Foreword
For quite some time now it has become almost commonplace to talk about the “decline of the West” and the crisis of contemporary civilization, its dangers, and the havoc it has caused. Also, new prophecies concerning Europe’s or the world’s future are being formulated, and various appeals to “defend” the West are made from various quarters.
In all this concern there is generally very little that goes beyond the amateurishness of intellectuals. It would be all too easy to show how often these views lack true principles, and how what is being rejected is often still unconsciously retained by those who wish to react, and how for the most part people do not really know what they want, since they obey irrational impulses. This is especially true on the practical plane where we find violent and chaotic expressions typical of a “protest” that wishes to be global, though it is inspired only by the contingent and terminal forms of the latest civilization.
Therefore, even though it would be rash to see in these phenomena of protest something positive, they nevertheless have the value of a symptom; these phenomena clearly illustrate that beliefs that were once taken for granted today no longer are, and that the idyllic perspectives of “evolutionism” have come of age. An unconscious defense mechanism, however, prevents people from going beyond a certain limit; this mechanism is similar to the instinct found in sleepwalkers who lack the perception of height as they amble about. Some pseudointellectual and irrational reactions seem to have no other effect than to distract modern humans and prevent them from becoming fully aware of that global and dreadful perspective according to which the modern world appears as a lifeless body falling down a slope, which nothing can possibly stop.
There are diseases that incubate for a long time and become manifest only when their hidden work has almost ended. This is the case of man’s fall from the ways of what he once glorified as civilization par excellence. Though modern men[1] have come to perceive the West’s bleak future only recently, there are causes that have been active for centuries that have contributed to spiritual and material degeneration. These causes have not only taken away from most people the possibility of revolt and the return to normalcy and health, but most of all, they have taken away the ability to understand what true normalcy and health really mean.
Thus, no matter how sincere the intention animating those who today attempt to revolt and to sound the alarm may be, we should not cherish false hopes concerning the outcome. It is not easy to realize how deep we must dig before we hit the only root from which the contemporary, negative forms have sprung as natural and necessary consequences. The same holds true for those forms that even the boldest spirits do not cease to presuppose and to employ in their ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. Some people “react”; others “protest.” How could it be otherwise considering the hopeless features of contemporary society, morality, politics, and culture? And yet these are only “reactions” and not actions, or positive movements, that originate from the inner dimension and testify to the possession of a foundation, a principle, or a center. In the West, too many adaptations and “reactions” have taken place. Experience has shown that nothing that truly matters can be achieved in this way. What is really needed is not to toss back and forth in a bed of agony, but to awaken and get up.
Things have reached such a low point nowadays that I wonder who would be capable of assessing the modern world as a whole, rather than just some of its particular aspects (such as “technocracy” or the “consumer society”), and of understanding its ultimate meaning. This would be the real starting point.
In order for this to happen, it is necessary to leave the deceptive and magical “circle” and be able to conceive something else, to acquire new eyes and new ears in order to perceive things that have become invisible and mute with the passing of time. It is only by going back to the meanings and the visions that existed before the establishment of the causes of the present civilization that it is possible to achieve an absolute reference point—the key for the real understanding of all modern deviations—and at the same time to find a strong defense and an unbreakable line of resistance for those who, despite everything, will still be standing. The only thing that matters today is the activity of those who can “ride the wave” and remain firm in their principles, unmoved by any concessions and indifferent to the fevers, the convulsions, the superstitions, and the prostitutions that characterize modern generations. The only thing that matters is the silent endurance of a few, whose impassible presence as “stone guests” helps to create new relationships, new distances, new values, and helps to construct a pole that, although it will certainly not prevent this world inhabited by the distracted and restless from being what it is, will still help to transmit to someone the sensation of the truth—a sensation that could become for them the principle of a liberating crisis.
