I Reject, I Affirm. ''Raising the Black Flag'' in an Age of Devilry. - Page 25 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15108486
So I think in my next post i'll turn to the Books of the Maccabees for some insight, as the battle really seems to be between what one Rabbi called ''Hellenism'' and ''Israel'', so to speak.

What we call 'Western' culture was born from the fusion of the Hellenistic culture of the late Roman Empire with the Jewish monotheistic religion. Ever since then, throughout our entire history, it has been a fault-line in our culture. After all, what else were the American and French Revolutions but an attempt to revive the classical past at the expense of Christendom?
#15108533
Potemkin wrote:What we call 'Western' culture was born from the fusion of the Hellenistic culture of the late Roman Empire with the Jewish monotheistic religion. Ever since then, throughout our entire history, it has been a fault-line in our culture. After all, what else were the American and French Revolutions but an attempt to revive the classical past at the expense of Christendom?


@Potemkin , that's what I'm coming around to seeing more clearly.

After all, look at the paintings of a fellow like Jacques-Louis David, who was very invested in the French Revolution;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques-L ... oraces.jpg

But before David, were fellows like Nicholas Poussin with his paintings like ''the rape of the Sabine women'' and ''the Shepherds of Arcadia'';

https://www.nicolas-poussin.com/en/work ... shepherds/

https://www.nicolas-poussin.com/en/work ... ine-women/

Hinting in Poussin's time at what became explicit in David's.
#15108541
Hinting in Poussin's time at what became explicit in David's.

Precisely. Art was as strongly charged politically in the lead-up to the French Revolution as it later became again in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. Culture, by its nature, is always fundamentally political. Even the moronic American right-wingers understand this, hence their obsession with the 'Culture War'. There was a kind of 'Kulturkampf' being fought in 18th century France too. And the more classical art became, the more revolutionary it became. In my opinion, this was no accident.
#15108622
Potemkin wrote:Precisely. Art was as strongly charged politically in the lead-up to the French Revolution as it later became again in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. Culture, by its nature, is always fundamentally political. Even the moronic American right-wingers understand this, hence their obsession with the 'Culture War'. There was a kind of 'Kulturkampf' being fought in 18th century France too. And the more classical art became, the more revolutionary it became. In my opinion, this was no accident.


This is another reason why I find the genuine atheists like Nietzsche interesting, in that his Classical bias was so clear and strident yet he is not generally pictured as a Revolutionary-although I contend that he was after a fashion.
#15108697
annatar1914 wrote:This is another reason why I find the genuine atheists like Nietzsche interesting, in that his Classical bias was so clear and strident yet he is not generally pictured as a Revolutionary-although I contend that he was after a fashion.

Nietzsche called for "the transvaluation of all values". If that isn't a revolutionary act, then I don't know what is.

And yes, it was Nietzsche deep reverence for the classical tradition which led him to detest his cultural environment and adopt a radical stance antagonistic to it. As Lenin put it, "Yes, one must be radical. One must be as radical as reality itself."
#15108833
Potemkin wrote:Nietzsche called for "the transvaluation of all values". If that isn't a revolutionary act, then I don't know what is.

And yes, it was Nietzsche deep reverence for the classical tradition which led him to detest his cultural environment and adopt a radical stance antagonistic to it. As Lenin put it, "Yes, one must be radical. One must be as radical as reality itself."


It's a kind of Gnosticism at the root of it, a pessimism about the present realities and combined with a personal and/or collective technique to transform either yourself or that seemingly unyielding reality. Question is, is this state of mind actually True in the absolute sense?

My thinking is that it is not.
#15109786
Read the Old Testament books of the Maccabees of the Septuagint, and Plutarch's ''lives of the ancient Greeks and Romans'' again for insight into the war between the Classical/Hellenistic and the Judeo-Christian/Monotheistic worldviews, and the difference between the two is profound, even if some Jewish writers used the Greco-Roman cultural idioms and themes to give expression to ''Magian'' thoughts, as Spengler might put it.

Today is absolutely no different. As @Potemkin put it in another thread, Hegelian dialectic is for example a reworking of Heraclitus; ''nothing new under the sun''.

