The Decay of Words, Part 1: Virtue & Vice
Part 1 of 3
Trans. G. A. Malvicini from L’Arco e la Clava [The Bow and the Club] (Milan: Scheiwiller, 1968)
One of the signs of the fact that the course of history has, outside of the purely material plane, been anything but one of progress, is the poverty of modern languages compared to many ancient languages. Not a single one of the Western so-called “living languages” can compare, in terms of organic, articulated structure and plasticity, with, for example, classical Latin or Sanskrit. Among the European languages, perhaps only German has preserved something of its archaic structure (and this is why German has a reputation for being “difficult”), while the English language and those of the Scandinavian peoples have suffered a process of erosion and flattening. In general, one might say that ancient languages were three-dimensional, while modern languages are two-dimensional. Here, too, time has had a corrosive effect; it has made languages “practical” and ”fluid” at the expense, precisely, of their organic structure. This is only a reflection of what has occurred in many other domains of culture and existence.
Words, too, have their history, and changes in their meaning are often an interesting indicator of corresponding changes in general sensibility and worldview. In particular, it would be interesting to compare the meaning of certain Latin words with that of terms that have remained virtually identical in Italian, and often in other Romance languages as well. In general, one notices a lowering in level. The earliest meaning is either lost, or survives in a residual form in certain special meanings or phrases, without any longer corresponding to the current sense of the term, or else, appears completely distorted and trivialized. We will provide some examples.
1. The most typical and best known case is perhaps the word virtus. “Virtue” in the modern sense has almost nothing to do with virtus in the ancient sense. Virtus meant strength of character, courage, valor, virile firmness. The word was connected to vir, a term that designated a man who was truly a man, not “man” in the generic and naturalistic sense. The word has taken on an essentially a moralistic meaning, very often associated with sexual prejudices, to the point that Vilfredo Pareto coined the term “virtuismo” to refer to the puritanical and sexophobic morality of the bourgeois. Generally, when speaking of a “virtuous person” today, we think of something far different from what was referred to, through an effective use of reiteration, by phrases like vir virtute praeditus. And it is not uncommon that the difference in meaning turns into a veritable antithesis. Indeed, a firm soul, proud, fearless and heroic, is the opposite of a “virtuous” person in the modern, moralistic and conformist sense.
The meaning of virtus as an efficacious force has only been preserved in certain specific modern phrases: the “virtues” of a plant or a drug, “by virtue“ of this or that.
2. Honestus. Linked to the idea of honos, in antiquity this term mainly meant “deserving honor,” “noble,” “of noble rank.” What, of this, is conserved in the corresponding modern term? An “honest” person now means a “decent” member of bourgeois society, someone who does not do anything really bad. The phrase “born of honest parents” [“nato da onesti genitori”] has today taken on an almost ironic nuance, while in ancient Rome it was used specifically to designate nobility of birth, which often also corresponded to biological nobility. Vir honesta facie meant, indeed, a man of fine appearance, just as the Sanskrit term Aryan referred both to a person worthy of honor, as well as to a nobility that was as much of the mind, as it was of the body.
3. Gentilis, gentilitas. Today, when speaking of a “gentleman,” everyone thinks of someone who is courteous, charming, well-mannered. The ancient terms, however, referred to the notion of gens, of clan, race, caste or lineage. For the Romans, gentilis was applied to one who possessed qualities deriving from a lineage and from differentiated blood, which could, perhaps, but only as a reflection, determine a demeanor of detached courtesy, something very different from “good manners,” which even a parvenu can acquire by studying etiquette — and different, also, from the vague modern notion of “kindness.” Few people today are able to grasp the deeper meaning of expressions such as “a gentle spirit” and the like, which are isolated extensions of the original meaning in the language of writers of other times.
4. Genialitas. Who is a “genius” today? A predominantly individualistic man, brilliant and full of original discoveries. At the extreme, there is the artistic “genius,” to whom, as we know, bourgeois and humanist civilization has dedicated a fetishistic cult, to the point that the “genius” — more so than the hero, the ascetic or aristocrat — was often seen, in that civilization, as the highest type of man. The Latin term genialis, however, alludes to something that has little to do with individualism and “humanism.” It comes from the word genius, which originally designated the formative and generative, inner, spiritual and mystical force of a given blood lineage or race. One could therefore say that the qualities of genialitas in the ancient sense had a certain relationship with qualities that are “racial” in the highest sense of the word. In direct opposition to the modern sense of the word, the element of “genius” was distinct from everything individualistic and arbitrary; it was connected with a deep root, obeying an inner necessity through fidelity to the already supra-personal forces of blood and race, forces that, as we know, in any patrician lineage were connected to a sacred tradition.
5. Pietas. There is no real need to state what “pity” means today. One thinks of a more or less humanitarian, sentimental attitude — “pity” is almost synonymous with compassion. In Latin, pietas belonged, instead, to the realm of the sacred, signifying firstly the special relationship that the Roman had with the the gods, secondly with other realities in the world of Tradition, including the State itself. Before the gods, it meant an attitude of calm, dignified veneration: a sense of belonging and, at the same time, of respect, of grateful recognition, of duty and loyalty, the intensified form of the feeling elicited by the stern figure of the pater familias (hence pietas filialis). Pietas could also manifest itself in the political domain: pietas in patriam meant loyalty and duty to the State and to the fatherland. In some cases, the term also connotes the meaning of iustitia. He who does not know pietas is also unjust, almost impious, he is the one who does not recognize his place, the place he must hold in a higher order, which is at once human and divine.
6. Innocentia. This word, too, evoked ideas of clarity and strength; its prevalent meaning in antiquity was purity of soul, integrity, disinterestedness, righteousness. It did not just have the purely negative sense of “not guilty,” and had nothing of the connotation of banality found in the phrase “innocent mind” today, which has become almost synonymous with “simpleton.” In other Romance languages, such as French, for example, the same term, innocent, even designates idiots, congenital mental deficients, the feeble-minded and dazed.
7. Patientia. The modern sense, with respect to the old sense, is once again dulled and weakened. Someone “patient,” today, is someone who does not get angry, does not get irritated, someone tolerant. In Latin, patientia designated one of the primary “virtues” of the Roman: it connotes the idea of an inner strength, an unshakable firmness, it referred to the capacity to stand one’s ground, to have a soul that remains composed in the face any setback and any adversity. This is why it was said of the race of Rome, that it possessed the power to accomplish great things as well as to endure [patire] equally great adversity (cf. Livy’s famous saying: et facere et pati fortia romanum est). The modern sense is, relative to the other, completely watered down. Today, the donkey is considered an example of a typically “patient” nature.
8. Humilitas. With the religion that came to prevail in the West, “humility” became a “virtue” (in an un-Roman sense) and was glorified as the opposite of the style of dignity, of strength, and of calm awareness that we described above. In ancient Rome, humilitas signified the very opposite of all virtus. It meant a baseness deserving contempt, lowliness, abjection, cowardice, dishonor — so that death or exile were considered preferable to “humility”: humilitati vel exilium vel mortem anteponenda esse. Associations of ideas such as mens humilis et prava, “a low and evil spirit.” were common. The expression humilitas causam dicentium refers to the inferior and guilty condition of those being taken before a court. Here, too, we find an interference with the idea of race or caste: humilis natus parentis meant born of the people, in the pejorative, plebeian sense, in contrast to noble birth, and hence diverging significantly from the modern sense of the phrase “of humble origins,” especially considering that the sole criterion of social position today is economic. Anyway, never would a Roman of ancient times have dreamed of making a virtue of humilitas, let alone boast of it and preach it to others. As for a certain “morality of humility,” one might recall the remark of a Roman emperor, that nothing is more despicable than the pride of those who say they are humble — which does not mean that arrogance and presumptuousness are to be encouraged.
9. Ingenium. The old sense of the term has survived only in part, and, again, in its least interesting aspect. In Latin, ingenium also signified perspicacity, sharpness of mind, sagacity, foresight — but at the same time, it referred to character, to that which is, in each person, organic, innate, really one’s own. Vana ingenia could therefore refer to persons without character; redire ad ingenium could mean to return to one’s own nature, a lifestyle consistent with what one really is. This more important meaning has been lost in the modern word, the meaning of which has almost been inverted. Indeed, if “ingeniousness” has a sense of intellectualism and cleverness, this is obviously the opposed to the second meaning of the ancient term, which refers to character, to a style that is in conformity with one’s own nature; intelligence is then what is superficial, as opposed to what is organic; a restless, brilliant and inventive mobility of the mind, rather than a rigorous style of thinking that adheres perfectly to one’s own character.
Subliminal Influences
Translated by G. A. Malvicini
We have already had the occasion to point to the illusoriness of the claim that modern man, in general, has achieved an autonomy and self-consciousness he previously lacked. This illusion can in part be explained by the fact that attention today is primarily directed towards external conditions, to the disappearance of certain material limits to the freedom of the individual — boundaries that were often not without a raison d’être, and which now have merely been replaced by others — while ignoring the matter of inner (mental and spiritual) autonomy, and everything that is necessary in order to acquire it and defend it.
From this latter point of view, there is really no reason at all to speak of progress; it would be more legitimate to speak once again of a regression, since a series of processes has made man today particularly vulnerable and passive with regard to a type of influences that could be called “subtle,” hidden, or subliminal, and that almost always are of a collective nature. This is inevitable in a “mass civilization” of the kind that more and more is being imposed everywhere the world, and it is a phenomenon that manifests itself on several different levels.
On the most trivial level, the role now played by advertisement and propaganda would be inconceivable without this passive opening up of the individual: an opening up which has either already taken place, or which can easily be achieved through specific techniques. We know that in America, as part of what is called MR (= motivational research), psychiatry and psychoanalysis have been enlisted by the advertising industry to provide guidance as to which “subtle” methods are the most effective in psychologically influencing the public. By applying leverage to the unconscious and primitive layers of the psyche, it is possible to elicit decisions and choices in a desired direction, or to arouse specific interests. The largest US companies have special departments for motivational research, and the fact that huge sums are spent on them must mean that these methods work, that their investments have yielded profits, and therefore, that the defenseless passivity we spoke of does in fact exist in a very great number of men and women.
It is instructive that all this has occurred in America, the country where, under the sign of democracy, man is claimed to have achieved the highest degree of freedom, emancipation, and self-consciousness. In fact, in this supposed “land of the free,” this so-called “free world,” invisible coercion and social control through the various forms of conformism and public opinion is often at least as great as the control exercised visibly and directly by the state in so-called totalitarian systems of the “unfree” world. To the extent that there is any difference, it may not be to the advantage of the so-called “free world,” since there, social and psychological control is not perceived as such, whereas in the latter case, it is directly felt, and is therefore more likely to elicit some form of resistance.
We spoke of advertising; but from advertising to political propaganda, there is only a short step. Hence, in America, there have been those who have noted with indignation that the techniques used in the presidential elections do not, structurally speaking, differ much from those used to foist a certain brand of soap or kitchen appliance on the public.
In this respect, as in so many others, America is only an extreme case. There, processes that are underway in other countries as well are simply more visible, and pushed to the point of absurdity. Indeed, one could say that the success of the ideologies and slogans that almost completely dominate today’s political and social life is solely dependent on the absence, in most individuals, of defenses that might bar access to the sub-intellectual, irrational and “physical” part of the psyche. If the threshold to this zone were guarded, it would automatically deprive of their efficacy the methods now applied on a vast scale by political and social agitators — methods used to rouse the masses and lead them in a certain direction, without depriving them of the illusion that they are guided solely by their own will and by their own true interests.
Moreover, in this climate, quasi-autonomous collective currents arise that have a subtle, invisible substrate with infective properties. This explains certain curious and unexpected effects of conformism. There are individuals who, in a given political and social system, agree to participate in it while simultaneously maintaining ideals and principles of a different, even opposite type. At a certain point these people sometimes find that their mentality has been changed; but in most cases, they are not even aware of the change.
This can also occur when a political system is adhered to for reasons that, in the beginning, were purely external, insincere, and opportunistic, driven by ulterior motives or tactical considerations. This kind of participation in fact places the individual in a kind of autonomous, collective psychic vortex; and if the individual lacks internal defenses, reinforced by vigilance and impersonal loyalty to a higher idea, in the long term it is difficult to avoid the danger of infection. This is usually not taken into consideration for the reason already mentioned: one remains within a superficial, external conception of the forces acting in a given society and in a given historical climate, and the dimension of depth — the “psychic” dimension — of these forces is ignored.
This is directly related to the ”charge” certain words or phrases are invested with and the contaminating effect they exert on anyone who nonetheless agrees to use them. Here, intellectual cowardice and spinelessness also plays a part. The climate in Italy at the time of this writing offers prime examples of this. We are referring to the whole terminology promoted by the forces of the Left, of democracy, Marxism, and communism, and accepted by others in the senses predefined by these same forces.
First of all, there is the word “democracy.” Stultification and passive inertia have reached the point where this word has become sacrosanct, assented to and repeated ad nauseam. Today there seems to be a kind of anxiousness about not promoting democracy and not declaring oneself to be, in one way or another, democratic. The surrender and retreat before the the enemy becomes obvious when, instead of absolutely refusing from the start to partake in this game, one excuses oneself with this or that qualification: “true” democracy, “national” democracy, “healthy” democracy, etc., thereby forgetting Goethe’s words: “From those spirits which you have summoned, you will free yourself with difficulty” — and oblivious to the fact that one now has been contaminated by one’s adversary.
