Tecnicidad, Biopolítica y Decadencia. Comentarios al libro "El Hombre y la Técnica" de Oswald Spengler.

Tecnicidad, Biopolítica y Decadencia.

Comentarios al libro "El Hombre y la Técnica" de Oswald Spengler.

Carlos Javier Blanco Martín

Resumen. El presente artículo es un comentario detenido de la pequeña obra de Oswald Spengler "El Hombre y la Técnica". En él desarrollamos el concepto de tecnicidad, necesario para comprender la amplia perspectiva (zoológica, naturalista, dialéctica, operatiológica) esbozada por el filósofo alemán. No se trata de un ensayo sobre la Técnica en el sentido artefactual y objetivo sino sobre el desarrollo de las capacidades operatorias (viso-quirúrgicas) de los ancestros del hombre, que lo llevaron desde la depredación hasta la Cultura, y desde la Cultura hasta la decadencia. Especialmente la decadencia de los pueblos occidentales que más han contribuido al despegue de esa tecnicidad.

Abstract. This article is a detailed commentary on Oswald Spengler's little work "The Man and the Technique". In it we develop the concept of technicality, necessary to understand the broad perspective (zoological, naturalistic, dialectic, operatiological) outlined by the German philosopher. This is not an essay on the Technique in the objective and artifactual sense, but rather on the development of the operative capacities (visual and manual) of the ancestors of man, which led him from predation to Culture, and from Culture to decline: especially the decadence of the western peoples that have contributed most to the takeoff of this technicality

Introducción. Justificación del presente comentario. Indagaciones sobre la Tecnicidad según Oswald Spengler.

En un trabajo anterior ya quisimos hacer una aproximación antropológica al concepto spengleriano de la Técnica[i] . El presente trabajo quiere ser una prolongación del mismo, profundizando en los conceptos spenglerianos sobre la tecnicidad y lo hacemos por medio de un comentario detenido de las páginas de su pequeña obra El Hombre y la Técnica.[ii] Este breve texto spengleriano aclara muchos aspectos de la filosofía, poco sistemática y, a veces, impresionista, del gran pensador alemán, el creador de la magna obra La Decadencia de Occidente. Este breve libro traza un cuadro evolutivo de la técnica en la historia natural y cultural del hombre. Pero hace algo más: esboza de una manera dialéctica el destino fatal de los pueblos de Occidente, pueblos que han desarrollado toda su tecnicidad hasta ponerla en manos de sus enemigos. Este examen detenido de los párrafos enérgicos y vibrantes del librito puede ayudar a comprender la peculiar dialéctica pesimista –a diferencia de la optimista hegeliana- del pensador alemán Oswald Spengler. En vez de alcanzar un progresivo dominio técnico del mundo, encaminado a su mayor comodidad y salud, el hombre y sus antepasados simplemente han ido diferenciando cualidades sensitivo-etológicas desde hace millones de años, cualidades en las que ya está presente la tecnicidad, aun cuando todavía nuestros antepasados no era capaces de fabricar herramientas, o sólo empleaban órganos y partes sensomotoras de su cuerpo para ejercer su dominio. Por ello, en nuestro comentario empleamos el término tecnicidad, contrapuesto a "técnica" para hacer referencia a esas capacidades generales implícitas a la hora de ejercer dominio, control o alteración del propio medio envolvente, con independencia de la existencia de herramientas, armas u otros objetos extra-somáticos. La tecnicidad es la cualidad o el carácter técnico de algo o alguien, y no se debe circunscribir a los productos de las artes humanas o proto-humanas ni al aspecto normativo o envolvente del Espíritu Objetivo. Nuestro comentario, pues, se enmarca en el espacio antropológico. Queremos ahondar en la antropología spengleriana, tal y como llevamos haciendo desde hace unos años. [iii]

1. El concepto de tecnicidad.

Spengler comienza su estudio sobre la técnica mostrando su olímpico desprecio hacia las charlas del siglo XVIII y XIX sobre la "cultura". Desde las robinsonadas al mito del "buen salvaje", los "hombres de cultura" que habían llenado los salones europeos de aquellos años habían olvidado por completo el verdadero papel de la técnica en la civilización. El arte, la poesía, la novela, la cultura entendida como segunda naturaleza sublime del hombre, relumbraban en la mente de ilustrados y románticos, y con ese resplandor se cegaban a las realidades terribles de que estaba preñado el siglo XX, cuando el contexto geopolítico, social y económico ya había mutado por completo y la Ilustración o el romanticismo sólo habitaba en la mente retardataria de los demagogos y los "intelectuales", no en los hombres fácticos y de acción. El escalpelo de Spengler se extiende hasta los utilitaristas ingleses. Para ellos la técnica era el recurso idóneo para instaurar la holgazanería en el mundo:

Aber nützlich war, was dem »Glück der Meisten« diente. Und Glück bestand im Nichtstun. Das ist im letzten Grunde die Lehre von Bentham, Mill und Spencer. Das Ziel der Menschheit bestand darin, dem einzelnen einen möglichst großen Teil der Arbeit abzunehmen und der Maschine aufzubürden. Freiheit vom »Elend der Lohnsklaverei« und Gleichheit im Amüsement, Behagen und »Kunstgenuß«: das »panem et circenses« der späten Weltstädte meldet sich an. Die Fortschrittsphilister begeisterten sich über jeden Druckknopf, der eine Vorrichtung in Bewegung setzte, die – angeblich – menschliche Arbeit ersparte. An Stelle der echten Religion früher Zeiten tritt die platte Schwärmerei für die »Errungenschaften der Menschheit«, worunter lediglich Fortschritte der arbeitersparenden und amüsierenden Technik verstanden wurden. Von der Seele war nicht die Rede.

"Útil, empero, era lo que sirve a la "felicidad del mayor número". Y esta felicidad consistía en no hacer nada. Tal es, en último término, la doctrina de Bentam, Mill y Spencer, El fin de la Humanidad consistía en aliviar al individuo de la mayor cantidad posible de trabajo, cargándola a la máquina. Libertad de "la miseria, de la esclavitud asalariada" [Elend der Lohnsklaverei] e igualdad en diversiones, bienandanza y “deleite artístico”. Anúnciase el panem et circenses de las urbes mundiales en las épocas de decadencia. Los filisteos de la cultura se entusiasmaban a cada botón que ponía en marcha un dispositivo y que, al parecer, ahorraba trabajo humano. En lugar de la auténtica religión de épocas pasadas, aparece el superficial entusiasmo “por las conquistas de la Humanidad” [Errungenschaften der Menschheit], considerando como tales exclusivamente los progresos de la técnica, destinados a ahorrar trabajo y a divertir a los hombres. Pero del alma, ni una palabra." [iv]

La técnica para el utilitarismo inglés era vista como instancia ahorradora de trabajo, como mera herramienta liberadora de esclavitud del trabajo asalariado, pero no como la esencia misma del hombre fáustico, del hombre que transforma el mundo, que lo modifica substancialmente. Oswald Spengler repudia con toda su rabia y fuerzas ese sentimentalismo vulgar que arranca de Rousseau, de los románticos y también de los "progresistas". Un sentimentalismo que reduce la filosofía de la Historia a mero "optimismo", esto es, un estado de ánimo confiado y tranquilizador en el cual ya no habrá más guerras ni dominaciones de unos pueblos sobre otros. Un estado de quietud que, al modo más nietzscheano, Spengler intuye como deprimente, laminador, una antesala de un suicidio colectivo, un estado alienado y de falsedad. La Historia de los hombres sigue su curso con completa independencia de sus deseos, anhelos y expectativas. Como acontece con las leyes de la naturaleza, inexorables y devoradoras de civilizaciones, razas y universos enteros, las "leyes" de la historia siguen su marcha con independencia absoluta de nuestra mente.

Para comprender los tiempos, al hombre, a la vida que nos toca –históricamente- vivir, se precisa de una facultad especial, el "tacto fisiognómico":

Der physiognomische Takt, wie ich das bezeichnet habe, was allein zum Eindringen in den Sinn alles Geschehens befähigt, der Blick Goethes, der Blick geborener Menschenkenner, Lebenskenner, Geschichtskenner über die Zeiten hin erschließt im einzelnen dessen tiefere Bedeutung.

"El tacto fisiognómico, como he denominado la facultad que nos permite penetrar en el sentido de todo acontecer; la mirada de Goethe, la mirada de los que conocen a los hombres y conocen la vida, y conocen la Historia y contemplan los tiempos, es la que descubre en lo particular su significación profunda" [v].

El naturalismo, el determinismo, de la misma manera que el "culturalismo", se mostrarán incapaces de comprender el significado de la técnica en la historia de los hombres. Hace falta el tacto fisiognómico, es preciso sentir esa especie de empatía o intuición hacia lo que hacen las distintas clases de hombres, para así poder insertar adecuadamente el papel de la técnica en la cultura. La técnica no es la pariente pobre de la Cultura. No se trata de la versión ínfima de "cuanto puede hacer el Homo sapiens". Esta especie "sapiente" que construye catedrales góticas, compone sinfonías, escribe El Quijote, la Suma Teológica o la Ilíada, es también la especie que ha comenzado empuñando palos, forjado espadas o construido cañones anti-aéreos. La técnica –y de entre ella, la técnica depredatorio-bélica- sería la versión grisácea, deprimente, prosaica de la sublime Cultura. El naturalismo verá la evolución desde la maza asesina hasta el cohete espacial (recordemos la genial escena cinematográfica de Stanley Kubrick en 2001, Una Odisea Espacial). El determinismo, cercano al naturalismo y, a veces, complementario de éste, verá en la técnica una condición sine qua non de la Cultura sublime, condición que habrá que retirar del escenario convenientemente cuando ya actúe la Cultura sublime (Bellas Artes, Poesía, Espíritu, etc.). Finalmente, el "culturalismo", que Spengler detesta, pues representa el idealismo y la ceguera ignorante de los "literatos", escinde en dos la vida humana, una mitad sublime y otra prosaica; la mitad "prosaica" es condenada a la oscuridad por el idealismo rampante (pero también por el utilitarismo y el materialismo dialéctico) una vez que ha brotado la Cultura. Pero he aquí que el Filósofo de la Historia no puede ni debe dejar de lado aquello que es consustancial a la vida humana en su devenir. La técnica, reivindicada ahora por Spengler desde un naturalismo mucho más profundo, es esencial a la vida misma de todos los animales. La técnica no es la colección de "cosas" que ha producido el hombre para matar, destruir, crear, dominar. La técnica no se deja reducir a un estudio "supra-orgánico", "extra-somático", "objetivo". En la propia organicidad animal ya está presente la técnica:

Das ist der andre Fehler, der hier vermieden werden muß: Technik ist nicht vom Werkzeug her zu verstehen. Es kommt nicht auf die Herstellung von Dingen an, sondern auf das Verfahren mit ihnen, nicht auf die Waffe, sondern auf den Kampf

"Este es el otro error que debe evitarse aquí: la técnica no debe comprenderse partiendo de la herramienta. No se trata de la fabricación de cosas, sino del manejo de ellas; no se trata de las armas, sino de la lucha."[vi]

La técnica no es la herramienta [Werkzeug], una suerte de prolongación extra-somática y objetiva del sujeto humano. La técnica, en realidad, es el manejo [Verfahren] con las cosas. Este es el corazón del comienzo del librito de Spengler: la técnica es la táctica de la vida. La vida no es una colección de cosas, a saber: sujetos corpóreos y objetos producidos por esos sujetos corpóreos. Esta sería la miope visión compartida al alimón por idealistas y por realistas. Los primeros se fijan en la "creatividad" del sujeto hacedor (se "crean" tanto obras de arte como misiles de cabeza nuclear), y los segundos paran mientes en lo creado. Pero en medio está la vida misma, la acción, a saber, el uso de los medios para la lucha.

1. La Biopolítica spengleriana. Un naturalismo dialéctico.

La vida es comprendida como una guerra ya en sus más arcaicos estratos zoológicos.

Es gibt keinen »Menschen an sich«, wie die Philosophen schwatzen, sondern nur Menschen zu einer Zeit, an einem Ort, von einer Rasse, einer persönlichen Art, die sich im Kampfe mit einer gegebenen Welt durchsetzt oder unterliegt, während das Weltall göttlich unbekümmert ringsum verweilt. Dieser Kampf ist das Leben, und zwar im Sinne Nietzsches als ein Kampf aus dem Willen zur Macht, grausam, unerbittlich, ein Kampf ohne Gnade.

"No existe el “hombre en sí” — palabrería de filósofos —, sino sólo los hombres de una época, de un lugar, de una raza, de una índole personal, que se imponen en lucha con un mundo dado, o sucumben, mientras el universo prosigue en torno su curso, como deidad erguida en magnífica indiferencia. Esa lucha es la vida; y lo es, en el sentido de Nietzsche, como una lucha que brota de la voluntad de poderío; lucha cruel, sin tregua; lucha sin cuartel ni merced" [vii] .

Si Spengler rechaza tanto el idealismo como el realismo en su tratamiento de la técnica, otro tanto se ha de decir de la "antropología predicativa". "El hombre"… ¿qué es? Si hablamos de un Homo faber –hombre fabricante- pensado con el mismo formato que el concepto de Homo sapiens, sapiente, estamos eligiendo un predicado esencial que definirá a esta especie animal concreta a la que pertenecemos. Hay poca ganancia con respecto a estas antropologías tradicionales si al Homo, a nuestro género, le añadimos el predicado de "animal técnico". No existe el "hombre en sí" [Es gibt keinen »Menschen an sich«]. No hay tal cosa previamente definida, recortada, a la cual podamos asignarle (casi, podríamos decir "inyectarle") la cualidad esencial de su tecnicidad, de la misma manera que antaño se decía del hombre que era un "animal social" o "animal racional". No hay que hablar de tecnicidad de ese "Hombre" pre-dado . De lo que se ha de hablar es de una lucha cósmica eterna, en la que se insertan los seres vivos de todas las escalas zoológicas. A las enormes galaxias y a los descomunales astros les resulta por completo indiferente el resultado de esta minúscula guerra, una contienda ésta que para sus héroes y víctimas sin embargo les es esencial. La antroposfera de éste diminuto planeta es una capa extrafina y efímera que nada importa en el decurso del universo. Los hombres mueren por "pequeñas cosas" desde el punto de vista cósmico, aun cuando esas "pequeñeces" como la defensa de la patria, la preservación de un ideal, de una civilización o una fe comporten un valor infinito a los actores humanos.

Y estos supuestos valores supremos, relativos entre las mismas culturas humanas, y susceptibles de relativización a escalas supra-humanas, cósmicas, son en gran medida "mentira" si tras de ellos captamos su esencia: la voluntad de poder. En efecto, según Spengler, "el hombre es un animal de rapiña" [viii] [Denn der Mensch ist ein Raubtier.]. Depredador, es la palabra castellana que de la manera más neutra y zoológica describe nuestra condición. A años luz nos hallamos de los herbívoros. La clave de nuestra evolución como primates estriba en la depredación. El hombre como depredador encarna un estilo de vida, una complexión físico-espiritual que los métodos naturalistas groseros no podrán captar. Sabido es que Spengler apuesta por el naturalismo de Goethe y de la fisiognómica, y no por el materialismo de Linneo y de Darwin. Las "ciencias de la vida" estudian cadáveres y compuestos físico-químicos, diseccionan y clasifican, buscan causas deterministas al modo mecanicista, pero renuncian y hasta desprecian "el tacto fisiognómico". Este tacto, imprescindible para la comprensión de la vida, nos da la clave de la tecnicidad. La clave consiste en una superación del carácter pasivo de los sujetos vivos. De la planta podemos decir que "en ella y en torno a ella está la vida" más que afirmar, propiamente, que es un ser vivo[ix]. En rigor, es un "escenario" [Schauplatz] de los procesos vivientes.

Eine Pflanze lebt, obwohl sie nur im eingeschränkten Sinne ein Lebewesen ist. In Wirklichkeit lebt es in ihr oder um sie herum. »Sie« atmet, »sie« nährt sich, »sie« vermehrt sich, und trotzdem ist sie ganz eigentlich nur der Schauplatz dieser Vorgänge, die mit solchen der umgebenden Natur, mit Tag und Nacht, mit Sonnenbestrahlung und der Gärung im Boden eine Einheit bilden, so daß die Pflanze selbst nicht wollen und wählen kann. Alles geschieht mit ihr und in ihr. Sie sucht weder den Standort, noch die Nahrung, noch die andere Pflanze, mit welcher sie die Nachkommen erzeugt. Sie bewegt sich nicht, sondern der Wind, die Wärme, das Licht bewegen sie.

"La planta vive; aunque sólo en sentido limitado, es un ser viviente. En realidad, más que vivir puede decirse que en ella y en torno a ella está la vida. “Ella” respira, “ella” se alimenta, “ella” se multiplica; y, sin embargo, no es propiamente más que el escenario de esos procesos, que constituyen una unidad con los procesos de la naturaleza circundante, con el día y la noche, con los rayos del sol y la fermentación del suelo; de suerte que la planta misma no puede ni querer ni elegir. Todo acontece con ella y en ella. Ella no busca ni su lugar propio, ni su alimento, ni las demás plantas con quienes engendra su sucesión. No se mueve, sino que son el viento, el calor, la luz, quienes la mueven."  [x]

La vida, pues, en su estrato ínfimo, vegetal, si bien es un entrecruzamiento de procesos vitales (ellos mismos activos), el sujeto o "escenario" donde acontecen consiste, no obstante, en un mero receptáculo dominado por la pasividad. La vida vegetal es sometimiento al mundo-entorno [umgebenden Natur], a la naturaleza envolvente. A su vez, la vida vegetal es el sustrato sobre el que se asienta la "vida movediza" [freibewegliche Leben], esto es, el Reino animal. El carácter móvil, auto-portátil por así decir, de la vida animal es ya una forma de libertad, de sobre-posición, por encima de la situación pasiva y sometida del vegetal. Pero la movilidad libre de las criaturas animales está, a su vez, dividida en dos escalones: la vida del herbívoro, hecha para huir, y la vida del carnívoro, para depredar.

Es a través de la primacía de alguno de los sentidos como se crea un mundo-entorno específico para cada uno de los dos escalones de lo animal. El oído para los herbívoros, nacidos para huir o caer como presas, y el ojo –la mirada- para los cazadores, los más libres y sagaces de entre los animales. Este predominio sensorial unilateral, según parece decirnos Spengler, determina los distintos mundos-entorno.

Erst durch die geheimnisvolle und von keinem menschlichen Nachdenken zu erklärende Art der Beziehungen zwischen dem Tier und seiner Umgebung mittels der tastenden, ordnenden, verstehenden Sinne entsteht aus der Umgebung eine Umwelt für jedes einzelne Wesen. Die höheren Pflanzenfresser werden neben dem Gehör vor allem durch die Witterung beherrscht, die höheren Raubtiere aber herrschen durch das Auge. Die Witterung ist der eigentliche Sinn der Verteidigung. Die Nase spürt Herkunft und Entfernung der Gefahr und gibt damit der Fluchtbewegung eine zweckmäßige Richtung von etwas fort.

"La misteriosa índole — por ninguna reflexión humana explicable — de las relaciones entre el animal y su contorno, mediante los sentidos palpadores, ordenadores e intelectivos, es la que convierte el contorno en un mundo circundante para cada ser en particular. Los herbívoros superiores son dominados por el oído y, sobre todo, por el olfato. Los rapaces superiores, en cambio, dominan por la mirada. El olfato es el sentido propio de la defensa. Por la nariz rastrea el animal el origen y la distancia del peligro, dando así a los movimientos de huida una dirección conveniente: la dirección que se aleja del peligro. [xi]

El "contorno" [Umgebung] al cual todavía se veía sometida la planta, es en el animal un mundo-entorno [Umwelt]. Cada especie animal lo percibe a su modo. Las teorías de von Uexküll, conocidas por Spengler, resuenan aquí. Pero ese mundo percibido de manera distinta por cada especie determina, a su vez, una básica relación de poder, la relación de dominante a dominado. De la Biología teórica se pasa recta y necesariamente a una Biopolítica. En la propia Biología teórica se pre-contiene la base zoológica del Poder. La mirada del animal de presa es ya una mirada que busca obtener botín y dominio, que fija rectilínea y frontalmente sus objetivos.

Para el depredador, "el mundo es la presa" [Die Welt ist die Beute]. Spengler nos describe así el origen de la Cultura, la raíz del mundo histórico específico del ser humano. Justamente como el hueso-maza, el arma letal en manos de un simio, se transforma en la película 2001 Una Odisea Espacial, en un artefacto cosmonáutico, la tecnicidad del hombre hunde sus raíces en el propio escalonamiento superior del ancestro, el homínida comedor y cazador de otros animales.

Ein unendliches Machtgefühl liegt in diesem weiten ruhigen Blick, ein Gefühl der Freiheit, die aus Überlegenheit entspringt und auf der größeren Gewalt beruht, und die Gewißheit, niemandes Beute zu sein. Die Welt ist die Beute, und aus dieser Tatsache ist letzten Endes die menschliche Kultur erwachsen

"Un sentimiento infinito de poderío palpita en esa mirada larga y tranquila; un sentimiento de libertad que brota de la superioridad y descansa en el mayor poder, en la certidumbre de no ser nunca botín ni presa de nadie. El mundo es la presa; y de este hecho, en último término, ha nacido toda la cultura humana." [xii]

Esa mirada poderosa, unida a ese sentimiento de poder, es el germen de la Historia. Y la Historia se individualiza. No se trata de una historia de las masas. Las masas no poseen la historia. Antes de alzarse culturas individualizadas, en la fase zoológica y pre-cultural, la Historia la hacen los individuos. El animal de presa destaca y se recorta ante el animal de rebaño. El herbívoro precisa de muchos como él, y entre ellos (como luego, en las sociedades de masas) una muchedumbre de iguales constituye ya el individuo. Ha de verse aquí, en El Hombre y la Técnica, no una teoría, en el sentido riguroso o científico, sino una analogía. Spengler discurre por analogías, y esas analogías presiden toda su filosofía de la historia. Si una Cultura es, toda ella, un ser vivo dotado de su morfología propia y de su propio ciclo vital, un herbívoro es un análogo de un "hombre masa". El hombre masa del siglo XIX y XX es un retroceso hacia la animalización, pero hacia la animalización del escalón inferior, la de la presa, la del cobarde herbívoro.

La analogía naturalista de Spengler discurre por canales muy diversos al naturalismo metafísico de Schopenhauer, aunque también conduce al pesimismo, o el de Darwin que induce a pensar en términos progresistas y, por ende, optimistas. El hombre es más que un mono. El hombre es más que un cuerpo que, por búsqueda de homologías rigurosas, esté próximo a los primates. La anatomía evolucionista, y, antes que ella, el comparatismo linneano, tratan ante todo con cadáveres. Los cuerpos estáticos de los científicos naturales son, en opinión de Spengler, naturalezas muertas. Frente a esta biología cadavérica Spengler busca el contacto con una filosofía de la biología de los cuerpos en acción. Tal concepción encuentra analogías en las acciones mismas. De tales analogías no hay razones para quejarse de un "antropomorfismo". Decir que es antropomorfismo que ciertos insectos "conocen la agricultura" o "practican la esclavitud", por ejemplo, sólo podría justificarse si admitiéramos que el hombre es un punto de vista privilegiado. De manera cerrada, y por tanto "ilógica", el círculo del antropomorfismo ve antropomorfismo en nuestras atribuciones acerca de las acciones de los animales. Lo que Spengler quiere decirnos simplemente es que la aparición de instituciones culturales, históricas, cuenta siempre con análogos zoológicos. El plano institucional en el que se puede hablar, como historiador, de una agricultura, una milicia, un Estado, una técnica, una esclavitud en una cultura humana es un plano que "corta" geométricamente con el plano zoológico y con el cual, al menos, hay una recta, una línea de puntos muy reales, donde también estarán presentes esos análogos.

1. La tecnicidad y la analogía zoológica.

Ciñéndonos a la tecnicidad, Spengler la quiere ver en las más diversas escalas zoológicas, como ya llevamos visto. Pero no obstante se trata de una tecnicidad muy diversa. Y es que el método analógico, de gran aplicación en filosofías muy distintas a la spengleriana (p.e. en el tomismo) nos recuerda que la relación entre dos términos en parte distintos y en parte semejantes puede establecerse en orden a penetrar de alguna manera en un sector ignoto del mundo. Esta relación de analogía, y no de identidad, es legítima, cuidando de no bascular nunca hacia la univocidad ni hacia la equivocidad. Es una relación susceptible de quedar establecida en función de una proporción o regla. La técnica de los animales es análoga a la de los animales, pero no lo es en todos los aspectos ni en la misma medida. Los castores hacen presas y los ingenieros humanos también. Pero no igual, no en la misma medida. La tecnicidad del hombre es, por así decir, diferenciada. En el hombre se da la individualidad mientras que en el animal esa individualidad se pierde y se difumina en la especie:

Die Technik dieser Tiere ist Gattungstechnik.

"La técnica de los animales es técnica de la especie". [xiii]

La de los animales no humanos es técnica genérica (Gattung). Está incorporada en su instinto, y es invariable. El sujeto es aquí, como vimos en el caso de las plantas, un vehículo o escenario de la voz de la especie. Es una técnica no individualizada, invariable.[xiv]

Die Menschentechnik und sie allein aber ist unabhängig vom Leben der Menschengattung. Es ist der einzige Fall in der gesamten Geschichte des Lebens, daß das Einzelwesen aus dem Zwang der Gattung heraustritt. Man muß lange nachdenken, um das Ungeheure dieser Tatsache zu begreifen. Die Technik im Leben des Menschen ist bewußt, willkürlich, veränderlich, persönlich, erfinderisch. Sie wird erlernt und verbessert. Der Mensch ist der Schöpfer seiner Lebenstaktik geworden. Sie ist seine Größe und sein Verhängnis. Und die innere Form dieses schöpferischen Lebens nennen wir Kultur, Kultur besitzen, Kultur schaffen, an der Kultur leiden. Die Schöpfungen des Menschen sind Ausdruck dieses Daseins in persönlicher Form.

"La técnica humana, y sólo ella, es, empero, independiente de la vida de la especie humana. Es el único caso, en toda la historia de la vida, en que el ser individual escapa a la coacción de la especie. Hay que meditar mucho para comprender lo enorme de este hecho. La técnica en la vida del hombre es consciente, voluntaria, variable, personal, inventiva. Se aprende y se mejora. El hombre es el creador de su táctica vital. Esta es su grandeza y su fatalidad. Y la forma interior de esa vida creadora llamémosla cultura, poseer cultura, crear cultura, padecer por la cultura. Las creaciones del hombre son expresión de esa existencia, en forma personal."[xv]

El hombre es artífice de su táctica vital [Der Mensch ist der Schöpfer seiner Lebenstaktik geworden]. Esta palabra, "táctica", es crucial para comprender la gran analogía belicista que recorre por igual la filosofía de la naturaleza y la filosofía de la historia spenglerianas. De esa creación libre brota, no obstante, un plano nuevo de coacción y de condena sobre los aprendices de brujo que son los humanos. El Espíritu Objetivo podrá verse, hegelianamente, como un fruto de la libertad esencial de los hombres, pero, a la par, se alza como envoltorio determinante y coactivo que canaliza y bloquea los cursos en principio libres de los sujetos. Es una libertad que se auto-restringe al devenir objetivo. La cultura no es ya, sin más, el Reino de la Libertad confrontado al Reino de la Necesidad (material y físico-química). La optimista dualidad kantiana, como en general la optimista y felicitaría dualidad teológico-cristiana de la que partía, ya ha quedado atrás. De la cultura también procede un destino, una fatalidad [Verhängnis].

1. El hombre se ha hecho hombre por la mano.

Del carnívoro y depredador, cuyo órgano señorial es el ojo, pasamos al animal de la técnica en el sentido propio y formal, el animal que domina por medio de sus manos. Ese animal es ya el hombre. Dice Spengler que "el hombre se ha hecho hombre por la mano" [Durch die Entstehung der Hand.][xvi].

El ojo y la mano se complementan en lo que respecta a la dominación del mundo-entorno. El ojo domina desde el punto de vista teórico, y la mano desde el punto de vista práctico, nos dice el autor de El Hombre y la Técnica. El relato que nuestro filósofo nos brinda respecto a la aparición de la mano es de todo punto inaceptable. En el texto que comentamos se habla de una aparición repentina. A Spengler no se le pasa por la cabeza, al menos en relación con éste tema, la existencia de una causalidad circular alternativa a la "aparición súbita". La mano, junto con la marcha erguida, la técnica, la posición de la cabeza, etc. son novedades ellas que se podrían explicar de forma evolucionista pero no necesariamente en términos de sucesión lenta y gradual. En la antropología evolucionista se pueden establecer modelos de realimentación causal en donde las novedades "empujan" a otras, ofreciendo ventajas sinérgicas en cuanto a adaptación. Así parece haber sido el proceso de hominización, ciertamente un proceso acelerado, en donde el ritmo del cambio se hace vertiginoso. El papel de la mano en ese conjunto de procesos sinérgicos parece haber sido determinante. En esta misma revista hemos dado noticia de las investigaciones del profesor Manuel Fernández Lorenzo en ese sentido.[xvii]

Por el contrario, los prejuicios anti-evolucionistas de Spengler, y su apuesta por el mutacionismo de Hugo de Vries, hoy tan desacreditado, lastran la genial intuición. La mano hizo al hombre: he aquí una proposición que damos como cierta siempre y cuando no se oscurezcan las otras novedades bioculturales que, en sinergia con la conversión de la garra en mano, nos diferenciaron de manera muy notable dentro del grupo de los primates. Lo que Spengler ve como simultaneidad, nosotros deberíamos hoy analizarlo (con los enormes datos disponibles hoy por la paleoantropología, inexistentes en la época en que nuestro filósofo vivió) en términos de causalidad circular y sinérgica. De hecho, en el siguiente párrafo se podría vislumbrar este enfoque sustituyendo la simultaneidad repentina por este tipo de causalidad:

Aber nicht nur müssen Hand, Gang und Haltung des Menschen gleichzeitig entstanden sein, sondern auch – und das hat bis jetzt niemand bemerkt – Hand und Werkzeug. Die unbewaffnete Hand für sich allein ist nichts wert. Sie fordert die Waffe, um selbst Waffe zu sein. Wie sichdas Werkzeug aus der Gestalt der Hand gebildet hat, so umgekehrt die Hand an der Gestalt des Werkzeugs. Es ist sinnlos, das zeitlich trennen zu wollen. Es ist unmöglich, daß die ausgebildete Hand auch nur kurze Zeit hindurch ohne Werkzeug tätig war. Die frühesten Reste des Menschen und seiner Geräte sind gleich alt.

"Pero no sólo la mano, la marcha y la actitud del hombre debieron surgir a la vez, sino también — y esto es lo que nadie ha observado hasta hoy — la mano y la herramienta. La mano inerme no tiene valor por sí sola. La mano exige el arma, para ser ella misma arma. Así como la herramienta se ha formado por la figura de la mano, así inversamente la mano se ha hecho sobre la figura de la herramienta. Es absurdo pretender separarlas en el tiempo. Es imposible que la mano ya formada haya actuado ni aun por poco tiempo sin herramienta. Los más antiguos restos humanos y las más antiguas herramientas tienen la misma edad." [xviii]

La forma o figura [Gestalt] de la mano determina la de la herramienta, y viceversa. La garra no precisa de herramientas. Cuando la garra del simio comienza a tomar palos y emplearlos, inicial y esencialmente como armas, ésta garra ya deviene mano. Y en este momento ya nace un nuevo tipo de depredador: no es sólo el depredador de los ojos, con un pensamiento ocular, sino un pensar de la mano. Ojo y manos, en el plano sensomotor, representan por analogía la doble faceta del pensar humano, el plano cognoscitivo: el pensar intelectual (relaciones causa-efecto) y el pensar práctico (relaciones medio-fin).

1. Intelecto y Praxis.

Ambas formas de pensamiento representan una liberación frente al "pensar de la especie" de los demás animales. En el pensar de la especie no hay individuación. La especie "piensa" por el individuo y ese pensar es acción instintiva. En cambio, en el hombre el pensar es acción personal y creativa. Y desde la lejana prehistoria parece prepararse una doble clase o condición en el ser de los hombres: el hombre teórico (sacerdote, científico y filósofo) que busca y atesora verdades, y el hombre fáctico, el de los hechos (negociante, general, estadista)[xix].

Esta distinción presenta un carácter universal, pues entrecruza las más diversas culturas y civilizaciones. En todas ellas hay la suficiente diversidad humana como para que uno pueda nacer en el grupo "contemplativo" o en el "fáctico" y desarrollarse cada individuo según ese particular destino. De todas las maneras da la impresión de que las civilizaciones, esto es, las culturas rígidas que ya han iniciado su inexorable declive, propenden a extender y encumbrar un tipo de hombre contemplativo progresivamente ciego y sordo ante los hechos, y tienden igualmente a favorecer modos de vida poco realistas, poco pragmáticos e incluso modos de vida claramente contrarios a la adaptación y al más básico instinto de supervivencia. Modos de vida en los cuales se extienden los sabios "que huyen del mundo" y de otros muchos papanatas que les imitan, mientras a las puertas de sus ciudades o en el limes cada vez peor defendido, aguardan los bárbaros, sedientos de sangre, hambrientos de riquezas o simplemente hambrientos. Y en ese momento crucial del declive de una civilización, cuando los sabios huyen del mundo, vale decir simplemente que "huyen", y ya no hay hombres de hechos que sepan afrontarse con el abismo, se puede decir que todo está perdido. La sabiduría del ojo, que inicialmente fue la sagacidad y claridad del animal de presa, no se ha visto debidamente potenciada por la astucia de la mano, la del animal de acción, facta et non verba.

Nuestro filósofo remonta la tecnicidad hasta los estratos más básicos de la vida, y sólo en la animalidad superior, depredadora, encuentra la verdadera base sensomotora para la técnica –el ojo y la mano. Sin embargo no cifra en esta base la aparición del "arte". El "arte" es enfrentamiento con la naturaleza. Ya no es sólo la lucha contra el animal (caza) y contra el semejante (guerra), es la guerra contra la naturaleza. Es una guerra que se alza cuando la propia cultura objetiva extiende su capa sobre la historia de los hombres, y los hombres se desdoblan en teóricos y prácticos, y aun la propia práctica se desdobla en la praxis constructiva y en la praxis ejecutiva (como dice Spengler, hay quien sabe fabricar un violín y hay quien sabe tocarlo). Lo mismo hemos de ver con las armas: quienes las inventaron, quienes desarrollaron las bases científico-tecnológicas para su existencia –la cultura occidental- pueden ser hoy las víctimas de sus propios ingenios. A la tecnicidad le sucede lo mismo que al pensamiento entero. Los sabios que huyen del mundo se exponen a encontrarse con masas de bárbaros dispuestos a violar todo su saber, a rebanarles el cuello y a incendiar sus bibliotecas y laboratorios. La tecnicidad es el comienzo mismo de la divergencia entre naturaleza e historia, es el punto en que comienza la tragedia esencial de los hombres. Y las culturas que, como la europea, más han logrado domeñar la naturaleza, acaso por su falta de benignidad climática, más habrán de sufrir la venganza de ésta naturaleza. La cultura europea y su extensión, la civilización occidental, ha creado todo el arsenal con el cual se puede liquidar el mundo. Pero este arsenal no es poseído por un Imperio que lo administre, que sea el prudente ejecutor de los actos de defensa común de los valores civilizatorios. No. Este arsenal se ha "difundido". Culturas y potencias por completo ajenas a Europa y a sus valores se han apropiado de la técnica –y muy especialmente de la técnica destructiva- para sojuzgar Europa, y destruir, en el límite, el mundo mismo.

1. El lenguaje. La concepción operatoria según Spengler.

Formando parte de la tecnicidad está el lenguaje mismo. Y Spengler se apresura a deslindar su concepción operatoria del lenguaje frente a otras muy usuales como son la romántica y la racionalista. La concepción romántica se fija sólo en el aspecto expresivo, el origen del habla está en la función poética y mitológica. En el otro extremo, la concepción racionalista considera que el lenguaje es un sistema de proposiciones. Las palabras son meros vehículos que transmiten pensamientos. Por el contrario, la concepción operatoria del lenguaje que en breves pinceladas (pues eso son, nada más, unas breves pinceladas) nos ofrece Spengler es dialógica. El lenguaje existe para comunicarse dos o más individuos, y no para expresarse o para meditar aisladamente. En lugar de un enfoque monológico, hay que hablar aquí de un enfoque dialógico. El lenguaje, y con él la operatoriedad que lleva implícita consta de preguntas y respuestas, mandatos, instrucciones, apremios. El lenguaje primitivo era extraordinariamente parco y conciso. Por eso dice Spengler que antaño, acaso en la Prehistoria, sólo se hablaba lo estrictamente necesario y que aún hoy los aldeanos son personas muy silenciosas. Y por supuesto, el medio ambiente y el alma de cada pueblo exige un "medio" lingüístico completamente distinto, pues diversas son las necesidades (pueblo de cazadores, pueblo de pastores, labradores, nómadas…).[xx] La base del lenguaje es completamente práctica-operatoria. En este sentido, las ideas lingüísticas de de Spengler son muy cercanas a las del materialismo filosófico de Gustavo Bueno o, más aún, a las ideas de la Operatiología de Manuel Fernández Lorenzo. Al igual que éste último, Spengler dice explícitamente que el hombre "piensa con la mano":

Der ursprüngliche Zweck des Sprechens ist die Durchführung einer Tat nach Absicht, Zeit, Ort, Mitteln. Die klare, eindeutige Fassung derselben ist das Erste, und aus der Schwierigkeit, sich verständlich zu machen, den eigenen Willen anderen aufzuerlegen, ergibt sich die Technik derGrammatik, die Technik der Bildung von Sätzen und Satzarten, des richtigen Befehlens, Fragens, Antwortens, der Ausbildung von Wortklassen auf Grund der praktischen, nicht der theoretischen Absichten und Ziele. Das theoretische Nachdenken hat am Entstehen des Sprechens in Sätzen so gut wie gar keinen Anteil. Alles Sprechen ist praktischer Natur und geht vom »Denken der Hand« aus.

"La finalidad primitiva del lenguaje es la ejecución de un acto, según propósito, tiempo, lugar y medios. La concepción clara e inequívoca del acto es lo primero; y la dificultad de hacerse comprender, de imponer a los demás la propia voluntad, produce la técnica de la gramática, la técnica de la formación de oraciones y cláusulas, la técnica del correcto mandato, de la interrogación, de la respuesta, de la formación de las palabras generales, sobre la base de los fines y propósitos prácticos, no de los teóricos. La meditación teorética no tiene participación alguna en el origen del lenguaje oracional. Todo lenguaje es de naturaleza práctica; su base es el “pensar de la mano"". [xxi]

Para eso está el lenguaje: para realizar un acto [Durchführung einer Tat]. Hablamos de un pensamiento "ejecutivo". La propia mano ya "piensa" en el momento en que realiza sus diversas ejecuciones.  La gramática es una técnica, y su existencia original, antes de asumir otras funciones, es puramente práctica. El lenguaje, incluso si está basado en lo sensible, adquiere una autonomía por razón a su entrelazamiento colectivo. De la acción de muchos surge la empresa [Das Tun zu mehreren nennen wir Unternehmen]. [xxii].

