Life here on earth cannot be viewed as a coincidence. Moreover, it should not be regarded as something we can either accept or reject at will, nor as a reality that imposes itself on us, before which we can only remain passive, or display an attitude of obtuse resignation. Rather, what arises in some people is the sensation that earthly life is something to which, prior to our becoming terrestrial beings, we have committed ourselves, both as an adventure and as a mission or a chosen task, undertaking a whole set of problematic and tragic elements as well.
- Excerpt From: Etica Aria, by Julius Evola
[Jünger] had rightly perceived that the age beginning in the West with the advent of mechanical civilization and of the first “total” wars is characterized by the emergence of “elementary” forces operating in a destructive manner, not only materially, but also spiritually, not only in the vicissitude of warfare, but also in cosmopolitan mechanized life. The merit of Jünger in that first phase of his thought is that he had recognized the fatal error of those who think that everything may be brought back to order, that this new menacing world, ever advancing, may be subdued or held on the basis of the vision of life of the values of the proceeding age, that is to say of bourgeois civilization. If a spiritual catastrophe is to be averted modern man must make himself capable of developing his own being in a higher dimension – and it is in this connexion that Jünger had announced the above-mentioned watchword of “heroic realism” and pointed out the ideal of the “absolute person,” capable of measuring himself with elementary forces, capable of seizing the highest meaning of existence in the most destructive experiences, in those actions wherein the human individual no longer counts: of a man acclimatized to the most extreme temperatures and having behind the “zero point of every value.”
Julius Evola
Taken From: East and West, V, 2, July 1954
In both individual and collective life the economic factor is today the most important, real, and decisive one. … An economic era is by definition fundamentally anarchic and anti-hierarchical; it represents a subversion of the normal order. … This subversive character is present in both Marxism and in its apparent antagonist, modern capitalism. The worst absurdity is for those who today claim to represent a political ‘Right’ to remain in the dark, overcast circle drawn by the demonic power of the economy—a circle inhabited by both Marxism and capitalism, along with a whole series of intermediate stages. Those today who line up against the forces of the Left should insist on this. Nothing is more evident than that modern capitalism is just as subversive as Marxism. The materialistic vision of life which is the basis of both systems is identical.
- Excerpt From: Men Among The Ruins, By Julius Evola
The term work has always designated the lowest forms of human activity, those that are merely exclusively conditioned by the economic factor. It is illegitimate to label as “work” anything that is not reduced to these forms; rather, the word to be used is action: action, not work, is what is performed by the leader, the explorer, the ascetic, the pure scientist, the warrior, the artist, the diplomat, the theologian, the one who makes or breaks a law, the one who is motivated by an elementary passion or guided by a principle.
- Excerpt From: Men Among The Ruins, by Julius Evola
Excerpt From
Tyranny of The Economy & Pseudo-Antithesis Between Capitalism & Marxism
by
Julius Evola
What must be questioned is not the value of this or that economic system, but the value of the economy itself. Thus, despite the fact that the antithesis between capitalism and Marxism dominates the background of recent times, it must be regarded as a pseudo-antithesis. In free-market economies, as well as in Marxist societies, the myth of production and its corollaries (e.g., standardization, monopolies, cartels, technocracy) are subject to the “hegemony” of the economy, becoming the primary factor on which the material conditions of existence are based. Both systems regard as “backward” or as “underdeveloped” those civilizations that do not amount to “civilizations based on labor and production”—namely, those civilizations that, luckily for themselves, have not yet been caught up in the feverish industrial exploitation of every natural resource, the social and productive enslavement of all human possibilities, and the exaltation of technical and industrial standards; in other words, those civilizations that still enjoy a certain space and a relative freedom. Thus, the true antithesis is not between capitalism and Marxism, but between a system in which the economy rules supreme (no matter in what form) and a system in which the economy is subordinated to extra-economic factors, within a wider and more complete order, such as to bestow a deep meaning upon human life and foster the development of its highest possibilities. This is the premise for a true restorative reaction, beyond “Left” and “Right,” beyond capitalism’s abuses and Marxist subversion. The necessary conditions are an inner detoxification, a becoming “normal” again (”normal” in the higher meaning of the term), and a renewed capability to differentiate between base and noble interests. No intervention from the outside can help; any external action at best might accompany this process.