Other fetishized words of the same kind, with the same hidden infective properties, are “socialism,” “work,” “the working class,” “sociality,” “social justice,” “the meaning of history,” and, on the other hand, “reaction,” “obscurantism,” “immobility,” etc. At a certain point, one may notice that one no longer has the courage to take a stand against these phrases; it comes to seem natural to use them, and regardless of any mental reservations of the men who do not completely belong to the front of global subversion, these words are just as effective in influencing those who use them, pushing them in the general direction of the ideologies to which these formulas properly belong, from which they originate and derive their meaning. It is enough to observe what is said and written today even in circles that do not at all belong to the left, circles that claim to be “oppositional,” to realize how much they have lent themselves to this insidious game, and to the gradual and unnoticed surrender that is its consequence.
We will limit ourselves to a couple of examples. With regard to “reaction,” we will not repeat what we have stated repeatedly on other occasions concerning the arrant claims of those who make the word “reaction” into a negative term, as if, while certain parties “act,” others should refrain from reacting, turn the other cheek like good Christians and say, “Well done, keep it up!” and allow legitimate self-defense to be labeled a ”provocation.” Biology and medicine teach us that when a tissue no longer “reacts” to a stimulus, it is considered dead or nearly dead. This, unfortunately, could as well be a diagnosis of the current situation.
We have already discussed the myth of “work” and the “worker” in a previous chapter. Another instance of stupid, passive acquiescence is the way the term “committed” is allowed to be monopolized by Leftist intellectuals. The implication is that anyone who is not a Leftist, is not “committed” as a writer, an intellectual or a man of action, i.e., that they are frivolous, superficial, irresolute, lacking in vigor, and with no real cause to defend. This logical implication appears to completely escape those who nonetheless accept the equating of the terms ”committed” and “Leftist.” Again, they allow themselves to be passively dragged along by the current. That the opposite is true, that only he is truly “committed” who defends precisely the higher ideals and transcendent ends that the the Leftist rabble (intellectual or otherwise) covers with contempt and disrepute, is hardly worth pointing out.
Other cases of retreat and intellectual cowardice ought to be pointed out regarding the so-called “meaning of history” (in the subversive sense). Naturally, the current that has prevailed in recent centuries is, unfortunately, the one highlighted by the progressive Left, but it must be interpreted differently. The general direction, the meaning of this historical current is one of collapse, of the gradual disintegration of every higher and legitimate order. With regard to the concrete course of history, the description of facts has to be separated from their evaluation. Intellectual surrender to the ideology of subversion occurs when one grants that which exists the character of something that should exist, of something good, thereby eliminating the moral justification of a reaction. The origin of this deviation lies in Hegelian historicism, with its well-known identification of the real with the rational. However, regardless of the degree to which it is still possible to divert the current historical process, and even if the process is irreversible, one should speak not of the meaning, but of the meaninglessness of history, and one should refuse categorically and absolutely to bow before this idol.
Unfortunately, today the example of surrender comes from a higher instance, which according to some is the highest positive spiritual authority in the West: from the Catholic Church. The Church, precisely by accepting the “meaning of history,” tries to bring itself up to date, to catch up with the times, to open itself up to the left. There are also Catholics who have stated that basically, true Christianity today is alive and active precisely in democratic, Marxist, and communist movements, hence the appearance of the so-called nuovi preti [new priests] and, coming from the highest authority, the formula of “dialogue” with the very forces and ideologies that Pope Pius IX had openly stigmatized and condemned in the Syllabus.
The modernist Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin had already paved the way for all of this by formulating a doctrine, now in the course of being rehabilitated by the Church, which could serve as a theoretical framework. Teilhard has transposed the Christian idea of a providential direction of the course of history into the terms of a progressive and linear evolutionism, including science, technology, and social achievements.
Naturally, one prefers to forget certain essential themes of the original Christian view of history and of times to come, a conception that is much less linear and has less of a happy end: given the fact that end times were spoken of in rather catastrophic, “apocalyptic,” terms, with the appearance of false prophets, the coming of the Antichrist, the terrible Last Judgment, the separation between the elect and the damned instead of the universal redemption, through “progress,” of a humanity that has become exclusively “earthly.” All these themes in early Christianity, deformations and mythologisations aside, fundamentally reflected some valid traditional teachings.
Alongside the sacrosanct “meaning of history,” the term “immobility” is now passively accepted in the negative sense it has been associated with. To defend one’s position is considered a sign of stagnation and “immobility,” while changing position, naturally in the sense of following the lead of one’s adversary, thereby granting him one’s tacit approval, is supposed to be a good thing. Disregarding its crudest aspect, this claim is also based on the myth of progress: almost as if any change, as such, necessarily meant something positive, an advance, a gain. Bruce Marshall has aptly written: “The so-called backward societies [we might say “immobile”] are those who have the good sense to stop when they reach their destination, while the progressive societies are those that are so blind that they pass it, rushing on madly.”
In a general sense, we can refer to what we have already stated, regarding a higher plane: that there is such a thing as ”stability,” which has nothing to do with immobility, and that one must absolutely oppose the identification of these two terms, is something that seems to occur to no-one today. In political struggle, “immobility” is yet another bugbear associated with “reaction.” Even men supposedly of the right have now accepted this jargon, trembling before such accusations. Moreover, should we be surprised if, as we have already stated, the Church itself is “changing,” no doubt fearing that otherwise, it will be uprooted and shattered by the current of history, and deluding itself that it can escape this possible fate through a policy of “openness”?
Let us take another example: “paternalism.” Here, too, we can take note of the acquiescence to the negative sense that term is invested with by the ideologies of subversion, while forgetting what it implies: the devaluation of the very concept of family worthy of the name. In fact, what is devalued is the very center of the family: the authority and the natural and positive function of the father. The solicitude and care of the father, affectionate, of course, but, when necessary, not without severity, protecting and conceding, on the basis of a personal relationship, with judiciousness and justice — all this is considered, transposed to the social plane, deplorable, intolerable, an offense to the dignity of the “working class.” The objective here is twofold: on one hand, to destroy the traditional ideal of the family, and on the other, to attack everything that in a normal society could have, and indeed once did have, a natural and organic, personalized and “human” character, as opposed to a state of latent civil war and a system of “claims,” which should finally be called by their true name: blackmail.
Regarding the docility in the face of new “trends” in language, one could refer, in passing, to a case that this time involves feminist “claims,” even if the particular domain here is rather banal. In Italy, it has become common to use masculine terms to refer to charges and professions, even when they are performed by women. Some people no longer dare say “avvocatessa” [the feminine form of avvocato, “lawyer”] instead of “avvocato” for a woman who exercises this profession, and the same goes for “dottore” [doctor], “ambasciatore” [ambassador], etc. Soon perhaps words like “maestra” [school mistress], “professoressa“ and “poetessa” should be removed from the vocabulary and deemed offensive to the dignity of women. The fact that this idiocy has consequences exactly opposite of those intended, seems to escape women themselves. The latter, indeed, do not realize that in claiming the masculine form of these designations, they do not attain equality with men (equality while remaining women), but the opposite, assimilation to man. It would be different if Italian had a neutral gender, in addition to masculine and feminine forms, and all those terms could be used in the neutral, rather than the feminine, form. Only then would it be possible to designate activities and professions, the male prerogative of which one wishes to dispute. But in this stupid new trend, people are unknowingly influenced by the English language, which lacks a feminine form for many professions and occupations, making it necessary to add the word “lady” to doctor, barrister, etc.; Italian, by contrast, almost always has a feminine form (dottoressa, avvocatessa, poetessa, etc.), and there is no apparent reason for failing to use it, except stupid democratic and egalitarian conformism.
In this case, the docility and acquiescence of most men must be emphasized. They should have ridiculed this new jargon, and the same goes for many other recent forms of ”progress.” As for those women who apparently are ashamed to be women, and want to make this distortion into a permanent modification of our language — in a normal society, they should be entrusted to specialists in diabolical hormonal manipulations, so that through adequate treatment, they could be transformed into exponents of the “third sex,” thus attaining the goal of their aspirations, on every level. Although, for the sake of justice, one might ask whether such treatment would not be appropriate also for men whenever the aforementioned docility is not so much caused by the subtle influences of the environment and unconscious processes that operate on the infra-intellectual part of the psyche of the common man, but instead are due to an inability to react and to demonstrate true virility through moral courage and lucid, resolute judgment.
Source: L’Arco e la Clava [The Bow and the Club] (Milan: Scheiwiller, 1968)
Power & Infantilism
Translated by G. A. Malvicini
Werner Sombart is an author who deserves to be studied more than he currently is. Sombart furnishes an example of a serious method for studying socio-economic phenomena, one that is far removed from the deformations and biases of materialist sociology (especially of the Marxist type). For Sombart, even economic life is composed of a body and a soul. That is to say, there is such a thing as an economic spirit, distinct from the modes of production, distribution and organization, a spirit which is variable, and which imposes upon those forms a different direction, meaning and foundation, differing from case to case and from epoch to epoch. In his works, including a classic study on modern capitalism, Sombart has emphasized the search for the spiritual factors of economic life, and the meaning that these factors ultimately have conferred upon the latter in the West.
It is not our intention here to provide an overview of his research. We will just mention one particular point, highlighted by Sombart in a book which has also been published in Italian.
We are referring to the form that the economic process has taken on in the period of high capitalism, and with regard to which we must mainly look to America for concrete examples. It is a development that tends toward limitless expansion, because any halt or slowing down would mean falling behind, or being ousted. The immediate and natural purposes of the production process become of secondary importance. Fiat productio et pereat homo! [let there be production though man may perish]. The process from which the great capitalist entrepreneur is unable to free himself, which seizes him body and soul, ends up becoming an object of love, something desired in itself and for itself, constituting the meaning of his existence, of a life that “has no time” for anything else. We are then confronted with a type of man who no longer even questions the ultimate meaning of this race to infinity, this feverish agitation, these chains of economic structures, which often drag the masses along and dictate laws in world politics, while the bosses are no more free than the least of their workers. This situation ends up appearing natural, self-evident. People think it is demanded by economic prosperity and the progress of modern civilization.
Sombart believes, however, that such a state of affairs could never have been consolidated, had it not been for the predominance in our time of inner factors characteristic not so much of a true man, as of the infantile psyche; so that the hidden psychological basis of the whole process is, ultimately, regression. The corresponding traits are indicated in connection with a few characteristic points.
Firstly, there is the fascination with everything big, in the sense of material grandness, of the gigantic, of large quantities. The fascination that this exerts on children is no different from the one it exerts on the great entrepreneurs of an Americanized economy. In general, the tendency to — in the words of Bryce — mistake bigness for greatness, that is, to confuse real, inner greatness with outward size, has become almost the distinctive mark of an entire civilization. In fact, this is nothing but primitivism.
Ultimately, the obsession with record-breaking in all domains leads us back to the same point: the search for something that in tangible, measurable, and hence merely quantitative terms, wins over something else, without regard for different and more subtle factors or qualities. At the same time, this is, according to Sombart, one of the forms in which another infantile characteristic is expressed: the enjoyment of speed, from the spinning top to the carousel. Despite the shift in level and proportions, the fact that it has been exacerbated and multiplied in the world of technology and in many other domains of modern, materialized life, does not deprive it of its original childish character.
Thirdly, the love of novelty has to be considered. Just as a child is immediately attracted to anything that looks new, quickly abandoning a toy that has become familiar, directing his enthusiasm towards another, and leaving one thing half-done as soon as another attracts him, in the same way, modern man is attracted by newness as such, by everything that happens not to have been seen yet. The sensation is reducible, in essence, to the impression felt in catching sight of a novelty. But greed for mere sensation is one of the most characteristic features of the present era.
Finally, for Sombart, there is the feeling of power in situations that psychoanalysis calls “compensation.” It is the joy — again, fundamentally childish — in feeling superior to others on an entirely exterior plane. Our author rightly states: “Analyzing this feeling, one finds that in the end, it is nothing but an involuntary and unconscious confession of weakness: which is why it is one of the attributes of the infantile psyche. A truly, naturally and inwardly great man never assigns special value to external power.”
Sombart, with regard to this tendency, considers a still broader domain, and his observations are worth quoting here: “A capitalist entrepreneur,” he says, “who commands 10,000 men and takes pleasure in this power, resembles a child, happy to see his dog obey his every beck and call. And when it is no longer money or external constraints that ensure direct power over men, we feel proud to have subdued the elements of nature. Whence our exultation in ‘great’ inventions or discoveries. ” Our author adds: “A man of profound and lofty feelings, or a truly great generation, struggling with the most serious problems of the human soul, does not feel elevated because of the success of some technical invention. He will accord only a secondary importance to these instruments of external power. But our age, incapable of understanding anything that is truly great, appreciates only that kind of external power, rejoicing in it like a child, worshiping those who possess it. That is why inventors and billionaires inspire the masses with endless admiration. ”
These factors, as is obvious, play a part everywhere in the modern world; however, they manifest themselves in particular ways in the field of the economy and production, which, after all, was the starting point of it all. It is easy to trace their development not only in the domain of the great capitalist structures, but beyond them, in the tendency to degrade the state itself to the role of a sort of trust, a pure centralized system of labor and insane, excessive production.
As for these latter considerations by Sombart, it would of course be a misunderstanding to interpret them as an attack on the ideals of activity and human self-affirmation in general, in the name of an abstract idealism. It is not activity as such that he is attacking, but agitation, not true self-affirmation, but rather its aberrant forms. There is a limit, beyond which the man who is only turned towards the outside world completely loses control over the forces and processes which he has brought into being. He is then faced with a mechanical process over which he can exercise a certain steering power only by remaining chained to it and increasing day by day his dependency on it. At the same time, it pulls the masses, and finally even nations, into its vortex-like chain reaction. This is precisely the meaning of what Sombart called the ”economic era.”
