Evola in Middle Earth


As part of my Western Culture & Counter Culture project I’m studying the various “grand narratives” that have been told about the history, meaning, and direction of Western civilization – from optimistic stories of evolution and progress to their darker and more pessimistic counterparts. Perhaps the most uncompromising example of this latter category, and one of the most influential, was published in 1934 (and republished several times after, in expanded editions) by the controversial Italian esotericist Julius Evola (1898-1974) under the title Rivolta contro il mondo moderno (Revolt against the Modern World). I decided it might be time for me to finally read it, and so I did, in an excellent French translation by Philippe Baillet.
 
Well, it proved to be quite a ride. Having read various discussions of Evola over the years, I was broadly familiar with the nature of his worldview and ideas (including, of course, his fascist sympathies and antisemitic tendencies) so I cannot say that I began with an empty slate. However, actually reading Revolt against the Modern World from cover to cover is an altogether different experience from just reading about it. Let me begin on the positive side. Impressive about Evola’s book is the remarkable degree of internal logic and consistency of vision with which he deconstructs every imaginable belief or assumption that modern people tend to take for granted, exposing the whole of it as one long series of errors and perversions of the universal metaphysical truth on which all Traditional societies were based. He manages to strike a tone of “academic” authority that gives the impression that he knows what he is talking about, and it is not so hard to understand that a book like this can make a deep impression on readers who feel alienated from contemporary global consumer culture and would like to see it destroyed. With a radicalism reminiscent of contemporary Islamic Jihadists, Evola tells his readers that modernity is the very negation of everything valid and true.

Antihistorical Consciousness

So what is his alternative? This is where it quickly gets problematic. First of all, while Evola’s modern Right-wing admirers like to claim “historical consciousness” for themselves while blaming their “Liberal” enemies for having no sense of history, Evola himself makes perfectly clear that any attempt to find evidence for his historical narrative will be an utter waste of time. He claims that “Traditional man” had a “supratemporal” sense of time, and therefore the reality in which he lived cannot be grasped by modern historical methods at all. In an absolutely crucial passage in the Introduction (poorly translated in the English standard edition, unfortunately, so my translation below is based on the Italian original while taking inspiration from the French version) he takes care to emphasize

… how little esteem we have for everything that, in recent years, has officially been considered under the label of “historical scholarship” in matters of ancient religions, institutions, and traditions. We want to make clear that we wish to have absolutely nothing to do with such an order of things, as with all that derives from the modern mentality; and as for the so-called “scientific” or “positive” perspective, with all its empty claims of competence and monopoly, in its best cases we consider it to be more or less the perspective of ignorance. … In general, the order of things with which we will be principally concerning ourselves is the one in which all materials that have a “historical” and “scientific” value are those that are the least important; whereas everything that, as myth, legend, and saga, is deprived of historical truth and demonstrative force, by that very fact acquires a superior validity and becomes the source of a more real and more certain knowledge. Precisely this is the boundary that separates traditional doctrine from profane culture. …
The scientific anathemas in regard to this approach are well known: Arbitrary! Subjective! Fantastic! From our perspective it is neither arbitrary, subjective or fantastic, nor is it objective or scientific as understood by moderns. All of that does not exist. All of that stands outside of Tradition. Tradition begins at the point where one is able to place oneself above all that, by adopting a supra-individual and nonhuman perspective. That is why we have minimal concern for discussion and “demonstration.” The truths that the world of Tradition can make us understand are not of a kind that one can “learn” or “discuss.” They either are, or they are not. One can only remember them, and this happens when one is liberated from the obstacles represented by the various human constructs (beginning with all the results and methods of the “researchers” considered to be authorities), when one has evoked in oneself the capacity to see from the nonhuman perspective, which is the Traditional perspective itself.

Clearly this means that any critical objection, any disagreement, any reference to historical evidence that might possible undermine Evola’s narrative, and indeed any reference to historical sources at all, will have no impact whatsoever. And this fits perfectly with the extreme authoritarianism that is typical of Evola’s attitude: the reader is given to understand that it is not really Julius Evola who is speaking to us in these pages – no, he is speaking on behalf of the supreme source of superhuman metaphysical truth itself (the nature of which, by the way, remains very vague). Disagreement is therefore synonymous with spiritual ignorance: one is not supposed to ask questions but to listen and accept.

Doctrine and Storytelling


So what is this supreme Source of Truth telling us? Revolt agains the Modern World consists of two parts: the first is doctrinal and discusses the various elements of “the World of Tradition,” whereas the second should perhaps not be called historical – for how could it be that, on the foundations just outlined? – but does tell a grand story of spiritual decline and degeneration through the ages. Like Guénon, one of his major influences, Evola distinguishes between four stages of human and cultural development, from the Golden Age to the modern world (the kali yuga). The metaphysics of Tradition according to Evola are built upon the primacy of Being; on the notion of one absolute Spiritual Center that is the exclusive source of legitimate Authority, reflected in an ideology of Sacred Kingship; on the notion of a “natural” social hierarchy of four castes, with spiritual leaders at the top and servants (including slaves) at the bottom; on the primacy of masculine “virile” qualities over their feminine counterparts; and on an ascetic warrior ethics grounded in honour and heroic values. If anything stands out as central in this overview, it is Evola’s obsession with power.
            The second part is built upon the doctrine of “four ages,” with reference to Hesiod (the ages of gold, silver, bronze, and iron) and Hindu scriptures. Evola tells us that during the Golden Age, the region that is now the North Pole was inhabited by a pure race of superior beings who exemplified a “non-humain spirituality.” Due to some primal catastrophe, the representatives of this Hyperborean race began migrating southward towards what is now North America and the continent of Atlantis. This was the beginning of the Silver Age and the first stage of degeneration. Basic to the story that follows is the idea of a basic hostility between the heaven-oriented, solar, heroic, and masculine people from the North and their earth-oriented, lunar, matriarchal counterparts from the South (as is well known, Bachofen’s Das Mutterrecht [1861] had a huge influence on Evola in this regard). Cultural contact led to wars and interbreeding, so that the original purity of the Northern race got mixed and its culture began to decline. From there on it all goes downward. Things get ever more complex and messy during the Third Age, as the “heroic” descendants of the ancient superior culture progressively lose their vitality and the culture of the original spiritual elite slowly but certainly loses the battle against “anti-Traditional” forces. In spite of temporal revivals, notably during the the Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, we steadily move foreward (or rather, downward) towards modern culture with its degenerate values of liberalism, humanism, egalitarianism, democracy, and so on. If Part I of Revolt is marked by Evola’s obsession with power, Part II is marked by an incredibly virulent hatred and supreme aristocratic contempt for modernity and everything it stands for.