So a revived Greco-Roman/Pagan world view is obviously that ''man is the measure''... Even his 'gods' in the Classical age were anthropomorphic and are a mere shading of scale extending downwards into ''demigods'', ''heroes'', and then mere mortals, who themselves can be deified as honored ancestors. The human albeit artificial construct of the Polis, even writ large into an Empire, is all there is and all there will be. Tolerant of all except ''intolerance'', easygoing about a citizen's beliefs as long as the local civic religion is honored with all it's codes of social conduct and misconduct. There is no guilt or sin as such, only shame, honor, glory and social ethical ''virtue''. The world is seen as good and meant to be enjoyed (especially by those on the top of the social pyramid), provided one offers fealty to that world and it's demands. Chance, Fortune, and Necessity/Fate are seen as the true highest ''gods '' to be thought of in one's life...

Against this is the conception of the world as a battleground between the cosmic forces of Good and Evil, in which God Himself intervenes in the midst of persecution of those who have united themselves to Him in a life which is measured not by man's worldly standards but by His. Life even if seen as basically good, is still seen as a struggle within oneself and without between higher and lower natures or inclinations, and aided by the Divine or hindered by the Diabolic, in a war that ends with the triumph of God and the deliverance of His people, and a new Creation absent Evil.

Obviously to me these views are highly antithetical to each other, and each make the other almost the standing Evil to be opposed.
#15109794
^ I would agree with all of that. The fusion of the cosmopolitan free-wheeling hellenic culture of the late Roman Empire with the stern monotheism of the Jews is actually one of the most astonishing and unlikely things in all of human history. Yet it is this unlikely event which laid the foundation stone for what we now call 'Western civilisation'. But it is a fusion which has never really been fully harmonious - the West has always been at war with itself. The Jewish monotheistic aspect of our culture (apparently) triumphed for about a thousand years, but the classical hellenic roots of our culture never really went away during that period, and re-emerged again with a vengeance from the Renaissance onwards. And with the rise of Modernity, the pagan classical past has won victory after victory over Christendom; even our science and our technology has its roots in ancient Greece, which may be why it proved incompatible with Christianity as a worldview.
#15110259
Potemkin wrote:^ I would agree with all of that. The fusion of the cosmopolitan free-wheeling hellenic culture of the late Roman Empire with the stern monotheism of the Jews is actually one of the most astonishing and unlikely things in all of human history. Yet it is this unlikely event which laid the foundation stone for what we now call 'Western civilisation'. But it is a fusion which has never really been fully harmonious - the West has always been at war with itself. The Jewish monotheistic aspect of our culture (apparently) triumphed for about a thousand years, but the classical hellenic roots of our culture never really went away during that period, and re-emerged again with a vengeance from the Renaissance onwards. And with the rise of Modernity, the pagan classical past has won victory after victory over Christendom; even our science and our technology has its roots in ancient Greece, which may be why it proved incompatible with Christianity as a worldview.


@Potemkin ,

Your comments really resonated with me, especially when lately I've been lurking at a number of ''conservative'' sites that tend to be very Anti-Muslim/anti-traditionalist in general tone...

I'll explain. Not that I have an affinity for a religion that I believe necessarily is false, but I know precisely why it's false from a theological level, which is emphatically NOT the point of ''Conservative'' critique of Islam.

The same ''Conservatives'' who lambaste ''Liberals'' for their ideas, and critique traditional Muslims for the same reasons as a Liberal might; women's rights, homosexual rights, freedom of religious minorities and freedom for secularists within largely Muslim societies, etc...

The logic of ''Magian'' Monotheistic belief systems necessarily makes them of a sort to inform an entire society, making every member of that society a believer who lives an individual way of life around that framework of belief.

So when ''conservatives'' kill or make a call to have killed ''ragheads'' somewhere, ''turn _____ into a parking lot'', ''bomb the fuckers back to the stone age if they want it so bad'', and so forth, it's really a transposed and projected hatred of the Monotheism they themselves have (''secretly''?) abandoned in all but name perhaps, unwilling to turn back to any kind of traditional Monotheistic society and unwilling to let anyone else anywhere attempt the same.

