I will now post Evola excerpt and you may read them, debate, and enjoy

>While in a capitalist regime not only greed for profits and dividends has a part in this senseless increase in production, but also the objective necessity for capital reinvestment in order to prevent a blockage paralyzing the entire system, another more general cause of the senseless increase of production along the lines of an excessive consumer economy is the necessity to employ labor to combat unemployment. As a result, in many states the principle of overproduction and overindustrialization, exacerbated by the demands of private capitalism, has become the very dictator of sociopolitical planning. So a vicious circle forms, the opposite of a system in equilibrium, of processes well contained within sensible boundaries.

>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." 2 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."

>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.

>In another respect, nothing is more indicative of the level of this neospiritualism than the human material of the majority of those who cultivate it. While the ancient sciences had the prerogative of a superior humanity drawn from the royal and priestly castes, today's new antimaterialist gospel is bandied about by mediums, popular "maguses," dowsers, spiritists, Anthroposophists, newspaper astrologers and seers, Theosophists, "healers," popularizers of an Americanized yoga, and so forth, accompanied by a few exalted mystics and extemporizing prophets. Mystification and superstition are constantly mingled in neospiritualism, another of whose typical traits, especially in AngloSaxon countries, is the high percentage of women (women who are failures, dropouts, or "past it"). In fact, its general orientation may well be described as a "feminine" spirituality.

yaaawwnnn

>Here too, we can see that some processes of dissolution in the modern world are virtually ambivalent. Not only have atheism and materialism contributed to banishing the terrors of the soul facing death, but the tragedy of death itself has often been trivialized by the collective catastrophic events of recent times. Today death occurs more simply and easily than in earlier times, and in turn diminishes the importance of human life, parallel to the growing insignificance and irrelevance that have marked the individual in the modern mechanized world of the masses. In addition, during the indiscriminate carpet bombings of the recent war, many could arrive at an attitude in which the death of any person, even a relative, became a natural and habitual event, having no more impact than the destruction of something merely material and external. Meanwhile, the idea of the uncertainty of life also enters into the order of habitual events, along with the prospect that tomorrow one could cease to exist.

>In reality, the entrance of the woman with equal rights into practical modern life, her new freedom, her finding herself side by side with men in the streets, offices, professions, factories, sports, and now even in political and military life, is one of those dissolutive phenomena in which, in most cases, it is difficult to perceive anything positive. In essence, all this is simply the renunciation of the woman's right to be a woman. The promiscuity of the sexes in modern existence can only "relieve" the woman to a greater or lesser degree of the energy with which she is endowed; she enters freer relationships only by regressing, because they are primitivized, prejudiced by all the factors and the practical, predominating interests of modern life. So the processes at work in present society, with woman's new status, can satisfy only one of the two requirements, that of clearer, freer, and more essential relationships, beyond both moralism and the erosive quality of bourgeois sentimentalism and "idealism," but certainly cannot satisfy the second — the activation of the most profound forces that define the absolute woman.

>The best illustration of these processes is that of Ernst Junger, in his work Der Arbeiter. 1 I can certainly agree with Junger when he says that these processes of the current world have caused the individual to be superseded by the "type," together with an essential impoverishment of his traits and ways of life, and a dissolution of cultural, human, and personal values. In the vast majority of cases, the destruction is suffered passively: the man of today is the mere object of it. The result is an empty, mass-produced human type, marked by standardization and flat uniformity; a "mask" in the negative sense; an insignificant, multiple product.

>The de-individualization that stems, however, from these very causes, this environment, these spiritual ravages, may actually take an active and positive course. This is the case that concerns us, and which the differentiated type of man whom we have in view should consider Junger himself refers to that which sometimes manifested in recent times in extreme, life-threatening situations, mainly in modern warfare. In the material battle, in which technology seems to turn against man with its systematic destruction and its activation of elementary forces, the individual as combatant cannot face it without being blown apart — not only physically but spiritually — unless he passes into a new form of existence. This form is characterized by two things: first, by an extreme lucidity and objectivity, and second, by a capacity to act and stay upright that is drawn from profound forces, beyond the categories of the individual, of ideals, of values, and of the goals of bourgeois civilization. What is important here is a natural union of life with risk, beyond the instinct of self-preservation, including situations in which one's own physical destruction is parallel to the attainment of the absolute sense of existence, and actualizes the "absolute person." We might call this the ultimate case of "riding the tiger."