The Deadly Sword of Philology

Of course it will be useless for me to apply the instruments of historical criticism in order to point out the utter absence of any credible evidence for Evola’s narrative: in making any such attempt, according to Evola’s admirers I will merely be demonstrating my own ignorance of the truth, and my naïve belief in such useless illusions as “critical discussion,” “historical thinking,” or “scholarly methods.” Trust in such merely human approaches betrays the false assumption that there exists such a thing as “progress in knowledge,” that is to say: it reflects the modernist delusion that it is possible to make advances in our understanding of the past, by learning important things about it that were not known before and by correcting earlier interpretations. No such progress is possible: it is excluded from the outset that I will ever discover anything important that Evola doesn’t already know. All I’m allowed to do is “remember” the eternal truth (obviously in terms of Plato's anamnesis), and if what I remember would turn out to conflict with anything that Evola is telling us, this could only mean that it’s not real memory: I must have made it up myself. Evola, of course, has made nothing up – how could he? It is not him who is saying all these things. He speaks for Tradition.

Still, although I know it’s pointless, I’ll make just one little attempt. Part II of Revolt is preceded by two mottos, one of which is taken from Jacob Boehme. Evola is quoting Louis-Claude de Martin’s French translation (1800) of Boehme’s first book, the Aurora:

Je vous dis un secret. Voici le temps où l’époux couronnera son épouse: mais où est la couronne? Vers le Nord … Mais d’où vient l’épouse? Du centre, où la chaleur engendre la lumière, et se porte vers le Nord … où la lumière devient brillante.
[Translation: I tell you a secret. Behold the time when the bridegroom will crown his bride: but where is the crown? Toward the North … But from where does the bride come? From the centre, where the warmth brings forth the light, and is directed towards the North … where the light becomes brilliant]

Evola clearly saw this quote as a wonderful confirmation of his belief in a superior spiritual Light coming from the North. Of course it takes an unrepentant modernist like myself to be so deluded as to think it might be worth my while to check the source. Was Boehme really speaking about Evola’s North? You guessed it – I checked anyway. And what did I find? This is what Boehme actually wrote:

Sihe Ich Sage dir ein geheimnis. Es ist Schon die zeit / das der Breutigam Seine Brautt kröntt / Raht fritz wo ligt die kron / Kegen Mitternacht. … Von wannen kömpt aber der Breutigam. Auß der mitten / wo die Hitze das licht gebüred / vnd ferdt kegen mitternacht … / da wird das licht Helle. [emphasis in original]
[Translation: Look. I am going to tell you a secret. The time has come for the bridegroom to crown his bride. Guess, dear fellow, where is the crown to be found? Toward midnight. … Whence issues the bridegroom? From the middle, where the heat gives birth to the light, shooting towards midnight … That is where the light is growing bright]

What is going on here? Boehme spoke about “midnight,” not the North: that translation came from Saint-Martin. Interestingly though, it turns out that there was a solid foundation to this choice of word. As explained by Andrew Weeks in a footnote (p. 325 nt 12), Boehme had a very peculiar way of alluding to the 24-hour cycle and the geographical locations in relation to divine revelation. The light had begun to shine in the Holy Land (Dawn, i.e. East), the “sleeping” Papacy in Rome represented the midday of revelation (12.00) in the South of Europe, then it moved northward to the Reformation in Germany, which is in the Middle between the South and the Scandinavian North, which represents the midnight of revelation (0.00) because this is where Lutheranism spread unopposed. So we are dealing here with a movement of progressive Christian revelation that moves from the South to the North. It is therefore clear that the “crown” in the North has nothing to do with a hyperborean race migrating southward; rather, the light that moves from the Middle to the North is the light of Christian truth that goes into the opposite direction. Admittedly, Boehme also spoke of the North in a different sense (inspired by Ezekiel 38:15): as a wild place inhabited by a savage people that “had not known the true light of God from the beginning unto this very time” (Aurora, Preface, in Weeks ed., p. 91). As the prince of darkness saw that the people were being saved by the fragrance of the divine tree of life, he planted a “savage tree” of his own in that very same place in the North (indeed: “toward midnight”) and proclaimed that this was the tree of life (see Weeks, p. 91 with nt 17). If one takes this into account, the only way in which Boehme’s quotation could be construed as referring to the Hyperboreans is by claiming that they were precisely those people mentioned in Ezekiel: the virile Northern opponents of the effeminized Southern force of Jewish and Christian revelation. This would mean that Evola was reading Boehme against the grain, taking the side of the “prince of darkness” and his savage tree; but more importantly,  it would go straight against the meaning of the passage about the crowning of the bride by the bridegroom, where the light coming from the Middle is clearly the positive power that grows stronger as it moves northward. In sum: although Midnight in Boehme’s quotation does indeed refer to the North, it has no reference to Evola’s ideas about the North and is actually written from the perspective of his opponents.
             It’s a complicated story (more so than I first realized myself: I want to thank Francesco Baroni and Hadi Fakhouri for alerting me to the background for Saint-Martin's translation), but the point is simple. It is only on the basis of strict philological criticism, going back to the original sources and analyzing the intended meaning of terms in their initial context,  that one can possibly evaluate the truth of any of the countless historical claims on which Evola builds his narrative. If one would take the (considerable) trouble of doing so, then the narrative would quickly start crumbling before one’s gaze. One would discover the enormous extent to which Evola was relying on dated, questionable, or wholly corrupt sources and on scholarly interpretations riddled with assumptions that often tell us more about the authors and their culture or personal preoccupations than about the texts and traditions they were studying.
            So are we simply dealing here with the typical naïvety of an amateur historian? I don’t think so. I am convinced that Evola’s highhanded statements about the total irrelevance of historical scholarship reflect an acute awareness on his part that these methods and technical tools had the power to undermine and destroy everything he wanted to say. If he dismisses textual criticism or philological analysis ex cathedra, describing them as the feeble props of deluded ignorants, this is because he knows that in reality they are deadly weapons against which his claims would be utterly helpless. Better discredit your critics in advance so that your readers will not even bother taking their arguments seriously. Better make use of the popular and populist resentment of “academics” in their ivory tower, of all those “specialists” who are making everything so difficult instead of telling a clear and simple story that normal people can understand. We find a similar strategy in the current conservative and rightwing campaigns of denying climate change (Trump: “just look out the window!”), undermining the credibility of science and academic research, attempting to defund Humanities programs, and spreading the trope of “alternative facts”. Science and scholarship are inconvenient to these antimodernists because they hinder them in saying what they want to say and doing what they want to do. Never let evidence stand in the way of a good story. We find the same approach in Evola. In sum, I do not think he doesn’t take historians seriously, on the contrary: he is afraid of them. He knows that his weapons are no match for theirs, and so he seeks to avoid a direct confrontation.

