it actualizes its evolution towards a more harmonious structure, within the limits of sociological pluralism in the spirit of Multipolar Theory. The position of the globalists is directly opposite in all things: They appeal to eliminate the idea by which the nation-states serve as an external support of something traditional (such as China, Russia, Iran, etc.) and, conversely, to strengthen the nation-states with pro-Western regimes – South Korea, Georgia, or the countries of Western Europe.

 

Translated from: El Estado nacional y el Mundo multipolar, Página Transversal, 25 January 2015.

—————–

Dugin, Alexander. “The Nation-State and the Multipolar World.” Tankesmedjan Motpol, 29 March 2015. <http://www.motpol.nu/dugin2014/2015/03/29/the-nation-state-and-the-multipolar-world/ >.

 

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.

 

——————

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/ >.

 

The State – Sombart

The State

By Werner Sombart

 

It is obviously established in God’s plan of the world that the destiny of mankind is to be realized within the sphere of political associations.

The political association is that in which a majority of persons seeks to defend and vindicate its existence in its totality against another majority. It rests, as Carl Schmitt has aptly expressed it, upon the friend-enemy relationship. It represents the pro-con principle in society, just as the family realizes the pro-with principle. As the family is adjusted from within, the political association is adjusted from without. If the political association owes its existence to a majority of elements which disjoin mankind, the family owes its existence to a majority of the groups. Without ‘the others’ there could be no political association.

The tasks in which the ideas of the political association are manifested are as follows: (1) The external maintenance of the association in its unity and composition for the struggle against other political associations; (2) the development of those inclinations, capacities, and virtues which constitute the public, and in this sense, the political person; (3) the perfection and cultivation of peculiar values for the association in respect of body, soul, and spirit. The idea of the political association presupposes, as a historically-constructed principle, the value of group-wise separation of values and their realization. The higher spiritual values, in particular, are only brought out in particular groups, that is, in the political associations, which then become the bearers of all cultural development.

In them humanity is unfolded according to its differences, but in them the individuals are also drawn together in harmonious structures. So that both humanity and the individual nature realize their consummation in these intermediate forms which then in their development and in their struggle against one another become the real makers of what we call history.

We designate the general, comprehensive political association by a new word – ‘state’. But the thing is very old; the state, as we are to understand it here, is as old as mankind. All theories which give the state an ‘origin’ and which assume a pre-state condition are false.

In my manner of speaking [1], the state is an ideal (having ideas) association (together with family and religious association), by which I mean to say that the meaning of the state lies in the realm of the transcendental, that its purport cannot be significantly explained from an empirical, that is, ‘rational’ standpoint or from the viewpoint of an interest. That an individualistic-rational explanation of the state is excluded, the following considerations will show:

1. The ‘origin’ of ideal associations is irrational. First, in general, because they do not originate, as real associations do, but are always already in existence. Even if we regard the Puritan emigrants in America as founding a ‘new’ state, they did it as members of an existing association – England. But even then, if one would here speak of the ‘origin’ of a state, it would still not be in the sense of a rationally established association, resulting from the free decision of persons of age, since the newly established state , according to its very nature, always includes individuals who were not asked, but forced to become members: children, insane, the dead.

2. The range of problems, the peculiar kind of achievements of our association, transcend every conceivable sphere of individual interest and, therefore, do not admit of being established in its entirety by any particular interest. First of all, it is not a question of circumscribed tasks, which would be the case in every rational association, but one of endless relations. The aims lie beyond individual interests: what concern to the individual is the preservation of the species or the continuance and growth of the nation, if it implies nothing but a continuous struggle? Why should one participate in the creation of works whose completion he himself will not live to see? Why should one, as an individual, trouble oneself about the welfare of others and not only about the welfare of one’s kind, whose interests one may have occasion to promote from some utilitarian consideration, but also concern oneself with the welfare of the dead, the minors, the unborn?

3. The position of the members of a political association in relation to the organization is fundamentally different from any other relation anywhere: in all other cases the position of a member constitutes a claim; in the ideal association, it is a sacrifice, and, in fact, a sacrifice unto death. But the sacrifice necessarily presupposes a super-individual something – call it an idea – for which man sacrifices himself. It is senseless to have one individual sacrifice himself for another; the mother for the child, the warrior for the civilian. The idea may be abstract: liberty, faith, science (here too, it must be anchored in the transcendental, that is, it must be a real idea, so that the sacrifice may not appear frivolous). Or it may be a concrete idea, as it is represented in an association. Then, by that very fact, this association is characterized as having ideas, that is, its meaning points beyond this world.

