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A New Man for a New Civilization

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A New Man for a New Civilization
(from "Men among the ruins")[...]
When we talk about racism, most people think of anti-Semitism; in other words, they refer to the mere anthropological and biological domain: only a few have an idea of the meaning that this doctrine may have from a practical and formative point of view and even of its political importance. However, here I will state only what is relevant to the specific order of ideas that we are discussing.First of all, we must note that in modern racism the race is not considered within the context of those general classifications that school textbooks refer to as the white, yellow, and black races. The race is conceived as a more elementary and specialized unit; thus, within the white race there are several races. These elementary races are defined in terms that are not merely biological and anthropological, but psychological and spiritual as well. To each of the racial components there correspond various dispositions, forms of sensibility, values, and views of life which are also differentiated.There are actually no civilized peoples or nations composed of pure individuals belonging to the same single race. All peoples are composed of more or less stable racial mixtures. We go from the theoretical domain to the practical one, or to "active racism," whenever we take a position before the racial components of a given nation, refusing to acknowledge to all of them the same value, the same dignity, and the same right to impart the tone and form to the whole. At that point a choice, an election, and a decision are necessary. One of the components must be given preeminence, by referring to the typical values and the human ideals that correspond to it.In the case of German populations, the racial component that is superior to the other ones with which it is mixed has usually been identified with the Nordic element. When we consider Italy, the superior component is identified with the Roman element.First of all it is necessary to overcome the frivolous pride of some nationalists, according to whom the ultimate criterion consists of having the same fatherland and a common history; hence the Italian habit of indiscriminately exalting everything that is "ours." The truth is that just as with any great historical nation, and likewise with Italy, despite a certain uniformity of the common type, there are different components. It is important not to create illusions but to objectively recognize that which, although being "ours," hardly corresponds to a higher calling. As we can see, this is the counterpart of what I discussed in chapter 8 about the political-cultural domain, in regard to a "choice of traditions."The creation of a new State and of a new civilization will always be ephemeral unless their substratum is a new man. [...]JULIUS EVOLA
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A True Empire:
Form & Presuppositions of a United Europe

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True Empire: Form and Presuppositions of a United Europe
(from "Men among the ruins")In order to head toward a united Europe, the first step should consist of a concerted exit of all European nations from the United Nations, which is an illegitimate, promiscuous, and hypocritical association. Another obvious imperative should be to become emancipated in every aspect and in equal measure from both the United States and the USSR. […][…] Here I will only hint at what concerns the form and the spiritual and doctrinal presuppositions of a united Europe. […] The only genuine solution must have an organic character; the primary element should be a shaping force from within and from above, proper to an idea and a common tradition. […][…] As I have indicated in another chapter, the concepts of fatherland and nation (or ethnic group) belong to an essentially naturalistic or "physical" plane. In a united Europe, fatherlands and nations may exist […] What should be excluded is nationalism (with its monstrous appendix, namely imperialism) and chauvinism—in other words, every fanatical absolutization of a particular unit. Thus "European Empire," and not "Nation Europa" or "European Fatherland" should be the right term, in a doctrinal sense. In the Europeans we should appeal to a feeling of higher order, qualitatively very different from the nationalistic feeling rooted in other strata of the human being. […]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) was previously displayed in the European medieval world, which safeguarded the principles of both unity and multiplicity. In this world, individual States have the character of partial organic units, gravitating around a unum quod non est pars ("a one that is not a part," to use Dante's expression)—namely, a principle of unity, authority, and sovereignty of a different nature from that which is proper to each particular State. But the principle of the Empire can have such a dignity only by transcending the political sphere in the strict sense, founding and legitimizing itself with an idea, a tradition, and a power that is also spiritual. The limitations of the sovereignty of the single national units before an eminent right of the Empire have as their sole condition this transcendent dignity of the Empire; as far as structure is concerned, the whole will appear as an "organism composed of organisms," or as an organic federalism similar to that realized by Bismarck in the second German Reich, which was not acephalous. These are the essential traits of a true Empire.What are the conditions and the opportunities for the realization of such an idea in Europe today? […] Because what is needed is an organic unity, the premise should rather be the integration and consolidation of every single nation as a hierarchical, united, and well-differentiated whole. The nature of the parts should reflect the nature of the