A review and summary of Men Among The Ruins by John J. Reilly

Kosmic

9 hr ago

Evola’s system of thought is a philosophy of Nietzschean descent, but with a transcendent element. It both rejects and resembles Existentialism: Evola’s ethics and politics are based on a defense of the essential self that goes beyond mere self-preservation. Personal action should be absolute, without looking for punishment or reward. Even the state rests not on force, but on the power of its idea. This Platonic foundation transcends mere history. This is what Evola, and his sometime colleague René Guénon, meant by Tradition.

Evola represents a segment of the Right that is simultaneously anti-socialist, anti-capitalist, anti-democratic, and anti-Christian. It is even, to some degree, anti-national. Though sometimes associated with the German “Conservative Revolution” (an association of which Evola approved), there is nothing very conservative about this Traditionalism. As Evola himself acknowledged, little now deserves to be preserved. Tradition is as revolutionary a doctrine as any that has appeared since the 18th century.

The model for Evola is a New Rome, governed by a sacral, organic hierarchy, at the pinnacle of which is a sacred monarch. His idea of monarchy is rather Taoist; the monarch rules by non-action, by the mere magic of his existence. Evola’s Traditionalism is sometimes called “Magical Idealism.” Simply invoking the Transcendent has an effect. The principle of social organization seems to be that “if we build it, they will come.” “They” are the men suited by training and enlightenment to constitute the hierarchy; “we” are an esoteric Order, dedicated to Tradition.

In some ways, the Fascist and National Socialist regimes were moving toward Tradition, though in their decadence they turned toward socialism. In the end, it was the people, the race, who failed fascism. As for Nazism, the Führer principle was defective; the Führer acted for the Volk, not for the Transcendent. For Tradition, in contrast, “common ideas are the fatherland.”

The Conservative Revolution does not seek to preserve antique forms, but to actualize perennial principles. Pretty much the whole of politics and culture since 1789 should be overthrown. This need not happen, of course. The future is a myth; it is not determined beforehand. Moreover, the future promises no real novelty, but simply the struggle to reverse decay. Those who have dominated history have not been adventurers, but those who sought to reconnect with essential Tradition. Though the discussion in “Men Among the Ruins” is too compressed to explain the grounds for these notions, Evola was probably thinking about the repeated restorations of Confucian orthodoxy in Chinese history.

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