They mock Allah as a indirect means of mocking the Jewish and Christian God. They attack the Hijab and so forth, to indirectly attack the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints of previous ages, who would not have been scandalized by such traditional modest attire. They mock men who wear beards as looking like bums or outlaws. Because everyone deep down knows that external signs point to an inner reality.

What are these ''conservatives'' conserving exactly? A world order that is only about 300 years old at it's culminating point. I say ''only'' because to put it into perspective, my grandparents generation knew men who knew Abraham Lincoln, who in turn knew men who fought the American Revolution.
#15110497
annatar1914 wrote:@Potemkin ,

Your comments really resonated with me, especially when lately I've been lurking at a number of ''conservative'' sites that tend to be very Anti-Muslim/anti-traditionalist in general tone...

I'll explain. Not that I have an affinity for a religion that I believe necessarily is false, but I know precisely why it's false from a theological level, which is emphatically NOT the point of ''Conservative'' critique of Islam.

The same ''Conservatives'' who lambaste ''Liberals'' for their ideas, and critique traditional Muslims for the same reasons as a Liberal might; women's rights, homosexual rights, freedom of religious minorities and freedom for secularists within largely Muslim societies, etc...

The logic of ''Magian'' Monotheistic belief systems necessarily makes them of a sort to inform an entire society, making every member of that society a believer who lives an individual way of life around that framework of belief.

And this is precisely what liberal modernity cannot permit, any more than pagan Rome could permit it. And it is rather amusing that so-called 'conservatives' attack liberalism using "traditional" values, and then attack traditionalists using liberal values. Either they are being false in the first act, or they are being false in the second. I think the latter is more likely; they are no more "traditionalist" than the most elitist out-of-touch East Coast liberal. They have been saturated with liberal values, and they don't even seem to realise it.

So when ''conservatives'' kill or make a call to have killed ''ragheads'' somewhere, ''turn _____ into a parking lot'', ''bomb the fuckers back to the stone age if they want it so bad'', and so forth, it's really a transposed and projected hatred of the Monotheism they themselves have (''secretly''?) abandoned in all but name perhaps, unwilling to turn back to any kind of traditional Monotheistic society and unwilling to let anyone else anywhere attempt the same.

They mock Allah as a indirect means of mocking the Jewish and Christian God. They attack the Hijab and so forth, to indirectly attack the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints of previous ages, who would not have been scandalized by such traditional modest attire. They mock men who wear beards as looking like bums or outlaws. Because everyone deep down knows that external signs point to an inner reality.

What are these ''conservatives'' conserving exactly? A world order that is only about 300 years old at it's culminating point. I say ''only'' because to put it into perspective, my grandparents generation knew men who knew Abraham Lincoln, who in turn knew men who fought the American Revolution.

They are conserving a revolution, @annatar1914. And that is always a paradoxical thing, riven by internal contradictions; which can actually become a comical thing when done by, shall we say, cognitively challenged people. Lol. ;)
#15110498
Potemkin wrote:And this is precisely what liberal modernity cannot permit, any more than pagan Rome could permit it. And it is rather amusing that so-called 'conservatives' attack liberalism using "traditional" values, and then attack traditionalists using liberal values. Either they are being false in the first act, or they are being false in the second. I think the latter is more likely; they are no more "traditionalist" than the most elitist out-of-touch East Coast liberal. They have been saturated with liberal values, and they don't even seem to realise it.


They are conserving a revolution, @annatar1914. And that is always a paradoxical thing, riven by internal contradictions; which can actually become a comical thing when done by, shall we say, cognitively challenged people. Lol. ;)


:D

@Potemkin

Yes, we are not dealing with the ''sharpest knives in the drawer'', at least as far as having Socratic self-reflection going on.

The contradictions of ''preserving a revolution'' are rather comical and absurd on the face of it, especially when dealing with a whole class such as the West's Bourgeoisie. It seems that the Traditionalist and the real Socialist (Marxist or otherwise) are the only honest and genuine ones around, because they have a future in mind that isn't something that resembles the present.

