What should a modern traditional society look like?

[Andrey]

Hello.

I am halfway through reading Julius Evola's "Revolt Against the Modern World." Never have I felt revulsed and inspired simultaneously while reading a book. On one hand, the author describes the ways of "traditional man" in a way that makes a lot of sense (lot of conjecture on the occult and spiritual aspects of traditional civilizations, but I liked it), but on the other hand he glorifies all the bad aspects of traditional civilizations of the recorded past, like war, sexism, racism, and so on. Regarding the bad sides I just mentioned, it's not that he is completely wrong regarding his views on genetic taxonomy according to spiritual mandates, traditional gender roles, and the spirit of spiritual warfare in general, it's just that his prose regarding these issues is not particularly very elegant, and his way of putting it just sounds plain wrong (lots of mention of "superior and inferior races," "women must submit to men," and "holy wars" and so on).

Reading this book is taking me through an emotional and intellectual roller coaster of sorts because he says a lot of things that seem correct, but cut a corner and the inspiring concept is ruined with something extremely ignorant. On the flipside (and here's where it got interesting), something that sounded initially very ignorant is backed up later with a relatively good argument. That is not to say everything he is saying so far is on point, but it got me thinking about the contrasts between past civilizations and the modern world.

Taking into consideration all the madness going on currently, a lot of people are re-adopting traditional values. Most people doing this seem to be balanced about it, while some (like some far right extremists for example) are going too far and don't seem to be aware of the blind spots regarding adopting antiquated views and taking the bad with the good. On a side note, I would like to mention how Evola even glorified Islamic Jihadist views (this book was writted in 1969 I believe) and I would love to see his face now if he saw what was going on currently in the middle east. There are many in the Christian demographic with similar views, but because it's mostly in the developed world it is being taken as "traditional," when many of these types aren't much different from Muslim extremists albeit more constrained in their extremism by first world conditioning (and laws).

It seems "traditionalism" also has some traps that might ensnare those who are not aware of the type of realm (STS) traditional societies that can be traced throughout history inhabited. Evola glorifies all the bad aspects of traditionalism assuming that's the way it has always been and he adds these elements to his speculations of what "primordial traditional man" was like before the fall, and in my opinion he got a lot of things wrong (even though he did get a lot of things right as well).

All this got me thinking about what a modern traditional society would look like. One of the traps of everyone adopting traditional values wholeheartedly is tribalism that would only lead to more problems, because everyone would just be in conflict with each other. But all the crazy stuff the left is proposing is too ridiculous. Mankind needs a society of a spiritual character otherwise you get what's going on now. Evola's expositions on what a traditional society with a spiritual character should look like is in my view inspiring. It's just that he goes too far and starts bringing in STS elements to it.

So I guess I wanted to ask the forum what a traditional society in the modern age ought to look like?

Evola proposes that a traditional society should have a monarchy subjected to spirit, natural stratification (like the caste system), rites and rituals, more advanced metaphysical perception, and generally a more primordial, magical and spiritual character in general. There's more and I'll add some more thoughts if this thread goes anywhere. Thanks for reading.

 

[bianca etezete]

I have not read the book. That said, I want to question these adjectives. Maybe the way is to simply ignore them (modern, traditional, left, right...) and do what we ought to: network, research, be aware and stay on our way to STO, while aknowledging we (most of us i suppose) are to the more or less part STS. I think building communities will grow very naturally, simply by attraction of similar frequencies. You want to get to know someone? At some point you have to give a certain advance of trust so to say. The better your gut feeling is, that the person you give that advance of trust is "trustworthy", the more the trust will come back to you.

 

[ScioAgapeOmnis]

Hey Andrey, you may be interested in reading this thread that explores this very topic:

Creating a New World

I would like to start a discussion that focuses on Creating a New World. I would just like for all participants to think about what is wrong with our world and what they would like to see happen to make it right. There are a lot of things to which there are no simple answers. For example, I...

cassiopaea.org

I would like to start a discussion that focuses on Creating a New World.

I would just like for all participants to think about what is wrong with our world and what they would like to see happen to make it right.