whole. […] What matters is the synergy and the opportunity for every common action.Every organic unit is characterized by a principle of stability. We should not expect a stability of the whole, where there is no stability guaranteed in its very components. Even from this point of view, the elementary presupposition of an eventual united Europe appears to be the political integration of the single nations. European unity would always be precarious if it leaned on some external factor, like an international parliament lacking a common, higher authority, with representations from various democratic regimes; such regimes, because they are constantly and mutually conditioned from below, cannot in any way ensure a continuity of political will and direction. […]What is required is not to impose a common regime on every European nation; however, an organic, hierarchical, anti-individualistic, and antidemocratic principle should be adequately implemented, even though in various forms adopted to different circumstances. Thus, the preliminary condition is a general antidemocratic cleansing, which at the present appears to be almost utopian. Democracy, on the one hand, and a European parliament that reproduces on a larger scale the depressing and pathetic sight of the European parliamentary systems on the other hand: all this would bring ridicule upon the idea of a united Europe. In general, we should think of an organic unity to be attained from the top down rather than from the bottom up. Only elites of individual European nations could understand one another and coordinate their work, overcoming every particularism and spirit of division, asserting higher interests and motives with their authority. […] A well-established "center" should exist in every nation; as a result of the harmony and the synergy of such centers, the higher European unity would organize itself and operate.Overall, what should be promoted is a twofold process of integration: on the one hand, national integration through the acknowledgment of a substantial principle of authority that is the basis for the organic, anti-individualistic, and corporative formation of the various sociopolitical national forces; on the other hand, supernational European integration through the acknowledgment of a principle of authority that is as super-ordained toward that which is proper of single units (individual States), as it is toward the people included in each of these units. Without this, it is useless to talk about an organically united Europe.Having put the problem in these terms, there are serious difficulties regarding the spiritual, not merely political, foundations required to implement this European unity. Where should we find these foundations? […]Obviously, it would be a pure Utopia to yearn to oppose in practical terms all the material aspects of modern civilization: among other things, this would involve surrendering the practical means that are necessary today for every defense and attack. However, it is always possible to establish a distance and a limit. It is possible to enclose that which is "modern" in a well-controlled material and "physical" domain, on the plane of mere means, and to superimpose upon it a higher order adequately upheld, in which revolutionary-conservative values are given unconditional acknowledgment. The Japan of yesterday demonstrated the possibility and the fecundity of a solution of this type. Only in that case could Europe represent something different, distinguish itself, and assume a new dignity among world powers. […] The first European detoxification should concern this obsession with "antifascism," which is the catchphrase of the "crusade" that has left Europe in a pile of rubble. However, we cannot side either with those pro-European sympathizers who can only refer to what was attempted in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany before the war, toward the creation of a new order. These groups fail to recognize that Fascism and National Socialism were movements and regimes in which different and even contrasting tendencies coexisted; their development in the right, positive, revolutionary-conservative sense could have occurred only if circumstances had allowed for an adequate, further development, which was stricken down by the war they ignited and by their ensuing defeat. This is how we should at least proceed to a precise distinction, if we want to draw reference points from those movements.Besides doctrinal difficulties, which I have examined, a radical European action finds its major obstacle in the lack of something that could represent a starting point, a firm support, and a center of crystallization. Before 1945 we could at least witness the wonderful sight of the principle of a supernational European Army, and the legionary spirit of volunteers from many nations who, having been organized in several divisions, fought on the Eastern front against the Soviets; at that time the foundation was the Third Reich. Today the only concrete, though partial, European initiatives of various governments are taken on a mere economic plane, without any deep ideological and ideal counterpart. Those who are sensitive to the idea of a united Europe in a higher sense are only isolated individuals, and not only are they not supported, but also they are even opposed by their own countries; and much more so, let me add, if their necessary antidemocratic and anti-Marxist profession of faith is openly declared. In effect, a European action must proceed in parallel with the rebirth and the revolutionary-conservative reorganization of the individual European countries: but to recognize this also means to acknowledge the disheartening magnitude of the task ahead.Despite this, we could suggest the idea of an Order, whose members would act in the various nations, doing what they can to promote an eventual European unity, even in such unfavorable conditions. The enthusiasm of young militants who conduct an active propaganda should be commended, but