1. Biopolítica jerárquica.

Se da aquí, del paso de la mano al lenguaje, una segunda clase de Espíritu Objetivo: a parte de las máquinas, objetos, artefactos y cultura material "extra-objetiva", se da una cultura estrictamente institucional, lingüística, en la cual el propio hombre individual puede quedar atrapado. En esa realidad institucional y objetivada aparecen las dos clases fundamentales de hombres: la clase de los gobernantes y la de los gobernados. Todas las sociedades "sanas" han reconocido esta diferencia, la cual se funda en la más práctica escisión entre talentos: unos talentos saben dirigir y otros saben ejecutar. En toda empresa, además del ojo que ve y de la mano que ejecuta, hay "hombres oculares" que se invisten de talento práctico en virtud de su función de mando, y "hombres manuales", que ejecutan en medio de la red normativa e institucional que implica una ejecución. Existe, a nuestro modo de ver, una antropología materialista spengleriana que va montando, en función de una jerarquía sensorial (el ojo del depredador, relegado luego al ojo del hombre teórico) y operatoria (la mano que crea y que se ve armada, relegada luego a la mano del ejecutor obediente) explica el rebasamiento del naturalismo y su superación por un plano institucional. El filósofo germano no desarrolla este proceso, y lo expone de forma demasiado apretada, aunque lo escrito por él contiene muchas enseñanzas.

Es gibt zuletzt einen natürlichen Rangunterschied zwischen Menschen, die zum Herrschen und die zum Dienen geboren sind, zwischen Führern und Geführten des Lebens. Er ist schlechthin vorhanden und wird in gesunden Zeiten und Bevölkerungen von jedermann unwillkürlich anerkannt, als Tatsache, obgleich sich in Jahrhunderten des Verfalls die meisten zwingen, das zu leugnen oder nicht zu sehen. Aber gerade das Gerede von der »natürlichen Gleichheit aller« beweist, daß es hier etwas fortzubeweisen gibt.

"Existe al fin una diferencia natural de rango entre los hombres que han nacido para mandar y los hombres que han nacido para servir, entre los dirigentes y los dirigidos de la vida. Esa diferencia de rango existe absolutamente; y en las épocas y en los pueblos sanos es reconocida involuntariamente por todo el mundo como un hecho, aun cuando en los siglos de decadencia la mayoría se esfuerce por negarla o no verla. Pero justamente ese continuo hablar de la “igualdad natural entre todos”, demuestra un esfuerzo que se encamina a probar la no existencia de esa diferenciación."  [xxiii]

En la fase civilizada, no en la cultural-ascendente, se inicia un resentido movimiento de las masas, excitado por los talentos más mediocres, un movimiento encaminado hacia la nivelación. En la fase civilizada se deteriora de manera calculada la educación, se cuestiona la autoridad y se acorrala al autoritario, al capitán dotado de derecho natural al mando. Los lobos solitarios se ven rodeados de ovejas resentidas, feroces en su afán revanchista para con el depredador natural, pero mansas y obedientes ante los nuevos demagogos,

Spengler se sitúa resueltamente entre los filósofos anti-igualitarios, en la misma línea de los clásicos Platón y Aristóteles y seguida por Nietzsche. La diferencia entre los hombres es un "hecho" [Tatsache] acerca del cual cabe poca o nula discusión. La vida práctica de los individuos sólo empieza a comprenderse en el seno de una organización, cuya decadencia civilizada es "masa", pero cuya existencia "en forma" se denomina Estado. El origen del Estado estriba en esa tecnicidad devenida en forma de organización militar. En la milicia existe ya un Estado in nuce. La organización de la empresa humana, especialmente ante enemigos potenciales exteriores, es el Ejército, la institución que encarna la tecnicidad elevada al plano institucional, objetivo-espiritual: […] der Staat ist die innere Ordnung eines Volkes für den äußeren Zweck. Der Staat ist als Form, als Möglichkeit, was die Geschichte eines Volkes als Wirklichkeit ist. Geschichte aber ist Kriegsgeschichte, damals wie heute. Politik ist nur der vorübergehende Ersatz des Krieges durch den Kampf mit geistigeren Waffen. Und die Mannschaft eines Volkes ist ursprünglich gleichbedeutend mit seinem Heer. Der Charakter des freien Raubtieres ist in wesentlichen Zügen vom einzelnen auf das organisierte Volk übergegangen, das Tier mit einer Seele und vielen Händen. Regierungs-, Kriegs- und diplomatische Technik haben dieselbe Wurzel und zu allen Zeiten eine tief innerliche Verwandtschaft.

"[…] El Estado es el orden interior de un pueblo para los fines exteriores. El Estado es, como forma, como posibilidad, lo que la historia de un pueblo es como realidad. Pero la historia es historia guerrera, entonces lo mismo que hoy. La política es más simplemente el efímero sucedáneo de la guerra, mediante la lucha con armas espirituales. Y el conjunto de los hombres en un pueblo es originariamente equivalente a su ejército. El carácter del animal rapaz y libre se ha trasladado, con sus rasgos esenciales, desde el individuo al pueblo organizado, que es el animal con un alma y muchas manos. La técnica del gobernante, del guerrero y del diplomático tienen la misma raíz y, en todos los tiempos, una afinidad interna muy profunda."[xxiv]

Partiendo de un naturalismo –ciertamente anti-evolucionista- desde el cual se encuentran los elementos etológicos de la tecnicidad, Spengler emplea su método analógico a fondo con vistas a equiparar distintas clases de actividad práctica. Una vez equiparadas esas "técnicas", especialmente las técnicas humanas regentes (gobernante, guerrero, diplomático), se acude a la raíz [Wurzel] común. Este proceder spengleriano puede suscitar críticas merecidas si en él hay circularidad. La analogía lleva a la raíz, y la raíz alumbra la analogía. No habría círculo vicioso en la exposición sobre la evolución de la tecnicidad, desde la propia sensorialidad y operatoriedad etológicas hasta las instituciones humanas de una cultura superior (Estado, Ejército, etc.), si las meras analogías fueran transformadas en capas de complejidad creciente en las cuales los estratos inferiores (p.e. la depredación etológica) conservaran partes materiales que se integran en los estratos superiores (p.e. la conquista y dominación de un Estado sobre otros). El estilo fogoso, impresionista, en ocasiones poético, del filósofo alemán, parece impedir la paciente construcción de verdaderas homologías –y no analogías. De otra parte, la intencionalidad y estilo "belicista" de las palabras spenglerianas le llevan a insistir de manera muy particular en la propia guerra como eje en torno al cual girarán todas las demás indagaciones sobre la tecnicidad. Había tecnicidad en el ojo del cazador. Había tecnicidad en la mano armada del homínido. Había tecnicidad en la dirección de hombres armados en cooperación. Hay tecnicidad en cualquier "empresa", esto es, en cualquier cooperación que lleva a una masa organizada en la que se dan relaciones de poder (dominantes-dominados) hacia fuera y hacia dentro, etc.…Creemos no haber expuesto de forma caricaturesca la manera en que un pensamiento jerárquico y "belicista" como el de Spengler consigue reducir la tecnicidad a la lucha y la dominación. Pero se da la circunstancia de que esa lucha y ese afán de dominación (Voluntad de Poder), iniciada contra animales de otras especies y proseguida contra otros grupos de individuos de la propia especie humana crea todo un mundo artefactual, un Espíritu Objetivo que, por medio del lenguaje y de las instituciones y no sólo de armas y herramientas productivas, encierra al animal humano en su propia jaula. El hombre se encarcela: la casa y la ciudad, símbolos supremos de la Cultura, encarnan perfectamente la nueva clase de servidumbre universal de los humanos. Así, Spengler nos presenta la historia de los hombres a largo plazo, una lucha por capturar animales y hombres, una conflagración universal en pos de evitar ser esclavizado o lograr esclavizar a otros. Pero este panorama no puede conducir sino a otro, en el cual la esclavitud de una parte frente a otra parte de los hombres conduce a la esclavitud universal. Todos, con independencia de su posición económica, política, militar, todos sin excepción son esclavos de una cárcel "cultural".

In dieser wachsenden gegenseitigen Abhängigkeit liegt die stille und tiefe Rache der Natur an dem Wesen, das ihr das Vorrecht auf Schöpfertum entriß. Dieser kleine Schöpfer wider die Natur, dieser Revolutionär in der Welt des Lebens ist der Sklave seiner Schöpfung geworden. Die Kultur, der Inbegriff künstlicher, persönlicher, selbstgeschaffener Lebensformen, entwickelt sich zu einem Käfig mit engen Gittern für diese unbändige Seele. Das Raubtier, das andere Wesen zu Haustieren machte, um sie für sich auszubeuten, hat sich selbst gefangen. Das Haus des Menschen ist das große Symbol dafür.

"En esta creciente dependencia mutua reside la muda y profunda venganza de la naturaleza sobre el ser que supo arrebatarle el privilegio de la creación. Ese pequeño creador contra natura, ese revolucionario en el mundo de la vida, conviértese en el esclavo de su propia creación. La cultura, el conjunto de las formas artificiales, personales, propias de la vida, desarróllase en jaula de estrechas rejas para aquella alma indomable. El animal de rapiña, que convirtió a los otros seres en animales domésticos, para explotarlos en su propio provecho, hace aprisionado a sí mismo. La casa del hombre es el símbolo magno de este hecho." [xxv]

El hombre se vuelve un esclavo de su propia creación [der Sklave seiner Schöpfung geworden]. Con estas breves palabras se podría resumir todo el recorrido de la metafísica alemana desde Kant. Partiendo del idealismo clásico germano y del pensamiento romántico, regresa en Spengler el tópico del hombre como ser enfrentado metafísicamente al objeto. Si el Reino de la Libertad se llama ahora, Reino de la Cultura y éste fue entendido, bajo el humanismo idealista y romántico, como una liberación de la necesidad (naturaleza), ahora, en las postrimerías del siglo XIX corresponde a la fase "vitalista" de la metafísica germana entender la propia Cultura no como libertad sino a modo de jaula y prisión. En la medida en que el hombre ya no es Razón o Espíritu, sino un "animal depredador" [Das Raubtier], la Cultura es la cárcel que le retiene. Se ha completado el ciclo del "aprendiz de brujo". Nuestra especie pretende escapar de la naturaleza y ésta, en su lado más salvaje, sigue presente incluso habiéndose recluido en una fortaleza cultural. Dentro del recinto carcelario va creciendo la base de los subordinados. La clase dirigente, la cúpula de los depredadores, necesita cada vez más manos controladas por menos ojos. Las manos de las masas ejecutoras –esclavos, siervos, asalariados- se ven desprovistas de su consustancial inteligencia. La pre-visión, la planificación dirigente es suficiente para conducir los trabajos y las empresas. Es evidente que en tiempos de decadencia hay una rebelión de las masas. Se extiende el igualitarismo, esto es, la envidia. En la más pura línea nietzscheana, Spengler, como nuestro Ortega, vincula el triunfo de la oclocracia (el poder de la chusma) a un sentimiento exacerbado de envidia y fobia al talento. Esta rebelión de las masas no puede acaecer sino después de todo un ciclo que no dudamos en calificar sino de dialéctico. Es dialéctico puesto que incluye negaciones, rebasamientos de fases anteriores. Sin embargo es dialéctico pero no al modo hegeliano. No hay en Spengler una Teología optimista. En Hegel el dolor y el error quedaban sobradamente justificados en el largo plazo, en la consumación final, siempre victoriosa. En Spengler, en cambio, el dolor y el error no se justifican, son subproductos –al modo schopenhaueriano- que tan sólo para los sujetos pacientes y los sentimentales, poseen alguna relevancia. La dialéctica spengleriana es la de un naturalismo crudo. Es un sistema de negaciones y de rebasamientos de estratos previos, no necesariamente encaminados hacia "lo mejor". El tránsito de la Cultura hacia la Civilización no es, precisamente, el tránsito hacia capas superiores. En la propia Civilización hay recaídas en la barbarie, en el salvajismo y en la propia animalidad. Así han de contemplarse las perversiones de todas las grandes ciudades de todas las épocas civilizatorias en fase senil o terminal, infestadas de "proletarios" y desarraigados. En ellas regresa la selva y la propia animalidad, y las perversiones del hombre decadente de la ciudad son las propias de un animalismo elevado de potencia, el animalismo del frío animal post-racional encerrado en el cemento y el asfalto. La naturaleza siempre se venga: "…die stille und tiefe Rache der Natur an dem Wesen, das ihr das Vorrecht auf Schöpfertum entriß. ["…la muda y profunda venganza de la naturaleza sobre el ser que supo arrebatarle el privilegio de la creación"]. Prometeo ha robado el fuego a los dioses, y debe pagar por ello. La bestia alada que le roe sin cesar las entrañas bien puede simbolizar el retorno de "lo peor", el avance de la selva entre las selvas de asfalto de aquel que un día se autoerigió como Rey de la Creación.

1. Conclusiones: Tecnicidad y decadencia.

La decadencia de Occidente se ilumina plenamente mirando esta civilización bajo el aspecto de la técnica. La técnica, nacida en toda cultura humana básicamente como arma y como potenciación del ojo y la mano depredadora, ya en fase mecanista pasa a ser la tumba de la civilización que con más energía y saña la desarrolló, la civilización europea de Occidente. Otros pueblos se beneficiarán de aquellos logros de la cultura fáustica. Los frailes escolásticos europeos, en torno a los siglos XII y XIII introdujeron el verdadero Renacimiento[xxvi]. Spengler no duda en llamarlos "vikingos del espíritu". Sin miedo a navegar todo lo lejos posible, y con el mismo afán dominador de sus antecedentes piráticos y navegantes, fueron aquellos escolásticos de la cultura fáustica quienes sentaron las bases de la ciencia moderna, mucho tiempo antes de Galileo, Copérnico, Descartes o Newton. Un Mundo y un Dios entendidos en términos de fuerza, energía, y una naturaleza entendida como botín y campo para la conquista. Los vikingos del espíritu, los escolásticos medievales, impulsaron el verdadero Renacimiento y la primera fase científico-técnica de la cultura fáustica. Ellos prepararon el terreno para la segunda oleada de descubrimientos, y con los descubrimientos, las conquistas. Los conquistadores españoles fueron, a ojos de Spengler, los nuevos vikingos, los herederos de la "sangre nórdica", destinados a revolucionar el mundo, como hicieran, unos siglos antes, sus antepasados.

Esa conexión entre piratería, depredación y conquista de la naturaleza, es señalada con toda su intensidad en la parte final del ensayo que comentamos. La conexión es posible precisamente por sobrevolar el aspecto racional. Spengler sobrevuela la diferencia entre la ciencia, una empresa racional de "conquista", y las exploraciones piráticas, guerreras, etc. de los pueblos europeos de todas las épocas, especialmente a partir de la emergencia de la cultura fáustica. La desconsideración hacia la razón, o el verla precisamente como una parte más de las cualidades depredadoras de esta clase de hombres que el autor llama "hombres de las comarcas del Norte", se inscribe en su teoría sobre las dos clases de hombres en general: hombres de hechos y hombres de verdades. En todas las razas humanas existen estas dos clases de individuos pero es la cultura la que otorga predominio o equilibrio diferenciado a una de ellas. En la historia específica de Occidente sucedió que no fue la clase sacerdotal (al estilo judaico) la que se impuso, pese a toda la fuerza de sus pretensiones. Las luchas entre el Papado y el Imperio, entre güelfos y gibelinos, son un aspecto de esta lucha entre hombres de verdades y hombres de hechos, a pesar del entrecruzamiento de tipos, y a pesar de que la propia Iglesia se sobrepuso a príncipes y guerreros porque en ella no faltaron clérigos que eran, netamente, verdaderos hombres de hechos. En la actualidad los estados sucumben ante demagogos, filisteos y supuestos "hombres de verdades".

Son hoy los estados inmersos en la ideología y en la palabrería, la clase de estados que existen en su condición de meras piezas al servicio del capital. El hombre occidental del siglo XXI es, en gran medida, un hombre post-técnico. Depende de la máquina, y su vida se encuentra progresivamente automatizada. Siendo un robot de carne y hueso, desprecia la técnica y ensaya el escapismo. Ese escapismo "contracultural" ya existía en la Europa de hace casi un siglo, en el mundo occidental en que se fraguó esta obrita, El Hombre y la Técnica[xxvii]. El orientalismo, el espiritismo, el neo-nomadismo y la mentalidad suicida y nihilista [xxviii]. El demiurgo que hizo posible la Gran Técnica, y por ende, la técnica de dominación, control y sometimiento sobre todas las demás razas y pueblos, ahora es esclavo de ella y se abandona a sí mismo. Ese demiurgo, el hombre europeo, fracasa, entierra sus armas, se deja invadir y comprar. Lo vemos hoy, con la civilización del petróleo. Sus autos y sus chimeneas reclaman sin cesar ese oro negro, a la vez que parlotean todos sin cesar sobre "energías alternativas" y "desarrollo sostenible". Mientras se sucede tanta charla y tantas cortinas de humo se levantan sobre la corteza terrestre, países productores de combustible compran voluntades y esclavizan naciones "blancas" enteras. De rodillas, como un perro amaestrado, el europeo lame las botas de quien posee los petrodólares.

 

[i] Blanco Martín (2014): "Una antropología de la Técnica. Consideraciones spenglerianas" La Razón Histórica, nº27, 2014 [117-130]. ISSN 1989-2659  [https://www.revistalarazonhistorica.com/27-8/]

[ii] La edición española que tenemos a la vista, y cuya paginación empleamos es la correspondiente al volumen editado por Ediciones Fides: Oswald Spengler, Regeneración del Imperio Alemán. El hombre y la Técnica, Torredembarra (Tarragona), 2016. En dicha edición no figura traductor pero el texto español coincide con la traducción de Manuel García Morente aparecida en la editorial Espasa Calpe, Madrid, 1934. Las citas correspondientes del original en alemán, cuya paginación no aportamos, están tomadas del siguiente sitio web :http://www.zeno.org/nid/20009270388, que reproduce la siguiente edición

 Oswald Spengler: Der Mensch und die Technik. München 1931. Erstdruck: München: Beck, 1931.

[iii] Fruto de nuestras investigaciones ya ha salido un libro: Blanco Martín (2016): Oswald Spengler y la Europa Fáustica, Ediciones Fides, (Tarragona), con prólogo de Alain de Benoist; volumen que recoge diversos artículos aparecidos con anterioridad, más numerosas publicaciones en papel o en internet. Alguna de esas publicaciones están recogidas en el listado de la Oswald Spengler Society for the Study of Humanity and World Society.

https://www.oswaldspenglersociety.com/sources

[iv] El Hombre y la Técnica, a partir de ahora, según la edición citada: HT, p. 95.

[v] HT, p. 96.

[vi] HT, p. 97.

[vii] HT, p. 100.

[viii] HT, p. 100.

[ix] HT, p. 101.

[x] íbidem

[xi] HT, pps., 102-103.

[xii] HT, p. 103.

[xiii] HT, P. 105.

[xiv] HT, p. 106.

[xv] íbidem.

[xvi] HT, p. 107.

[xvii]  Blanco Martín (2017): El pensamiento “a mano”. En torno al “Pensamiento Hábil”. Reseña de dos libros de Manuel Fernández Lorenzo y su contraste con el Materialismo Filosófico , Revista La Razón Histórica, Número 35, Año 2017, páginas 20-35 [https://www.revistalarazonhistorica.com/35-2/]

[xviii] HT, p. 108.

[xix] HT, p. 110.

[xx] HT, pps. 115-116.

[xxi] HT, P. 116

[xxii] ibídem.

[xxiii] HT, p. 120.

[xxiv] HT, p. 121.

[xxv] HT, p. 122.

[xxvi] HT, pps. 128-129.

[xxvii] Esta obra fue publicada por primera vez en 1931. Véase nota 1.

[xxviii] HT, p. 136.

Uit het arsenaal van Hefaistos

Uit het arsenaal van Hefaistos (1)

Uit het arsenaal van Hephaistos

Tien Traditionalistische perspectieven op de ideologie van de vijandelijke elite

aan de hand van Robert Steuckers’

Sur et autour de Carl Schmitt. Un monument revisité

(Les Edition du Lore, 2018)

door Alexander Wolfheze

Voorwoord: de anatomische les van Carl Schmitt en Robert Steuckers

Zonder macht kan rechtvaardigheid niet bloeien,

zonder rechtvaardigheid vergaat de wereld tot as en stof.

– vrij naar Goeroe Gobind Singh

Eerder is hier al zijdelings aandacht besteed aan bepaalde aspecten van het gedachtegoed van Duits staatsrecht specialist en rechtsfilosoof Carl Schmitt (1888-1985)ⁱ – dit essay zal Schmitt’s wetenschappelijke nalatenschap in meer detail bekijken. Aanleiding hiertoe is het recent verschijnen van het nieuwste boek van Belgisch Traditionalistisch publicist Robert Steuckers. Met Sur et autour de Carl Schmitt bijt Steuckers in de Lage Landen de spits af met een eerste substantiële monografie die past bij de recente internationale rehabilitatie van Schmitt’s hoogst originele – en hoogst actuele – gedachtegoed.ⁱⁱ Lange tijd was Schmitt’s gedachtewereld en levenswerk nagenoeg ‘taboe’ door zijn – complexe en daarom gemakkelijk vulgariseerbare – associatie met het Naziregime. Inderdaad werd Schmitt in mei 1933, kort na Hitler’s machtsovername, lid van de NSDAP en ondersteunde hij de autoritaire amputatie van de in zijn ogen – en die van bijna alle Duitsers – ongeneeslijk verrotte Weimar instituties. Inderdaad werd hij na de ondergang van het Derde Rijk door de Amerikaanse bezettingsautoriteiten geïnterneerdⁱⁱⁱ en weigerde hij consistent zich te onderwerpen aan de politiekcorrecte ‘wederdoop’ van semiverplichte Entnazifizierung: zijn principiële verzet tegen de bezetter kostte hem zijn academische carrière en zijn maatschappelijke aanzien. Die houding werd echter niet ingegeven door groot enthousiasme voor het Naziregime: in Schmitt’s visie schoot dat regime volledig tekort in termen van hogere legitimiteit en historische authenticiteit.^iv Schmitt’s weigerde zich na Stunde Null simpelweg in te laten met de nieuwe ideologische Gleichschaltung – en met collaboratie met de bezetter. Ongeacht de exacte mate van Schmitt’s inhoudelijke ‘besmetting’ met de meer virulente uitwassen van het Nationaalsocialisme, blijft het een feit dat Schmitt’s denken en werken in dezelfde naoorlogse ‘quarantaine’ belandde waarin ook het denken en werken van vele andere Europese grote namen werd ‘weggezet’. Zo eindigde hij – net als Julius Evola in Italië, Louis-Ferdinand Céline in Frankrijk, Mircea Eliade in Roemenië, Knut Hamsun in Noorwegen en Ezra Pound in Amerika – in het rariteiten kabinet van de geschiedenis.

Maar zeventig jaar later blijkt dat de na de Tweede Wereld Oorlog tot standaarddoctrine verheven historisch-materialistische mythologie van ‘vooruitgang’ en ‘maakbaarheid’ – de socialistische variant in het ‘Oostblok’ en de liberale variant in het ‘Westblok’ – de Westerse beschaving aan de rand van de ondergang heeft gebracht. Na de val van het Realsozialmus in het Oostblok valt de hele Westerse wereld ten prooi aan wat men het ‘Cultuur Nihilisme’ kan noemen: een giftige cocktail van neoliberaal ‘kapitalisme voor de armen en socialisme voor de rijken’ en cultuurmarxistische ‘identiteitspolitiek’ (de nieuwe ‘klassenstrijd’ van oud tegen jong, vrouw tegen man en zwart tegen blank). Dit Cultuur Nihilisme kenmerkt zich door militant secularisme (vernietiging levensbeschouwelijke structuur), gemonetariseerd sociaaldarwinisme (vernietiging sociaaleconomische structuur), totalitair matriarchaat (vernietiging familiestructuur) en doctrinaire oikofobie (vernietiging etnische structuur) en vindt zijn praxis in de Macht durch Nivellierung mechanismen van de totalitair-collectivistische Gleichheitsstaat.^v Dit Cultuur Nihilisme wordt nog steeds in eerste plaats gedragen door de forever young ‘baby boom’ generatie van rebels without a cause, maar zij plant zich nu voort als shape-shifting ‘vijandelijke elite’ die zichzelf voedt uit steeds weer nieuw uitgevonden ‘onderdrukte minderheden’ (rancuneuze beroeps-feministen, ambitieuze beroeps-allochtonen, psychotische beroeps-LBTG-ers). De macht van deze vijandelijke elite berust op twee onlosmakelijk met elkaar verbonden krachtenvelden: (1) de globalistische institutionele machinerie (de ‘letterinstituties’ – VN, IMF, WTO, WEF, EU, ECB, NAVO) waarmee zij zich onttrekt aan staatssoevereiniteit en electorale correctie en (2) het universalistisch-humanistische discours van ‘mensenrechten’, ‘democratie’ en ‘vrijheid’ waarmee zij zich de ideologische moral high ground toe-eigent. Deze dubbel trans-nationale en meta-politieke machtspositie stelt de vijandelijke elite in staat zich systematisch te onttrekken aan elke verantwoordelijkheid voor de enorme schade die zij toebrengt aan de Westerse beschaving. De door de vijandelijke elite begane misdaden – industriële ecocide (antropogene klimaatverandering, gewetenloze milieuverontreiniging, hemeltergende bio-industrie), hyper-kapitalistische uitbuiting (‘marktwerking’, ‘privatisering’, social return), sociale implosie (matriarchaat, feminisatie, transgenderisme) en etnische vervanging (‘vluchtelingenopvang’, ‘arbeidsmigratie’, ‘gezinshereniging’) – blijven ongestraft binnen een institutioneel en ideologisch kader dat letterlijk ‘boven de wet’ opereert. Het is alleen met een geheel nieuw juridisch kader dat deze straffeloosheid kan eindigen. Carl Schmitt’s rechtsfilosofie levert dat frame: zij biedt een herbezinning op de verloren verbinding tussen institutioneel recht en authentieke autoriteit en op wat daar tussenin hoort te liggen – maatschappelijke rechtvaardigheid. Voor het herstel van deze verbinding benut Schmitt het begrip ‘politieke theologie’: de aanname dat alle politieke filosofie direct of indirect voortvloeit uit al dan niet expliciet ‘geseculariseerde’ theologische stellingnamen. De politieke verplichting om een op immanente rechtvaardigheid gericht institutioneel recht te bevorderen ligt dan in het verlengde van een transcendent – theologisch – onderbouwde autoriteit.

Het is tijd het achterhaalde politiekcorrecte en niet langer houdbare ‘taboe’ op Carl Schmitt’s gedachtegoed te corrigeren en te onderzoeken welke relevantie het kan hebben voor het hier en nu overwinnen van de Crisis van het Postmoderne Westen.^vi Robert Steuckers’ Sur et autour de Carl Schmitt laat ons daarbij niet alleen een monumentaal verleden bezoeken – het laat ons ook actuele inspiratie putten uit het machtige ‘Arsenaal van Hephaistos’^vii

(*) Net zoals bij zijn voorafgaande bespreking van Steuckers’ werk Europa II^viii kiest de schrijver hier voor een de dubbele weergave van zowel Steuckers’ oorspronkelijke – wederom haarscherpe en azijnzure – Franse tekst als een Nederlandse vertaling. Zoals ook daar gezegd, deelt de schrijver de mening van patriottisch publicist Alfred Vierling dat de Franse taalcultuur essentieel afwijkt van de mondiaal hegemoniale Angelsaksische taalcultuur die in toenemende mate de Nederlandse taalcultuur domineert – en daarmee uit haar oorspronkelijke balans brengt. Toegang tot de Franse taal is feitelijk onontbeerlijk voor elke evenwichtig belezen Nederlandse lezer, maar het gebrek aan Franse taalkennis kan niet zonder meer de jonge Nederlandse lezer in de schoenen worden geschoven. Dit gebrek – een echte handicap bij elke serieuze studia humanitatis – komt grotendeels voor rekening van het opzettelijk idiocratische onderwijsbeleid van de Nederlandse vijandelijke elite. Eerder is in dat verband al gewezen op het dumbing down beleid dat veel verder terug dan het slash and burn staatssecretarisschap van onderwijs crimineel Mark R., namelijk op de cultuur-marxistische Mammoet Wet. De schrijver komt de lezer hier daarom tegemoet door hem zowel Steuckers’ originele Frans als zijn eigen ietwat (contextueel) vrije Nederlandse vertaling voor te leggen – vanzelfsprekend houdt hij de verantwoordelijkheid voor minder geslaagde pogingen om de Belgisch-Franse ‘bijtertjes’ van Steuckers weer te geven in het Nederlands. Een glossarium van essentiële Steuckeriaanse neo-logismen is bijgevoegd.

(**) Naar opzet is dit essay niet alleen bedoeld als recensie, maar ook als metapolitieke analyse – een bijdrage tot de patriottisch-identitaire deconstructie van de Postmoderne Westerse vijandelijke elite. Het is belangrijk te weten wie deze vijand is, wat hij wil en hoe hij denkt. Carl Schmitt’s gedachtegoed levert een rechtsfilosofische ‘anatomische’ ontleding van de vijandelijke elite – het trekt in die zin definitief de schuif weg onder die elite. Robert Steuckers levert een briljante actualisatie van dat gedachtegoed – de patriottisch-identitaire beweging van de Lage Landen is hem een dankwoord en felicitatie verschuldigd.

(***) Enerzijds wordt de ouderwets gedegen geschoolde lezer hier om geduld gevraagd met het ‘betuttelende’ apparaat van verklarende noten: dit is bedoeld voor de vele – met name jongere – lezers die door decennialange onderwijskaalslag zijn beroofd van basaal intellectueel erfgoed. Anderzijds wordt de niet in ouderwetse scholing opgevoede – en wellicht daardoor afgestoten – lezer hier om uithoudingsvermogen gevraagd: hij moet bedenken dat tekst die ‘pretentieus’ kan overkomen (point taken) niet anders is dan een reflectie van zijn eigen erfgoed, namelijk dat van de Westerse beschaving. Als de patriottisch-identitaire beweging ergens voor staat is het voor die beschaving – ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ.^ix

1. De wereld van het Normativisme als wil en voorstelling^x

auctoritas non veritas facit legem

[macht, niet waarheid, maakt wet]

Steuckers begint zijn bespreking van het leven en werk van Carl Schmitt met een reconstructie van de cultuurhistorische wortels van de naoorlogse Westerse rechtsfilosofie. Hij herleidt de historisch-materialistische reductie – men zou kunnen zeggen ‘secularisatie’ – van de Westerse rechtsfilosofie tot de Reformatie en de Verlichting.^xi De godsdienstoorlogen van de 16^e en 17^e eeuw resulteerden in een tijdelijke terugval van de Westerse beschaving tot een ‘natuurlijke staat’ die slechts gedeeltelijk kon worden gecompenseerd door de noodgreep van het klassieke Absolutisme (tweede helft 17^e en eerste helft 18^e eeuw).^xii Dit ‘noodrem’ Absolutisme wordt gekenmerkt door de hooggestileerde personificatie van totaal soevereine monarchistische macht als laatste beschermer van de traditionalistische samenleving tegen de demonische krachten van modernistische chaos: na het wegvallen van de oude zekerheden van de sacrale en feodale orde grijpen ‘absolute’ monarchen in om de ontwrichtende dynamiek van het vroeg mercantiel kapitalisme, de ontluikende burgerrechten beweging en de escalerende tendens naar religieuze decentralisatie te kanaliseren. Cultuurhistorisch kan deze terugval op ‘persoonsgebonden’ auctoritas worden opgevat als een tijdelijke ‘noodmaatregel’: …en cas de normalité, l’autorité peut ne pas jouer, mais en cas d’exception, elle doit décider d’agir, de sévir ou de légiférer. ‘…onder normale omstandigheden speelt [zulk een absolute] autoriteit geen rol, maar in het uitzonderingsgeval moet zij besluiten handelend, overheersend en wetgevend op te treden.’ (p.4) Deze absolutistische ‘noodmaatregel’ is echter slechts lokaal en tijdelijk effectief: de pionierstaten van de moderniteit, zoals Groot-Brittannië en de Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden, blijven ervan gevrijwaard – ‘semi-absolutistische’ episodes als de Stuart Restauratie en het stadhouderschap van Willem III ten spijt. Zelfs in zijn hartland overschrijdt het Absolutisme al binnen een eeuw zijn houdbaarheidsdatum – de Amerikaanse en Franse Revolutie markeren het einde van het Absolutisme en de definitieve Machtergreifung van de bourgeoisie als nieuwe dominante kracht in de Westerse politieke arena.

De burgerlijk-kapitalistische Wille zur Macht wordt abstract uitgedrukt in een politieke doctrine die gebaseerd op de effectieve omkering van de voorafgaande Traditionalistische rechtsfilosofie (dat wil zeggen van de klerikaal-feodale ‘politieke theologie’): dit nieuwe Normativisme, geconstrueerd rond burgerlijk-kapitalistisch belangen, abstraheert en depersonaliseert de staatsmacht – Thomas Hobbes beschreef haar al als een mythisch-onzichtbare ‘Leviathan’.^xiii Abstractie vindt plaats door ideologisering en depersonalisering door institutionalisering: beide processen zijn gericht op het bevestigen en bestendigen van de nieuwe burgerlijk-kapitalistische hegemonie in de politieke sfeer. Rigide routines en mechanische procedures (‘bureaucratie’, ‘administratie’, ‘rechtstaat’) vervangen de menselijke maat en de persoonlijke dimensie van de macht: concrete macht verandert in abstract ‘bestuur’. L’idéologie républicaine ou bourgeoise a voulu dépersonnaliser les mécanismes de la politique. La norme a avancé, au détriment de l‘incarnation du pouvoir. ‘De republikeinse en burgerlijke ideologie wil het politieke mechanisme depersonaliseren. Zij bevordert normatieve macht ten koste van belichaamde macht.’ (p.4) Het eerste consistente experiment met het Normativisme als Realpolitik eindigt in de Grote Terreur van de Eerste Franse Republiek: het illustreert de totalitaire realiteit die noodzakelijkerwijs voortvloeit uit de consequente toepassing van het do-or-die motto dat het burgerlijk-kapitalistisch machtsproject in zowel formele (republikeinse) als informele (vrijmetselaars) vorm dekt: liberté, égalité, et fraternité ou la mort. De ethische discrepantie tussen de utopische ideologie en praktische applicatie van dat machtsproject wordt pas ideologisch afgedekt – en tot norm verheven – in het 19^e eeuwse Liberalisme: het Liberalisme wordt de politieke ‘fabrieksstand’ van de moderniteit. Onder de propagandistische oppervlakte van het Liberalisme – de utopie van ‘humanisme’, ‘individualisme’ en ‘vooruitgang’ – ligt zijn diepere substantie: de met (sociaaldarwinistische) pseudowetenschap gerechtvaardigde economische uitbuiting (‘monetarisatie’, ‘vrije markt’, ‘concurrentie’) en sociale deconstructie (‘individuele verantwoordelijkheid’, ‘arbeidsmarkt participatie’, ‘calculerend burgerschap’) die met wiskundige zekerheid eindigen in sociale implosie (door Karl Marx geanalyseerd als Entfremdung en door Emile Durkheim als anomie). De op lange termijn door het Liberalisme bewerkstelligde ‘superstructuur’ berust op een zeer puristische – en daarmee zeer bestendige – vorm van Normativisme: het Liberalisme heeft daarmee tegelijk de hoogste totalitaire capaciteit van alle modernistische (historisch-materialistische) ideologieën. Zo wijst Aleksandr Doegin in zijn historische analyse, naar het Engels vertaald als The Fourth Political Theory, op deze intrinsieke – logisch-consistente en existentieel-adaptieve – superioriteit van het Liberalisme. …[L]e libéralisme-normativisme est néanmoins coercitif, voire plus coercitif que la coercition exercée par une personne mortelle, car il ne tolère justement aucune forme d’indépendance personnalisée à l’égard de la norme, du discours conventionnel, de l’idéologie établie, etc., qui seraient des principes immortels, impassables, appelés à régner en dépit des vicissitudes du réel. ‘…[H]et liberaal-normativisme werkt desalniettemin afpersend, het is zelfs veel dwingender dan de dwang die wordt uitgeoefend door een sterfelijk heerser, want het tolereert geen enkele vorm van gepersonifieerde onafhankelijkheid ten opzichte van zijn eigen ‘norm’ (conventionele consensus, standaard ideologie, politieke correctheid), verheven tot een eeuwig en ongenaakbaar principe dat zich permanent onttrekt aan de wisselvalligheden van de werkelijkheid.’ (p.5) Sociologisch kan de totalitaire superstructuur van het Liberaal-Normativisme worden beschreven als ‘hyper-moraliteit’.^xiv

De vraag dringt zich op naar de rechtsfilosofische ‘bewegelijkheid’ en de ideologische relativeerbaarheid van deze schijnbaar onwrikbaar in de psychosociale Postmoderniteit verankerde monoliet. Het antwoord op deze vraag ligt in een doorbreken van de event horizon, de ‘waarnemingshorizon’ van de Liberaal-Normativistische Postmoderniteit. Een doorbraak van de ‘tijdloze’ dimensie van het Liberaal-Normativisme is mogelijk via een ‘Archeo-Futuristische’ formule: de gelijktijdige mobilisatie van hervonden oude kennis en nieuw ontdekte kracht levert de benodigde combinatie van voorstellingsvermogen en wilsbeschikking.

i Verg. http://www.erkenbrand.eu/artikelen/ernstfall-het-zwaard-van-de-kennis-in-de-crisis-van-de-moderne-wereld/ .

ii Alain de Benoist’s korte en geactualiseerde introductie Carl Schmitt actuel (2007) is inmiddels in het Engels vertaald en uitgegeven door Arktos, voor een bespreking zie https://www.counter-currents.com/carl-schmitt-today/ .

iii Op Hitler’s sterfdag werd Schmitt in Berlijn door het Rode Leger gearresteerd maar na een kort verhoor werd hij meteen weer vrijgelaten. Hij werd later als potentieel verdachte bij het Neurenberger Tribunaal alsnog opgepakt en geïnterneerd door de Amerikaanse bezetter. Plettenberg, Schmitt’s geboorte-, woon- en sterfplaats, ligt in Westfalen en dus in de toenmalige Amerikaanse bezettingszone.

iv De volgende aantekening in zijn dagboek schetst Schmitt’s diep kritische houding tegenover de subrationeel-collectivistische (‘volksdemocratische’) wortels van het Naziregime: Wer ist der wahre Verbrecher, der wahre Urheber des Hitlerismus? Wer hat diese Figur erfunden? Wer hat die Greuelepisode in die Welt gesetzt? Wem verdanken wir die 12 Mio. [sic] toten Juden? Ich kann es euch sehr genau sagen: Hitler hat sich nicht selbst erfunden. Wir verdanken ihn dem echt demokratischen Gehirn, das die mythische Figur des unbekannten Soldaten des Ersten Weltkriegs ausgeheckt hat.

v Uit de titel van een werk van de Duitse rechtsfilosoof Walter Leisner.

vi Hier wordt het ‘Westen’ gemakshalve gedefinieerd als het agglomeraat van de Europese natiestaten die hun oorsprong vinden in de West-Romeinse/Katholieke Traditie in plaats van de Oost-Romeins/Orthodoxe Traditie, kortweg West-Europa plus de overzeese Anglosfeer.

vii In de Klassieke Oudheid was (Grieks:) Hephaistos (Latijn: Vulcanus) de smid van de goden en beschermgod van de smeedkunst – dit dus in verwijzing naar ‘Schmitt’.

viii Verg. http://www.erkenbrand.eu/artikelen/le-rouge-et-le-noir-inleiding-tot-het-eurazianisme/ .

ix De ‘laconische’ spreuk van de Spartaanse koning Leonidas voor de Slag bij Thermopylae (480 v. Chr.) in reactie op de Perzische oproep om de wapens neer te leggen en de hopeloze strijd te staken – de strekking ervan is zoiets ‘Kom ze maar halen’, maar dan korter en krachtiger.

x Een ‘schuine’ verwijzing naar de titel (en inhoud) van het hoofdwerk van de Duitse filosoof Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung.

xi Verg. Alexander Wolfheze, The Sunset of Tradition and the Origin of the Great War (2018) 53ff en 367ff (voorwoord vrij toegankelijk via de knop View Extract op https://www.cambridgescholars.com/the-sunset-of-tradition-and-the-origin-of-the-great-war en recensie vrij toegankelijk via https://www.counter-currents.com/tag/alexander-wolfheze/ ).

xii Een belangrijke cultuurhistorische reflectie van deze regressie is te vinden in Thomas Hobbes’ midden-17^e eeuwse visie van een universeel geprojecteerde (proto-sociaal-darwinistische) bellum omnium contra omnes.

xiii Voor een literaire deelanalyse van de cultuurhistorische uitwerking van het Normativisme gedurende de 20^e eeuw verg. Tom Zwitzer, Permafrost: een filosofisch essay over de westerse geopolitiek van 1914 tot heden (2017).

xiv Verg. Jost Bauch’s Abschied von Deutschland: Eine politische Grabschrift (2018).