It is worth adding that there might be forms of power that are not reducible to external bigness and world records, that do not aim for the material and the quantitative, but manifest themselves as the sign and seal of inner greatness, of real superiority. Every trace, indeed the very notion of such power seems more and more to vanish. Perhaps it will be found again, when men will begin to look inward, putting an end to the agitation, the fever of always going beyond, without a clear sense of the object, or the reason of all this activity, of what really is worth human effort, and what is not. Perhaps that will be the point at which everything modern man has created will find a true master, even though the paths leading to it still remain inscrutable.
Source: Julius Evola, Ricognizioni: uomini e problemi (Rome: Edizioni Mediterranee, 1974).
Intelligent Stupidity
Translated by G. A. Malvicini
The term “intelligent stupidity” was coined by a distinguished representative of traditional thought, F. Schuon (although G. Bernanos had already used an analogous expression, l’intelligence des sots, and another Frenchman had written that “le drame de notre temps, c’est que la bêtise se soit mise à penser” [the drama of our time is that stupidity has started thinking]), to characterize a form of intellectuality that has come to dominate large sectors of modern culture, and which is strongly represented in Italy. This intellectuality proliferates in the margins of journalism — that scourge of our time — and the literary genre of the essay. The “cultural section” of the big newspapers is one of its main centers of dissemination, and it is exercised primarily in the field of so-called “criticism.”
The main characteristic of “intelligent stupidity” is the absence of principles, of interests in higher matters, and of genuine commitment, while its supreme concern is to be “brilliant” and “original,” attaching great importance to slick and professional “good writing,” to everything that is form and not substance, to esprit in the frivolous and urbane French sense. For the representatives of this “intelligentsia,” the brilliant sentence, the dialectical and polemical statement, have much more value than truth. Ideas, when these people make use of them, are only a pretext; the important thing is to be brilliant, to appear to be extremely intelligent — in the same way that for the politician today, the party ideology is merely a means of building a career. The “vanity fair,” the shabbiest subjectivism, often outright narcissism, are essential components of this phenomenon, and when these cliques of intellectuals take on an urbane tinge (in literary “salons” and cultural associations), this aspect becomes even more apparent. Whoever it was that said that “of all kinds of stupidity, the most annoying kind is the stupidity of intelligent people,” undeniably had a point. When, in analyzing a person down to his very core, we discover that this person is a non-entity, it would really be better if he were not also intelligent.
However, the matter cannot be reduced to the annoyance these scribblers cause; we must emphasize their perniciousness, since “intelligent stupidity” is remarkably organized, especially in contemporary Italy. It is a kind of freemasonry, implanted in various circles, holding practically all the key positions in publishing, wherever these are not already occupied and controlled by Leftist elements. Its representatives have a highly developed instinct when it comes to immediately recognizing anyone who is of a different nature, and promptly ostracizing them.
We could adduce a trivial but significant example from the present time. There is a group of intellectuals gathered around a fairly well-produced and widely distributed journal [Il Borghese, a post-war Right-wing journal]. It presents itself as anti-conformist, and likes to criticize the political regime and contemporary mores. But the editors of this journal were careful to avoid contact with the few authors who could have provided it, had it had serious intentions, with a positive foundation in terms of principles and a traditional worldview. These authors are as ignored and ostracized by them as by the Leftist press, precisely because that group feels that they are men of a different type.
This clearly shows that this brilliant anti-conformism is just a means of getting attention and of “dazzling,” while everything really remains at the level of dilettantism. Moreover, the founder of the magazine in question, who died a few years ago, once stated baldly that if a different political regime were in existence today, he would probably have switched camps, just in order to still be part of the “opposition” — with the same goal, of course, of being “brilliant” and showing off his “intelligence.” The group of intellectuals we referred to willingly opened itself to a few people who had shown, initially, a feeling for superior ideas and values, but who then put them aside, so as to better be able to market whatever talent for writing they had. Thus, renouncing all intransigence, these people easily adapted to the line of “intelligent stupidity,” which only impresses the ignorant and those suffering from intellectual provincialism. The example is anecdotal, but very revealing.
It is hardly necessary to point out that the counterpart of “intelligent stupidity” is a lack of character. This becomes obvious whenever its representatives were involved in politics in recent years: opportunism and a chameleonic nature are their recurring characteristics. Once fascists out of convenience, they now parade their anti-fascism, when they at least should have the decency to keep silent, and completely refrain from discussing such matters.
We said at the beginning that “criticism” is one of the main provinces of intelligent stupidity, the one where its most pernicious varieties flourish. Here, as we shall see, we can make a connection with what we wrote earlier regarding multiple subliminal influences coming from the environment. To tell the truth, it is quite an extensive subject. In general, we should single out the “critic” as one of the scourges of modern culture, a scourge that originated in bourgeois civilization, in parallel with the development the publishing industry and the commercialization of culture. Criticism is a phenomenon that has spread like a cancer in our time, but which was nonexistent, or nearly so, in all normal, traditional civilizations. There, on the one hand, there were the creators, the artists, and on the other, there were those who, directly and without any intermediary, judged and appreciated their work: rulers, patrons or simple people. Instead, in our time, an insolent and impertinent parasite, the “critic,” has interposed himself between the creators and the public.
In stating this, we do not mean to say that all judgment concerning artistic productions should be ruled out. We believe, however, that if a judgment must be made, it must be pronounced from a higher point of view, by those whose authority has been conferred upon them by true principles and a tradition. Which amounts to saying that it must be pronounced by a type of persons now almost non-existent (and even if they had existed, their words and deeds would resonate very little in our age). Pace those who propound the theory of art for art’s sake, pace Croce with his horror of any judgment not based solely on the expressive capacity encountered in a work of art — judgments of the aforementioned kind would be made from a point of view that transcends that of art. They would be value judgments taking into account whatever a given work might signify within the totality of a civilization, and not just in a particular domain, or on a purely aesthetic level.
Far removed from all of this, “criticism” is now condemned from the start to pure subjectivism and arbitrariness. Today, it is often the critic who manipulates values along the lines of “intelligent stupidity,” being highly skilled at creating an appearance of value where there is none, and concealing it where it does in fact exist. As for the public, we again encounter, in another form, the easily manipulated passivity so typical of our contemporaries (having now become, in the language of democracy, “adult”). We have discussed this earlier [in “Subliminal Influences”].
Indeed, in the artistic and intellectual field, a situation similar to that of advertising and propaganda has come into being. New reputations and new “masterpieces” pop up everywhere, with battages to start trends and fashions. That which has been observed with regard to people who always follow fashion, also applies to today’s public: they are ridiculous from fear of seeming ridiculous. They passively allow their opinions to be prompted and manipulated, they do not dare to openly express what they think and feel for fear of being accused of being philistines or fools, once a verdict has been passed by the pontificators of “criticism” on such and such a work of contemporary art or literature. Whatever differences of opinion and controversies that may exist among “critics,” they never touch upon the essential, their only function being to spice up the dishes served up and artificially generate interest.
This certainly goes for many authors made famous by “critics” — Nobel laureates and bestsellers included — but whose fundamental insignificance would clearly appear if only one had preserved some degree of spiritual freedom, if only one had serious, higher points of reference, and if one from the start had denied all authority to the pontificators of “criticism.” If the tendency to passively and indiscriminately follow the dictates of fashion in hair-style and clothing — what some unknown individual in this or that capital came up with the idea of promoting as fashion — can be regarded as an essentially feminine character trait, the same phenomenon, in the field of art and literature, is not essentially different. It merely re-confirms, on another level, what can be observed in the forma mentis that is now widespread in much of today’s so-called educated public, as well as in everyday life and politics. Again, it is a sign of the times.
Source: L’Arco e la Clava [The Bow and the Club] (Milan: Scheiwiller, 1968)
René Guénon & Integral Traditionalism
Translated by G. A. Malvicini
Elsewhere (in La Destra, in May 1972), we have discussed the necessary relationship of an authentic, non-makeshift Right with the concept of Tradition. In the sense discussed there, references to authors with a traditional orientation may be useful in dealing with certain complex problems. Here, however, we wish to provide an account of the ideas of René Guénon (1886-1951), who was regarded as the proponent of “integral Traditionalism.”
Guénon is already quite well known in Italy. His books were translated before the war and some have recently been republished. In Turin, a Guénonian group circulates a journal that is a replica of the French publication Études Traditionnelles, of which Guénon was magna pars. The latter journal still exists and is edited by orthodox Guénonians. Today, Guénon is regarded as a teacher and the founder of a school, and in France has come to be accepted by the official and academic culture, albeit with various reservations.
Guénon’s work is complex but also forms an organic whole. Firstly, it formulates a radical critique of the modern world, a critique that differs from that of various authors of the past and the present, to the extent that it has a positive point of reference: the “world of Tradition,” of which the modern world is the antithesis. The term “traditional” refers to a universal type of civilization which, in varied, but analogous forms, was realized more or less completely in both the East and in the West.
Traditional civilization — Guénon affirms — has metaphysical points of reference. It is characterized by the recognition of an order higher than all that is human and contingent, and by the presence and authority of elites that draw from this transcendent plane the principles and values necessary to found a well-articulated social organization, to open the paths to higher knowledge, and finally, to give life true meaning. At the opposite pole lies modern civilization, which is defined by desacralization on a grand scale, by the systematic denial of all that is superior to man as an individual or as a collective group, by materialism, and by the impulse to realization in the sense of productive activity on a purely secular and temporal plane, an insane activism. Two books by Guénon, La crise du monde moderne [Crisis of the Modern World] and Le règne de la quantité et les signes des temps [The Reign of Quantity and the Sign of the Times], contain the essential elements of this critique. In those two works, themes already discussed by various authors of the past and the present acquire a particular sharpness and a firmer foundation.
The same critique is formulated in the book Orient et Occident, but there it is associated with other, questionable claims. While Guénon recognizes — and cannot fail to recognize — that civilizations of the traditional type have existed in both the East and the West, in this latter work, he claims that they are now only found in the East (especially India), and that taking them as a point of reference may be an effective means of Western reintegration. Now, this claim may at the most be valid with regard to Eastern esoteric doctrines, but certainly not for the factual reality of the East. Guénon was convinced of the existence, in the East, in spite of everything, of groups that were still depositaries of the Tradition. In practice, he had direct contact with the Islamic world, where initiatic veins (Sufi and Ismaeli) still exist parallel to the exoteric (i.e., religious) tradition. He Islamicized himself to the extreme. Having moved to Egypt, he took the name of Sheikh Abdel Wahid Yasha, and also acquired Egyptian nationality. In a second marriage, he took an Arab wife.
Guénon makes no mystery of the fact that, after several disappointing experiences in French “occult” circles, it was thanks to exponents of Eastern doctrines that he managed to find the right path, that of the “initiatory” or “metaphysical knowledge.”
These esoteric teachings are the stated or implied foundation of the doctrines expounded by Guénon in several books, most notably Le symbolisme de la Croix [The Symbolism of the Cross], Les états multiples de l’être [The Multiple States of the Being], and L’homme et son devenir selon le Vedanta [Man and His Becoming According to Vedanta]. Here, one of our reservations is that often, what Guénon presents as “metaphysics” in a special transcendent meaning, is in fact, aside from differences in terminology, essentially not very different from what goes by that name in the history of Western, profane philosophy, and often ends up in rather tedious abstractions, as for example in the case of all the expositions on “Universal Possibility” and the like. Nevertheless, a point that remains valid is that the rational is not the extreme noetic limit of man, and that the normal human condition can be removed, since man “does not represent, in fact, more than a transitory and contingent manifestation of true being.” Thus, in principle, it is possible for him to strive towards a higher plane in which knowledge signifies being the thing known, so that in knowing, the individual transforms and integrates himself. The ancient concept of “gnosis” is analogous to this. Initiation, he claims, is the most direct and regular path to such a realization. Guénon clearly differentiates it from anything that is mere mysticism.
Tradition, in a first sense, refers to all of this “metaphysical” and not merely human knowledge. It admits of a variety of forms, while remaining, in its essence, one. Concerning its unity, Guénon also speaks of a “primordial tradition,” a concept that had been formulated before him. There are hints of it in De Maistre, in Fabre d’Olivet, and in a way it was also accepted by the Catholic Wilhelm Schmidt, in his remarkable work on ”idea of God.”
With regard to the concept of “primordial tradition,” one must, however, distinguish between a metaphysical aspect and an historical aspect. The former concerns forms that are related in ways that are not the result of material, historically verifiable transmission; a single law can give rise to distinct, but corresponding and analogous forms, in the same way that in several points of a stream of water, separate whirlpools with the same morphology can form as a result of the same law and similar situation.
Regarding the second aspect, it is the result of a concrete first origin common to a complex of traditions. Guénon accepts the idea of a “Hyperborean tradition” placed at the beginning of this cycle of civilizations (of Indo-European civilizations in particular). This idea had already been affirmed by other esoteric authors (but also by profane authors like Herman Wirth, who in his vast work of uneven value, Der Aufgang der Menschheit [The Rise of Mankind], tried to establish a basis for it).
All this leads to the thesis of the ”transcendent unity of traditional forms” (and in particular, of the ”transcendent unity of religions,” as F. Schuon, a disciple of Guénon, calls it). One of the abilities attributed to one who has risen to the level of higher knowledge discussed earlier, would be that of glimpse that unity, as well as, conversely, to be able to express a given content in terms of one or the other tradition, just as a concept can be expressed in the words of one or another language (symbolically, this would be the “gift of tongues,” and furthermore the foundation of an essential “ecumenism,” very different from the grey, illusory ecumenism that has emerged from the climate of post-conciliar Catholicism). Guénon has shown himself to possess this capacity, beyond what can be attributed to mere erudition.