I good stuff. I remember my Evola phase fondly. He clarifies a lot of things. Richard Wagner is a better guide for these times, though

>>24582663 (OP)
2nd rate mind. His work is full of all sorts of unhelpful conceptualization, like "absolute woman". Guenon actually wrote to someone saying "I don't think Evola actually knows what I mean by intellectual intuition", though Guenon himself is a 3rd rate mind.
Schopenhauer is much more incisive and profound

>>24583007
Wagner was born 150 years too early.

"Traditionalism" is a rude simplification of the human past. It's a lot like Marxism in a lot of ways, organizing everything into a master theory of an ideal society that never existed (or never will exist)
Schopenhauer sees more clearly that what matters is the individual, and also his sympathetic morality which is totally absent from Evil

>>24582663 (OP)
>>24582669
Stop being antisemitic

>>24583147
he kinda looks semitic

>>24583064
castes, feudalism, emperors, the holy roman empire, societies without feminism, warrior societies, the roman empire, priest-kings, ect etc were all real and existed

>Lukacs, though generally opposed to our position, made this legitimate remark: "The present-day practice of overestimating and exaggerating the importance of creative subjectivity actually betrays the weakness and poverty of the writers' individuality. They distinguish themselves merely by 'eccentricity,' either spontaneous or painstakingly cultivated; their worldview is at such a low level that any attempt they make to go beyond subjective immediacy threatens to leave their 'personality' completely flat. The more that this is the case, the more weight is placed on pure, immediate subjectivity, which sometimes is in fact identified with literary talent." 2 The character of "normative objectivity" that was proper to true, traditional art is altogether lacking. The category that Schuon has effectively characterized as "intelligent stupidity" 3 includes almost all the intellectual efforts in this area. But I will not dwell further on considerations at this level — I will return to the subject later — beyond pointing out that in contemporary celebrity worship we can see the popular, updated edition that takes the former "cult of the personality" to ridiculous lengths.

>The transcendent dimension may also become active in reaction to the processes responsible for a steady erosion of many ties to nature, „ leading to a rootless state. It is evident, for example, that the stay-athome bourgeois lifestyle is increasingly and irreversibly affected by the progress of communication technology, opening up great expanses on land, sea, and air. Modern life takes place ever less in a protected, selfcontained, qualitative, and organic environment: one is immersed in the entire world by new and rapid travel that can bring us to faraway lands and landscapes in little time. Hence, we tend toward a general cosmopolitanism as "world citizens" in a material and objective sense, not an ideological, much less a humanitarian one. At least the times of "provincialism" are over.

>To see what positive effect such situations can have on the development of the differentiated and self-possessed man, it is enough to glance at the ideas of certain traditional spiritual disciplines. In them, the metaphysical idea of the transience of earthly existence and the detachment from the world have had two characteristic expressions, whether symbolic or actual: the first in hermit life, living alone in desert or forest, the second in the wandering life, going through the world without house or home. This second type has even occurred in some Western religious orders; ancient Buddhism had the characteristic concept of "departure," as the start of a nonprofane existence, and in traditional Hinduism this was the last of the four stages of life. There is a significant analogy with the idea of the medieval "knight errant," to which we might add the enigmatic and sometimes disconcerting figures of "noble travelers" whose homeland was unknown, who did not have one, or must not be asked about it.

>Given this basic situation of a limitation exalted to a method, one can well understand that the consequence of all scientific and technological progress is an inner stagnation or even a return to savagery. Such progress is not accompanied by any inner progress but develops on a plane apart; it does not intersect with man's concrete, existential situation, which instead is left to itself.
>It is hardly worth mentioning the absurdity or the disarming naivete of that modern social ideology that makes science a sort of substitute for religion, giving it the task of showing man the way to happiness and progress, and sending him on that way.
>The truth is that man has gained nothing from the progress of science and technology, neither in regard to knowledge (and I have already spoken of that), nor in regard to his own power, and still less in regard to any higher law of conduct. At best, one could make an exception for medicine, but still only on the physical level. As for power, let no one claim that the ability of the hydrogen bomb to destroy an entire metropolis, or the promise of nuclear energy that heralds the "second industrial revolution," or the games for grown-up children that are space exploration, have made a single person more potent and superior in himself, in his concrete being. These forms of a mechanical, external, and extrinsic power leave the real human being untouched; he is no more powerful or superior using space missiles than he ever was when using a club, except in its material effects; apart from those he remains as he was, with his passions, his instincts, and his inadequacies.