it is not enough. We should count on people with a specific qualification, who occupied or intended to occupy key positions in their own nations. What kind of men could be up to this task? Assuming bourgeois society and civilization as a reference point, it is necessary to win over to the cause and to recruit people who neither spiritually belong to the bourgeoisie nor are affected by it, or who are already beyond it. A first group should be composed of members of ancient European families that are still "standing" and who are valuable not only because of the name they carry, but also because of who they are, because of their personality. It is very difficult to find such men but there are some exceptions, and even during and after the last World War, some of these figures emerged. Sometimes it is a matter of awakening something in the blood that has not been entirely lost but still exists in a latent state. In these elements we would expect to find the presence of congenital, "racial" dispositions (racial in the elitist and non biological-racist sense of the term) that guarantee an action and a reaction according to a precise and secure style, free from theories and abstract principles, in a spontaneous and complete adherence to those values that every man of good birth considered obvious before the rise of the Third Estate and of what followed it.In regard to a second and more numerous section of the Order, I have in mind men who correspond to the human type shaped here and there through selections and experiences of an essentially warrior character, and through certain disciplines. Existentially speaking, this type is well versed in the art of "demythologization": it recognizes as illusion and hypocrisy the entire tenacious legacy of the ideologies that have been employed as instruments, not to bring down this or that European nation, but to deal a deadly blow to the whole of Europe. These men harbor a healthy intolerance for any rhetoric; an indifference toward intellectualism and politicians' gimmicks; a realism of a higher type; the propensity for impersonal activity; and the capability of a precise and resolute commitment. In the past, in some elite fighting units, today among paratroopers and analogous corps (e.g., Marines and others), some disciplines and experiences favor the formation of this human type, which displays the same traits in various nations. A common way of being constitutes a potentially connective element, beyond nationalities. By winning over these elements to the European cause, we could constitute, with a "force at the ready," the most active cadres of such an Order. If direct and integrating communications were established between these two groups (which is not as difficult as it may first appear), the foundation would be laid. For these men, the most important concerns should be the European idea in terms of values and of worldview, followed by the Order and then by the nation.Naturally, the personality of an authentic leader at the center and head of the Order is of the utmost importance. Unfortunately, no such person exists today: it would be dangerous and rash to see him in any of the figures who are currently working here and there, albeit with the best of intentions, selflessly and bravely, to form European groups. One has to consider here that no one could have detected in advance the potential of any of the men who later became leaders of great movements. Nevertheless, it is easy to see the great advantages in the case where such a man, in whom authority and status now became manifest, had been there from the beginning.We do not need to repeat what the basic requirement is for such a European action to mature and bear any results. One must first get rid of the political class, which holds the power in almost all European countries in this time of interregnum and European slavery. This would be immediately possible if a sufficient mass of today's peoples could be reawakened from their stupefied and stultified condition that has been systematically created by the prevailing political-social ideas.But the greatest difficulty for the true European idea is the deep crisis of the authority principle and the idea of the State. This will seem contradictory to many, because they believe the strengthening of that principle and that idea would bring in its wake a schismatic division and thus a rigid, anti-European pluralism. We have already shown why this is not at all the case, when we were speaking of the Männerbünde and indicating the higher level that characterizes the idea of a true State and its authority, in contrast to everything that is merely "folk" or "nation." For the individual, true political loyalty includes, besides a certain heroic readiness, a certain degree of transcendence, hence something not merely nature-bound. There is no break, but rather continuity when one crosses from the national level to the supernational: the selfsame inner readiness will be required as in the times of Indo-European origins and of the best feudal regimes, in which it was also a matter of the voluntary union of free powers, proud to belong to a higher order of things that did not oppress but rather embraced them. The real obstacles are only fanatical nationalism and the collapse of society and community.In summary, let it be said that breaking through into more thoughtful minds is the idea that in the current state of affairs, the uniting of Europe into a single bloc is the indispensable prerequisite for its continuation in a form other than an empty geographical concept on the same materialistic level as that of the powers that seek to control the world. For all the reasons already explained, we know that this crisis involves a dual inner problem, if under these circumstances one hopes to establish a firm foundation, a deeper sense, and an organic character for a possible united Europe. On the one hand, an initiative in the sense of a spiritual and psychic detoxification must be taken against what is commonly known as "modern culture." On the other, there is the question of the kind of "metaphysics" that is capable, today, of supporting both a national and a supernational principle of true authority and legitimacy.The dual problem can be translated into a dual imperative. It remains to be seen which and how many men, in spite of it all, still stand upright among so many ruins, in order that they may make this task their own.JULIUS EVOLA