Excerpt From
Why We Write
by
Kerry Bolton
Years ago I read Spengler. For years I have seen his forecasts slowly unfold in New Zealand before my eyes, every time I read the newspaper or even walk the dog down the street and see smashed glass glittering over the pavements, testimony to the bastardous louts who run rampant without thought for anyone or anything besides their immediate self-gratification. (And what is one to make of those more respectable citizens who can’t even take the responsibility upon themselves to be bothered to clean up the shards over their own drive-ways and footpaths, presumably on the basis that it was not their doing?)
I recognise the myriad ways such as those mentioned which in aggregate are spelling out the words: social and cultural decay. Some of what I write of the above might seem trivial, or “belly-aching” as we might say in New Zealand, yet all in some manner reflect New Zealand as a microcosm of the Western Civilisation in its cyclic predicament as foretold by Spengler.
Yet, for all the pessimism, where there is will there is hope; where there is a spark there might one day be a cleansing fire. The very least we can do is to heed the counsel of Evola and “ride the tiger.”
I simply do not like what I see taking place, and am not inclined to stay silent. I don’t believe in backing down for any reason, nor do I believe that the bastards who are laying waste to our civilisation should be permitted to proceed without being called to account. Since I am not a great painter, musician, poet, organiser, or orator I can at least scribble my thoughts and try to put them “out there” for anyone who might care to read them, whether they are accepted or rejected, useful or useless. It is part of who I am, and always will be.
The Plurality & Duality of Civilizations
by
Julius Evola
Recently, in contrast to the notion of progress and the idea that history has been represented as the more or less continuous upward evolution of collective humanity, the idea of a plurality of the forms of civilization and of a relative incommunicability between them has been confirmed.
According to this second and new version of history, civilization breaks down into epochs and disconnected cycles. At a given moment and within a given race a specific conception of the world and of life is affirmed from which follows a specific system of truths, principles, understandings, and realizations. A civilization springs up, gradually reaches a culminating point, and then falls into darkness and, more often than not, disappears.
Continue reading ‘Understanding & Action’
The Meaning and Context of Zen
by
Julius Evola
We know the kind of interest Zen has evoked even outside specialized disciplines, since being popularized in the west by D.T. Suzuki through his books Introduction to Zen Buddhism and Essays in Zen Buddhism. This popular interest is due to the paradoxical encounter between East and West. The ailing West perceives that Zen has something “existential” and surrealistic to offer. Zen’s notion of a spiritual realization, free from any faith and any bond, not to mention the mirage of an instantaneous and somehow gratuitous “spiritual breakthrough”, has exercised a fascinating attraction on many Westerners. However, this is true, for the most part, only superficially. There is a considerable difference between the spiritual dimension of the “philosophy of crisis”, which has become popular in the West as a consequence of its materialistic and nihilist development, and the spiritual dimension of Zen, which has been rooted in the spirituality of the Buddhist tradition. Any true encounter between Zen and the West, presupposes, in a Westerner, either an exceptional predisposition, or the capability to operate a metanoia. By metanoia I mean an inner turnabout, affecting not so much one’s intellectual “attitudes”, but rather a dimension which in every time and in every place has been conceived as a deeper reality.
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United Europe: The Spiritual Prerequisite
by
Julius Evola
The first political step in forging a united Europe would be the withdrawal of all European governments from the United Nations, a hypocritical organisation if there ever was.
The ground for a European initiative must be carefully prepared; but the problems of concrete political tactics fall outside the scope of this essay. Here we can only point to what we believe must be the form and the spiritual and doctrinal basis of united Europe.
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Taken from Revolt Against The Modern World
by
Julius Evola
In the Islamic tradition a distinction is made between two holy wars, the “greater holy war” (el-jihadul-akbar) and the “lesser holy war” (el-jihadul-ashgar). This distinction originated from a saying (hadith) of the Prophet, who on the way back from a military expedition said: “You have returned from a lesser holy war to a great holy war.” The greater holy war is of an inner and spiritual nature; the other is the material war waged externally against an enemy population with the particular intent of bringing “infidel” populations under the rule of “God’s Law” (al-Islam). The relationship between the “greater” and “lesser holy war”, however, mirrors the relationship between the soul and the body; in order to understand the heroic asceticism or “path of action”, it is necessary to understand the situation in which the two paths merge, the “lesser holy war” becoming the means through which a “greater holy war” is carried out, and vice versa: the “little holy war”, or the external one, becomes almost a ritual action that expresses and gives witness to the reality of the first. Originally, orthodox Islam conceived of a unitary form of asceticism: that which is connected to the jihad or “holy war”.
Continue reading ‘On Jihad And Holy War’