Transpolitical Conservative Liberalism

If Evola’s grand narrative of historical decline is a fantasy, then does this leave us with anything worth salvaging? Even if one does not accept his specific understanding of “Tradition,” one might still be inclined to agree in general terms with the idea that premodern cultures were superior and modernization is therefore a process of decline instead of progress. Or instead of thinking in terms of either decline or progress, one might argue that traditional and modern societies both come at a price, so we need to strive for a healthy balance between the advantages and disadvantages of both, rather than making an either/or choice. This would be my position. Now it is very interesting to observe that, whatever the official ideologies might say, a deep longing for premodern conditions is by no means restricted to the Right wing of the political spectrum but is widespread among its “progressive” opponents as well. While reading Revolt, I was struck by the structural parallels with one of my own all-time favourite novels, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. It is well known that Tolkien’s work became something close to Holy Scripture among the Hippies during the 1960s and remains a classic in the Pagan community that came out of that era.


Obviously the enemy Saruman, with his “mind of metal and wheels,” mirrors the spirit of the Industrial Revolution and its destructive effects on nature (the Ents) and traditional communities (the Shire). In other words, he stands for modernization as a negative force. All readers of Tolkien instinctively take the side of the Hobbits (that is to say, of traditional culture) and the Elves (that is to say, of an elite culture that embodies high spiritual values). Quite as instinctively, they embrace the notion of a sacred “bloodline” of Kings who are destined to rule: it would be ridiculous to imagine a democratic Middle Earth where Aragorn would have to stand for election and get his legislation through parliament. Middle Earth is a traditional hierarchical society where everybody seems to accept his or her appointed rank and station, where families are intact, where men are real men and women are real women. It is inhabited by a whole series of higher and lower races (Elves at the top, Men in the Middle, Orcs at the bottom), and although these may form coalitions of friendship, it is well understood that ultimately they are supposed to stay in their own homelands. Nor would they wish otherwise: they are all proud of who they are and determined to protect their own culture.
All of this is very clearly Conservative rather than “Liberal,” and Traditionalist rather than Progressive. Nevertheless, few readers understand Lord of the Rings as a political manifesto, and the novel has been widely experienced as a source of deep inspiration among such typical “Lefties” as the Hippies or most Pagans since the 1960s and their descendants or sympathizers up to the present. Of course some important footnotes should be added here, about ideological critiques of Tolkien on the Marxist Left and a deliberate embrace of traditional community values in Right-wing paganism. I’m aware of those complications, but what interests me here is the very broad base of readers (including myself) who appear to be perfectly capable of loving Lord of the Rings while rejecting right-wing authoritarianism and embracing universal “Liberal” human values such as freedom, equality, or democracy.
So this is where it all gets very complicated. How can Tolkien’s perspective be so compatible with “Liberalism” and “the Left” if his ideal society exemplifies “Traditionalist” values promoted by authors on the “Right” such as Evola? It’s not a new problem either. During the 1960s and the following decades, the new Liberal culture that flourished on the Left in California and elsewhere in the United States embraced the scholarship on myth and symbolism associated with Eranos luminaries such as Carl Gustav Jung, Mircea Eliade, or Joseph Campbell. All these authors were very clearly conservatives, and much has been written about their relation with fascism and antisemitism; but the fact is that their work was experienced as deeply inspiring by American “Liberals” from the 1960s to the 1980s at least, and had a big influence on them.
In short, there seems to be such a thing as Transpolitical Conservative Liberalism. Transpolitical because it does not fit the neat ideological straightjacket of Left versus Right as conventionally understood. Conservative because it seeks to protect traditional values that are being threatened by the forces of “modern progress.” Liberal because it also believes in freedom and equality as values that should be universal for all human beings.

Human and Non-Human Conservatism

Evola is clearly not on that side though. His vision is marked by a strong and perfectly explicit emphasis on human inequality and an obsession with power and authority. Both elements are grounded in his personal psychology: they follow logically, in his case, from his deep-seated desire for absolute autonomy, that is to say, of total freedom for himself. From an early age on, so he tells us in his autobiography Path of Cinnabar, his all-consuming wish was to be absolutely free and autonomous: he did not want to be dependent on anything or anyone whatsoever. In terms of the German Idealist philosophers he was reading at the time, the whole of reality had to be subject to his absolute “I” (das Ich), which had to transcend the physical world and all its contingencies. So extreme was this desire that it brought him close to suicide, until a Buddhist fragment convinced him that in extinguishing his personal existence he would not be achieving freedom but would in fact be demonstrating his failure to achieve it. This is not the place to discuss the “magical” philosophy that came out of this realization, fascinating though it is. Important for our present concerns is Evola’s obsession, throughout his life, with the absolute power and unquestionable authority of a spiritual elite imagined as standing at the very top of a hierarchy: far above the ignorant masses, the contingencies of history, the limitations of material existence, or anything else that could possibly trouble its “non-human” purity and spiritual independence. Needless to add, such dreams are dreamed only by those who imagine that they themselves are lucky enough to stand at the top of the hierarchy.
            It is hardly surprising that such a man would be lacking in all human warmth and empathy for others. Evola was known as a cold fish who did not care about anyone but himself, and this is not the critique of a hostile outsider. Evola himself described his character in these terms:

A spontaneous detachment from what is merely human, from what is generally regarded as normal, particularly in the sphere of affection, emerged as one of my distinctive traits when I was still in my early youth … [S]uch a detached disposition  … was the cause of a certain insensitivity and cold-heartedness on my part. But in the most important of all fields, this very trait is what allowed me to recognize those unconditioned values which are far removed from the perspective of ordinary men of my time (Path of Cinnabar, 6-7).

