Top Page & Personal Information
|| Alternative History || Eschatology || History || Literature || Polemical Writings || Religion || Science & Cosmology || Spelling Reform || World Government || Blog
Reply to John J. Reilly Here
|
Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist By Julius Evola Inner Traditions, 2002 (Translated from the revised Italian edition of 1972; First Edition 1953) 310 Pages, $22.00 ISBN 0-89281-905-7 |
|
|
Brief Introductory Review
Evola's Influence |
This brings us to the question of Evola's influence, even on the popular level. Was the revolutionary New Age anthem, “Ride the Tiger,” by the musical group Jefferson Starship, inspired by Evola's tract of roughly the same name? It is not impossible; the tract was read aloud to striking students in Europe in 1968. Then there is the Muslim connection. Evola's theory of the sacral state is not very different from the Muslim ideal, and in fact René Guénon embraced Islam and became an influential Sufi. Many writers come to mind who have invoked themes similar to Evola's. To take a currently popular author, Evola's “Empire” clearly has something to do with that of Antonio Negri, but then both were also influenced by the Augustinian “City of God.” Evola's idea of an esoteric Order also chimes with Negri's idea of post-bourgeois, non-theist “Franciscans.” Of course, Evola's Order upholds the Empire, while Negri's Order undermines it. Both Evola and Negri have models of history that are permissive rather than deterministic. In both cases, a new society is a matter of will. Among other recent writers, one might note that Robert Kaplan's idea of “ancient pagan virtue” in his book, “Warrior Politics,” is not so different from Evola's concept of warrior ethics. Both Evola and Kaplan might have profited from a reading of Victor Hanson's “The Western Way of War,” which argues persuasively that warrior societies are losers, especially when they engage liberal democracies. Evola reviewed and gave qualified endorsement to Francis Parker Yockey's pseudo-Spenglerian tract, "Imperium" (That title, by the way, recurs in Evola's biography as the title of a journal with which he was associated, and with at least one political organization.) The doctrine of “Magic Idealism” clears up the cryptic assertion in Yockey's “Imperium” that merely reading the book is a political act. One need not seek only among the wicked for what seems to be Evola's influence. C.S. Lewis's novel “That Hideous Strength, written during the Second World War, has a character belonging to an occult conspiracy who explains to a captive why he should join the conspiracy. Oddly, the conspirator is a psychologist of the behaviorist school, and for most purposes an extreme materialist. The captive asks how the reasons the behaviorist offers can be persuasive, if in fact all the captive's behavior is physiologically determined. The behaviorist answers that, once the training has begun, initiates see that their motives are epiphenomenal; they find they can function more efficiently without them. This is very close to Evola's idea of “absolute action.” Lewis was a serious scholar of medieval Italian literature, and a somewhat less serious student of the occult. It would hardly be surprising if he were familiar with Evola's ideas. As the Magic Baron advised, we should be cautious about identifying hidden actors in history. Still, many events look a little different, once you know that there is such a thing as Traditionalism in the world.
|
The sections of this review may be read sequentially. Please note that the sections do not correspond to the divisions of the book.
|
Copyright © 2002 by John J. Reilly