Guénon again uses traditional ideas in his criticism of the modern world. He has no doubt that we are today approaching the end of a cycle, that we are in the Kali Yuga or the “dark age” predicted by ancient Hindu doctrines, but also in other traditions (Hesiod’s “Iron Age,” for example). He rejects, then, every form of progressivist delusion. Progress, outside of the material domain (where, however, it often comes at a high price), is for Guénon merely a superstition of Western man. Guénon interprets history in decidedly anti-Marxist terms, as an involution, indicating its real meaning in terms of the so-called “regression of the castes.”
The reference point here is the traditional articulation of society into four castes or “functional classes”: at its summit, the exponents of spiritual and sacred authority, then the warrior aristocracy, then the bourgeoisie, and finally, the working masses. Now, a society governed by the first caste recedes into almost mythical remoteness. The subsequent reign of the second caste ended with the decline of the great monarchies. Then began the reign of the third estate, of the bourgeoisie, of industrialism and capitalism. Finally, what corresponds to the fourth caste emerges and has begun its struggle for world domination: Marxism and communism. Any anti-Marxist interpretation of the course of history, from the Right, should refer to this essential scheme, which we have ourselves developed on several occasions.
One of Guénon’s theses is that a normal, i. e., traditional, civilization would be characterized by the primacy of contemplation and pure knowledge over action. This is also one of the foundations of his critique of the modern Western world, where he finds the very opposite, namely the primacy of action. But this is precisely the point at which we must begin to formulate certain reservations. Our critique can take as its starting point the indication of the characteristic nature of the power at the apex or center of traditional civilization. It is not correct that it was occupied by elites who cultivated “contemplation” or “pure knowledge” in more or less priestly terms. Historically, this was not the case even in India, for despite its predominantly Brahmanical civilization, it had royal dynasties and representatives of the warrior caste who possessed traditional knowledge. In fact, the aforementioned apex is characterized rather by an undivided unity of sacredness and royalty, of spiritual authority and temporal power. Aside from ancient China and a number of other ancient civilizations, Japan has almost up to the present time maintained itself at that level, and it is significant, with regard to Guénon’s idiosyncrasies, that he never referred to Japan and its specific “traditional character” because it did not correspond to his scheme.
While Guénon notes the completely desacralized and deviant character of the modern West, this has not prevented him from considering the problem of the possibility of a rectification, of a redressement. Based on his conviction that if the West has had a tradition, it was in Catholicism, he believed that the starting point of such a rectification would have to be in an integration of “traditional” Catholicism, not ruling out the advantageousness of contacts with oriental elements. But even before the recent trends of post-conciliar Catholicism would reveal the reality of the situation (and here we must again emphasise that the illusory “ecumenism” of post-Vatican II Catholicism has nothing in common with what “integral traditionalism” aimed for), he did not entertain too many illusions in this regard; he also explicitly stated as much in a letter he wrote to us, confessing that as a matter of principle, he had felt compelled to not exclude certain possibilities, without, however, actually expecting any results. In the face of attempts of this kind, Catholicism has remained indifferent, as it did with the regard to those, albeit much inferior, once made by Abbé Constant (aka Eliphas Lévi). The only real result has been that thanks to Guénon, several Catholics have come to penetrate the deepest meaning of Catholicism, of its symbols and its dogmas. Unfortunately, these individuals have no power in the official hierarchy, which would allow them to exert any significant influence. On the other hand, a Catholic theologian would probably detect incompatibilities between the truths of orthodoxy and all that is derived from the “metaphysics” which Guénon refers to, opposing une fin de non recevoir [a legalistic pleading] to “integral traditionalism.”
Guénon was allergic to politics in the narrow sense, claiming that there was no currently existing movement he felt he could support. As an exception, he consented to having extracts from his writings published with his signature as articles in a special cultural section — unique in its kind — that we edited in the years 1934-1943: “Diorama,” in the Cremona newspaper Regime fascista. In any case, Guénon belongs in essence to the culture of the Right. His work is a radical negation of democracy, socialism, and individualism. He goes even further, into areas barely touched upon by current Right-wing critiques. He opposed traditional knowledge and “traditional sciences” to modern science and scientism, not hesitating to rehabilitate the former, once their true meaning had been clarified. Not only did he point to the limits of profane scientific knowledge, but also to the devastation that inevitably follows from its world-view and its applications. One statement by Guénon succinctly sums up the meaning of the adventure that Western man has devoted himself to since the Renaissance: “He has detached himself from the heavens with the excuse of conquering the earth.” We can also quote the far-eastern saying that: “The net of Heaven has large meshes, but no one passes through,” indicating the play of concordant actions and reactions that led to the current “dark age” (dark, despite what Henry Miller calls its “putrescent splendor”).
Aside from what he believed was possible for an “integrated” Catholicism, Guénon indicated the rectifying action of élites intellectuelles. Here, he may have had in mind the kind of influence once exercised — but in an opposite, subversive direction — by the so-called sociétés de pensée, up to the French Revolution and in the margins of Freemasonry. Even if Guénon does not use the term “intellectual” in the current sense and even though he is not referring to today’s intellectuals, but to a conservative and “traditional” form of intellectuality, the concept remains somewhat abstract under current conditions. If anything, to us a more adequate conception would be a kind of Order, bringing together personalities loyal to certain principles, rooted in traditional spirituality, but also more directly in contact and in confrontation with reality and historical forces. Such an Order would make up the backbone of a true Right, and if its members, without necessarily flaunting their connection with the organization, were gradually able to occupy certain key positions in contemporary culture and society, a rectification would be possible.
All this only in principle, because today’s environment and men are such that initiatives of this kind would have little chance of success. As a fallback, there remains more or less what Guénon had in mind, the formation of centers of traditional intellectuality with an activity that, realistically, would be limited to the cultural domain. Even such an activity should not be underestimated. Today, it has become quite fashionable to speak of a “culture of the Right,” but without it being clear what it is supposed to consist in and without it being possible to avoid the feeling of something improvised. However, there does seem to be favorable soil, and the various publishing initiatives confirm this. In this context, a use (but not a slavish one) of Guénon is desirable. Given the variety and multiplicity of subjects treated by him, it would be well, however, to leave aside those that are specially concerned with esotericism, “metaphysics,” and initiation. Although they are the ultimate foundation of everything else, given their unusual nature, there is no need to put them in the foreground, thereby possibly alarming a certain circle of readers and providing pretexts for ostracism.
Of course, apart from the intellectual aspect, there is the existential aspect. Traditional knowledge, as has already been stated, is necessarily at same time realization. The Nietzschean axiom “Man is something that can be overcome” is also the axiom of esoteric knowledge, which — as we have noted — starts from the idea that the human state of existence should not be hypostatized, that it is just one the multiple states of being. Only one must indicate how to prevent distorted, mistaken or dangerous applications of this postulate.
This is not an appropriate place for particular considerations of this domain of realization, which would entail an examination of Guénon’s book Aperçus sur l’initiation [Perspectives on Initiation]. We will simply note that there are reservations that must be made with regard to the possibilities almost exclusively considered by Guénon. He insists on the necessity of a connection with a given “chain,” with a given “regular organization” transmitting a spiritual influence. For clarification, an analogy would be the consecration of a priest by a bishop, who is the administrator of the spiritual influences of which the Church is believed to be the custodian. In the case of Guénon, this connection must mainly have been realized — as we have already stated — through Islamic “chains.” But to those who do not feel like turning to Muslims and Orientals, Guénon offers very little.
Those who read, in La Destra (March 1972), the extracts of our correspondence with him, will remember that we could not follow the Guénon in the idea that today’s Freemasonry — despite its degeneration (which he admitted) — in principle remains a dispensing organization of real, and not only symbolic and ritual initiation. There are personalities in the West who certainly have had the rank of Masters, such as Gurdjieff and, in the so-called “Left Hand Path,” Aleister Crowley. Or perhaps we are supposed to seek out some surviving branch of operative Kabbalism, which again cannot be considered a Western tradition. Naturally, the teeming occult, theosophical, pseudo-Rosicrucian sects and cliques of today are spurious and inauthentic, and are completely out of the question. Thus, the situation is difficult, for most of us the problem remains open and must perhaps be reformulated in terms other than those indicated by Guénon.
However, the theme of “integral traditionalism” can be detached from this problem and be used in the formation of a culture of the Right.
Source: Julius Evola, Ricognizioni: uomini e problemi (Rome: Edizioni Mediterranee, 1974).
The Hegemony of the White Races
Trans. anonymous
The problem of the origins, the foundations and the future destiny of the global hegemony of the white race is, of course, among the most exciting issues of today. We have in our hands a newly published large volume by Wahrhold Drascher, who, thoroughly knowledgeable, comprehensively informed and with an acute historical sense, takes on precisely this subject (Die Vorherrschaft der weissen Rasse, Berlin, 1936). We shall provide an outline of his book, on account of the interest which, as we shall soon see, his views may have for Italian readers.
How was it possible for a group of peoples — bound to one another by only very relative ties — to subject the rest of the world to their will for centuries, involving the entire world in their own destiny? Many are tempted explain this unique event in world history in purely materialistic terms. Drascher, however, easily proves such explanations to be one-sided and inadequate. If it was only a matter of physical, military and technical superiority, it is, in fact, hardly conceivable how Cortez and Pizarro, along with only a handful of adventurers, succeeded in toppling gigantic empires, or how the English, with not even two hundred thousand men, have been able to keep no less than three hundred and fifty million Hindus at bay. Moreover, we must not confuse the latest phase of a dominion already organized on solid economic, administrative, military and, properly speaking, ”colonial” foundations, with the original forms of domination and conquest, conquests that were realized with no predetermined plan, and indeed even without any real economic intentions. The spirit of adventure, the love of risk and the unknown, the sheer pleasure of domination and predation, the desire for great distances were, more than any rational, mercantile, and utilitarian motive, at the origins of white expansion, and were inseparably bound to specific character traits: to a hard will, to coldness, to tenacity, to contempt for life and for death, to an unshakable feeling of superiority.
This is the first point: moral qualities, and not purely material elements. Regarding the feeling of white superiority, Drascher states that it was not based on guns and warships, or even on legal principles. Rather, it made use of all of those things with the naturalness of men willing to use whatever means necessary to achieve their goals. The true origins of this feeling of superiority are not rational, they are rooted in the very substance of the race, in the spirit of the blood. This is why even when the various peoples of the white race found themselves in the most bitter conflicts, nonetheless, in their behavior, their way of being, of acting and of asserting themselves, they appeared to other peoples as a single family.
This, however, is not all. In addition to the material elements, in addition to the moral elements themselves, and perhaps more important than them, there is an element of the highest, almost of a metaphysical order, which Drascher calls the “spirit of the oceanic age.” It is a kind of obscure will to the infinite and the unconditioned, which stands in the most intimate relationship to the conception of the world of humanism and the Renaissance, becoming more powerful and developed through the experience of the ocean and the new conquest of the seas, which was taking place at precisely that time. It was the “oceanic spirit” that constituted the deepest spiritual core and the innermost impulse that uniquely animated and oriented the racial qualities of the white peoples, launching them on the path of the conquest of the world, principally through the previously unknown great ocean routes.
Drascher writes:
The sea, that vast surface, free and open in every direction, has no end at any point: beyond the horizon, which you thought you had reached, another opens itself, drawing you towards new distances, pushing you always beyond, towards infinity. Its element is mobile, restless. At no point does it invite you to linger, to dwell, always pushing you to continue towards a new goal. And when you get there, it does not give you peace. Each wave is calling you, seems to urge you to forget and leave what you already know and not settle for what you already have, but to attempt and dare new things. The sea is, in the highest sense, the idea of limitlessness, which it embodies more than any other aspect of nature. It is serious, powerful, tragic, it is a hostile force that always wants to be tamed again, always ready to destroy you if you do not prove yourself to be stronger than it. And it is free, in the deepest sense of the word. On its shores, you can build cities and fortresses, but you cannot contain it and “own it.” It “belongs” essentially to he who navigates it, dominating it.
In these terms, the experience of the sea gives rise to the spirit of a new European epoch, to the driving force of a universal impulse, to the soul of a new epic and adventurous cycle. The ancient formula: vivere non necesse navigare necesse est [living is not necessary but navigation is], here takes on the fullness of its meaning. Navigation and conquest, derived from the original Mediterranean spirit, were gradually adopted by a series European peoples, from the Renaissance onward, as the watchword of world conquest and the consolidation of the hegemony of the white race.
But then, almost like the fatal cyclical process that every organism is subject to, the heroic tension and the original will to the infinite little by little went into dormancy. The epic phase of expansion was followed by the economic, mercantile phase. The first conquerors, surrounded by an almost mystical prestige, were replaced by highly organized companies trading in manufactured goods and specializing in the rational use of raw materials. Military power, especially naval power (as in the typical case of England), was more or less reduced to performing the function of the armed guard of economic hegemonism. The freedom on the seas ended up becoming synonymous with the freedom of British commerce. In addition, the white West itself began to formulate ideologies that were destined to turn back on it and seriously damage its prestige in the eyes of the colored peoples, finally creating the conditions of a new spirit of independence and revolt among the latter.
This is not the place to delve into such considerations, which, moreover, Drascher himself discusses only incompletely. We will only mention, for example, that the egalitarian social principle has lead to the absurdity of legal parity between white nations and mestizo nations or African savages; that a poorly understood and demagogic nationalism has become, in Asia, a dangerous source of insurrectionary ferment, while Bolshevik-Marxist propaganda calls for the revolt of colonized peoples against whites, claiming that the latter have the same role with regard to the former that capitalist exploiters and oppressors have with regard to the international proletariat. Here, however, it is more important to discuss consequences, recognizing that, in one way or another, the principle of European hegemony really is in danger today, and that the urgent problem of its restoration is not only material, but also, and above all, spiritual. There is very little point in resorting to external remedies. Only a return to origins, i.e., to the original attitude that brought whites to world domination — after the elimination of all the detritus of a soulless civilization devoid of ideals, a civilization that worships the idol of mere economy and is founded on the principle of leveling democracy — will allow us to maintain our supremacy. And that means reviving the oceanic symbol, reawakening the will to the infinite and limitless, fueled – so to speak – by the ocean wind, the freedom of enormous distances. This spirit, however, must be mastered by firm discipline and translated into strength hardened like steel.