In my own person, I can go forwards to restore what was lost and make it even better possibly, on both counts; traditional and socialist. Maybe it's the reading of Ali Shariati I once engaged in percolating back into my memory...
#15110500
Potemkin wrote:And this is precisely what liberal modernity cannot permit, any more than pagan Rome could permit it. And it is rather amusing that so-called 'conservatives' attack liberalism using "traditional" values, and then attack traditionalists using liberal values. Either they are being false in the first act, or they are being false in the second. I think the latter is more likely; they are no more "traditionalist" than the most elitist out-of-touch East Coast liberal. They have been saturated with liberal values, and they don't even seem to realise it.


I can remember being 15 years old and wondering why Western conservatives loved capitalism and markets so much, why they kept talking about freedom in the highest of terms.

It was always very difficult to reconcile the notion of conserving traditions with free markets and ultra-liberal politics.

The fascists did not offer any alternative either. They wanted not tradition but a re-imagining of the past and radicalism.

Where the true conservatism is I don't know. Perhaps thinkers like Ivan Ilyin who rejected Western liberal democracy but also communism and fascism could be some type of answer. Afterall he rejected extremism, the racism of the far right and the classism of the far left but also other types of nonsense.
#15110501
@Political Interest ;

I can remember being 15 years old and wondering why Western conservatives loved capitalism and markets so much, why they kept talking about freedom in the highest of terms.


This was the political milieu I grew up in, the sort of ''civic religion'' I received alongside my Christianity and yet in uneasy contradiction to it.

It was always very difficult to reconcile the notion of conserving traditions with free markets and ultra-liberal politics.


This is the core of it to me; I had to either (logically speaking) become a follower of Ayn Rand or the like, or see where the dimensions of a more solidly affirmed traditional religion led me, politically speaking.

The fascists did not offer any alternative either. They wanted not tradition but a re-imagining of the past and radicalism.


Last night I watched a program on Hitler and his admiration for Henry Ford, for the Automobile and the Autobahn plans-the man truly admired and envied America. As John Lukacs always said, Hitler was a revolutionary, albeit one of a very interesting sort.

Where the true conservatism is I don't know. Perhaps thinkers like Ivan Ilyin who rejected Western liberal democracy but also communism and fascism could be some type of answer. Afterall he rejected extremism, the racism of the far right and the classism of the far left but also other types of nonsense.


This thread has been where i've tried to figure out precisely that, with mixed results. But, I think the input of others has helped, so I thank you.
#15110540
So, is a ''pre-modern'' man of the ages before our modern age the same as a ''traditionalist'' today?

No. There are many different types of people, and a pre-modern man might well take to modern living and technology quite well after a period of adjustment. A common trope about traditionalists is that they want to go back to a time and place they imagine the world was before it took a ''wrong turn'', but really, in a way some traditionalists (consciously or otherwise) are as much a progressive of sorts as any genuine Socialist or other futurist; Distributionists, Social Credit theorists, proponents of Technocracy and others. The irony is that Marx and Engels among others recognized this sort of ideological taxonomy as ''Right Wing Socialism'', quite aware of it's existence, even as others on the Right/''Conservatives'' did not.

Is it Fascism then, a kind of Proto-Fascism that a fringe of reactionaries somewhat believe in as an intellectual hobby? I don't think so, but I'm going to look at this from another angle;

No doubt, a real Traditionalist in this modern age carries along a way of life more or less that extends from the Pre-Modern era into today-can they be found in the developed countries, in the First World, the West? Probably very few, I don't know. I imagine it's possible if we grant a broader definition of traditionalists, there might be considerably more but most of these people are bound to have something of a double life, some in even a kind of inner exile from the daily modern life they live-a real ''silent majority''. So silent that some aren't even consciously aware of the strife and contradictions going on about and within them.

To me, the core belief integral to this traditionalism i'm trying to get a handle on the description of is in a Being that created, governs, and interact on some level with this world, some kind of Monotheism. Fascism, Nazism and so forth, take the principles of the Modern as a starting point and run with them to conclusions perhaps repugnant to many, running counter to traditionalism and I contend, a kind of Polytheism in Fascism's more esoteric aspects. A new age of gods and demi-gods and heroes, and giants and monsters too, is what it calls for.

We assume progress exists with the Modern, when in fact the notion was stood on it's ear and the real progress came with a new concept of Time. Pagan pre-Modern Time is cyclical; what was will be again, what is will be no longer until the wheel spins another round, and so on for eternity. But with the Magian Monotheism, we have Linear Time; past, present, and future, always forwards, breaking the cyclical time...