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About the Relationship between
the Dying World & the World to Come

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About The Relationship Between The Dying World And The World To Come(from “Revolt Against The Modern World”)[…]
Just like people, civilizations also undergo their own cycle, consisting of a beginning, a development, and an end; the more they are immersed in what is contingent, the more this law is inescapable. This obviously is not enough to frighten those who are rooted in what cannot be altered and what remains as a perennial presence by virtue of its being above time. Even though it may be destined to disappear, modern civilization is certainly not the first to become extinct, nor is it the one after which none will follow. In the life of what is conditioned by space and time, lights are continually being put out and kindled again, cycles end and new ones begin. As I have said, the doctrine of the cycles was known to traditional man and only the ignorance of modem man has induced him to believe that his civilization, which is characterized by the deepest roots in the temporal and contingent element, will enjoy a different and privileged fate.To those who have a vision in conformity with reality, the problem is rather to what degree can there be a relationship of continuity between the dying world and the world to come; in other words, what elements of the old world will survive and be carried forth into the new one? The predominant view in the ancient traditional teaching is that some kind of gap separates one cycle from the next; the new cycle allegedly will be characterized not by a gradual getting up and reconstruction, but by a new beginning, a sudden mutation brought about by a divine and metaphysical event, just like an old tree does not flourish again, but dies and a new tree grows out of its seeds. This view clearly shows that the relationships of continuity between two cycles are only relative and, in any event, do not affect the masses and great structures of a civilization. These relationships only concern essential vital elements, much in the way the seed is related to the new plant.Thus, one of the many illusions that needs to be rejected is the one nourished by those who try to see a superordained logic behind the processes of dissolution, and who think that somehow the old world had to die in order to bring forth the new world toward which mankind is heading. And yet, the only world toward which we are heading is simply that which picks up and reassumes in an extreme way that which has acted during the phase of destruction. Such a world cannot be the basis for anything meaningful, nor can it provide the material from which traditional values may be revived again, precisely because it is the organized and embodied negation of these values. There is no future, in the positive sense of the word, for modern civilization as a whole. Thus, it is a mere fancy harbored by those who dream about a goal and a future that somehow may justify what man has destroyed both inside and outside himself.
[…]JULIUS EVOLA
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An 'Anarchist of the Right'
Views Original Beats & Hippies
as more Revolutionary
than Ideological & Political
'Ordine Nuovo' Youths
with Bourgeois Everyday Life

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An 'Anarchist of the Right' Views Original Beats & Hippies as more Revolutionary than Ideological & Political 'Ordine Nuovo' Youths with Bourgeois Everyday Life(from “The Path of Cinnabar”)[...]One last essay of The Bow and the Club that I would like to mention is ‘Youth, Beats and Anarchists of the Right' ('La gioventu, i beats e gli anarchici di destra'). I had already discussed the matters this essay examines on various other occasions. As it were, many of those young people who had made a positive impression on me upon my return to Italy in 1948, on account of the fact that they subscribed to the ideals of the Right, had gradually lost their way. Of these young men, those good at writing had chosen to cash in their literary talent by turning to fields such as journalism; and even when their inner inclinations had remained the same, they nevertheless had given in, in other respects (I will here refer to what I have previously written concerning the watering-down of traditionalism). The only group that has remained faithful to its original ideas and has made no compromises is the one known as 'Ordine Nuovo’. However, it should also be noted that even those young men who have continued to follow certain values share little in common with the anti-bourgeois youth of my day, the ideal - if distorted - legacy of which lies in the anarchistic, 'protesting' and 'burnt-out youth' embodied by beats and hippies. The 'revolutionary' drive of the former youths of today, on the other hand, is generally limited to the ideological and political sphere, where it is expressed through the fight against the democratic system and Marxism. Quite a few of these young men are also willing to resort to action and run concrete risks; and yet their everyday life is hardly 'revolutionary': rather, it remains as bourgeois as that of most other people - particularly with respect to marriage, sex, offspring and family.It is for this reason that, in the aforementioned essay, I chose to discuss the beat movement (in its original form, however, not in its more recent and squalid offshoots). I emphasized the problems and limits of this movement, and also pointed to the various ways in which those youths who are driven by similar urges as those of the beats might avoid dangerous paths or deadly snares, while securing for themselves a legitimate framework in which to voice dissent, and acquiring a real center that might allow them to 'be.' Hence, my idea of an 'anarchist of the Right': who, unlike other anarchists, rejects certain things not for the mere sake of rejection, but because he cherishes values that are not found in the present order; because he rejects the bourgeois world, and aspires to a superior freedom conjoined with a more rigorous discipline (for 'one can only allow himself that which he also has the power to refuse': 'If the hinge is strong, the door can be slammed’).[...]JULIUS EVOLA