It is no accident that Italy, which only now is fully entering into a cycle of conquest and colonial empire-building, has also proved its capacity for such a spirit, while in other countries, those forces have for a long time and over the span of many generations been lying dormant, decimated or supplanted by other, lower forces. Thus, in this respect, too, Fascist Italy is now a symbol, and has defined the terms of a European alternative. Those nations that will be incapable of following her in accomplishing the miracle of a renewal and a revival in the sense just indicated, are destined to be swept away by the tide that is gradually swelling among the races they once dominated. Whatever the power of those nations may still appear to be today, it is merely the legacy of a spirit that is now dead. Only the other nations, who will answer the call of fascist “youthfulness” and bring back the deep forces of their race to new epic heights, and to a new spirituality permeated with the drive towards limitless, will be part of the new front called upon to defend and reaffirm Western world supremacy.
Originally published in Corriere Padano, January 6, 1937.
Biological Youth & Political Youth
Translated by G. A. Malvicini
A frequently discussed issue among Right-wing circles is the new generation and its relations with the previous one; “revolutionary” youth in relation to the men and ideas of the Fascist period. Some, in this regard, believe that the same phenomenon is met with here that can be observed more generally: the new generation no longer understands the generation that preceded it, the accelerated pace of events having interposed between the one and the other a mental distance much larger than that which in other times normally would have separated them.
However, in this way of presenting the problem, one often can detect a certain superficiality and tendentiousness. And are the concepts of “youth,” of the new generation, of “revolutionary calling,” themselves unambiguous?
In fact, one should start by defining the plane on which one wishes to apply such notions: whether one is speaking of the biological level, or of a higher level, as should well be supposed in this case. If we wish to view things from a spiritual point of view, we have to be careful, because there are cases in which the meaning of “new,” “young,” “the latest” is inverted. Hence, generally speaking, if we consider the succession of generations within a given cycle of civilization, one can even formulate a paradox, because what is truly young is that which is close to the origin, while the final generations, which chronologically speaking are younger, are in fact the oldest: senescent, crepuscular, even if sometimes one can mistake for youth what really is only infantilism and primitivism. To cite one example, the so-called “youth” of the North American races, with their “new world” and their primitivism, to us represents the infantilism not of “young” generations, but of the final generations, of those near the involuted end of a cycle — of the cycle of Western civilization in general.
We mentioned this because something analogous is also true in a more concrete domain. Thus, looking around us, can we really consider — other than in a biological sense — an unfortunately considerable part of the “youth” in today’s Italy to be “young”? This indifferent and unprincipled youth, absorbed by materialism and petty hedonism, incapable of any enthusiasm, incapable of coherence, livening up, at the most, to football matches and bicycle races? We would rather say that this “youth” was dead even before having been born. Today, anybody who refuses to yield, anyone who lives an idea, anyone capable of remaining standing, upright, despising everything feeble, devious, underhanded, cowardly, whatever their age, is infinitely more “young” than this peculiar “youth.”
It is precisely along these lines that one must understand the notion of youth in a more than biological sense, defining a common denominator, so as to overcome artificial antitheses. If we were to indicate the fundamental characteristic of youth in this higher sense, we would define it as the will to the unconditioned. In fact, this is the factor that accounts for, on the one hand, all idealism in a positive sense, and on the other, all forms of courage, enthusiasm, creative initiative, and ability to move resolutely to new positions, with little concern for one’s own person. In particular, physically, true youth is characterized precisely by the almost paradoxical disposition of a superabundance of life, which, instead of being attached to itself, expends itself without reserve and is able to consider its own death as of no account.
One should distinguish between the most elemental phase, in which the qualities just indicated only occur spontaneously, in a disorderly and transient fashion, often like a kind of spontaneous combustion, and on the other, the phase in which these qualities are affirmed and stabilized. The first phase is common in youth properly speaking, in individuals who are then gradually “normalized,” “come to their senses,” convincing themselves that “idealism is one thing, real life another,” abdicating the will to the unconditioned, which is thereby revealed to have had, in such cases, a largely physical basis. The second phase occurs, on the other hand, when ordeals have had to be faced, hard ordeals, and these ordeals have been endured without failing.
This is true both in the interior and in the political domain. With this we can return to the problem with which we began. Which generation of yesterday is it that today’s generation can no longer understand? In fact, something has repeated itself: yesterday, too (after World War I), there was a “generation of the front”; yesterday, too, they were faced with intolerable political, social and moral conditions, and in the impetuosity, idealism and virility born out of a life of danger and combat, the basis of the fascist movement was formed. Today, things recur in the same terms; in addition, there is the circumstance of an even more severe ordeal, since today’s “front generation” is the survivor not of a victory, but of a defeat and a general disintegration.
In these terms, there should only be a fundamental continuity. This continuity of a “youth” that is not biological but political, only ceases to exist when it comes to those men who, after fascism came to power, lost themselves, were no longer capable of maintaining their intransigence, their will to the unconditioned, their radicalism, selling their birthright for a mess of pottage: for this or that semi-bureaucratic position within the framework of a despicable, theatrically presented officialdom and a new conformism.
But it would be really unfair to lump them all together and deny that within fascism, there were also men who remained upright, often hampered in every way by one or the other unofficial clique. The reuniting of these men with the new wave, with the new youth and the new “front generation,” should be natural and based on an affinity: like the flow of a current that, having overcome an obstruction, an obstacle, resumes its course.
One more point should be mentioned. It is not always easy — especially in the case of Italians, Mediterraneans — to give oneself an autonomous value. In order to have a sense of individuality, in order to feel important, many have a need to fret, to at all costs oppose something or someone. It is in this light that we must judge certain aspects of the “revolutionary calling” and also a certain individualist tendency of “the youth,” when it feels the need to differentiate itself at any cost, indiscriminately espousing new ideas just because they are new. Because of this, it is often, therefore, merely a case of an “inferiority complex”: the need to assert oneself in an indirect way, by antithesis and contrast, because one does not feel sure enough of oneself. This attitude should be rectified by the political, and not simply biological, youth. The highest ambition should not consist in being a revolutionary at all costs, but rather in being the exponent of a tradition, the bearer of a transmitted force, which should be enhanced and potentiated with anything that can secure the inflexibility of its direction. This also goes for the domain of ideas, and one of the proofs of inner freshness is the ability to understand that true ideas are above every contingency, and that it is through them that authentic personality acquires its value: not through a confused revolutionary impulse, not through a preconceived distrust of the past, not through a disorderly dynamism that only shows the lack of a true inner form. Without getting into particulars, since this is not the place for that, we can easily discern on this basis what, in today’s political youth, needs to be rectified in terms of general attitude, so that as a unified force, it can pursue a precise political ideal: the ideal of the true organic State.
Source: Julius Evola, Ricognizioni: uomini e problemi (Rome: Edizioni Mediterranee, 1974).
Israel: Its Past, Its Future
Trans. Anonymous
A work that definitely ought be brought to the attention of all scholars of the Jewish question, and, in general, of those who follow the anti-Semitic debate, is Herman de Vries de Heekelingen’s very recently published book: Israël, son passé, son avenir (Paris: Perrin, 1937). Indeed, few other publications have presented the essence of the Jewish problem with such clarity, such objectivity, and with such wealth of documentation.
It bears no trace of sectarianism or zeal — which is precisely what is needed in order to infuriate the emissaries of the Kahal, who find it extremely convenient to see the ranks of their adversaries made up only of fanatics and confused individuals. The first part of the book, above all, is important, even if only for the excellent material assembled from the most varied sources. With regard to the second aspect of the problem — the future of Israel — if de Vries’ arguments do not, especially for us Italians (and we will see why), seem entirely convincing, that is less the fault of the author than of the matter itself, of the Jewish problem, which, when considered in depth, is a problem as inescapable as it is wanting in positive solutions.
“The Jewish problem is one of the great problems of the world, and no man, be he a writer, politician or diplomat, can be considered mature until he has striven to face it squarely on its merits” — the book begins with this admonition from Henry Wickham Steed [quoted from The Hapsburg Monarchy, Constable & Co., London, 1914].
“For over two thousand years,” de Vries continues, “the Jewish problem has agitated the world: more or less virulent in different ages and nations, anti-Semitism has always existed wherever Jews have constituted a fairly sizeable minority. Efforts have been made to combat Jewry by means of baptism, bloody persecution, expulsion, expropriation, assimilation. What methods have not been attempted in an effort to conquer it or destroy it? And yet, without any lasting results. Jews are more numerous, more powerful, richer than ever.” “Is this race indestructible, then? Must we draw the conclusion that it is, as a whole, invincible?” the Author asks.
Anyone who ponders the last two thousand years of history would have to answer in the affirmative. The following problem, then, forces itself upon us: there are, scattered among the various peoples, fractions of an alien, unassimilable people, of a nation that has world domination as its ideal, its faith and persuasion, and many members of which incessantly foment every kind of revolution and upheaval within the non-Jewish states and civilizations in which they happen to live. The presence and activity of this heterogeneous substance are less noticeable during periods of liberal, internationalist and cosmopolitan decay. However, as soon as national formations emerge, as soon as a new consciousness of race and tradition asserts itself among Aryans, the latent conflict explodes, a clash becomes inevitable. The Jew — who for thirty centuries and despite every kind of disaster has always maintained his own nationhood and law — while unable to directly oppose the Aryan, instead directly and indirectly foments revolutions and subversion of every kind. All of this is inevitable, has happened again and again, and will continue to happen, and today we are faced with this situation in its typical form. Thus, to not pose the Jewish problem today is reckless, if not positively irresponsible. And the problem should from now on be formulated in full knowledge of the enemy we must fight.
It is to this knowledge that de Vries devotes the part of his book entitled: “What separates us.” He precisely discerns the point that must serve as a solid basis for any serious anti-Semitic debate: namely, that the Jewish people and Jewish activity on the one hand, and Jewish law and tradition, on the other, form an indivisible whole. A Jew once wrote that the Israelite “has been formed, not to say manufactured, by his books and his rituals. Just as Adam emerged from the hands of Jehova, he emerged from the hands of his rabbis.”
It is in the Jewish law that the essence of the Jewish peril is to be found. To limit oneself to describe this or that outward and practical aspect of Jewry and Jewish activity in the world, means stopping at details, means missing the meaning of the whole, the central point that bestows upon everything else its true meaning. Now, Jewish law is not merely the Old Testament or Deuteronomy. De Vries is quite right to emphasize the error committed by those who believe that after the Old Testament, and with the emergence of Christianity, Jewish law has remained at a standstill and more or less cut off from the currents of history. That is false. The ancient law, or Torah, was complemented by a tradition that is also Mosaic and intrinsically Jewish, which was transmitted orally from father to son and was fixed in writing at the beginning of the third century AD: the Mishna (repetition, the repeated law).
The Torah and the Mishna then found their further development in the rabbinic literature assembled from the Gemara, which mean precisely “fulfillment” and is commonly called the Talmud. To this was added a properly theological and metaphysical development of the Jewish tradition, contained in the Zohar and, generally, in the Kabbala.
Together, all of these constitute the true Jewish law. Indeed, it is often said that the forms of later modifications, Talmudic and rabbinic, represent the essence and the true perfection of the law. De Vries cites, in this regard, precise testimonies. The superiority of the rabbinic law, which is the Talmud, with respect to Mosaic law, is established in clear terms by the Orthodox texts:
“He who studies the Bible does good work, but it does not mean much. [Only] those who study the Gemara practice the supreme virtue.”
“The Bible can be compared to water, the Mishna to wine, the Gemara [Talmud] to spiced wine.”
“He who reads the Bible without the Mishna and Gemara is similar to those who have no God.”
And so on.
The Talmud, therefore, is the real source of Jewish law. Here are other rabbinical testimonies:
“For two thousand years the Talmud was, and still is, an object of veneration for the Israelites, of whom is the religious code.”
“What the Jew is and will be a must in large part be due to the Talmud. As long as there are Jews and Jewry, the Talmud will preserve its value, since it has shaped their life and character. You can deny the Talmud its permanent value, but not its permanent influence.”
But it is precisely in this context that an irreconcilable conflict reveals itself. Talmudic law sums up, exacerbates and carries to their extreme consequences those ancient and fanatical Jewish views, as a result of which there cannot be, nor will there ever be, a point of contact between us and the Jews. There is no point in reproducing, here, documents from de Vries which La Vita Italiana has already abundantly and repeatedly made public, showing that the essence of Talmudic law is the radical distinction between Jew and non-Jew, more or less in the same terms as that between a true man and a brute beast, between the elect and slaves; it is the promise, that the universal kingdom of Israel, sooner or later, will come, and all the nations will submit to the scepter of Judah; it is a duty, for the Jew, never to submit, never to recognize in any law, that is not his law, anything but violence and injustice; it is the declaration of a morality of double standards, which limits solidarity to the Jewish race while justifying every lie, every deception, every betrayal in relations between Jews and non-Jews, placing the latter outside of the protection of the law; finally, it is the sanctification of gold and interest as the instruments of Jewish power, to which all the riches of the earth are promised. All this is well enough known, and those who have “a hard time believing” must finally make up their minds to look at the texts themselves. The Talmud goes to the point of saying: “The best among non-Jews (goyim) should be killed” and in Shemoné Esré, the prayer that a Jew should recite every day, we read: “May the apostates lose all hope, may the Nazarenes and the Minim (the Christians) perish suddenly, may they be crossed out from the book of life and not counted among the righteous,” and anyone looking for other “elegances” like that would be faced with an embarrassment of choices.
