Conservative Critique of Spengler – Tudor

The Revolutionary Conservative Critique of Oswald Spengler

By Lucian Tudor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes

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

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

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

[4] Ibid.

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

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

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

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

[9] Ibid., p. 41.

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

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

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

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

[14] Ibid., p. 335.

[15] Ibid., p. 79.

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

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

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

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

[20] Ibid.

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

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

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

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

 

—————

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

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

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

 

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Ethnic & Racial Relations – Tudor

Ethnic & Racial Relations: Ethnic States, Separatism, & Mixing

By Lucian Tudor

Translations: Español (see note at the bottom of this page)

In our previous essay, “Race, Identity, Community,”[1] we discussed a number of subjects: most importantly, the varying levels and relations of ethnic and cultural groups, the matter of cultural communication, openness, and closure, the relationship between race and culture, the necessity of resisting miscegenation for the sake of ethno-cultural stability, the error of individualism and the value of social holism, and the importance of the sense of community to ethnic and racial identity.

In the present essay, we will not reiterate the major points which we made before, except those which are relevant to the matters discussed. The purpose of this essay is to serve as an extension of the previous one and to expand upon certain points which were not made sufficiently clear or covered properly, and it thus must be read in the context of the preceding essay. Here we aim to discuss the topic of social, cultural, and political relations between ethnic and racial groups, the problem and varieties of social and biological mixing, and the practices and forms of ethnic and racial separatism.

Identity and Interaction

Particularities and particular identities define human beings; contrary to egalitarian and universalist ideology, one cannot be truly human without a belonging to particular groups, including religious, political, cultural, and racial groups. Of course, belonging to a group and possessing a conscious identification with this belonging are two different things (just as we can say that there is a conscious and unconscious aspect to identity). History and observation show that ethnic, cultural, and racial identities come into being and are awakened by awareness of and interaction with other ethnic and racial groups. As Alain de Benoist wrote: “The group and the individual both need to be confronted by ‘significant others.’ Therefore, it is nonsense to believe that identity would be better preserved without this confrontation; actually, it is the opposite: confrontation makes identity possible. Other subjects make a subject become subject.” [2]

Thus, interaction with other types of human beings is an essential part of human existence, since they draw their very awareness of being who they are by this interaction. Furthermore, as we have already mentioned in our previous work (“Race, Identity, Community”), the various cultures (in terms of both smaller and larger groups) develop and are enriched not only by internal development, but also by interaction with and the exchange of products and ideas with other cultures or peoples. It is for these reasons that it is justified to assert that “the originality and the richness of the human heritages of this world are nourished by their differences and their deviations . . .” [3] as Pierre Krebs stated, similarly to many other New Right authors.

Of course, recognizing the value of diversity and differences, and appreciating these differences in other peoples and learning from them, does not mean that all peoples of the world can or should be appreciated equally. It is, of course, perfectly natural that one people will find certain foreign peoples to be unattractive in some cases, and will distance themselves from them. This is why, although diversity is valuable, the present egalitarian and multiculturalist propaganda that all cultures and ethnic groups must be appreciated and accepted equally, is simply wrong and absurd. No healthy people show equal liking for all others, although it is possible to respect all foreign peoples even if one does not treasure them all. It is, for example, completely natural that a European may be repulsed by the culture of an African tribe but simultaneously feel admiration for East Asian culture, while still according to each people a certain level of respect.

It is also a fact of life that without barriers, without a certain level of separation from other peoples, and without a specific territory on which to live as a distinct and relatively homogeneous people, an ethnic or a racial group would disappear through mixture or assimilation into other groups. The extreme modern liberal-globalist propaganda advocating complete openness and mixing between cultures and peoples, using as its justification historical examples of cultural exchanges, is fallacious because normal cultural dialogue and interaction never involved complete openness but always a limited form of interaction.

Total openness and mixing eliminates identities because peoples do not merely change through such processes, but lose who they are or merge with another people entirely. To quote Benoist, “it is the diversity of the human race which creates its richness, just as it is diversity which makes communication possible and gives it value. Diversity of peoples and cultures exist, however, only because, in the past, these various peoples and cultures were relatively isolated from one another.”[4] Culture transforms over time due to internal creativity and development as well as through communication with other cultures, but contact with other cultures must always be limited and imperfect, otherwise the very integrity of a culture is undermined. Therefore, “Identity is not what never changes, but, on the contrary, it is what allows one to constantly change without giving up who one is.”[5]

The Problem of Mixing

It needs to be recognized that mixing, both the social form (so-called “integration”) as well as the biological form (miscegenation), is a complicated human problem. Mixing has occurred all throughout history in a variety of forms and circumstances, as a result of different forms of close interaction between different ethnic and racial groups. The questions of why mixtures occur and whether this is a normal and acceptable phenomenon therefore naturally present themselves, and they must be answered with the proper level of sophistication in order for us to defeat our opponents.

First, it needs to be recognized that mixture between two different peoples belonging to the same race is a distinct matter from mixture between two different races, and involves different principles and circumstances. Ethnicities belonging to the same racial type share the same biological and spiritual background, which serves as a larger foundation for identity which connects them. In cases where two or more ethnic groups of the same racial type no longer live separately and choose to mix socially (from which intermarriage inevitably follows), it is oftentimes because these groups – within a particular time and conditions – have become closely connected culturally and spiritually or because they no longer feel their distinctions to be significant.

This phenomenon cannot be regarded as abnormal and wrong any more than when two racially related ethnic groups choose to separate instead of mix, because both occurrences are rather frequent in history and do not normally have negative effects to identity (even if identity undergoes some change in this). For example, many European ethnic groups (the English, the French, the Balkan peoples, etc.) are the result of an inter-European mixture that occurred centuries ago, although they also have a right to separate. Thus, within a race, separation and mixing can both be regarded as normal phenomena, depending on the circumstances and the nature of the ethnic groups in question.

On the other hand, between different races, mixing can be argued to be an abnormal phenomenon because the relations and effects are different; the state of normality is to desire racial separation. Contrary to the assertions of many egalitarian multiculturalist (“multiculturalism” here signifying the belief and practice of ethnic mixing) propagandists, racial identity and the concept of race is not a modern phenomenon, for, as Benoist pointed out, “the idea of race is almost as old as humanity itself.”[6] So it is clear that recognizing the importance of race and practicing racial separatism does in fact have a historical and even a universal basis; human beings were never in a condition where they completely lacked racial feelings and mixed freely.

The reasons for racial mixing (social and, following that, biological) throughout history are complex and differ based on the circumstances in question. In some cases, it was due to a powerful, militant people conquering another people and forcefully reproducing with the women of the conquered in order to secure their conquest through breeding. In other cases, as some authors have argued, it is due to the decadence of a people who have lost certain spiritual qualities, their sense of differentiation, and their racial identity, and have as a result chosen to mix with other peoples, even those racially different (these other peoples may be immigrants or conquered peoples who formerly lived separated). Of course, where mixing occurs willingly, both sides have surrendered their unique identity.[7] There may be other causes, and in a sense racial miscegenation is inevitable because it is always bound to occur at certain times and places where different races come into contact (even if only to a small extent).

However, it is always important to recognize and reassert that despite its occurrence throughout history, for whatever reasons or causes, race-mixing is not a rule. It is actually rather abnormal, and that it occurs all throughout history does not invalidate this fact. Because the identity, basic anthropological and psychological features, and character of ethnic groups and cultures are influenced by racial type, and because of the spiritual and sociological dimension of race, race-mixing means a deep and profound change completely transforming a family or, when it occurs on a larger scale, a people. This idea cannot be associated with biological reductionism, which we must reject as fallacious; even though culture, society, and cultural identity cannot be reduced to race, and race is only one factor among many which affects them, racial background is still undoubtedly an important factor.

Thus, since preserving their racial type means maintaining who they are, their identity as a folk, peoples are thus historically compelled to resist race-mixing and to separate from other races. It is not only for the sake of their survival that they are so compelled, but also because of the primal impulse to live with their own people in their communities. As Krebs pointed out, “modern ethology clearly established the innate tendency of man to identify with individuals who resemble him . . .”[8] There is, furthermore, also the fact that, as Evola pointed out, “blood and ethnic purity are factors that are valued in traditional civilizations too,” which means that the maintaining physical racial type is a practice which holds a meta-historical value.[9]

We should note that, of course, a people which goes through minor amounts of race-mixing does not lose its identity or its belonging to its original racial type. For example, the Eastern Slavic peoples and Southern Europeans peoples who have endured some level of miscegenation historically still belong to the White-European race, both in terms of their general anthropological-physical type as well as their racial and ethnic identity. Race is defined not by a strict purity, but by the possession of a general physical form (the general anthropological features associated with a race), the general spiritual form associated with it, and the cultural style and identity which is sociologically linked with race.[10]

It also needs to be mentioned here that resisting race-mixing is not necessarily a “racist” phenomenon (which means racial supremacism), because placing value on racial differences and practicing racial separatism can and has taken on non-racist forms. It is clear that it is extremely naïve and erroneous to associate all forms of racial separatism with racism and inter-racial hostility.[11] As Guillaume Faye once wrote:

In effect, just as it is normal and legitimate for the Arab, the Black African, the Japanese to desire to remain themselves, to recognize that an African is necessarily a black man or an Asian a yellow man, it is legitimate, natural and necessary to recognize the right of the European to reject multiracialism and to affirm himself as white man. To link this position with racism is an inadmissible bluster. The real racists are, on the contrary, those who organize in Europe the establishment of a multiracial society.[12]

Practices of Separatism

Evidently, racial and ethnic separatism has taken on a variety of forms throughout history. One commonly recognized form is the creation of a class or caste system, separating people into different castes based on their racial background (or, in a typical analogous system, based on ethnic or cultural background). The class structure of racial separation, which is usually the result of conquest, can be seen in numerous cases throughout history, including in Classical civilization, in certain ancient Near Eastern civilizations, in India, and in many parts of Central and South America after European colonization. The most negative feature of this practice is obviously that it involved “racism” and subjugation, although it also had the positive effect of preserving the racial types which have formed, even after miscegenation (the new, mixed racial types; mulattoes and mestizos), due to the fact that it discouraged race-mixing by class separation.[13]

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

However, “nationalism” is a problematic term because it has been defined in different and sometimes contradictory ways. In one, very generic sense, nationalism means simply the desire of a people to live separately from others, under its own state and by rule of leaders of its own ethnic background; in essence, a basic ethnic separatism and desire for independence. In this sense, nationalism is a very ancient idea and practice, since all across history one can find cases where a people of one particular ethnic background desired to be independent from the rule of another different people and fought for this independence. This is not, however, the way nationalism is always defined, and aside from the fact that it is sometimes defined as being necessarily chauvinistic, it is also often defined in a certain manner that makes it particularly an early modern phenomenon.