Within the limits of my possibilities, this book hopes to be a contribution to such a task. Its main thesis is the idea of the decadent nature of the modern world. Its purpose is to present evidence supporting this idea through reference to the spirit of universal civilization, on the ruins of which everything that is modern has arisen; this will serve as the basis of every possibility and as the categorical legitimization of a revolt, since only then will it become clear what one is reacting against, but also and foremost, in what name.
By way of introduction I will argue that no idea is as absurd as the idea of progress, which together with its corollary notion of the superiority of modern civilization, has created its own “positive” alibis by falsifying history, by insinuating harmful myths in people’s minds, and by proclaiming itself sovereign at the crossroads of the plebeian ideology from which it originated. How low has mankind gone if it is ready and willing to apotheosize a cadaverous wisdom? For this is how we should regard the perspective that refuses to view modern and “new” man as decrepit, defeated, and crepuscular man, but which rather glorifies him as the overcomer, the justifier, and as the only really living being. Our contemporaries must truly have become blind if they really thought they could measure everything by their standards and consider their own civilization as privileged, as the one to which the history of the world was preordained and outside of which there is nothing but barbarism, darkness, and superstition.
It must be acknowledged that before the early and violent shakings through which the inner disintegration of the Western world has become evident, even in a material way, the plurality of civilizations (and therefore the relativity of the modern one) no longer appears, as it once used to, as a heterodox and extravagant idea. And yet this is not enough. It is also necessary to be able to recognize that modern civilization is not only liable to disappear without a trace, like many others before it, but also that it belongs to a type, the disappearance of which has merely a contingent value when compared with the order of the “things-that-are” and of every civilization founded on such an order. Beyond the mere and secular idea of the “relativism of civilizations,” it is necessary to recognize a “dualism of civilizations.” The considerations that follow will constantly revolve around the opposition between the modern and the traditional world, and between modern and traditional man; such an opposition is ideal (that is, morphological and metaphysical) and both beyond and more than a merely historical opposition.
As far as the historical aspect is concerned, it is necessary to indicate the width of the horizons confronting us. In an antitraditional sense, the first forces of decadence began to be tangibly manifested between the eighth and the sixth centuries B.C., as can be concluded from the sporadic and characteristic alterations in the forms of the social and spiritual life of many peoples that occurred during this time. Thus, the limit corresponds to so-called historical times, since according to many people, whatever occurred before this period no longer constitutes the object of “history.” History is replaced by legends and myths and thus no hard facts can be established, only conjectures. The fact remains, however, that according to traditional teachings., the abovementioned period merely inherited the effects of even more remote causes; during this period, what was presaged was the critical phase of an even longer cycle known in the East as the “Dark Age,” in the classical world as the “Iron Age,” and in the Nordic sagas, as the “Age of the Wolf.”[2] In any event, during historical times and in the Western world, a second and more visible phase corresponds to the fall of the Roman Empire and to the advent of Christianity. A third phase began with the twilight of the feudal and imperial world of the European Middle Ages, reaching a decisive point with the advent of humanism and of the Reformation. From that period on, the forces that once acted in an isolated and underground fashion have emerged and led every European trend in material and spiritual life, as well as in individual and collective life in a downward trajectory, thus establishing one phase after another of what is usually referred to as the “modern world.” From then on, the process has become increasingly rapid, decisive, and universal, forming a dreadful current by which every residual trace of a different type of civilization is visibly destined to be swept away, thus ending a cycle and sealing the collective fate of millions.
This is the case as far as the historical aspect is concerned, and yet this aspect is totally relative. If everything that is “historical” is included in what is “modern,” then to go beyond the modern world (which is the only way to reveal its meaning), is essentially a process of traveling beyond the limits that most people assign to “history.” It is necessary to understand that in this direction, we no longer find anything that is susceptible again to becoming “history.” The fact that positive inquiry was not able to make history beyond a certain period is not at all a fortuitous circumstance, nor is it due to a mere uncertainty concerning sources and dates or to the lack of vestigial traces. In order to understand the spiritual background typical of every nonmodern civilization, it is necessary to retain the idea that the opposition between historical times and “prehistoric” or “mythological” times is not the relative opposition proper to two homogeneous parts of the same time frame, but rather the qualitative and substantial opposition between times (or experiences of time) that are not of the same kind. Traditional man did not have the same experience of time as modern man; he had a supertemporal sense of time and in this sensation lived every form of his world. Thus, the modern researchers of “history” at a given point encounter an interruption of the series and an incomprehensible gap, beyond which they cannot construct any “certain” and meaningful historical theory; they can only rely upon fragmentary, external, and often contradictory elements—unless they radically change their method and mentality.