Uit het arsenaal van Hefaistos (2)

Uit het arsenaal van Hephaistos, deel 2

2. Door het glazen plafond van het Postmodernisme

ΔΩΣ ΜΟΙ ΠΑ ΣΤΩ ΚΑΙ ΤΑΝ ΓΑΝ ΚΙΝΑΣΩ

[geef me een plaats om op te staan, en ik zal de aarde bewegen]

– Archimedes

Een van de gevaarlijkste ‘kinderziekten’ van de recentelijk in de hele Westerse wereld opkomende patriottisch-identitaire verzetsbeweging tegen de globalistische Nieuwe Wereld Orde is haar onvermogen tot een correcte inschatting van de aard en kracht van de vijandelijke elite. De wijdverspreide (‘populistische’) volkswoede en beginnende (‘alt-right’) intellectuele kritiek die deze verzetsbeweging voeden worden deels gekenmerkt door oppervlakkig pragmatisme (politiek opportunisme) en emotionele regressie (extremistische samenzweringstheorieën). Beide kunnen worden begrepen als politieke en ideologische weerslag van een natuurlijk zelfbehoudsinstinct: in confrontatie met existentiële bedreigingen zoals de doelbewuste etnische vervanging van de Westerse volkeren en de escalerende psychosociale deconstructie van de Westerse beschaving hebben politiek purisme en intellectuele integriteit simpelweg geen prioriteit. Toch is het belangrijk dat de patriottisch-identitaire beweging deze kinderziekten – met name quick fix politieke ‘islamofobie’ en short cut ideologisch ‘anti-semitisme’ – zo snel mogelijk ontgroeit.ⁱ Een ‘preventieve zelfcensuur’ met betrekking tot de legitieme cultuurhistorische vraagstukken die vervlochten zijn in de ‘islamofobische’ en ‘antisemitische’ discoursen, zoals afgedwongen door het huidige politiekcorrecte journalistieke en academische establishment, is daarbij uitdrukkelijk niet aan de orde. De patriottisch-identitaire beweging geeft uitdrukkelijk prioriteit aan authentieke (dus niet slechts legalistische) vrijheid van meningsuiting: zij stelt zich op het standpunt dat politiekcorrecte (zelf)censuur en repressief mediabeleid averechts (letterlijk: ‘extreemrechts’ bevorderend) werken doordat ze het publiek wantrouwen vergroten. Door de flagrante partijdigheid van de systeempers (stigmatiseren van elke rationele kosten-baten analyse van de massa-immigratie, negeren van etnisch-geprofileerde grooming gangs, ‘herinterpreteren’ van islamistische terreur incidenten) en door het shoot the messenger overheidsbeleid ten aanzien van systeemkritische media (fake news projecties, Russian involvement verdachtmakingen, digitale deplatforming) haken mensen massaal af uit de mediale en politieke mainstream. De teloorgang van de klassieke (papieren en televisie) media en de versplintering van het politieke speelveld zijn hiervan slechts de meest oppervlakkige symptomen. De patriottisch-identitaire beweging, daarentegen, werpt zich nu op als verdediger van door de vijandelijke elite verraden – want voor haar nu overbodige en gevaarlijke – oude vrijheden van pers en meninguiting.ⁱⁱ De patriottisch-identitaire beweging valt nu de taak toe de door de vijandelijke elite prijsgegeven – neoliberaal verkochte en cultuurmarxistische verraden – Westerse beschaving te beschermen: dat houdt in dat ze een hoge intellectuele en ethische standaard te verdedigen heeft. Een correcte inschatting van de aard en kracht van de vijandelijke elite is daarbij een prioritaire – zelfs voorliggende – opgave: de ‘vijand’ kortweg afdoen als ‘de Islam’ of ‘het Joodse wereldcomplot’ (of beide tegelijk) doet simpelweg geen recht aan deze opgave.

Het correct benoemen van de vijandelijke elite vergt meer dan een simpele – religieus, ethisch en existentieel op zich correcte – verwijzing naar haar ontegenzeggelijk ‘duivelse’ kwaliteit: het absolute kwaad dat resulteert uit industriële ecocide, bloeddorstige bio-industrie, etnocidale ‘omvolking’, neoliberale schuldslavernij en matriarchale sociale deconstructie spreekt voor zich.ⁱⁱⁱ Er is meer nodig: het is nodig te komen tot een juridisch-kaderende en politiek-actioneerbare identificatie van de vijandelijke elite. Robert Steuckers analyse van Carl Schmitt’s ‘politieke theologie’ is in dit opzicht van grote toegevoegde waarde: zij levert het intellectuele instrumentarium dat nodig is voor deze – wellicht grootste – opgave van de Westerse patriottisch-identitaire beweging.

3. Het Liberalisme als totalitair nihilisme

…le libéralisme est le mal, le mal à l’état pur, le mal essentiel et substantiel…

[…het liberalisme is een absoluut kwaad: het kwaad in pure vorm,

het kwaad als essentie en substantie…] (p.37)

Steuckers analyseert het Liberaal-Normativisme als de default ideology van de vijandelijke elite – de ideologie die haar machtsstatus staatsrechterlijk legitimeert: Le libéralisme… monopolise le droit (et le droit de dire le droit) pour lui exclusivement, en le figeant et en n’autorisant plus aucune modification et, simultanément, en le soumettant aux coups dissolvants de l’économie et de l’éthique (elle-même détachée de la religion et livrée à la philosophie laïque) ; exactement comme, en niant et en combattant toutes les autres formes de représentation populaire et de redistribution qui s’effectuait au nom de la caritas, il avait monopolisé à son unique profit les idéaux et pratiques de la liberté et de l’égalité/équité : en opérant cette triple monopolisation, la libéralisme et son instrument, l’Etat dit ‘de droit’, prétendant à l’universalité. A ses propres yeux, l’Etat libéral représente dorénavant la seule voie possible vers le droit, la liberté et l’égalité : il n’y a donc plus qu’une seule formule politique qui soit encore tolérable, la sienne et la sienne seule. ‘Het liberalisme… monopoliseert (1) het recht (en het recht om recht te spreken) door het [voor eens en altijd] vast te leggen, door geen enkele aanpassing meer toe te laten en door het prijs te geven aan de ‘oplossende’ inwerking van [een ongebreidelde] economie en [een losgeslagen] ethiek (een ethiek die ontsnapt aan een godsdienstig kader en die wordt gekaapt door ‘seculiere filosofie’). Door ten bate van het exclusieve eigen profijt tegelijkertijd alle andere vormen van (2) [niet partij-politieke] volksvertegenwoordiging en (3) [niet-monetaire economische] redistributie te ontkennen en te saboteren, monopoliseert het liberalisme uiteindelijk ook het [volledige] ideële en praktische [discours] van vrijheid, gelijk[waardig]heid [en] billijkheid. Met deze drievoudige monopolie positie kan het liberalisme – via zijn instrument genaamd ‘rechtstaat’ – een claim leggen op universele geldigheid. In zijn eigen ogen vertegenwoordigt de liberale staat aldus de enig mogelijk [en alleenzaligmakende] weg naar recht, vrijheid en gelijkheid. Daarmee blijft er maar één enkele acceptabele politieke formule over: de liberale – en alleen de liberale.’ (p.38) Dit is de achtergrond van door het neoliberale globalisme als universalistisch-absoluut afgespiegelde ‘waarden’ als good governance en human rights. Vanuit Traditionalistisch perspectief vertegenwoordigt het door Steuckers gedefinieerde Liberaal-Normativisme de tastbare politiek-ideologische ‘infrastructuur’ die hoort bij een erboven liggende maar ontastbare cultuur- en psychohistorische ‘superstructuur’ die hier eerder werd aangeduid met het begrip ‘Cultuur Nihilisme’: de geconditioneerde belevingswereld van sociaaleconomische Entfremdung, psychosociale anomie, urbaan-hedonistische stasis en collectief-functioneel malignant narcisme.^iv Dit Traditionalistisch perspectief sluit naadloos aan bij Steuckers’ analyse van de tastbare cultuurhistorische inwerking van het Liberaal-Normativisme, dat hij expliciet benoemt als ….[le] principe dissolvant et déliquescent au sein de civilisation occidentale et européenne. …[L]e libéralisme est l’idéologie et la pratique qui affaiblissent les sociétés et dissolvent les valeurs porteuses d’Etat ou d’empire telles l’amour de la patrie, la raison politique, les mœurs traditionnelles et la notion de honneur… ‘…[h]et principe van ‘oplosmiddel’ en ‘verrotting’ in het hart van de Westerse en Europese beschaving. …[H]et liberalisme is bij uitstek de ideologie en de praktijk die gemeenschappen verzwakt en die de dragende waarden van de staat of het imperium, zoals vaderlandsliefde, staatsmanschap, traditietrouw en eerbesef, ‘oplost.’ (p.36-7)^v

Vanuit Traditionalistisch perspectief wordt de cultuurhistorische inwerking van het Liberaal-Normativisme bepaald door een groter metahistorisch krachtenveld (de neerwaartse tijdspiraal die door de Hindoeïstische Traditie wordt benoemd als Kali Yuga en door de Christelijke Traditie als ‘Laatste Dagen’). Het historische agency van het Liberaal-Normativisme als drager van een contextueel functionele Wertblindheit komt expliciet tot uitdrukking in Steuckers’ prognose: …une ‘révolution’ plus diabolique encore que celle de 1789 remplacera forcément, un jour, les vides béants laissés par la déliquescence libérale ‘…[het is] onvermijdelijk dat op een zekere dag een nog duivelser revolutie dan die van 1789 de gapende leegte zal opvullen die de liberale verrotting heeft achtergelaten.’ (p.37) Een eerste indicatie van die nog achter het Liberaal-Normativisme verscholen liggende diepere leegte kan worden gevonden in het recente monsterverbond tussen het neoliberalisme en het cultuurmarxisme (in de Nederlandse politieke context is dit verbond al zichtbaar in de tegelijk graai-kapitalistische en diep-nihilistische programma’s van VVD en D66). Steuckers laat zien hoe Schmitt de cultuurhistorisch neerwaarts-regressieve aard van het Liberaal-Normativisme dubbel filosofisch en religieus duidt. Schmitt benoemt de consistente Liberaal-Normativistische begunstiging van pre-Indo-Europees primitivisme (Etruskisch moederrecht, Pelagiaanse ‘katagogische’ theologie) ten koste van de Indo-Europese beschaving (Romeins vaderrecht, Augustiaanse ‘anagogische’ theologie).^vi Het Traditionalisme ziet in deze begunstiging een meta-historische beweging richting ‘neo-matriarchaat’: dit verklaart de chronologische samenhang tussen de Postmoderne hegemonie van het Liberaal-Normativisme en typisch Postmoderne symptomen als feminisatie, xenofilie en oikofobie.^vii Sociologisch wordt deze fenomenologie zeer treffend beschreven als passend in de ontwikkeling van een ‘dissociatieve samenleving’.^viii Het spookbeeld van een absoluut nihilistisch vacuüm werpt zijn schaduw al vooruit in Postmoderne discoursen als ‘open grenzen’ (genocide-op-bestelling), ‘transgenderisme’ (depersonalisatie-op-bestelling), ‘reproductieve vrijheid (abortie-op-bestelling) en ‘voltooid leven’ (dood-op-bestelling) – discoursen die als regelrecht ‘duivels’ zijn te begrijpen vanuit elke authentieke Traditie.^ix

Afgezien van de natuurlijke interetnische (feitelijk ‘neo-tribale’) conflicten van de hedendaagse ‘multiculturele samenleving’ (bio-evolutionaire spanningsvelden, interraciale drifttrajecten, postkoloniale minderwaardigheidscomplexen) is het vooral de in toenemende mate diabolische leefwereld van de Liberaal-Normativistische Westerse ‘samenleving’ die het existentiële conflict tussen Westerse autochtonen en niet-Westerse allochtonen voedt. Voor elke traditionele Moslim uit het Midden-Oosten, voor elke traditionele Hindoe uit Zuid-Azië en voor elke traditionele Christen uit Afrika is de Liberaal-Normativistische open society van het Postmoderne Westen niet slechts een abstract (theologisch) kwaad, maar een geleefde (existentiële) gruwel. De gewapende terreur van de islamistische jihad is weliswaar naar (getolereerde) vorm een offensief onderdeel van de ‘verdeel en heers’ strategie van de globalistische vijandelijke elite, maar naar (geleefde) inhoud is hij beter te begrijpen als een defensief mechanisme tegen de godslasterlijke en mensonterende leefrealiteit van het Liberaal-Normativisme. Vanuit Traditionalistisch perspectief zou men kunnen stellen dat een Islamitisch Kalifaat inderdaad een (zeer relatief) ‘beter’ alternatief is voor de Westerse volkeren dan de bestiale ontmenselijking van de zich in het Postmoderne Liberaal-Normativisme aftekenende hellegang.

Hiermee is de grootste vijand van de Westerse volkeren – en tegelijk de gemeenschappelijke vijand van alle volkeren die nog leven naar authentieke Tradities – politiek benoemd: het totalitair nihilistische Liberalisme. Het Liberaal-Normativisme wordt politiek verwezenlijkt door het Liberalisme: het programma van de vijandelijke elite wordt vormgegeven door het Liberalisme. Daarbij moet worden aangetekend dat het Liberalisme sinds de Tweede Wereld Oorlog in de Westerse wereld gestaag de status heeft verworven van ‘standaard politiek discours’. Het Liberalisme doordringt, vervormt en ontregelt alle aanvankelijk concurrerende politieke stromingen – Christen Democratie (CDA, CU), Sociaal Democratie (PVDA, SP), Civiel Nationalisme (PVV, FVD) – nu zozeer dat elk spoor van authentieke democratisch-parlementaire oppositie richting een alternatieve maatschappijvorm ontbreekt. Steuckers benoemt dit ‘politicide’ proces als een functie van het ‘ideologische sterilisatie’ vermogen van het Liberalisme. Ook buiten het klassieke partijkartel (in Nederland te definiëren als de standaard bestuurspartijen – VVD, D66, CDA, CU en PVDA) is het Liberalisme nu zozeer tot politieke habitus^x geworden, dat alle overige partijen – grotendeels onwillekeurig, onbewust, onbedoeld – in de rol vallen van controlled opposition. De resulterende ‘consensuspolitiek’ – in Nederland geassocieerd met het letterlijk nivellerende ‘poldermodel’ – wordt in de Westerse wereld conventioneel benoemd als ‘Neoliberalisme’ (datering: Thatcher-Reagan-Lubbers).

4. Het Liberalisme als politicide

Het ‘democratisch gekozen’ parlement is nooit de plaats voor authentiek debat:

het is altijd de plaats waar het collectivistisch absolutisme zijn decreten uitvaardigt.

– Nicolás Gómez Dávila

De vorming van Liberalistisch-geleide partijkartels en Liberalistisch-gestuurde consensuspolitiek is grotendeels te wijten aan de simpele praktijk van het parlementarisme: door de techniek van het hyper-democratisch genivelleerde en van de realiteit losgekoppeld ‘debat’ reduceert het parlementarisme alle ‘meningen’ en ‘standpunten’ grosso modo tot hun laagste gemene deler: die van het grotesk materialistische en totaal amorele Liberalisme. In het totaal nivellerend debat vervangt kwantiteit (‘democratie’) kwaliteit, vervangt gevoel (‘humaniteit’) verstand, vervangt abstract ‘bestuur’ (regelgeving, bureaucratie, protocol) concrete rechtvaardigheid en vervangt infantiele impulsiviteit (‘behoefte bevrediging’) het collectieve toekomstperspectief. De ‘koopkracht’ gaat altijd voor nalatenschap, de life style gaat altijd voor duurzaamheid en het relationele experiment gaat altijd voor gezinsbescherming. Het parlementarisme is de politiek-institutionele reflectie van de door het Liberalisme bevorderde collectivistische nivellering: het is de reductio ad absurdum van het politieke bedrijf – politiek als talkshow entertainment.[L]’essence du parlementarisme, c’est le débat, la discussion et la publicité. Ce parlementarisme peut s’avérer valable dans les aréopages d’hommes rationnels et lucides, mais plus quand s’y affrontent des partis à idéologies rigides qui prétendent tous détenir la vérité ultime. Le débat n’est alors plus loyal, la finalité des protagonistes n’est plus de découvrir par la discussion, par la confrontation d’opinions et d’expériences diverses, un ‘bien commun’. C’est cela la crise du parlementarisme. La rationalité du système parlementaire est mise en échec par l’irrationalité fondamentale des parties. ‘[D]e essentie van het parlementarisme ligt in debat, discussie en publiciteit. Zulk parlementarisme kan zichzelf als waardevol bewijzen in Areopagen^xi met rationeel en helder denkende mannen, maar dat is niet langer het geval wanneer daarin rigide ideologische partijen tegenover elkaar staan die beweren de ultieme waarheid in pacht te hebben. Dan is het debat niet langer loyaal: het einddoel van de deelnemers is dan niet langer om door een discussie en een confrontatie van meningen en ervaringen het ‘hogere belang’ te ontdekken. Hierin ligt de crisis van het [huidige] parlementarisme. De rationaliteit van het [huidige] parlementaire systeem faalt door de fundamentele irrationaliteit van de partijen.’ (p.18-9)

Het is onvermijdelijk dat deze zelfversterkende crisis in toenemende mate wordt gevoed door voorheen in de politiek ‘onzichtbare’ maatschappelijke groepen. Het escalerende proces van politieke nivellering voedt zich met de individuele ambities en rancunes van de zelfbenoemde ‘voorvechters’ van zogenaamd ‘gediscrimineerde’ groepen. Wie zoekt zal vinden: er zijn altijd nieuwe ‘ondergepriviligeerde’ groepen (uit) te vinden: jongeren, ouderen, vrouwen, allochtonen, homoseksuelen, transgenders. Het totalitair nihilistische Liberalisme is het uit dit proces resulterende diepste (meest ‘gedeconstrueerde’ en meest ‘gedesubstantialiseerde’) politieke sediment – en sentiment: het is de politieke ‘nul-stand’ die overblijft na het totaal nivellerend ‘debat’, dat wil zeggen na de neutralisatie van alle pogingen tot politiek idealisme, politieke intelligentie en politieke wilsbeschikking.

Het Liberalisme realiseert de politieke (parlementaire, partitocratische) dialectiek van het Liberaal-Normativistische ideologie. In Schmitt’s visie is de dialectische vicieuze cirkel die voortvloeit uit deze ideologie alleen te doorbreken door een fundamenteel herstel van het politiek primaat. Steuckers formuleert dit als volgt: Dans [cette idéologie], aucun ennemi n’existe : évoquer son éventuelle existence relève d’une mentalité paranoïaque ou obsidionale (assimilée à un ‘fascisme’ irréel et fantasmagorique) – …il n’y a que des partenaires de discussion. Avec qui on organisera des débats, suite auxquels on trouvera immanquablement une solution. Mais si ce partenaire, toujours idéal, venait un jour à refuser tout débat, cessant du même coup d’être idéal. Le choc est alors inévitable. L’élite dominante, constituée de disciples conscients ou inconscients de [cette] idéologie naïve et puérile…, se retrouve sans réponse au défi, comme l’eurocratisme néoliberal ou social-libéral aujourd’hui face à l’[islamisme politique]… De telles élites n’ont plus leur place au-devant de la scène. Elles doivent être remplacées. ‘In [deze ideologie] kan een [echte] vijand niet bestaan: zelfs maar het mogelijke bestaan van zulk een [vijand] te suggereren is al ‘bewijs’ van een paranoïde of obsessieve mentaliteit (vast geassocieerd met een irreëel en ingebeeld ‘fascisme’) – …er bestaan alleen maar ‘discussie partners’. Daarmee organiseert men debatten die altijd onveranderlijk eindigen in een oplossing. Maar als die altijd in ideaal [vorm gedachte discussie] ‘partner’ op een dag elk debat weigert, dan vervalt ook meteen dat ideale [‘discussie model’]. Een [existentiële] shock toestand is dan onvermijdelijk. De heersende elite, die bestaat uit bewuste of onbewuste discipelen van [deze] naïeve en kinderlijke ideologie…, zal [dan] geen antwoord op deze uitdaging hebben – net zoals de neoliberale en sociaaldemocratische eurocratie [geen antwoord heeft] op het [politiek islamisme]… Voor zulke elites is geen plaats meer op het [politieke] toneel – zij moeten worden vervangen.’ (p.245)

i Voor een analyse van ‘islamofobie’ en ‘antisemitisme’ in de context van de Nederlandse patriottisch-identitaire beweging verg., resp., http://www.identitair.nl/2018/08/laat-de-islam-met-rust.html en http://www.identitair.nl/2018/12/van-jq-naar-iq.html .

ii Verg. https://www.counter-currents.com/2018/11/freedom-of-speech/ .

iii Voor een cultuur- en psychohistorische plaatsbepaling van de vijandelijke elite verg. https://www.erkenbrand.eu/artikelen/de-levende-doden-1/ .

iv Voor een opsomming van de belangrijkste in deze ‘superstructuur’ samenvallende cultuurhistorische fenomenen verg. Alexander Wolfheze, The Sunset of Tradition and the Origin of the Great War (2018) 9-12.

v Een bio- en psychosociale analyse van de cultuurhistorische inwerking van het Liberaal-Normativisme is te vinden in het werk van de Duitse socioloog Arnold Gehlen (1904-76). Zijn structurele oppositie tussen (anagogische) Zucht en (katagogische) Entartung laat een objectief meetbare analyse toe van het Liberaal-Normativistische de-socialisatie proces (sociale ‘deconstructie’).

vi De theologische verwijzing betreft een vroeg-Christelijke doctrinaire controverse die in de Westerse context werd beslecht ten voordele van de erfzonde-erkennende leer van Augustinus (354-430) en ten nadele van de erfzonde-ontkennende leer van Pelagius (360-418).

vii Voor de cultuurhistorische ontwikkeling van het neo-matriarchaat verg. https://www.erkenbrand.eu/artikelen/de-levende-doden-1/ – voor een actueel inkijkje in de neo-matriarchale belevingsrealiteit verg. https://www.counter-currents.com/2018/12/against-escapism/ .

viii Verg. Jost Bauch’s Abschied von Deutschland: Eine politische Grabschrift (2018).

ix Het spookbeeld van de ultieme totalitaire staat, d.w.z. een leefwereld waarin de hele sociale en individuele sfeer is overwoekerd door de staat, vormt al het thema van vroeg 20^ste eeuwse dystopische literaire klassieken zoals Jevgeni Zamjatin’s My (1924), Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) en George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).

x De sociologische omschrijving van sociaal-psychologische conditionering (hexis, mimesis) van Pierre Bourdieu.

xi Een verwijzing naar de heuvel nabij de Acropolis waar in de Klassieke Oudheid de Atheense senatoren bijeen plachten te komen.

From the Arsenal of Hephaestus

Alexander Wolfheze

 

Ex: https://www.geopolitica.ru

 

Ten Traditionalist Perspectives on the Ideology of the Hostile Elite in the Exegesis of Robert Steuckers’ Sur et autour de Carl Schmitt. Un monument revisité (Les Edition du Lore, 2018).

 

Prologue: the Anatomy Lesson of Carl Schmitt and Robert Steuckers[1]

Without power, righteousness cannot flourish,

without righteousness, the world will flounder in ashes and dust

- Guru Gobind Singh

Some aspects of the intellectual heritage of German legal philosopher Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) have already been dealt with by the author in general terms[2] - this essay is meant to look at Schmitt’s scientific oeuvre in more detail. The recent publication of the latest book of Belgian Traditionalist publicist Robert Steuckers affords a suitable opportunity for revisiting Schmitt’ work in a more comprehensive fashion. In the Low Countries, Steuckers’ book Sur et autour de Carl Schmitt represents the first substantial monograph dedicated to the rehabilitation of Schmitt’s highly original - and highly topical philosophy of law.[3] For many years, Schmitt’s intellectual universe and life-world were effectively ‘taboo’ due to his - complex and therefore easily vulgarized - association with the Nazi regime. It is a fact that Schmitt became a member of the NSDAP in May 1933, only a few months after Hitler’s seizure of power, and that he supported Hitler’s authoritarian amputation of the Weimar institutions - as did nearly all other German men and women at the time. It is a fact that he was interned by the American occupation authorities after the downfall of the Third Reich[4] and that he consistently refused to be subjected to the politically correct ‘second baptism’ of semi-obligatory ‘denazification’. His principled stance against foreign occupation cost him his academic career and social status. This stance, however, was not inspired by any great enthusiasm - or even basic respect - for the Nazi regime: in Schmitt’s view, this regime was fatally flawed in terms of higher legitimacy and historical authenticity.[5] After Stunde Null, Schmitt simply refused the new ideological Gleichschaltung demanded by the occupying powers. Irrespective of the exact degree to which Schmitt’s work can be considered intrinsically ‘tainted’ in the context of the virulent excesses of National Socialism, the fact remains that his life’s work was placed in the same post-war quarantine that befell the life work of other great European thinkers. It ended up in history’s cabinet of curiosities, together with that of Italy’s Julius Evola, France’s Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Romania’s Mircea Eliade, Norway’s Knut Hamsun and America’s Ezra Pound.

But seventy years later it is becoming increasingly evident that the historical-materialist mythology of ‘progress’ and ‘constructability’, now raised to the status of standard doctrine (with a socialist variety in the Eastern Bloc and a liberal variety in the Western Bloc), has brought Western civilization to the brink of extinction. After the fall of Eastern Bloc Realsozialmus, the entire Western world has fallen prey to what may be termed ‘Cultural Nihilism’: a poisonous cocktail of neo-liberal ‘capitalism for the poor and socialism for the rich’ and cultural-marxist ‘identity politics’ (the new ‘class struggle’ of old against young, female against male and black against white). This Cultural Nihilism is characterized by militant secularism (destroying religious cohesion), monetarized social-darwinism (destroying social-economic cohesion), totalitarian matriarchy (destroying family cohesion) and doctrinal oikophobia (destroying ethnic cohesion) and it is practised through the Macht durch Nivellierung (‘power through levelling’) mechanism of the totalitarian-collectivist Gleichheitsstaat.[6] The prime carrier of Cultural Nihilism is still the forever young ‘baby boomer’ generation of rebels without a cause, but that generation is now replacing itself by a time-less, shape-shifting ‘hostile elite’, feeding off continuous new discoveries of ‘repressed minorities’ (resentful feminists, ambitious immigrants, psychotic LBTG-activists). The power of this hostile elite resides in two distinct but intricately linked force fields: (1) the globalist institutional machinery (the ‘letter institutions’ - UN, IMF, WTO, WEF, EU, ECB, NATO) that allows it to overrule state sovereignty and electoral correction and (2) the universalist-humanist discourse of ‘human rights’, ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ that allows it to monopolize the ‘moral high ground’. This double trans-national and meta-political power position allows the hostile elite to systematically elude any responsibility for the stupendous damage it is inflicting on Western civilization. The crimes committed by the hostile elite - industrial ecocide (anthropogenic climate change, environmental degradation, diabolical bio-industry), hyper-capitalist exploitation (‘free market’, ‘privatization’, ‘social return’), social implosion (matriarchy, feminization, transgenderism) and ethnic replacement (‘asylum policy’, ‘labour migration’, ‘family reunification’) - go unpunished within an institutional and ideological framework that operates literally ‘above the law’. Only an entirely new legal framework can end the legal immunity enjoyed by the hostile elite. Carl Schmitt’s philosophy of law provides that new frame: it offers a restoration of the lost link between institutional law and authentic authority and of what is found between these two - actual justice. To restore this link, Schmitt uses the concept of ‘political theology’, i.e. the assumption that all political philosophies are shaped, directly or indirectly, by theological positions that may or may not take on an ostensibly ‘secularized’ shape. From that perspective, the political imperative of promoting institutional laws aimed at immanent justice is derived from transcendently - theologically - defined authority.

The time has come to end the entirely anachronistic and increasingly untenable ‘taboo’ on Carl Schmitt’s work and thought - and to investigate its relevance during the contemporary Crisis of the Postmodern West.[7] Robert Steuckers’ Sur et autour de Carl Schmitt permits us not only a fascinating visit to a monumental past. It also permits us to find the weapons that are needed in the here and now - it gives us access to the mighty ‘Arsenal of Hephaestus’.[8]

(*) As in the earlier review of Steuckers’ work Europa II,[9] the reviewer has chosen for a double presentation of Steuckers’ original French text - sharp and acidic as usual - as well as an English translation. As stated in that earlier review, the reviewer shares the view of patriotic publicist Alfred Vierling that the French literary culture is essentially different from the English literary culture to a degree that virtually precludes one-on-one ‘translation’. This means that French language skills are actually indispensable for any conscientious studia humanitatis. The lack of such skills among the younger generations of the West, however, is not primarily due to any intellectual complacency: it can be directly attributed to the hostile elite’s anti-education policy of deliberate ‘dumbing down’. The reviewer is therefore willing to meet younger readers half-way by presenting both Steuckers’ original text and his own somewhat ‘free’ English translation. Obviously, the reviewer acknowledges his responsibility for the less successful attempts at transposing Steuckers’ ‘biting’ Walloon-French into English. A glossary of Steuckerian neologisms is added at the end of the text.

(**) This essay is not only meant to provide a review, it is also meant as a metapolitical analysis and a contribution to the patriotic-identitarian deconstruction of the Postmodern Western hostile elite. It is important to know who the enemy is, what he aims at and how he thinks. Carl Schmitt’s life work provides an ‘anatomical’ dissection of the hostile elite’s legal philosophy - it effectively deprives the hostile elite of any authentic foundation. Robert Steuckers has achieved a brilliant rehabilitation of Schmitt’s work - the patriotic-identitarian movement of the Low Countries owes him gratitude and congratulations.

(***) On the one hand, those readers that have still been traditionally educated are asked for patience with the somewhat ‘patronizing’ explanatory notes: these are meant to assist those younger readers that have been deprived of their basic intellectual heritage by decades of anti-education. On the other hand, those readers that lack a traditional education - and that may feel ‘put off’ by any ‘pretentious’ text - are asked for an effort at bettering themselves. They should realize that what may appear ‘pretentious’ reflects, in fact, nothing else than their own stolen heritage - the heritage of Western civilization. If the patriotic-identitarian movement is meant to protect anything of value, then it is exactly that: Western civilization itself - ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ.[10]

 

1. The World of Normativism as Will and Representation[11]

auctoritas non veritas facit legem

[power, not truth, makes law]

 

Steuckers commences his extensive overview of the life and work of Carl Schmitt with a reconstruction of the cultural-historical roots of post-war Western legal-philosophical thought. He retraces the historical-materialist reduction - one might say ‘secularization’ - of the Western philosophy of law to the Reformation and the Enlightenment.[12] The religious wars of the 16^th and 17^th Centuries resulted in the temporary regression of Western civilization into a ‘state of nature’ which could only be partially compensated for by the ‘emergency measure’ of classical Absolutism during the second half of the 17^th and the first half of the 18^th Century.[13] This ‘emergency brake’ Absolutism is characterized by a highly stylized personification of totally sovereign monarchic power as the last protection of a traditionalist community against the demonic forces of modernist chaos. After the abolition of the old securities of the sacred and feudal order, the ‘absolutist’ monarchs intervene in order to channel the disruptive dynamics of early mercantile capitalism, the incipient civil rights movement and the escalating tendency to religious decentralization. From a cultural-historical perspective, this ultimate resort to ‘hyper-personalized’ Auctoritas can be interpreted as a temporary ‘emergency measure’: ...en cas de normalité, l’autorité peut ne pas jouer, mais en cas d’exception, elle doit décider d’agir, de sévir ou de légiférer. ‘...in normal circumstances, [such an absolute] authority does not play a role, but in exceptional circumstances, it must act in a decisive, over-ruling and legislating fashion.’ (p.4) But this absolutist ‘emergency measure’ is only locally and temporarily effective: the pioneering nations of modernity, such as Great Britain and the Dutch Republic, remain exempt - despite ‘semi-absolutist’ measures such as the Stuart Restoration and the stadtholderate of William III. Even in its heartland, Absolutism reaches its expiry date in less than a century - the American and French Revolutions mark the end of Absolutism and the final Machtergreifung of the bourgeoisie as the new dominant force in the Western political arena.

The bourgeois-capitalist Wille zur Macht is abstractly expressed in a political doctrine that is based on the effective inversion of the preceding Traditionalist philosophy of law (i.e. of the clerical-feudal ‘political theology’): this new Normativism, constructed around bourgeois-capitalist interests, abstractifies and depersonalizes state authority - Thomas Hobbes already describes it as the mythically invisible ‘Leviathan’.[14] Abstractification is achieved through ideologization and depersonalization is achieved through institutionalization: both processes are directed at the foundation and consolidation of the new bourgeois-capitalist hegemony in the political sphere. Rigid routines and mechanical procedures (‘bureaucracy’, ‘administration’, ‘legislation’) replace the human measure and the personal dimension of Traditionalist power: concrete power is replaced by abstract ‘governance’. L’idéologie républicaine ou bourgeoise a voulu dépersonnaliser les mécanismes de la politique. La norme a avancé, au détriment de l‘incarnation du pouvoir. ‘The republican and bourgeois ideology needs to depersonalize the mechanics of politics. It favours normative power over embodied power.’ (p.4) The first consistent experiment with Normativism as Realpolitik ends with the Great Terror of the First French Republic: it illustrates the totalitarian reality that necessarily results from the consistent application of the do-or-die motto that covers the bourgeois-capitalist power project in its formal (republican) as well as its informal (freemasonic) forms: liberté, égalité, et fraternité ou la mort, ‘liberty, equality and fraternity - or death’. The ethical discrepancy between the utopian ideology and the practical application of this power project is ideologically covered by - and established as a norm in - 19^th Century Liberalism. Liberalism is the political ‘default setting’ of modernity. The propagandistic surface of Liberalism - its utopia of ‘humanism’, ‘individualism’ and ‘progress’ - covers its deeper substances: the pseudo-scientifically (social-darwinistically) justified economic disenfranchisement (‘monetarization’, ‘free market’, ‘competition’) and social deconstruction (‘individual responsibility’, ‘labour marker participation’, ‘calculating citizenship’) that mathematically result in social implosion (Karl Marx’ Entfremdung and Emile Durkheim’s anomie). In the long term, Liberalism results in a ‘superstructure’ that is based on a very puritanical - and therefore highly resilient - form of Normativism: Liberalism has the highest totalitarian potential of all modernist (historical-materialist) ideologies. Thus, Alexander Dugin historical analysis, translated into English as The Fourth Political Theory, points to the intrinsic - logically-consistent and existentially-adaptive - superiority of Liberalism. ...[L]e libéralisme-normativisme est néanmoins coercitif, voire plus coercitif que la coercition exercée par une personne mortelle, car il ne tolère justement aucune forme d’indépendance personnalisée à l’égard de la norme, du discours conventionnel, de l’idéologie établie, etc., qui seraient des principes immortels, impassables, appelés à régner en dépit des vicissitudes du réel. ‘...[S]till, Liberal Normativism is coercive - it is even much more coercive than the power exerted by any mortal ruler, because it does not tolerate any form of personalized autonomy with regard to its own ‘norm’ (conventional consensus, standard ideology, political correctness), which is elevated to an eternal and unapproachable principle that is permanently exempt from the vagaries of real life’. (p.5) From a sociological perspective, the totalitarian superstructure of Liberal Normativism can be described as ‘hyper-morality’.[15]

The apparently inviolable foundation of the Liberal Normative monolith in the bedrock of Postmodern social psychology raises the question of whether or not it is possible to dislodge by the application of legal philosophy. An affirmative answer to that question depends on breaking through the ‘event horizon’ of Liberal Normative Postmodernity, i.e. stepping beyond its epistemological boundary. A break-out from the ‘timeless’ dimension of Liberal Normativism is by means of an ‘Archaeo-Futurist’ formula: the simultaneous mobilization of re-discovered ancient knowledge and newly discovered strength will provide the necessary combination of imagination and willpower.

 

2. Through the Glass Ceiling of Postmodernism

ΔΩΣ ΜΟΙ ΠΑ ΣΤΩ ΚΑΙ ΤΑΝ ΓΑΝ ΚΙΝΑΣΩ

[give me a place on which to stand, and I will move the Earth]

- Archimedes

One of the most important childhood diseases of the patriotic-identitarian resistance movement, now rising up against the globalist New World Order throughout the entire Western world, is its inability to correctly assess the nature and power of the hostile elite. The widening (‘populist’) public anger and incipient (‘alt-right’) intellectual criticism that feeds this resistance movement are partially characterized by superficial pragmatism (political opportunism) and emotional regression (extremist conspiracy theories). Both of these phenomena can be understood as the political and ideological reflections of the natural instinct of self-preservation: in a confrontation with direct existential threats, such as the ethnic replacement of the Western peoples and the escalating psychosocial deconstruction of Western civilization, political purity and intellectual integrity simply lack priority. Still, it is of vital importance that the patriotic-identitarian movement outgrows these childhood diseases as quickly as possible - especially its ‘quick fix’ political islamophobia and its ‘shortcut’ ideological anti-semitism.[16] It should be empathically stated that this does not imply any recourse to the kind of ‘preventive self-censorship’ that is now practised by the politically correct journalistic and academic establishment with regard to legitimate cultural-historical questions that are embedded within the larger discourses of ‘islamophobia’ and ‘anti-semitism’. The patriotic-identitarian movement is bound to prioritize authentic - not merely legalistic - freedom of expression: it is bound to the position that politically correct (self-)censorship and repressive media policies are counter-productive because they increase public distrust and because they feed political extremism. The obvious ‘pride and prejudice’ of the system press (which stigmatizes every rational cost-benefit analysis of ‘mass-immigration’, ignores the ethnic profiles of ‘grooming gangs’ and re-interprets incidents of islamist terror) and the governmental policy of ‘shoot the messenger’ with regard to critical media (through ‘fake news’ projections, ‘Russian involvement’ smear campaigns and digital ‘deplatforming’) have caused the public to abandon the journalistic and political ‘mainstream’. The downfall of the traditional (paper and television) media and the splintering of the political landscape merely represent the surface reflections of this development. Now it is up to the patriotic-identitarian movement to lead the defence of the old freedoms of press and opinion, freedoms that have been now been discarded by the hostile elite as superfluous - and dangerous.[17] The task of defending Western civilization, which has been sold out by the neo-liberals and betrayed by the cultural-marxists, has now devolved upon the patriotic-identitarian movement. A correct assessment of the nature and power of the hostile elite is now its highest priority - without it, a winning strategy is impossible. A short-cut identification of the ‘enemy’ as ‘the Islam’ or a ‘Jewish world conspiracy’ simply does not stand up to cold calculus and ruthless realism required from this assessment.