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Antibourgeoisie

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Antibourgeoisie
(from "Men among the ruins")[...] However, we must concede that, per se, an anti-bourgeois stance has a reason for existence. I do not mean bourgeois so much in the sense of an economic class, but rather its counterpart: there is an intellectual world, an art, custom, and general view of life that, having been shaped in the last century parallel to the revolution of the Third Estate, appear as empty, decadent, and corrupt. A resolute overcoming of all this is one of the conditions required to solve the present crisis of our civilization.Thus, those attempts to react against the most extreme aspects of world subversion are very dangerous indeed, when they aim only at ideas, habits, and institutions of the bourgeois era. This amounts to supplying ammunition to the enemy. A bourgeois mentality and spirit, with its conformism, psychological and romantic appendices, moralism, and concerns for a petty, safe existence in which a fundamental materialism finds its compensation in sentimentality and the rhetoric of the great humanitarian and democratic words—all this has only an artificial, peripheral, and precarious life, no matter how resolutely it survives due to the inertia in wide social strata of many countries of the "free-world." Therefore, I claim that to react in the name of the idols, the lifestyle, and the mediocre values of the bourgeois world, as is the case with the great majority of modern supporters of "law and order," means the battle is lost from the start.However, just as the bourgeoisie in previous civilizations was a socially intermediate class, situated between the warriors and the political aristocracy on the one hand, and the mere "people" on the other hand—likewise, there is a double possibility (one positive, the other negative) of overcoming the bourgeoisie in general—that of taking a resolute stand against the bourgeois type, the bourgeois civilization, and its spirit and its values.The first possibility corresponds to a direction that leads even lower, toward a collectivized and materialist subhumanity, under the banner of Marxist realism—to social and proletarian values against the "bourgeois decadence". It is indeed possible to conceive a liquidation of everything that pertains to the conventional, subjectivist, and "unrealistic" world that was generally bourgeois, leading not higher but lower than what is proper to the normal ideal of personality. This happens when the final result is the mass individual, the "collective" of Soviet ideology, in the mechanized and soulless climate that accompanies it. In this case, the result of the liquidation of the bourgeois world may amount only to a further regression: we go toward what is below rather than above the person. It is the opposite of what happened in the great “objective” civilizations (to use Goethe's expression), which fostered anonymity and disdain for the individual, though against the background of superior, heroic, and transcendent values.Likewise, if the striving toward a new realism is right, we can clearly see the mistake of those who regard only the inferior degrees of reality as real. This is when realism is essentially formulated in economic terms (as happens in com­munism). The same applies to some trends that have emerged in the arts or at the margins of philosophy, and that have sided with left-wing movements, assuming an anticonformist stance toward the actual society. One of these trends calls itself "neo-realism", while another is the radical existentialism inspired by Sartre and his coterie. In this philosophy, "existence" is identified with the most shallow forms of life; this kind of existence is separated from any superior principle, made absolute, and cherished in its anguished and lightless immediacy. This type of existentialism has its counterpart in psychoanalysis, a doctrine that divests and brands as unreal the conscious and sovereign principle of the person, considering instead as "real" the irrational, unconscious, collective, and nocturnal dimension of the human being: on this basis, every higher faculty is seen as derived and dependent. This also happens on the social and cultural plane, where Marxism endeavors to portray as mere "superstructure" everything that cannot be counted as social and economic processes. We are obviously in the same line of thought when existentialism proclaims the primacy of "existence" over "being", instead of acknowledging that existence acquires a meaning only when it is inspired by something beyond itself. Thus, there is an exact, visible parallel between such intellectual currents and revolutionary, sociopolitical movements, because what we are dealing with is the mani­festation, in the individual domain, of what in the social and historical domain manifests itself as a subversive shift of power toward the masses, replacement of the superior with the inferior, and the removal of every principle of sovereignty that does not originate "from below". The existentialist and psychoanalytical "realism", together with similar trends, points to a human image that reflects such relationships in the individual; such an image appears as mutilated, distorted, and