In this regard, de Vries can claim the merit of having countered a “tactical” argument made by those Jews who, faced with similar texts of their laws, in order to exonerate themselves, say that it is a heinous misunderstanding, that all the Talmudic expressions of hatred and contempt, which refer to the goyim, or akum, do not affect Christians, for these words instead refer to “pagans without faith or law, not yet moralized by the religion of Christ (Jewish hypocrisy goes as far as that!), murderers, committers of incest, worshipers of the stars, etc.” (Simon Levy).
De Vries, referring to the texts, demonstrates the falsity of this argument: the Hebrew texts used the terms goyim, akum even in periods in which “paganism” had no longer existed for centuries, using them to designate as a whole the non-Jewish races among which the exiled “chosen people” found itself living.
Now, since every true Jew considers his law as imperative, immutable, indivisible and absolute, and since the promise contained in it is the secret of the unbelievable toughness that over the centuries has kept the Jew from being defeated and has conserved his identity — tenacious, stubborn, at once proud and cowardly — for this very reason, a priori, doctrinally, the impossibility of any agreement and collaboration is clear. For that to be possible, as we have already stated in refuting Paul Oran’s book, the Jew would have to cease being a Jew. Remaining what he is, it is inevitable and fatally necessary that the Jew, in one way or another, will become involved in every agitation, every subversion, in a ceaseless activity of corrosion, in accordance with the Talmudic precept that considers as violence and injustice every law that is not the pure law of Israel, every civilization that is not that of the ideal of Israel as a “holy lineage and kingdom of priests,” to which, through an unfailing divine promise, world domination and all the riches of the earth rightfully belong.
Thus, de Vries goes on to document, in his book, the subversive activity of Jewry, especially from the French Revolution up to our days, and here, too, he shows a sense of what is essential, recognizing that if throughout history the Jewish spirit has always been revolutionary and subversive, it was with the secret intention of a reconstruction, over the ruins of every non-Jewish civilization. Beyond the destructive activity of international Jewry, its ultimate ideal always betrays itself, that of the Regnum, the aspiration — sometimes still semi-religious, sometimes completely secularized and materialized — to global domination. Since the Great War, Jewry seems indeed to have been engaged in activity on a large scale in this regard. It acts in the streets, among the proletarian masses seduced by myths forged, mainly, by Jews — masses it steers in whatever direction it wishes; through internationaI finance and through capitalism, which may be considered a masterpiece of Jewish thought (Sombart); through liberal regimes and Masonic lodges, the members of which obey its orders; through supranational formations, including the League of Nations. De Vries rightly says:
We are entering a dark and tragic period. We must abandon all illusions and give up facile optimism. If the world wants to recover at the brink of an abyss, one must have the courage to face reality. One must understand that Jewish successes are not accidental victories, due to fortuitous events, but that Jews have patiently and meticulously prepared the triumph of their millennial dream.
And he adds even more aptly:
We do not at all reproach the Jews for working for the greatness of their race. We even admire the tenacity with which they pursue the realization of their purpose. What we cannot understand is only the blindness of so many non-Jews, who, when it comes to the defense of their most sacred interests, do not show the same enthusiasm and the same tenacity.
What, then, must be done?
Conversion? Out of the question. A Japanese or a Negro, converted or baptized, is still a Japanese or a Negro. In the same way, a baptized Jew remains a Jew. It is a matter of race. But behind the Jewish race, there is a force acting sometimes unconsciously and atavistically, sometimes in a shrewd and serpentine manner: the Jewish law, the Talmudic spirit, in short, an inescapable way of being. Heinrich Heine literally stated that baptism “is only an entry ticket that opens the doors of the European culture. ”
“No,” de Vries says, “whether they have converted sincerely or without conviction, baptized Jews remain Jews, and continue to feel that they are Jews, and continue to be regarded as Jews by their former co-religionists.”
The Christian sacrament does not break the unity of Israel.
Emancipation? An act of generosity which non-Jews have shown themselves capable of, but which has remained fruitless, wherever it has not actually produced the opposite result. The emancipated Jew is a Jew who sees himself as having received carte blanche to pursue his goals: once he has obtained equality and freedom, experience has shown us that he has used it not to achieve those ideals of universal equality and brotherhood that — for good reason — he sang such touching hymns, but to crush those who freed him and whom he will never be able to consider, without betraying his Law, as “his equals.”
Assimilation? Another serious misconception, and for the same reason. The Talmud tells us that a non-Jew, having said to the rabbi Tanchum: “Come now, let us at last become one people,” received the calm reply: “Fine. Unfortunately we, being circumcised, cannot become like the rest of you. Therefore be ye also circumcised, and we will all be equal.”
De Vries adds:
Today, no one demands physical circumcision anymore, but they want to impose spiritual circumcision on us, which is much worse. […] The religious de-judaization of a part of the Jews has had the improbable result of the judaization of our Christian institutions. We have not, therefore, assimilated the Jews, but the Jews are on their way to assimilating and subjugating us.
It is a sad fact, that the life force, the tenacity with which our civilization works to preserve its own life, having been undermined and corroded by so many factors, are far inferior to those of Jewry.
The cultural emancipation of the Jew has to a large extent been accomplished automatically, through the judaization of our culture. The plague of capitalism, for example, and of mammonism, is a real triumph of the Ghetto. Through all the varieties of Jewish or judaized literature, art, philosophy or science — from Freud to Wassermann and Bergson, from Stravinsky and Schoenberg to Lombroso, from Einstein to Reinach, from Ludwig to Karl Marx, Nordau, Stirner, Weininger and so on — which cannot be touched without immediately raising a cry of indignation against “barbarians” and “fanatical racists,” our culture is infected with the Jewish virus on a vast scale, to the point that in many cases it would be difficult to say what, in it, remains truly “ours.” All the while, the Jewish substance continues to exist and wants to continue to exist — Einstein himself has declared: “The Jewish national sentiment must be galvanized wherever there are Jews. I have always felt the mania of assimilation of some of my colleagues to be disgraceful.”
And another exponent of Jewry adds: “No, there is an inheritance, a blood, a tradition, something innate, organic and, above all, a spiritual bond spanning thousands of years that prevents us from merging with an alien civilization.”
The Jewish substance, we were saying, continues to exist and wants to continue existing — while we are dissolving and being judaized. That is the practical result of “assimilation.”
Since all of these solutions have proven to be dead ends, the author is forced to consider the final possibility, the Zionist solution. Purge the land of Jews, gather them all together, deposit them all in a piece of some continent, so that the Jews may govern themselves, do what they want, practice their law and preserve their race, but if they seriously intend to realize the promise of a universal Regnum, let them try, and, as a nation, openly take up the fight with other countries — this, naturally, in its simplicity, would seem the only viable way. The Jewish peril would then vanish, and with it, anti-Semitism, the day when all the Jews would live in their own country and just mind their own business.
Is that practically possible? And if so, on what basis? The land of Palestine, it is said, is not sufficient to contain all the Jews of the world. De Vries argues that Transjordan could be added to it, and with that you would have a territory already capable of absorbing 50%-70% of all Jews around the world. And the Arab resistance? We would have to deal with it. For de Vries, it is an opposition dictated less by practical and economic considerations than by feelings. The interests of the Arabs can be sacrificed for the sake of the interest all nations have in freeing themselves from the Jewish virus, and this unwanted guest. If necessary, the Arab populations can be transported elsewhere and given other land.
This solution, then, does not seem to be an impossibility.
It is indispensable that the Jews stop saying one thing and doing another. If they resign themselves to being a nation among others, it will certainly be possible to find a way to satisfy their national aspirations. But if they continue to harbor thoughts of world domination, we will just have to fight them to the very end.
Israel must choose:
either full-fledged and sincere Zionism, renouncing revolutionary and hegemonist intrigue, or the struggle against the Aryan forces that are awakening and striving to organize themselves on the international arena. In the latter case, we will oppose the Jewish International with the Aryan International.
De Vries notes in particular that the Jew will have to give up the tactic of simultaneously making a claim of belonging to his people while demanding the right to be incorporated into another nation. It is precisely in these terms that the Jewish peril manifests itself today, and it is from this point of view that the solution proposed by de Vries is not overly persuasive.
Given the positions occupied today by the Jew, prior to a real defeat, it is very unlikely that Israel will become resigned to giving up its tactic, which is that of duplicity, of shamelessly taking advantage of the benefits that come with new concessions, while simultaneously continuing to develop his underground, international destructive activity. It is enough to have a sense of the part that Jews have in international finance, to realize how naive it is to believe that they will bend over backwards to leave and find themselves, along with their immense capital (which would immediately be bound to their borders), on a scrap of Asian land: when they, from the center of the metropolises, without moving, still dictate laws to governments, make states arm themselves, control world markets. Someone wrote that the Jew today could proudly display the map of the world, pointing to his masterpieces (among which some — Disraeli, for instance — include Christianity itself). It is therefore highly unlikely that the Jewish international, now of all times, would sound the retreat; but that is precisely what Zionism, as proposed by de Vries, would mean.
Second, de Vries neglects a fundamental point, which is that we must not only deal with Judaism in its pure form, but also with Jewish mixtures, ethnic and cultural. As regards ethnic mixtures, if you count half-Jews — whose activity is very often far more dangerous than that of pure, identifiable Jews –statistically, we would be faced with figures so large, as to make the Zionist solution, in the form promoted by de Vries, an absurdity. Furthermore, there is not only the blood tainted by Jewish blood, there is also Judaized and Judaizing culture, a Judaized and Judaizing mentality, the result of the reverse assimilation alluded to earlier. And it is on this level, through this mentality, that the Jewish international essentially works and achieves, almost always by stealth, the greatest results. Who can ever prevent those men of government and those Judaized intellectuals, who feel the desire to do so, from submitting to the yoke of the Jew, or at least from aiding him in his game? France is a typical example, and a criticism of de Vries’ book, published in Univers Israélite, is extremely instructive, regarding a certain tactic: this magazine, in the face of this “infamous book,” appeals to a revolt of the “French spirit” and the French tradition of liberty against these barbaric ideas from beyond the Rhine . . .
Furthermore, Zionism, as a movement aiming for the creation of a real powerful Jewish state in the Mediterranean, is a means more than an end: it is merely a pawn in the game of the Jewish-Masonic forces behind Great Britain, who have a vested interest in creating, as someone said, a kind of second Malta and second Gibraltar in the Mediterranean to stem the dangerous Italian influence: a pawn, among others, in a game that aims much further . . .
And many other such considerations could be made, showing that, as regards its positive solutions, de Vries’ book demonstrates — with all due respect — a certain naivety. This does not, however, stop if from being really excellent in other respects, so as to represent a valuable contribution to the anti-Semitic front of resistance. And we believe that, of the two possibilities that de Vries has considered with regard to the conduct of the Jew, the one that requires the creation of an international Aryan front will prevail, that the force of centuries-old processes will ensure that not “peace,” but “war” is, in this respect, the watchword of the future.
First published in La Vita Italiana, August 1937
The “Napolas”
Trans. Anonymous
We believe it will be of interest to provide an account of some new Germanic initiatives, designed to take over in a particular political form the tasks of “qualitative” education, which in the preceding era were mainly entrusted to a few private institutions. We will begin with an outline of the so-called “Napolas.”
Napolas is an abbreviation of Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten, i.e., in translation, “institutes of national-political education.” They came into being in the following way. After the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was forced to abolish some schools of cadets; they were then transformed by the post-war German government into so-called “Staatliche Bildungsanstalten,” i.e., into state educational institutions used to house young people in need, or who were neglected by their families. They were standardized middle schools, providing an education mainly according to liberal and apolitical criteria, complemented by fairly advanced sports training.
When National Socialism came to power, these institutions were again transformed and became the Napolas. The purpose of the Napolas, which are controlled by the new state, is strictly political-selective. They admit particularly gifted youths and develop in them the qualities that will make them capable of exercising executive functions, not necessarily only in the Army or in the party, but in any area of life. The concept, then, is totalitarian, with particular concern that the strengthening of virile qualities is accompanied by a “social sense,” a habit of considering one’s actions in relation to a community.
The statements made personally to us by one of the general inspectors of these institutes — during one of our visits — are characteristic. He stressed the separation that must exist between private family education and political education. He denied that political education can be considered as a further development of the “natural” education that a youth may receive within the family. Instead, it is a separate phase with other presuppositions, following other principles, mainly that of the soldatische Gemeinschaft, the community and solidarity that can exist within a group of soldiers. It is in this way that the Napolas are to function: not as copies of, or continuations of the family. The young person is to feel that they belong to a different and larger order, an order with its own law and its own morality.
While admission to the Staatliche Bildungsanstalten, the previous, liberal form of the same institutions, was open to anyone wishing to attend them, the Napolas only admit those youths who have been selected in elementary schools and by youth organization leaders for their special and exceptional potential. Admission can take place at the ages of either 10 or 14, and in the case of the former, the full course lasts eight years, in the case of the latter six.
There is no fixed fee to be paid for admission to these boarding-schools. There is a donation, depending on the financial situation of the family of the youth who has been recognized as worthy of being admitted. Courses may not be repeated. If, in his studies or in any other aspect of education, the youth shows himself to be inadequate, he is definitively expelled.