Many New Right as well as Traditionalist authors have defined nationalism as a form of state in which the “nation” is politically or culturally absolutised, at the expense of smaller local or regional cultural differences, and regarding other nations as completely foreign and of lesser value. This form of “nationalism” is exemplified by the Jacobin nation-state and form of sovereignty (since the French Revolution was a key force in initiating the rise of this state form), and is identified by the elimination of sub-ethnic differences within its borders and the regard for differences with other peoples or nationalities as absolute. Naturally, this form of nationalism has the consequence of creating hostility and conflict between nations because of these ideological and political features.[14]

From the “Radical Traditionalist” perspective, exemplified by Evola’s thought, nationalism is an anomaly, a deviation from valid state forms. It is regarded as negative, firstly, because this form of traditionalism considers ethnicity and nationality as secondary qualities in human beings; although they have some level of importance, they are not valid as primary features around which to organize states and leadership, which should be based solely upon the values of elitism, aristocracy, and spiritual authority. Nationalism also contradicts the practice of the Empire – the imperial state, which is not necessarily imperialistic – since nationalism means the absolutisation of the “nation,” whereas the traditional empire is organized as a supra-national federalistic union with a central spiritual authority.[15] According to Evola,

The scheme of an empire in a true and organic sense (which must clearly be distinguished from every imperialism, a phenomenon that should be regarded as a deplorable extension of nationalism) . . . safeguarded the principles of both unity and multiplicity. In this world, individual States have the character of partial organic units, gravitating around . . . a principle of unity, authority, and sovereignty of a different nature from that which is proper to each particular State . . . due to its super-ordained nature, would be such as to leave wide room for nationalities according to their natural and historical individuality.[16]

In the imperial state, which Evola asserts is the true traditional model of the state, ethnic or national groups are thus separated federally; different peoples live under the same state and serve the same ultimate monarchical authority, but they live in separate parts of the kingdom or empire. To quote one his key works: “the Middle Ages [and also certain ancient civilizations] knew nationalities but not nationalisms. Nationality is a natural factor that encompasses a certain group of common elementary characteristics that are retained both in the hierarchical differentiation and in the hierarchical participation, which they do not oppose.”[17]

Identitarian Separatism

The European New Right and the Identitarian Movement, the latter being closely related to and derived from the New Right,[18] also advocates the practice of federalism, although their thinkers have some disagreements with the claims of “Radical Traditionalists” concerning certain essential principles. The “New Rightist” concept of federalism involves the vision of a federation (or better, confederation, which more clearly expresses this decentralized type of federalism) which is based upon the principles of subsidiarity, of granting autonomy to its regions, and of local and regional political structures holding the power that is due to them, while the central authority rules primarily when decisions affecting the whole state must be made. This form of state and sovereignty “implies plurality, autonomy, and the interlacing of levels of power and authority.”[19] Subsidiarity and allowing decisions to be made at lower levels are also features of the Radical Traditionalist concept of the federalist state, but in contrast they assert the importance of the ultimate authority of the sovereign (the central ruler) far more.

Aside from supporting a partly different conception of sovereignty and authority from Radical Traditionalists, Identitarians and New Rightists also support the practice of a participatory and organic form of democracy as the ideal state form (which, it must be noted, is still compatible with respect for authority and hierarchy). This idea does indeed have a historical basis, for, as Benoist pointed out, “governments with democratic tendencies have appeared throughout history . . . . Whether in Rome, in the Iliad, in Vedic India or among the Hittites, already at a very early date we find the existence of popular assemblies for both military and civil organisation. Moreover, in Indo-European society the King was generally elected . . .”[20]

Furthermore, New Rightists and Identitarians strongly assert the value of ethnic, cultural, and racial differences and identities, and therefore, according to this conception, organic democracy coincides with the recognition of and respect for ethnic differences.[21] Because organic democracy, meaning true democracy, is based off of respect for ethnic differences, Benoist rightly asserts that:

Democracy means the power of the people, which is to say the power of an organic community that has historically developed in the context of one or more given political structures – for instance a city, nation, or empire . . . Every political system which requires the disintegration or levelling of peoples in order to operate – or the erosion of individuals’ awareness of belonging to an organic folk community – is to be regarded as undemocratic.[22]

The New Right advocates the idea of respecting the identities of smaller, local, and regional ethnic or sub-ethnic groups as well as recognizing the importance of larger ethnic and cultural relations and unities. Thus, for example, to be a Breton, a Frenchman, and a White European[23] all have importance, and each level of identity and belonging has value in a hierarchical relationship. Ethno-cultural groups of all levels and types have the right to live with freedom and separately from others in different states and territories. The New Right acknowledges that there are cases where complete state separation for a people is appropriate (akin to the simpler, generic idea of “nationalism”), but there are also cases where the federalist state system in which each people has its own autonomous region in which to live is more practical or desirable.[24]

Arguably, the New Right or Identitarian vision is not only the most desirable, but also the most realistic in the modern world because it offers the most balanced solution to the current problems and ethnic-racial chaos. In a world where democratic feelings have become permanent among most peoples it offers an organic participatory democracy to replace the corrupt liberal democracies presently dominant. Where there are countries composed of multiple ethnicities which are not in a position to divide themselves entirely (complete nationalism) it offers the idea of a federation of autonomous regions. Finally, in a world where ethnic and racial groups are threatened to be disintegrated by “multiculturalist integration” and mixing it offers a peaceful and fair solution of territorial separation, the creation of unmixed ethnic communities, and cooperation between the different races and peoples of the world to achieve this vision.

Notes

[1] Lucian Tudor, “Race, Identity, Community,” 6 August 2013, Counter-Currents Publishing, http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/08/race-identity-community.

[2] Alain de Benoist, “On Identity,” Telos, Vol. 2004, No. 128 (Summer 2004), p. 39.

[3] Pierre Krebs, Fighting for the Essence (London: Arktos, 2012), p. 89.

[4] Alain de Benoist, “What is Racism?” Telos, Vol. 1999, No. 114 (Winter 1999), p. 46-47. This work is available online here: http://www.alaindebenoist.com/pdf/what_is_racism.pdf

[5] Benoist, “On Identity,” p. 41.

[6] Alain de Benoist, “What is Racism?” p. 36. It is worth mentioning here that there are certain mainstream historians who have admitted and studied the history of racial feelings since ancient times (in Western and Middle Eastern civilizations, specifically). Among their works include Benjamin Isaac, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004) and Miriam Eliav-Feldon, Benjamin Isaac, & Joseph Ziegler, eds., The Origins of Racism in the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Despite the egalitarian bias and hostility to racialism these authors may reveal in their works, these still have research value for us because of the historical facts they provide.

[7] See for example the chapters “Life and Death of Civilizations” and “The Decline of Superior Races” in Julius Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World (Rochester: Inner Traditions, 1995) and Krebs, Fighting for the Essence, pp. 23 ff. & 79 ff.

[8] Ibid., p. 25.

[9] Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World, p. 57. On this matter, see also the chapter “The Beauty and the Beast: Race and Racism in Europe” in Tomislav Sunic, Postmortem Report: Cultural Examinations from Postmodernity (Shamley Green, UK: The Paligenesis Project, 2010).

[10] A number of Right-wing authors have already written much more on this matter. For the White Nationalist perspective in particular, see especially Ted Sallis, “Racial Purity, Ethnic Genetic Interests, & the Cobb Case,” 18 November 2013, Counter-Currents Publishing, http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/11/racial-purity-ethnic-genetic-interests-the-cobb-case. For the New Right perspective, see for example: the entries “Miscegenation” and “Race, Racism, Anti-Racism” in Guillaume Faye, Why We Fight: Manifesto of the European Resistance (London: Arktos, 2011), pp. 194 ff. & 227 ff.; Benoist’s commentaries in his “What is Racism?”; Tomislav Sunic, “Ethnic Identity versus White Identity: Differences between the U.S. and Europe,” The Occidental Quarterly, Vol.12, No.4 (Winter 2012/13), available online here: http://www.tomsunic.com/?p=444.; The articles in Sebastian J. Lorenz, ed., Elementos: Revista de Metapolítica para una Civilización Europea, No. 47, “Elogio de la Diferencia, Diferencialism versus Racismo,” (28 May 2013), http://urkultur-imperium-europa.blogspot.com/2013/05/elementos-n-47-elogio-de-la-diferencia.html

[11] See the citations of Faye, Benoist, Sunic, and Lorenz in the previous note (# 10).

[12] Guillaume Faye, “La Sociedad Multirracial,” 13 Jul y 2007, Guillaume Faye Archive, http://guillaumefayearchive.wordpress.com/2007/07/13/la-sociedad-multirracial. Note that this article was republished in print in Escritos por Europa (Barcelona: Titania, 2008).

[13] On the matter of historical examples, see our previous citations of Isaac’s The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity and The Origins of Racism in the West. Dealing with the racial basis for the Indian caste system, see for example the preface to Arvind Sharma, Classical Hindu Thought: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), and Alain Daniélou, India: A Civilization of Differences: The Ancient Tradition of Universal Tolerance (Rochester: Inner Traditions, 2003), the latter arguing that the caste system is not truly “racist” but a natural racial ordering. On the race-based case/class systems in Central and South America, one classic mainstream resource is Magnus Mörner, Race Mixture in the History of Latin America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967). There are, of course, numerous other academic resources on this subject matter.