Except that it's returning, has been since the beginning of the age some 500 years ago, this idea of eternal past and future leading to cyclical theories to account for what that time should be filled up with... And some say that the ''Left'' is dangerous.
#15110546
I see, so you're saying that we shouldn't return to monke :excited:
Image

But what if we did all forget how to build refrigerators? Only the strong would survive. So many problems solved. Ergo:
Image

But seriously. One way to define a traditionalist might be to understand how the cultural character and perceptions of the past can continue today. This is obvious in some places but not in the west because everything is about breaking down and vilifying those presumptions; not only but seemingly especially when similar viewpoints can be found in other cultures. :eek:
#15110559
annatar1914 wrote:So, is a ''pre-modern'' man of the ages before our modern age the same as a ''traditionalist'' today?

No. There are many different types of people, and a pre-modern man might well take to modern living and technology quite well after a period of adjustment. A common trope about traditionalists is that they want to go back to a time and place they imagine the world was before it took a ''wrong turn'', but really, in a way some traditionalists (consciously or otherwise) are as much a progressive of sorts as any genuine Socialist or other futurist; Distributionists, Social Credit theorists, proponents of Technocracy and others. The irony is that Marx and Engels among others recognized this sort of ideological taxonomy as ''Right Wing Socialism'', quite aware of it's existence, even as others on the Right/''Conservatives'' did not.

Is it Fascism then, a kind of Proto-Fascism that a fringe of reactionaries somewhat believe in as an intellectual hobby? I don't think so, but I'm going to look at this from another angle;

No doubt, a real Traditionalist in this modern age carries along a way of life more or less that extends from the Pre-Modern era into today-can they be found in the developed countries, in the First World, the West? Probably very few, I don't know. I imagine it's possible if we grant a broader definition of traditionalists, there might be considerably more but most of these people are bound to have something of a double life, some in even a kind of inner exile from the daily modern life they live-a real ''silent majority''. So silent that some aren't even consciously aware of the strife and contradictions going on about and within them.

To me, the core belief integral to this traditionalism i'm trying to get a handle on the description of is in a Being that created, governs, and interact on some level with this world, some kind of Monotheism. Fascism, Nazism and so forth, take the principles of the Modern as a starting point and run with them to conclusions perhaps repugnant to many, running counter to traditionalism and I contend, a kind of Polytheism in Fascism's more esoteric aspects. A new age of gods and demi-gods and heroes, and giants and monsters too, is what it calls for.

We assume progress exists with the Modern, when in fact the notion was stood on it's ear and the real progress came with a new concept of Time. Pagan pre-Modern Time is cyclical; what was will be again, what is will be no longer until the wheel spins another round, and so on for eternity. But with the Magian Monotheism, we have Linear Time; past, present, and future, always forwards, breaking the cyclical time...

Except that it's returning, has been since the beginning of the age some 500 years ago, this idea of eternal past and future leading to cyclical theories to account for what that time should be filled up with... And some say that the ''Left'' is dangerous.


I agree that fascists are distinct from traditionalists, because, as with liberals and socialists, they are necessarily modernistic and revolutionary. They seek to create states in which they are able to propagate their ideology, which necessitates advancing the interests of their nation, and, on some level, progressing their society. They see a fascist utopia, and they do not view the world in a cyclical manner. What I've never understood is how many reactionaries seem to wish for all the world to be filled with 'traditionalists' just like themselves. Surely, the only way they would be able to accomplish this is with the revolutionary means popularised in what you might term to be the 'beginning of this age'. If time is indeed cyclical, would a reactionary (which I use almost synonymously with traditionalist) not simply accept that the age must run its course?
#15110714
@Local Localist , you said;

I agree that fascists are distinct from traditionalists, because, as with liberals and socialists, they are necessarily modernistic and revolutionary. They seek to create states in which they are able to propagate their ideology, which necessitates advancing the interests of their nation, and, on some level, progressing their society. They see a fascist utopia, and they do not view the world in a cyclical manner.