Even in the Napolas, with regard to physical training and the strengthening of character, there are those “tests of courage” which we have already mentioned in reference to similar institutions in Germany. For example, even the youngest students, 10-year-olds, are asked to jump into water from a certain height, even if they do not know how to swim, and older students are, for example, asked to mount a spirited horse without a saddle; their behavior is carefully observed during “fighting practice,” and so on. This is for the individual side of such tests. With regard to the individual in his relations to the group, special attention is payed to qualities of camaraderie, both his capacity of command his companions and to a corresponding sense of responsibility. To facilitate the development of such qualities, the Napolas leave ample space for the principle of self-discipline, that is, the order entrusted to the young people themselves, who are given, according to their qualities, authority over a certain group of companions.
It is also according to these qualities that the youth is judged to be worthy or not of remaining in the institutions in question. Admission is first confirmed after a year of probation. But the youth is subjected to a succession of tests and must be aware that he can be expelled at any moment, should he fail to prove himself to be up to the ideals of the Napolas.
As for technical teaching, it must not be less demanding than what is imparted in other schools. In accordance with the idea of a totalitarian education, the aesthetic element is also not neglected, and instruction not only in drawing and painting, but also in singing, occupies, in this domain, an important place. Furthermore, there is the principle of entrusting the students to young teachers, so that, athletically, the latter are also able to be their teachers, or competitors, or leaders in sports and the tactical exercises which take place at regular intervals, and, once a year, together with the students of all the Napolas (about twenty) that exist in the Reich.
In terms of political education, the so-called “casuistic” method is used. Abstract concepts are avoided, and instead, the youths are confronted with concrete cases, and their judgment is evaluated. Thus, one tends to activate and refine a certain sensibility, rather than inculcating general schemes of political or social ideas.
One unusual and bold initiative of the Napolas consists of sending students to live with the families of workers for a period from six to eight weeks, in the case younger students with farming families, in the case of older students with the families of industrial workers. During this period, the youth is hired by those families as a paid laborer, lives with them, and must live only on his wages, since he is not allowed to receive money or parcels from his own family. Through this communal life, the youth is meant to develop his social feeling and directly learn to understand the problems of the workers’ existence. He should even be capable of serving as a model, through his conduct, for the families and the workers he finds himself with, and must not neglect to enlighten them on political issues and what he has learned through experience about the ideas of National Socialism.
All of this is organized through an agreement between the Napolas and the Arbeitsfront, i.e., with the so-called “German Labor Front,” a Party organization which controls the national work force, and in this case is charged with distributing individual students to environments appropriate for this new internship. In recent years of the institutes, educational trips abroad have also been organized.
Once the course has been completed, contrary to what might be expected, the youth does not receive any specially advantaged diploma. He finds himself in the same conditions as he would have had he attended an ordinary school, and his career is in no way facilitated. The reason for this is that it is thought that the youth must be capable of bringing to fruition, on his own, in the struggle for life, the superior qualities that this special, complex, and rigorous elite education has tested, confirmed, and developed. These qualities on their own must be capable of asserting themselves, in a virile and realistic way, through their very nature, without the slightest assistance, and lead the young man to the commanding position which they, in principle, make him worthy of.
It is not without importance that the principal elements that govern the education of youths in the Napolas, and that control these institutions, themselves belong to the SS (Schutz-Staffeln), that is, from the Germanic “black” corps, which has the ambition of being a guard and almost an Order — in the ancient sense of an organization of ascetic warriors — of the National Socialist revolution.
Regime fascista, 1941
A “Castle of the Order”
Trans. anonymous
Krössinsee (Pomerania), August 1939
In a kind of immense field opening up in the dense and unbroken mass of the Nordic forest, against the backdrop of the metallic colors of two large lakes, under a sky made particularly lofty by this constant horizontality and straightness, which, so to speak, constitutes the style of this Pomeranian landscape, stands a group of buildings. They are a singular mixture of the primordial, the archaic, and the modern. They, too, are linear, smooth, devoid of any ornamental superfluities, at once hard and clear. Large towers, fences and large huts with colonnades, a large semi-circular amphitheater, buildings with high trapezoidal roofs, long parallellepipeds, great slopes and arenas sharply set off by their particularly violent colors — blood-red and black — against the dark green of the surrounding grass, large squares and paths cut into the lawn and paved with irregularly shaped stones like ancient Roman roads, bleachers, antennas. Over it all ripples a long, red flame, emblazoned with the swastika.
This is Krössinsee, the first “Ordensburg,” the first “Castle of the Order” of the Germanic National Socialist movement.
The Castles of the Order are one of the most characteristic and significant initiatives of Nazism. They are an expression of an exigency of utmost importance for the new anti-Marxist movements: the systematic formation of the future political, governing class, of the men who tomorrow will command.
The ordeals of the beginnings of those movements were already a form of selection. The struggle itself differentiated the best elements, setting them apart from the rest and investing them with a natural legitimacy and authority. But for the coming generation, other criteria of selection are needed, given the different circumstances. The question arises if a special education system can breed a stock from which to draw the elements most qualified to assume the leading positions in the party, as they gradually become vacant.
In response to this problem, in Germany, several initiatives have been undertaken. There are so-called “Institutes for social and political education” (Napolas), there are political schools for the leaders of the S.S. (“Schutzstaffeln,” the black corps, the “guard” and “order” of the Nazi revolution). Finally, there are the “Castles of the Order” and the “Adolf Hitler Schools” which are preparatory for the former: both are part of the “German Labor Front” directed by Ley and specifically concerned with the education of party elements.
The principle that informs these institutions is indicated by their name [“Ordensburg,” “Castle of the Order”]: i.e., the idea of an “Order,” on the basis of the ideal of an “elite” that combines a military vocation with special moral qualities. At least in principle, the education imparted by these institutions should be total, encompassing the body, the soul and the spirit in an indissoluble unity. There are, first of all, racial conditions that must be fulfilled: applicants must be perfectly “in order” with regard to race and physical type, and not only in the sense of being well-built — “Nordic,” if possible — and of perfect physical health. Any bodily defect is enough to preclude admission to the Ordensburgen. This institution has no intention of producing leaders who wear glasses, are missing a finger, or have flat feet — to the point of not even making exceptions for those whose physical defect is a consequence of having fought for the Nazi revolution.
The athletic and physical training at this school of future political leaders must not be less demanding than everything pertaining to education and knowledge. Candidates must all learn to ride, swim, box, fence and perform light athletics, row and sail small boats, play tennis, and so on — few varieties of sport are omitted. In addition to this, there is of course properly military training. A characteristic point are the so-called “tests of courage.” Already the Adolf Hitler Schulen, which admit the future cadets of the Ordensburgen when they are still children, demand certain tests: leaping into water from a certain height, even without knowing how to swim, mounting a horse without a saddle, dangerous climbs, and so on. Aspiring cadets of the Ordensburgen are sometimes asked to readily jump out of an airplane with a parachute. The principle in this regard is that physical courage and strength of inner resoluteness are closely related. In general, they want to get rid of the nineteenth-century bureaucratic-parliamentary, bourgeois, or romantic-humanitarian type of leader. Soldierly qualities are given a leading role.
As for the course work, it is characterized by the close connection of special disciplines with the National Socialist “worldview.” These special disciplines are racial theory, prehistory, ancient history, geopolitics and biology. An extensive library is available to cadets: at Krössinsee there is also a special center for study and information regarding the problems and legislation of racism. The general guidelines in terms of worldview are essentially based on the theories of Alfred Rosenberg — which is not without certain dangers, given the various simplifications and contingent adaptations that his theories present. But the institution of the Castles is, after all, very recent, and hence still open to further development even in this regard.
To provide a picture of the entire education system, we should mention that normally, as a preliminary condition for admission to the Ordensburgen, candidates must have attended one of the Adolf Hitler Schulen, to which they are admitted on the basis of special selection by the leaders of the Party youth organizations. The Adolf Hitler Schulen are attended at no cost by youths aged from 10 to 18, for studies combining political and athletic components up to the level of secondary school. After that, the youths must spend six months in the so-called “labor service,” and following that, two years in military service. After this, a period of freedom follows, in which each youth on his own may take up specialized higher studies or dedicate himself to some activity. After a period of about 5 years, i.e., at an age of between 25 and 27 years old, there are the “calls” for admission to Ordensburgen. and an initial selection is made from among those who apply. Three Castles of the Order are planned, along with an initial set of courses, each lasting a year, to be completed one after the other, first in Krössinsee — i.e., the castle we visited — then at Vogelsang, and finally in Sonthofen. For those wishing to become administrators or instructors at the Castles of the Order in their turn, a fourth center is being planned, to be established in Chiemsee, for even more specialized instruction.
As an interesting detail, we will mention that for each year of the normal courses, every cadet is sent for a certain period of time to the region he comes from, to temporarily take on a political office of the party, substituting whoever normally occupies it, in order to gain direct experience of its problems, tasks and responsibilities. This occurs three times, once per year, as an interlude between the courses in the three Castles.
Naturally, during these courses a further selection takes place. Whoever shows themselves to be inadequate in any respect, anyone who falls behind, is not allowed to catch up and is immediately sent back to ordinary life. Like the Adolf Hitler Schulen, the Castles are completely free, candidates are provided for as guests of the state. Needless to say, qualities of character are a decisive factor here, and are put to the test by every possible means. One does not neglect to provide candidates with an orientation in the field of social and even legal problems. For example, civil cases where problems arise that are particularly relevant to the ideas of honor, responsibility, etc. are summoned to the Castles: they take place in the presence of all candidates, who then have to express and discuss their point of view. Once the three courses have been completed, each student of the Castles is presented to the Party, so as to be assigned to responsibilities in conformity with the qualities and the special dispositions which he has demonstrated.
The students at these political schools are called “Junker,” not without a certain tendentiousness. “Junker” is in fact a term that refers to youths from noble German families who have begun a military career, and the “Junkertum” represented a kind of caste, the old aristocratic and military caste, which in the second Reich Germany had an importance that is well known. In giving the same name to the students of the Castles of the Order, who are recruited from all walks of life under the German Labor Front, one is clearly declaring the intention to replace one “elite” with another “elite,” formed on quite different premises, and, in particular, not on the basis of family tradition and caste, but on what is supposed to correspond to a given physical racial type, along with a declared faith in National Socialism.
As already mentioned, the establishment of the Ordensburgen is quite recent. Therefore, only time will tell to what extent this attempt to methodically, we would almost say rationally, create a nursery of future political leaders, a “seminary” of the future German ruling class, has positive potential and constitutes an example worthy of imitation.
Originally published in Corriere Padano, August 22, 1939
The SS, Guard & Order of the Revolution of the Swastika
Trans. anonymous
One of the most interesting, significant and perhaps least known creations of the German National Socialist revolution is the so-called SS corps.
SS is an abbreviation of Schutz-Staffeln: the “black”corps of defense of the Third Reich. Just as the army — the Reichswehr — is the organ of the external defense of the State, the SS is its internal organ of defense. In this unique organization, the characteristics of an ancient Order, of a political elite, of a biological and heroic elite, of a bodyguard of the Leader, of a “state secret police” in a higher sense, and finally, of a group intended to realize and defend, in the most direct manner, the basic ideas of the National Socialist worldview, come together in an ordered synthesis. It consists of two hundred thousand men, united by an unbreakable oath of loyalty and honor, who see themselves — in the words of their leader, Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler — as “a National Socialist Order of warriors.” They aspire to return to the origins: they strive to be a community in which the renewed contact with the original forces of their race and with the myths of the great primordial Nordic civilization forms the principle of a new, indomitable life; and in which the new feeling of blood establishes mysterious contacts with the ancestors and the dead, overcoming individualistic isolation and integrating the individual in the continuity of the race and a vital current that opens up new paths towards the future. The sacred symbols of pre-Christian Germanic antiquity are re-evoked: the “runes” are often to designate special divisions of the “black corps.”
It has become customary in Germany to designate various organizations with their acronyms (KdF, HJ, BdM, SA, etc.), but the abbreviation of the Schutz-Staffeln, SS, lent itself to a particularly significant transposition: due to the affinity of the two letters with the sign of the so-called “runes of victory” — Siegrunen — the latter have come to replace to the former. Today, the ancient Nordic “runes of victory,” with their zigzag marks, designate the SS on their uniforms, in quotations, in every circumstance. This is one of those cases in which modern man evokes the elemental — the true significance of which he only obscurely senses — drawing him into the premonition of a world where there are no longer “concepts” and “theories,” “values,” and “words,” but forces, powers, primordial meanings. The jagged zigzag signs of the “runes of victory” which are now the insignia of the SS uniform, are equivalent to the sign that, in ancient Egyptian symbolism, in the form of a scepter, designated the terrible solar power that consecrates and deifies the King and renders him invincible; through the allusion to lightning, they are also connected to the symbolism of the celestial force essentially used by the Olympian gods of the Aryan race in their perennial struggle against dark, titanic, telluric forces.
These are meanings which are now resurfacing in initial, confused intuitions, as, for example, when Himmler views the fight against Bolshevism as merely an episode in a perennial and almost metaphysical struggle, in which the forces of Aryan humanity clash with those of subhumanity. The SS, the bearer of the “runes of victory,” also takes upon itself the mission of being the principal anti-Bolshevik combat organization, conscious — in the words of Gruppenführer SS R. Heydrich, another leader of the “black corps” — of the tasks linked to the struggle not only against the visible enemy, but also against the invisible and masked enemy.
We will briefly touch upon the genesis of the SS. It originated in the so-called Stabswache created by National Socialism in March 1923, which then was followed by the “the Hitler assault troop,” or the Stosstrupp Hitler, which was made up of select militarily trained elements, put at the unconditional, personal disposition of the leader. Following the period during which the paramilitary organizations of the party were banned, a period during which the Stosstrupp Hitler went into latency, in the summer of 1925, the SS was created by Julius Schreck, a trusted collaborator of Hitler, and the current black uniform with a silver skull on the cap was introduced.