On the basis of these premises, the opposition of the traditional world to the modern world is also an ideal one. The character of temporality and of “historicity” is essentially inherent only to one of the two terms of this opposition, while the other term, which refers to the whole body of traditional civilizations, is characterized by the feeling of what is beyond time, namely, by a contact with metaphysical reality that bestows upon the experience of time a very different, “mythological” form based on rhythm and space rather than on chronological time.[3] Traces of this qualitatively different experience of time still exist as degenerated residues among some so-called primitive populations. Having lost that contact by being caught in the illusion of a pure flowing, a pure escaping, a yearning that pushes one’s goal further and further away, and being caught in a process that cannot and does not intend to be satisfied in any achievement as it is consumed in terms of “history” and “becoming”—this is indeed one of the fundamental characteristics of the modern world and the limit that separates two eras, not only in a historical sense but most of all in an ideal, metaphysical, and morphological sense.
Therefore, the fact that civilizations of the traditional type are found in the past becomes merely accidental: the modern world and the traditional world may be regarded as two universal types and as two a priori categories of civilization. Nevertheless, that accidental circumstance allows us to state with good reason that wherever a civilization is manifested that has as its center and substance the temporal element, there we will find a resurgence, in a more or less different form, of the same attitudes, values, and forces that have defined the modern era in the specific sense of the term; and that wherever a civilization is manifested that has as its center and substance the supernatural element, there we will find a resurgence, in more or less different forms, of the same meanings, values, and forces that have defined archaic types of civilization. This should clarify the meaning of what I have called the “dualism of civilization” in relation to the terms employed (“modern” and “traditional”) and also prevent any misunderstandings concerning the “traditionalism” that I advocate. “These did not just happen once, but they have always been” (τα τα δὲ ὲμενετο, μὲν ονδὲ ποτε ἒστɩ δὲ ἀεἱ). The reason behind all my references to nonmodern forms, institutions, and knowledge consists in the fact that they are more transparent symbols, closer approximations, and better examples of what is prior and superior to time and to history, and thus to both yesterday and tomorrow; it is these alone that can produce a real renewal and a “new and perennial life” in those who are still capable of receiving it. Only those capable of this reception may be totally fearless and able to see in the fate of the modern world nothing different or more tragic than the vain arising and consequential dissolution of a thick fog, which cannot alter or affect in any way the free heaven.
So much for the fundamental thesis. At this point, by way of introduction, I would like briefly to explain the “method” I have employed.
The above remarks will suffice to show how little I value all of what in recent times has officially been regarded as “historical science” in matters of religion, ancient institutions, and traditions, nor do I need refer to what I will say later concerning the origin, the scope, and the meaning of modern “knowledge.” I want to make it clear that I do not want to have anything to do with this order of things, as well as with any other that originates from modern mentality; and moreover, that I consider the so-called scientific and positive perspective, with all its empty claims of competence and of monopoly, as a display of ignorance in the best of cases. I say “in the best of cases”: I certainly do not deny that from the detailed studies of the “scholars” of different disciplines what may emerge is useful (though unrefined) material that is often necessary to those who do not have other sources of information or who do not have the time or intention to dedicate themselves to gather and to examine what they need from other domains. And yet, at the same time, I am still of the opinion that wherever the “historical” and “scientific” methods of modern man are applied to traditional civilizations, other than in the coarser aspect of traces and witnesses, the results are almost always distortions that destroy the spirit, limit and alter the subject matter, and lead into the blind alleys of alibis created by the prejudices of the modern mentality as it defends and asserts itself in every domain. Very rarely is this destructive and distorting work casual; it almost always proceeds, even though indirectly, from hidden influences and from suggestions that the “scientific” spirits, considering their mentality, are the last to know.