Most of your Ur-Fascist thinkers, Proto-Fascist thinkers, were very much those in keeping with the principles (such as can be found in Neitzsche's work) such as the ''Eternal Return'', and yet for now I'd rather not dive into the turgid waters of the esoteric and get into Evola, Ariosophy, and such as those.

But yes, while ''Modern'' and ''Revolutionary'', they were for all that, restoring the Pagan world back to Europe and the world after a bit of a hiatus. Such thinking has been the focus of my studies recently.


What I've never understood is how many reactionaries seem to wish for all the world to be filled with 'traditionalists' just like themselves. Surely, the only way they would be able to accomplish this is with the revolutionary means popularised in what you might term to be the 'beginning of this age'. If time is indeed cyclical, would a reactionary (which I use almost synonymously with traditionalist) not simply accept that the age must run its course?


Well, the question assumes the premise of Traditionalism=Reactionary, when I believe that they are distinct.

''Reaction'' is a state of mind, an unwillingness to move forwards even if the moving forwards is a question of right and wrong, of good versus evil even. A European 21st century Monarchist trying to restore the Monarchy, or just role playing as such somewhere, is a Reactionary.

''Tradition'' is living a way of life and of belief that because of it's basic principles, allows one to continue much as one's ancestors in the past, without changing in one's essence. A Bedouin tribe in the Sinai or Jordan, or Old Believer Orthodox Christians in Russia, are Traditionalists.


There appears to be a substantial if subtle distinction here, the more one thinks about it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@Wulfschilde , you commented that;

But seriously. One way to define a traditionalist might be to understand how the cultural character and perceptions of the past can continue today. This is obvious in some places but not in the west because everything is about breaking down and vilifying those presumptions; not only but seemingly especially when similar viewpoints can be found in other cultures.


I agree, the West is at it's basis, the root of Modernity, with assumptions about Capitalism vs. Socialism and everything else in the West being conditioned by the foundational premises of Western Civilization itself.
#15110779
annatar1914 wrote:Most of your Ur-Fascist thinkers, Proto-Fascist thinkers, were very much those in keeping with the principles (such as can be found in Neitzsche's work) such as the ''Eternal Return'', and yet for now I'd rather not dive into the turgid waters of the esoteric and get into Evola, Ariosophy, and such as those.

But yes, while ''Modern'' and ''Revolutionary'', they were for all that, restoring the Pagan world back to Europe and the world after a bit of a hiatus. Such thinking has been the focus of my studies recently.


I would say that there's an overlap between fascism and traditionalism, but that it is very much possible to be a fascist without being a traditionalist. I must admit I haven't read Evola or anything in that area, really, but I have always been a bit dubious of the claims of his being fascistic given that Guénon most certainly was not.

annatar1914 wrote:Well, the question assumes the premise of Traditionalism=Reactionary, when I believe that they are distinct.

''Reaction'' is a state of mind, an unwillingness to move forwards even if the moving forwards is a question of right and wrong, of good versus evil even. A European 21st century Monarchist trying to restore the Monarchy, or just role playing as such somewhere, is a Reactionary.

''Tradition'' is living a way of life and of belief that because of it's basic principles, allows one to continue much as one's ancestors in the past, without changing in one's essence. A Bedouin tribe in the Sinai or Jordan, or Old Believer Orthodox Christians in Russia, are Traditionalists.


There appears to be a substantial if subtle distinction here, the more one thinks about it.


My view is that not all reactionaries are traditionalists, but that all traditionalists are reactionaries. It seems that your definition of traditionalism essentially aligns with the classical definition of conservatism, and I agree that this is essentially a modus operandi (or 'form of praxis' if I'm feeling particularly pretentious), and is therefore nor really an ideological base in and of itself. This means, in my view, that one could theoretically be a 'conservative' from any ideological perspective. My definition of traditionalism, then, is quite different to yours, as I basically use it to describe the entirety of pre and anti-enlightenment thought, from Confucius to Thomas Aquinas to G.K. Chesterton. To be clear, I would not view Edmund Burke as a 'traditionalist', because his worldview was fundamentally liberal and accommodating of social change. Given that I essentially agree with your definition of a 'reactionary', however, would you then agree that it is illogical for such an individual to pursue political power?
#15110819
annatar1914 wrote:No doubt, a real Traditionalist in this modern age carries along a way of life more or less that extends from the Pre-Modern era into today-can they be found in the developed countries, in the First World, the West? Probably very few, I don't know. I imagine it's possible if we grant a broader definition of traditionalists, there might be considerably more but most of these people are bound to have something of a double life, some in even a kind of inner exile from the daily modern life they live-a real ''silent majority''. So silent that some aren't even consciously aware of the strife and contradictions going on about and within them.