One has to agree, Evola was not an ordinary man. But much more important, given his current influence in Right-wing circles, is his utter contempt for human beings qua human beings. His commitment was explicitly to what he called the non-human. Any true spiritual values, as he understood them, had to be the exclusive preserve of a spiritual elite far above the common run of humanity. Whatever might happen to the masses of “ordinary” human beings was none of his concern: in his ideal world, they simply have to obey, and will be forced into submission if they dare to resist the dictates of “legitimate authority.”

The Faultline

It is precisely in this regard that Evola’s Rightwing conservatism is utterly incompatible with the perspective of its “Liberal” counterparts – including those that share a deep concern with “Conservative” values. If Middle Earth is a Traditional society threatened by Saruman’s modernism, then Evola is much closer to the mindset of Sauron than that of Gandalf, Aragorn, the Hobbits, or the Elves. They are fighting against Mordor because it seeks to destroy everything that makes life worth living: freedom, peace, friendship, love, happiness, beauty, brotherhood, tolerance, mutual understanding, and the willingness to transcend boundaries of race and culture (exemplified, of course, by the friendship that develops between Legolas and Gimli). The traditional society they want to conserve and protect exemplifies precisely those values. Sauron, on the other hand, is obsessed with one thing only: power. He demands absolute authority, submission to his will.

Evola’s case has exemplary significance in the current political debate. What ultimately divides the “New Right” from its “Liberal” opponents is not the dilemma of Tradition versus Modernity, or Conservatism versus Progress: about those issues, difficult as they may be, it is possible to find common ground. Only one principle is not negotiable: that power and authority must be at the service of humanity, and not the other way around.

Comments

  1. I won't debate the essence of your argument about Evola, that his ideas can't be defended on historiographical or scientific grounds, given that, as you point out, Evola never claimed that what he was doing could be. In this, however, he is no different from any other religious thinker or tradition of which I'm aware. Religions always prioritize their own sacred history over whatever academic historians say about it. Hence why Mormons continue to believe in the Book of Mormon as a literal story about American pre-history in spite of the fact that any archaeologist or historian would tell you that its narrative is bunk, and why the average Hindu in India will insist that there really was an army of intelligent monkeys that build a bridge out of stones between India and Sri Lanka in ancient times, as it says in the Ramayana. This doesn't denigrate these systems of belief for those who adhere to them, and it is the same for Evolians. So in this Evola isn't doing anything that isn't commonplace in religious thought. So really, your charge doesn't mean anything other than that Evola was a religious thinker rather than a modern, academic one.

    However, what struck me is really your final paragraph, where you take everything you said about Evola and apply it to the New Right. I'm not sure which New Right you're addressing, but if we mean the circle that began with Alain de Benoist and GRECE in France, they have never claimed to be Evolians or traditionalists, and their ideas are in no way in keeping with Evola's. Similarly with the Alt Right in the US, as I've claimed elsewhere, Evola is someone they are more fond of referencing, as it helps to give them a veneer of intellectual respectability, than actually reading, and certainly if there is such a thing as an Evolian politics, the Alt Right, with its love of populism, is anything but. I am not aware of any political group that seriously claims to be Evolian, apart from a few fringe groups that have been active in Italy. This is because the entire notion of a "traditionalist/Evolian politics" is a misnomer in itself, since, if you really follow Evola's ideas through to their conclusion, there cannot be any meaningful political change from a Traditional perspective in the modern world due to the conditions of Kali-Yuga (something conservative Hindus would agree with). He only thought it was possible to maintain an Order which would preserve traditional thought in secret while the modern world collapses. But to realize Evola's actual attitude towards modern politics requires familiarity with the whole corpus of his thought, however, and not just "Revolt."

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    1. I have to disagree about the first point. Religions usually try to find agreement with prevailing standards of rational knowledge, natural philosophy or "science" (taking into account the risk of anachronism in using such terms). For instance, Christian theologians sought to integrate the best Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy that was available to them, and this remained very much the approach of Christianity during the early modern period: if the Christian revelation was true, it had to be compatible with knowledge that could be gained from other, lower sources of knowledge than revelation (reason, the senses). Judaism and Islam took the same approach at least up to the 18th century. Theologians were not anti-intellectualists. It's only around (roughly) the 18th century that the situation changes, and even then the principal problem for religion was *not* so much to find accomodation with natural science: rather, the real challenge was how to respond to the emergence of historical consciousness and (particularly) of the new methods of textual criticism (subsumed in my text under the heading "the sharp sword of philology"). If I may quote my own discussion in _Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed_, p. 120: "If we wish to assess the claims of believers, it is not the natural sciences that provide the 'hardest' evidence and the most incisive critical arguments, but the careful study of historical sources as practiced in the supposedly 'softer' disciplines of the humanities. Philosophical rationalists and natural scientists have come up with sophisticated strategies both for refuting *and* for protecting belief in the existence of God, and no end to such debates seems to be in sight. But the results of critical historiography and philological research are often final and conclusive, in the sense that they may render foundational beliefs or specific religious traditions impossible to maintain without sacrificing one's intellect". The best example is biblical criticism: it proved more destructive to Christian narratives than any argument from the natural sciences. The so-called Leben Jesu-Forschung since the 18th century (continued in the 19th century by e.g. David Friedrich Strauss and Ernest Renan) completely undermined the credibility of the "Jesus of faith". What you see since then is that Christian evangelicals and other fundamentalists simply refuse to enter the arena at all, because they know that they will lose: "I believe the Bible is God's word no matter what those scientists may say", i.e. a kind of radical variant on the "credo quia absurdum" argument. Evola's strategy is exactly the same. The deep irony is that this makes him and Guénon into typical products of... modernity.

      [I'll repond to the 2nd point separately]

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    2. Your second point concerns my use of the term "New Right". Here I did not mean only de Benoist or GRECE: I meant to refer to the much wider field of rightwing thinking as represented by your own publisher Arktos or a website such as Counter-Currents. If you can suggest a better term for this milieu as a whole, then I'll be happy to use it instead of "New Right". I'm aware of the fact that there are many different flavours of rightwing thinking in this Arktos milieu (if I may call it that for the moment), but in spite of those differences they seem to think of themselves as part of the same general movement. As for Counter-Currents, the site explicitly presents itself as Traditionalist, stating on its "About" page that its guiding principles come straight from Guénon; but the site seems to welcome many non-Traditionalist rightwing opinions as well. That "traditionalist/Evolian politics" is a misnomer may be true on one level, i.e. if one follows Evola's argument to its logical conclusions; but it is contradicted by Evola's own explicit attempts at playing a role in Italian fascism and German National Socialism. Why would he have bothered if the modern world was collapsing anyway?