subversive. Thus, we may regard it as the result of some congeniality when many intellectuals of similar leanings sympathize with the social left-wing currents, even when the political leaders of these currents do not have the same feelings for them.However, there is a second possibility: one may conceive a realistic view and a struggle against the bourgeois spirit, individualism, and false idealism that is more radical than the struggle waged against them by the Left, and yet oriented upward, not downward. As I have said in a previous chapter, this different possibility is contingent upon a revival of the heroic and aristocratic values when they are assumed naturally and clearly, without rhetoric or pomposity: in retrospect, typical aspects of the Roman and Germanic-Roman world have already exemplified it. It is possible to keep a distance from everything that has only a human and especially subjectivist character; to feel contempt for bourgeois conformism and its petty selfishness and moralism; to embody the style of an impersonal activity; to prefer what is essential and real in a higher sense, free from the trappings of sentimentalism and from pseudo-intellectual super-structures—and yet all this must be done remaining upright, feeling the presence in life of that which leads beyond life, drawing from it precise norms of behavior and action.Everything that is antibourgeois in this sense does not converge toward the communist world; on the contrary, it is the premise for the emergence of new men and leaders, capable of erecting true barriers against global subversion, in correspondence with the establishment of a new climate, one that will be endowed with its own unique expressions even in terms of culture and civilizationIt is therefore paramount to recognize clearly the opposition between the two above-mentioned possibilities or directions of the antibourgeois stance. This is especially true in Italy. In the past, Fascism adopted an antibourgeois stance and, as part of the renewal that it was supposed to usher in, desired the advent of a new man, who was supposed to break with the bourgeois style of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Unfortunately, this was one of the cases where Fascism never got past its own sloganeering; those elements in Fascism that, despite all, remained bourgeois or became bourgeois by contagion constituted one of its weaknesses. As far as the present is concerned, with rare exceptions the average Italian communist is nothing but a bourgeois who takes to the streets (Lenin himself said that a proletarian, left to himself, tends to become a bourgeois), just as a false Christian and a member of the Christian Democratic Party represent nothing more than the bourgeoisie in the temple. Even those who call themselves monarchists can only conceive of a bourgeois king. The worst evil for Italy is the bourgeoisie: the bourgeois-priest, the bourgeois-worker, the bourgeois-"noble", the bourgeois-intellectual. This type is inconsistent, a substance without form, in which there is no “above” and no “below.” The watchword or rallying cry should be: "Wipe the slate clean!" Only by following this dictum will the shift toward the wrong direction be averted.JULIUS EVOLA
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Anti-War Western Bloc
Facing Fanaticism
Will Need Qualified Men when
Times of Pure Destruction Come

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Anti-War Western Bloc Facing Fanaticism Will Need Qualified Men When Times of Pure Destruction Come(from “Metaphysics of War”)[...] The quality and spirit of the men to whom the arms, the means of offense and destruction, are given, have represented, still represent and will always represent the basic element of 'war potential'. No mobilization will ever be 'total' if men whose spirit and vocation are up to the tests which they must face cannot be created.How are things, in this respect, in the world of the 'democracies'? They now want, for the third time this century, to lead humanity to war in the name of 'the war against war'. This requires men to fight at the same time that war as such is criticized. It demands heroes while proclaiming pacifism as the highest ideal. It demands warriors while it has made 'warrior' a synonym for attacker and criminal, since it has reduced the moral basis of 'the just war' to that of a large-scale police operation, and it has reduced the meaning of the spirit of combat to that of having to defend oneself as a last resort.[...]Let us examine this problem more closely. In what cause should the man of 'the Western bloc' go to war and face death? It is obviously nonsensical to respond in the name of the bourgeois ideal, the carefully maintained 'security' of existence which abhors risk, which promises that the maximum comfort of the human animal shall be easily accessible to all. Few will be deluded enough to imagine that, by sacrificing themselves, they can secure all this for future generations. Some will try to make others go and fight instead of them, offering as inducements beautiful words about humanitarianism, glory and patriotism. Apart from this the only thing a man in such a world will fight for is his own skin.[...]Thus, those who are fundamentally lacking in heroism will seek to awaken warriors for the 'defense of the West' by playing upon the complex of anxiety. Since they have deeply demoralized the true Western soul, since they have debased and demeaned, firstly, the true basis of the State, hierarchy and virile solidarity, and secondly, the notion of war and combat, they must now play the 'trump card' of the anti-Bolshevik crusade.