The correct identification of the hostile elite requires more than a simple - albeit ethically and existentially correct - reference to its undeniably ‘demonic’ quality. The absolute evil that results from industrial ecocide, bloodthirsty bio-industry, neo-liberal debt slavery and matriarchal social deconstruction is self-evident.[18] But more is needed: it is necessary to achieve a legal understanding and a political strategy that ‘frames’ the hostile elite in a definitive manner. In this regard, Robert Steuckers’ analysis of Carl Schmitt’s ‘political theology’ is of great value: it offers the intellectual tools that are necessary to complete this - possibly greatest - task of the Western patriotic-identitarian movement.

3. Liberalism as Totalitarian Nihilism

...le libéralisme est le mal, le mal à l’état pur, le mal essentiel et substantiel...

[...liberalism is evil, evil in its purest form, evil in essence and substance...] (p.37)

Steuckers analyzes Liberal Normativism as the ‘default ideology’ of the hostile elite, i.e. the ideology that ultimately legitimizes its hold on power: Le libéralisme... monopolise le droit (et le droit de dire le droit) pour lui exclusivement, en le figeant et en n’autorisant plus aucune modification et, simultanément, en le soumettant aux coups dissolvants de l’économie et de l’éthique (elle-même détachée de la religion et livrée à la philosophie laïque) ; exactement comme, en niant et en combattant toutes les autres formes de représentation populaire et de redistribution qui s’effectuait au nom de la caritas, il avait monopolisé à son unique profit les idéaux et pratiques de la liberté et de l’égalité/équité : en opérant cette triple monopolisation, la libéralisme et son instrument, l’Etat dit ‘de droit’, prétendant à l’universalité. A ses propres yeux, l’Etat libéral représente dorénavant la seule voie possible vers le droit, la liberté et l’égalité : il n’y a donc plus qu’une seule formule politique qui soit encore tolérable, la sienne et la sienne seule. ‘Liberalism monopolizes (1) the law (and the right to legislate) by [permanently] setting its boundaries, by not allowing for any fundamental adaptations and by exposing it to the ‘dissolving’ effects of [an uncontrolled] economy and [borderless] ethics (ethics that escape any religious framework and are hijacked by ‘secular philosophy). By denying and sabotaging all other forms of (2) [non-party political] representation and (3) [non-monetarized economic] redistribution for the sake of its own exclusive profits, liberalism also monopolizes the [entire] ideal and practical [discourse] of freedom, equality [and] fairness. Through this triple monopoly [and] through its state-enforced ‘legal order’, liberalism is able to claim [an absolute] universal validity. In its own eyes, the liberal state represents the sole possible [and sole redeeming] way to achieve law, freedom and equality. Thus, only one acceptable political formula remains: liberalism - and liberalism alone.’ (p.38) This is the background on which neo-liberal globalism is able to project ‘universal’ and ‘absolute’ values such as ‘good governance’ and ‘human rights’. From a Traditionalist perspective, Liberal Normativism as defined by Steuckers represents the political and ideological ‘infrastructure’ that reflects the higher but intangible cultural- and psycho-historical ‘superstructure’ that was here earlier defined as ‘Cultural Nihilism’, viz. the experiential reality that is pre-conditioned by social-economic Entfremdung, psycho-social anomie, urban-hedonist stasis and collectively-functional malignant narcissism.[19] This Traditionalist perspective fits seamlessly into Steuckers’ analysis of the tangible cultural-historical effects of Liberal Normativism. Steuckers explicitly describes Liberal Normativism as ....[le] principe dissolvant et déliquescent au sein de civilisation occidentale et européenne. ...[L]e libéralisme est l’idéologie et la pratique qui affaiblissent les sociétés et dissolvent les valeurs porteuses d’Etat ou d’empire telles l’amour de la patrie, la raison politique, les mœurs traditionnelles et la notion de honneur... ‘...[t]he ‘dissolving’ principle and ‘rot’ in the heart of Western and European civilization. ...[L]iberalism represents the ideology and practice that most effectively weakens communities and that most effectively dissolves the values on which state[s] and empire[s] are build: love of country, responsible statesmanship, traditional loyalty and authentic honour.’ (p.36-7)[20]

From a Traditionalist perspective, the cultural-historical effects of Liberal Normativism are determined by larger meta-historical dynamic, i.e. the downward time spiral that Hindu Tradition interprets as Kali Yuga and that the Christian Tradition interprets as ‘Latter Days’. The historical agency of Liberal Normativism as a carrier of a contextually functional Wertblindheit is explicitly recognized in Steuckers’ prognosis: ...une ‘révolution’ plus diabolique encore que celle de 1789 remplacera forcément, un jour, les vides béants laissés par la déliquescence libérale ‘...[it is] inevitable that, someday, an even more [openly] demonic revolution than that of 1789 will fill the gaping void that has been caused by the liberal rot.’ (p.37) A first indication of the deeper ‘outer dark’ that still lies hidden beyond the Liberal Normativist facade is found in the recent monster alliance between neo-liberalism and cultural-marxism in Western politics (in Dutch politics this alliance is visible in the program of the governing coalition parties, which combines the ‘disaster capitalist’ agenda of the VVD and the ‘deep nihilist’ agenda of the D66).[21] Steuckers highlights Schmitt’s doubly philosophical and theological interpretation of the regressive cultural-historical tendency of Liberal Normativism. Schmitt draws attention to the consistent Liberal-Normativist support for pre-Indo-European primitivism (Etruscan matriarchy, Pelagianist ‘katagogic’ theology) at the expense of Indo-European civilization (Roman patriarchy, Augustinian ‘anagogic’ theology).[22] Traditionalism associates this tendency with a meta-historical movement towards a ‘neo-matriarchy’: this explains the chronological relation between the Postmodern hegemony of Liberal Normativism and typically Postmodern symptoms such as feminization, xenophilia and oikophobia.[23] In sociological terms, this phenomenology can be accurately described as befitting the development of a ‘dissociative society’.[24] The spectre of an absolute nihilist void is already casting ahead its shadow in Postmodern discourses such as ‘open borders’ (genocide-on-demand), ‘transgenderism’ (depersonalization-on-demand), ‘reproductive freedom’ (abortion-on-demand) and ‘completed life’ (euthanasia-on-demand) - discourses that are straightforwardly demonic in any authentic Tradition.[25]

Leaving aside the natural interethnic (effectively ‘neo-tribal’) conflicts of contemporary ‘multicultural societies’ (conflicting bio-evolutionary strategies, interracial libido trajectories, post-colonial inferiority complexes), the prime trigger of the existential conflict between indigenous Westerners and non-Western immigrants is found in the increasingly diabolical life-world of Liberal-Normativist Western ‘society’. For every traditional Muslim from the Middle East, for every traditional Hindu from South Asia and for every traditional Christian from Africa the Liberal-Normativist ‘open society’ or the Postmodern West not only an abstract (theological) evil but also a lived (experiential) horror. Even if the armed terror of the islamicist jihad is (a tolerated) part of the offensive ‘divide and rule’ strategy of the hostile elite in form, in substance it can also be understood as a defensive mechanism against the blasphemous and dehumanizing experience of life under Liberal-Normativist rule. From a Traditionalist perspective, it could be said that for the Western peoples an Islamic Caliphate would, in fact, represent a (very relatively) ‘better’ alternative to the bestial dehumanization that will logically result from the ‘harrowing of hell’ of fully-implemented Liberal Normativism.

Thus, the greatest enemy of all the Western peoples - in fact, the common enemy of all peoples that still live according to authentic Traditions - is politically identified: totalitarian-nihilist Liberalism. Liberal Normativism is politically realized through Liberalism: the program of the hostile elite is shaped by Liberalism. In this regard, it is important to note the fact that, since the Second World War, Liberalism has gradually gained the status of ‘standard political discourse’. Liberalism has infiltrated, disfigured and transformed its political rivals, including Christian Democracy (the Dutch CDA and CU, which have joined the liberal governing coalition without the slightest compunction), Social Democracy (the Dutch PVDA and SP, which have been marginalized through decades of compromise) and Civil Nationalism (the Dutch PVV and FVD, which have failed to formulate a viable alternative vision of society). This process has advanced to point of eradicating any trace of authentic democratic-parliamentarian opposition in key areas such as economic and social policy. Steuckers views this process of ‘politicide’ as a function of Liberalism’s intrinsic power of ‘ideological sterilization’. Even outside of the core party cartels (in the Netherlands these are represented by standard ‘governing parties’ of VVD, D66, CDA, CU and PVDA) Liberalism has become a political habitus[26] - all other parties automatically (largely unintentionally) take on the role of ‘controlled opposition’. The result is ‘mainstream politics’ (in the Netherlands it is explicitly referred as the all-levelling ‘polder model’), now dominating the entire West since the 1980’s rise of ‘Neo-Liberalism’: the rise to power of Margaret Thatcher in Britain, Ronald Reagan in America and Ruud Lubbers in the Netherlands.

4. Liberalism as Politicide

A ‘democratically elected’ parliament can never be the place for authentic debate:

it is always the place where collectivist absolutism issues its decrees.

- Nicolás Gómez Dávila

The formation of Liberalist-led party cartels and Liberalist-guided consensus politics is largely due to the simple practice of parliamentarism: the parliamentary technique of the hyper-democratically dumbed-down and hyper-regulated unrealistic ‘debate’ reduces all ‘opinions’ and ‘viewpoints’ to their lowest common denominator, which is always found in grossly materialist and totally amoral Liberalism. The all-levelling debate replaces quality with quantity (‘democracy’), thought with feeling (‘humanism’), concrete justice with abstract governance (regulation, bureaucracy, protocol) and collective future planning with individual impulse gratification. ‘Purchasing power’ always outweighs generational legacy, ‘lifestyle’ always prevails over ecological sustainability and ‘relationship experiments’ always have priority over family life. Parliamentarism is nothing but the political and institutional reflection of the collectivist levelling sentiment that underpins bourgeois Liberalism: it represents the reductio ad absurdum of politics - politics as talk show entertainment.[L]’essence du parlementarisme, c’est le débat, la discussion et la publicité. Ce parlementarisme peut s’avérer valable dans les aréopages d’hommes rationnels et lucides, mais plus quand s’y affrontent des partis à idéologies rigides qui prétendent tous détenir la vérité ultime. Le débat n’est alors plus loyal, la finalité des protagonistes n’est plus de découvrir par la discussion, par la confrontation d’opinions et d’expériences diverses, un ‘bien commun’. C’est cela la crise du parlementarisme. La rationalité du système parlementaire est mise en échec par l’irrationalité fondamentale des parties. ‘[T]he essence of parliamentarism is found in debate, discussion and publicity. Such parliamentarism may prove itself an asset in an Aeropagus [assembly][27] of rational and clear-minded gentlemen, but this is no longer the case when rigidly ideological parties are confronting each other with claims of possessing the ultimate truth. The latter debate is no longer loyal: the aim of its participants is no longer the discovery of the ‘higher cause’ through a discussion and an exchange of opinions and experiences. Herein lies [the cause of] the crisis of [comtemporary] parliamentarism. The rationality of the [present] parliamentary system fails due to the fundamental irrationality of the parties.’ (p.18-9)

It is inevitable that this self-reinforcing crisis is increasingly fed by groups that were previously ‘invisible’ in the political landscape. The escalating process of political levelling is fed by the individual ambitions and resentments of the self-appointed ‘representatives’ of supposedly ‘discriminated’ groups. Seek and you shall find: there are always more ‘under-privileged’ groups (to be invented): young people, old people, women, immigrants, homosexuals, transgenders. Totalitarian nihilist Liberalism is the deepest (maximally ‘deconstructed’, maximally ‘desubstantivized’ political sediment - and sentiment - that results from this implosive process: it is the political ‘zero position’ that remains after the all-levelling ‘debate’, i.e. after the neutralization of all attempts at political idealism, political intelligence and political willpower.

Liberalism realizes the political (parliamentarist, partitocratic) dialectics of the Liberal-Normativist ideology. In Schmitt’ view, the dialectically vicious circle that results from this ideology can only be broken by a fundamental restoration of political authority. Steuckers states this as follows: Dans [cette idéologie], aucun ennemi n’existe : évoquer son éventuelle existence relève d’une mentalité paranoïaque ou obsidionale (assimilée à un ‘fascisme’ irréel et fantasmagorique) - ...il n’y a que des partenaires de discussion. Avec qui on organisera des débats, suite auxquels on trouvera immanquablement une solution. Mais si ce partenaire, toujours idéal, venait un jour à refuser tout débat, cessant du même coup d’être idéal. Le choc est alors inévitable. L’élite dominante, constituée de disciples conscients ou inconscients de [cette] idéologie naïve et puérile..., se retrouve sans réponse au défi, comme l’eurocratisme néoliberal ou social-libéral aujourd’hui face à l’[islamisme politique]... De telles élites n’ont plus leur place au-devant de la scène. Elles doivent être remplacées. ‘In [this ideology] a [real] enemy cannot be conceived of: even to suggest the possible existence of such an [enemy] is ‘proof’ of the paranoid or obsessive mentality (always associated with an unreal and imaginary ‘fascism’) - ...there are only ‘debating partners’. With [such partners] debates are organized and these debates always end in a solution. But if, one day, this partner - always thought of in abstract terms of rational perfection - would actually refuse the debate, then the ideal [‘discussion’ model] would immediately fail. An [existential] shock would be inevitable. The ruling elite, which is [entirely] made up of conscious and unconscious adherents to [this utterly] naive and infantile ideology..., would have no answer to this challenge - in the same manner that neoliberal and social-democrat eurocrats [have no answer] to [political islamism]... Such elites do not deserve a place on the [political] stage - they have to be replaced.’ (p.245)

5. Liberalism as Anti-Law and Anti-State

A Marxist system can be recognized by its protection of criminals

and its criminalization of opponents.

- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Sometime during the aftermath of the Machtergreifung of the soixante-huitards the hostile elite has taken the strategic decision to replace the indigenous peoples of the West.[28] Its underlying logic is as clear as it is ruthless. The European peoples have proven to be historically incompatible with Modernity, as it is defined by Culture Nihilism: this is why they have to be mixed with and replaced by more malleable - less intellectual, less demanding, less self-conscious - slave peoples. The European peoples are demographically infertile under totalitarian dictatorship, they are economically unproductive in urban-hedonist stasis and they are politically unreliable in debt slavery.[29] But the ethnic replacement of the Western peoples is a project with considerable risks: even the most optimally calibrated Umvolkung recipe and the most carefully calculated dosage of its various ingredients (mass immigration, ethnically selective natalist policy, affirmative action, native economic deprivation) demand a political balancing act of unparalleled refinement. To achieve the political ‘point of no return’ (the demographically-democratically checkmate of the Western peoples) the hostile elite runs the risk that its amputation-transplantation operation will fail when the double psychological and spiritual anaesthesia fails, causing the patient to awake on the operating table. Until that point is reached, the expiry date of the hostile elite depends on two main anaesthetic medicines: (1) the hedonist-consumerist defined level of ‘wealth’ and ‘wellness’ and (2) the educative-journalistic manipulated politically correct consensus. If one of these two elements fall under a certain critical measure (a measure that is gradually revised downward), the danger of the patient awakening increases exponentially. Thus, a certain minimum remnant (constantly revised downward as well) of the welfare state, labour legislation, political pluriformity and freedom of opinion must be maintained until the process of ethnic replacement has been completed. The neoliberal-globalist ideals of entirely ‘open borders’, of an entirely amoral ‘open society’ and a total social-economic bellum omnium contra omnes can only be fully realized after the ethnic replacement project has reduced the native Western population to the status of ‘endangered species’, confined to marginal ‘reservations’. Until that time, the transition process creates a legal predicament for the hostile elite: it has to carefully manage the maximum speed with which Western state institutions and laws can be demolished and replaced with Liberal anti-state institutions and anti-laws. If this demolition and replacement take place too quickly, the Liberal anti-state risks an uncontrollable backlash: an early overdose of chaos and injustice in the public sphere risks a premature alienation and collective countermovement among the native Western populace.

The increasingly grotesque side-effects of the Liberal demolition of state institutions and legal safeguards are particularly problematic in case of those privileges that are the exclusive preserve of the ‘immigrants’ (‘affirmative action’, ‘preferential treatment’, ‘housing priorities’, ‘targeted subsidies’) and of those sanctions that are explicitly aimed at the natives (student loans, commercial credit and administrative fines for natives vs. scholarships, grants and prosecution dismissal for ‘immigrants’). The contrast between the bureaucratic hurdles, fiscal pressure, labour market congestion and housing shortages faced by the native population (particularly its unfortunates: the homeless, the infirm, the poor) and the red carpet treatment (free legal assistance, free shelter and free money followed by priority housing, start-up facilities and full access to social support) provided to foreign colonists (including masses of fraudsters, thieves and rapists) is becoming more grotesque every year. As the immigrant population explodes due to ‘managed migration’ (‘Marrakesh’),‘family reunification’ (‘human rights’) and ‘child allowances’ (‘legal equality’) - always at the expense by the native population - the hostile elite risks pushing the native population into electoral resistance (‘populist parties’) and civil disobedience (gilets jaunes) too soon and too far. The hostile elite is attempting to abolish the historical gains of 150 years of Western civilization - legal recourse, labour law, social security, educational opportunity, universal healthcare, administrative integrity, responsible governance - in the space of no more than two generations. Here, the generational divide (essentially the divide between baby-boomer and post-baby-boomer) is essential because it is vitally important to ‘clean’ the collective memory of the Western populace: to make sure that inconvenient concepts such as ‘educational standards’, ‘living wage’, ‘income security’, ‘old age insurance’ and ‘justice for all’ are eradicated as quickly as possible. The hostile elite is close to achieving this aim, even if it is not fully ‘in the clear’ yet.

The Liberal anti-state and anti-law of the hostile elite has already basically reduced its hardworking, conscientious and naive indigenous subjects to ‘milk cows’ and ‘slaughter cattle’ to be exploited on behalf of a rapidly increasing mass of ruthless, unproductive, fraudulent and criminal ‘immigrants’. The sickening burden of this colonizing immigration is particularly crushing for the most vulnerable indigenous groups: day labourers, small entrepreneurs, pensioners, the physically and mentally handicapped and single-parent families. The hostile elite is silencing their feeble protests against demographic inundation and social-economic marginalization with mind-twisting and utterly cynical one-liners such ‘multicultural enrichment’ and ‘humanitarian duty’, ‘market forces’ and ‘private responsibility’. In the Dutch context, their situation is best symbolized by a caricature picture that is now frequently becoming reality: the humble indigenous bicyclist who is stopped in the pouring rain by the traffic police to be fined for a defect light, when a few yards away an ‘immigrant’ drugs lord is speeding through the red light in his sports car on the way to launder his ill-gotten riches in the ‘convenient store’ of his family clan.

But worse is yet to come - and many are starting to experience this ‘in the flesh’. Worse is the experience of indigenous girls and women: with the clients of their ‘lover boys’[30] during their school years, with their ‘rapefugee’ stalkers during their college years and with their ‘#metoo’ affirmative action ‘bosses’ during their working lives. And the worst is hidden still: the murderous decolonization (Lari 1953, Algiers 1956, Stanleyville 1964, Kolwezi 1978, Air Rhodesia Flight 827 1979) and the postcolonial atavism (Macías Nguema in Equatorial Guinea 1968-79, Muammar Kaddafi in Libya 1969-2011, Idi Amin in Uganda 1971-79, Pol Pot in Cambodia 1976-79, Saddam Hussein in Iraq 1979-2003) of the Third World bode ill for the future of the remnant native population of the West once it is fully colonized by primitive Africans and resentful Asians. Perversion is already the becoming the standard modality of Western bureaucracies and judiciaries as the indigenous Western peoples are abandoned and left to face terrorism, criminality and persecution without effective recourse. They are left with a toothless police that is caught up in red tape, a matriarchal anti-judiciary that is protecting criminals against victims, a silent media cartel that is hiding the ‘colour of crime’[31] and a perverted political system that prioritizes ‘public perception’ over public responsibility. These collective experiences, however, are now fast accumulating into a critical mass that threatens the whole ethnic replacement: they are, in fact, creating space for an effective collective challenge to the hostile elite. The moral legitimacy of the native resistance is giving it the status of an ‘Authority in the Making’, empowering it to tear up the seemingly inescapable but wholly fraudulent ‘IOU from history’ that the hostile elite is foisting on the Western peoples. The traffic light of history is flashing yellow for Liberalism. The gilets jaunes have already shown the Liberal hostile elite the ‘yellow card of history’: it is now up to the Western peoples to write out its red card - and to transfer it from the political stage to the penalty box of history.

6. The Patriotic-Identitarian Resistance as Authority in the Making[32]

And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep:

for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.

The night is far spent, the day is at hand:

let us therefore cast off the works of darkness,

and let us put on the armour of light.

- Romans 13:11-12

The basis of a successful campaign of Liberal Normativism as an ideological model and of Liberalism as a political force is the realization that both are the mortal enemies of Western civilization. For the Western peoples, the annihilation of Liberalism as a political force is an absolute precondition for a successful reconquista of state sovereignty and ethnic identity. In this case, the absolute right of survival coincides with the ethical imperative of resistance. This ethical imperative applies to all nations with ‘their back against the wall’, as formulated by Marek Edelman, the last leader of the Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa (‘Jewish Combat Organization’): We knew perfectly well that we had no chance of winning. We fought simply not to allow the Germans alone to pick the time and place of our deaths. We knew we were going to die.[33]

In this regard, the Western patriotic-identitarian movement would be well advised to take to heart what Steuckers has to say about the illusion of ‘dialogue’ with the hostile elite. Reasonability and dialogue end - have to end - when one is faced with an existential threat: ...l’ennemi n’est pas bon car il veut ma destruction totale, mon éradication de la surface de la Terre: au mal qu’il représente pour moi, je ne peux, en aucun cas et sous peine de périr, opposer des expressions juridiques ou morales procédant d’une anthropologie optimiste. Je dois être capable de riposter avec la même vigueur. La distinction ami/ennemi apporte donc clarté et honnêteté à tout discours sur le politique. ‘...the enemy simply cannot be good, because he seeks my total destruction [and] my eradication from the face of the Earth: I cannot, when faced with the [absolute] evil that he represents to me, apply the legal and moral prescriptions of [a misguided] anthropological optimism - if I do so, I will become extinct. I must be able to retaliate with equal vigour. Thus, the distinction between friend [and] enemy provides the political discourse with clarity and honesty.’ (p.51)

The hostile elite, which speaks through Liberal Normativism and which acts through Liberalism, has declared war on the Western peoples and on Western civilization: the Western peoples are simply left with no other choice than to fight for their lives and to appoint a newly-legitimate ‘authority in the making’. The weapons with which the Western patriotic-identitarian resistance can deal the intellectual deathblow to the hostile elite can be found in the arsenal of Carl Schmitt - Robert Steuckers’ Sur et autour provides the key to this arsenal. One of the weapons to be found there is Schmitt’s philosophical validation of the restoration of authentic Auctoritas.

7. Decisionism as State Theory

In Gefahr und grosser Noth

Bringt der Mittel-Weg den Tod

[In danger and distress

The middle way leads to death]

- Friedrich von Logau

The weakness of the hostile elite’s pseudo-philosophy of law is ruthlessly exposed in Steuckers’ analysis of Schmitt’s basic notions of the inevitably concrete and personal dimension of all authentic forms of legitimate law and power. The concrete and personal dimensions of law and power are best illustrated in its unavoidable incarnation in the person of the judge: the person of the judge bridges the gap between abstract and historically determined law (legal code, jurisprudence) and the concrete and contemporary reality (event, circumstance). La pratique quotidienne des palais de justice, pratique inévitable, incontournable, contredit l’idéal libéral-normativiste qui rêve que le droit, la norme, s’incarneront tous seuls, sans intermédiaire de chair et de sang. En imaginant, dans l’absolu, que l’on puisse faire l’économie de la personne du juge, on introduit une fiction dans le fonctionnement de la justice, fiction qui croit que sans la subjectivité inévitable du juge, on obtiendra un meilleur droit, plus juste, plus objectif, plus sûr. Mais c’est là une impossibilité pratique. ‘The daily, inevitable and undeniable practice of due legal process contradicts the Liberal-Normativist illusion that laws and norms can [somehow] be realized without a flesh-and-blood intermediary. By imagining an ‘absolute law’ that eliminates the person of the judge, it introduced a legal fiction: a fiction that proposes a better, more just and more objective law without the inevitable subjective [mediation of the] judge. But, [of course,] no such thing is possible in practice.’ (p.5-6) No legal verdict can be conceived of without the physical presence of a Vermittler, i.e. a man of flesh and blood who is - consciously or unconsciously - shaped by values and sentiments. Thus, no legal order can be conceived of without the imprint of the specific (historically and contextually experienced) charisma of the judge. In the Postmodern context, this charisma will tend to be of a collectivist-tainted, resentment-fed and downward-directed negative nature. Parce qu’il y a inévitablement une césure entre la norme et le cas concret, il faut l’intercession d’une personne qui soit une autorité. La loi [et] la norme ne peu[vent] pas s’incarner toute[s] seule[s]. ‘Because there will always be a gap between the [abstract] norm and the concrete [case], mediation by personalized authority is a necessity. [Thus,] the law [and] the norm can never incarnate themsel[ves].’ (p.6) The same concrete and personalized dimension apply with regard to political power: the entirely abstract, institutionalized and bureaucratized form of political power that is wished for, believed in and aimed at my Liberal Normativism is simply impossible. Thus, the inevitable and indispensable incarnation of political authority remains ...le démenti le plus flagrant à cet indécrottable espoir libéralo-progressisto-normativiste de voir advenir un droit, une norme, une loi, une constitution, dans le réel, par la seule force de sa qualité juridique, philosophique, idéelle, etc. ‘...the most definitive argument against the incorrigible liberal-progressivist-normativist hope that it will be possible, one day, to achieve a real-world law, norm [and] order that is solely based on judicial, philosophical and idealist quality.’ (p.6)

Under the aegis of totalitarian Liberal Normativism, however, Postmodern West politics has no longer any space for rational debate and superior argumentation: only ‘might is right’. L’idéologie républicaine ou bourgeoise a voulu dépersonnaliser les mécanismes de la politique. La norme a avancé, au détriment de l‘incarnation du pouvoir. ‘The republican and bourgeois ideology is aimed at the depersonalization of the mechanics of politics. It favours normative power at the expense of personalized power.’ (p.4) The contemporary power of Liberal Normativism is psychosocially anchored in an anti-rational matriarchal conditioning that abolishes all personalized forms of authentic authority in a hyper-collectivist règne de la quantité.[34] Dramatic illustrations of this increasingly oppressive matriarchal reality can be found in the Western European ‘ground zero’ of Postmodernity: in the ex-nation states of ‘Anti-Frankrijk’ en ‘Anti-Germany’ the policies of anti-tradition, anti-nationalism and anti-masculine are now metastasizing into openly sadomasochistic projects of self-mutilating and suicidal Umvolkung à l’outrance. In this context, every form of collectivist resistance (parliamentary ‘opposition’ and extra-parliamentary ‘activism’) against the idiocratic and absurdist excesses of Liberal Normativism is doomed to failure because it will limit itself to pragmatic ‘symptom management’. By limiting themselves to the matriarchal-collectivist (doubly politically-institutional and psycho-social) ‘frame’ of Liberal Normativism, such parliamentary opposition (the AfD in Germany, the FvD in the Netherlands) and such extra-parliamentary activism (the Reichbürger movement in Germany, the gilets jaunes movement in France[35]) are effectively reduced to ‘lightning conductors’. There exists only one true remedy for the matriarchal-collectivist ‘anti-authority’ of Liberal Normativism: patriarchal-personalized authority as defined in Traditionalist Decisionism.

The Decisionist approach to law and politics is always concrete, and therefore also physical and personal. In legal-philosophical terms, it is primarily concerned with the physical protection of the concrete (geographically and biologically bounded) realities of state and ethnicity. In Decisionism, earthly realities always take priority over abstract norms: ist erdhaft und auf Erde bezogen [the law is earth-bound and refers to earthly reality]. In metapolitical terms, it proceeds from the recognized necessity of personalized authority in order to meet physical calamities as well as overdoses of ‘normative’ power. It sanctions personalized authority for the effective management of existential threats against the state and the people: Ausnahmezustand, ‘state of emergency’, Ernstfall, ‘case of emergency’, Grenzfall, ‘borderline case’. This highest command authority is based on the (temporary) suspension (in fact: correction) of (normative) law through its (temporary) personification: this emergency measure is applied whenever the legal order, the power of the state or the survival of the nation are undermined or shaken. ...[E]n cas de normalité, [cet] autorité peut ne pas jouer, mais en cas d’exception, elle doit décider d’agir, de sévir ou de légiférer. ‘...[U]nder normal circumstances, th[is] authority stands outside daily life, but in case of emergency it is obliged to act, to rule and to legislate [directly].’ (p.4) This ‘emergency power’ kicks in case of existential threats from without (natural disaster, enemy invasion) and from within (rebellion, treason). In Traditional societies, this personalized authority is permanently (institutionally) available in the ‘reserve functionality’ of sacred office. In pre-modern Western societies, this reserve functionality is institutionally represented in the Monarchy, regulated either through election or succession. The sacred nature of the highest command authority is derived from the transcendental (and therefore anagogical) concept of state and nation that prevailed in all pre-modern societies. Carl Schmitt’s philosophy of law - inspired by the Traditionalist-Catholic state theory of Donoso Cortés[36] - retains this sacred element in its transcendental definition of a holistically conceived unity of state, nation and society. This unit, as qualified through the ancient notions of Unitas Ordinis, ‘Unified Order’, Societas Civiles, ‘Civil Society’ and Corpus Mysticum, ‘Mystical Body’, is taken to represent a creation that is naturally organic as well as divinely ordained - as such it can never be wholly encompassed by any political institution. The man that fate has called upon to defend the life of this mysterious ‘creature’ is held to be imbued with a sacred vocation of the highest order.

Thus, from a Traditionalist perspective, the state-nation-society agglomerate constitutes a living organism and a historical community with a mystical destiny that constitutes a political a priori: politics should be shaped around its needs and interests and politics serves it. ...[L]e peuple... n’est pas chose formée (par une volonté humaine et arbitraire) mais fait empirique et n’est jamais ‘formable’ complètement; il restera toujours de lui un résidu rétif à tout formatage, un reste qui échappera à la volonté de contrôle des instances dérivées de certaines ‘Lumières’... [L]a souveraineté populaire ne peut être entièrement représentée (par des députés) car alors une part plus ou moins importante de sa présence concrète est houspillée hors des institutions de représentation, lesquelles ne représent[e]nt plus que les intérêts ou des réalités fragmentaires. ‘...[T]he people... is not a ‘construct’ (to be made and unmade according to human will), but rather an empirical given fact that can never be entirely ‘malleable’ [in a political sense]: it always retains an indivisible residue that resists [all attempts at] ‘construction’ - a residue that remains intangible in terms of the kind of institutional control that derives from ‘Enlightenment’ [thought]... [N]ational sovereignty [and electoral mandates] can never be entirely representative through ‘representation’, because a [certain] - larger or smaller - part of the concrete presence [of the nation] will always be excluded from institutional representation, [because such a representation] will be inevitably focussed on fragmentary interest and realities.’ (p.33) The Traditionalist definition of the state-nation-society agglomerate is found in the vision of ... la ‘nation unie’, non mutilée par des dissensions partisanes, donc une nation tournant ses forces vives vers l’extérieur, et non pas vers sa seule sphère interne en y semant la discorde et en y désignant des ennemis, provoquant à terme rapide l’inéluctable implosion du tout. La Nation comme l’Eglise doit être un coïncidentia oppositorum : elle doit faire coïncider et s’harmoniser toutes les forces et différences qui l’irriguent, en évitant les modi operandi politiciens qui sèment les dissensus et ruinent la continuité étatique... ‘...the ‘unified nation’, undivided by partisan strife - a nation that directs its vital force outwards, and not merely inwards, where [that force] will create frictions and factions, results in inevitable and early total implosion. As in the case of the Church, the Nation is called upon to constitute a coïncidentia oppositorum: it must focus all [its] powers and harmonize the differences that feed its growth. It must avoid all politicized modi operandi - [factional divides and party-political narrow-mindedness] - that would cause [societal] friction and that would endanger the continuity of its state [sovereignty]...’ (p.38)

From this follows the double theological and legal imperative of a trans-democratic and trans-secular state authority which is simultaneously open in a downward (earthly) and upward (heavenly) direction and which guarantees the historical continuity of the nation(s) that it represents. A built-in permanent Decisionist ‘reserve option’ - a (temporal) ‘dictatorial’ command structure to deal with the Ernstfall - is an indispensable part of this state authority. Within the Traditionalist philosophy of law of the Christian world this reserve option is always ‘framed’ - and limited - by the higher transcendental principle of Caritas, which is explicitly expressed in the key principles of Catholic politics: Community, Solidarity and Subsidiarity. Caritas: the ‘anthropologically pessimistic’ Christian ethical imperative and pious practice of magnanimity with all creatures that need protection and assistance. First and foremost these are those people that are vulnerable, incapacitated or weak-minded - children, women, the poor, the sick, the handicapped and the dying. But these are also the animals and plants that cannot speak up for themselves and that are subject to man’s dominion. Noblesse oblige. In the Traditionalist philosophy of law of the Christian world the Monarchy was the highest natural and legitimate carrier of Decisionistically defined Auctoritas: ...les familles royales, qui incarnent charnellement les Etats dans l’Ancien régime, offrent de successions de monarques, différents sur le plan du caractère et de la formation, permettant une plus grande souplesse que les régimes normatifs et normateurs. Elles permettent la continuité dans l’adaptation et le changement, apportés par les héritiers de la lignée. En ce sens, les monarchies constituent des contrepoids contre le déploiement purement technique de la raison normative, qui fait basculer les Etats dans l’abstraction et apportent, in fine, la dictature. ‘...royal families - which are made to literally embody the state during the [Absolutist] ancien régime - offer a [continuous] succession of [ever new generations of] monarchs differ in character, upbringing and education: they offer a [‘built-in’ and] much greater flexibility than ‘normative’,... [democratically liberal] regimes. In this sense, monarchies offer a counterbalance against the purely ‘technocratic’ rule of normative ‘reason’ that reduces states to legal abstractions and, eventually, to [normative] dictatorships.’ (p.36) In a Monarchy the principle of Subsidiarity postulates an additional and derivative role for other ‘privileged’ institutions as well: the Clergy and the Nobility are called upon to carry many responsibilities - they are burdened with a secondary Decisionist Pflicht zur Tat, or ‘obligation to act’. All of these Traditional institutions were assumed to take on a number of natural and legitimate obligations on the basis of an existential quality that is simply unimaginable under the aegis of Liberal-Normativist modernity - a quality that can best be grasped in a number of concepts of more ‘aristocratically minded’ languages: solemnidad, ‘solemnity’, gravedad, ‘gravity’, Haltung, ‘composure’, Würde, ‘dignity’. In this regard, Steuckers points to the ‘Roman Form’ that is essential to this existential orientation - an orientation that was largely eliminated from the originally Roman-Catholic Church during the 20^th Century aggiornamento that is now associated with Second Vatican Council (1962-65).[37] This Roman Form views ...l’homme... comme un être combattant, un être sans cesse préoccupé de limiter le chaos naturel des choses, de donner forme au réel, de maintenir les continuités constructives léguées par l’histoire... ‘man... as a warrior creature, a creature that is waging an incessant struggle against the chaotic state of the natural [world and that is called upon] to give structure to the reality [around himself and] to maintain the constructive continuities that he has inherited from history...’ (p.41)

This Roman Form is deconstructed in the utterly false ‘anthropological optimism’ of Liberal Normativism, which sets ‘self-made’ - cosmologically ‘autonomous’, sinless ‘free’, morally ‘self-determining’ - ‘modern man’ aside from Divine Creation, the Divine Order and Divine Providence. Liberal Normativism does not offer - cannot offer - any alternative for the Roman Form that it has ‘deconstructed’: Liberal Normativism is an exclusively negative ideology that can only thrive on denial, deconstruction and destruction. In political terms, it represents the abdication of Fortitudo, ‘fortitude’, and its replacement with administrative chaos and legal impunity. In economic terms, it represents the abdication of Temperantia, ‘self-restraint’, and its replacement with greedy materialism and unbridled consumerism. In social terms, it represents the abdication of Castitas, ‘chastity’, and its replacement with public feminization and private immorality. In psychological terms, it represents the abdication of Humilitas, ‘humility’, and its replacement with megalomania and narcissism. Thus, in the sense of Carl Schmitt’s politische Theologie, Liberal-Normativism can be interpreted as the political application of theological antinomianism.

8. The Antinomianist Project of the Hostile Elite

errare humanum est, perservare est diabolicum

[to err is human, to persist is diabolic]

Liberal-Normativism is entirely incompatible with any form of positive (eudaemonic, anagogic) - let alone Traditionalist (holistic, Decisionistic) - philosophy of law or concept of state. Its antinomianism - its pretence to be exempt from Divine Order and the Divine Law - places it outside and under and transcendentally inspired form of philosophy and statecraft. In the words of Robert Steuckers: Le normativisme se place en dehors de tout continuum historique puisque la norme, une fois instaurée, est jugée tout à la fois comme un aboutissement final et comme indépassable et, en théorie, le normativisme exclut toute dérogation au fonctionnement posé une fois pour toutes comme ‘normal’, même en cas d’extrême danger pour les choses publiques. ‘Normativism places itself outside all forms of historical continuity because, as soon as it is installed, its norm achieves the status of necessary and unsurpassable finality. Strictly speaking, normativism excludes any kind of exemption from the once-and-for-always established ‘normal’ functionality [of state power], even if the greater good is threatened in an unprecedented manner.’ (p.35) The epistemological and ontological ‘steel cage’ of Liberal Normativism closes with mathematical precision - in its doctrinal perfection, it wholly excludes all corrective possibilities. In this regard, Steuckers designates the legalism of Liberal Normativism as the ultimate arcanum of Western Postmodernity. This pharisaic legalism guarantees the (mentally preventive) ‘deconstruction’ of all authentic visions of a societas perfecta. It literally rules out the Decisionist (pragmatic, flexible, temporary) Auctoritas that is built into every Traditionalist concept of state power and philosophy of law.