The order of things that I will mainly deal with in this present work, generally speaking, is that in which all materials having a “historical” and “scientific” value are the ones that matter the least; conversely, all the mythical, legendary, and epic elements denied historical truth and demonstrative value acquire here a superior validity and become the source for a more real and certain knowledge. This is precisely the boundary that separates the traditional doctrine from profane culture. In reference to ancient times this does not apply to the forms of a “mythological” or superhistorical life such as the traditional one; while from the perspective of “science” what matters in a myth is whatever historical elements may be extracted from it. From the perspective that I adopt, what matters in history are all the mythological elements it has to offer, or all the myths that enter into its web, as integrations of the “meaning” of history itself. Not only the Rome of legends speaks clearer words than the historical Rome, but even the sagas of Charlemagne reveal more about the meaning of the king of the Franks than the positive chronicles and documents of that time, and so on.
The scientific “anathemas” in regard to this approach are well known: “Arbitrary!” “Subjective!” “Preposterous!” In my perspective there is no arbitrariness, subjectivity, or fantasy, just like there is no objectivity and scientific causality the way modern men understand them. All these notions are unreal; all these notions are outside Tradition. Tradition begins wherever it is possible to rise above these notions by achieving a superindividual and nonhuman perspective; thus, I will have a minimal concern for debating and “demonstrating.” The truths that may reveal the world of Tradition are not those that can be “learned” or “discussed”; either they are or they are not.[4] It is only possible to remember them, and this happens when one becomes free of the obstacles represented by various human constructions, first among which are all the results and the methods of specialized researchers; in other words, one becomes free of these encumbrances when the capacity for seeing from that nonhuman perspective, which is the same as the traditional perspective, has been attained. This is one of the essential “protests” that should be made by those who really oppose the modern world.
Let me repeat that in every ancient persuasion, traditional truths have always been regarded as nonhuman. Any consideration from a nonhuman perspective, which is “objective” in a transcendent sense, is a traditional consideration that should be made to correspond to the traditional world. Universality is typical of this world; the axiom, “quod ubique, quad ab omnibus et quod semper” characterizes it. Inherent to the idea of “traditional civilization” is the idea of an equivalence or homology of its various forms realized in space and time. The correspondences may not be noticeable from the outside; one may be taken aback by the diversity of several possible and yet equivalent expressions; in some case the correspondences are respected in the spirit, in other cases only formally and nominally; in some cases there may be more complete applications of principles, in others, more fragmentary ones; in some there are legendary expressions, in others, historical expressions—and yet there is always something constant and central that characterizes the same world and the same man and determines an identical opposition vis-à-vis everything that is modern.
Those who begin from a particular traditional civilization and are able to integrate it by freeing it from its historical and contingent aspects, and thus bring back the generative principles to the metaphysical plane where they exist in a pure state, so to speak—they cannot help but recognize these same principles behind the different expressions of other equally traditional civilizations. It is in this way that a sense of certainty and of transcendent and universal objectivity is innerly established, that nothing could ever destroy, and that could not be reached by any other means.
In the course of this book I will refer to various Eastern and Western traditions, choosing those that exemplify through a clearer and more complete expression the same spiritual principle or phenomenon. The method that I use has as little in common with the eclecticism or comparative methodology of modern scholars as the method of parallaxes, which is used to determine the exact position of a star by reference to how it appears from different places. Also, this method has as little in common with eclecticism—to borrow an image of Guénon’s—as the multilingual person’s choice of the language that offers the best expression to a given thought.[5] Thus, what I call “traditional method” is usually characterized by a double principle: ontologically and objectively by the principle of correspondence, which ensures an essential and functional correlation between analogous elements, presenting them as simple homologous forms of the appearance of a central and unitary meaning; and epistemologically and subjectively by the generalized use of the principle of induction, which is here understood as a discursive approximation of a spiritual intuition, in which what is realized is the integration and the unification of the diverse elements encountered in the same one meaning and in the same one principle.
