In Part I of this series I chose an essay that looked at the rise of Post-Modernism, how it’s affecting every aspect of human thinking, even Science and Technology, and how it has morphed into stuff like Cancel Kulture, “Woke” and so forth.
This week I take a look at an essay titled, War Against the Modern World, appropriately featuring a photo of our new King Charlie – and it’s not just a smart-alec visual attack. The essay is about Traditionalism, which it points out at the start has got some cool conspiracy theories being woven about it by the Left, especially in the USA:
Had they but world enough and time, the Traditionalists would (quite literally) bring us back to the year zero. They are at war with Modernity itself. They would tear down liberal democracy and build a great pagan reich on its smoldering ruins. And, with each passing day, they come just a little bit closer to their goal.
But here’s what King Charlie has to say about it and for all the jokes about him not being very bright, it’s clear that he’s given this a lot of thought over the years:
The teachings of the Traditionalists should not, in any sense, be taken to mean that they seek, as it were, to repeat the past—or, indeed, simply to draw a distinction between the present and the past. Theirs is not a nostalgia for the past, but a yearning for the sacred and, if they defend the past, it is because in the pre-modern world all civilizations were marked by the presence of the sacred.
I had thought that repeating the past was exactly what Traditionalism was all about, but that’s not quite true, and the essay shows this by talking about the two branches of it, as well as two of the modern descendents. The two branches relate directly to two men of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: René Guénon and Julius Evola.
Guénon was born in France, raised Catholic, dabbled in the occult, but turned to Islam as the great bulwark against Western decadence:
In Guénon’s system, the Occident represents the horizontal axis. It is “this-worldly,” grubbing, and decadent. It had chained itself to the twin pillars of Modernity: atheism and materialism. The Orient, meanwhile, represented the vertical axis. It was otherworldly, more concerned with storing up spiritual treasures than earthly wealth.
His philisophy was that religion had evolved through five phases: animism, shamanism, fetishism, polytheism, and monotheism. He also thought the Protestant Reformation had derailed this, and that the Enlightenment, had plunged the West into materialism, a state even lower than shamanism. For Guénon, the modern West was worse than primitive. That’s a rather shocking thought given the worship ladled out about those movements and all the wonderful stuff they’ve led to in the West.
Evola was Italian, also raised Catholic, also dabbled in the occult and turned to Eastern religions, in his case starting with Buddhism. Like Guénon he thought the West was not rising with Modernism but falling into a new dark age and wished for a return to some sort of world of European warrior-kings, “pagan imperialism”. As such, while apparently having no time for Fascism he thought the rise of Hitler and Mussolini heralded a new Age of Heroes.
While Guénon and company thought little of Evola due to the inherent racism, Evola apparently thought well of them. The really basic difference was that Guénonists wanted society to travel “up” (that religious/spiritual evolution again), while Evola thought it had to go “down” into its pagan roots that Christianity had obscured. And that led to practical differences:
Guénonians believe that Modernity can only be defeated through spiritual renewal. Evolians believe that the modern world must first be smashed to bits. A new elite—a heroic vanguard—must grind liberal democracy under its bootheel. Only then may Tradition be restored to the West. The Guenonians’ methods are fundamentally religious; the Evolians’ are political.
Well, as you can imagine, the two modern descendants the essay picks as examples of each school are real doozies (Charles III is a Guénonian, hence his infamous affinity for Islam). The two are famous Trump advisor, Steve Bannon, and a man that Putin has referred to , Aleksandr Dugin, who I’ve written about before in Russia’s Strange Demons and is referred to in this essay as follows:
Meanwhile, the greatest living Evolian is probably Aleksandr Dugin…Dugin is not as hostile to Christianity as Evola. But he has no loyalty to the teachings of Jesus Christ or to His Church. That is not a criticism per se; it is a statement of fact. Like all Evolians, he rejects Guénon’s idea that one must follow a single tradition in order to perceive the higher Truth. He doesn’t care if Russia is Christian or pagan, so long as she triumphs over the decadent West.
Bannon appears to be a mix of the two, but one similarity with Evola is eerie in that Bannon was raised Catholic but came to Traditionalism via Buddhism (he’s supposedly now a Catholic again).
In his understanding of religious traditions, then, Bannon is more of a Guénonian. But in his choice of methods, he is an Evolian. He believes that, in order to restore Tradition, he must first smash the modern world.
I think the influence of both men is vastly overstated, especially by their fearful enemies, but they’re playing interesting parts in our modern world, and what’s probably more important are the crossovers between these Traditionalists and the likes of the growing anti-Globalist movements in the West, emerging both from the Western Left and the Right: strange bedfellows and all that.
No Minister 
Thus writes an American presumably Protestant author.
Alexandr Dugan is Russian Orthodox of course with his sympathies lying with the Old Believers who are hard core Orthodox Christians. who are for the most, part, but not all cases, schismatic and in some cases heretical.
Although Western sources often associate Vladimir Putin with Alexandr Dugan it is highly unlikely the two have even ever met let alone Dugin playing an influential role in VVP’s way of thinking.
In my view, which you can take or leave as you choose, you have been hypnotized into your disdain of VVP by people who loath his traditional values – Christian and otherwise.
An indoctrination that has been simplified by the fact that you don’t share a common language, culture, religion or heritage.
In reality the opinions you hold and those I hold are 99% in common and most differences that exist are in trivial detail
Where we clash is over your certainty that the 21st Century West provides the moral leadership that it entitles it to dictate to the rest of the world on how to manage their own internal affairs
signed
No Ministers Official Troll
My disdain of Putin started with him being an ex-KGB officer raised in an aggressively atheist culture that did not collapse until he was almost forty years old, and so I do not believe that he has ever changed, despite his public fealty to the Orthodox Church and the huge quantities of money directed toward re-building churches.
I think he uses them as cover and because he does see how vital a component the Orthodox Church is in his plan to try and restore Great Russia, but I think he’s much an Orthodox Christian as Biden is a faithful Roman Catholic.
So what is your opinion of George H. W.Bush’s tenure with the CIA at a time when they were responsible for some supremely scurrilously activities such as tainting milk intended for poor Venezuelan school children?
If VVP’s Russian Orthodoxy is purely political rather than heartfelt the Lord will know and he will be held accountable, rest assured of that
In the grand scheme of things your opinion on this matter means less than nothing
I’ve been reading Carl Trueman’s ‘Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self’ which is a fascinating account of the downfall of western civilization, in particular the historical cultural and religious values which have been discarded.
Lots of what you write about here is closely related to what he writes about. I can strongly recommend it.
He looks interesting, Donald Murray sort of character I guess.
I took this quote of his that resonating with me.
“Every age has had its darkness and its dangers. The task of the Christian is not to whine about the moment in which he or she lives but to understand its problems and respond appropriately to them.”
For me, not being Christian, I would substitute another word in its place, but the thought is a truism, whatever your beliefs.
“Every age has its darkness”, the darkness that envelops us now is far more insidious, and potentialy far more destructive than the mere 25 million slaughtered by Stalin, the 15 million by Hitler, and the 100 million by Mao.
It seeks to remove the values and foundations of our modern society. More so that its origins originate fromthe fall of communism, Marxism and so called “Social;ism”
‘Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self’ has been recommended to me.