In the chapter La décision dans l’oeuvre de Carl Schmitt, ‘The Decision in the Work of Carl Schmitt’, Steuckers provides a precise analysis of Schmitt’s intellectual Werdegang. He points to the remarkable parallelism between Schmitt’s intellectual development and the 20^th Century development of the Liberal-Normativist epistemological-ontological ‘steel cage’. The three phases that Steuckers distinguishes in Schmitt’s work and life can be interpreted as three phases in the development of the antinomian project of the hostile elite, i.e. three phases in the construction of the Liberal-Normativist totalitarian dictatorship that is nearing completion under the aegis of Western Postmodernity. Steuckers names each of these three phases after the historical function of the ‘decision-maker’ - the symbolic personification of highest command power - during the phase in question. In the framework of this essay, which aims at a ‘short anatomy of the ideology of the hostile elite’, it is useful to briefly review each of these three ‘decision makers’ according to an improvised - artificial but investigative - ‘timetable’.

(1) The phase of the Beschleuniger, the ‘Accelerator’, which covers the forty years between two symbolically important years in Western history, viz. 1905, marking the first military-political victory of a non-Western over a Western great power (the Russo-Japanese War) and the ‘constitutionalization’ of the last Traditional Western autocracy (First Russian Revolution), and 1945, marking the final military-political victory by late-modern trans-nationalism (Grossraum, American and Soviet superpower) over the classic-modern nation-state (Lebensraum, Axis powers).[38] This phase is characterized by an ‘engineering ideology’ that allows for a technical acceleration of power, in the sense of a chronological break-through as well as a spatial break-out. Here, ‘1905’ expresses a double breaking-point in terms of significant power expansions in technique (submarine exploration, aviation, ether communication, spectrum analysis) as well as cognition (Einstein’s annus mirabilis, the Weber Thesis, de Saussure’s semiotics, Durkheim’s social fact-finding). The technical suppression of the classic-modern nation-state during this phase starts with an acceleration of sea power (1905 marks the launch of the Dreadnought and the start of the Naval Arms Race) and ends with a break-out into literally supra-terrestrial power: the launch of V-2 Wunderwaffe number MW18014 on 20 June 1944 marks the start of the Space Age and the ‘Trinity Test’ of 16 July 1945 marks the start of the Nuclear Age. It is ironic that the pursuit of revolutionary and transformative forms of power was most explicitly incorporated in the ideologies of the geopolitical losers of 20^th Century, viz. in Italian Futurism and in German Technical Idealism.[39] In this regard, Steuckers points to the fact that Schmitt’s legal-philosophical analysis of the economically and technologically motivated Beschleuniger can only be properly understood as an expression of the new ‘titanic’ ontology that is incarnated in German Technical Idealism, i.e. the same ‘spectral’ spirituality that inspires technocrats of the Third Reich such as Albert Speer and Wernher von Braun. The German Technical-Idealist aim of transformative Beschleunigung also characterized the parallel philosophical explorations of Martin Heidegger.[40] Here it should be noted that the search for a way out of the dead-end of Western Postmodernity would benefit from a systematic revaluation of the ideal content of German Technical Idealism - such a revaluation would be much more interesting than the endless ruminations over its ideological weight. A revaluation of German Technical Idealism can proceed from its emphasis on a productive (qualitatively measured) rather than a commercial (quantitatively measured) economy and on an explorative rather than a utilitarian science.

(2) The phase of the Aufhalter, the ‘Inhibitor’, which covers the forty years between the Götterdämmerung of German Technical Idealism and the Promethium Sky over Hiroshima[41] from 1945 till 1985. 1985 is not only the year of Carl Schmitt’s death; it is also symbolically significant as the year after George Orwell’s 1984 and as ‘point of no return’ in anthropogenic global warming - it marks the point at which the Postmodern ‘fall into the future’[42] becomes inevitable and at which all ‘inhibitions’ fail. This phase is characterized by a protracted ‘delaying action’ of the (political, social, cultural) traditional institutions of Western civilization against the rising tide of (doubly technical-industrial and psycho-social mobilized) proto-globalism that starts to flood the Western heartland in 1945. During this phase, these traditional institutions (Monarchy, Church, Nobility, Academy) are gradually pushed back in their role as Katechon. As Aufhalter the Katechon represents the ‘shield of civilization’ that surrounds any Traditional society.[43] Le katechon est le dernier pilier d’une société en perdition; il arrête le chaos, en maintient les vecteurs la tête sous l’eau. ‘The katechon is the last pillar of a society in dissolution: it holds back the [forces of] chaos by holding [its] vectors below the surface.’ (p.10) During this phase, the roots of authentic philosophy of law are gradually cut away: its Ortungen (as expressed in Schmitt’s adage Das Recht ist erdhaft und auf die Erde bezogen, ‘the law derives from the Earth and refers back to the earthly realm’) are abolished in a global process of de-naturalization, de-territorialization and de-location. During this phase, the Katechon institutions are no longer able to stop the literally all-mobilizing but teleologically negative process of globalization - they mere retain a residual function as a temporary inhibitor.[44] The political reflection of this cultural-historical process is found in the deliberate globalist demolition of the nation-state: states and ethnicities are stripped of their sovereign rights and authentic identities. The geopolitical force field is increasingly dominated by an all-mobilizing, all-liquefying and border-less thalassocracy: the all-monetarizing ‘sea power’ that gradually expands outwards from its Atlantic-Anglo-Saxon heartland through tides of money and commerce.[45] Globalist fata morgana’s such as ‘universal human rights’, ‘international law’, ‘free market mechanisms’ and ‘open borders’ are raised to the status of ‘norm’ in the political arena. L’horreur moderne, dans cette perspective généalogique du droit, c’est l’abolition de tous les loci, les lieux, les enracinements, les im-brications. Ces dé-localisations, ces Ent-Ortungen, sont dues aux accélérations favorisées par les régimes du XX^e siècle, quelle que soit par ailleurs l’idéologie dont ils se réclamaient. ‘The modern horror that finds expression in this genealogy of law is the eradication of all loci - all placements, all roots [and] all enclosures. These ‘displacements’, these Ent-Ortungen, result from the accelerations that are favoured by all 20^th Century regimes, irrespective of the [formal] ideological [discourses] that they claim to represent.’ (p.10)

(3) The phase of the Normalisateur, the ‘Normalizer’, approximately coincides with the Postmodern Era. During this phase, the structural inversion of the traditional institutions and values of Western civilization is basically completed. The political-institution and legal-philosophical role of the Katechon, which was previously determined by the positive (anagogic) trajectory of Western civilization is now reversed and replaced by that of the ‘Normalizer’, i.e. by the political-institutional and legal-philosophical ‘anti-christ’ in pursuit of the negative (katagogic) norm of globalist Postmodernity. This is the phase of fully-fledged Liberal Normativism. Steuckers points to the ‘Weimar Standard’ as the ‘factory setting’ of Liberal Normativism: this standard provides, as it were, the ‘sacred’ reference point and the ideal form of secular-bourgeois Liberalism. The thalassocratic ‘New World Order’, enforced by the ‘letter institutions’ (UN, IMF, WEF, EU, NATO), implements this ‘Weimar Standard’ on a global scale, hijacking the technical (digital, virtual) innovations that are now directly linking ‘borderless’ products and services to ‘borderless’ demands and emotions (world wide web, social media, virtual reality). Instability becomes the standard modality in all spheres of life. In the political sphere, ‘open borders’ prevail. In the social sphere, ‘open relations’ prevail. In the psychological sphere, ‘open access’ prevails: relations are reduced to ‘role-playing’, interactions are reduced to narcissist ‘ego communication’ and intimacies are reduced to the ‘pornosphere’. In the cultural sphere, ‘open sources’ prevail: knowledge is reduced to ‘resource management’ and publicity is reduced to ‘(b)log activity’ - Schmitt uses the term Logbücher. The spiritual ‘melt-down’ of Western civilization during this nearly literal new ‘Age of Aquarius’ is a fact. Against this background the role of the ‘Normalizer’ becomes clear. La fluidité de la société actuelle... est devenue une normalité, qui entend conserver ce jeu de dé-normalisation et de re-normalisation en dehors du principe politique et de toute dynamique de territorialisation. Le normalisateur, troisième figure du décideur chez Schmitt, est celui qui doit empêcher que la crise conduirait à un retour du politique, à une re-territorialisation de trop longue durée ou définitive. La normalisateur est donc celui qui prévoit et prévient la crise. ‘The fluidity of society... has [now] become ‘norm’: the [dialectic] process of de-normalization and re-normalization is permanently put beyond the grasp of political power and territoriality. The normalizer, the third avatar of the ‘decision-maker’ in Schmitt[’s work], is appointed to manage all crises in such a way as to prevent any definitive or prolonged return to the [exercise of] political power or re-territorialization. Thus, the normalizer is the one that foresees and prevents such crises.’ (p.14) Effectively, the ‘Normalizer’ is charged with the permanent maintenance of the Liberal-Normativist anti-order: he must prevent the widespread recognition of the Ernstfall and the resulting declaration of a state of emergency. In religious terms, this would be the classical function of the ‘anti-christ’. This ‘Normalizer’ is now incarnated in the hostile elite of the Postmodern West. The functionality of the hostile elite as ‘Normalizer’ explains the extreme forms of its antinomian project: institutional oikophobia, rabid demophobia, politically correct totalitarianism, Orwellian censorship, matriarchal ‘anti-law’, idiocratic anti-education, social deconstruction and ethnic replacement.

9. The Decisionist Alternative

In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man,

and brave, and hated and scorned.

When his cause succeeds, the timid join him,

for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

- Mark Twain

An answer to the question of whether or not the fast-growing patriotic-identitarian movement in the heavily battered nation-states of the West is able to politically destroy the globalist New World Order in its old heartland will depend on its meta-political - philosophical, ideological - ability to break out of the ‘frame’ of Postmodernity, which was here identified as the ‘steel cage’ of Liberal-Normativism. Within the limited framework of this essay, extensive consideration of this problem is impossible - all that can be done here is to indicate the approximate direction in which this ability must be sought.

Martin Heidegger already pointed to the profound psycho-social conditioning that follows from the ontological quality of Western Modernity. Liberal Normativism can be defined as the psycho-social reflection of this ontological quality, which Heidegger exposes as embodied in the Modern-Western Gestell, or ‘technical frame’. Jason Jorjani has pointed to the necessity of an explicit re-orientation on the Techne as an autonomous and self-creative force field that determines this Gestell: only a brand-new technical-idealist ‘re-thinking’ of this Techne will provide control over the Gestell. Jorjani has started this process of re-thinking: his Archaeo-Futurist approach encapsulates this Techne and is thus able to break through the epistemological ceiling of historical-materialism. Jorjani’s break-out from historical-materialist discursive dialectics has delivered a fatal blow to the Liberal-Normativist ideology that is based upon these dialectics - but only if and when that break-out is followed up by a ruthless exploitation of its final (political, economic, social, cultural) consequences. In terms of this exploitation, Carl Schmitt’s philosophy of law is highly relevant, because it offers a possibility of an Archaeo-Futurist deconstruction of Liberal Normativism in its political and legal guises. It provides a ‘crowbar’ with which to wrench open the political-legal ‘steel cage’ of the Liberal-Normativist anti-state and anti-law. This crowbar is found in Decisionism, as sanctioned by Carl Schmitt’s philosophy of law. Carl Schmitt breaks down the (abstract, deconstructive) discursive dialectics of Liberal Normativism by the (concrete, constructive) Realdialektik of Decisionism. Decisionism recovers the habitus of Ordnungsdenken and it restores the authentic (flexible, pragmatic) counter-norm of the Obrigkeitsstaat. Decisionism offers the patriotic-identitarian movement an Archaeo-Futuristically valid deconstruction of Liberal Normativism.

Steuckers’ reconstruction of Schmitt’s philosophy of law provides the building blocks of a new, Archaeo-Futuristically framed Decisionism as a remedy for Liberal Normativism. An Archaeo-Futuristically determined Decisionism will have to take its cue from the institutional and legal-philosophical Western Tradition: Tout avenir doit être tributaire du passé, être dans sa continuité, participer d’une perpétuation, faute de quoi il ne serait qu’une sinistre farce, un projet éradicateur et, par là même, criminel. ‘Every [vision of the] future must recognize itself as heir of the past and as [carrier of historical] continuity: otherwise, it will be nothing more than a sinister farce, a project of destruction and, therefore, a criminal [enterprise].’ (p.60-1) At the same time, it is important to build in an important caveat: Steuckers points to the need for a pragmatic application of Decisionism, befitting the contemporary reality: ...il y a... deux dangers à éviter, celui de caricaturer la tradition, [comme] éloigné[e] de tout véritable souci du...’ politique politique’, et celui de l’abandonner au profit de maigres schémas normativistes. ‘... two dangers must be avoided: [first,] a caricature of tradition, divorced from an effective concern for... a [always pragmatic] ‘political politics’, and, [second,] an abandonment of tradition in favour of substance-less normativist schemes.’ (p.63) Accordingly, there can be no neo-reactionary return to anachronistic forms of Decisionism: ...les régimes pré-libéraux... étaient plus stables sur le long terme, [m]ais... on ne pourra pas les restaurer sans d’effroyables bains de sang, sans une sorte d’apocalypse. [On] doit dès lors éviter l’enfer sur terre et œuvrer au maintien des stabilités politiques réellement existantes. ‘...the pre-liberal forms of government [that ruled the pre-modern world]... were more stable in the long term, [b]ut... they cannot be restored without a horrific bloodbath [and] a kind of apocalypse. [It] is imperative to avoid hell on earth and to work within the framework of such political stability as can still be found.’ (p.31) Thus, modern Decisionism should avoid anachronistic purism: it should seek organic development.

Key elements of such an organic development can be found in Steuckers’ reconstruction of the historical trajectory of Western Decisionism. Partially secularized, but still transcendentally-inspired aspects of a Decisionism that serves the ‘greater good’ can be found in a series of chronologically sequential but organically related notions that are scattered throughout the history of the Western philosophy of law. These include: the Corpus Mysticum of Francisco Suárez (1548-1617), the volonté générale of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78), the élan vital of Henri Bergson[46] (1859-1941), the omul nou of Corneliu Codreanu (1899-1938) and the Reichstheologie of Erich Przywara (1889-1972). These notion transcend all 19^th and 20^th Century ‘isms’: the transcend fascism (which tends to wrongly view the state as an aim instead of a means), nationalism (which tends to wrongly ascribe an active instead of a passive role to the nation) and parliamentarism (which tends to wrongly prioritize procedures over problem-solving). Thus, there exists an uninterrupted (semi-)Traditionalist continuity that develops alongside - and in constant opposition to - the gradual modernist devolution that has now resulted in the Liberal Normativist New World Order, realized through the (trans-national and informal) potestas indirecta of the hostile elite. This alternative Decisionist continuity offers a guideline for an Archaeo-Futurist deconstruction of Liberal Normativism: it offers an exit from the total Staatsdämmerung of neo-Liberalism and the permanent Ersatz-Revolution of cultural-marxism.

In the peripheral areas of the West, the first signs of a proto-Archaeo-Futurist reaction to Liberal Normativism are already becoming visible: these are the ‘Enlightened Decisionisms’ of Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán and Recep Erdogan, very accurate defined as ‘illiberal’ by the Liberal-Normativist propaganda machine. The Western hostile elite is now scrambling to prevent the spread of this Decisionist reactive movement into the Western heartland, a spread that can already be discerned in phenomena such as ‘Brexit’, ‘Trump’ and ‘M5S’. The hostile elite is opting for a Flucht nach vorn, a ‘flight forward’, by an accelerating of its core strategies: the introduction of totalitarian matriarchy (anti-white ‘multiculturalism’, anti-male ‘transgenderism’, anti-intellectual ‘political correctness’), the fostering of social implosion (‘no-fault divorce’, ‘birth control’, ‘sexual revolution’) and the enforcement of ethnic replacement (‘refugee quotas’, ‘migration pacts’, ‘high-skill migration’).

The success of the Western patriotic-identitarian movement in its struggle with the hostile elite depends not only on an intellectual re-armament through the re-instatement of a Decisionist (meta-)political discourse, but also on the inner re-enactment of a deeper Wehr- und Waffen-Instinkt, or ‘defence and armament instinct’.[47] In this regard, Steuckers emphasizes the importance of traditional Western ethics of the crusader, i.e. the double monastic and knightly archetype of the ‘military Katechon’. There is a direct psycho-historical relation between the Crisis of the Modern West and the abolition of the Western monastic and knightly traditions. Steuckers points to the crucial role of crusader ideal in Western history, which tends to recur in highly stylized forms in heroic figures such as Johann Tserclaes Count von Tilly, commander of the Catholic League from 1610 till 1632, Prince Eugene of Savoy, victorious over the French hereditary enemy at Blenheim (1704) and Oudenaerde (1708) and over the Turkish archenemy at Zenta (1697) and Belgrade (1717). The capacity of the Western patriotic-identitarian movement to mount a credible Decisionist challenge against the Liberal-Normativist hostile elite will also depend on a re-enactment of the Western Wehr- und Waffen-Instinkt. This means the capacity to wage war in all spheres: physical, psychological, intellectual and spiritual. The ‘training’ required to reach a sufficient level of ‘fitness’ will have to start with a therapeutic confrontation with the psycho-historical traumas of the West. Session One: a positive inner re-enactment of the existential attitude that is expressed in - obviously German and Prussian - ‘taboo words’ such as Beharrung, ‘persistence’, Kleinkrieg, ‘guerrilla’, Zermürbung, ‘attrition’, totaler Widerstand, ‘total resistance’, totaler Krieg, ‘total war’. Session Two: a transformative projection of this re-enactment into brand-new ‘catch phrases’ that call for peaceful but effective civic resistance: ‘Take the Hit’ (Jared Taylor) and ‘Great White Strike’ (Frodi Midjord). Session Three: the development of an unwavering commitment through a permanent confrontation with the enemy: inward in what the Islamic Tradition terms al-jihad al-akbar, or ‘Greater Holy War’, and outward in what the Augustinian Tradition terms the bellum justum, or ‘Just War’. The discipline and courage that will result from these exercises will bring the hostile elite to its knees soon enough: the hostile elite maybe malicious - it is also cowardly.

Noch sitzt ihr da oben, ihr feigen Gestalten.

Vom Feinde bezahlt, dem Volke zum Spott.

Doch einst wird wieder Gerechtigkeit walten, dann richtet das Volk.

Dann genade Euch Gott!

[Still you are on top, you cowardly figures,

paid by our enemy, ridiculed by our people.

But one day righteousness will prevail - on you will be judged by our people.

On that day, may God be with you!]

- Theodor Körner

 

10. The Eurasianist Dimension

à tous les coeurs bien-nés que la patrie est chère

[to all well-born hearts the fatherland is dear]

The struggle against the globalist hostile elite, which is thinking and operating on a planetary scale, demands more than a patriotic-identitarian intervention at the national level within each Western nation-state: it also demands a certain degree of geopolitical coordination at an international level. In this regard, Steuckers’ brilliant ‘update’ of Schmitt’s Land und Meer analysis[48] is highly relevant. Steuckers points to the fact that the approaching apogee globalism - effectively the apogee of Atlanticist-Anglo-Saxon thalassocracy analyzed by Schmitt - is characterized by ‘pyro-politics’, i.e. a compulsive resort to globalist ‘arson’ in all parts of the world that are not directly accessible to sea power-based globalism. Les forces hydropolitique cherchent à détruire par tous les moyens possibles cette terre qui ne cesse de résister. Pour parvenir à cette fin, l’hydropolitique cherchera à provoquer des explosions sur les lambeaux de continent toujours résistants ou même simplement survivants. L’hydropolitique thalassocratique va alors chercher à mobiliser à son profit l’élément Feu comme allié, un Feu qu’elle ne va pas manier directement mais confier à des forces mercenaires, recrutées secrètement dans des pays ou des zones urbaines en déréliction, disposant d’une jeunesse masculine surabondante et sans emplois utiles. Ces forces mercenaires seront en charge des sales boulots de destruction pure, de destruction de tout ce qui ne s’était pas encore laissé submerger. ‘The hydro-political powers are pursuing the destruction of all land[power] that persists in resisting [globalist thalassocracy] with all means at their disposal. To achieve that aim, hydro-politics is seeking to provoke explosions in all remnants of continent[al power] that continue to exist, or simply continue to survive. To this end, thalassocratic hydro-politics is attempting to mobilize the Fire element as an ally - an [element] that it cannot apply directly, but which it entrusts to those mercenary forces that it secretly recruits from the unemployed surplus male youth [found] in [backward] countries and derelict suburbs. These mercenary forces are committed to the ‘dirty work’ of wanton destruction - [to] the destruction of everything that has not yet allowed itself to be submerged [by globalism].’ (p.241)

Thus, Steuckers explains a number of contemporary geopolitical patterns, such as the waves of ‘humanitarian interventions’ (Somalia 1992, Kosovo 1999, Libya 2011), ‘proxy wars’ (Chechenia from 1994, Sinkiang from 2007, Syria from 2011) and ethnic émeutes, or ‘city riots’ (Los Angeles 1992, Paris 2005, London 2011). Other phenomena that can be explained through the prism of Steuckers’ pyro-politics are the hostile elite’s deliberate creation of ‘colour revolution’, ‘separatism movements’ and ‘failed states’. The writer of this essay proposes to extend this pyro-political analysis to even greater contemporary patterns. Thus, anthropogenic climate change (‘fired up’ through global-scale hyper-consumerism and industrial ‘outsourcing’ to the Third World), global overpopulation (‘fired up’ through ‘development aid’ to the Third World) and intercontinental migration (‘fired up’ through ‘refugee resettlement’ and ‘humanitarian assistance’) can be understood as calculated experiments in globalist pyro-politics. ...[L]a stratégie thalassocratique de mettre le Feu à des régions entières du globe en incitant à des révoltes, en ranimant des haines religieuses ou des conflits tribaux n’est certes pas nouvelle mais vient de prendre récemment des proportions plus gigantesque qu’auparavant dans l’histoire. C’est là le défi majeur lancé à l’Europe en cette deuxième décennie du XXI^e siècle. ‘...[T]he thalassocratic ‘scorched earth’ strategy, which is [now] affecting entire regions of the globe by inciting revolts, stoking up religious hatreds and reanimating tribal conflicts, is certainly not new, but it has recently taken on historically unprecedented proportions. This is the greatest challenge facing Europe in the second decade of the 21^st Century.’ (p.243)

Steuckers points to Schmitt legal-philosophical validation of a geopolitical vision that offers Europe an alternative to globalist pyro-politics: a European Monroe Doctrine. This alternative finds its legal-philosophical validity in the Decisionist priority of earthly Realpolitik over abstract ‘normative politics’: das Recht ist erdhaft und auf die Erde bezogen, ‘the law derives from the Earth and refers back to the earthly realm’. In the geopolitical vision of Schmitt that has been reconstructed by Steuckers, the atrocious atavism of globalist pyro-politics is directly caused by the philosophical regression that runs parallel to America’s rise as a thalassocratic superpower - the American intervention in the First World War marks the fatal turning point. ...[L]e droit n’existe pas sans territoire et... les civilisations se basent sur une organisation spécifique de l’espace (Raumordnung), d’où découle un jus publicum admis par tous. En Europe, de la fin du Moyen Age jusqu’au début de notre siècle, l’histoire a connu un jus publicum europaeum où l’on admettait que chaque Etat, chaque Nation menaient une guerre juste de son point de vue. Ce respect de l’adversaire et des [motives] qui le poussent à agir humanisera la guerre. Avec Wilson, on assiste à un retour à la discrimination entre les ennemis car l’Amérique s’arroge le droit de mener seule une guerre juste. ‘...[T]here can be no law without territory and... all civilizations base themselves on their own particular Raumordnung, or ‘spatial order’, from which they derive a jus publicum, or ‘public law’, that is recognized by all. From the late Middle Ages till the beginning of the [20^th] Century, the history of Europe is determined by a jus publicum europaeum which recognizes the legitimate right of every State and every Nation to wage war, commensurate to its lawful interests. This respect for the enemy and for the motives that cause him to act led to a [relative] ‘humanization’ in [European] warfare. But during [the presidency of Woodrow] Wilson, there is a regression into discrimination between enemies, because [under his leadership] America claims the exclusive right to wage a just war.’ (p.19)

The abstractly normativist philosophy of law that underpins globalist geopolitics and that continues to follow the Wilsonian path can only be deconstructed by a systematic return to concrete legal-philosophical Ortungen, i.e. by literal re-territorializations and the reconstitution of multiple place-bound legal orders. This is the legal-philosophical basis for a viable multipolar geopolitical order - a multipolarity that forms the basis for the Neo-Eurasianist project proposed by Alexander Dugin.[49] Dugin’s work reflects the re-territorialization of the Russian State and Nation after the seventy-year de-territorialization of the trans-national Soviet project. Thus, what Steuckers already predicted in 1985, before Gorbachev’s Glasnost and Perestroika, has come true : Quand les Russes cesseront de se laisser gouverner par de vieux idéocrates, ils seront à nouveau eux-mêmes: le peuple théophore, le peuple porteur du sublime. ‘When the Russian stop allowing themselves to be ruled by old ideocrats, they will again be what they were before: the theophoric people, the people that carry the Sublime’. (p.27) The miraculous resurrection of Russia from the ashes of Soviet Communism can inspire the Western peoples: it sets a precedent for their own resurrection from the ashes of Liberal Normativism.

Thus, the basis of a Eurasianist ‘Monroe Doctrine’ that can protect the peoples and civilizations of Eurasia from globalist thalassocracy must be sought in a concrete legal-philosophical Ortung. Si l’Europe a un droit à l’identité, il convient de définir cette identité à la lumière du concret, en rappelant les lourdes concrétudes de l’histoire et sans ressasser ces pseudo-arguments complètement stériles qu’avancent tous les fétichistes adorateurs d’idéaux désincarnés. Parce que l’Europe n’est pas d’abord une idée, belle et abstraite... L’Europe, c’est d’abord une terre, un espace, morcelé en Etats nationaux depuis le XVII^e siècle, balkanisée avant la lettre en son centre géographique depuis ce pré-Yalta que furent les traités de Westphalie conclus en 1648. ‘If Europe has the right to an identity, then it is necessary to define that identity in the light of concrete [reality], recalling the burdensome concrete facts of [its] history without regressing into the entirely vacuous and sterile pseudo-arguments that have been launched by the adoring fetishists of abstract ideas. Because Europe is not a beautiful and abstract idea... Above all, Europe is a territory, a space that has been divided up into nation-states since the 17^th Century, and that has been ‘balkanized’ avant la lettre since the proto-Yalta of the Westphalia Treaties signed in 1648.’ (p.25) Accordingly, the Eurasianist project aims at re-territorializations: politically in restored state sovereignty, socially in restored ethnic identity and economically in restored autarky (i.e. a maximum of self-sufficiency in the production of food, energy and industry for each of its regional ‘welfare spheres’). L’économie, par la crise, nous défie et nous accuse d’avoir fait fausse route. La géopolitique nous dicte ses vieux déterminismes que personne ne peut contourner. Il n’y a que nos volontés qui vacillent, qui ne suivent pas l’implacable diktat du réel et de l’histoire. ‘[Chronic] economic crises are challenging us and they prove to us that we have chosen the wrong path. Geopolitics forces us to deal with the older [earth-bound] realities that cannot be overturned by anybody. It is only our will that is [still] lacking: [we should recover our] determination to follow the incontrovertible signposts of [earthly] and historical reality.’ (p.27)

To defeat the globalist hostile elite, the patriotic-identitarian movement of the West must gain insight into the enemy’s mind and motives. In this respect, it has much to gain by simply revisiting the great thinkers of the Western Tradition. It therefore owes a great debt of gratitude to Robert Steuckers for providing updated access to the rich heritage of Carl Schmitt - and for providing the weaponry it needs to destroy the hostile elite.

Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire,

and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work;

and I have created the waster to destroy.

No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper;

and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn.

This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord,

and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.

- Isaiah 54:16-17

 

Glossary

 

Decisionism	doctrine of directly-concrete and physically-embodied command authority, opposite of indirectly-abstract and psychologically-manipulative Normativism (Rex vs. Lex);
Kakocracy	‘government by the worst’, rule of the hostile ‘fake-elite of counterfeits’[50];
Normativism	totalitarian doctrine based on the absolute ‘anti-political’ norm established by the combined praxis of neo-liberal nihilism and culture-marxist deconstruction;
Partitocracy	political ‘hostage-taking’ of parliamentary institutions by party-political interests and party-cartels; mechanism behind Politicide;
Politicide	destruction of political plurality through a monolithic politically-correct party-cartel, introduction of dogmatic political-correctness as ‘public consensus’ (‘1984’);
Pyro-politics	geopolitical ‘scorched earth’ strategy of the globalist hostile elite to ‘burn away’ all multipolar resistance to its New World Order;
Quiritary	inflexibly legalistic interpretation of political command authority, historically reflected in some of the totalitarian practices of fascism and nazism.

 

Notes

[1] An oblique reference to the title of one of the most famous works of Dutch Golden Age painter Rembrandt, entitled ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp’ (1632).

[2] Cf. https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/dutch-ernstfall .

[3] Alaine de Benoist’s Carl Schmitt actuel (2007), which provides a concise and updated introduction to Schmitt’s work, has recently been published in English translation by Arktos Publishing – for a review cf. https://www.counter-currents.com/carl-schmitt-today/.

[4] On the day of Hitler’s death Schmitt was arrested in Berlin by Red Army troops, but he was released almost immediately after a short interview. Later, he was re-arrested and interned by the Americans as a potential suspect in the Nuremberg Trials. Plettenberg, the place of Schmitt’s birth, residence and death, is located in Westphalia and it was therefore located in the American Zone of Occupation.

[5] The following excerpt from his diary elucidates Schmitt’s deeply critical attitude to the subrational-collectivist (‘popular democratic’) roots of the Nazi regime: Wer ist der wahre Verbrecher, der wahre Urheber des Hitlerismus? Wer hat diese Figur erfunden? Wer hat die Greuelepisode in die Welt gesetzt? Wem verdanken wir die 12 Mio. [sic] toten Juden? Ich kann es euch sehr genau sagen: Hitler hat sich nicht selbst erfunden. Wir verdanken ihn dem echt demokratischen Gehirn, das die mythische Figur des unbekannten Soldaten des Ersten Weltkriegs ausgeheckt hat. [Who is the true criminal and the true perpetrator of Hitlerism? Who invented this figure? Who has birthed this monstrous episode of horror? To whom we owe these 12 million [sic] dead Jews? I can tell you very exactly: Hitler did not invent himself. We owe hi[s appearance] to the truly democratic brain that concocted the mythical ‘unknown soldier’ of the First World War.]

[6] A reference to the title of a work by German legal philosopher Walter Leisner.

[7] For convenience sake, the ‘West’ will here be defined as the agglomerate of European nation-states that are historically associated with the Western Roman/Catholic Tradition rather than the Eastern Roman/Orthodox Tradition – in short: Western Europe plus the overseas Anglosphere.

[8] In Classical Antiquity (Greek) Hephaestus (Latin: Vulcan) was the smith of the gods and the guardian divinity of smithery: German Schmitt is English ‘Smith’.

[9] Cf. https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/le-rouge-et-le-noir... .

[10] The ‘laconic’ bon mot of Spartan king Leonidas at the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC), where he faced hopeless odds and was summoned by his Persian enemy to put down his weapons - the meaning is a stronger version of ‘Come and take them’.

[11] An oblique reference to the title (and contents) of the main work of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung.

[12] Cf. Alexander Wolfheze, The Sunset of Tradition and the Origin of the Great War (2018) 53ff and 367ff (preface freely accessible under the button ‘View Extract’ at https://www.cambridgescholars.com/the-sunset-of-tradition... - review freely available at https://www.counter-currents.com/tag/alexander-wolfheze/ ).

[13] An important cultural-historical reflection of this regression may be found in Thomas Hobbes’ mid-17^th Century concept of a universally projected (proto-social-darwinist) bellum omnium contra omnes.

[14] For a literary analysis of the 20^th Century cultural-historical consequences of Normativism cf. Tom Zwitzer, Permafrost: een filosofisch essay over de westerse geopolitiek van 1914 tot heden (2017).

[15] Cf. Jost Bauch’s Abschied von Deutschland: Eine politische Grabschrift (2018).

[16] Dutch patriotic-identitarian working group IDNL has already addressed these issues in the Dutch context: cf., respectively, http://www.identitair.nl/2018/08/laat-de-islam-met-rust.h... en http://www.identitair.nl/2018/12/van-jq-naar-iq.html .

[17] Cf. https://www.counter-currents.com/2018/11/freedom-of-speech/ .

[18] For a cultural- and psycho-historical analysis of the hostile elite cf. https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/living-dead .

[19] For an overview of the most important cultural-historical phenomena that coincide in this ‘superstructure’, cf. Alexander Wolfheze, The Sunset of Tradition and the Origin of the Great War (2018) 9-12.

[20] A bio- and psycho-social analysis of the cultural-historical effects of Liberal Normativism may be found in the work of German sociologist Arnold Gehlen (1904-76). His structural opposition between (anagogically directed) Zucht and (katagogically directed) Entartung allows for the objectively scientific calculus of the Liberal-Normativist process of de-socialization (social ‘deconstruction’).

[21] The VVD (‘People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy’) is the ex-‘classic liberal’ and now utterly corrupt banksterite-globalist party of PM Mark Rutte; the D66 (‘Democrats [19]66’) is the ex-‘progressive liberal’ and now militantly anti-normative (anti-royalist, anti-national, anti-family, anti-religious) party that was until recently led by Alexander Pechtold, who had to resign after a series of scandals in the public and private sphere. 

[22] A theological reference to an early Christian doctrinal controversy that was originally resolved by the recognition of the doctrine of original sin (Augustine 354-430) and the rejection of its denial by Pelagius (360-418).

[23] For a cultural-historical development of neo-matriarchy, cf. https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/living-dead - for a descriptive insight into the experiential reality of neo-matriarchy, cf. https://www.counter-currents.com/2018/12/against-escapism/ .

[24] Cf. Jost Bauch’s Abschied von Deutschland: Eine politische Grabschrift (2018).

[25] The spectre of the ultimate totalitarian state, i.e. a life-world in which the entire social and individual sphere is controlled by the state, already provided the central theme of 20^th Century dystopian literary classics such as Jevgeny Zamjatin’s My (1924), Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).

[26] A sociological concept covering social-psychological conditioning (hexis, mimesis) developed by Pierre Bourdieu.

[27] A reference to the hill near the Acropolis where the Athenian senate met during Classical Antiquity.

[28] A proto-type strategy of ethnic replacement is found in the political writings of one of the ideological founders of the trans-national project ‘European Union’, Richard Count von Coudenhove-Kalergi (1894-1972). The possible existence of an anti-European ethnocidal ‘Kalergi Plan’ to implement his vision is the subject of a controversial conspiracy theory, but that vision itself is as clear as it needs to be: The man of the future will be of mixed race. Today's races and classes will gradually disappear owing to the vanishing of space, time, and prejudice. The Eurasian-Negroid race of the future, similar in its appearance to the Ancient Egyptians, will replace the diversity of peoples with a diversity of individuals. (Praktischer Idealismus p.22-3, cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_von_Coudenhove-Kale... ).

[29] From Alexander Wolfheze, Alba Rosa. Ten Traditionalist Essays about the Crisis in the Modern West (forthcoming, advance ordering: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43409181-alba-rosa ).

[30] In the Netherlands, ‘lover boy’ is a politically-correct euphemism that describes the same ‘grooming gang’ phenomenon that is terrorizing Great Britain.

[31] A reference to the title of a work by Jared Taylor, freely available at https://www.amren.com/the-color-of-crime/ .

[32] A reference to Carl Schmitt’s legal philosophical analysis of the partisan as ‘authority in the making’ in the context of the popular insurrections led by Mao Tse-Tung in China, Vo Nguyen Giap in Vietnam and Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara in Congo.

[33] On 8 May 1943, Marek Edelman succeeded to the highest command position after the suicide of Mordechai Anielewicz in the bunker of 18 Mila Street. The author had the privilege of speaking to several eye-witnesses of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising – he lived near Edelman in the Polish city of Lodz (Edelman was anti-zionist, fought for Poland during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 and thereafter lived in Lodz till his death in 2009).

[34] Cf. René Guénon, Le Règne de la Quantité et les Signes des Temps (1945).

[35] References to, respectively, the German civil rights movement that denies the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Germany and the French civil rights movement that demanded the resignation of President Macron.

[36] A reference to the Spanish political philosopher Marquis Donoso Cortés (1809-53).

[37] An ‘Archaeo-Futurist’ revaluation of this theme may be found in John Leonard’s recent analysis of the ‘CQ’ (‘Catholic Question’) within the context of Western Postmodernity, cf. https://arktos.com/2018/12/20/the-problem-of-christianity... .

[38] Chronological terminology according to the scheme of Alexander Wolfheze, The Sunset of Tradition and the Origin of the Great War (2018), 390-2 (Early Modernity 1488-1776, Classic Modernity 1776-1920, Late Modernity 1920-1992, Post-Modernity 1992-present).

[39] Cf. Alexander Wolfheze, The Sunset of Tradition and the Origin of the Great War (2018) 237ff.

[40] A first systematic attempt at resuming the Heideggerian line of exploration, directed at a break-through of the historical-materialist Gestell of Western Modernity and a break-out into the ‘spectral space’ that encapsulates it, is found in the work of Jason Jorjani.

[41] A reference to Jason Jorjani’s ‘magical’ interpretation of the ontological (Atlanticist) transformation of Japan, enacted in the collective experience of nuclear warfare.

[42] A reference to the cultural-historical analysis of Peter Sloterdijk’s Die schrecklichen Kinder der Neuzeit. Über das anti-genealogische Experiment der Moderne (2014).

[43] The theme of the Katechon in its Dutch setting is explored in https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/dutch-ernstfall .

[44] Carl Schmitt projected this role on Adolf Hitler as ‘Protector of the Law’ (der Führer schützt das Recht) against the revolutionary power of atavist chaos that was (temporarily) disabled during the Nacht der langen Messern, the ‘Night of the Long Knives’.

[45] For a short introduction to the theme of ‘thalassocracy’ cf. https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/le-rouge-et-le-noir... .

[46] A notion that implies morpho-genetic synergy that he develops in his best-known work, L’Evolution créatrice – for its Archaeo-Futurist reinterpretation cf. Jason Jorjani’s Prometheus and Atlas (review freely available at https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/archaeo-futurist-re...  ).

[47] A reference to Friedrich Nietzsche’s usage of Martin Luther’s theme ‘A mighty fortress is our God, a good defence and weapon’.

[48] A reference to Carl Schmitt’s Land und Meer. Eine weltgeschichtliche Betrachtung (1942).

[49] For a brief introduction to Eurasianism cf. https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/le-rouge-et-le-noir... .

[50] A reference to the title of a Dutch political treatise written by Martin Bosma, second in command of Geert Wilders’ patriotic party PVV (De schijn-élite van de valsemunters (2010), made freely available by Bosma at https://gratis-boek.nl/martin-bosma-de-schijn-elite-van-d... ).