[14] See Alain de Benoist, “Nationalism: Phenomenology & Critique,” 16 May 2012, Counter-Currents Publishing, http://www.counter-currents.com/2012/05/nationalism-phenomenology-and-critique; Michael O’Meara, New Culture, New Right: Anti-Liberalism in Postmodern Europe, 2nd edition (London: Arktos, 2013), pp. 228 ff.; Edgar Julius Jung, “People, Race, Reich,” in Europa: German Conservative Foreign Policy 1870–1940, ed. & trans. by Alexander Jacob (Lanham, MD, USA: University Press of America, 2002); the overview of Evola’s position in the chapter “Nations, Nationalism, Empire and Europe” in Paul Furlong, Social and Political Thought of Julius Evola (Abingdon & New York: Routledge, 2011).

[15] See Alain de Benoist, “The Idea of Empire,” Telos, Vol. 1993, No. 98-99 (December 1993), pp. 81-98, available online here: http://www.gornahoor.net/library/IdeaOfEmpire.pdf.

[16] Julius Evola, Men Among the Ruins: Postwar Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist (Rochester: Inner Traditions, 2002), p. 277.

[17] Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World, pp. 338-39.

[18] Identitarianism is founded upon the ideas of New Right intellectuals such Alain de Benoist, Guillaume Faye, Tomislav Sunic, Pierre Krebs, Dominique Venner, and Pierre Vial, who themselves are sometimes designated as “Identitarian.” However, we should also note that some of the basic ideas of the Identitarian Movement can be found in We Are Generation Identity (London: Arktos, 2013), although by itself this brief manifesto may be insufficient.

[19] Alain de Benoist, “What is Sovereignty?” Telos, vol. 1999, no. 116 (Summer 1999), p. 114. This work is available online here: http://www.alaindebenoist.com/pdf/what_is_sovereignty.pdf . See also Benoist, “The First Federalist: Johannes Althusius,” Telos, vol. 200, no. 118 (Winter 2000), pp. 25-58, and the articles in Sebastian J. Lorenz, ed., Elementos: Revista de Metapolítica para una Civilización Europea, No. 37, “Federalismo Poliárquico Neoalthusiano,” (28 November 2012), http://urkultur-imperium-europa.blogspot.com/2012/11/elementos-n-37-federalismo-poliarquico.html.

[20] Alain de Benoist, The Problem of Democracy (London: Arktos Media, 2011), pp. 14-15. We should note that this book is one of the most essential resources on the matter of democracy, for the idea of an organic and ethnic-based participatory democracy and for defending the idea of democracy as a political system.

[21] See Chapter I. “The Ancients and the Moderns” in Ibid.

[22] Benoist, Problem of Democracy, p. 103.

[23] When we refer to the broader, more encompassing cultural identity of Europeans, it is better to refer to a general “European” culture rather than to “Indo-European” culture because not all White European peoples are entirely Indo-European, and there clearly are and have been non-Indo-European peoples in Europe who are of the same racial and general cultural type as Indo-European peoples (well-known modern examples including the Finns, Hungarians, Estonians, Livonians, and Basques, although there were also numerous white pre-Indo-European peoples in ancient times who had disappeared through mixture with Indo-Europeans).

[24] Along with our previous citations of Benoist’s essays on sovereignty, empire, and federalism, see also Faye’s entries “Empire, Imperial Federation” and “Democracy, Democratism, Organic Democracy” in Why We Fight, pp. 130-32 and 111-14.

 

——————–

Tudor, Lucian. “Ethnic & Racial Relations: Ethnic States, Separatism, & Mixing.” Counter-Currents Publishing, 20 March 2014. <http://www.counter-currents.com/2014/03/ethnic-and-racial-relations/ >.

Note: We have also republished on our website Lucian Tudor’s “Race, Identity, Community.” On the matters discussed in the above essay, see also a more complete exposition in Lucian Tudor, “The Philosophy of Identity: Ethnicity, Culture, and Race in Identitarian Thought,” The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Fall 2014), pp. 83-112.

Translation note: This essay by Tudor has also been translated into Spanish as “Relaciones Etnicas y Raciales: estados etnicos, separatismo y mezcla” (published online 18 April 2014 by Fuerza Nacional Identitaria). We have also made this translated file available on our site here: Relaciones Etnicas y Raciales

 

La Nueva Derecha Europea en Español (The European New Right in Spanish)

La Nueva Derecha Europea en Español

(The European New Right in Spanish)

Note in English: Due to the fact that the Spanish is one of the most important languages (along with French, Italian, and German) in which many key works of the European New Right have been published, we have created this page to bring attention to some of the more significant Spanish-language resources on the European New Right which are available on the Internet and which we have chosen to republish on our website. These include certain selected issues of Sebastian J. Lorenz’s online journal Elementos which we have deemed to be the most important, along with Alain de Benoist’s and Charles Champetier’s “Manifesto of the New Right” (Spanish version).

Aquí vamos a poner en conocimiento de los recursos más importantes en el idioma español para el pensamiento de la Nueva Derecha Europea. El recurso más importante es la revista de Sebastián J. Lorenz: Elementos: Revista de Metapolítica para una Civilización Europea, que se ha anunciado y publicado en línea en su sitio web: <http://elementosdemetapolitica.blogspot.com.es/ >. Hemos seleccionado y publicado en nuestra página web lo que hemos considerado que son los números más esenciales de esta revista en lo que respecta a las ideas de la Nueva Derecha. En el espacio a continuación vamos a enumerar y enlace en el espacio por debajo de estos números de Elementos y sus contenidos, junto con el manifiesto de Alain de Benoist y Charles Champetier.

Aquí también queremos mencionar los libros más importantes de la Nueva Derecha en español que están disponibles en formato impreso: Alain de Benoist, ¿Es un Problema la Democracia? (Barcelona: Nueva República, 2013); Benoist, La Nueva Derecha: Una respuesta clara, profunda e inteligente (Barcelona : Planeta, 1982); Alain de Benoist, Guillaume Faye, & Carlos Pinedo Cestafe, Las Ideas de la “Nueva Derecha”: Una respuesta al colonialismo cultural (Barcelona: Nuevo Arte Thor, 1986); Guillaume Faye, Pierre Freson, & Robert Steuckers, Pequeño Léxico del Partisano Europeo (Molins de Rei, Barcelona: Nueva República, 2012); Tomislav Sunic, Homo Americanus: Hijo de la Era Postmoderna (Barcelona: Ediciones Nueva Republica, 2008); Dominique Venner, Europa y su Destino: De ayer a mañana (Barcelona: Áltera, 2010); Rodrigo Agulló, Disidencia Perfecta: La Nueva Derecha y la batalla de las ideas (Barcelona & Madrid: Altera, 2011); Jesús J. Sebastián Lorente (ed.), Alain de Benoist: Elogio de la disidencia (Tarragona: Ediciones Fides, 2015).

 

Manifiesto: La Nueva Derecha del año 2000 por Alain de Benoist y Charles Champetier

(Nota: Este libro también fue publicado en forma impresa como: Manifiesto para un renacimiento europeo [Mollet del Vallès, Barcelona: GRECE, 2000])

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 15 – “Moeller van den Bruck: Conservadurismo Revolucionario”  (publicado 1 Junio 2011)

Contenidos:

Arthur Moeller van den Bruck y la Nouvelle Droite, por Sebastian J. Lorenz

Moeller van den Bruck: un rebelde conservador, por Luca Leonello Rimbotti

Moeller van den Bruck: ¿un “precursor póstumo”?, por Denis Goedel

Moeller y Dostoievski, por Robert Steuckers

Moeller y la Kulturpessimismus de Weimar, por Ferran Gallego

Moeller y los Jungkonservativen, por Erik Norling

Moeller y Spengler, por Ernesto Milá

Moeller y la Konservative Revolution, por Keith Bullivant

Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, por Alain de Benoist

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 16 – “Un Diálogo Contra la Modernidad: Julius Evola y Alain de Benoist”  (publicado 9 Junio 2011)

Contenidos:

Julius Evola, por Alain de Benoist

Posmodernidad y antimodernidad: Alain de Benoist y Julius Evola, por Marcos Ghio

Julius Evola, reaccionario radical y metafísico comprometido. Análisis crítico del pensamiento político de Julius Evola, por Alain de Benoist

Evola y la crítica de la modernidad, por Luisa Bonesio

La recepción internacional de Rebelión contra el mundo moderno, por Giovanni Monastra

Rebelión contra el mundo moderno, por Julius Evola

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 24 – “Europeismo Identitario”  (publicado 25 Mayo 2012)

Contenidos:

Hacia el reencuentro de Europa: Lo que piensa la Nueva Derecha, por Diego L. Sanromán

Europa a la búsqueda de su identidad, por Isidro J. Palacios

La cuestión europea: Bases ideológicas de la Nueva Derecha, por Carlos Pinedo Cestafe

Europa: la memoria del futuro, por Alain de Benoist

Una cierta idea de Europa. El debate sobre la construcción europea, por Rodrigo Agulló

La memoria en herencia: Europa y su destino, por Dominique Venner

Siglo XXI: Europa, un árbol en la tempestad, por Guillaume Faye

La identidad europea, por Enrique Ravello

Europa: no es herencia sino misión futura, por Giorgio Locchi

El proyecto de la Gran Europa, por Alexander Dugin

¿Unión Europea o Gran Espacio?, por J. Molina

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 26 – “Economía Orgánica. Una Alternativa a la Economía de Mercado” (publicado 11 Junio 2012)

Contenidos:

Salir de la Economía, por Rodrigo Agulló

La Economía no es el Destino, por Guillaume Faye

La Economía Orgánica en la Nueva Derecha, por Carlos Pinedo

Adam Müller: la Economía Orgánica como vivienca romántica, por Luis Fernando Torres

Friedrich List: Sistema Nacional de Economía Política, ¿proteccionismo?, por Arturo C. Meyer, Carlos Gómez y Jurgen Schuldt