[...]In the opposing bloc there are forces which combine technology with the elemental force of fanaticism, of dark and savage determination and of the contempt for individual life found among masses which, whether through their own ancient traditions or through the exaltation of the collectivist ideology, hardly value their own existence. This is the tide which will swell forth not only from the Red East, but from the whole of a contaminated and unleashed Asia.However, what is really required to defend 'the West' against the sudden rise of these barbaric and elemental forces is the strengthening, to an extent perhaps still unknown to Western man, of a heroic vision of life. Apart from the military-technical apparatus the world of the 'Westerners' has at its disposal only a limp and shapeless substance - and the cult of the skin, the myth of 'safety' and of 'war on war', and the ideal of the long, comfortable, guaranteed, 'democratic' existence, which is preferred to the ideal of the fulfillment which can be grasped only on the frontiers between life and death in the meeting of the essence of living with the extreme of danger.[...] It will be hard for the forces already in motion to stop [...] and there will only remain one course of action: to ride the tiger, as the Hindu expression puts it.[...] modern man, by creating the world of technology and putting it to work, has signed his name to a debt which he is now required to pay. Technology, his creature, turns against him, reduces him to its own instrument and threatens him with destruction. This fact manifests itself most clearly in modern war: total, elemental war, the merciless struggle with materiality itself. Man has no choice but to confront this force, to render himself fit to answer this challenge, to find in himself hitherto unsuspected spiritual dimensions, to awake to forms of extreme, essentialized heroism, forms which, while caring nothing for his person, nevertheless actualize [...] the "absolute person" within him, thus justifying the whole experience.There is nothing else one can say. Perhaps this challenge will constitute the positive side of the game for especially qualified men, given that game must be accepted and played out anyway. The preponderance of the negative part, of pure destruction, may be frightening, infernal. But no other choice is given to modern man since he himself is the sole author of the destiny, the aspect of which he is now starting to see.This is not the moment to dwell on such prospects. Besides, what we have said does not concern any nation in particular, nor even the present time. It concerns the time when things will become serious, globally, not merely for the interests of the bourgeois, capitalist world, but for what those men must know, who at that point will still be able to gather in an unshakeable bloc.JULIUS EVOLA
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Apoliteia as no Concrete,
Appreciable Results Possible
through Rectifying, Political Action

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Apoliteia as no Concrete, Appreciable Results Possible through Rectifying, Political Action(from “Ride the Tiger”)[...] The "immortal principles" of 1789 and the rights of equality granted by absolute democracy to the atomized individual regardless of qualification or rank, and the irruption of the masses into the political structure, have effectively brought about what Walther Rathenau calls a "vertical invasion by barbarians from below," Consequently, the following observation of essayist Ortega y Gasset remains true: "The characteristic fact of the moment is that the mediocre soul, recognizing itself as mediocre, has the audacity to assert the right of mediocrity and impose it everywhere."In the introduction I mentioned the few who by temperament and vocation still think today, in spite of everything, about the possibility of a rectifying, political action. Men among the Ruins was written with their ideological orientation in mind. But on the basis of experience we must admit the lack of the necessary premises to reach any concrete, appreciable results in a struggle of this kind. On the other hand, I have specified within these pages a human type of a different orientation, although spiritually related to those others who will fight on even in hopeless positions. After taking stock of the situation, this type can only feel disinterested and detached from everything that is "politics" today. His principle will become apoliteia, as it was called in ancient times.It is important to emphasize that this principle refers essentially to the inner attitude. In the present political situation, in a climate of democracy and "socialism," the rules of the game are such that the man in question absolutely cannot take part in it. He recognizes, as I have said before, that ideas, motives, and goals worthy of the pledge of one's own true being do not exist today; there are no demands of which he can recognize any moral right and foundation outside that which they derive as mere facts on the empirical and profane plane. However, apoliteia, detachment, does not necessarily involve specific consequences in the field of pure and simple activity. I have already discussed the capacity to apply oneself to a given task for love of action in itself and in terms of an impersonal perfection. So, in principle, there is no reason to exclude the political realm itself as a particular case among others, since participating in it on these terms requires neither any objective value of a higher order, nor impulses that come from emotional and irrational layers of one's own being. But if this is how one dedicates oneself to political activity, clearly all that matters is the action and the impersonal perfection in acting for its own sake. Such political activity, for one who desires it, cannot present a higher value and dignity than dedicating oneself, in the same spirit, to quite different activities: absurd colonization projects, speculations on the stock market, science, and even - to give a drastic example - arms traffic or white slavery.As conceived here, apoliteia creates no special presuppositions in the exterior field, not necessarily having a corollary in practical abstention. The truly detached man is not a professional and polemic outsider, nor conscientious objector, nor anarchist. Once