There are a lot of things to which there are no simple answers. For example, I don't think that communisim, socialism, fascism or capitalism are the right way to go economically, but I'm not sure what IS the right way that would fulfill the needs of the majority of humans. How to separate what is essential to all, etc. Are there elements of each of those systems that are truly STO and if so, what? How to pull out what is useful and put it together?

I think it will be a very useful exercise to define things, to imagine things, to describe how things would be done in an STO world. Things like who decides things? How? Who owns things? How? Is there voting? How is it done? Who can vote?
Education... what is available to who and how? Who pays for it?

Social services: counseling, child-care, medicine, etc.

Literally every area of our society has been corrupted in one way or another, so how to re-imagine something that would really work? Re-think it, re-define and describe it?

Start anywhere. Maybe we should start talking about what is wrong with various systems and what could be done to fix them, if anything. If they are wrong at the foundation, what to replace them with?

 

[Wandering Star]

Let us offer to the non-egoistic wise men in all areas (all), the harmonious development of their field of knowledge for the benefit of all humanity.

Technology will flow in the company of the spiritual and the nature of the earth in harmony.

The wise will accept their responsibility and they will be more than happy to hand over that responsibility to the next wise man who can improve the work, stepping aside with relief and gratitude.

As long as the currency continues to be selfishness, this will not be possible, that is, a system like the current one will continue to function.

 

[whitecoast]

Thanks for the interesting topic Andrey. I haven't read Evola, but several thinkers do enjoy and recommend him as an older reader. Another classical thinker well-liked among the right is Thomas Carlyle.

Reading this book is taking me through an emotional and intellectual roller coaster of sorts because he says a lot of things that seem correct, but cut a corner and the inspiring concept is ruined with something extremely ignorant. On the flipside (and here's where it got interesting), something that sounded initially very ignorant is backed up later with a relatively good argument. That is not to say everything he is saying so far is on point, but it got me thinking about the contrasts between past civilizations and the modern world.

So far from your reading, is it just that there is a lack of knowledge? Or is it more like there's some schizotypy present that is impoverishing the richness of thought?

Part of the problem I think as well is that it's going to be quite rare for these types of reactionary thinkers to be translated or edited in a way that is sympathetic to their ideas by major establishment and academic publishing houses. Some independent publishers (e.g. Imperium Press) focus more on right-wing thinkers in ways that try and tie the ideas to deeper intellectual traditions.

So I guess I wanted to ask the forum what a traditional society in the modern age ought to look like?

One of my favorite right wing thinkers on the web is a vlogger and essayist Dave Greene (this YT channel is "The Distributist"), and he has a recent substack post about the constellation of ideas that surround what's known as the Dissident Right in online discourse. This label, or "alt-right", tended to describe right wingers who could not be classified as either Post-War conservatism, Neocon, Paleoconservative, or Libertarian. As with all things that are defined via negativa (what it's not), stating what it IS can be harder, since it takes work excavating and identifying the constellation of presuppositions that underpin the thrust of the discourse that goes on in those political circles. Dave came up with 8 core Antithesis (he calls them Antithesis to emphasize their Hegelian opposition to various Enlightenment theses/presuppositions).

The Dissident Right and its Discontents

The label might be cringe, but post-enlightenment ideas aren't going anywhere

fiddlersgreene.substack.com

Antithesis 1: “All politics is based on moral systems which in turn are fundamentally religious.”
​

This is the most abstract antithesis of the set. But it’s also the place we need to start, with a direct refutation of the Enlightenment’s main project to replace the religious center of society with something based on the rationality of humanity.

In short, this project is futile. All politics, like all law, is based on foundational moral principles. And no moral principle can justify its validity on pure reason, much less vague appeals to humanity in the abstract. This reality is why, as Nietzsche prophesized, the modern condition tends towards doubt, and modern ethics tend towards nihilism (the proper interpretation of the Nietzschean “Death of God”).

In the absence of such a false promise, humanity has to locate the source of its moral ethos outside of rational discourse in what are functionally spiritual principles. Therefore, as DeMaistre and Schmitt pointed out, theology is the center of all modern politics, and as DeCoulange‘s Ancient City reminds us, it might have always been that way.