 

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Ex: http://www.geopolitica.ru

The Cultural Circle of Thule

Bachofen’s idea of a primordial matriarchy and his theory of “cultural circles” were developed by another historian and archaeologist, a specialist in paleo-epigraphy, Herman Wirth (1885-1981).

Wirth’s theories are based on the hypothesis borrowed from the Indian author Bala Gandhara Tilak (1856-1920) [1], that the original Proto-Indo-European civilization was formed in the late Paleolithic (the Aurignacian culture) in the lands of the northern polar circle. This hypothesis was based on the interpretation of the data of Indian astrology, Vedic texts, and the myths of the Hindus, Iranians, and Greeks which speak of the existence in remote antiquity of a populated country lying in the Far North (Hyperborea). This continent was described in the Vedas as the “land of the white boar”, Varahi, and the “island of light”, or Sweta Dvipa. The Zoroastrian tradition speaks of the ancient abode of the first man, the city of Vara, located in the Far North, from which he was forced to descend southwards as the dark deity Angra Mainyu, the enemy of the god of light, Ahura-Mazda, unleashed a “great cold” across these lands. Tilak argues for the existence of this “Nordic” proto-civilization on the basis of Indian astrology, the symbolism of which, according to Tilak, becomes clear only if we accept that the constellations were originally observed in the circumpolar regions, where the day of the gods is equal to the year of men.

Wirth adopted this hypothesis and constructed his own theory upon it, the “Hyperborean theory” [2] or theory of the “cultural circle of Thule” [3], which represents the Greek name for the mythical city lying in the country of the Hyperboreans. According to this theory, before the latest wave of global cooling, the circumpolar zone in the North Atlantic Ocean was home to inhabitable lands whose inhabitants were the creators of a primordial cultural code. This culture was formed under conditions when the natural environment of the Arctic was not yet so harsh, and when its climate was similar to the modern temperate Central European climate. There were present all the annual and atmospheric phenomena which can be observed in the Arctic today: the Arctic day and Arctic night. The yearly solar and lunar cycles of the Arctic are structured differently than their counterparts in middle-range latitudes. Thus, the symbolic fixations of the calendar, the trajectory of the sun, the moon, and the constellations of the zodiac necessarily had a different form and different patterns.

On the basis of an enormous swathe of archaeological, paleo-epigraphical (cave paintings, Paleolithic symbols, ancient carvings, etc.), mythological, and philological material, Herman Wirth undertook an attempt to reconstruct the primordial system of this Arctic proto-civilization’s cultural code. At its heart he put the reconstructed proto-calendar, the last traces of which Wirth believed are constituted by the Scandinavian runes, which he attributed to remote antiquity. Wirth proposed to examine this calendar, which records the key moments of the Arctic year, as the key to all later versions of mythological, religious, ritualistic, artistic, and philosophical heritages which continued and developed this primordial algorithm over the course of the wave-like migrations of the bearers of “Thulean culture” into the southern regions. When applied to other climatic conditions, however, many of the symbolic patterns of this calendar, otherwise crystal clear in the Arctic, lost their meaning and rationale. They were partially transferred to new realities, partially frozen as relics, and partially lost their meanings or acquired new ones.

First and foremost, this change entailed a fundamentally new understanding of the basic unit of time: instead of the Hyperborean day, equal to a year, the daily circle, which is much more clearly defined in the regions south of the polar circle, became the measure of events of human life. What is more, the localizing points of the spring and autumn equinoxes changed in relation to southward movement. All of this gradually confused the crystal clarity and simplicity of the primordial matrix.

Wirth believed that his reconstruction of the sacred complex of the culture of Thule lay at the heart of all historical types of writing and language, as well as musical tones, the symbolism of colors, ritual gestures, burials, religious complexes, etc.

Studying this culture formed the basis of Wirth’s attempts at reconstructing what he called the “proto-writing” or “proto-script” of humanity. Wirth published the results of his studies in two monumental works, Der Aufgang der Menschheit (The Emergence of Mankind) [4] and Die Heilige Urschrift der Menschheit (The Sacred Proto-Script of Mankind) [5], both equipped with an enormous lot of synoptic tables, comparative illustrations of archaeological excavations, writing systems, etc.

Nordic matriarchy

Wirth embraced Bachofen’s notion of primordial matriarchy and attributed to the “Thule culture” a matriarchal form of civilization. He suggested that the belief that the female gender is inclined towards materiality, corporeality, chthonicity, and empirical specifics is purely a product of patriarchal censorship, and that matriarchy could be no less, indeed even more of a spiritual phenomenon than patriarchy. Wirth believed that societies dominated by women and female priesthoods, religions, and cults represented the more advanced types of Hyperborean culture, which he termed the “culture of White Ladies” (weisse Frauen).

Wirth thus presented an altogether peculiar view on the relationship between matriarchy and patriarchy in the archaic culture of the Mediterranean region. In his point of view, the most ancient forms of culture in the Mediterranean were those established by bearers of the Hyperborean matriarchy, who in several stages descended from the circumpolar regions, from the North Atlantic, by sea (and that ships with shamrocks on the stern were characteristic of them). These were the people mentioned in ancient Near Eastern artifacts as the “sea-peoples”, or am-uru, hence the ethnic name of the Amorites. The name Mo-uru, according to Wirth, once belonged to the very main center of the Hyperboreans, but was transmitted along with the natives of the North in their migration waves to new sacred centers. It is to these waves that we owe the Sumerian, Akkadian, Egyptian (whose pre-dynastic writing was linear), Hittite-Hurrian, Minoan, Mycenaean, and Pelasgian cultures. All of these Hyperborean strata were structured around the figure of the White Priestess.

Patriarchy, according to Wirth, was brought by immigrants from Asia, from the steppe zones of Turan, who distorted the primordial Hyperborean tradition and imposed upon the Mediterranean cultures quite different – rude, violent, aggressive, and utilitarian -values which contrasted (for worse) the pure spiritual forms of the Nordic matriarchy.

Thus, in Wirth we have the following reconstruction: the Hyperborean cultural circle’s primordial, spiritual and highly-developed type of matriarchal culture spread from a circumpolar center, mainly be sea, penetrating the Mediterranean, scraping Africa, and even reaching the southern coast of Asia all the way down to Polynesia, where the Maori culture still retains traces of the ancient Arctic tradition. Another offshoot of the center of Mo-uru in the North Atlantic migrated to North America, where it laid the foundations of the cultural code of many tribes. One of Wirth’s undertakings was to demonstrate a homology between these two branches that dispersed out of the culture of Thule – the European, Mediterranean, and further African and Pacific on the one hand, and the North-American on the other.[6]

Meanwhile, in continental Asia there formed a cultural pole which represented the embryo of proto-patriarchy. Wirth associated this culture with crude naturalism, phallic cults, and a martial, aggressive, and utilitarian type of culture, which Wirth believed to be lower and Asian. We have devoted a whole separate volume to a more detailed outline of Herman Wirth’s views.[7]

The significance of Wirth’s ideas to geosophy

Many aspects of Herman Wirth’s unjustly forgotten works deserve attention in the study of plural anthropology. First of all, his extremely fertile hypothesis of the cultural circle of Thule, which is usually discarded from the outset without any careful analysis of his argumentation, is so rich that it deserves serious attention in itself. If such an hypothesis allows for the resolution of such numerous historical and archaeological problems associated with the history of symbols, signs, myths, rituals, hieroglyphs, the calendar, writing, and the most ancient views of the structure of space and time, then this alone is enough to warrant thorough inquiry. Even though Wirth’s works contain many claims which seem either unequivocally wrong or highly controversial, we can set them aside and try to understand the essence of his theory which, in our opinion, is an extraordinarily constructive version that expands our understanding of the archaic epochs of the ancient history of mankind. The theory of the cultural circle of Thule need not be unconditionally accepted, but an assessment of its interpretive potential is necessary.

Secondly, Wirth’s positive appraisal of matriarchy is extremely interesting and adds weight to sympathy for Bachofen. Indeed, we are dealing with an interpretation of a conditionally reconstructed matriarchal civilization from the position of what is the, in the very least nominal, patriarchy to which our society has become accustomed. Wirth proposes an alternative interpretation of the female Logos, an attempt to view the Logos of the Great Mother through different eyes. This is also an extremely unconventional and fertile proposal.

Thirdly, in Wirth’s theories we can see clear analogues to the reconstructions of both Spengler and Frobenius. If Frobenius and especially Spengler took the side of Indo-European (Turanian, Eurasian) culture, i.e., the side of patriarchy as they interpreted it, then Wirth proposes to look at things from the standpoint of the civilization of the White Ladies, i.e., from the position of the primordial Mediterranean culture that preceded the invasion of the “people on war chariots.”

Footnotes:

[1] Tilak, B.G., Arkticheskaiia rodina v Vedakh (Moscow: FAIR-PRESS, 2001). In English: Tilak, B.G., The Arctic Home in the Vedas: Being Also a New Key to the Interpretation of Many Vedic Texts and Legends (Poona City: Tilak Bros, 1903).

[2] Dugin, A.G., Znaki Velikogo Norda: Giperboreiskaiia Teoriia (Moscow: Veche, 2008). English translation of introduction available here.

[3] Wirth, H., Khronika Ura-Linda. Drevneishaiia istoriia Evropy (Moscow: Veche, 2007). In German: Wirth, Herman. Die Ura-Linda Chronik (Leipzig: Koehler & Amelang, 1933).

[4] Wirth, H., Der Aufgang der Menschheit. Forschungen zur Geschichte der Religion, Symbolik und Schrift der atlantisch-nordischen Rasse (Jena: Diederichs, 1928).

[5] Wirth, H., Die Heilige Urschrift der Menschheit. Symbolgeschichtliche Untersuchungen diesseits und jenseits des Nordatlantik (Leipzig: Koehler & Amelang, 1936).

[6] The full title of Wirth’s Die Heilige Urschrift der Menschheit specifies “on both sides of the North Atlantic.” See footnote 5.

[7] See footnote 2.

Translator: Jafe Arnold

Chapter 22 of Part 2, “Theories of Civilizations: Criteria, Concepts, and Correspondences”, of Noomachy: Wars of the Mind – Geosophy – Horizons and Civilizations (Moscow, Akademicheskii Proekt, 2017).

Une magnifique trilogie pour l'Europe !

par Georges FELTIN-TRACOL

Ex: http://www.europemaxima.com

Après avoir publié un excellent livre d’entretiens de Laurent Ozon et les souvenirs de Frédéric Lynn au Donbass, les éditions Bios ont fait paraître, il y a un an, trois recueils d’articles, d’entretiens et de conférences de Robert Steuckers consacrés à l’histoire, à la géopolitique et à l’avenir de l’Europe. Quelle prodigieuse triple somme ! Certes, un esprit chagrin pourrait regretter de lire ici ou là quelques répétitions, mais c’est la loi du genre; ces inévitables répétitions demeurent didactiques.

Bruxellois parlant depuis l’enfance le français, le néerlandais flamand et l’allemand, Robert Steuckers enseigne l’anglais et connaît l’italien et l’espagnol. C’est un « bon Européen » au sens que l’entendait le Grand Frédéric. Infatigable militant métapolitique et culturel de la cause identitaire européenne, il se considère pleinement comme un sujet de l’Âme sacro-impériale romaine germanique et de ses déclinaisons historiques, bourguignonne, habsbourgeoise et hispanique. Ce n’est pas un hasard si Robert Steuckers apprécie la Franche-Comté, cette terre bourguignonne puis espagnole annexée sous Louis XIV et dont maintes familles paysannes se faisaient enterrer pendant plus d’un siècle en tournant le dos à Paris pour signifier leur allégeance véritable à la Couronne espagnole.

Fidélité à l’Empire

Robert Steuckers estime que l’idée impériale a une histoire et donc un avenir qu’il importe de forcer. Cependant, « toute notion d’empire aujourd’hui doit reposer sur les quatre vertus de Frédéric II Hohenstaufen : justice, vérité, miséricorde et constance. L’idée de justice doit se concrétiser aujourd’hui par la notion de subsidiarité, donnant à chaque catégorie de citoyens, à chaque communauté religieuse ou culturelle, professionnelle ou autre, le droit à l’autonomie, afin de ne pas mutiler un pan du réel. La notion de vérité passe par une revalorisation de la “ connaissance ”, de la “ sapience ” et d’un respect des lois naturelles. La miséricorde passe par une charte sociale exemplaire pour le reste de la planète. La notion de constance doit nous conduire vers une fusion du savoir scientifique et de la vision politique, de la connaissance et de la pratique politicienne quotidienne (I, p. 138) ». Il regrette bien sûr les tentatives impériales avortées à la fin du Moyen Âge et à la Renaissance. Le décès de la reine Mary Tudor a des « conséquences […] catastrophiques pour l’Espagne, les Pays-Bas, le Saint-Empire et, finalement, l’Europe entière (I, p. 102) ». Avant que l’Espagne et le Portugal ne forment pour six courtes décennies l’Union ibérique (1580 – 1640), on oublie qu’« en 1554, l’héritier de la couronne d’Espagne et du Cercle de Bourgogne (les Pays-Bas), Philippe II, épouse Mary Tudor, reine d’Angleterre. […] Pendant quatre ans donc, les Pays-Bas, l’Angleterre, l’Espagne, le Milanais et le Royaume de Naples et des Deux-Siciles connaîtront une direction unique, celle de Philippe II, allié aux Habsbourg d’Autriche, qui détiennent la titulature impériale (I, p. 101) ».

Outre la Sainte-Alliance post-napoléonienne imaginée par le chancelier Metternich, Robert Steuckers se félicite à rebours de Mélancolie française d’Éric Zemmour (Fayard – Denoël, 2010) du « renversement des alliances » de 1756 validé par Louis XV et poursuivi par son petit-fils Louis XVI. « Nous avons une alliance tacite, eurasienne avant la lettre […], entre la France de Louis XVI (réconcilié avec l’Autriche par son mariage avec Marie-Antoinette de Habsbourg-Lorraine), l’Autriche de Marie-Thérèse puis de Joseph II et la Russie de Catherine II la Grande. Cette alliance tacite […] offrait un espace stratégique de la Bretagne atlantique, voire de l’Espagne des Bourbons éclairés notamment sous le règne de Carlos III, jusqu’aux confins pacifiques de la Sibérie orientale. Cette alliance eurasienne a permis, entre l’avènement de Louis XVI en 1774 et la révolution française, d’esquisser une unité géostratégique entre les trois principales puissances continentales européenne (où la France avait acquis une supériorité navale dans l’Atlantique Nord suite à la guerre d’indépendance des États-Unis) (II, p. 4). »

Judicieux rappels historiques pour quiconque souhaite la libération et l’affirmation de la civilisation européenne ! « L’Europe-croupion, que nous avons devant les yeux, est une victime consentante de la globalisation voulue par l’hegemon américain (II, p. 17). » En effet, pour la puissance thalassocratique étatsunienne, « l’ennemi, c’est l’Europe qu’il faut ré-enclaver et qu’il faut faire imploser de l’intérieur en la livrant en permanence à des politiciens écervelés et en y déversant constamment des populations hétérogènes et inassimilables, débarquant à Lampedusa et sur les îles de l’Égée grecque (II, p. 63) ». Dans ces conditions, il importe d’éliminer impitoyablement ses trois ennemis prioritaires : « L’intégrisme religieux / terroriste de pure fabrication, le banditisme organisé et les cénacles manipulateurs et pervers d’économistes néo-libéraux (II, p. 150). » Ce n’est hélas ! pas gagné…

L’influence hydrologique

N’y aurait-il donc plus aucun espoir ? Non, si l’on accepte enfin de renouer avec l’héritage du Grand-Duché d’Occident. « Comme Philippe le Bon entendait reconstituer la dorsale lotharingienne pour mieux unir l’Europe et comme l’Ordre de la Toison d’Or était destiné à devenir l’instrument de cette politique, l’épine dorsale spirituelle et militaire d’une future Europe unifiée, la “ matière bourguignonne ”, dans sa rutilante diversité, recèle in toto les linéaments de notre “ mission nationale et impériale ”. Il n’y en a pas d’autre (II, p. 170). » Robert Steuckers fait sien ce projet grandiose « repris par Maximilien I^er, dès son mariage avec Marie de Bourgogne; le projet bourguignon fusionne, dès la fin du XV^e siècle, avec l’impérialité romaine – germanique; il y a donc continuité entre ce projet bourguignon et les actions du binôme austro-hongrois d’une part, et avec celles de l’Espagne et de l’Ordre de Malte en Méditerranée, d’autre part (II, p. 168) ».

Outre la dimension historique, il s’attarde en outre sur les aspects religieux et culturels ainsi qu’aux données géographiques au point qu’il recourt au concept perspicace d’« hydropolitique ». Les cours d’eau principaux et leurs affluents expliquent en dernière analyse la configuration des espaces politiques. « La dynamique de l’histoire romaine […] ou la logique de l’expansion territoriale romaine, repose in fine sur la bonne maîtrise de ces trois bassins fluviaux d’Europe (I, pp. 151 – 152) » : le Rhône, le Rhin et le Danube. D’antiques logiques stratégiques continuent leur œuvre aujourd’hui.

L’autre précision qu’apporte Robert Steuckers concerne le caractère forcément bigarré des empires européens. Il souligne le côté polyculturaliste de tout cadre impérial conséquent et réel. Polyculturalisme et non multiculturalisme, nuance de taille ! Le polyculturalisme est l’agencement politique des cultures autochtones européennes tandis que le multiculturalisme fait cœxister sur le même sol des peuples à l’esprit divergent. « Dans un empire cohabitent diverses communautés et, partant, vu l’extension territoriale importante de tout empire, divers peuples, que l’on ne songe pas à fusionner dans un magma insipide et indifférencié. Les empires sont généralement pluri-ethniques. C’était le cas de la monarchie austro-hongroise, dernière détentrice de l’impérialité romaine-germanique, où des hommes de toutes origines ethniques ont servi (I, pp. 157 – 158). » S’il ne croit pas au cadre stato-national réductionniste normativiste forcené et négateur des différences ethno-culturelles vivantes, il n’en est pas moins favorable au concept d’État. En lecteur attentif et assidu de Carl Schmitt et de Julien Freund, il estime que l’État s’adapte aux manifestations géographiques du politique, qu’il se fonde en cité, en région, en nation ou en empire. Là encore intervient l’influence des aires hydrologiques. « La dynamique de l’histoire allemande est centrifuge parce que les bassins fluviaux qui innervent le territoire germanique sont parallèles les uns aux autres et ne permettent pas une dynamique centripète comme en Russie d’Europe et en France. Un pays dont les fleuves sont parallèles ne peut être aisément centralisé. Les bassins fluviaux restent bien séparés les uns des autres, ce qui sépare également les populations qui se fixent dans les zones très œcuméniques que sont les vallées (III, p. 2). »

Une vision originale

Tout étudiant en histoire, en géographie et en sciences politiques devrait se procurer cette trilogie Europa de Robert Steuckers ou, pour le moins, demander aux fonds universitaires d’acquérir cette somme magistrale mille fois plus profitable qu’une énième étude quelconque sur le prétendu genre. On pourrait toutefois être dérouté par l’ampleur du champ de vision de l’auteur. Très mobilisé par le sort de notre grande patrie européenne, Robert Steuckers n’hésite pas à aborder d’autres champs sur d’autres continents. Dès le tome II, il se prononce « pour une “ grande alliance ” eurasienne et ibéro-américaine (p. 133) », se manifestant entre autres par un « soutien total à l’Arménie (II, p. 143) », la rupture de « l’alliance entre Washington et Ankara (II, p. 141) » et un « soutien total à Chavez (II, p. 144) ». Certes, cette prise de position paraît maintenant dépassée avec le naufrage, en partie prémédité par Washington, du Venezuela de Maduro et au moment où l’Amérique du Sud retrouve des dirigeants de droite libérale-conservatrice atlantiste (Chili, Argentine, Colombie, Brésil). La démarche demeure néanmoins actuelle en s’appuyant sur le justicialisme argentin et l’indigénisme andin présent au Bolivie, en Équateur et au Pérou.

Dans les trois volumes se trouvent aussi ses notes sur l’Afghanistan, l’Iran, le monde arabe, le Tibet, le Japon ou le Pakistan. À chaque fois, une vision historique de la très longue durée se combine aux interprétations psychologiques des peuples, aux faits géopolitiques les plus complets possibles et à l’arrière-plan – primordial – de la spiritualité et de la culture. Il s’agit de saisir à un instant précis la vigueur des civilisations, des peuples, des États et des nations face au « monothéisme globaliste » d’essence marchande. Le réveil et l’affirmation des peuples constituent d’excellentes nouvelles pour tous ceux qui estiment que « le monde est un “ pluriversum ” (II, p. 104) ». Il revient par conséquent aux Européens les plus éveillés la délicate mission d’obtenir une « synthèse nouvelle entre ouverture et fermeture, pour reprendre la terminologie inaugurée par Popper, [qui] postule un rejet de l’extrémisme néo-libéral, un planisme souple de gaullienne mémoire, une volonté de provoquer la “ dédollarisation ” de l’économie planétaire et de créer une alternative solide au système anglo-saxon, manchestérien et néo-libéral (II, p. 104) ». Tel est donc le combat engagé par Robert Steuckers depuis plus de quarante ans. Gageons que les nombreux jalons qu’il a dès à présent posés indiqueront aux peuples albo-européens et à leurs véritables élites organiques la juste direction à suivre.

Georges Feltin-Tracol

• Robert Steuckers, Europa. Valeurs et racines profondes de l’Europe, Éditions Bios, 2017, 338 p., 25 €; Europa. De l’Eurasie aux périphéries, une géopolitique continentale, Éditions Bios, 2017, 316 p., 25 €, et Europa. L’Europe, un balcon sur le monde, Éditions Bios, 2017, 342 p., 25 €, les trois volumes à 80 € (75 € + 5 € de frais de port).

Pour toute commande directe chez l'éditeur: https://editionsbios.fr

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German Youth Movement and its conservative-revolutionary foundations

Ex: https://phosphorussite.wordpress.com 

“The basic experience of the Youth Movement was the conflict between the bourgeois world and individual life. It was also a conflict between generations, in which, strangely enough, the fathers were the liberals and the sons the conservatives. This was a marked reversal since the days of the earlier youth movement the Burschenschaften of 1815. Then the new generation, which had fought in the Wars of Liberation, was in the fore in the struggle for a unified German state and for constitutionalism. Now liberalism, so it seemed to the sons, had lost its vitality and had come to stand for a world of confinement and convention. The young generation was tired of the state and tired of constitutions just as the early conservatives had been distrustful of them. In the Youth Movement there was a touch of the anarchic. It was antiauthoritarian, but it was also in search of authority and allegiances. This was its conservatism.

The Youth Movement derived its conservatism from Nietzsche and the traditions of nineteenth century irrationalism. Nietzsche, Lagarde, Stefan George became its heroes and were read, quoted, imitated, and freely plagiarized. They had given sanction to the struggle between the generations. Nietzsche had called upon the “first generation of fighters and dragon-slayers” to establish the “Reich of Youth.” Lagarde had defended German youth against the complaint that it lacked idealism: “I do not complain that our youth lacks ideals: I accuse those men, the statesmen above all, who do not offer ideals to the young generation.” To a searching youth, the irrationalists, all experimenters in conservatism, pointed a way to a conservatism through rebellion and radicalism, thus setting the tone for a revolutionary conservatism. Hegel and Bismarck were squarely repudiated. And Nietzsche, in lieu of traditions long lost, postulated the “will of tradition” a variation only of the ominous “will of power” as the foundation of a new conservatism. All the more did Stefan George’s symbolism appeal to the young. They learned to see themselves as the “new nobility” of a “new Reich”:

New nobility you wanted 
Does not hail from crown or scutcheon! 
Men of whatsoever level 
Show their lust in venial glances, 
Show their greeds in ribald glances…
Scions rare of rank intrinsic 
Grow from matter, not from peerage, 
And you will detect your kindred 
By the light within their eyes.

Twentieth century knights were they, united by secret codes. They claimed to be dedicated to a “mission”; more correctly they were in search of one. Heinrich Heine, had he lived to see those Wandervogel, would have called them “armed Nietzscheans.”

The revolutionary temper of the Youth Movement is evident from its famous declaration, formulated at a meeting near Kassel on the Hohen Meissner hill in October 1913. It stated that “Free German Youth, on their own initiative, under their own responsibility, and with deep sincerity, are determined independently to shape their own lives. For the sake of this inner freedom they will under any and all circumstances take united action…”.“

– Klemens Von Klemperer, “Germany’s New Conservatism: Its History and Dilemma in the Twentieth Century” (1968)

La perfection de la technique...

La perfection de la technique...

Les éditions Allia publient cette semaine un essai de Friedrich-Georg Jünger intitulé La perfection de la technique. Frère d'Ernst Jünger. Auteur de très nombreux ouvrages, Friedrich-Georg Jünger a suivi une trajectoire politique et intellectuelle parallèle à celle de son frère Ernst et a tout au long de sa vie noué un dialogue fécond avec ce dernier. Parmi ses oeuvres ont été traduits en France un texte écrit avec son frère, datant de sa période conservatrice révolutionnaire, Le nationalisme en marche (L'Homme libre, 2015), et un recueil d'essais sur les mythes grecs, Les Titans et les dieux  (Krisis, 2013).

“ « L’ère de la technique excelle certes à susciter des organisations mais est incapable de fonder des institutions. Elle s’entend toutefois à transformer les institutions existantes en organisations, à en faire des organisations, c’est-à-dire à les mettre en relation avec l’appareillage technique. Le progrès technique ne tolère plus que des organisations qui dans leur ensemble ont quelque chose de mobile, qui correspondent donc foncièrement à la grande mobilisation de ce temps. Or le concept d’institution implique qu’elle soit posée, ou du moins pensée comme immuable, comme un édifice immobile qui a quelque chose de statique et qui résiste aux outrages du temps. Les organisations livrent à la technique les moyens pour ses plans de travail ; c’est là une vocation que l’on discerne toujours plus nettement. »

La perfection de la technique, c’est la rationalité absolue des procédés qui ont mécanisé et automatisé le travail depuis le début de la Révolution industrielle. Une efficacité implacable, pourtant délétère dans le contexte de la société humaine tout entière. Reliées en réseau à l’échelle planétaire, les machines fixent le but à atteindre et dominent l’activité du travailleur, désormais détaché de tout ancrage local. En favorisant une pensée économique uniquement fondée sur une partie du processus, en envisageant les ressources naturelles sur lesquelles elle s’appuie comme une manne inépuisable, la technique pourrait bien précipiter elle-même sa propre fin.

Dans cet essai visionnaire, inédit en français, Friedrich Georg Jünger dénonce les illusions que suscite la technique moderne, ses promesses d’un accroissement de la richesse et du temps libre. Après la destruction de la composition typographique du livre dans un bombardement allié en 1942, une première édition a pu voir le jour en 1944, rapidement réduite en cendres par une attaque aérienne. La Perfection de la technique paraît enfin, en deux livres séparés, en 1946 et 1949, avant de connaître de multiples éditions en un seul volume par la suite."

Source: http://metapoinfos.hautetfort.com 

Le Rouge et le Noir: An Introduction to Eurasianism

Alexander Wolfheze

Ex: http://www.geopolitica.ru

Parerga & Paralipomena for Robert Steuckers’ Europa II. De l’Eurasie aux périphéries, une géopolitique continentale (Madrid: BIOS, 2017)

Prologue: trois couleurs

Sur Bruxelles, au pied de l'archange,

Ton saint drapeau pour jamais est planté

[Over Brussels, at the feet of our archangel,

Your sacred flag has been planted for all eternity][1]

- La Brabançonne

A storm of unprecedented magnitude is slowly taking shape on the cultural-historical horizon of the postmodern West: with the approaching climax of the Crisis of the Modern West - more precisely described by Jason Jorjani as the imminent ‘World State of Emergency’ - the prospect of an ‘Archaeo-Futurist Revolution’ is looming large as well.[2] The patriotic-identitarian movement which is currently showing rapid growth throughout the entire Western world may be viewed as the ‘storm bird’ harbinger of this Archaeo-Futurist Revolution.[3] It is important that this movement formulates effective metapolitical strategies in preparation for the imminent social-political bankruptcy of the present (double neo-liberal/cultural-marxist) globalist world order. The oldest metahistorical discourse available to this movement is Traditionalism. The only global geopolitical vision that currently incorporates a substantial element of Traditionalism is Eurasianism. This essay aims at a providing an introduction to the Traditionalist-inspired Neo-Eurasianism that is most succinctly expressed in the work of Russian philosopher and publicist Aleksandr Dugin. In addition, however, this essay aims at pointing out that authentic Traditionalist thinking and writing is also taking place in the Low Countries, even if it tends to be obscured by the politically-correct (self-)censorship of the academic review mill and the system media. This essay is dedicated to the most eminent - and longest-serving - writer of the typically autonomous Traditionalism that thrives in the Low Countries: Robert Steuckers. Recently, he published an encyclopaedic work on the origins, history and current state of European civilization: his triptych Europa constitutes an intellectual tour de force of a depth and width that will be impossible to smother in the politically-correct ‘cover-up’ that is the weapon of choice of (self-)censorious system-publicists. Europa is written in French and has, thus far, not been translated into English; the lamentable decline of French language instruction throughout the West renders it therefore inaccessible to much of its primary target audience: the patriotically-minded and identity-aware intellectual avant garde of young Europe. Throughout the entire Western world, this génération identitaire is preparing for the all-out final battle for its highly endangered heritage: its Western homeland - and Western civilization itself. This essay aims at (somewhat) mitigating this inaccessibility by transmitting to a wider non-francophone audience at least some of the knowledge that Steuckers presents in Europa. In the estimation of the undersigned reviewer, Steuckers’ Europa is a jewel - a small reflection of the Golden Dawn that Traditionalism and Eurasianism look back and forward to. Thus, Belgium - and Brussels - has more to offer than the counterfeit ‘Europe’ of the EU: it also offers the Archaeo-Futurist vision of Robert Steuckers’ Europa. This essay is therefore not only dedicated to Steuckers himself, but also to his country: Belgium.

Although the (French-revolutionary) orientation and (heraldic-traditional) colours of the Belgian flag are historically predictable for anybody acquainted with the unique genesis of the Belgian state, it still is very unusual in one respect. Perhaps its strange - nearly square (13:15) - proportions reflects the historical particularity of Belgium’s geopolitical configuration: effectively, Belgium represents a cultural-historical restgebied, or ‘left over’, that was legally established as a sovereign ‘buffer zone’ for the sake of the early-19^th Century ‘balance of power’ compromise between Britain, France and Prussia. Only in terms of its colours can the Belgian flag claim an authentically traditional (i.e. doubly historical and symbolic) pedigree. Between the blood red colour of the land provinces of Luxembourg, Hainaut and Limburg and the sable black colour of the mighty coastal province of Flanders, it shows the gold yellow of the prosperous province of Brabant with its capital Brussels, which has been the administrative seat of pan-European power from pre-modern Burgundian state up to the post-modern European Union. The Belgian red and black have the same heraldic-symbolic charge as the Eurasian red and black: in both, red is the colour of worldly power (Nobility, army) and black is the colour of other-worldly power (Church, clergy). In the holistic vision of Traditionalist Eurasianism, these colours necessarily complement each other: together they represent the intimidating combination of the approaching storm (divinely ordained Deluge) and war (divinely ordained Holy War). Right up to this day, everyone knows that the red-and-black flag represents revolution, even if Social Justice Warrior ideologues fail to recognize the true - back-ward and up-ward - direction of every authentic re-volution (in casu: the Archaeo-Futurist Revolution). Between the Belgium blood red and sable black is found the colour that may be said to be in virtual ‘occultation’ in Eurasianism: the gold yellow that has the heraldic-symbolic charge of the heavenly light and the Golden Dawn - and thus of Traditionalism itself. A tiny ray of that light comes to us from Brabant in Steuckers’ Europa.

(*)The undersigned reviewer has chosen to provide a double presentation of both Steuckers’ original - razorblade sharp and acidly abrasive - French text and an English translation. The reviewer shares the considered opinion of Dutch patriotic publicist Alfred Vierling that the French linguistic culture is quintessentially different from the globally dominant Anglo-Saxon linguistic culture to such a degree that French language skills are indispensable for any Western reader who wishes to claim a balanced worldview. The dramatic general lack of prerequisite French language skills, however, cannot be blamed entirely on young Westerners themselves: this glaring educational hiatus is caused by the long-term and deliberate ‘dumbing down’ strategy of the Western ‘hostile elite’. In the reviewer’s native Netherlands this ‘dumbing down’ program may have accelerated during the ‘slash and burn’ tenure of present Prime Minister Mark Rutte as Undersecretary of (mis-)Education, but it may be traced back all the way to the all-levelling Mammoet Wet legislation of the Beatnik generation. The reviewer has opted to present the reader with Steuckers’ original French text as well as his own somewhat (contextually) approximate English translation - obviously, he is responsible for less successful attempts at translating Steuckers’ ‘biting’ Walloon French into equivalent English expressions. A glossary with extra Steuckerian neologisms is added at the end of the text.

(**)By and large, the division of this essay into ‘question paragraphs’ (with tentative ‘answers’ provided in their motto subtitles) reflects the original organization of Chapter I of Europa Part II (which is the written version of an interview). Some adjustments have been made to allow for a quick grasp of the basic principles of Eurasianism by all interested readers.

What is the cultural-historical role of Eurasianism?

History is written by those who hang heroes

- Robert the Bruce

In introducing Eurasianism it is essential to point to its long durée perspective on Western civilization: Steuckers does this by referring to the prehistoric roots of the European peoples, which may be traced back to the end of the last Ice Age and their oldest territorial cradle between Thuringia and southern Finland. Gradually expanding outward from their oldest ancestral ground, they finally came to dominate the entire Eurasian space between the Atlantic seaboard and the Himalayan barrier. Doubtlessly, the archetypal experience of this prehistoric ‘European Adventure’ - the exploration and exploitation of the immensely varied pristine landscapes that are found between the frozen mists of Scandinavia and the steamy jungles of India - has been a decisive factor in shaping the ‘Faustian’ character of the European peoples, challenging them to bridge all horizons. This self-surpassing instinct - a subtle combination of inspired vision, all-conquering hubris and technical genius - has put an indelible stamp on the archetypes of Western Civilization, from Classic Greek Titans and Argonauts to Late Modern atom-breakers and astronauts. Taming the horse and mastering metal technique allowed the proto-Europeans to militarily control the steppe centre of the Eurasian space around the dawn of written history. Steuckers points to the fact that even at the heyday of the most ancient Indo-European empires - Achaemenid Persia, Alexandrian Macedonia, Maurya India - semi-mythical horse master peoples such as the Scythians and Sarmatians still ruled the Eurasian Steppe. It was along the geopolitical ‘world axis’, which provides a virtually ‘level playing ground’ from Hungary all the way to Manchuria, that the fate of the European peoples was decided at various crucial junctures.

Steuckers points out that the thirteen centuries of European history that followed the end of the Indo-European power monopoly over the Eurasian Steppe – as marked by the rise of Attila’s Hunnic Empire (406-453) - effectively constitute a single and continuous struggle to regain the initiative from the competing Turco-Mongolian peoples that came storming westward out of the eastern steppes. From this perspective, the Hunnic defeat on the Catalaunian Fields (451) does not represent a true European victory, but rather the - thus far - lowest ebb of the European civilization, then pushed back to barely 300 kilometres from the Atlantic coast. It is only in the course of the 16^th and 17^th Centuries that the Asiatic assault on Europe is finally reversed: the Ottoman threat to the European heartland is only decisively defeated after the naval victory at Lepanto (1571) and the lifting of the second siege of Vienna (1683). In this context, Steuckers points to the vital role that the Cossack cavalry armies played in the subsequent two hundred years’ reconquista of the Eurasian Steppe (archetypically expressed as ‘Rohan’ sweeping the ‘Pelennor Fields’). This great ‘push back’ finally created the ‘bridge of civilization’ that still links the two great civilizational poles of the Eurasian landmass: Europe in the west and China in the east: this bridge of civilization represents the centrepiece of the Eurasian Project.

It is the Early Modern Reconquista of the Eurasian centre that provides the foundation of Classic Modern European global power. The anchor of the global ‘European Imperium’ is found in the Diplomatic Revolution - a.k.a. the renversement des alliances - of 1756 and the subsequent strategic alliance between the great powers of Spain, France, Austria and Russia, controlling the entire Eurasian space between Finisterre and Kamchatka. The Seven Years’ War (1756-63) that follows the Diplomatic Revolution has received the fitting nickname of ‘World War Zero’: it constitutes the first round in the prolonged confrontation between Anglo-Saxon-led ‘thalassocracy’ and (proto-)Eurasianist land power. The catastrophic maritime and colonial defeats of France resulted in the loss of nearly all French possessions in North America and South Asia: this is the geopolitical foundation of the Anglo-Saxon ‘sea power’ hegemony that persists till today. Abstractly, Anglo-Saxon thalassocracy represents sea power-based Western Modernity, whereas the Eurasian continental monarchies represent land power-based Western Tradition. This civilizational divide represents the - quintessentially Traditionalist - centrepiece of Eurasian thought.

The French Revolution - ironically directly caused by the French state bankruptcy that followed the French naval revenge on Britain during the American Revolution (1775-83) - marks the point at which thalassocratic Modernity manages to create a substantial ‘bridgehead’ on the European continent. As a focal point of revolutionary upheaval and anti-Eurasianist geopolitics, France subsequently functions as a continental ‘wedge’ for the forces of thalassocratic Modernity all throughout the 19^th and 20^th Centuries.[4] The post-Napoleonic restoration of the Traditionalist Bourbons and the creation of the (proto-)Eurasianist Holy Alliance (1815) do not fundamentally alter this equation: in 1830 France relapses into revolutionary policies - by that time the Holy Alliance had already proven itself to be a ‘paper tiger’ by its failure to stem the revolutionary tide both inside and outside Europe. By then, nearly the entire New World has been lost to freemasonic liberalism, which shielded the Americas from Eurasianist intervention by the Monroe Doctrine. Slowly but steadily, the global balance of power shifted in favour of Atlanticist thalassocracy as it crept into the European heartland through escalating revolutionary contagion. In this context, Steuckers correctly points to the crucial significance of the Anglo-French rapprochement: in his view, the Crimean War (1853-56) marks the point at which the Eurasian space west of the Rhine is irretrievably lost. Some years later, Bismarck’s resurrected (Second) German Empire takes over the role as Eurasian ‘border guard’ that has been abandoned by France as it sinks into republican decadence. Germany’s Wacht am Rhein as guardian of the European Tradition begins. But as the Second Industrial Revolution combines with Modern Imperialism to create an irresistibly rising global règne de la quantité, the decline of Traditionalist Eurasia is a foregone conclusion. The global strategic weakness of Eurasia is most clearly illustrated by the loss of Eurasia’s last outposts in the New World (the Russian sale of Alaska in 1867 and the Spanish defeat in the Caribbean in 1898) and by the failure of mighty Germany to obtain an equitable Platz an der Sonne. After its defeat in the Naval Arms Race in 1912, Germany is forced to switch from an offensive Weltpolitik to a defensive Mitteleuropapolitik: it now faces a fatal Einkreisung by an infinitely superior alliance of thalassocratic Britain and republican France plus financially-manipulated and revolutionary-infected Russia. Historically, the inevitable defeat of Germany as the champion of the European Tradition is the result of a carefully plotted ‘ambush’. The pillars of Traditionalist Eurasia are overthrown by the Versailles’ Diktat, the fire sale of the Hapsburg Empire and the establishment of the Bolshevik terror regime in the ashes of Russia. The first version of the thalassocratic-globalist ‘New World Order’ is now in place, as symbolized by the double institutions of the League of Nations in the West and the Comintern in the East (established 1919/20). The 1937-45 ‘Axis’ revolt against this New World Order, a.k.a. the ‘Second World War’, is even more hopelessly senseless than Germany’s unequal ‘war against the world’ of 1914-18. After the final destruction of the European Tradition and the European great powers during the 1940’s (France loses its great power status in 1940, Italy in 1943, Germany in 1945 and Britain - with its Indian Empire - in 1947), the mantle of Eurasian champion devolves on an eminently unlikely candidate: Stalin’s new ‘national-communist’ Russia. The thalassocratic war on this new Eurasian citadel takes on the form of a prolonged global siege: the ‘Cold War’. Exhausted and bankrupted by this four decennia long unequal struggle against the infinitely superior resources of global thalassocracy, the Soviet Union finally collapses in 1991. Francis Fukuyama can announce the ‘End of History’ and George Bush Sr. can announce the ‘New World Order’: ‘Globalia’, the borderless ‘world state’ of unlimited ‘high finance’ power and universalist ‘culture nihilism’, is born.