In this way I will try to portray the sense of the world of Tradition as a unity and as a universal type capable of creating points of reference and of evaluation different from the ones to which the majority of the people in the West have passively and semiconsciously become accustomed; this sense can also lead to the establishment of the foundations for an eventual revolt (not a polemical, but real and positive one) of the spirit against the modern world.
In this regard I hope that those who are accused of being anachronistic utopians unaware of “historical reality” will remain unmoved in the realization that the apologists of what is “concrete” should not be told: “Stop!” or “Turn around!” or “Wake up!” but rather:
Go ahead! Achieve all your goals! Break all the dams! Faster! You are unbound. Go ahead and fly with faster wings, with an ever greater pride for your achievements, with your conquests, with your empires, with your democracies! The pit must be filled; there is a need for fertilizer for the new tree that will grow out of your collapse.[6]
In the present work I will limit myself to offering guiding principles, the application and the adequate development of which would require as many volumes as there are chapters; thus, I will point out only the essential elements. The reader may wish to use them as the basis for further ordering and deepening the subject matter of each of the domains dealt with from the traditional point of view by giving to them an extension and a development that the economy of the present work does not allow for.
In the first part I will trace directly a kind of doctrine of the categories of the traditional spirit; I will indicate the main principles according to which the life of the man of Tradition was manifested. Here the term “category” is employed in the sense of a normative and a priori principle. The forms and the meanings indicated should not be regarded as “realities” proper, inasmuch as they are or have been “realities,” but rather as ideas that must determine and shape reality and life, their value being independent from the measure in which their realization can be ascertained, since it will never be perfect. This should eliminate the misunderstandings and the objections of those who claim that historical reality hardly justifies the forms and the meanings (more on which later). Such a claim could eventually be validated without reaching the conclusion that in this regard, everything is reduced to make-believe, utopias, idealizations, or illusions. The main forms of the traditional life as categories enjoy the same dignity as ethical principles: they are valuable in and of themselves and only require to be acknowledged and willed so that man may hold steadily to them and with them measure himself and life, just like traditional man has always and everywhere done. Thus, the dimension of “history” and of “reality” has here merely an illustrative and evocative scope for values that even from this point of view, may not be any less actual today and tomorrow than what they could have been yesterday.
The historical element will be emphasized in the second part of this work, which will consider the genesis of the modern world and the processes that have led to its development Since the reference point, however, will always be the traditional world in its quality as symbolical, superhistorical, and normative reality, and likewise, since the method employed will be that which attempts to understand what acted and still acts behind the two superficial dimensions of historical phenomena (space and time), the final outcome will be the outline of a metaphysics of history.
In both parts I think that sufficient elements have been given to those who, today or tomorrow, already are or will be capable of an awakening.
Footnotes
1. I say among “modern men” since the idea of a downfall and a progressive abandonment of a higher type of existence, as well as the knowledge of even tougher times in the future for the human races, were well known to traditional antiquity.
2. R. Guénon, La Crise du monde moderne (Paris, 1927), 21.
3. J. Evola, L’arco e la clava (Milan, 1968), chap. I.
4. “Those who are skilled in the Tao do not dispute about it; the disputatious are not skilled in it.” Tao te Ching, 81. See also the traditional Aryan expressions concerning the texts that are “impossible to master and impossible to measure…” Further on, we read “The teachings differing from that of the Vedas that spring up and die out bear no fruit and are false, because they are of a modern date.” W. Doniger and B. Smith, trans., The Laws of Manu (New York, 1991), 12.94.96 [also referred to in the text as the Manudharmaśāstra].
5. R. Guénon, Le Symbolisme de la croix (Paris. 1931), 10.
6. G. De Giorgio, “Crollano le torri,” La Torre. no. 1 (1930): 5.