Antithesis 2: “Discourse without moral alignment is impossible.”
​

This is a simple extension of the previous antithesis. Without a shared moral basis, human social organization doesn’t work. It is impossible to have a discourse without a concept of “oughtness”, or teleology, which (as we previously established) cannot justify itself based on rationality itself. In the abstract, many people understand that moral commonality is a basis for discourse, but don’t understand the extent of its implications to the ordinary operation of our society.

Sure the modern moral collapse is the reason why we can’t have serious political conversations in the modern world, and why meaningful mass culture is a thing of the past. But did you ever think what other pillars of our society were discourse-based?

Our judicial system certainly is. Mr. Trump is learning this lesson the hard way. And he won’t be the last. It’s not surprising that our legal apparatus has become politicized with activist magistrates bending the law to accommodate their political preferences, favoring Schmittidan friend-enemy distinctions to anything approaching the equal application of common law. After all, what are the judges supposed to do in the absence of a moral spirit behind our society’s notion of justice? Become bean counters for a dead legal logic no one thinks is still in effect? And so the judgments become a pantomime inside our society’s larger moral conflict of visions.

But this problem doesn’t stop with the law. Our entire understanding of science is essentially discourse-based. Certainly, an early “red pill” for my ideological development was witnessing the political corruption of the debate around global warming, where skeptical and moderate voices were consistently suppressed in favor of activist hysteria. A similar phenomenon occurred with COVID. And, after seeing this process play out three or four times throughout my life, it’s pretty clear that, in any conflict between objective science and politics, politics always wins. Still, you would be surprised how many people are holding out hope that some politically uncorrupted form of science will save us from our political crisis.

The central problem here and elsewhere is that so much of Western society was essentially reliant on moral discourse and discernment to provide checks against corruption. Without that, what can be salvaged from our liberal order? Not much.

Antithesis 3: “Human desire, to be healthy, must be restrained.”
​

This antithesis is obvious to the extent that all ancient philosophers would be flabbergasted to learn that it was ever questioned. Suffice it to say, it is apparent to any mature mind that not all human desires are good, and that, in the absence of moral structure, humans tend to pursue self-destruction collectively, and sometimes individually. You don’t need to learn this principle from any dusty tome of moral philosophy, you can just look outside in any American metropolitan area and see its truth made manifest.

Nevertheless, our thought leaders commend the exact opposite principle: that consent is the only standard for good, that freedom means pursuing pleasure, and that any claim of certain lives being “higher” or “more uplifted” by virtue is an oppressive moral imposition. And it’s not hard to see how we got here. To distinguish “freedom’ and “license” there needs to be a moral distinction between choices of moral vocation (e.g. “I want to join a monastery”) and a lapse into rank debasement (e.g. “I want to live my life-consuming fentanyl on the streets of San Francisco”).

So once more the fruits of moral relativism come back to haunt us, and we have leaders, like Scott Weiner, who think that living your life for orgies and drug binges is just as good as dedicating your existence to faith and family. And the fruits of this diseased idea are apparent everywhere.

Antithesis 4: “Technology, to be fruitful, must be governed.”
​

This might be more subtle, but a similar observation can be made about technology itself. Scientific advancement is not necessarily good in itself, it has costs and trade-offs which need to be managed. As I wrote earlier this month:

Not every development of technology is necessarily benign. No one who has read any serious science fiction can’t conceive of a technical invention that poses a risk to the human race. And it doesn’t take much imagination to anticipate some scientific development that, if widely implemented, would lead to the imminent extinction of all life on the planet.

Therefore, for technological or political progress to benefit humanity, some form of discernment must be in place to separate the good developments from the bad ones.

Once more, we could endlessly relitigate the details of this conversation, but I think in the early 21st century with the problems caused by social media and the iPhone it’s pretty easy to see.