      The basic argument of my blogpost is the following.
      (1) There is no historical basis for Evola's narrative about the ages of the world. On this we seem to be broadly in agreement; or at least it's not a point you intend to contest.
      (2) What remains then is three things:
      - (a) Evola's metaphysical doctrine as such, i.e. independent of his quasi-historical narrative: primacy of "Being" over "Becoming", of "Spirit" over "Matter" etc. This basically seems to be some kind of variant on Platonism (Evola would be hard pressed to prove it existed before Plato). About this dimension I have nothing to say: it's a classic example of the "world-denying" interpretation of Platonism (exemplied e.g. in the Phaedo) as opposed to its more "world-affirming" side (e.g. the Timaeus). Evola is welcome to it, as far as I'm concerned.
      - (b) His "conservatism" and preference for a "Traditional" world. Fine too; but I'm just trying to point out here that Evola cannot simply claim it for the right: such preferences, as exemplified in my text by Middle Earth, are also on the "left" or "liberal" side of the political spectrum, awkward as that fact might be. They are "transpolitical". I claim at the end of my text that about the dilemma's of Tradition vs Modernity or Conservatism vs Progress it should be possible to find common ground, and I think we should make the attempt.
      - (c) What stands in the way of finding common ground? Here I come to the third element: Evola's obsession with power and authority, his privileging of the "non-human" over any concerns with what happens to ordinary human beings, and most of all his general attitude of hatred and contempt for "liberals" or (more generally) for anybody who disagrees with him. Such manichaean attitudes of hate and hostility make any discussion or reconciliation impossible from the outset. Unfortunately Evola is not interested in discussion at all, because the very idea of a "discussion" implies a willingness to listen to counter-arguments and consider the possibility that one might have to revise one's own views. All that is excluded in advance in Evola's mental world, because his "metaphysical truths" simply have to be accepted as true. This is a recipe for pure authoritarianism and dictatorship, not for a better future.

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    3. Dear Wouter,

      As someone with only an amateur's knowledge of the history of religions, I would not presume to debate you in a field in which you are an expert. However, it strikes me that the reason that a split slowly began to emerge between science and religion starting with the Enlightenment is that, rather than complementing each other, science slowly began to displace religion and claim for itself the mantle of the ultimate arbiter of all knowledge, in effect becoming a religion itself - a position which many today are glad to grant it. Hence why I can't really blame the traditionalists for getting back to basics. Seyyed Hossein Nasr has written and said some convincing things about the difference between sacred science, which seeks to be in harmony with religion, and modern science, which holds that only knowledge gained through the scientific method is valid. That being said, I actually think this comment is even more interesting than anything in your article itself, and the contradictory fact that, as you point out, traditionalism itself is an outgrowth of modernity is one of the reasons why I no longer call myself a traditionalist.

      As for your second comment, since New Right refers to a very specific school of thought it's confusing if you continue to use that for things other than GRECE and those currents influenced by it. I don't know what better term to suggest. The problem is that you're trying to group together a bunch of things which don't actually belong together. Whether all of these things are even Right-wing at all is a matter for debate. It reminds me a bit of the birth of the term "Hinduism," which the British invented out of expediency in order to classify those people who belonged to all the hundreds of various permutations and schools of thought that have in some way emerged from the Vedas but which otherwise have little to do with one another. If you want to deal with it accurately, you really have to deal with each current separately, and not generalize. This requires more work but is the only way to talk about them accurately. If you apply this method you will also have to come to the conclusion that Evola is not a significant factor in most of them. The only way to make Evola seem like a crucial element of the Right is to show that he has been influential somewhere, and then apply it to all currents and groups across the board. But that would be a gross overgeneralization. I sometimes use the term "True Right" myself as a sort of shorthand, which I actually got from Evola, but it remains too vague to really be useful in a scholarly sense.

      I know that Greg put Guenon on the 7-year-old "About" page, but if you look through the articles on the site (I know as I've been following it from the beginning), 99% of them have nothing to do with traditionalism whatsoever. Greg himself is a professed atheist and not a traditionalist. As for Evola and fascism, he wrote extensively on this, but basically, while he considered them to be an improvement over democracy and Communism, he was quite explicit in his work that they were not Traditional, and never urged his readers to try to revive it.

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    4. Dear John,

      OK, there's little for me to disagree with here. Yes: in my opinion too, the "religion versus science" split is a product of the Enlightenment, and the implication is that fundamentalists of all stripes who simply refuse the enter the arena of philology and textual criticism because they know they will lose (and in this regard, while not in others, I place Evola in the same basket as Jewish, Christian, or Islamic fundamentalists) are products of modernity in that regard.

      Pity you can't come up with a more appropriate term for what I (likewise for lack of a better word) called "New Right". As a historian I fully agree with your point that each movement must be studied separately. Yet we must also ask ourselves what it is that causes them to feel kinship in spite of their differences. See the Charlottesville case, where I cannot conclude otherwise than that those who consider themselves to be "on the right" but are not Neonazis or KKKers (you yourself belong to that category, from what I have read) still seem to prefer the latter over "liberals". In other words: to them, Liberals are worse than Nazis. One cannot reasonably claim then that there is nothing that all those who hoped to "Unite the Right" in Charlottesville have in common. They *do* have something in common, so then the question remains: what is it, and what would be the best name for it?

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    5. You can't meaningfully put Evola in the same category as religious fundamentalists. There is no single text or body of texts that Evola holds up as being perfect, flawless, and encompassing all knowledge in a literal sense. That's clear in all of his work. Quite the opposite, in some sense, since he often interprets sacred texts esoterically and symbolically, which is anathema to fundamentalists, as you well know. As for "refusing to enter the arena of philology and textual criticism," you can't expect thinkers such as the traditionalists to adhere to rules and modes of discourse that they believe are invalid in and of themselves. If a traditionalist doesn't believe that the scientific method is a valid means of understanding reality, it shouldn't come as a surprise that they don't want to debate using methods they have already rejected. For a traditionalist there can be no meaningful discourse about Tradition in such a manner. So it's not cowardice but rather the fact that they are operating according to different ways of understanding knowledge. Evola studied engineering at the doctoral level, so it could hardly be claimed that he was ignorant of the scientific way of understanding reality.