Steuckers points to the ideological and propagandist ‘thin red line’ that can be traced through the victorious campaign of Modernist thalassocracy against Traditionalist Eurasia: the recurring theme of the leyenda negra against the ‘losers of history’. Modern history is written by ‘those who hang heroes’: when, in 1588, Catholic Spain loses its war against Protestant England (and again, in 1648, against Protestant Holland), it is immediately stigmatized as a defeated ‘Anti-Christ’ - this is the beginning of the teleological propaganda machine of ‘Whig History’.[5] When, in 1918, ‘militarist’ Germany loses its war against the ‘peace-loving’ Entente, it is immediately burdened with ‘war guilt’ clauses.[6] When, 1991, ‘unfree’ Soviet Russia loses its Cold War against the ‘Free West’, it is permanently branded as the ‘Evil Empire’.[7] The Lügenpresse of the postmodern West continues to spin the same ‘thin red line’ of propaganda policy in the contemporary geopolitical debate as it seeks to paint all remaining non-globalist international power centres with the same leyenda negra brush. When Russia’s Vladimir Putin resists globalism and culture nihilism, he is portrayed as a bloodstained ‘anti-democratic’ tyrant. When Hungary’s Viktor Orbán’s attempts to preserve a semblance of state sovereignty and ethnic cohesion for his nation, he is portrayed as an ‘illiberal’ anti-Semite. When Turkey’s Recep Erdogan reclaims Turkey’s traditional value-system and regional power status, he is portrayed as a ‘crypto-islamist’ dictator. In the same manner, all organizations and persons that resist transnational totalitarianism and ethnic replacement in the ex-‘Free West’ are systematically portrayed as ‘populist’, ‘chauvinist’ and ‘racist’. In Steuckers’ view, effective measures against indoctrination through this ‘fake history’ and ‘fake news’ mind-control strategy should have the highest possible priority within the Eurasianist movement: Il conviendrait donc de réfléchir à annuler les effets de toutes les leyendas negras, par des efforts coordonnés, à l’échelle globale, dans tous les états européens, en Iran, au sein de toutes les puissances du BRICS (p.6). [Thus, it is appropriate to give serious thought to the cancellation of the effects of all the leyendas negras through a concerted effort at a global level, for all European states as well as for Iran and all of the BRICS powers.][8]

Steuckers predicates the future of Eurasianism - more exactly the Neo-Eurasianism that is focussed on the resurrected Russian state now led by Vladimir Putin - on a possible revival of the strategic alliances that existed in the pre-1914 world: L’eurasisme, à mon sens, doit être la reprise actualisée de l’alliance autro-franco-russe du XVIIIe siècle, de la Sainte-Alliance et de l’Union des Trois Empereurs, voire une résurrection des projets d’alliance franco-germano-austro-russe... avant 1914 (p.6). [In my view, Eurasianism should be focussed on the re-actualization of projects such as the 18^th Century Austro-Franco-Russian alliance, the Holy Alliance and the Three Emperors’ League or one of the many Franco-German-Austro-Russian alliance proposals that were made... before 1914.].

What is the meaning of ‘ethnicity’ within Eurasianist thought?

Nullus enim locus sine genio est

- Servius

The Traditionalist ‘hue’ of Eurasianist thought is clearly evident in its non-biodeterministic view of the categories ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’: in Eurasianism both are interpreted as predetermined - and therefore non-negotiable - bio-evolutionary constructs of a doubly biological (physical, phenotypic) and cultural (social, psychological) nature. From this perspective, every ‘nation’ constitutes a unique historical combination of physical, psychological and spiritual particularities that is expressed in various manners. These particularities include a specific ‘phenotypic bandwidth’, a specific ‘tone signal’, a specific ‘worldly footprint’ and a specific ‘transcendental niche’; in cultural history they are known as, respectively, ‘race’, ‘language’, ‘culture’ and ‘religion’ - together they may be used to ‘triangulate’ the elusive phenomenon of ‘ethnicity’ and to describe the subjective existential condition of being a ‘people’. From this perspective, ‘scientific racism’ is a contradictio in terminis: an absolutely objective ‘evolutionary measurement’ is impossible to achieve because each people is adapted to its unique biotope in a unique manner. At most, relative measurements (ranging from pre-scientific skull and nose measurements to highly scientific IQ and DNA measurements) can hope to achieve a functional description of specific bio-evolutionary adaptations: absolute standards of ‘human quality’ cannot be derived from such a description. Elements of the Traditionalist worldview that feeds the Eurasianist vision of ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ may be traced back to Johann Herder (e.g. ‘idealist nationalism’) and Julius Evola (e.g. ‘spiritual race’). That being said, it is necessary to emphasize the fact that the Traditionalist ‘hue’ of Eurasianism is clearly essentialist: Eurasianism aims for the preservation of holistically-defined ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ because it recognizes the intrinsic existential value of every unique element within humanity as a whole - in this sense it is diametrically opposed to the constructivist ideologies of Modernity (liberalism, socialism, communism).[9] Given this aim - which may be viewed as applying the principles of ‘environmental conservation’ to human (bio)diversity’ - Eurasianism is bound to reject interference in the state sovereignty, cultural identity and territorial integrity of the indigenous peoples found within the Eurasian ‘biotope’. Steuckers expresses this stance as follows: Mon concept d’Eurasie est synonyme d’une confédération solidaire de peuples de souche européenne qui devront, éventuellement, occuper des territoires où vivent d’autres peoples, pour des raisons essentiellement stratégiques. ...La vision ethno-différentialiste postule que les peuples non européens ne soient pas obligés de singer les Européens, de modifier leurs substrats naturels, que ce soit par fusion, par mixage ou par aliénation culturelle (p.7-8). [My concept of Eurasia is a confederative solidarity pact between all people of European descent, where necessary expanded to the occupation of territory inhabited by other peoples for reasons of vital strategic security. ...The ethno-differentialist vision[10] stipulates that the non-European peoples should not be forced into ‘aping’ the European peoples, or to modify their natural substrate through fusion, admixture or cultural alienation.]

The ‘racial’ and ‘ethnic’ aspect of Neo-Eurasianism is strictly limited to the (re-)creation of cultural-historical ‘breathing space’ for all indigenous peoples within the Eurasian space. In this regard, Steuckers points out four basic strategic principles: (1) The need to come up with a wide definition of the term ‘European’, which can include as the entire (white, ‘Caucasian’) ethnic conglomerate that can be linguistically defined as Indo-European, Finno-Ugrian, Basque and (North, South and East) Caucasian. (2) The need for a pragmatic incorporation of the indigenous Uralo-Altaic (e.g. Turcophone) peoples within a shared ‘European Home’ on the basis of voluntary ethnic segregation and limited territorial autonomy. (3) The need to create a loose institutional framework for peaceful co-existence with the four other great civilizational poles that are directly adjacent to the (Christian) Eurasian civilizational pole: (Zoroastrian) Iran, (Hinduist) India, (Confucian) China and (Shinto) Japan. It is in the natural interest of the Eurasian heartland that the civilizational expansion of these other four autonomous poles is streamlined into a north-south direction. Thus, Iran has a natural civilizational ‘mission’ across the entire Middle East, India across the entire South Asian sphere, China across entire South-East Asia and Japan across the entire Asian ‘Pacific Rim’. (4) The need for a pragmatic geopolitical alliance with all overseas peoples of European descent, especially with the overseas Anglosphere and the post-globalist United States. Such an alliance can be based on the ‘corrected’ Amer-Eurasianist Realpolitik proposed by the older Zbigniew Brzezinski and on the Archeo-Futurist ‘boreal alliance’ vision of Guillaume Faye.

Steuckers goes on to explicitly name the main opponents of the Neo-Eurasian Project: these are the various virulent forms of hyper-universalist globalism and missionary primitivism that are rooted in the psycho-historical ‘Dark Age’ regression of (Post-)Modernity. The radical-constructivist illusions that are rooted in the historical materialism of the ‘Enlightenment’ and the all-levelling barbarisms that are rooted in reactionary neo-primitivism constitute a mortal danger to all those forms of authentic collective identity that fall under the protective umbrella of Neo-Eurasianism: religion, culture, language and ethnicity. Steucker identifies missionary neo-liberalism (socio-economic atavism based on post-protestant hyper-individualism focussed on American power) and missionary islamism (socio-economic regression based on post-islamic hyper-collectivism focussed on Saudi power) as the most deadly threats. In Steuckers’ view, it is no coincidence that these two ‘missionary’ ideologies have concluded a strategic (geopolitical) alliance. But, for the first time in a generation, stress fractures are starting to appear in the double neoliberal-islamist (‘American-Saudi’) New World Order. The tentative program that is being put forward by Donald Trump’s éminence grise, Steve Bannon, point to a re-evaluation of America’s strategy of global hegemony - a re-evaluation that is prompted by the simple calculus of America’s ‘imperial overstretch’ and China’s ‘economic miracle’. In fact, Bannon’s program can be typified as broadly aligned with Steuckers’ evaluation of the effective ideological bankruptcy of American globalism: ...[I]l faudrait que l’Amérique du Nord revienne à une pensée aristotélicienne, renaissanciste, débarrassée de tous les résidus de ce puritanisme échevelé, de cette pseudo-théologie fanatique où aucun esprit d’équilibre, de pondération et d’harmonie ne souffle, pour envisager une alliance avec les puissances du Vieux Monde (p.9). [It is necessary for Nord America to return to an Aristotelian and Renaissancist worldview cleansed from all remnants of confused puritanism - the pseudo-theological fanaticism that stifles the spirit of equilibrium, mindfulness and harmony - so that it can again conceive of an alliance with the powers of the Old World.]

What is the meaning of ‘nationalism’ within Eurasianist thought?

‘The Empire Strikes Back’

Because Eurasianism not only aims at a maximum degree of sovereignty for all European peoples but also recognizes the need for a shared defence mechanism, it needs to define the precise role and function of the many different kinds of nationalism that exist next to - and against - each other within the contemporary ‘Europe of the Nations’. In this regard, Steuckers distinguishes between two diametrically opposed visions of ‘Europe’: the ‘hard’ traditional vision and the ‘soft’ modern vision. Because the ‘hard’ Tradition-inspired vision has been removed from the lived European experience for so long now - to the extent that it has even faded from the collective memory - it is important to introduce Steuckers’ analysis of the nationalist ‘Europe of the Nations’ by a short reminder of the Traditionalist vision of supra-national (i.e. natural ‘over-national’) authority. It is important to distinguish this vision from the modern reality of trans-national (i.e. artificial ‘anti-national’) forms of authority, as exemplified by the globalist ‘letter institutions’ (UN, IMF, NATO, EU etc.).

From a Traditionalist perspective, the only form of supra-national authority that is truly legitimate rests on what Carl Schmitt termed the Ernstfall, viz. the transcendentally-sanctioned Auctoritas and the charismatically-sanctioned power of Imperium that are based on a collectively recognized and collectively life-threatening clear and present danger.[11] For the Eurasianist Project this concretely means that there exists only one kind of supra-national authority that is truly legitimate and that can (temporarily) exceed that of the sovereign institutions if the European peoples, viz. the ‘emergency power’ to ward off a physical assault on the Eurasian space as a whole - and even this ‘emergency power’ can only be properly exercised if it adheres to the principle of subsidiarity to a maximum degree. In this regard, Schmitt points to the core functionality of the Traditionalist authority of the Katechon: Biblical eschatology explicitly points to the Katechon as the transcendentally legitimate ‘keeper’ of the Christendom - and thus of the entire Christian-European Tradition. From a Traditionalist perspective, every other form of trans-national ‘authority’ - whether inspired by nationalist hegemony (Napoleonic-French Europe, Hitlerian-German Europe) or by historically-materialist ideology (‘Soviet Union’, ‘European Union’) - is illegitimate. The approaching nadir of the Crisis of the Modern West, characterized by the converging emergencies of ethnic replacement, anthropogenic climate change, trans-humanist ‘technocalyps’ and hyper-matriarchal social implosion, necessitates an urgent collective recourse to the Auctoritas van de Katechon. Most urgent is the need for a common defence and counteroffensive against the barbarian invasion and colonization of Western Europe and the overseas Anglosphere: the urgent need to effectively combat the ‘mass immigration’ project that is foisted on the European peoples by globalist ideologues justifies the appointment of a new worldly Katechon as a new ‘border guard’ for the European Tradition.[12] Faute de mieux Neo-Eurasianism regards Russia, which has recently risen from the ashes of seventy years of Bolshevism and ten years of globalism, as a possible Last Katechon. Within Russia, there are signs of a socio-cultural development that point to gradual realization of this possibility: the restoration of Russian state sovereignty under Vladimir Putin, the resurrection of the Russian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Kirill and the coherent formulation of an alternative metapolitical discourse under Aleksandr Dugin. Increasingly, the anagogic direction of these developments stands in an evermore shrill contrast to the ‘katagogic’ direction of the socio-cultural development in the ‘West’ (defined as the European ‘Atlantic Rim’ plus the overseas Anglosphere).

Almost immediately after the fall of the communist dictatorship in Eastern Europe (the Soviet Union abolished itself in 1991), a globalist dictatorship was introduced in Western Europe (the European Union was established in 1992): the ‘Eastern Bloc’ was replaced by a ‘Western Bloc’. This new Western Block, characterized by an extreme anti-traditional ideology and a matriarchic-xenophile culture in which all forms of authentic authority and identity are being dissolved as in acid, is now threatening the physical survival of the European peoples in a much more direct manner than the old Eastern Bloc ever did. Whereas the Eastern Bloc insisted, at least theoretically, on an ‘anagogic’ supersession of European nationalism and on a balanced ‘brotherhood’ of separate nations, the Western Bloc insists on a physical deconstruction of the European peoples by means of anti-natalism (through social implosion) and ethnic replacement (through mass immigration). The ex-Eastern Bloc states of Central Europe that were absorbed into the Western Bloc after 2004 now recognize this difference - this is the deeper cause of the militant resistance of the Visegrad states against the Brussels Diktat of ‘open borders’. It is ironic, however, that European ‘narrow nationalism’ is actually assisting the Brussels bureaucracy in the implementation of its anti-European policy: short-sighted and artificially magnified ‘neo-nationalist’ conflicts of interest between the European peoples are distracting them from their much more substantial common interest, viz. the preservation of Western civilization. Examples of such artificial ‘conflicts’ are the north-south divide after the ‘European Sovereign Debt Crisis’ of 2010, the west-east divide after the Russian absorption of the Crimea in 2014 and the continental-insular divide after the ‘Brexit’ of 2016. In these instances, ‘narrow nationalist’ divisions are actually ‘engineered’ - and ruthlessly exploited by media propaganda - in the artificial setting of a carefully disguised but all-out globalist offensive against the greater conglomerate of all European nation-states and all European peoples together.

Recent ‘separatist’ tendencies within existing European states (the secession of Kosovo in 2008, the Scottish independence referendum of 2014, the Catalan ‘declaration of independence’ of 2017) illustrate the acute contemporary relevance of ‘narrow nationalism’. The double burden of anachronistic international jurisprudence (‘Westphalia’: undifferentiated state sovereignty) and anachronistic territorial boundaries (‘Versailles’: arbitrary state borders) reinforces a political drift towards the ‘lowest ethnic denominator’. Steuckers points to the effect of the globalist strategy of divide et impera that operates by strengthening the modern ‘soft vision’ at the expense of the traditional ‘hard vision’ of European geopolitics. He traces the historical origins of the ‘soft vision’ to the threshold of the Modern Age, pointing out the fact that Francis I of France (r. 1515-47) was the first to obtain a modern (absolutist) sovereignty at the expense of the traditional (supra-national) higher authority of the Roman-German emperor, in casu Charles V (r 1519-56) - he was also the first European monarch to betray Europe by a non-European (Ottoman) alliance. The escalating geopolitical ‘balkanization’ of Europe - formally institutionalized in the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) - had the double effect of negating all forms of traditionally legitimate supra-national authority as well as fostering both modern-illegitimate forms of trans-national power and non-European interventions. It encourages ‘narrow nationalist’ conflicts within Europe and it deprives Europe as a whole of a shared defence mechanism: it makes Europe weak. The hard vision, based on subsidiary (layered, delegated) sovereignty finally vanishes from European Realpolitik with the collapse of its last Katechon institutions at the end of World War I (the West Roman Katechon abstractly represented by the Hapsburg Imperium and the East Roman Katechon abstractly represented by the Romanov Imperium). From that point onwards, the process of political ‘devolution’ towards ever smaller ‘nation-states’ becomes irreversible - it reaches its climax in the melt-down of some of the artificial multi-ethnic states that were ‘frozen’ during the Cold War (the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia). Thus, Europe is presently divided in over fifty - partially unrecognized - states and microstates and its centrifugal tendencies remain as strong as ever. The re-introduction of the hard vision of European geopolitics is an absolute precondition for overcoming futile and enervating ‘narrow nationalism’, for combating globalist divide-and-rule strategies and for saving the European peoples from the physical and psychological Götterdämmerung of Umvolkung (ethnic replacement) and Entfremdung (sociocultural loss of identity).

What is the Eurasianist alternative for ‘Globalia’?

Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam

                                                           - Cato Maior                        

To properly answer the question that heads this paragraph, a basic understanding is required of the geopolitical goals of the globalist ‘hostile elite’. To this end, Steuckers offers a helpful analysis of the most extreme representatives of the globalist ‘New World Order’ project: the ‘Neocons’ who hijacked American foreign policy in the wake of the ‘9/11’ coup d’état. Steuckers describes them as ‘reinvented trotskyists’ who are applying the principle of ‘permanent revolution’ on a global scale to maintain the ‘unipolar’ hegemony of the American superpower as a useful political and military ‘watchdog’ for their true master: the informal globalist bankers regime. There do exist, in fact, direct personal and ideological overlaps between the early-21^st Century nihilist Neocons and the late-20^th Century trotskyist ‘New York Intellectuals’: as early as 2006 Francis Fukuyama pointed out the fact that Neocon ideology is dedicated to the leninist-trotskyist principle of ‘accelerating history’ by the ruthless application of brute force and calculated crime. The unipolar geopolitical strategy of the Neocons is characterized by a deliberate use of every conceivable means of ‘trick and terror’ to achieve the destabilization of all other (potential) power poles across the globe. American superpower may not be sufficiently strong to directly ‘rule the world’, but it provides a perfect instrument to degrade all other power poles by means of a carefully calibrated combination of economic manipulation, political subversion and military intervention. Thus, ‘Shock Doctrine Disaster Capitalism’ is the Neocons’ weapon of choice for achieving a worldwide consumerist culture (‘McWorld’) and a global labour division (‘free trade flat world’).  Similarly, ‘Flower/Colour Revolution’ (‘soft power’ and ‘black ops’ socio-political subversion) is their standard weapon for introducing corrupt - and therefore easily manipulated - ‘democratic’ practices in recalcitrant states (e.g. Georgia’s ‘Rose Revolution’ of 2003, Ukraine’s ‘Orange Revolution’ of 2004 and Egypt’s ‘Lotus Revolution’ of 2011). Finally, ‘Regime Change’ is their weapon of last resort for the forcible removal of hopelessly delinquent ‘dictators’ (e.g. Manuel Noriega 1989, Saddam Hussayn 2003, Muammar Ghadaffi 2011).

Even if the most visible application of the Neocon arsenal takes place outside of the West and outside of the Western-allied world (flexibly defined as an malleable Orwellian ‘International Community’), the strategy of the Neocon trotskyists vis-à-vis Europe is basically the same. In this regard, Steuckers points to the crucial role of Germany: to maintain their New World Order it is vitally important for the Neocons to control and restrain Europe’s geographically, demographically and economically dominant nation-state. The military destruction of the Third Reich was followed by permanent military occupation, systematic ‘denazification’, pacifist indoctrination and permanent tributary status (Wiedergutmachung, Euro monetary union, ‘development aid’). The Neocons ...considèrent l’Europe comme un espace neutralisée, gouverné par des pitres sans envergure, un espace émasculé que l’on peut piller à mieux mieux... (p.14) [...regard Europe as a neutralized space, nominally ruled by clown without any real authority, a castrated region that can be plundered at will]. But still, there remains a ‘German danger’ in the heart of Europe: despite its slavish economic tribute, its humble foreign policy and its subservient political correctness, Germany remains a permanent potential threat to the Neocons’ unipolar globalism due to its unmatched economic productivity, its remarkable social cohesion and its indomitable intellectual tradition. Neither the stupendous cost of the Wiedervereinigung, nor the monstrous expense of the Euro, nor the colossal weight of the ‘Eurozone Crisis’ has been able to substantially slow down Germany’s socio-economic powerhouse. It is with this reality in mind that the globalist strategy of Umvolkung can be understood: only the physical replacement of the German people offers a realistic ‘hope’ for the permanent elimination of the ‘German danger’. The fact that this program of wholesale ethnic replacement - historically unprecedented in scale - is conceivable at all can only be properly understood against the specific background of the deep psycho-historical trauma and the decades’ long politically correct preconditioning of Germany. The contemporary reality of the physical violation of Germany - presently realized through taḥarruš jamā‘ī en jihād bi-ssayf (systematic rape en ritual slaughter) - can only be truly understood in view of its preceding psychological violation.[13]

The systematic globalist strategy of Deutschland ad acta legen[14] provides an eerie reminder of Rome’s long-term strategy vis-à-vis its archenemy Carthage: it is useful for contemporary Europeans who have sunk into urban-hedonist stasis to recall this lesson of history and to revisit the harsh power political mechanisms that determine the course of human history. Similar to Carthage after the First Punic War (264-241 BC), Germany was subjected to grotesque territorial amputation and top-heavy reparation payments after the First World War - in both cases this pressure led to international weakness and domestic strife (loss of naval power, diplomatic prestige and political stability). In both cases, the crisis that followed defeat finally caused a remarkable ‘nationalist’ rebirth: in Carthage, this took the form of the ‘Barcid Empire’ and in Germany, this took the form of the Third Reich. In both cases, this rebirth led to a renewed confrontation with the implacably envious archenemy. Similar to how Rome found a spurious but convenient casus belli against Carthage in ‘Saguntum’, Britain and France proceeded against Germany on the basis of ‘Danzig’. Similar to the Second Punic War (218-201 BC), the Second World War represents the dramatic height of a deeply existential confrontation in which the loser was inevitably consigned to historiographical hell, representing an archetypal and semi-metaphysical ‘Absolute Evil’. Carthaginian war leader Hannibal Barca shook Rome’s existential foundations and, thus, Roman thinkers such as Livy and Cicero had to describe him as the most monstrous threat that Roman civilization had ever faced: to them, Hannibal was the reincarnation of barbarian cruelty and the demonic abyss. Similar to how the Latin proverb Hannibal ante portas came to express Rome’s existential fears, the name of German war leader Adolf Hitler came to express the existential Angst of the post-war Western world (reductio ad hitlerem...). Similar to the Second Punic War, the Second World War ended with even greater territorial amputations and even more monstrous reparation payments. Similar to Carthage after the Second Punic War, Germany came under direct military, political and economic tutelage of the victors of the Second World War: to them, Germany’s vassal status constitutes a permanent ‘right of conquest’. In both cases, the victor regards the defeated archenemy as a permanent source of tribute, entitled to no more than a limited degree of domestic autonomy - to the victor, the defeated archenemy can never be allowed to rise to full equality again. Even so, to the victor, the combined physical survival and socio-economic resilience of the defeated enemy represents a latent but permanent source of fear and insecurity. This explains Rome’s policy of grotesque interference in the internal affairs of the Carthaginian rump-state in the aftermath of the Second Punic War - a phenomenon that is eerily reflected in the systematic globalist policy vis-à-vis the German rump-state since the Second World War. In both cases the natural resources, the high productivity and the cultural other-ness of the defeated enemy remain a constant source of ambition, envy and fear: ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam is the dominant sentiment. Similar to how independent Carthage had to die for Roman world power to live, Germany has to disappear for globalist world power to become permanent. And so, finally, after having exploited, manipulated and deceived Carthage to the utmost - to the point of forcing it to hand over it best arms and best people - Rome drops its mask: it presents an open demand for the old and rich trading port to dismantle itself, to burn itself and to ‘replace’ itself by moving inland and reinventing itself as an agricultural colony. Confronted with this final demand after decades of self-enforced and self-abasing ‘appeasement’, Carthage finally finds the courage to stand up and die with honour - and in freedom. The Third Punic War (149-146 BC) is not so much a war as an execution: the outcome of the struggle between all-powerful Rome and death-bound Carthage is a foregone conclusion. After a heroic death struggle, Carthage is annihilated: the burnt city is levelled to the ground, its decimated populace is sold into slavery and its sequestered lands were sowed with salt. It is - just - conceivable that Germany would finally, if confronted with an open globalist demand for self-annihilation through total ethnic replacement, opt for an Ende mit Schrecken instead of a Schrecken ohne Ende.[15] The more realistic scenario, however, is the full materialization of the spectre that is already now haunting Europe: an ‘ex-German’ psycho-historical and geo-political ‘black hole’ that is swallowing up the hole of (Western) Europe in a historically unparalleled process of sadomasochistic self-annihilation. It is this trajectory of gradual self-destruction that Frau Merkel is pursuing for Germany as a palliative alternative for the Wagnerian heroic war-to-the-death that was waged by Carthage. Perhaps she can not even be blamed for her choice: who knows what terrifying vengeance the German people would wreak if they would wake up from the soothing sedatives that ‘nurse Merkel’ is administering in the run-up to their ‘voluntary’ euthanasia?

Against this background, the full significance of Steuckers’ geopolitical analysis sinks in: L’Europe-croupion, que nous avons devant les yeux, est une victime consentante de la globalisation voulue par l’hegemon américain. ...En ce sens, l’Europe actuelle, sans ‘épine dorsale’, est effectivement soumise aux diktats de la haute finance internationale (p.17). [The ‘rump-Europe’ that we presently see before our eyes is the willing victim of the globalism that is imposed by American hegemony. ...In this sense, the present ‘spineless’ Europe is effectively subject to the dictates of international ‘high finance’]. Steuckers gives a clear analysis of what is required to escape from the clutches of the globalist bankers’ regime: nothing less than a new European Renaissance, based on a restoration of maximal economic autarky (systematic re-industrialization, strategic trade treaties, de-privatized monetary supply), a re-introduction of socio-economically balanced forms of ordo-liberalism (Rhineland Model, Keysenian Socialism) and a geopolitical re-orientation towards multipolarity (Eurasian Confederacy, Boreal Alliance). A new geopolitical course in the face of the globalist storm requires not only a unified European effort but also a shrewd European navigation strategy between new geopolitical power poles: ....[P]our se dégager des tutelles exogènes... [l’Europe faut] privilégier les rapports euro-BRICS ou euro-Shanghaï, de façon à nous dégager des étaux de propagande médiatique américaine et du banksterisme de Wall Street, dans lesquels nous étouffons. La multipolarité pourrait nous donner l’occasion de rejouer une carte contestatrice... en matière de politique extérieure (p.18). [To liberate itself from alien rule... [Europe must] prioritize Euro-BRICS or Euro-Shanghai,[16] so that we can free ourselves from the vice of American media propaganda and Wall Street banksterism in which we are currently suffocating. Multipolarity provides us with a means to play a strong hand... in the field of international politics.]

What is the Eurasianist perspective on the globalist program of

‘ethnic replacement’?

La vérité, l'âpre vérité

- Danton

Steuckers grasps the fundamental functionality of the globalist policy of ‘ethnic replacement’, or what he terms the ‘Great Replacement’: it constitutes a geopolitical instrument that serves to permanently weaken the European geopolitical power pole by drowning Europe in the economic and social crises that are the inevitable side-effects of artificially created overpopulation and radically unnatural ethnic ‘diversity’ (straining infrastructure, lowering economic productivity, undermining the rule of law, destroying social cohesion). He points to the simple material interests that are served by the ruthless project of ethnic replacement: Le néo-libéralisme en place est principalement une forme de capitalisme financier, et non industriel et patrimonial, qui a misé sur le court terme, la spéculation, la titrisation, la dollarisation, plutôt que sure les investissements, la recherche et le développement, le longe terme, la consolidation lente et précise des acquis, etc. ...[C’est] une idéologie fumeuse, inapplicable car irréelle... (p.19-20). [Primarily, the neo-liberal order can be understood as a form of finance capitalism - non-industrial and non-patrimonial capitalism - that ‘banks’ on short-term profit through [barely regulated] speculation, security schemes and dollarization instead of long-term gains through investment, research, development and slow and gradual capital consolidation etc. ...[It is] a nebulous ideology that does not work because it is unrealistic...] Thus, in Steuckers’ view, neo-liberalism is effectively a ‘smokescreen’ to hide the ‘Ponzi scheme’ of short-sighted financial piracy on a global scale.

Steuckers’ analysis of the ‘Great Replacement’ is especially interesting in the attention that he pays to its inhuman consequences for the millions of ‘migrants’ who have recently been brought over to Europe from Asia and Africa through globalist policies. He points to the fact that these new ‘illegals’ tend to be reduced to effective ‘slavery’, falling victim to countless forms of bestial exploitation. Les flux hétérogènes, différents des premières vagues migratoires légales vers l’Europe, génèrent, de par leur illégalité, une exploitation cruelle, assimilable à une forme d’esclavage, n’épargnant des mineurs d’âge (50% des nouveaux esclaves !) et basculant largement dans une prostitution incontrôlable. A laquelle s’ajoutent aussi les trafics [de drogues et] d’organes. Cette ‘économie’ parallèle contribue à corrompre les services de police et de justice. ...Tous ces problèmes horribles, inouïs, et le sort cruel des exploités, des enfants réduits à une prostitution incontrôlée, les pauvres hères à qui on achète les organes, les travailleurs sans protection qu’on oblige à effectuer des travaux dangereux ne font pas sourciller les faux humanistes, qui se donnent bonne conscience en défendant les ‘sans papiers’ mais qui sont, par là même, les complices évidents des mafieux... Ceux-ci peuvent ainsi tranquillement poursuivre leurs activités lucratives : en tant qu’idiots utiles, les humanistes... sont complices et donc coupable, coauteurs, des crimes commis contre ces pauvres déracinés sans protection... Nos angélistes aux discours tout de mièvrerie sont donc complices des forfaits commis, au même titre que les proxénètes, les négriers et les trafiquants. Sans la mobilisation des ‘bonnes consciences, ces derniers ne pourraient pas aussi aisément poursuivre leurs menées criminelles (p.20-1). [The recent heterogeneous migration streams differ from the earlier waves of legal immigration into Europe: through their illegality, they generate a cruel exploitation that leads to a new form of slavery which does not even spare minors (who make up half of the new slave population!) as they fall victim to uncontrollable prostitution. Added to this problem should be the trade in drugs and organs. This ‘parallel economy’ also corrupts the police apparatus and judicial systems... These terrible, unimaginable problems and the cruel fate of the exploited illegals, the children that end up in uncontrolled prostitution, the poor wretches that are selling their organs, the unprotected day-labourers that are forced into dangerous work - these problems are ignored by the fake ‘humanists’ that are showing off their ‘clean consciousnesses’ when they are defending the ‘undocumented’, but who are really accomplices to criminal gangs. These crime syndicates are allowed to continue their profitable activities undisturbed - as ‘useful idiots’ these humanists... are effectively accessories to crime: they are facilitating crimes against poor and deracinated people that are lacking in basic protection. Thus, our preachers of the ‘humanist’ discourse of fake concern are guilty as accessories to the crimes that are committed by pimps, slaveholders and human traffickers. Without the ‘humanist’ mobilization of the ‘clean consciousnesses’ these criminals would not be able to do their criminal handiwork with such ease.]

Steuckers’ ruthless analysis of the reprehensible pseudo-humanism of the ‘Social Justice Warrior’ activists and Gutmensch intelligentsia provides an important supplement to the growing public understanding of the direct interests that are served by the continuation of the globalist ‘Great Replacement’ strategy. In this regard, Steuckers’ analysis may be considered as the final intellectual nail in the coffin of the bankrupt discourse of ‘open borders.[17]

What is the Eurasianist diagnosis of Western Postmodernity?

Today we are not witnessing a crisis of civilization, but a wake around its corpse

- Nicolás Gómez Dávila

Steuckers interprets the existential reality of the contemporary West from the perspective of what Traditionalism terms the ‘Crisis of the Modern West’. He points to the absurdist - even ‘idiocratic’ - aspects of the unprecedented political degradation that can only be understood as deliberately engineered. From this perspective, the great majority of Western politicians are no more than insignificant connards et... connasses... qui titubent d’une corruption à l’autre, pour chavirer ensuite dans une autre perversité [‘cucks’ and ‘queenies’ that fall into one corruption after another, only to finally sink into yet some other perversity]. The Western ‘intelligentsia’ are nothing but festivistes écervelés qui se donnent... l’étiquette d’‘humanistes’ [brain-dead party-goers that have the temerity to call themselves ‘humanists’]. To Steuckers, the entire postmodern political enterprise is nothing but technocratisme sans épaisseur éthique [technocracy without ethical substance], led by une série de politiciens sans envergure [et] sans scrupule [a series of politicians without vision and scruples], slipping into [une] absence d’éthique dans le pôle politique qui... provoqu[e] l’implosion du pays [an ethical-political void that ends in the implosion of the nation]. The result is a déliquescence totale [complete dissolution] of state sovereignty, legal order, ethnic identity and social cohesion. In Steuckers’ estimation, France represents the European ‘ground zero’ of the postmodern globalist ‘deconstructive’ process: ...la France, depuis Sarközy et Hollande, n’est plus que la caricature d’elle-même, et la négation de sa propre originalité politico-diplomatique gaullienne... (p.24) [...since Sarkozy and Hollande, France is nothing but a caricature shadow of its former self, an inverted perversion of its Gaullist political and diplomatic original].

In the educational sphere, Steuckers notices clear signs of terminal cultural degeneracy, hastened by misapplied modern technology and resulting in démence digitale [digital dementia], characterized by a combined decline in intellectual stamina, attention spans and social skills. [L]’effondrement du niveau, où le prof doit se mettre au niveau des élèves et capter leur attention no matter what et la négligence des branches littéraires, artistiques, et musicales, qui permettent à l’enfant de tenir compte d’autrui, font basculer les nouvelles générations dans une déhumanisation problématique... (p.26). [The decline in educational standards, which now stipulate that the teacher must seek to ‘level’ with his pupils - no matter what - in order to gain their attention, and the neglect of literature, art and music - fields that allow youngsters to practice altruism - are hurtling new generations into an abyss of dehumanization...] The psycho-social impact of this educational degeneracy causes an acceleration in the ‘psychiatrization’ of Western society as a whole. In this regard, Steuckers points to the results of recent research in Belgium: [Les spécialistes voient] disparaître toute forme de ‘normalité’ et glisser nos populations vers ce qu’il[s] appelle[nt], en jargon de psychiatrie, le borderline, la ‘limite’ acceptable pour tout comportement social intégré, une borderline que de plus en plus de citoyens franchisent malheureusement pour basculer dans une forme plus ou moins douce, plus ou moins dangereuse de folie : en Belgique , 25% de la population est en ‘traitement’, 10% ingurgitent des antidépresseurs, de 2005 à 2009 le nombre d’enfants et d’adolescents contraints de prendre de la ritaline a doublé rien qu’en Flandre ; en 2007, la Flandre est le deuxième pays sur las liste en Europe quant au nombre de suicides... (p.26) [Among the general population, specialists are noticing the disappearance of ‘normality’ and a downward trend that is approaching what is known in the psychiatric profession as the ‘borderline’, i.e. the critical minimum level that is acceptable for socially adjusted behaviour - a ‘borderline’ that is breached by increasing numbers of citizens, resulting in more or less ‘soft’ as well as more or less dangerous forms of madness.

Thus, in Belgium 25% of the population is ‘in treatment’, 10% uses antidepressants and the number of children and adolescents that is forced to take ritaline in the region of Flanders alone has doubled between 2005 and 2009 and Flanders is now the second highest listed European region in terms of suicide frequency...] It should be added, that in the northern regions of the Low Countries the same trend is perhaps even more pronounced: the Dutch public sphere is now characterized by infantile regression, narcissist aggression and commercially-sponsored ‘idiocracy’ (phenomena promoted by television ‘celebrities’ such as ‘motivation coach’ Emile Ratelband, ‘model personality’ Paul de Leeuw and ‘morality anaesthetist’ Jeroen Pauw).

Characteristic for the psycho-social implosion of the postmodern West is a radical loss of all authentic forms of traditional identity (ethnicity, religion, birth caste, age cohort, gender, personal vocation). In this regard, Steuckers points to the clear link between the consistently deliberate ‘deconstruction’ of identity and actualized insanity: Sans identité, sans tradition, sans ‘centre’ intérieur, on devient fou... Ceux qui nous contrarient au nom de leurs chimères et leurs délires, sont, par voie de conséquence, sans trop solliciter les faits, des fous qui veulent précipiter leurs contemporains au-delà de la borderline... (p.27) [Without identity, without tradition, without inner ‘core’, people become unstable and insane... Without exaggeration, it can be stated that those who fight us in the name of their delusions and illusions are truly insane: they are madmen, driving their contemporaries across the ‘borderline’].

What is the Eurasianist prognosis for Western Postmodernity?

‘The End of the Affair’

#

Steuckers is of the opinion that the structural lack of a substantive patriotic-identitarian political opposition to the globalist ‘hostile elite’ of Europe is the result of a fatal combination of personal feuds within its leadership, politically opportunistic islamophobia (which confuses the ideology of ‘islamicism’ - Wahhabism and Salafism - with ‘Islam’ as Tradition) and short-sighted definitions of (narrow) nationalist interests. The tendency towards (hyper-)nationalist Alleingang that marks recent European history - and which still divides the European nations - is facilitating the anti-European globalist project. In this regard, Steuckers points to the great value of the alternative vision of Eurasianism: only a confederative activation of a Eurasian ‘imperial bloc’ of sovereign states can protect the peoples of Europe against the globalist ‘thalassocracy’ that is based on the Trans-Atlantic/Anglo-Saxon axis. The next logical step would be the neutralization of globalism on the basis of a ‘boreal alliance’ between the Eurasian bloc and the overseas peoples of European descent.