Crear la Economía Orgánica, por A.L. Arrigoni

El principio de reciprocidad en los cambios, por Alberto Buela

¿Homo oeconomicus o idiota moral?, por Ramón Alcoberro

Por una Economía Mundial de dos velocidades, por Guillaume Faye

La Economía Local contra la Economía Global, por Edward Goldsmith

Dictadura de la economía y sociedad mercantilista, por Stefano Vaj

Crisis económica: aproximación a un modelo económico alternativo, por Juan P. Viñuela

La crítica de la Economía de Mercado de Karl Polanyi, por Arturo Lahera Sánchez

Por la independencia económica europea, por Guillaume Faye

¿Decrecimiento o barbarie?, por Serge Latouche

Decrecimiento: hacia un nuevo paradigma económico, por Luis Picazo Casariego

La Economía del Bien Común: un modelo económico alternativo, por Christian Felber

Charles Champetier: por una subversión de la lógica economicista, por Diego L. Sanromán

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 28 – “Contra el Liberalismo: El Principal Enemigo” (publicado 29 junio 2012)

Contenidos:

El liberalismo, enemigo principal, por Alain de Benoist y Charles Champetier

El liberalismo en las ideas de la “Nueva Derecha”, por Carlos Pinedo Cestafe

Liberalismo, por Francis Parker Yockey

Frente al Peligro de la Hegemonía Liberal, por Marco Tarchi

La esencia del neoliberalismo, por Pierre Bourdieu

El error del liberalismo, por Alain de Benoist

Liberalismo y Democracia: Paradojas y Rompecabezas, por Joseph Margolis

El liberalismo y las identidades, por Eduardo Arroyo

Dinámica histórica del Liberalismo: del mercado total al Estado total, por Tomislav Sunic

Neoliberalismo: la lucha de todos contra todos, por Pierre Bourdieu

La impostura liberal, por Adriano Scianca

Una crítica liberal del liberalismo, por Adrián Fernández Martín

Leo Strauss y su crítica al liberalismo, por Alberto Buela

Charles Taylor: una crítica comunitaria al liberalismo político, por Carlos Donoso Pacheco

El liberalismo norteamericano y sus críticos: Rawls, Taylor, Sandel, Walzer, por Chantal Mouffe

La crítica comunitaria a la moral liberal, por Renato Cristi

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 31 – “Armin Mohler y la “Konservative Revolution” Alemana” (publicado 12 Agosto 2012)

Contenidos:

El movimiento de la Revolución Conservadora, por Robert Steuckers

La herencia del movimiento de la “Revolución Conservadora” en Europa, por Ian B. Warren

La Revolución Conservadora, por Keith Bullivant

La crisis de la democracia en Weimar:Oposición ideológica de la Revolución

Conservadora,por José Ramón Díez Espinosa

La Revolución Conservadora en Alemania, por Marqués de Valdeiglesias

Ideas para Europa: la Revolución Conservadora, por Luca Leonello Rimbotti

Revolución Conservadora y nacionalsocialismo, por Andrea Virga

Evola y la Revolución Conservadora, por Giano Accame

La Konservative Revolution como doctrina de la decadencia de Alemania, por Miguel Ángel Simón

La influencia de Armin Mohler sobre la cosmovision de la Nueva Derecha, por Robert Steuckers

De la «Konservative Revolution» a la «Nouvelle Droite»: ¿apropiación o rehabilitación?, por Sebastian J. Lorenz

La Revolución Conservadora y la cuestión de las minorías nacionales, por Xoxé M. Núzez Seixas

El sinsentido de la Revolución Conservadora Historia de la idea, nacionalismo y habitus, por Henning Eichberg

Índice de los autores de la «Konservative Revolution”, según Armin Mohler

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 32 – “Imperio: Orden Especial y Espiritual” (publicado 11 septiembre 2012)

Contenidos:

La idea de Imperio, por Alain de Benoist

Translatio Imperii: del Imperio a la Unión, por Peter Sloterdijk

¿Hacia un modelo neoimperialista? Gran espacio e Imperio en Carl Schmitt, por Alessandro Campi

¿Europa imperial?, por Rodrigo Agulló

Imperialismo pagano, por Julius Evola

El concepto de Imperio en el Derecho internacional, por Carl Schmitt

Nación e Imperio, por Giorgio Locchi

El Imperium a la luz de la Tradición, por Eduard Alcántara

Imperio sin Imperator, por Celso Sánchez Capdequí

Imperio: Constitución y Autoridad imperial, por Michael Hardt y Antonio Negri

La teoría posmoderna del Imperio, por Alan Rush

El Imperium espiritual de Europa: de Ortega a Sloterdijk, por Sebastian J. Lorenz

 

ELEMENTOS N° 37 – “Federalismo Poliárquico Neoalthusiano” (publicado 28 Noviembre 2012)

Contenidos:

El primer federalista. Johannes Althusius, por Alain de Benoist

Carl Schmitt y el Federalismo, por Luis María Bandieri

Nacionalismo, Democracia y Federalismo, por Ramón Máiz

Europa federal y el principio de subsidiariedad, por Rodrigo Agulló

España, ¿federación o autodeterminación?, por Sebastian J. Lorenz

Plurinacionalidad, Federalismo y Derecho de Autodeterminación, por Jaime Pastor

El federalismo pluralista. Del federalismo nacional al federalismo plurinacional, por Miquel Caminal

Federalismo plurinacional, por Ramón Máiz

Estado federal y Confederación de Estados, por Max Sercq

De la Confederación a la Federación. Reflexiones sobre la finalidad de la integración europea, por Joschka Fischer

Federalismo versus Imperialismo, por Juan Beneyto

Europa. De imperio a federación, por Josep M. Colomer

Entrevistas imaginarias con el Presidente de Europa y el Jefe del Gobierno europeo

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 39 – “Una Crítica Metapolítica de la Democracia: De Carl Schmitt a Alain de Benoist, Vol. I” (publicado 23 Enero 2013)

Contenidos:

Democracia, el problema

Democracia representativa y democracia participativa, por Alain de Benoist

La crítica de la democracia, por Felipe Giménez Pérez

La democracia: Un análisis a partir de los críticos, por Eva Garrell Zulueta

La crítica decisionista de Carl Schmitt a la democracia liberal, por Antonella Attili

Rectificación metapolítica de la democracia, por Primo Siena

La crítica de Nietzsche a la Democracia  en Humano, demasiado humano, por Diego Felipe Paredes

Teoría democrática: Joseph Schumpeter y la síntesis moderna, por Godofredo Vidal de la Rosa

La crisis de la Democracia, por Marcel Gauchet

Democracia morbosa. Variaciones sobre un tema de Ortega, por Ignacio Sánchez Cámara

La democracia capitalista como forma extrema del totalitarismo. Entrevista con Philip Allot, por Irene Hernández Velasco

Sobre Nietzsche contra la democracia, de Nicolás González Varela, por Salvador López Arnal

La Democracia como Nematología. Sobre El fundamentalismo democrático, de Gustavo Bueno, por Íñigo Ongay de Felipe

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 40 – “Antonio Gramsci y el Poder Cultural. Por un Gramscismo de Derecha” (publicado 11 Febrero 2013)

Contenidos:

El gramscismo de derecha, por Marcos Ghio

Antonio Gramsci, marxista independiente, por Alain de Benoist

La estrategia metapolítica de la Nueva Derecha, por Carlos Pinedo

Un gramcismo de derechas. La Nueva derecha y la batalla de las ideas, por Rodrigo Agulló

El Poder Cultural, por Alain de Benoist

Gramsci, la revolución cultural y la estrategia para Occidente, por Ricardo Miguel Flore

El concepto de hegemonia en Gramsci, por Luciano Grupp

Gramsci y la sociología del conocimiento,por Salvador Orlando Alfaro

Antonio Gramsci: orientaciones, por Daniel Campione

Cómo Ganar la Guerra de las Ideas: Lecciones de la Derecha Gramsciana Neoliberal, por Susan George

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 41 – “Una Crítica Metapolítica de la Democracia: De Carl Schmitt a Alain de Benoist, Vol. II” (publicado 18 Febrero 2013)

Contenidos:

Democracia antigua y “Democracia” moderna, por Alain de Benoist

¿Es eterna la democracia liberal? Algunas opiniones al respecto,por Pedro Carlos González Cuevas

La democracia según la Escuela de Frankfurt y Carl Schmitt: ¿Opuestos y complementarios?, por Emmanuel Brugaletta

Carl Schmitt y René Capitant. Parlamentarismo y Democracia, por Xavier Marchand

La democracia federalista, por Sergio Fernández Riquelme

Tres modelos de democracia. Sobre el concepto de una política deliberativa, por Jürgen Habermas

Carl Schmitt y la paradoja de la democracia liberal, por Chantal Mouffe

Elitismo y Democracia: de Pareto a Schumpeter, por Mercedes Carreras

Democracia como sistema, democracia como ideología, por Pelayo García Sierra

Filósofos para una nueva democracia, por Braulio García Jaén

¿Hacia un nueva democracia? Habermas y Schmitt, por Ellen Kennedy

El invierno de la democracia, por Guy Hermet

Los enemigos de la democracia: la dictadura neoliberal, por Eduardo Álvarez Puga

Democracia sin demócratas, de Marcos Roitman, por Josep Pradas

 

ELEMENTOS N° 43 – “La Causa de los Pueblos: Etnicidad e Identidad” (publicado 18 Marzo 2013)

Contenidos:

La causa de los pueblos, por Isidro Juan Palacios

El etnocidio contra los pueblos: Mecánica y consecuencias del neo-colonialismo cultural, por José Javier Esparza

Etnopluralismo: las ideas de la Nueva Derecha, por Carlos Pinedo

El Arraigo por Alain de Benoist

La Europa de las etnias: nuestro único futuro posible, por Olegario de las Eras

La cuestión étnica: Aproximación a los conceptos de grupo étnico, identidad étnica, etnicidad y relaciones interétnicas, por Maria Cristina Bari

Visiones de la etnicidad, por Manuel Ángel Río Ruiz

Sobre la identidad de los pueblos, por Luis Villoro

La etnicidad y sus formas: aproximación a un modelo complejo de la pertenencia étnica, por Eduardo Terrén