      It's not that I can't come up with a more appropriate term. It's that trying to come up with a single term to describe extremely diverse phenomena would be dishonest, as I already explained. What "kinship" has GRECE expressed for Charlottesville, for example? Where has Alain de Benoist said that liberals are worse than Nazis? It seems to me you're trying to grapple with something of which you have woefully inadequate knowledge. Reading a couple of books and articles and following a couple of Facebook pages doesn't make you an expert. If you really want to get into this subject, then you'd better set aside the next couple of years for it and begin a serious program of study. Otherwise you can go the way of Roger Griffin, who, although he sometimes has valid insights, has attempted to classify everything from the Third Reich through GRECE to Al Qaeda and Islamism as "fascism," which needless to say is ridiculous.

      If you want to read some serious academic literature on the American Alt Right, you should read Prof. George Hawley's "Right-Wing Critics of American Conservatism" and his upcoming "Making Sense of the Alt-Right."

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    6. As should be clear from the context of the discussion, I was using "fundamentalism" in a specific and restricted sense here. My claim is that the reason Evola (like Christian fundamentalists in this respect, not in others) rejects a historical approach based on philology and textual criticism is because he knows he will lose. These methods are dismissed as "invalid" for the simple reason that they fatally undermine the beliefs he wants to defend. It's an old story: Jewish, Christian and Islamic fundamentalists have all been using this strategy since the early 19th century at least, and Evola does too. I'm a methodological agnostic when it comes to metaphysical claims, but I'm not a historical relativist and don't buy "alternative facts" about history. We *know* that Atlantis did not exist - it's not just an opinion.

      The Right. You say "it's not that I can't come up with a more appropriate term". Well, if you can, then why don't you? I can only repeat what I said earlier: I'm trying to find what these groups have in common in spite of all their differences, i.e. I'm looking for the common denominator.

      As for the "you don't know enough" argument, that's a weak one. I'm not an expert in this domain, and I don't claim to be: this is not a scholarly journal but my personal blog on which I report about stuff, express my opinion, and hope to stimulate discussion about certain topics. I absolutely want my statements to be factually accurate, so if I make a mistake out of ignorance, which might well happen, then I'm happy to hear it. I'll acknowledge my error and correct it. As for Roger Griffin and George Hawley: thanks, I'll check them out.

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  2. I could be mistaken, but Saint-Martin's translation of "Mitternacht" as "North" is not a mistranslation in this context. Boehme in that passage is clearly talking about a geographical position or spatial orientation as indicated by his use of locative adverbs ("Where is the crown to be found?" and "Whence issues the bridge groom? From the middle"). The use of time indicators to refer to geographical orientations is an old and established usage in many languages, including German and French, so Mittag = Sud (in France "le Midi" refers to the southern part of the country), Morgen = Ost or Orient (e.g. das Morgenland), Abend = West or Okzident (e.g. das Abendland), and Mitternacht = Nord. Louis-Claude's translation is in keeping with that usage and seems justified given the spatial context of the use of Mitternacht in Boehme's text. This doesn't necessarily invalidate the larger point you were making about Evola, but since your argument was about philology I thought I'd point this out.

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  3. Yes, excellent point. I've revised and expanded the passage, also in response to a remark made separately (through Facebook) by Francesco Baroni.

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  4. As recently discussed vis a vis, you are basically basing your view on Evola after having read Rivolta (not Rivolto) in French (!) and assuming that the author's ideas were the same before '34 and all the way up to '74 didn't change one bit. I am currently pressed for time but will come back to this blogpost with a longer reply.

    The ending on the New Right is quite baffling: what New Right are you exactly referring to? Benoist? Sunic? The American alt-right? Generation Identitaire?

    I'll get back to you as soon as possible! In the meanwhile, If I may, I suggest E's autobiography Il Cammino del Cinabro, translated both in French and English. That should provide you with the basic evolutions, excuse the pun, of E's thought throughout 60 years of intellectual output.

    A presto!

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    1. Looking forward to your comments Christian. Just want to point out though that I never meant to claim that Evola's ideas didn't change - why would I? All I'm doing here is give my "readers's report" of the French translation (which at least is better than the English one, from what I've seen) and express my opinion about some aspects. It's a journalistic piece, as befits a blog, not a scholarly analysis of E's intellectual development. On the New Right, see my response to John Morgan above: if there's a better term for catching the complex milieu I have in mind, I'll be happy to hear it.

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  5. Loved this, Wouter! I've been turning the implications of Traditionalism around in my mind for the past few months, since I'm doing my PhD on modern musical esotericism, in part as an analytic autoethnography, and entanglements between left and right on the music scene are very troubling. Have you come across the work of Anton Shekhovtsov? This piece on how Evola's apoliteia relates to the neofolk and martial industrial styles of music is very persuasive... and I think we can see an apoliteic position in various threads of modern esotericism: positions that don't proclaim their fascism, but act as certain flags to those 'in the know' (one that comes immediately to mind is a certain long-established member of the esoteric right's recent adoption of a neo-Hellenic philosophy, which some have dismissed as a 'hippy nonsense', but in which can be detected the same thread of anti-modernism that led him to previously promote an idiosyncratic form of Satanism and later to embrace Islamism).

    You may also appreciate Shekhovtsov's own critique of Tolkien: http://anton-shekhovtsov.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/a-letter-to-friend-on-tolkien-racism.html

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  6. Sorry - I forgot to post the link to the Shekhovtsov piece on apoliteic music:
    https://www.academia.edu/197526/Apoliteic_Music_Neo-Folk_Martial_Industrial_and_Metapolitical_Fascism_

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    1. Thanks Phil. Never heard of Shekhovtsov, so thanks for the reference.

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    2. Shekhovtsov has a lot of very useful material available on academia.edu. He is well worth checking out and following.

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    3. Phil and Amy: thanks a lot! I followed up your reference to Shekhovtsov, and see what you mean. I just downloaded seven articles of his.

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  7. [the following comment comes from Thomas Hakl. He had technical difficulty posting it on this site, so I'm copy it here at his request]

    First of all I want to thank you, Wouter, for your serious attempt to be fair and just to Evola, a man who is reviled by one side and loved (tiny minority) by others. Unfortunately or fortunately both sides are wrong. The only way out of this dilemma is in my mind the Eastern concept of yang and yin. Both are not enemies to each other but complimentary. If I were a powerful politician I would list Jonathan Haidt, A Righteous Mind, Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion as required reading for schools. I have reviewed this book years ago in “Gnostika”. A 15 min video gives a good introduction. https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind?language=de

    It shows that it is nearly impossible for liberals (now in vogue, the world changes continuously) to appreciate conservative thinking and vice versa of course.