However, it never ceases to amaze me how our leaders have failed to internalize this lesson, always acting like the distribution of new technologies will fix every problem except the problems that they obviously caused. Certainly, the root problem is that technology itself is a core part of the Enlightenment narrative. It is the prophesied way that the contradictions implicit in the modern worldview are fixed, and therefore it can never be questioned. But it’s time to call the bullshit on this prophecy and look towards an ideology that allows humanity’s needs to govern technology rather than the other way around.

Antithesis 5: “Different human groups have radically different behavior. Governments must reflect this difference.”
​

Once more this antithesis is an essential human reality that would be recognized by all right-thinking people before the 20th century. Yet somehow, this near-universally understood reality is denied by our ruling class to the extent that the future of almost all Western nations is being gambled on it not being true.

But it is true, and so we are in a lot of trouble.

To be nice to the normie cons, we could start by focusing on sex differences, as almost everyone who is reasonably aware of reality knows that men and women are different. Great, but if we all knew men and women are different why did we spend the last 70 years destroying the family structures of the West in the name of equality, often with the help of people who called themselves “conservative”? Our public understanding of sex has degraded so far that there are now hundreds of online content creators who make good money explaining the basic differences between men and women which, in a healthy society, should be obvious to any 13-year-old.

And it only gets spicier when we talk about the differences between racial groups. Here, we should be humble. We don’t know the exact extent to which the differences between ethnic groups are cultural or biological, and these are all just statistical differences between collectives, not individuals. However, what is indisputable is that these differences are not changeable through means available to modern states, in a time frame that modern states would care about politically. There is currently no way to make Nigerians collectively behave like Han Chinese, socially, academically, or politically. And that’s a huge problem for the liberal world which, over the last fifty years, has designed every element of its immigration and educational systems on this not being the case.

Antithesis 6: “To be accountable, government must be particular to a people and a place.”
​

Here the antithesis can be expressed as the consequence of the previous ones. Political systems are fundamentally moral and religious, different peoples follow separate religions and have radically different behaviors that need to be addressed, therefore, the only reasonably accountable government must be localized and chiefly concerned with one particular group or an alliance of similar groups.

Pretty simple? Sounds like it. But, once more, this antithesis runs afoul of everything our modern rulers believe as global managerial multi-culturalism is the order of the day.

Quite clearly the impulse towards crude managerial globalism derives from two Enlightenment dreams: the need for global governance and the desire for governing institutions that serve people’s needs. In isolation, these concepts are not entirely ridiculous. However, somewhere along the line, we mixed up our peas and carrots.

To be effective at governing at a management level, systems must be particular because they must be centered on a certain people’s nature which is not always the same across the broad diversity of humanity. As such the question of direct governance must be fundamentally separate from the question of governing relations BETWEEN people at a global scale, which must always be minimally concerned with maintaining boundaries, securing order, and restricting the proliferation of catastrophic technologies like large-scale nuclear devices and super-viruses.

But, once more, the confusion of our current ruling class has led to the opposite of this prudent approach, with the international government trying to micro-manage how cultures treat homosexuality and feminism while intentionally destabilizing borders and ignoring the potentially catastrophic risk of things like gain-of-function research. But this extreme local incompetence paired with global ambition is the natural consequence of a one-size-fits-all government that fits no one.

Antithesis 7: “Past social arrangements are sustainable, in a way that contrived alternatives are not.”
​

This is a difficult antithesis because, unlike the others, it describes prospective projects rather than an observable reality. For instance, can I necessarily guarantee that there won’t be alternatives to the traditional family superior to what organically developed through history? Strictly speaking, I can’t. But what I can say is that for the past three hundred years, modern institutions have been trying to develop alternatives to these organic systems and have universally failed. Manufactured religions rarely work, and alternative family arrangements are never stable, despite decades of progressive attempts to make them work.

I guess it’s interesting to speculate WHY these projects failed. At the most basic level most progressive social alternatives to traditional forms fail because they cannot restrict human desire (see Antithesis 3) so the systems just lose cohesion and degenerate away. At a broader level, there is a mechanistic problem with applying technocratic logic to design human institutions since to properly “test” the circumstances, one would need an objective way to measure “good outcomes” across the course of hundreds of years, a proposition made even more difficult by issues with science discussed in Antithesis 2.