El problema del etnocentrismo en el debate antropológico entre Clifford Geertz, Richard Rorty y Lévi-Strauss, por Rafael Aguilera Portales

La negación de la realidad étnica, por Guillaume Faye

Etnicidad y nacionalismo, por Isidoro Moreno Navarro

Etnicidad sin garantías: contribuciones de Stuart Hall, por Eduardo Restrepo

Etnia y etnicidad: dos categorías en construcción, por Carlos Ramiro Bravo Molina

 

ELEMENTOS N° 47 – “Elogio de la Diferencia. Diferencialismo versus Racismo” (publicado 28 Mayo 2013)

Contenidos:

Identidad y diferencia, por Alain de Benoist

Sobre racismo y antirracismo. Entrevista a Alain de Benoist, por Peter Krause

Diferencialismo contra racismo. Sobre los orígenes modernos del racismo, por Gilbert Destrées

El racismo. Génesis y desarrollo de una ideología de la Modernidad, por Carlos Caballero Jurado

Hacia un concepto convencional de raza, por Sebastian J. Lorenz

Nihilismo Racial, por Richard McCulloch

El antirracismo como religión de Estado, por Guillaume Faye

Un asunto tenebroso: el problema del racismo en la Nueva Derecha, por Diego Luis Sanromán

El racismo como ideología política. El discurso anti-inmigración de la Nueva Derecha, por José Luis Solana Ruiz

Sobre viejos y nuevos racismos. Las ideas de la Nueva Derecha, por Rodrigo Agulló

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 54 – “La Falsa Ideología de los Derechos Humanos” (publicado 30 Agosto 2013)

Contenidos:

Más allá de los Derechos Humanos. Defender las Libertades, por Alain de Benoist

Reflexiones en torno a los Derechos Humanos, por Charles Champetier

El Derecho de los Hombres, por Guillaume Faye

Derechos Humanos: una ideología para la mundialización, por Rodrigo Agulló

En torno a la Doctrina de los Derechos Humanos, por Erwin Robertson

¿Derechos del hombre?, por Adriano Scianca

¿Son universales los Derechos Humanos?, por François Julien

Los Derechos Humanos  como derechos de propiedad, por Murray Rothbard

La religión de los Derechos Humanos, por Guillaume Faye

Derechos comunes y Derechos personales en Ortega y Gasset, por Alejandro de Haro Honrubia

Derechos Humanos: disyuntiva de nuestro tiempo, por Alberto Buela

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 61 – “La Condición Femenina. ¿Feminismo o Feminidad?” (publicado 28 Noviembre 2013)

Contenidos:

Visión ontológico-teológica de lo masculino y lo femenino, por Leonardo Boff

El ser oculto de la cultura femenina en la obra de Georg Simmel, por Josetxo Beriain

El feminismo de la diferencia, por Marta Colorado López, Liliana Arango Palacio, Sofía Fernández Fuente

La condición femenina, por Alain de Benoist

La mujer objeto de la dominación masculina, por Pierre Bourdieu

Feminidad versus Feminismo, por Cesáreo Marítimo

Afirmando las diferencias. El feminismo de Nietzsche, por Elvira Burgos Díaz

La mujer como madre y la mujer como amante, por Julius Evola

El “recelo feminista” a proposito del ensayo La dominacion masculina de

Pierre Bourdieu, por Yuliuva Hernández García

Friedrich Nietzsche y Sigmund Freud: una subversión feminista, por Eva Parrondo Coppel

Hombres y mujeres. Un análisis desde la teoría de la polaridad, por Raúl Martínez Ibars

Identidad femenina y humanización del mundo, por Rodrigo Guerra
Simmel y la cultura femenina, por Raquel Osborne

La nueva feminidad, Entrevista a Annalinde Nightwind

El hombre no es un enemigo a batir, Entrevista con Elisabeth Badinter

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 64 – “El Eterno Retorno de Mircea Eliade”  (publicado 20 Marzo 2014)

Contenidos:

Bibliografía comentada de Mircea Eliade, por José Antonio Hernández García

Antropología y religión en el pensamiento de Mircea Eliade, por Pedro Gómez García

Mircea Eliade y el ideal del hombre universal, por Ioan Petru Culianu

Mircea Eliade y la Revolución Conservadora en Rumanía, por Claudio Mutti

Paisaje espiritual de Mircea Eliade, por Sergio Fritz Roa

Ingenieros de almas. Cioran, Elíade y la Guardia de Hierro, por Luis de León Barga

La experiencia de lo sagrado según Mircea Eliade, por François Chirpaz

Muerte y religión en Mircea Eliade, por Margarita Ossorio Menéndez

El paradigma del mito-ontológico de Mircea Eliade y su significación metodológica, por Nataly Nikonovich

Eliade y la antropología, por José Antonio González Alcantud

Mircea Eliade: hombre histórico, hombre mítico, por Hugo Basile

Mircea Eliade: un parsifal extraviado, por Enrico Montarani

Las huellas de la ideología en el pensamiento antropológico. El caso de

Mircea Eliade, por Pedro Jesús Pérez Zafrilla

Mircea Eliade, el novelista, por Constantin Sorin Catrinescu

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 70 – “Alexander Dugin y la Cuarta Teoría Política: La Nueva Derecha Rusa Eurasiática” (publicado 29 Mayo 2014)

Contenidos:

Alexander Dugin: la Nueva Derecha rusa, entre el Neo-Eurasianismo y la Cuarta Teoría Política, por Jesús J. Sebastián

Más allá del liberalismo: hacia la Cuarta Teoría Política, por Alexander Dugin

Necesidad de la Cuarta Teoría Política, por Leonid Savin

La Cuarta Teoría Política y la “Otra Europa”, por Natella Speranskaya

El Liberalismo y la Guerra Rusia-Occidente, por Alexander Dugin

Alexander Dugin, o cuando la metafísica y la política se unen, por Sergio Fritz

La Cuarta Teoría Política, entrevista a Natella Speranskaya, por Claudio Mutti

El quinto estado: una réplica a Alexander Dugin, por Marcos Ghio

La Tercera Teoría Política. Una crítica a la Cuarta Teoría Política, por Michael O’Meara

La gran guerra de los continentes. Geopolítica y fuerzas ocultas de la historia, por Alexander Dugin

La globalización para bien de los pueblos. Perspectivas de la nueva teoría política, por Leonid Savin

Alianza Global Revolucionaria, entrevista a Natella Speranskaya

Contribución a la teoría actual de la protesta radical, por Geidar Dzhemal

El proyecto de la Gran Europa. Un esbozo geopolítico para un futuro mundo multipolar, por Alexander Dugin

Rusia, clave de bóveda del sistema multipolar, por Tiberio Graziani

La dinámica ideológica en Rusia y los cambios del curso de su política exterior, por Alexander Dugin

Un Estado étnico para Rusia. El fracaso del proyecto multicultural, por Vladimir Putin

Reportaje sobre Dugin (revista alemana Zuerst!), por Manuel Ochsenreiter

Dugin: de la Unión Nacional-Bolchevique al Partido Euroasiático, por Xavier Casals Meseguer

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 79 – “Contra Occidente: Salir del Sistema Occidental” (publicado 29 Agosto 2014)

Contenidos:

Occidente debe ser olvidado, por Alain de Benoist

Occidente como decadencia, por Carlos Pinedo

¿Existe todavía el mundo occidental?, por Immanuel Wallerstein

¿Qué es Occidente?, por Juan Pablo Vitali

Romper con la civilización occidental, por Guillaume Faye

Sobre Nietzsche y el masoquismo occidental, por Carlos Javier Blanco Martín

Hispanoamérica contra Occidente, por Alberto Buela

El paradigma occidental, por H.C.F. Mansilla

El decadentismo occidental, por Jesús J. Sebastián

Critica del sistema occidental, por Guillaume Faye

¿El ascenso de Occidente?, por Immanuel Wallerstein

René Guénon, ¿profeta del fin de Occidente?, por Antonio Martínez

Más allá de Oriente y Occidente, por María Teresa Román López

Civilización y hegemonía de Occidente, por Jaime Parra

Apogeo y decadencia de Occidente, por Mario Vargas Llosa
Europa vs. Occidente, por Claudi Finzi

Occidente contra Occidente. Brecha intelectual francesa, por José Andrés Fernández Leost

Civilización e Ideología occidentales, por Guillaume Faye

Occidente como destino. Una lectura weberiana, por Jacobo Muñoz

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 82 – “El Debate sobre el Paganismo de la Nueva Derecha (Vol. 1)” (publicado 11 Octubre 2014)

Contenidos:

¿Cómo se puede ser pagano? (I), por Alain de Benoist

La cuestión religiosa y la Nueva Derecha, por José Javier Esparza

¿Qué aliento sagrado puede salvarnos? Carta abierta a José Javier Esparza, por Javier Ruiz Portella

La tentación pagana, por Thomas Molnar

Paganismo, la nueva religión europea, por Guillaume Faye

¿Qué religión para Europa? La polémica del neopaganismo, por Rodrigo Agulló

La Derecha pagana, por Tomislav Sunic

Monoteísmo versus Politeísmo, por Alain de Benoist

El paganismo: religión de la vida terrenal, por José Vicente Pascual

La religión en las sociedades occidentales, por Alain de Benoist

El paganismo de Hamsun y Lawrence, por Robert Steuckers

El eclipse de lo sagrado, ¿o el sagrado eclipse?, por Paul Gottfried

La reacción contra la modernidad y la secularización del cristianismo, por Adolfo Galeano Ofm

El Paganismo como concepción del Mundo, por Ramón Bau

Contra Dawkins: qué esconden sus preferencias por el politeísmo, por Javier del Arco

Politeísmo versus monoteísmo: el desarrollo de la crítica a la religión cristiana en la obra de Friedrich Nietzsche, por Herbert Fre

El origen de la Navidad. Las raíces paganas de una fiesta cristiana, por Alfredo Martorell

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 83 – “El Debate sobre el Paganismo de la Nueva Derecha (Vol. 2)” (publicado 11 Octubre 2014)

Contenidos:

¿Cómo se puede ser pagano? (II), por Alain de Benoist

Lo sagrado en la cultura europea, por Carlos Martínez-Cava

Marx, Moisés y los Paganos en la Ciudad Secular, por Tomislav Sunic

Dioses y titanes: entrevista con Guillaume Faye sobre el paganismo, por Christopher Gérard

¿Es preciso ser cristiano? La Derecha tradicional, por José Javier Esparza

La religión de Europa, por Alain de Benoist

¿Qué religión para Europa?, por Diego L. Sanromán

Entre el paganismo y la derecha radical, por Stéphane François

Europa: pagana y cristiana, por Juan Pablo Vitali

Humanismo profano y neopaganismo moderno, por Arnaud Imatz

Del politeísmo al monoteísmo: los riesgos de los fundamentalismos, por Juan Antonio Estrada

El Frente Nacional de Marine Le Pen y la derecha pagana, por Fernando José Vaquero Oroquieta

La cuestión del paganismo. Entrevista a Alain de Benoist, por Charles Champetier

Paganismo y nihilismo, por Daniel Aragón Ortiz

El neopaganismo pessoano, por Antonio López Martín

El nuevo paganismo ¿triunfo del ilusionismo?, por José Miguel Odero

Paganismo y Cristianismo, por Eduard Alcántara

 

ELEMENTOS Nº 84 – Julien Freund: Lo Político en Esencia (publicado 31 Octubre 2014)

Contenidos:

Julien Freund: una introducción, por Juan Carlos Corbetta

Julien Freund, un politique para nuestro tiempo, por Jerónimo Molina

Julien Freund y la impolítica, por Alain de Benoist

Evocación de Julien Freund, por Günter Maschke

Julien Freund, por Dalmacio Negro Pavón

Conflicto, política y polemología en el pensamiento de Julien Freund, por Jerónimo Molina

Julien Freund, analista político: contextos y perspectivas de interpretación, por Juan C. Valderrama Abenza

Lo público y la libertad en el pensamiento de Julien Freund, por Cristián Rojas González

El realismo político. A propósito de La esencia de lo político, de Julien Freund, por Felipe Giménez Pérez

Julien Freund. Del Realismo Político al Maquiavelismo, por Jerónimo Molina

Situación polémica y terceros en Schmitt y Freund, por Jorge Giraldo Ramírez

Orden y situación política en Julien Freund, por Juan C. Valderrama Abenza

Las nociones de mando y obediencia en la teoría política de Julien Freund, por Jerónimo Molina

Julien  Freund: la paz como medio de la política, por José Romero Serrano

Julien Freund: entre liberalismo y conservadurismo, por Sébastien de la Touanne

 

Otros Ensayos:

“Alain de Benoist y su crítica del capitalismo” por Carlos Javier Blanco Martín

“La Nueva Derecha Criolla” por Francisco Albanese

 

Sacred & Profane – Eliade

Key Excerpts from The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion by Mircea Eliade

 

The extraordinary interest aroused all over the world by Rudolf Otto’s Das Heilige (The Sacred), published in 1917, still persists. Its success was certainly due to the author’s new and original point of view. Instead of studying the ideas of God and religion, Otto undertook to analyze the modalities of the religious experience. Gifted with great psychological subtlety, and thoroughly prepared by his twofold training as theologian and historian of religions, he succeeded in determining the content and specific characteristics of religious experience. Passing over the rational and speculative side of religion, he concentrated chiefly on its irrational aspect. For Otto had read Luther and had understood what the “living God” meant to a believer. It was not the God of the philosophers – of Erasmus, for example; it was not an idea, an abstract notion, a mere moral allegory. It was a terrible power, manifested in the divine wrath.

In Das Heilige Otto sets himself to discover the characteristics of this frightening and irrational experience. He finds the feeling of terror before the sacred, before the awe-inspiring mystery (mysterium tremendum), the majesty (majestas) that emanates an overwhelming superiority of power; he finds religious fear before the fascinating mystery (mysterium fascinans) in which perfect fullness of being flowers. Otto characterizes all these experiences as numinous (from Latin numen, god), for they are induced by the revelation of an aspect of divine power. The numinous presents itself as something wholly other” (ganz andere), something basically and totally different. It is like nothing human or cosmic; confronted with it, man senses his profound nothingness, feels that he is only a creature, or, in the words in which Abraham addressed the Lord, is “but dust and ashes” (Genesis, 18, 27).

The sacred always manifests itself as a reality of a wholly different order from “natural” realities. It is true that language naively expresses the tremendum, or the majestas, or the mysterium fascinans by terms borrowed from the world of nature or from man’s secular mental life. But we know that this analogical terminology is due precisely to human inability to express the ganz andere; all that goes beyond man’s natural experience, language is reduced to suggesting by terms taken from that experience.

After forty years, Otto’s analyses have not lost their value; readers of this book will profit by reading and reflecting on them. But in the following pages we adopt a different perspective. We propose to present the phenomenon of the sacred in all its complexity, and not only in so far as it is irrational. What will concern us is not the relation between the rational and nonrational elements of religion but the sacred in its entirety. The first possible definition of the sacred is that it is the opposite of the profane. The aim of the following pages is to illustrate and define this opposition between sacred and profane.

When the Sacred Manifests Itself

Man becomes aware of the sacred because it itself, shows itself, as something wholly different

from the profane. To designate the act of manifestation of the sacred, we have proposed the term hierophany. It is a fitting term, because it does not imply further; it expresses no more than is implicit in its etymological content, i.e., that something sacred shows itself to us. [Note: Cf. Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, New York, Sheed & Ward, 1958, pp. 7 ff. Cited hereafter as Patterns.] It could be said that the history of religions – from the most primitive to the most highly developed – is constituted by a great number of hierophanies, by manifestations of sacred realities. From the most elementary hierophany – e.g., manifestation of the sacred in some ordinary object, a stone or a tree-to the supreme hierophany (which, for a Christian, is the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ) there is no solution of continuity. In each case we are confronted by the same mysterious act-the manifestation of something of a wholly different order, a reality that does not belong to our world, in objects that are an integral part of our natural “profane” world.

The modern Occidental experiences a certain uneasiness before many manifestations of the sacred. He finds it difficult to accept the fact that, for many human beings, the sacred can be manifested in stones or trees, for example. But as we shall soon see, what is involved is not a veneration of the stone in itself, a cult of the tree in itself. The sacred tree, the sacred stone are not adored as stone or tree; they are worshiped precisely because they are hierophanies, because they show something that is no longer stone or tree but the sacred, the ganz andere.

It is impossible to overemphasize the paradox represented by every hierophany, even the most elementary. By manifesting the sacred, any object becomes something else, yet it continues to remain itself, for it continues to participate in its surrounding cosmic milieu. A sacred stone remains a stone; apparently (or, more precisely, from the profane point of view), nothing distinguishes it from all other stones. But for those to whom a stone reveals itself as sacred, its immediate reality is transmuted into a supernatural reality. In other words, for those who have a religious experience all nature is capable of revealing itself as cosmic sacrality. The, cosmos in its entirety can become a hierophany.

The man of the archaic societies tends to live as much as possible in the sacred or in close proximity to consecrated objects. The tendency is perfectly understandable, because, for primitives as for the man of all pre-modern societies, the sacred is equivalent to a power, and, in the last analysis, to reality. The sacred is saturated with being. Sacred power means reality and at the same time enduringness and efficacity. The polarity sacred profane is often expressed as an opposition between real and unreal or pseudoreal. (Naturally, we must not expect to find the archaic languages in possession of this philosophical terminology, real-unreal, etc.; but we find the thing). Thus it is easy to understand that religious man deeply desires to be, to participate in reality, to be saturated with power.

Two Modes of Being in the World

The reader will very soon realize that sacred and profane are two modes of being in the world, two existential situations assumed by man in the course of his history. These modes of being in the world are not of concern only to the history of religions or to sociology; they are not the object only of historical, sociological, or ethnological study. In the last analysis, the sacred and profane modes of being depend upon the different positions that man has conquered in the cosmos; hence they are of concern both to the philosopher and to anyone seeking to discover the possible dimensions of human existence.

It is for this reason that, though he is a historian of religions, the author of this book proposes not to confine himself only to the perspective of his particular science. The man of the traditional societies is admittedly a homo religiosus, but his behavior forms part of the general behavior of mankind and hence is of concern to philosophical anthropology, to phenomenology, to psychology….

The Sacred and History

Our primary concern is to present the specific dimensions of religious experience, to bring out the differences between it and profane experience of the world. I shall not dwell on the variations that religious experience of the world has undergone in the course of time. It is obvious, for example, that the symbolisms and cults of Mother Earth, of human and agricultural fertility, of the sacrality of woman, and the like, could not develop and constitute a complex religious system except through the discovery of agriculture; it is equally obvious that a preagricultural society, devoted to hunting, could not feel the sacrality of Mother Earth in the same way or with the same intensity. Hence there are differences in religious experience explained by differences in economy, culture, and social organization-in short, by history. Nevertheless, between the nomadic hunters and the sedentary cultivators there is a similarity in behavior that seems to us infinitely more important than their differences: both live in a sacralized cosmos, both share in a cosmic sacrality manifested equally in the animal world and in the vegetable world. We need only compare their existential situations with that of a man of the modern societies, living in a desacralized cosmos, and we shall immediately be aware of all that separates him from them. At the same time we realize the validity of comparisons between religious facts pertaining to different cultures; all these facts arise from a single type of behavior, that of homo religiosus….

Homogeneity of Space and Hierophany

For religious man, space is not homogeneous; he experiences interruptions, breaks in it; some parts of’ space are qualitatively different from others. “Draw not nigh hither,” says the Lord to Moses; “put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground” (Exodus, 3, 5). There is, then, a sacred space, and hence a strong, significant space; there are other spaces that are not sacred and so are without structure or consistency, amorphous. Nor is this all. For religious man, this spatial nonhomogeneity finds expression in the experience of an opposition between space’ that is sacred-the only real and real-ly existing space and all other space, the formless expanse surrounding it.