To me, the core belief integral to this traditionalism i'm trying to get a handle on the description of is in a Being that created, governs, and interact on some level with this world, some kind of Monotheism. Fascism, Nazism and so forth, take the principles of the Modern as a starting point and run with them to conclusions perhaps repugnant to many, running counter to traditionalism and I contend, a kind of Polytheism in Fascism's more esoteric aspects. A new age of gods and demi-gods and heroes, and giants and monsters too, is what it calls for.


Perhaps in the former Soviet Union we could find these types of traditionalists and traditional people. I am not an expert because I've never lived or visited there but it seems that the FSU countries are modern societies in the majority, with a few exceptions in the Caucasus and Central Asia perhaps. Of course there are Cossacks and Old Believers as well. But would it be correct to conclude that the vast majority of the peoples of the FSU are living within modernity now days?

Maybe we could find such traditional people in Afghanistan, India or Pakistan. The Islamic world still retains many traditional ways of living but certainly the Orthodox world does as well.

Maybe Germany and France were traditional still in the 1900s.

Honestly speaking, I could not survive in a traditional world. The expectations would be too great on me. I try to be traditional but it is very hard.
#15110825
@Local Localist , you replied;

I would say that there's an overlap between fascism and traditionalism, but that it is very much possible to be a fascist without being a traditionalist.


I'm skeptical of the idea that one can be a genuine traditionalist-considering the type of humanity i've mentioned previously, living a whole way of life much as their forefathers but not hostile to changes for the better in contact with larger society- and a Fascism that actively tries to bring about a new society based on certain concepts which are frankly anti-human.

I must admit I haven't read Evola or anything in that area, really, but I have always been a bit dubious of the claims of his being fascistic given that Guénon most certainly was not.


Evola was Fascist. Guenon was too much the idiosyncratic scholar to be easily categorized. Don't get me wrong, I read Spengler, have read Werner Sombart, Arnim Mohler, Ernst Junger, many others in that ''Conservative Revolutionary'' vein of thinking. I believe that they influenced Fascism a great deal, but there are at least a couple of those i've listed at least that were disappointed by the movements they helped spawn. That's common by the way with political intellectuals, that disappointment, btw.


My view is that not all reactionaries are traditionalists, but that all traditionalists are reactionaries. It seems that your definition of traditionalism essentially aligns with the classical definition of conservatism, and I agree that this is essentially a modus operandi (or 'form of praxis' if I'm feeling particularly pretentious), and is therefore nor really an ideological base in and of itself.


Life is both acting from basic ideals, and being shaped by the results upon contact and modification with reality. I don't think that most ''reactionaries'' are living an integral way of life in this modern age; it's possible that they cannot. However, this is not the case necessarily with people living a more traditional way of life; hard to call an Ethiopian farmer from the highlands of his homeland in 2020 a ''reactionary'', whereas a guy like me who is more ''waiting'' to be proven right in my political and socio-economic beliefs, could be considered so. More on that later...


This means, in my view, that one could theoretically be a 'conservative' from any ideological perspective. My definition of traditionalism, then, is quite different to yours, as I basically use it to describe the entirety of pre and anti-enlightenment thought, from Confucius to Thomas Aquinas to G.K. Chesterton. To be clear, I would not view Edmund Burke as a 'traditionalist', because his worldview was fundamentally liberal and accommodating of social change. Given that I essentially agree with your definition of a 'reactionary', however, would you then agree that it is illogical for such an individual to pursue political power?


Depends on the time and circumstances I think. A American in 2020 who is looking for a imposition of Monarchy upon the people of North America would probably be illogical in pursuit of political power, unless they were somehow able to make that happen by virtue of already being at the top of the Elite.
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