In totality, the problem is just that evolved organized systems (especially involving humans) are complex, and cannot easily be rebuilt. To paraphrase Kevin Dolan of the EXIT group, if you were a farmer who had a problem with sick bees not pollinating your crops, the solution would be to cure the disease in the bees not to invent a race of mechanical bees from scratch.

Antithesis 8: “Politics involves real winners and real losers, punishments for enemies, rewards for friends; otherwise, it accomplishes nothing.”
​

Once more this antithesis is basic and almost obvious, but critically absent in our modern understanding of politics. Politics, to be real, must instantiated in the forces of government, which means real consequences, real enforcement, rewards for good behavior, and punishment for bad actions. Is this too obvious to state? Maybe, but this fundamental political reality seems to be hard to remember in our supremely comfortable age. We understand, on paper, that a radically different order needs to be enforced in government. But implementing this reality is daunting, and so we shrink from any effort, locally or nationally to restore sanity.

As time goes on, I increasingly think that this aversion to the harder implications of politics is the defining feature of our age. We can acknowledge the problems, as they are increasingly right in front of our eyes. But we can’t do anything about them. We can’t even imagine implementing the necessary solutions if those solutions would imply something mean or unseemly. And so the problems get worse causing more harm than they ever would have had they been dealt with firmly. I suppose that’s a classic enough insight. Politics is about understanding difficult truths, but also taking hard, but necessary actions to execute them for the greater good. (Comment: A good example of this would be the turn El Salvador took under Bukele to radically purge crime from his country).

To directly answer your question above, it is going to look different for every body politic, based on the idiosyncracies of that group and their psychological and moral character. This aligns with Lobaczewsky and Collingwood have said as well re: politics. I'm not sure if Dave has read Political Ponerology, but I would be really excited if he were invited onto Mindmatters at some point.

 

[Andrey]

I have not read the book. That said, I want to question these adjectives. Maybe the way is to simply ignore them (modern, traditional, left, right...) and do what we ought to: network, research, be aware and stay on our way to STO, while aknowledging we (most of us i suppose) are to the more or less part STS. I think building communities will grow very naturally, simply by attraction of similar frequencies. You want to get to know someone? At some point you have to give a certain advance of trust so to say. The better your gut feeling is, that the person you give that advance of trust is "trustworthy", the more the trust will come back to you.

Hello etezete,

Thanks for the response. I was thinking something along those same lines while reading this work. It has been an intellectual workout trying to incorporate the useful aspects of traditional societies while discarding what doesn't fit anymore in the present.

Hey Andrey, you may be interested in reading this thread that explores this very topic:

Creating a New World

I would like to start a discussion that focuses on Creating a New World. I would just like for all participants to think about what is wrong with our world and what they would like to see happen to make it right. There are a lot of things to which there are no simple answers. For example, I...

cassiopaea.org

Hello ScioAgapeOmnis,

Thanks for the heads up. I haven't gone through that thread yet. Looking forward to reading through it.

Let us offer to the non-egoistic wise men in all areas (all), the harmonious development of their field of knowledge for the benefit of all humanity.

Technology will flow in the company of the spiritual and the nature of the earth in harmony.

The wise will accept their responsibility and they will be more than happy to hand over that responsibility to the next wise man who can improve the work, stepping aside with relief and gratitude.

As long as the currency continues to be selfishness, this will not be possible, that is, a system like the current one will continue to function.

Hello Wandering Star,

Thanks for the response. Let's hope for a "white mirror" effect in the future in relation to technological developments.

Thanks for the interesting topic Andrey. I haven't read Evola, but several thinkers do enjoy and recommend him as an older reader. Another classical thinker well-liked among the right is Thomas Carlyle.



So far from your reading, is it just that there is a lack of knowledge? Or is it more like there's some schizotypy present that is impoverishing the richness of thought?

Part of the problem I think as well is that it's going to be quite rare for these types of reactionary thinkers to be translated or edited in a way that is sympathetic to their ideas by major establishment and academic publishing houses. Some independent publishers (e.g. Imperium Press) focus more on right-wing thinkers in ways that try and tie the ideas to deeper intellectual traditions.