It must be said at once that the religious experience of the nonhomogeneity of space is a primordial experience, homologizable to a founding of the world. It is not a matter of theoretical speculation, but of a primary religious experience that precedes all reflection on the world. For it is the break effected in space that allows the world to be constituted, because it reveals the fixed point, the central axis for all future orientation. When the sacred manifests itself in any hierophany, there is not only a break in the homogeneity of space; there is also revelation of an absolute reality, opposed to the nonreality of the vast surrounding expanse. The manifestation of the sacred ontologically founds the world. In the homogeneous and infinite expanse, in which no point of reference is possible and hence no orientation can be established, the hierophany reveals an absolute fixed point, a center.

So it is clear to what a degree the discovery-that is, the revelation – of a sacred space possesses existential value for religious man; for nothing can begin, nothing can be done, without a previous orientation-and any orientation implies acquiring a fixed point. It is for this reason that religious man has always sought to fix his abode at the “center of the world.” If the world is to be lived in, it must be founded – and no world can come to birth in the chaos of the homogeneity and relativity of profane space. The discovery or projection of a fixed point – the center – is equivalent to the creation of the world; and we shall soon give some examples that will unmistakably show the cosmogonic value of the ritual orientation and construction of sacred space.

For profane experience, on the contrary, space is homogeneous and neutral; no break qualitatively differentiates the various parts of its mass. Geometrical space can be cut and delimited in any direction; but no qualitative differentiation and, hence, no orientation are given by virtue of its inherent structure. We need only remember how a classical geometrician defines space. Naturally, we must not confuse the concept of homogeneous and neutral geometrical space with the experience of profane space, which is in direct contrast to the experience of sacred space and which alone concerns our investigation. The concept of homogeneous space and the history of the concept (for it has been part of the common stock of philosophical and scientific thought since antiquity) are a wholly different problem, up which we shall not enter here. What matters for our purpose is the experience of space known to nonreligious man, that is, to a man who rejects the sacrality of the world, who accepts only a profane existence, divested of all religious presuppositions.

It must be added at once that such a profane existence is never found in the pure state. To whatever degree he may have desacralized the world, the man who has made his choice in favor of profane life never succeeds in completely doing away with religious behavior. This will become clearer as we proceed; it will appear that even the most desacralized existence still preserves traces of a religious valorization of the world.

But for the moment we will set aside this aspect of the problem and confine ourselves to comparing the two experiences in question-that of sacred space and that of profane space. The implications of the former experience have already been pointed out. Revelation of a sacred space makes it possible to obtain a fixed point and hence to acquire orientation in the chaos of homogeneity, to “found the world” and to live in a real sense. The profane experience, on the contrary, maintains the homogeneity and hence the relativity of space. No true orientation is now possible, for the fixed point no longer enjoys a unique ontological status; it appears and disappears in accordance with the needs of the day. Properly speaking, there is no longer any world, there are only fragments of a shattered universe, an amorphous mass consisting of an infinite number of more or less neutral places in which man moves, governed and driven by the obligations of an existence incorporated into an industrial society.

Yet this experience of profane space still includes values that to some extent recall the nonhomogeneity peculiar to the religious experience of space. There are, for example, privileged places, qualitatively different from all others-a man’s birthplace, or the scenes of his first love, or certain places in the first foreign city he visited in youth. Even for the most frankly nonreligious man, all these places still retain an exceptional, a unique quality; they are the “holy places” of his private universe, as if it were in such spots that he had received the revelation of a reality other than that in which he participates through his ordinary daily life….

Theophanies and Signs

To exemplify the nonhomogeneity of space as experienced by nonreligious man, we may turn to any religion. We will choose an example that is accessible to everyone a church in a modern city. For a believer, the church shares in a different space from the street in which it stands. The door that opens on the interior of the church actually signifies a solution of continuity. The threshold that separates the two spaces also indicates the distance between two modes of being, the profane and the religious. The threshold is the limit, the boundary, the frontier that distinguishes and opposes two worlds-and at the same time the paradoxical place where those worlds communicate, where passage from the profane to the sacred world becomes possible.

A similar ritual function falls to the threshold of the human habitation, and it is for this reason that the threshold is an object of great importance. Numerous rites accompany passing the domestic threshold-a bow, a prostration, a pious touch of the hand, and so on. The threshold has its guardians-gods and spirits who forbid entrance both to human enemies and to demons and the powers of pestilence. It is on the threshold that sacrifices to the guardian divinities are offered. Here too certain palaeo-oriental cultures (Babylon, Egypt, Israel) situated the judgment place. The threshold, the door show the solution of continuity in space immediately and concretely; hence their great religious importance, for they are symbols and at the same time vehicles of passage from the one space to the other.

What has been said will make it clear why the church shares in an entirely different space from the buildings that surround it. Within the sacred precincts the profane world is transcended. On the most archaic levels of culture this possibility of transcendence is expressed by various images of an opening; here, in the sacred enclosure, communication with the gods is made possible; hence there must be a door to the world above, by which the gods can descend to earth and man can symbolically ascend to heaven. We shall soon see that this was the case in many religions; properly speaking, the temple constitutes an opening in the upward direction and ensures communication with the world of the gods.

Every sacred space implies a hierophany, an irruption of the sacred that results in detaching a territory from the surrounding cosmic milieu and making it qualitatively different….

Often there is no need for a theophany or hierophany properly speaking; some sign suffices to indicate the sacredness of a place. “According to the legend, the marabout who founded El-Hamel at the end of the sixteenth century stopped to spend the night near a spring and planted his stick in the ground. The next morning, when he went for it to resume his journey, he found that it had taken root and that buds had sprouted on it. He considered this a sign of God’s will and settled in that place.”[Note: René Basset, in Revue des Traditions Populaires, XXII, 1907, p. 287.] In such cases the sign, fraught with religious meaning, introduces an absolute element and puts an end to relativity and confusion. Something that does not belong to this world has manifested itself apodictically and in so doing has indicated an orientation or determined a course of conduct.

When no sign manifests itself, it is provoked. For example, a sort of evocation is performed with the help of animals; it is they who show what place is fit to receive the sanctuary or the village. This amounts to an evocation of sacred forms or figures for the immediate Purpose of establishing an orientation in the homogeneity of space. A sign is asked, to put an end to the tension and anxiety caused by relativity and disorientation. In short, to reveal an absolute point of support. For example, a wild animal is hunted, and the sanctuary is built at the place where it is killed. Or a domestic animal-such as a bull-is turned loose; some days later it is searched for and sacrificed at the place where it is found. Later the altar will be raised there and the village will be built around the altar. In all these cases, the sacrality of a place is revealed by animals. This is as much as to say that men are not free to choose the sacred site, that they only seek for it and find it by the help of mysterious signs.

These few examples have shown the different means by which religious man receives the revelation of a sacred place. In each case the hierophany has annulled the homogeneity of space and revealed a fixed point. But since religious man cannot live except in an atmosphere impregnated with the sacred, we must expect to find a large number of techniques for consecrating space. As we saw, the sacred is pre-eminently the real, at once power, efficacity, the source of life and fecundity. Religious man’s desire to live in the sacred is in fact equivalent to his desire to take up his abode in objective reality, not to let himself be paralyzed by the never-ceasing relativity of purely subjective experiences, to live in a real and effective world, and not in an illusion. This behavior is documented on every plane of religious man’s existence, but it is particularly evident in his desire to move about only in a sanctified world, that is, in a sacred space. This is the reason for the elaboration of techniques of orientation which, properly speaking, are techniques for the construction of sacred space. But we must not suppose that human work is in question here, that it is through his own efforts that man can consecrate a space. In reality the ritual by which he constructs a sacred space is efficacious in the measure in which it reproduces the work of the gods. But the better to understand the need for ritual construction of a sacred space, we must dwell a little on the traditional concept of the “world”; it will then be apparent that for religious man every world is a sacred world.

Chaos and Cosmos

One of the outstanding characteristics of traditional societies is the opposition that they assume between their inhabited territory and the unknown and indeterminate space that surrounds it. The former is the world (more precisely, our world), the cosmos; everything outside it is no longer a cosmos but a sort of “other world,” a foreign, chaotic space, peopled by ghosts, demons, “foreigners” (who are assimilated to demons and the souls of the dead). At first sight this cleavage in space appears to be due to the opposition between an inhabited and organized – hence cosmicized – territory and the unknown space that extends beyond its frontiers; on one side there is a cosmos, on the other a chaos. But we shall see that if every inhabited territory is a cosmos, this is precisely because it was first consecrated, because, in one way or another, it is the work of the gods or is in communication with the world of the gods. The world (that is, our world) is a universe within which the sacred has already manifested itself, in which, consequently, the break-through from plane to plane has become possible and repeatable. It is not difficult to see why the religious moment implies the cosmogonic moment. The sacred reveals absolute reality and at the same time makes orientation possible; hence it founds the world in the sense that it fixes the limits and establishes the order of the world….

An unknown, foreign, and unoccupied territory (which often means, “unoccupied by our people”) still shares in the fluid and larval modality of chaos. By occupying it and, above all, by settling in it, man symbolically transforms it into a cosmos through a ritual repetition of the cosmogony. What is to become “our world” must first be “created,” and every creation has a paradigmatic model – the creation of the universe by the gods. When the Scandinavian colonists took possession of Iceland (land-náma) and cleared it, they regarded the enterprise neither as an original undertaking nor as human and profane work. For them, their labor was only repetition of a primordial act, the transformation of chaos into cosmos by the divine act of creation. When they tilled the desert soil, they were in fact repeating the act of the gods who had organized chaos by giving it a structure, forms, and norms.[Note: Cf. Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return, New York, Pantheon Books, Bollingen Series XLVI, 1954, pp. 11 ff. Cited hereafter as Myth.]

Whether it is a case of clearing uncultivated ground or of conquering and occupying a territory already inhabited by “other” human beings, ritual taking possession must always repeat the cosmogony. For in the view of archaic societies everything that is not “our world” is not yet a world. A territory can be made ours only by creating it anew, that is, by consecrating it….

Consecration of a Place = Repetition of the Cosmogony

It must be understood that the cosmicization of unknown territories is always a consecration; to organize a space is to repeat the paradigmatic work of the gods….