it is established that life with its interactions does not constrain his being, he could even show the qualities of a soldier who, in order to act and accomplish a task, does not request in advance a transcendent justification and a quasi-theological assurance of the goodness of the cause. We can speak, in these cases, of a voluntary obligation that concerns the "persona," not the being, by which - even while one is involved - one remains isolated.I have already said that the positive overcoming of nihilism lies precisely in the fact that lack of meaning does not paralyze the action of the "persona." In existential terms, the only exception would be the possibility of action being manipulated by some current political or social myth that regarded today's political life as serious, significant, and important. Apoliteia is the inner distance unassailable by this society and its "values"; it does not accept being bound by anything spiritual or moral. Once this is firm, the activities that in others would presuppose such bonds can be exercised in a different spirit. Moreover, there remains the sphere of activities that can be made to serve a higher-ordained and invisible end, as when I mentioned the two aspects of impersonality and what is to be gained from some forms of modern existence.Turning to a particular point, one can only maintain an attitude of detachment when facing the confrontation of the two factions contending for world domination today: the democratic, capitalist West and the communist East. In fact, this struggle is devoid of any meaning from a spiritual point of view. The "West" is not an exponent of any higher ideal. Its very civilization, based on an essential negation of traditional values, presents the same destructions and nihilistic background that is evident in the Marxist and communist sphere, however different in form and degree. I will not dwell on this, given that I have outlined a total conception of the course of history, and dismissed any illusion about the final result of that struggle for world control, in Revolt Against the Modern World. Since the problem of values does not come into question, at most it presents a practical problem to the differentiated man. That certain margin of material freedom that the world of democracy still leaves for external activity to one who will not let himself be conditioned inwardly, would certainly be abolished in a communist regime. Simply in view of that, one may take a position against the soviet-communist system: not because one believes in some higher ideal that the rival system possesses, but for motives one might almost call basely physical.On the other hand, one can keep in mind that for the differentiated man, having no interest in affirming and exposing himself in external life today, and his deeper life remaining invisible and out of reach, a communist system would not have the same fatal significance as for others; also an "underground front" could very well exist there. Taking sides in the present struggle for world hegemony is not a spiritual problem, but a banal, practical choice.[...]JULIUS EVOLA
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Worthless Political & Social Sphere
Requires Apoliteia
while Bourgeois World's
Patriotic & Family Ideals Dissolve
but Collapse of Sex Taboos
a Positive Occurrence

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Worthless Political & Social Sphere Requires Apoliteia while Bourgeois World's Patriotic & Family Ideals Dissolve but Collapse of Sex Taboos a Positive Occurrence(from “The Path of Cinnabar”)[...]In a section of Ride the Tiger entitled 'Social Dissolution', I emphasized once more my work's detachment from any practical aim. I here argued that there is nothing in the political and social sphere to which it is worth deeply committing oneself today. Apoliteia must be the norm for the differentiated man. Nor, for such a man, is the antithesis between 'East' and 'West' of any importance: for 'East' and 'West' are merely different aspects of the same problem (as I had already mentioned almost thirty years earlier in the pages of Revolt). A choice between the two can only be taken on crudely practical bases, as the Communist East threatens those who do not wish to submit to its rule, even resorting to physical elimination. In this section of Ride the Tiger, when discussing the crisis of patriotic and family ideals (among others), I emphasized what I had already noted in the introduction to the book: that such ideals are essentially aspects of the bourgeois world - mythical, sentimental, rhetorical or romantic extensions of this world destined to undergo increasing dissolution, In particular, in order to provide a further example of the ambiguity that marks the present age, I examined the issue of sex. No doubt, I argued, the collapse or impending collapse of all taboos, authorities and formalities with regard to sex might be regarded as a positive occurrence; the question arises, however, as to just who will exploit this freedom and in what way - whether, in other words, such freedom will engender something other than simple petty corruption, sexual primitivism and a pandemic of erotic obsession. The points I raised here with regard to the prospect of free, intense and essential intercourse between man and woman share much in common with some of the things I wrote in The Metaphysics of Sex. Once more, in these pages of Ride the Tiger, I emphasized the absurdity of ordinary procreation from a superior perspective: I identified the safest path to ensure a form of continuity, not with procreation by blood, but with the transmission of wisdom and of an inner orientation to those sufficiently qualified (i.e., the idea of spiritual fatherhood). Given the nature of modern dissolution, mere blood links no longer provide an adequate support, for each new generation feels increasingly and anarchically removed from the one that came before it.[...]JULIUS EVOLA
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