One of my favorite right wing thinkers on the web is a vlogger and essayist Dave Greene (this YT channel is "The Distributist"), and he has a recent substack post about the constellation of ideas that surround what's known as the Dissident Right in online discourse. This label, or "alt-right", tended to describe right wingers who could not be classified as either Post-War conservatism, Neocon, Paleoconservative, or Libertarian. As with all things that are defined via negativa (what it's not), stating what it IS can be harder, since it takes work excavating and identifying the constellation of presuppositions that underpin the thrust of the discourse that goes on in those political circles. Dave came up with 8 core Antithesis (he calls them Antithesis to emphasize their Hegelian opposition to various Enlightenment theses/presuppositions).

The Dissident Right and its Discontents

The label might be cringe, but post-enlightenment ideas aren't going anywhere

fiddlersgreene.substack.com

To directly answer your question above, it is going to look different for every body politic, based on the idiosyncracies of that group and their psychological and moral character. This aligns with Lobaczewsky and Collingwood have said as well re: politics. I'm not sure if Dave has read Political Ponerology, but I would be really excited if he were invited onto Mindmatters at some point.

Hello whitecoast,

Regarding the first two points about morality, from reading the book I realized that traditional societies' morals were radically different from modern views of the same. Everything was subjected according to divine sanctions and therefore God's laws was ultimately what was expected to be followed. This is where I had issues with Evola's writings. According to him, racism, sexism and going to war for your god is somehow perfectly alright and "moral." I do understand that the terms "racism," "sexism," and "holy wars" and so on are simplified terms in relation to what can be said about ideas like unity in diversity, common sense gender differences and roles and fighting evil in general. The problem is that is not what Evola was really articulating. He seemed to be on the right track but his prejudices and romanticizing antiquarianism too much failed him, and he went off track a lot in my view, and basically glorified plain racism, sexism and unnecessary war.

So in relation to morality, it seems too many people source their morality from traditional societies or state laws but because they are STS do it in an imbalanced manner. I don't have the answers to how we should prioritize morality, though the ideas of this forum regarding free will and BALANCE is a good starting point.

Regarding Antithesis 3 regarding human desire and restraining it, I agree wholeheartedly. There is a difference between the type of freedom that leads to bondage and what E. Michael Jones called "ordered liberty" which according to him is what the US constitution was founded upon. It is unfortunate so many people are buying into the type of "freedom" being encouraged by these so called "thought leaders." I sympathize with the human condition in relation to the instinct to pursue hedonistic pleasure, but we ought to keep our eyes open when others are being harmed because of someone's desires and in general practice more self-responsibility and discipline.

Regarding antithesis 4 about technology, to add to what the author wrote, I think implementing or introducing some sound principles into the tech world would help free it from corruption. Things like the open source movement, free information, free knowledge and so on were foundational in the tech world back in the days, but starting becoming ponerized a couple decades back.

Regarding antithesis 5 about gender and racial differences, I already elucidated a bit about that already. The issue regarding sex differences is pretty obvious, but racial differences is a lot more complicated for people unfortunately. I think about what the C's have said that one of the DNA changes after the fall was human beings seeing things in a unidimensional way (as opposed to multidimensional) and unable to see so otherwise. Our recorded history also reflects these timeline wars which is why we have so much trouble with race relations today. Not to mention too many people harbor a lot of hate, prejudice and false assumptions within themselves and only see what they want to see when they encounter people who look and act different from what they are used to. I don't have solutions regarding the racial issues. I think it's all STS programming designed to divide and conquer and humanity has to overcome this somehow to move into a better reality.

Regarding antithesis 6, what he says reminds me of what a constitutional republic as America was meant to be should look like.

I don't have much to say right now about antithesis 7 and 8 though I agree with much of what he has to say.

To directly answer your question above, it is going to look different for every body politic, based on the idiosyncracies of that group and their psychological and moral character.

I couldn't agree more. Thanks for the article and your response.