Revolt Against the Modern World By Julius Evola Original Italian Edition 1934 Revised 1951, 1970 Inner Traditions International 1995 (Translation by Guido Stucco) 375 Pages, $29.95 ISBN 0-89281-506-X

Summary & Notes on the Author Traditional Spirituality State, Kingship, Empire Castes and Traditional Economics Traditional Time and Space Historical Decay A Mythological World History Degenerate Religions The Decline of Antiquity Church versus Empire The Post-Medieval Collapse The End of this World A Critique and Anathema

The Decline of Antiquity Evola knew and admired Spengler's work. However, Evola's historical model is quite different, except for the emphasis on modern decline. Spengler had declared Classical antiquity a culture different from that of the West, which he dated from about A.D. 1000. Evola thought of the Classical world and the modern West as a unit. Its foundations were sound enough: “The Olympian conception of the divine was one of the most characteristic expressions of the Northern Light among the Hellenes; it was the view of a symbolical world of immortal and luminous essences detached from the inferior region of earthly beings and of things subjected to becoming, even though sometimes a 'genesis' was ascribed to some gods…” The terminal crisis of the modern world began in the 7th to the 5th centuries B.C. There were assaults against traditions all over the world at that time, but in the West, particularly in Greece, the assault was most acute and successful. (The term “Axial Period” does not occur in “Revolt Against the Modern World,” incidentally.) At that time, as again in more recent centuries, regality began giving way to oligarchy, followed by the rule of the bourgeoisie, followed by demagogy. Democracy was really a victory of Asia Minor. It succeeded where the underlying Pelasgic spirit overthrew Aryan hierarchy. Indeed, the whole Golden Age of Greece was a revolt against the transcendent. This was true even of Pythagoreanism. Socrates hoped to use the discursive principle to overcome the disintegrating effects of Sophism, but the attempt was doomed. He succeeded only in substituting talk about Being for Being itself, all the while obfuscating the particularism and contingency of sensible reality. Humanism, philosophy, and scientific inquiry infected the spiritual life. Systematic thought of any kind is a late and degenerate development. Still, Greek philosophy had this merit above that of the later West: it always retained some elements of the practice of spiritual autarchy. It was only with the advent of Christianity that humanitarian pathos dominated the life of the spirit. Rome made the only serious attempt to stop the forces of decay in Western antiquity. The attempt succeeded for a whole cycle. The Roman nucleus, wherever it came from, worked on an Atlantic, Silver Age environment. The plebians were the “Pelasgians” of Rome. The ancient Roman patrician religion was the magical manipulation of the numen, not the supplication of a deus. Pathos, mysticism, devotion, and other feminine qualities were minimized. Rome seemed to bring about the rebirth of solar regality, but it was undercut by every kind of cult. The centralization practiced by the Caesars was evidence of inner decline. When the empire began to totter, the proper remedy would have been to rally the Roman race, the minority whose spirit informed the empire. Universalizing citizenship was the opposite of what should have been done. The Christian notion that “my kingdom is not of this world” makes traditional sovereignty impossible. This is why the early Church was persecuted. Evola insists, against considerable evidence, that the Pauline saying, “all authority comes from God,” remained ineffectual as a means of legitimizing the state. Next

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Copyright © 2002 by John J. Reilly