I do not hesitate to call this conception of the state a genuine, German conception, and I regard the opinion, now so frequently held, that the idea of the state as represented here is foreign to German nature, as false. It certainly was first very clearly proclaimed by Germans in conscious contrast with the individualistic-rational conception of the state which came from the West.

I am thinking of the time at the end of the Eighteenth Century, when Herr von Schlözer, in his Allgemeinen Staatsrecht, could write: ‘The state is a device, men made it for their welfare, as they devised, among other things, fire-insurance.’ At that time there arose, among the romantics, the first opponents of this subaltern state-conception, who, for the first time, with strong emphasis, opposed it with another conception, namely, the German.

Thus Adam Müller permits himself to be heard as follows: ‘The state is not merely a manufactory, a homestead, an insurance association, or a mercantile society; it is the intimate union of all the physical and spiritual needs, all the physical and spiritual wealth, all the inward and outward life of a nation to a great, energetic and infinitely mobile and animated whole.’

The thoughtful statesman, Baron vom Stein, accepts this conception in almost the same words when he writes in his Memoir of November 25, 1822: The state is ‘no agricultural or factory association, but its purpose is religio-moral, spiritual, and corporative development; through its organization it should form not only an artistic and industrious, but also an energetic, courageous, moral, and spiritual people.’

To permit still another romanticist to speak in this connection, I will quote Novalis to show with what depth and clarity he expressed the German idea of the state in poetic glorification, denying all that the apostles of happiness, on the other hand, had philosophized into the state in their attempt to make it an insurance company: ‘All culture springs from the relations of men to the state . . . Man has attempted to make the state a cushion for indolence, whereas the state should be just the opposite. It is an armature of all activities; its purpose is to make man absolutely strong and not absolutely weak, to make him not the laziest but the most active being. The state does not relieve man of trouble, but rather increases his troubles infinitely; of course, not without also infinitely increasing his strength.’

This is the conception of the state which Fichte, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Schleiermacher, and Hegel, each incorporated in a special philosophic system and which then, gradually, under the influence of liberalistic development, grew pale. Prussian ‘Conservatives’ and German ‘Socialists’ only, remained loyal to it. I call to mind in this connection men such as Lorenz von Stein, Rodbertus, and by no means least, Ferdinand Lassalle, who in the time of the bleakest Manchester period, under the spell of his teacher, Fichte, represented the idea of the state in eloquent words, when he explained: ‘The state is this unity of individuals in a moral whole, a unity which increases a millionfold the power of all individuals who are included within this union . . . The purpose of the state is, therefore, to bring the human being to a positive development and a progressive development; in other words, to bring human determination, that is, the culture of which the human race is capable, into actual being.’

‘However wide a gulf separates you and me from one another, my lords!’ – thus he apostrophized his judges at the conclusion of his famous defense before the Supreme Court – ‘opposed to this dissolution of everything moral, we stand hand in hand! The ancient vestal fire of all civilization, the State, I will defend with you against those modern barbarians’ (of the Manchester school).

To be sure, all this is true only if we regard the state not as an ‘organization,’ an ‘apparatus,’ or anything else that is formal, which is all too often the case (this perversion of the facts was precisely the trick by the aid of which liberalistic thought wished to devalue the inconvenient idea of the state), but see what it really is – a union of living persons. What it really and truly is, then, will be clear when we realize that there are three views (aspects), that is, that it appears to us, on closer examination, in a three-fold form, namely: (1) as a unity-nation-polis, (2) as an entirety-commonwealth-politeia, (3) as a multiplicity-association-koinonia.

This three-fold substantiality corresponds to a three-fold collectivity of the state: to (1) population, to (2) society, to (3) the personal orbit.

The German Reich is such a political grand-union or state at the present time. And this German Reich, and this only, is also the field of German Socialism. The idea of Socialism, as I have already said, is most closely connected with the idea of the state. And it would imply a complete departure from this idea to remove its activities to the interstate or superstate field. Since Socialism is a social order, it must confine its activities within the area of the state, that is, within the orbit in which the order is consistently placed. The concepts of Socialism and the state, therefore, necessarily belong together; Socialism is possible only within the boundaries of the state, but a unified, properly organized, strong state is also possible only on the basis of Socialism.

Note:

[1] I have developed my theory of association in an article, “Grundformen des menschlichen Zusammenlebens,” in Handwörterbuch der Sociologie, 1931.

 

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Excerpt from: Sombart, Werner. A New Social Philosophy. Translated by Karl F. Geiser. New York: Greenwood Press, 1969. Text retrieved from: <http://www.hyperion-journal.net/the-state.html >.