When, in January 6, 1929, Heinrich Himmler took command of this corps, it had only 270 men: but even then it developed an effective activity not only of external defense, but also of internal defense against dissident or dubious elements in the Party. By the time the movement had seized power, the “black corps” already counted one hundred thousand men. Its power, authority and prerogatives steadily increased, and it was definitively sanctioned in 1934. The SS were the organ mainly used by Hitler for the repressive measures taken in June 30, 1934, and in the liquidation of insurgent tendencies led by Ernst Röhm and von Schleicher. On the basis of the loyalty and merits demonstrated on that occasion, the SS, which until then was under the command of the SA (Sturmabteilungen, the “assault troops” in brown uniforms, of which Röhm was one of the main leaders), was turned into an independent organization, and completely entrusted with the role of “state secret police” or GSP (Geheimstaatspolizei). Its leader, Himmler, has the official title of “Führer of the SS and of the Reich and head of the German police.” With this, the SS became the most powerful organization of the party, connected directly to Hitler. One could say that it is the backbone of the movement, the organ that controls all of its parts and guarantees its security.
As for Germany in general, its other great pillar is the army, the Reichswehr, which, as we know, is not reducible to the merely military element, but has its own traditions and its own ideal, as well as direct connections with the nobility, especially the Prussian nobility. It is no exaggeration to say that, for the Germany of the future, the ways in which the relations between the SS and the Reichswehr will evolve will be of decisive importance: as for the remaining Nazi organizations, such as for example the Labour Front, or the SA, however important they may be, in this political regard and in the dynamics of the political forces that are decisive for the new Germany, they will always be marginal and subordinate.[1]
Heinrich Himmler was responsible for the spiritual formation of the SS, the clarification of their duties and the defining of the principles and laws that must apply to them. The basic idea is the creation of a new elite, of a new nobility. Himmler asked himself who, in the ancient States, was prepared to give everything for their prince in order to defend him, sustain him and protect him, Himmler easily recognized that this function was always that of the nobility, of an elite, which was recognized as “noble” by that prince and his tradition. This nobility — which is the guarantor of the principle of sovereignty — when faced with the perils of capitalism and the enfeeblement brought on by nineteenth-century liberalism, had decayed, however, and in the post-war crisis proved to be no longer equal to its responsibilities.
The healthiest part of the nobility remained in the army, but as such it was essentially excluded from political struggle, since the army has executive functions and is responsible for external defense, functions that are independent of, if not indifferent to, the political form of the nation. It was therefore necessary to make the transition to an idea of an elite closely linked to the specific political idea of the new State, of an elite that is simultaneously political and military, once again the guarantor of the meaning and solidity of the national political order that had asserted itself through revolutionary means. This is the ideal genesis of the SS as the “revolutionary elite of the Third Reich.”
Its formation and organization are governed by biological-racist, ethical, and spiritual considerations.
Regarding the first point, Himmler starts from the premise that a people is capable of culture in the higher sense and of invincible resistance in the face of its enemies, to the precise extent that a sufficient quantity of Nordic blood flows in its veins. When this blood, from the prince to the peasant, is lacking, that people decays. For the construction of the new state and its elite, the selection and enhancement of the Nordic element will therefore play an essential part. In SS cadres, this selection takes place in two degrees.
The first degree is essentially biological. The SS admits all those of certain Aryan origin who, with respect to height, proportions, features, etc., are close to the pure Nordic type. They concede, of course, that, given the mixed state of all peoples, it is possible that in a physically Nordic type, character traits and forms of sensibility of a different race may be found; but they also assert that there is a greater likelihood of encountering Nordic qualities in a body of the Nordic type, than elsewhere. A further selection, moreover, is charged with the task of testing the candidate’s character. We also wish to emphasize that in the SS the Nordic-racist criterion is not restricted to the individual, but extends to a consideration of his family and his descendants. An SS man is not free to marry whomever he wishes. Under a law promulgated by Himmler in 1931, a special office must ascertain that the woman he has chosen will guarantee an offspring that conforms to the Nordic racial type. On this basis, the SS see themselves as a Sippenorden, i.e., as an “Order of the race,” and it is on this anti-individualistic basis, linked to blood, that they would like to develop. Already in the ability to submit to this law with regard to marriage, there is a first trial of a higher order, since it requires the candidate to prove that he is prepared to subordinate his purely personal feelings and passions to demands of a supra-individual order.
The second degree of the selection is based on the principle of affinities, as stated in the following words of Hitler: “When I ask something heroic, it is the heroic spirit that responds. But when I promise many benefits, to this chime of the bell, the mercantile spirit will answer.”
By asking for moral qualities that are attributed primarily to the Nordic race, one hopes to bring about a spontaneous, inner selection. Just as materials are subjected to “load tests,” so a man who aspires to be a member of the SS is placed in special situations, in which his racial qualities are supposed to manifest themselves.
Thus, we come to the ethical aspect of the SS. Let us now state what, according to Himmler, are the most important ethical qualities that are demanded. The first and most fundamental of all is loyalty: “everything can be forgiven,” says Himmler, “except betrayal.” Hitler himself, on the occasion of the events of June 30, 1934, gave the SS their slogan: “Man of the SS, your honor is loyalty” — in an obvious reference to the maxim of ancient German law: “All honor comes from loyalty.” Here, all types of loyalty are meant: loyalty, first of all, towards the Führer and the race, loyalty towards comrades and fidelity towards the maxims of decorum, honesty, and chivalry. And Himmler adds:
“One sins against loyalty and honor, not only when one offends one’s own honor or that of another SS man, but also and especially when one does not respect the honor of others, when one mocks things that are sacred to others or when one does not intervene manfully on behalf of those who are absent, on behalf of the weak and the defenseless. “
By a law instituted on November 9, 1935, Himmler has claimed for the SS not only the right, but the duty of fighting duels, whenever circumstances make it necessary.
After loyalty and honor comes obedience, which must be unlimited and unconditional. It is said that after the Prussian officer has sworn by his flag, he no longer has anything of his own. This tradition is continued by the SS. In the name of the Leader and of the National Socialist world view, one must be ready for anything, “even to sacrifice one’s pride, outer honors, and everything that may be personally dear and precious to us”: one must be able to abstain from action, when everything in us rebels and would like to force us to take action, just as one must be able to act at the slightest signal, even when one feels an aversion that seems insurmountable. Himmler considered this quality of absolute obedience as important not only in itself, but also in order to compensate for the keen sense of self and the irrepressible desire for freedom of Nordic and German man, characteristics that have been the cause of many of the calamities that have befallen him.
Other qualities required of the SS man are truthfulness, the ability to stick inflexibly to what has been thoughtfully and deliberately decided, complete uprightness, and of course, as a general foundation, a fighting spirit.[2] In his speech in Magdeburg, June 12, 1937, on the occasion of a congregation of German nobility, Himmler stated that to each of these virtues, correspond a series of trials to which the SS are subjected, tests that complete the selection process. A candidate becomes a member of the Order of the SS when — after a trial period of a year and a half, after having taken the SS oath to the Führer and after having flawlessly completed both his military service and his “labor service” — he receives “the SS dagger of honor.”
Interestingly, according to a law enacted on November 9, 1936, every SS leader must ensure, under oath 1) that no applicant is admitted if he does not meet the relevant requirements, even if he be a son or relative; 2) that, in any given year, a quarter of the new members will not come from SS families or backgrounds. This is intended to prevent the SS from forming a kind of hereditary caste, in which other criteria prevail over actual qualifications; secondly, it aims to attract to the SS the right proportion of all the best elements, whatever their origin, so as to avoid having these elements form other groups detached from the central elite, as occurred, Himmler believes, in ancient Rome, when at a certain point the best blood was found outside of the Senate.
From what has been said about the characteristic qualities of the SS man, it will be clear that SS transcends the plane of a merely political body, realizing that of an Order in the ancient sense: and it is explicitly recognized that without the premise of a religiosity, of a purely spiritual point of reference, the aforementioned values of loyalty, honor, truth, and so on would be reduced to empty phrases and the unity of an Order bound by oath would be impossible. Hence, there is a third aspect of the SS, the spiritual one properly speaking.
In a brochure entitled “Fifty Questions and Answers for the SS Man,” after considering the wording of the solemn oath of loyalty and obedience, one asks, “Do you believe in a God, then?” — The answer is: “Yes, I believe in a sovereign God, and I consider the non-believer to be conceited, stupid, and unfit for us.” What is of interest here is less this generic profession of faith — made particularly vague out of respect for all religious faiths that do not interfere with politics — than the attempt to reawaken a precise form of spirituality, linked to the Nordic and, more generally Indo-Germanic tradition, endowing the SS with the character of a “shock troop of the National Socialist world view” — weltanschauliche Stosstrupp (Heydrich).
We mentioned earlier that the “return to origins” is an essential component of the attitude of the SS. This impulse takes concrete form in the so-called Ahnenerbe, a term that more or less means “ancestral heritage” and designates a special cultural organization of the SS.[3] The main purpose of this institution is to re-establish contact between ancient traditions and the most conscious part of the elite involved in the rebirth of Germany; it starts from the premise that what arose unconsciously, as instinct, from the depths of the soul, is exposed to constant dangers and cannot be fully realized, if it is not protected by the strength of conscious spirit and of clear vision (Walther Wüst). Therefore, they aim to investigate “the Nordic Indo-Germanic spirit and actions,” to give “a living form to the results of this research,” and to transmit them to the German people.
In this regard, at least programmatically, the methods of “scientism” and rationalism are openly attacked and “naturalistic” interpretations of the ancient religions are rejected, while recognizing in myth and symbol the paths to a superior knowledge, to the point even of suspecting that so-called “objectivity” and “scientific accuracy” are the masks of the covert action of paralyzing and destructive forces (Heydrich). It is typical and very interesting that these SS leaders, who perform the most delicate and important political duties, who control the secret police of the German State and the bodyguard of the Führer and National Socialism, are at the same time men intensely interested in the world of symbols and ancient myths, men with whom one can discuss transcendent problems and the spiritual traditions of the origins. This is something that we have personally and repeatedly observed, and which has not been particularly encouraging, when we have considered the level of many Italian environments and a certain culture which the black shirts’ revolution has been unable to change; a culture, which even when it comes to that which is most sacred to us, like the the ancient Roman world, remains confined to the same patterns of a positivistic ignorance, decked out with academic conceitedness, which really belong to the Enlightenment and the rationalistic world of the previous century.
Still, since we wish to avoid being biased, we must remark that, with regard to this spiritual aspect of the SS, if the presence of a keen interest and suitable sensibility is incontestable, the same cannot always be said of their principles, if this term is taken in its true sense. When it comes to the reconstruction of the ancient traditional world, specious reference points are all too often used, and as a result, the meaning of many ideas is distorted and their scope limited, particularly as a consequence of a haste to draw political adaptations from them, and of the particularism of a certain racist-national attitude. These observations, moreover, apply in general to the various attempts made by the new Germany to integrate the National Socialist world view with a higher traditional and symbolic content: however, this must not lead us to make a overhasty judgment, since it is not easy, with regard to such matters, to get one’s bearings, and one cannot overnight destroy the deleterious effects of a wrong way of thinking and a false culture that have been those of Western man for several centuries. If, however, the SS — which is not a circle of “intellectuals,” but a body already firmly organized as an Order that controls one of Europe’s most powerful movements of renewal — will succeed in creating, from out of itself, an elite capable of actually realizing, with a solid knowledge of principles, the aspiration of a return to the origins, the importance of such a realization would be exceptional. At the first stage of such an integration in fact we would meet with forms of a spirituality and a civilization which, like that of the Ghibelline Middle Ages with its Orders of knights, already present a synthesis of the Nordic-Germanic and the Roman elements.
A further stage would bring us to the general Indo-Germanic primordial spirituality and its solar traditions; in other words, to the origin of all that — in the cycle in which we live, which may be the object of historical knowledge — we can consider to be civilization in the higher sense. Clearly, this means that an elite really capable of realizing something of that kind would be of value not only to their own nation, but also for all other Aryan peoples who are fighting the same enemy and have realized that this struggle cannot be truly decisive, unless it is integrated by an idea, by symbols and knowledge that are, ultimately, already metaphysical. While the Jewish-Communist press tries to depict the SS as a sort of GPU, we, considering these possibilities and in the hope that in the near future they will be, even only partially, realized, are instead inclined to see in the “black corps,” the guard of the revolution of the swastika, the men of the “rune of victory,” the “lightning rune,” and the skull symbolizing the oath of loyalty to the death, the seed of an Order in the higher, traditional sense, and hence of a spiritual solidarity that could become supranational. This would mean a unity capable of encompassing tested and similarly attuned nuclei of various nations, all of which would draw from the great heroic and metaphysical visions of Aryan and Nordic spirituality, together making up the front we need, when as today and in the imminent future, a decisive struggle is being waged against the tide of dark forces tied to the symbols of the various internationals.
Notes
1. With the recently established “Ordensburgen” or “Castles of the Order,” there has also been, within the framework of the “Front of Labor,” an attempt to create an elite and almost a “seminary” for those who in the future will hold political offices and, in general, positions of leadership. However, they do not constitute an organized body like the SS.
2. Characteristic statements by Himmler: “That which is possible in Japan, i.e., that a gold coin can remain on the ground without being picked up, must also be how things are among us.” Or this: one can forbid an SS man to drink alcohol. If he makes the promise to abstain, and then fails to keep his promise, “the only thing that remains for him is his pistol.” If he refuses to make the promise, he is expelled.
3. The president of the Ahnenerbe is the Sturmbannführer Walther Wüst. The organization oversees various publications, and its official organ is the monthly magazine Germanien, edited by Dr. J. O. Plassmann.
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