    Just some other points: Midnight and North is a synonym not only for Evola but also for the more respected Henry Corbin and other thinkers. Just think of the Polar Star.

    Evola’s point of view is deriving mainly from Fichte and Schelling going back to Nicholas of Cues and Plato used by Guénon (intuition intellectuelle) for stating his views. His concepts of authority is based entirely on this. That is why Evola was against dictatorship (read the chapter on Bonapartism in Men among the Ruins, if you want)

    In my mind Evola is not so much driven by hatred and more by contempt, but it is obvious that he was a normal human with unbridled emotions (Guénon characterized as him as fire and ice).

    Evola wants to be not inhuman but a-human = free from human bondages.

    Evola was burning for politics only in certain periods of his life, when he had hope “to change the world”. But he failed as all other attempts to found a society on one-sided principles will fail. If you do not take into account the basic weakness of man, things will end in chaos and brutality even and also if they are motivated by good intentions. (C.G. Jung)

    Just one more point: the New Right in Italy /Marco Tarchi) evolved out of the “Campo Hobbit” meetings i.e. from reading Tolkien. Just like Alain de Benoist Tarchi does not appreciate Evola any more. They have written very intelligent pieces against him. His ideas were called mito incapacitante (a myth which renders powerless, because it is not practical).

    By the way: power is perhaps the most misunderstood evolian concept about which I have often written

    Already in Heathen Imperialism he states, that power is based on superiority and not the other way round and that power which is based on violence is the contrary of power. He therefore praises the power of holy ascetics.

    And Steve Bannon as stout Catholic does not know anything about Evola.

    But of course Evola was a polemic (engendering polemics against him) and also Manichean to a very high degree. He believed in the inequality of man and thus not in democracy. From the purely “human” point of view he probably was not a nice character and naturally ” human all too human”. Never forget his young years as dandy with blue fingernails and his monocle (probably copied from Tristan Tzara). And he most probably was not a Baron as I tried to prove in the last Gnostika but it must also be said that there is not one instance known in which he used the title himself. It was attributed to him and he did not object.

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  8. Dear Thomas, thank you for comments, which I very much appreciate. Just a few very small points in response:

    - Yes, Jonathan Haidt's book is actually on my desk right now. For some time I have been trying (and I will keep trying) to educate myself about conservative and rightwing thinking, and whenever I see a chance I try to engage in constructive dialogue with right-wing conservatives rather than opt for the easy way of just demonizing them out of hand. This is because (as I've stated e.g. on my previous blog Re:Sunic and O'Meara) I believe that "liberals" like myself must make a serious effort to actually listen to and talk with those they disagree with. Of course I hope that those on the "other side" will be willing to do the same, although unfortunately I haven't yet seen much evidence for it so far. So what I'm trying to do right now is simply read some texts that are being admired in right-wing conservative milieus and post my opinion as clearly as possible, hoping that this will lead to a constructive discussion. I don't mince my words, for my opponents don't do so either, and that's fine with me, as long as both parties remain polite and respect arguments and evidence.

    - Please note that above I deliberate speak of "right-wing conservatists", because I believe that there is such a thing as "liberal" conservatism as well (which to me explains why so many people on the left love Tolkien). That's why I propose to speak of "Transpolitical Conservative Liberalism" and claim that concerning the "conservative versus progress" issue it is possible to find common ground. Speaking for myself, I'm abhorred by the spectacle of how modernization tends to destroy traditional cultures and values (and too often presents ideologically distorted views of premodern Western traditions and their descendants as well - that is what my 2012 book Esotericism and the Academy is basically all about). I.m.o. it shouldn't be an either/or debate: whether we like it or not, the only realistic solution lies in some kind of compromise. That might be messy instead of ideologically pure; but purity is danger (if you permit the pun...).

    - Midnight/the North: yes, that was not clear to me at first, but Francesco Baroni and Hadi Fakhoury pointed it out to me so I have adapted my text. Critical debate is impossible unless one is prepared to accept counter-arguments and -evidence, and this is a nice example: I stand corrected! That being said, I think the broader point I wanted to make remains valid.

    - Hobbit Camps etc.: yes, this was all new to me, and I find it extremely interesting.

    - As for your various specifications concerning Evola's perspective: yes, they all make sense to me. Perhaps I should point out for general readers of this blog (for you personally I think I don't need to, because we know each other personally and I believe you already understand my perspective) that although it's true that Evola as a person inspires no sympathy with me whatsoever, this won't keep me from recognizing his qualities and achievements or taking those seriously as a scholar. As I told a friend recently, unfortunately it seems that some of the most intelligent and talented figures in early 20th century esotericism just happened to be very unpleasant characters as well (next to Evola I was thinking of Crowley). As a scholar I recognize their importance and take their work very seriously; as a private person I have opinions of my own about them. These are not appropriate in a scholarly setting, but I'm not not only a scholar but a person as well, so I express them in the journalistic format of a blog.

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  9. [Thomas Hakl's response:]

    Very good. By the way, one should always check Evola's quotations and translations. He very often quoted from memory having given away already the respective book (his apartment was tiny).
    My aim is not to convince people of Evola's merits or virtues (which I would regard as preposterous) but to put wrong assumptions right (excuse the pun) and start a "neutral" discourse on him. Unfortunately this is not easy. With you, Wouter, I know this is possible and that is why I write here. But in Italy this becomes feasible as well (most important is the new book Evola e la sua eredità culturale (and his cultural heritage) written exclusively by university professors of various branches and surprisingly -knowing Evola's animosity to Masonry- often with a Masonic background. I will review the volume in the next Gnostika, by the way.
    The last point. To understand Evola's traditional way of presenting history (which is naturally totally unhistoric and unacademic) I would recommend Walter Heinrich's (the successor of the Austrian sociologist Othmar Spann) book About the traditional method, available in German and Italian).