>>24583038
>Guenon actually wrote to someone saying "I don't think Evola actually knows what I mean by intellectual intuition"
If that's true it's no doubt because "Abdalwahid Yahia" point blank refused to provide any explanations for his own private worldview beyond empty and polemically loaded assertions of its unimpeachable veracity
>But here an objection will undoubtably be raised: is it possible, then, to go beyond nature? We do not hesitate to answer plainly: not only is it possible, but it is done. But those are just words, it will be said; what proofs can you give us? It is truly strange that people ask for proof concerning the possibility of a kind of knowledge instead of searching for it and verifying it for themselves by undertaking the work necessary to acquire it. For those who possess this knowledge, what interest can there be in all this discussion? Substituting a theory of knowledge for knowledge itself is perhaps the greatest admission of impotence in modern philosophy. Moreover, all certitude contains something incommunicable; no one can truly attain to any knowledge other than through a strictly personal effort

This is the power of Evola? I meant to check him out eventually but this is all underwhelming, give me the good stuff, the real deal ideas and prose not this baby food.

>>24583921
you post this same thing in every evola thread. youre like a catty women lol. shut the fuck up

>In an epoch of dissolution, such an idea seems completely abstract and fantastic, typical of intellectuals with no sense of reality. First it presupposes the existence of men who still possess an inner law and sure ideas about what course should really be followed — and this, beyond anything that relates to the purely material world. Second, it presumes that these hypothetical men are the very ones entrusted with the use of the new means of power, in one direction or the other. Both suppositions are chimerical, especially the second. Today's leaders are caught in a tangle of actions and reactions that evade any real control; they obey irrational, collective influences, and are almost always at the service of special interests, ambitions, and material and economic rivalries that leave no room for a decision based on an enlightened freedom, a decision as an "absolute person."

>In fact, even the alternative suggested above, over which our contemporaries agonize so much, may present itself in terms very different from those advanced by a pacifist, progressivist, moralizing humanitarianism. I truly cannot say what the person who still has hope for man should think of the imminence of quasi-apocalyptic destruction. It would certainly force many to face the existential problem in all its nakedness, and subject them to extreme trials; but is this a worse evil than that of mankind's safe, secure, satisfied, and total consignment to the kind of happiness that befits Nietzsche's "last man": a comfortable consumer civilization of socialized human animals, aided by all the discoveries of science and industry and reproducing demographically in a squirming, catastrophic crescendo?

>In Europe, this process of dissolution, which always follows the disappearance of any higher point of reference, had two connected causes. The first was a kind of paralysis of the idea of European tradition as a center of gravity — which also corresponded to an obscuration, materializing, and decline of the Empire and its authority. Then, as if by counterpoint, there ensued the second cause: the centrifugal motion of the parts, the dissociation and autonomization of partial areas, conditioned precisely by the weakening and disappearance of the originating force of gravity. From the political point of view, there was the wellknown consequence that we need not dwell on: the end of the unified whole that the preceding European world still presented politically and socially, despite a system of ample regional autonomies and multiple tensions. Steding calls this a "Swissifying" and "Dutchifying" 2 of areas previously organically included in the complex of the Empire, and the fragmentation consequent on the rise of national states. But on the intellectual level the effect was necessarily the formation of a divided, "neutral" culture, devoid of any objective character.

>This is indeed the genesis and the predominant character of culture, science, and art that have come to prevail in the modern era. It is not necessary to make a detailed examination of that realm here. If I continued the discussion of modern science and its technical applications, it would be easy to highlight this process of increasing autonomy, a process neither checked nor restrained by any higher limits or guidance: hence one often has the impression that technical-scientific development takes man in hand and faces him with difficult, unexpected situations full of unknowns. I need not dwell on the specialized fragmentation, the lack of a higher and unifying principle of modern knowledge, as it is quite evident. These are the consequences of one of the dogmas of progressive thought, the unassailable "freedom of science" and of scientific research, which is a simple, euphemistic way to indicate and legitimize the development of one activity dissociated from the whole.

>>24582669
Send the original book pdf. This is unreadable

>>24584238
not engaging this thread but i would rather see threads like this that encourage response to specific ideas. No one is going to read a book just for an op, most people on lit barely read at all.