Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist by Julius Evola

Author:Julius Evola
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, pdf
Tags: Body, Mind & Spirit, General, Spirituality, radical traditionalism, lit_guide
ISBN: 9780892819058
Publisher: Inner Traditions
Published: 2002-01-01T18:04:57+00:00

I will not, however, dwell on this last point, as I have already discussed it in another context, when dealing with the error of anti-rationalism. 50 Here I only want to point out that if we desire to overcome bourgeois "culture," there is a third possible reference point beyond both intellectualism and anti-intellectualism: a worldview (the German Weltanschauung). A worldview is based noton books, but on an inner form and a sensibility endowed with an innate, rather than acquired, character. It is essentially a disposition and an attitude, instead of a culture or a theory— a disposition and an attitude that do not merely concern the mental domain, but also affect the domain of feelings and of the will, forge one's character, and manifest themselves in reactions having the same instinctive certainty, giving evidence of a sure meaning of life. Usually, a worldview, rather than being an individual affair, proceeds from a tradition and is the organic effect of forces that have shaped a certain type of civilization; at the same time, a pane subiecti [from the subject's perspective] the worldview manifests itself as a sort of "inner race" and an existential structure. In every civilization but the modem one, it was a "worldview" and not a "culture" that permeated the various strata of society; where culture and conceptual thought were present, they never enjoyed primacy, for their function was as simple expressive means and organs in service of the worldview. Nobody believed "pure thought" was supposed to reveal truth and to supply meaning to life: the role of thought consisted in clarifying what was already possessed and what preexisted as direct feeling and evidence, before any speculation was formulated. The products of thought had only a symbolic value, acting as signposts— thus, conceptual expression did not have a character privileged over other forms of expression. In previous civilizations the latter consisted of evocative images, symbols, and myths. Today things may go otherwise, considering the growing, hypertrophic cerebralization of Western man. However, it is important not to mistake the essential for the accessory, and that the above-mentioned relationships are acknowledged and retained; in other words, wherever "culture" and "intellectualism" are present, they may play an only instrumental role, expressing something deeper and more organic, namely a worldview. The worldview may find clearer expression in a man with no formal education than in a writer, just as it may be more strongly represented in a soldier, an aristocrat, or a farmer who is faithful to the earth than in the bourgeois intellectual, the typical "professor," or the journalist.

Concerning all this, Italy is at a disadvantage, as those with all the power in the media, academic culture, and in critical journals, and who thereby organize real, monopolizing, quasi-Masonic societies, are the worst type of intellectual, who knows nothing of the meaning of spirituality, human wholeness, or thinking that reflects strong principles. 51

"Culture" in the modem sense ceases to be a danger only when those who deal with it already have a worldview.

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