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  10. Very good article, Wouter. It encapsulates well what I have been thinking and it does not come as surprise at all that some known fascists such as Morgan (with ties to Hungarian antisemitism and an apologist for white nationalism) or Hakl are coming to his defence and employ intellectual dishonesty in doing so. They either use strawmen ('De Benoist isn't an Evolian) or refer to other equally fascist authors, such as Othmar Spann, one of the leading figures of Austrofascism. The fact that the latter was tortured by the Nazis doesn't make him less of a fascist. The Nazis were well known to liquidate their own people if they didn't wholly conform with the type of extreme fascism they put forward.
    Equally, any defence of Evola not being a fascist is preposterous. Throughout his life, Evola believed in the racial superiority of whites (the fact he invokes 'spiritual racism' does not change much if anything in practice; he is thus very much in line withe the various conceptualisation of race that are, ironically, a very modern phenomenon that emerged in 15th century Spain before going through various transformations), the suppression of women and the 'virtues' of warfare. Evola is literally a fascist and that has to be said. The fact he did not always agree with the Fascist Party does not make him less of a fascist.

    It is also well known that Tolkien was very much a reactionary. In this context, I would like to highlight that in a lot of leftist analysis, major elements of the Hippie Movement are seen as reactionary, including the invocation of myths, often outright misogyny, and racism which manifested itself in various ways. So the fact that some Hippies would invoke Tolkien or Jung (a proponent of an 'Aryan' psychology) does not really come as a surprise at all.
    It should also be highlighted that the there is a difference between leftism and liberalism. The latter are often quick to accomodate fascism due to conceptions of 'free speech'.

    If Religious Studies wants to be taken seriously it has to clearly distance itself from these people, especially in times like ours where we're witnessing a re-emergence of fascism around the globe. There are obvious ties between Evola, Morgan, Codreanu and what happened in Charlottesville - and equally the fact that anitisemitism is becoming fashionable again, often through the 'globalist' dogwhistle. As an academic community, this cannot be condoned. It besmirches our whole field and lends credence to the idea that people who engage a lot with religion are more susceptible to irrational and hateful ideas, rejecting this world for a fabulated other world in which revenge can be taken on everyone that has supposedly wronged one.

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    1. Dear "Anonymous". I'd like to respond, but could you please let me know who you are? You seem to imply that we know each other, and perhaps we do, but I cannot guess your identity and would like to with whom I'm having a conversation...

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    2. Dear Dr Hanegraaff, I apologise if I created the impression I know you personally due to the facile use of your first name. I have been following your work sedulously though.
      I am afraid I won't be able to disclose my identity due to reasons of personal safety. I fully understand if you do not feel comfortable discussing this with me. Perhaps there will be an opportunity in the near future to do so in person.

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    3. Dear "Anonymous", in that case perhaps you wouldn't mind disclosing your identity to me personally? My email is w.j.hanegraaff@uva.nl I hereby give you my guarantee that I will not share the information with anyone else.

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    4. It doesn't take much to demonstrate that Tolkien was not a liberal by any stretch. But it's wrong to lump him with token conservatism of the day. When overwhelming majority of English high tory conservatives of that era were intensively pro-Hitler, it took a great deal of courage to have a principled opposition to their almost every prevailing notion, to the extent that Tolkien did. He thoroughly despised the coercive, imperious and centralizing monolith of fascist ideology. He had no patience for essential mobilizing element of nationalism, the antagonistic hate towards ideological dialectics whose proximity to one another was almost negligible (for example socialism-national socialism, internationalism – imperialism, expropriatory capitalism and expropriatory state corporatism, anti-bourgeoism and anti-semitism and so forth). Tolkien was a special kind of conservative, deeply immersed in tradition but also aware of the humanistic counterpart which transcends time and space.

      Julius Evola is a complicated figure. He was neither a philosopher nor a sociologist in a strict sense. I think it is appropriate to place him in the boundary of a fantast like Tolkien. His works represented a certain artistic and aesthetic vision that was at once deeply Italian, modernist and Dadaist. It is precisely from this point of view that his take on ancient philosophies and cultures can be seen as being profoundly inspiring and illuminating. I contend that the scholars who try to assess his works from perspective of historical or sociological criticism are simply starting from a wrong direction. It would be like assessing the degree of historicity of the works of George R. Martin, who also has a certain vision of how his world works, though he hides it within the pages of what is ostensibly a work of fantasy fiction.

      I am however completely bemused by the subject of this article's comparison to Sauron. The best way to put a wrench in some of Evola's theories, is again to refer to the same supposedly "traditional" sources he draws from. One would see to what extent Evola gets some elements of certain ancient cultures right and which he, in the vein of Arachne or Marsius, thoroughly distorts, misrepresents or outright fabricates to suit the political fashion of the day. Furthermore, throughout his life, I have to say, he had a disgusting tendency to play second fiddle to the prevailing ideological notions favored by certain, ahem, continental elites. For example he tried, for years to dilly up to Himmler and co., only to be rebuked by the latter, which in contrast with Rosenberg might have ultimately saved him from the rope.

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    5. Continued...

      Suffice to say, certain questions regarding ethics and morality troubling even modern minds, of which the Indians and the Greeks were intensely aware, were by no means unequivocally answered by them to the extent which Evola places inside their deepest cultural domains.

      I would see Evola to be very similar to Aristophanes in Symposium. Like Aristophanes, he focused on the superficial and corporeal aspect of esotericism (inside which means and methods of power always found their proper domain), whilst ignoring the essential, deepest meaning of the doctrine, though he claimed to always strive to expose the highest spiritual truth. Still I have a soft spot for him. Many of his works serve as excellent introductory material for people who are trapped into a exponential, reductionist sort of thinking and incapable of appreciating the sophistication of human cultures throughout time...

      To me, "tradition" means exactly that - sophistication and multilayered nature of symbols and meanings as opposed to primitivism and superstition which is often assumed to characterize the past. This is something which Evola, with his highly questionable and unscholarly methods, succeeds in uncovering, though it would take a much more rigorous and sophisticated method to bring it into methodologically relevant actuation.

      Overall I'm glad I have found this blog. It injects much needed sobriety into an intellectual field of esoteric studies which unfortunately is currently used as a vessel to promote highly unsavory agendas.



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    6. I found these kinds of anti-modernist ideas fascinating a few years ago. They seem evil and laughable to me now. I still haven't read this book, but I spent a lot of time scrolling through alt-right twitter and I saw a lot of people talk about Evola. Evola's contempt for "modernity" is dangerous because it has inspired people to blow up train stations, but also because it can lead you to live in a dream world and feel deeply alienated from the people around you. You can't live in the twenty-first century and the middle ages at the same time. My interest in these ideas contributed to the breakdown of some relationships that mattered to me a lot. If you find yourself spending a lot of time reading things online that you don't talk to anyone IRL about, stop doing that. Secrets are poison to relationships.

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