Life is not possible without an opening toward the transcendent; in other words, human beings cannot live in chaos. Once contact with the transcendent is lost, existence in the world ceases to be possible….

To settle in a territory is, in the last analysis, equivalent to consecrating it. When settlement is not temporary, as among the nomads, but permanent, as among sedentary peoples, it implies a vital decision that involves the existence of the entire community. Establishment in a particular place, organizing it, inhabiting it, are acts that presuppose an existential choice – the choice of the universe that one is prepared to assume by “creating” it. Now, this universe is always the replica of the paradigmatic universe created and inhabited by the gods; hence it shares in the sanctity of the gods’ work….

The Center of the World

The cry of the Kwakiutl neophyte, “I am at the Center of the World!” at once reveals one of the deepest meanings of sacred space. Where the break-through from plane to plane has been effected by a hierophany, there too an opening has been made, either upward (the divine world) or downward (the underworld, the world of the dead). The three cosmic levels – earth, heaven, underworld – have been put in communication. As we just saw, this communication is sometimes expressed through the image of a universal pillar, axis mundi, which at once connects and supports heaven and earth and whose base is fixed in the world below (the infernal regions). Such a cosmic pillar can be only at the very center of the universe, for the whole of the habitable world extends around it. Here, then, we have a sequence of religious conceptions and cosmological images that are inseparably connected and form a system that may be called the “system of the world” prevalent in traditional societies: (a) a sacred place constitutes a break in the homogeneity of space; (b) this break is symbolized by an opening by which passage from one cosmic region to another is made possible (from heaven to earth and vice versa; from earth to the underworld) ; (c) communication with heaven is expressed by one or another of certain images, all of which refer to the axis mundi: pillar (cf. the universalis columna) , ladder (cf. Jacob’s ladder), mountain, tree, vine, etc. ; (d) around this cosmic axis lies the world (= our world), hence the axis is located “in the middle,” at the “navel of the earth”; it is the Center of the World….

We shall begin with an example that has the advantage of immediately showing not only the consistency but also the complexity of this type of symbolism – the cosmic mountain….

According to Islamic tradition, the highest place on earth is the ka’aba, because “the Pole Star bears witness that it faces the center of Heaven.”‘ For Christians, it is Golgotha that is on the summit of the cosmic mountain. All these beliefs express the same feeling, which is profoundly religious: “our world is holy ground because it is the place nearest to heaven, because from here, from our abode, it is possible to reach heaven; hence our world is a high place. In cosmological terms, this religious conception is expressed by the projection of the favored territory which is “ours” onto the summit of the cosmic mountain….

This same symbolism of the center explains other series of cosmological images and religious beliefs. Among these the most important are: (a) holy sites and sanctuaries are believed to be situated at the center of the world; (b) temples are replicas of the cosmic mountain and hence constitute the pre-eminent “link” between earth and heaven; (c) the foundations of temples descend deep into the lower regions….

“Our World” is Always Situated at the Center

From all that has been said, it follows that the true world is always in the middle, at the Center, for it is here that there is a break in plane and hence communication among the three cosmic zones. Whatever the extent of the territory involved, the cosmos that it represents is always perfect. An entire country (e.g., Palestine), a city (Jerusalem), a sanctuary (the Temple in Jerusalem), all equally well present an imago mundi. Treating of the symbolism of the Temple, Flavius Josephus wrote that the court represented the sea (i.e., the lower regions), the Holy Place represented earth, and the Holy of Holies heaven (Ant. Jud., 111, 7, 7). It is clear, then, that both the imago mundi and the Center are repeated in the inhabited world. Palestine, Jerusalem, and the Temple severally and concurrently represent the image of the universe and the Center of the World. This multiplicity of centers and this reiteration of the image of the world on smaller and smaller scales constitute one of the specific characteristics of traditional societies.

To us, it seems an inescapable conclusion that the religious man sought to live as near as possible to the Center of the World. He knew that his country lay at the midpoint of the earth; he knew too that his city constituted the navel of the universe, and, above all, that the temple or the palace were veritably Centers of the World. But he also wanted his own house to be at the Center and to be an imago mundi….

In short, whatever the dimensions of the space with which he is familiar and in which he regards himself as situated – his country, his city, his village, his house – religious man feels the need always to exist in a total and organized world, in a cosmos.

A universe comes to birth from its center; it spreads out from a central point that is, as it were, its navel. It is in this way that, according to the Rig Veda (X, 149), the universe was born and developed – from a core, a central point….

1t follows that every construction or fabrication has the cosmogony as paradigmatic model. The creation of the world becomes the archetype of every creative human gesture, whatever its plane of reference may be….

City-Cosmos

Since “our world” is a cosmos, any attack from without threatens to turn it into chaos. And as “our world” was founded by imitating the paradigmatic work of the gods, the cosmogony, so the enemies who attack it are assimilated to the enemies of the gods, the demons, and especially to the archdemon, the primordial dragon conquered by the gods at the beginning of time. An attack on “our world” is equivalent to an act of revenge by the mythical dragon, who rebels against the work of the gods, the cosmos, and struggles to annihilate it. “Our” enemies belong to the powers of chaos. Any destruction of a city is equivalent to a retrogression to chaos. Any victory over the attackers reiterates the paradigmatic victory of the gods over the dragon (that is, over chaos)….

Some Conclusions

….There is no need to dwell on the truism that, since the religious life of humanity is realized in history, its expressions are inevitably conditioned by the variety of historical moments and cultural styles. But for our purpose it is not the infinite variety of the religious experiences of space that concerns us but, on the contrary, their elements of unity. Pointing out the contrast between the behavior of nonreligious man with respect to the space in which he lives and the behavior of religious man in respect to sacred space is enough to make the difference in structure between the two attitudes clearly apparent.

If we should attempt to summarize the result of the descriptions that have been presented in this chapter, we could say that the experience of sacred space makes possible the “founding of the world”: where the sacred manifests itself in space, the real unveils itself, the world comes into existence. But the irruption of the sacred does not only project a fixed point into the formless fluidity of profane space, a center into chaos; it also effects a break in plane, that is, it opens communication between the cosmic planes (between earth and heaven) and makes possible ontological passage from one mode of being to another. It is such a break in the heterogeneity of profane space that creates the center through which communication with the transmundane is established, that, consequently, founds the world, for the center renders orientation possible. Hence the manifestation of the sacred in space has a cosmological valence; every spatial hierophany or consecration of a space is equivalent to a cosmogony. The first conclusion we might draw would be: the world becomes apprehensible as world, as cosmos, in the measure in which it reveals itself as a sacred world.

Every world is the work of the gods, for it was either created directly by the gods or was consecrated, hence cosmicized, by men ritually reactualizing the paradigmatic act of Creation. This is as much as to say that religious man can live only in a sacred world, because it is only in such a world that he participates in being, that he has a real existence. This religious need expresses an unquenchable ontological thirst. Religious man thirsts for being. His terror of the chaos that surrounds his inhabited world corresponds to his terror of nothingness. The unknown space that extends beyond his world – an uncosmicized because unconsecrated space, a mere amorphous extent into which no orientation has yet been projected, and hence in which no structure has yet arisen – for religious man, this profane space represents absolute nonbeing. If, by some evil chance, he strays into it, he feels emptied of his ontic substance, as if he were dissolving in Chaos, and he finally dies.

This ontological thirst is manifested in many ways. ‘In the realm of sacred space which we are now considering, its most striking manifestation is religious man’s will to take his stand at the very heart of the real, at the Center of the World – that is, exactly where the cosmos came into existence and began to spread out toward the four horizons, and where, too, there is the possibility of communication with the gods; in short, precisely where he is closest to the gods. We have seen that the symbolism of the center is the formative principle not only of countries, cities, temples, and palaces but also of the humblest human dwelling, be it the tent of a nomad hunter, the shepherd’s yurt, or the house of the sedentary cultivator. This is as much as to say that every religious man places himself at the Center of the World and by the same token at the very source of absolute reality, as close as possible to the opening that ensures him communication with the gods.

But since to settle somewhere, to inhabit a space, is equivalent to repeating the cosmogony and hence to imitating the work of the gods, it follows that, for religious man, every existential decision to situate himself in space in fact constitutes a religious decision. By assuming the responsibility of creating the world that he has chosen to inhabit, he not only cosmicizes chaos but also sanctifies his little cosmos by making it like the world of the gods. Religious man’s profound nostalgia is to inhabit a “divine world,” is his desire that his house shall be like the house of the gods, as it was later represented in temples and sanctuaries. In short, this religious nostalgia the desire to live in a pure and holy cosmos, as it was in the beginning, when it came fresh from the Creator’s hands.

The experience of sacred time will make it possible for religious man periodically to experience the cosmos it was in principio, that is, at the mythical moment of Creation.

 

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Excerpts from: Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (Orlando: Harcourt, 1987), pp. 8-65.

Note: The Sacred and the Profane is Mircea Eliade’s most important introductory book to a deeper understanding of religion and has been translated into a large number of other languages. Also notable in this regard are Eliade’s books: The Myth of the Eternal Return (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), Myths, Dreams and Mysteries: the Encounter between Contemporary Faiths and Archaic Realities (New York & Evanston: Harper & Row, 1975), and The Quest: History and Meaning in Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984). For a record of all works by Mircea Eliade in various languages, see the World Catalogue: <http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3AMircea+Eliade > (lists of translations of Eliade’s works are also oftentimes recorded in bibliographies in their respective languages).

Additional note: See also the overviews of Mircea Eliade’s religious philosophy in “Mircea Eliade: An Appreciation” by David J. Levy and “Mircea Eliade: The hermeneutics of the religious phenomenon” by Livia Durac.

In the Spanish language, commentaries and resources on Eliade can be found in Sebastian J. Lorenz’s Elementos, N° 64, “El Eterno Retorno de Mircea Eliade” (Marzo 2014), <http://issuu.com/sebastianjlorenz/docs/elementos_n___64._mircea_eliade >. (We have made Elementos N° 64 available for download on our site: Elementos No. 64).