In the final analysis, Steuckers is not optimistic regarding the chances of a short-term translation of the metapolitical vision of Eurasianism into a real-world project. In his view, the build-up of an alternative network of coordinating metapolitical institutions is an absolute precondition for a successful challenge to the politically-correct ‘hostile elite’ that now controls Europe’s establishment universities, media and think tanks. Only such an alternative network can organize a coordinated strategy of pinpricks (debates, demonstrations, electoral preparation). It should be added that stable material facilities (legal assistance, labour union funding, professional security facilities) are absolute preconditions for any viable political and activist strategy of peaceful and legitimate civic resistance.

Steuckers predicts that the globalist New World Order and its foundational soixante-huitard discourse of neo-liberalism and cultural marxism will eventually collapse, but only after a total collapse of Western civilization in a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. He assumes that the West has to drink its cup of ‘constructivism’ - the heaven-storming delusion of hyper-humanist absolute and universal ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’ - to its last bitter dregs. The utopian ‘imagine’ dreams of the soixante-huitards - the angelic reveries of ‘progress’ and ‘constructability’ that hide the  actual practices of the demonically possessed babyboomers - will become real-life nightmares for the next generations: these will include the Asiatic and African assault of Gog and Magog on the European ‘Camp of the Saints’ and the ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ of extreme-matriarchical social implosion.[18] Selon l’adage: qui veut faire l’ange, fait la bête... Les négateurs de balises et de limites, qui voulaient tout bousculer au nom du ‘progrès’ (qu’ils imaginent au-delà de tout empirisme), vont provoquer une crise qui rendra leurs rêves totalement impossibles pour au moins une dizaine de générations, sauf si nous connaissons l’implosion totale et définitive... Quant aux solutions que nous pourrions apporter, elles sont nulles car le système a bétonné toute critique : il voulait poursuivre sa logique, sans accepter le moindre correctif démocratique, en croyant que tout trouverait une solution. Ce calcul s’est avéré faux. Archifaux. Donc tout va s’éffondrer. Devant notre lucidité. Nous rirons de la déconfiture de nos adversaires mais nous pleurerons amèrement sur les malheurs de nos peuples (p.23). [According to the adage that ‘who wants to play the angel will play the beast’... Those that ignore the traffic signs and speed limits [of civilization] and that overthrow the established order in the name of ‘progress’ (those that thought they are exempt from the rules of empiricism) will unleash a crisis that will render their dreams totally impossible for at least ten generation - unless we will actually face a total and final implosion of [Western] civilization... With regard to the solutions that we may propose: they are utterly worthless because the system voids every form of constructive criticism. Thus, the system will have to fully complete the cycle of its own [destructive] logic - it is unable to cope with even the tiniest dose of democratic correction because it is based on the assumption that there exists a ‘constructivist’ solution to all problems. This calculation has proven to be not just faulty, but dead wrong. And so everything will collapse - in front of our very eyes. We will enjoy the total defeat of our enemies, but we will bitterly weep over the misfortune of our peoples.]

Coda

Despite the disputed validity of Fichtean-Hegelian dialectic model (thesis-antithesis-synthesis) in pure philosophy, it remains valuable as a heuristic tool in the philosophically inspired culture sciences. Projected on European history, it sheds light on cyclical patterns of punctus contra punctum, patterns that are consistently followed by a sublime recapitulation. A ‘Faustian’ element of self-surpassing resurrection becomes visible - not only in the heathen-heroic half but also in the Christian-ascetic half of the European Tradition. Thus, it is only fitting that le Rouge et le Noir ends on a note that does justice to both:

Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan,

Dabei will ich verbleiben.

Es mag mich auf die rauhe Bahn

Not, Tod und Elend treiben.

So wird Got mich

Ganz väterlich

In Seinen Armen halten:

Drum lass ich Ihn nur walten.

[What God does, is well done,

I will cling to this.

Along the harsh path

Trouble, death and misery may drive me.

Yet God will,

Just like a father,

Hold me in His arms:

Therefore I let Him alone rule.]

- BWV 12

 

Glossary

 

Ethic Business	ideologically: the neo-liberal sponsorship of diaspora economies; economically: ‘shadow economies’ of multicultural ‘parallel societies that are structurally exempted from taxation, labour legislation and judicial oversight;[19]
Festivism	cultural-historically: the existential condition of urban-hedonist stasis resulting from neo-liberalism; psycho-historically: the après nous le déluge babyboom mentality; social-psychologically: ‘girls (and boys) just wanna have fun’;
Neo-Ruralism	the phenomenon of white de-urbanization during the first (city focussed) phase of ethnic replacement; the indigenous exodus from the cities of the West (White Flight);
Politicide	historically: the destruction of political plurality through a monolithic ‘political cartel’; ideologically: the introduction of dogmatic political-correctness as ‘public consensus’ (‘1984’).

 

Notes:

[1] The archangel St. Michael is patron saint of the city of Brussels.

[2] Cf. https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/archaeo-futurist-re... .

[3] Cf. https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/identitarian-revolu... and  http://www.identitair.com/ ‘About us’.

[4] For the metahistorical background and historical rise of thalassocratic Modernity cf. Alexander Wolfheze, The Sunset of Tradition and the Origin of the Great War. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2018. It should be noted that this book is now – until 1 December – temporarily available at a promotional discount at https://www.cambridgescholars.com/the-centenary-of-armist... .

[5] The dubious honour of having written the last undiluted-purist work of Whig History belongs to no one less than Winston Churchill, who started his A History of the English-Speaking Peoples between his infamous ‘own goal’ terms in office in the First and Second World Wars, alternatively entitled ‘Things in history That Interested Me’ by Clement Atlee. Note that in 1898 the historiographical revilement of Spain was shortly revived by American journalists to underpin the ‘false flag’ rhetoric that preceded the Spanish-American War.

[6] Article 231 of the Versailles Treaty.

[7] Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan ‘writing history’ in 1983.

[8] The BRICS powers – Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa – are the current focus of Neo-Eurasianist efforts of re-creating a global multipolar vision.

[9] For a basic outline of the essentialist/constructivist dichotomy cf. https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/identitarian-revolu... (introduction).

[10] A reference to the tenets of the 19^th Century Russian ‘proto-ethno-nationalist’ narodniks that were carried over into the 20^th Century ethnic policies of the Soviet Union.

[11] Cf. https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/dutch-ernstfall .

[12] Cf. https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/broken-arrow .

[13] Cf. Alexander Wolfheze, ‘Hellstorm’, Journal of Eurasian Affairs 5 (2018, 1) 25-48 (the digital version is freely accessible through https://issuu.com/altuhoff/docs/ea-5-web ).

[14] Cf. Rolf Peter Sieferle, Finis Germania. Schnellroda: Antaios, 2017.

[15] A precise – and therefore irrealistic – historical projection of the historical Roman-Carthaginian confrontation between 264 and 146 BC (90 years in total) renders such a scenario unlikely: a German ‘last stand’ should have commenced in the year 2001.

[16] Respectively, the strategic partnership between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, dating back to 2009 (cf. n.8) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, dating back to 1996.

[17] Cf. http://www.pi-news.net/2018/06/umvolkung-die-wahren-gruen... .

[18] Themes expanded upon in, respectively, Jean Raspail’s book Le camp des saints and Alexander Wolfheze’s article ‘The Living Dead’ (https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/living-dead ).

[19] Steuckers refers to an official estimate that put Ethnic Business at no less than 18% of the French Gross National Product in 2007.

 

Related links

Europe, Populism, Souverainisme, and Globalization: The Stakes of Modern Times

The Dutch Ernstfall

The Identitarian Revolution: Dutch Preliminaries

Russian Identity and Putin

Existential Dutch: stolen identity (letter of Dutch philosopher)

Identity and Sovereignty – Two Inseparable Notions

The Sovereignty of Sidekicks

The rise of the Eurasianist vision in Turkey

Le Rouge et le Noir: inleiding tot het Eurazianisme

Ex: http://www.erkenbrand.eu

Parerga & Paralipomena bij Robert Steuckers’ Europa II. De l’Eurasie aux périphéries, une géopolitique continentale (Madrid: BIOS, 2017)

door Alexander Wolfheze

Voorwoord: Trois Couleurs

Sur Bruxelles, au pied de l’archange,
Ton saint drapeau pour jamais est plantéⁱ

– La Brabançonne

Aan de cultuur-historische waarnemingshorizon van het postmoderne Westen begint zich geleidelijk aan een storm van ongekende proporties af te tekenen: met de aanstaande climax van de Crisis van het Moderne Westen – door Jason Jorjani nader geduid als de op handen zijnde World State of Emergency – nadert ook de Archeo-Futuristische Revolutie.ⁱⁱ De patriottisch-identitaire beweging die nu een stormachtige ontwikkeling doormaakt in alle Westerse landen mag gelden als ‘stormvogel’ van deze Archeo-Futuristische Revolutie.ⁱⁱⁱ Het is belangrijk dat deze beweging zich beraadt op effectieve metapolitieke strategieën ter voorbereiding van het aanstaand socio-politieke faillissement van de vigerende – dubbel neo-liberaal/cultuur-marxistische – globalistische werldorde. Het oudste metapolitieke discours dat de beweging daarbij ten dienste staat is het Traditionalisme. De enige hedendaagse mondiale geopolitieke visie die het Traditionalistisch gedachtegoed substantieel incorporeert is het Eurazianisme. Dit essay wil nader ingaan op het Traditionalistisch-georiënteerde Neo-Eurazianisme waarvan Aleksandr Doegin als bekendst exponent mag gelden. Dit essay wil echter ook wijzen op het – onterecht onderbelichte en hogelijk onderschatte – Traditionalistische denken en schrijven dat leeft in de Nederlanden zelf. Dit essay is gewijd aan de meest vooraanstaande – en oudstgediende – exponent van het typisch eigenwillige soort Traditionalisme dat gedijt in de Lage Landen: Robert Steuckers. Recentelijk verscheen van zijn hand een encyclopedisch werk over de Europese geschiedenis, beschaving en actualiteit: het drieluik Europa is een intellectuele tour de force van een diepgang en reikwijdte die zich niet laten smoren in de obligate politiek-correcte doofpop van (zelf-)censurerende systeem-publicisten. Europa is geschreven in het Frans en is nog niet naar het Nederlands of Engels vertaald; de lamentabele neergang van het onderwijs in de Franse taal in Nederland maakt het daarmee helaas ontoegankelijk voor grote delen van haar belangrijkste doelgroep in ons land: de patriottisch-geïnspireerde en identitair-bewuste intellectuele avant garde van de nieuwe generatie. Niet alleen in Nederland, maar in heel Europa maakt deze génération identitaire zich op voor de eindstrijd om haar existentieel bedreigde erfgoed: de Westerse beschaving en de Westerse geboortegrond. Dit essay wil althans een klein stukje van het denken dat vervat ligt in Steuckers’ Europa toegankelijk – of tenminste bekend – maken voor/bij het Nederlandse publiek. Naar mening van ondergetekende recensent vertegenwoordigt Steuckers’ Europa een juweeltje – een kleine afspiegeling van de Gouden Dageraad waar het Traditionalisme en het Eurazianisme naar terug en vooruit kijken. Zo komt uit België – uit Brussel – niet alleen het postmodern-globalistische ‘Europa’ van de EU moloch, maar ook het Archeo-Futuristische visioen Europa van Robert Steuckers. Dit essay is daarom niet alleen opgedragen aan Robert Steuckers zelf, maar ook aan zijn vaderland, Nederland’s stamverwante buurland, België.

Hoewel de (Frans-revolutionaire) oriëntatie en (heraldiek-traditionele) kleuren van de Belgische vlag historisch voorspelbaar zijn uit het specifieke wordingsproces van de Belgische staat, is zij toch zeer ongewoon in één opzicht. Wellicht reflecteert haar vreemde – bijna vierkante (13:15) – proportionaliteit de historische uniciteit van de Belgische staatkundige configuratie: België is feitelijk een cultuur-historisch ‘restgebied’ dat als ‘bufferzone’ soeverein werd verklaard ter wille van een vroeg-19^e eeuwse Brits-Frans-Pruisische balance of power compromis. Alleen kleurmatig heeft de Belgische vlag een authentiek-traditionele (dat wil zeggen dubbel historisch-symbolieke) stamboom. Tussen het bloedrood van de achterlandgewesten Luxemburg, Henegouwen en Limburg en het sabelzwart van het rijke zeegewest Vlaanderen staat het goudgeel van het machtige gewest Brabant en zijn hoofdstad Brussel, administratief pan-Europees machtscentrum van de premoderne Bourgondische staat tot aan de postmoderne Europese Unie. Het Belgische rood en zwart hebben dezelfde heraldiek-symbolische lading als het Eurazianistische rood en zwart: rood is in beide de kleur van aardse macht (Adel, leger) en zwart de kleur van bovenaardse macht (Kerk, clerus). Beide vullen elkaar noodzakelijkerwijze aan in de holistische visie van het Traditionalistische Eurazianisme: samen vormen ze een intimiderende combinatie die de dreiging van (zondvloed) storm en (heilige) oorlog voorspiegelt. Tot op de dag van vandaag weet iedereen dat de rood-zwarte vlag staat voor revolutie, zelfs als de Social Justice Warrior ideologen niet begrijpen wat de ware – terug-waartse en op-waartse – richting van elke authentieke re-volutie is (in casu: de Archeo-Futuristische Revolutie). Tussen het Belgische bloedrood en sabelzwart staat echter ook nog een kleur die in ‘occultatie’ schijnt te zijn in het Eurazianisme: het goudgeel dat de heraldiek-symbolische lading draagt van het hemelse licht en de Gouden Dageraad – en daarmee van het Traditionalisme zelf. Het is een straaltje van dat licht dat in Steuckers’ Europa uit Belgisch Brabant tot ons komt.

(*) Ondergetekende recensent heeft gekozen voor een de dubbele weergave van zowel Steuckers’ oorspronkelijke – haarscherpe en azijnzure – Franse tekst als een Nederlandse vertaling. De recensent deelt de mening van patriottisch publicist Alfred Vierling dat de Franse taalcultuur zozeer essentieel afwijkt van zowel de mondiaal dominante Angelsaksische taalcultuur als de in toenemende mate door het Angelsaksische globalisme vertekende Nederlandse taalcultuur dat toegang tot de Franse taal eigenlijk onontbeerlijk is voor elke evenwichtig belezen Nederlandse lezer. Het gebrek aan Franse taalkennis kan echter niet zonder meer de jonge Nederlandse lezer in de schoenen worden geschoven: dit desastreuze mankement komt grotendeels voor rekening van het opzettelijk idiocratische onderwijsbeleid van de Nederlandse hostile elite (minder teruggaand op het slash and burn staatssecretarisschap van onderwijs crimineel Mark R. dan op de cultuur-marxistische Mammoet Wet). De recensent heeft daarom besloten de lezer zowel Steuckers’ originele Frans als zijn eigen ietwat (contextueel-)vrije Nederlandse vertaling voor te leggen – vanzelfsprekend houdt hij de verantwoordelijkheid voor minder geslaagde pogingen om de Belgisch-Franse ‘bijtertjes’ van Steuckers weer te geven in het Nederlands. Een glossarium met overblijvende Steuckeriaanse neo-logismen is bijgevoegd.

(**) De organisatie van dit essay in ‘vraag paragraven’ (met experimentele ‘antwoorden’ in de mottos/ondertiteltjes) komt grosso modo overeen met die van Hoofdstuk I van Europa deel II (een uitgeschreven interview), maar is wel enigszins bijgesteld om de basisprincipes van het daarin beschreven Eurazianisme zo precies mogelijk begrijpelijk te maken voor de geïnteresseerde leek.

Wat is de cultuur-historische visie van het Eurazianisme?

History is written by those who hang heroes

– Robert the Bruce

Ter inleiding van het Eurazianisme is het van essentieel belang te wijzen op het belang van een long durée perspectief op de Westerse beschaving: Steuckers doet dit door te verwijzen naar de prehistorische wortels van de Europese volkeren, zoals die in de nasleep van de laatste IJstijd vorm kregen in het oudste Europese stamland tussen Thüringen en Zuid-Finland en zoals die zich al spoedig verspreidden door de hele Euraziatische ruimte tussen de Atlantische kust en het Himalaya gebergte. Ongetwijfeld is het deze archetypische beleving van dit prehistorische ‘Europese Avontuur’ – het ontdekken, ontsluiten en ontginnen van de immens gevarieerde oerlandschappen die liggen tussen de bevroren nevels van Scandinavië en de stomende jungles van Indië – die bepalend is voor Europa’s ‘Faustiaanse’ aandrang om over alle horizons heen te reiken. Het is deze zelfovertreffende aanleg – een subtiele combinatie van geïnspireerde visie, de lotstartende overmoed en het technisch vernuft – die een blijvend stempel heeft gedrukt op de archetypen van de Europese beschaving, van Klassiek-Griekse Titanen en Argonauten tot Laat-Moderne atoomwetenschappers en astronauten. Met het temmen van het paard en met superieure wapentechniek overheersten de proto-Europeanen al aan het begin van de geschreven geschiedenis het steppeland-centrum van de Euraziatische ruimte: Steuckers herinnert aan het feit dat zelfs nog ten tijde van de oudste Indo-Europese grootmachten – Achaemenidisch Perzië, Alexandrijns Macedonië, Maurya Indië – semi-mythische bereden riddervolkeren als de Scythen en de Sarmaten de Euraziatische Steppe beheersten. Het is op de geopolitieke as van deze steppe, die zich nagenoeg ononderbroken uitstrekt van Hongarije tot Mantsjoerije, dat de geschiedenis van de Europese volkeren op cruciale momenten is bepaald.

Hieronder, het meesterwerk van Dr. Wolfheze, dat werkelijk het boek van Julius Evola, Revolte tegen de moderne wereld, vervolledigt et actualiseert.

Steuckers wijst erop dat de dertien eeuwen Europese geschiedenis sinds het verlies van het Indo-Europese machtsmonopolie op de Euraziatische Steppe – gemarkeerd door de opkomst van het Hunnen Rijk onder Attila (406-453) – in feite kan worden beschreven als één gigantische strijd om het initiatief te heroveren op concurrerende Turks-Mongoolse volkeren die westwaarts stormen vanuit de steppe. Vanuit die optiek markeert de nederlaag van de Hunnen op de Catalaunische Velden (451) niet zozeer een Europese overwinning als wel de (dusver) diepste laagwaterstand van de Europese beschaving, dan teruggedrongen tot nauwelijks 300 kilometer van de Atlantische kust. Het is pas gedurende de 16^e en 17^e eeuw dat de Aziatische stormloop op Europa definitief wordt gekeerd: pas in de zeeslag bij Lepanto (1571) en het tweede beleg van Wenen (1683) wordt de Ottomaanse bedreiging van het Europese hartland definitief beëindigd. Steuckers wijst op de cruciale rol van de bereden Kozakken legers in de erop volgende – twee eeuwen durende – Reconquista van de Euraziatische Steppe (archetypisch uitgedrukt: ‘Rohan’ dat de ‘Pelennor’ schoonveegt). Deze herovering schept een brug tussen de twee grote beschavingspolen van Eurazië: Europa in het westen en China in het oosten – deze beschavingsbrug is het kernstuk van het Eurazianistische Project.

Het is de Vroeg-Moderne herovering van de Euraziatische kernruimte die de Klassiek-Moderne Europese wereldmacht mogelijk maakt. Het anker van het globale ‘Europees Imperium’ ligt in de Diplomatieke Revolutie – het renversement des alliances – van 1756 en de strategische alliantie van de grootmachten Spanje, Frankrijk, Oostenrijk en Rusland, zich ongebroken uitstrekkend over de hele Euraziatische ruimte van Finisterre tot Kamchatka. De op deze Diplomatieke Revolutie volgende Zevenjarige Oorlog (1756-63) heeft met recht de bijnaam ‘Wereld Oorlog Nul’: het is de eerste directe strijd tussen de Angelsaksisch-geleide ‘thalassocratie’ en de Euraziatische landmachten. Catastrofale maritieme en koloniale nederlagen kostten Frankrijk bijna al zijn bezittingen in Noord-Amerika en Zuid-Azië: de geopolitieke basis van de tot op de dag van vandaag voortdurende Angelsaksische hegemonie ter zee is gelegd. Abstract gesproken vertegenwoordigt de Angelsaksische thalassocratie de op zeemacht gebaseerde Westerse Moderniteit en vertegenwoordigen de Euraziatische kernmonarchieën de op landmacht gebaseerde Westerse Traditie. Deze beschavingstegenstelling is het – zuiver Traditionalistische -kernstuk van de Eurazianistische gedachte.

Met de Franse Revolutie – ironisch genoeg direct voortvloeiend uit het Franse staatsbankroet dat volgt op de Franse revanche ter zee op Groot-Brittannië tijdens de Amerikaanse Revolutie (1775-83) – krijgt de thalassocratische Moderniteit vaste voet aan grond op het Europese continent: Frankrijk speelt als brandhaard van revolutionaire politiek en anti-Eurazianistische geopolitiek gedurende de 19^e en 20^e eeuw constant de rol van continentaal bruggenhoofd voor de thalassocratische Moderniteit.^iv De post-Napoleontische restauratie van de Traditionalistische Bourbons en de instelling van de proto-Eurazianistische Heilige Alliantie (1815) brengen hierin geen verandering: in 1830 valt Frankrijk terug in revolutionaire politiek en met haar anti-revolutionaire falen zowel binnen als buiten Europa is de Heilige Alliantie failliet. Met vrijwel de hele Nieuwe Wereld vast in handen van vrijmetselaars liberalen – nu afgeschermd door de Monroe Doctrine – en met escalerende revolutionaire agitatie op het Europese vasteland verschuift het geopolitieke evenwicht gestaag ten voordele van de Atlanticistische thalassocratie en ten nadele van het Traditionalistische Eurazië. Steuckers wijst terecht op de elementaire rol van de Anglo-Franse rapprochement in dit proces: de Krim Oorlog (1853-56) is in zijn optiek het definitieve moment waarop de Euraziatische ruimte landinwaarts wordt teruggedrongen naar de Rijn. Enkele jaren later neemt het door Bismarck wederopgerichte (Tweede) Duitse Rijk de rol van Euraziatische buitenpost over van het definitief in republikeinse decadentie verzonken Frankrijk: Duitsland’s Wacht am Rhein als hoeder van de Europese Traditie begint. In het tijdperk van de gecombineerde Tweede Industriële Revolutie en het Moderne Imperialisme en de onweerstaanbare opkomst van een globale règne de la quantité is het verval van het Traditionalistische Eurazië echter onstuitbaar. De globale strategische deficiëntie van Eurazië is het duidelijkst zichtbaar in het verlies van de laatste Euraziatische buitenposten in de Nieuwe Wereld (de Russische verkoop van Alaska in 1867 en de Spaanse nederlaag in de Caraïben in 1898) en in het falen van Duitsland om zich een substantiële Platz an der Sonne toe te eigenen. Met het verlies van de Naval Arms Race met Groot-Brittannië is Duitsland in 1912 gedwongen haar offensieve Weltpolitik in te ruilen voor een defensieve Mitteleuropapolitik: tegen die tijd is haar fatale Einkreisung door een overmachtige alliantie van thalassocratisch Groot-Brittannië en republikeins Frankrijk plus het financieel-gemanipuleerde en revolutionair-ondermijnde Rusland allang een feit. Historisch gesproken is de onvermijdelijke nederlaag van Duitsland als kampioen van de Europese Traditie het resultaat van een zorgvuldig voorbereide hinderlaag. Met het Diktat van Versailles, de ontmanteling van het Habsburgse Rijk en met de Bolsjewistische terreurbewind zijn de grote stutten van het Traditionalistische Eurazië geslecht. De opstand tegen de resulterende eerste versie van de thalassocratisch-globalistische Nieuwe Wereld Orde, abstract gesymboliseerd in de dubbele oprichting van de Comintern en de Volkenbond in 1919/20, door de ‘As-mogendheden’ in 1937-45 is nóg hopelozer dan de ongelijke wedstrijd ‘Duitsland vs. Wereld’ van 1914-18. Met de definitieve vernietiging van de Europese Traditie en de Europese grootmachten in jaren ’40 (Frankrijk verliest grootmacht status in 1940, Italië in 1943, Duitsland in 1945 en Groot-Brittannië – met Indië – in 1947), valt de rol van Euraziatisch voorvechter toe aan een ideologisch onwaarschijnlijke maar geopolitiek logische kandidaat: het nieuwe ‘nationaal-communistische’ Rusland van Stalin. De thalassocratische strijd tegen dit nieuwe Euraziatisch bolwerk neemt de vorm aan van een langdurige mondiaal-uitgevochten belegeringsstrijd: de ‘Koude Oorlog’. In 1991 gooit de Sovjet-Unie, failliet en uitgeput na vier decennia ongelijke strijd tegen een overmachtige globale vijand, de handdoek in de ring. Zo kunnen Francis Fukuyama zijn End of History en George Bush Senior zijn New World Order verkondigen: ‘Globalië’, de grenzeloze wereldstaat van de onbeperkte banken heerschappij en universalistisch cultuur nihilisme, is geboren.

Het boek van Eberhard Straub over de "zwarte legende".

Steuckers wijst op de ideologisch-propagandistische rode draad die loopt door de triomfale campagne van de Modernistische thalassocratie tegen het Traditionalistische Eurazië: het constante gebruik van verschillende soorten leyenda negra tegen de ‘verliezers van de geschiedenis’. De moderne geschiedenis wordt geschreven door de ‘beulen van helden’: in 1588 verliest Katholiek Spanje van Protestants Engeland (in 1648 ook nog eens van Protestants Nederland) en wordt in teleologisch-triomfantelijke Whig History bestempeld als de overwonnen ‘Anti-Christ’^v, in 1918 verliest het ‘militaristische’ Duitsland van de ‘vredelievende’ Entente en krijgt de historische (en financiële) ‘schuld’ voor de oorlog in de schoenen geschoven^vi, in 1991 verliest het ‘onvrije’ Sovjet-Rusland van het ‘vrije’ Westen en gaat de geschiedenis in als Evil Empire.^vii Dezelfde propagandistische rode draad wordt de systeempers van het Postmoderne Westen vanzelfsprekend doorgetrokken naar de huidige actualiteit: alle overblijvende niet-globalistische machtspolen in buitenlandse politiek en alle niet-nihilistische krachten in de binnenlandse politiek worden politiek-correct weggezet via soortgelijke leyendas negras. Het zich internationaal tegen het cultuur-nihilistische globalisme verzettende Rusland van Vladimir Poetin wordt afgedaan als ‘anti-democratisch’, het Hongarije van Viktor Orbán als ‘illiberaal’ en het Turkije van Recep Erdogan als ‘autoritair’. De zich binnen het ‘Vrije Westen’ tegen transnationale soevereiniteitsoverdracht en etnische vervanging verzettende patriottische en identitaire bewegingen worden afgedaan als ‘populistisch’, ‘chauvinistisch’ en ‘racistisch’. Het effectief annuleren van zulke historiografische en mediale indoctrinatie is volgens Steuckers een prioritaire opgave van de hedendaagse Eurazianistische beweging: Il conviendrait donc de réfléchir à annuler les effets de toutes les leyendas negras, par des efforts coordonnés, à l’échelle globale, dans tous les états européens, en Iran, au sein de toutes les puissances du BRICS (p.6). [Het verdient dus de aanbeveling na te denken over het teniet doen van de effecten van alle ‘zwarte legenden’ door een gecoördineerde inspanning, op globaal niveau, zowel in de Europese staten, als in Iran en de BRICS landen.]^viii

Steuckers’ ziet de toekomst van het Eurazianisme – meer precies het Neo-Eurazianisme dat zich oriënteert op het onder Vladimir Poetin wedergeboren Rusland – in een herleving van de strategische allianties die bestonden in de wereld van voor de wereldoorlogen: L’eurasisme, à mon sens, doit être la reprise actualisée de l’alliance autro-franco-russe du XVIIIe siècle, de la Sainte-Alliance et de l’Union des Trois Empereurs, voire une résurrection des projets d’alliance franco-germano-austro-russe… avant 1914 (p.6). [Naar mijn opvatting dient het Eurazianisme te worden hervat middels een wederopvatting van de 18^e eeuwse Oostenrijks-Frans-Russische alliantie, de Heilige Alliantie en de Drie Keizers Bond, of middels een wederopwekking van de Frans-Duits-Oostenrijks-Russische bondgenootschappelijke projecten… van voor 1914.]

Welke betekenis heeft ‘etniciteit’ binnen het Eurazianisme?

Nullus enim locus sine genio est

– Servius

De Traditionalistische ‘kleuring’ van het Euraziatisch gedachtegoed komt tot uiting in een niet-biodeterministische invulling van de categorieën ‘ras’ en ‘etniciteit’: in het Eurazianisme worden beide geïnterpreteerd als voorgegeven – en dus ononderhandelbare – bio-evolutionaire constructies van gelijktijdig biologische (fysiek-fenotypisch) en culturele (psycho-sociale) aard. Vanuit die optiek is elk ‘volk’ een unieke historische combinatie van fysieke, psychische en spirituele gesteldheden die tot uitdrukking komen in een eigen ‘fenotypische bandbreedte’, een eigen ‘communicatieve toonzetting’, een eigen ‘materiële voetafdruk’ en een eigen ‘transcendentale niche’ – uitdrukkingen die cultuur-historisch worden gedefinieerd als ‘ras’, ‘taal’, ‘cultuur’ en ‘godsdienst’. Tezamen genomen kunnen deze uitdrukkingen worden gebruikt om het ongrijpbare fenomeen ‘etniciteit’ te ‘trianguleren’ en het subjectieve bestaansmedium ‘volk’ te abstraheren. Vanuit die optiek is ‘wetenschappelijk racisme’ een contradictio in terminis: er bestaan geen absoluut objectieve ‘evolutionaire meetlatten’ omdat ieder volk op unieke wijze is aangepast aan zijn unieke biotoop. Relatieve metingen (van pre-wetenschappelijke schedel- en neus-metingen tot hoogst-wetenschappelijke IQ- en DNA-metingen) kunnen hooguit hopen een functionele beschrijving geven van specifieke bio-evolutionaire aanpassingen: absolute maatstaven van ‘menselijke kwaliteit’ vallen er niet uit af te leiden.

Onderdelen van het Tradionalistische wereldbeeld dat de Eurazianistische visie op ‘ras’ en ‘etniciteit’ voedt kan men terugvinden in het werk van Johann Herder (‘idealistisch nationalisme’) en Julius Evola (‘spiritueel ras’). Dat gezegd zijnde, is het belangrijk te onderstrepen dat de Traditionalistische ‘kleuring’ het Eurazianisme een essentialistische inslag geeft: het Eurazianisme streeft naar het behoud van holistisch-gedefinieerd ‘ras’ en ‘etniciteit’ omdat het de intrinsieke existentiële waarde van elk uniek element binnen de mensheid als geheel erkent – het staat in die zin lijnrecht tegenover de constructivistische ideologieën van de Moderniteit (liberalisme, socialisme, communisme).^ix Gegeven dit streven – wellicht nog het best te vergelijken met op menselijke (bio)diversiteit afgestelde strategie van ‘natuurbehoud’ – verwerpt het Eurazianisme elke afbreuk in de staatssoevereiniteit, culturele eigenheid en territoriale integriteit van de volkeren die inheems zijn aan de gemeenschappelijke Euraziatische ‘biotope’. Steuckers verwoordt deze stellingname als volgt: Mon concept d’Eurasie est synonyme d’une confédération solidaire de peuples de souche européenne qui devront, éventuellement, occuper des territoires où vivent d’autres peoples, pour des raisons essentiellement stratégiques. …La vision ethno-différentialiste postule que les peuples non européens ne soient pas obligés de singer les Européens, de modifier leurs substrats naturels, que ce soit par fusion, par mixage ou par aliénation culturelle (p.7-8). [Mijn concept van Eurazië is een confederatief solidariteitspact tussen alle volkeren van Europese afstamming, aangevuld – waar nodig – met een bezetting van territorium van andere volkeren om redenen van vitale strategische veiligheid. …De etno-differentialistische visie^x gaat ervan uit dat de niet-Europese volkeren niet gedwongen moeten zijn om de Europese volkeren ‘na te apen’, of om hun natuurlijke substraat aan te passen door fusie, vermenging of culturele ontvreemding.]

Het ‘raciale’ en ‘etnische’ aspect van het Neo-Eurazianisme beperkt zich tot het (her)scheppen van cultuur-historische ‘ademruimte’ voor alle inheemse volkeren binnen de Euraziatische ruimte. Steuckers wijst in dit verband op een vier basale strategische overwegingen:

(1) De noodzaak van een wijde definitie van het begrip ‘Europees’ als het hele (blanke, Caucasian) volkerenconglomeraat dat taalkundig als Indo-Europees, Finno-Oegrisch, Baskisch en (Noord, Zuid en Oost) Kaukasisch sprekend word benoemd.

2) De noodzaak van een pragmatische incorporatie van de inheemse Oeralo-Altaïsche (inclusief de Turkofone) volkeren in een gemeenschappelijk ‘Europees Huis’ op basis van vrijwillige etnische segregatie en beperkte territoriale autonomie.

(3) De noodzaak van een los institutioneel kader voor vreedzame co-existentie met de vier andere grote beschavingspolen die zich direct rond de (Christelijke) Euraziatische beschavingspool bevinden: het (Zoroastrische) Iran, het (Hindoeïstische) India, het (Confucianistische) China en het (Sjintoïstische) Japan. Denkend vanuit het Euraziatische hartland dient de beschavingsuitstraling van deze vier andere autonome polen daarbij noord-zuid gericht te zijn: Iran heeft een natuurlijke beschavingsmissie naar heel het Midden-Oosten, India naar heel Zuid-Azië, China naar heel Zuid-Oost-Azië en Japan naar heel de Aziatische Pacific Rim.

(4) De noodzaak van een pragmatisch geopolitiek bondgenootschap met alle overzeese Europees-stammige volkeren, met name met de overzeese Anglosfeer en de post-globalistische Verenigde Staten. Dit bondgenootschap kan zich baseren op de ‘gecorrigeerde’ Amer-Eurazianistische Realpolitik van de late Zbigniew Brzezinski en op het Archeo-Futuristische ‘boreale alliantie’ visioen van Guillaume Faye.

Steuckers benoemt ook expliciet de grootste tegenstanders van de Neo-Eurazianistische Project: dit zijn de verschillende soorten hyper-universalistisch globalisme en missionair primitivisme die voortvloeien uit de psycho-historisch regressieve (Post-)Moderniteit (de ‘Kali Yuga’). De radicaal-constructivistische illusies die voortvloeien uit het historisch-materialistisch ‘verlichtingsdenken’ en de extreem destructieve visioenen die voortvloeien uit reactionair neo-primitivisme representeren een dodelijk dreiging voor al die vormen van authentieke collectieve identiteit die in bescherming worden genomen door het Neo-Eurazianisme: godsdienst, cultuur, taal en etniciteit. Als dodelijkste bedreigingen benoemt Steuckers het missionaire neo-liberalisme (sociaal-economisch atavisme gebaseerd op post-protestants hyper-individualisme met Amerika als brandhaard) en het even missionaire islamisme (sociaal-culturele regressie gebaseerd op post-islamitisch hyper-collectivisme met Saoedi-Arabië als brandhaard). In Steuckers’ visie is het geen toeval dat deze twee ‘missies’ zich in een strategisch (geopolitiek) bondgenootschap verbinden. Voor het eerst in een generatie tekenen zich echter beginnende breuklijnen af in de dubbel neoliberaal-islamistische (‘Amerikaans-Saoedische’) Nieuwe Wereld Orde. De voorzichtige programmalijnen die worden uitgetekend door Donald Trump’s éminence grise, Steve Bannon, wijzen op een revaluatie van de Amerikaanse hegemoniale strategie, mede ingegeven door de simpele rekensommen van Amerika’s imperial overstretch en China’s economic miracle. Bannon’s programma past al gedeeltelijk in Steuckers evaluatie van het effectieve ideologische faillissement van het Amerikaanse globalisme: …[I]l faudrait que l’Amérique du Nord revienne à une pensée aristotélicienne, renaissanciste, débarrassée de tous les résidus de ce puritanisme échevelé, de cette pseudo-théologie fanatique où aucun esprit d’équilibre, de pondération et d’harmonie ne souffle, pour envisager une alliance avec les puissances du Vieux Monde (p.9). [Het is nodig dat Noord-Amerika terugkeert tot een Aristoteliaans en Renaissancistisch wereldbeeld gezuiverd van alle resten van zijn warrige puritanisme – het pseudo-theologische fanatisme waarin de geest van evenwichtigheid, aandachtigheid en harmonie niet kan ademen – zodat het zich weer een bondgenootschap met de machten van de Oude Wereld kan voorstellen.]

Welke prioriteit heeft ‘nationalisme’ binnen het Eurazianisme?

‘The Empire Strikes Back’

Omdat het Eurazianisme maximale soevereiniteit nastreeft voor alle Europese volkeren, maar tegelijk de noodzaak van een gemeenschappelijke verdedigingsfunctie erkent, dringt zich de vraag op naar de precieze rol en functie van de vele verschillende soorten nationalisme die naast – en tegen – elkaar bestaan binnen het hedendaagse ‘Europa van de Volkeren’. Steuckers maakt hierbij onderscheid tussen twee essentieel verschillende visies op ‘Europa’: de ‘harde’ traditionele visie en de ‘zachte’ moderne visie. Omdat de Traditionalistische ‘harde’ visie al zolang uit de belevingswereld – en grotendeels ook uit het historisch geheugen – van de Europeanen is verdwenen is het belangrijk Steuckers’ analyse van het nationalistische ‘Europa van de Volkeren’ in te leiden met een korte herinnering aan de Traditionalistische visie op supra-nationale (dat wil zeggen natuurlijke boven-nationale) gezagsvormen. Het is belangrijk die visie te onderscheiden van de moderne realiteit van trans-nationale (dat wil zeggen kunstmatige anti-nationale) gezagsvormen zoals die van de globalistische ‘letterinstituties’ (VN, IMF, NAVO, EU etc.).

De enige Traditionalistisch legitieme vorm van supra-nationaal gezag berust op het geval van wat Carl Schmitt het Ernstfall noemt: de transcendent gesanctioneerde Auctoritas en de bevoegdheid tot Imperium die voortvloeien uit een collectief erkend en collectief levensbedreigend clear and present danger.^xi Voor het Eurazianistische Project betekent dit concreet dat er maar één soort legitiem supra-nationaal gezag bestaat dat – met maximaal behoud van het principe van subsidiariteit – (tijdelijk) boven de staatssoevereine instellingen van de Europese volkeren kan staan: het gezag dat nodig is om een fysieke aanslag op de Euraziatische ruimte als geheel te weerstaan. Schmitt wijst in dit verband op de kernbetekenis van het Traditionalistische begrip van de Katechon: Bijbelse echatologie wijst de Katechon aan als de transcendent-gelegitimeerde ‘hoeder’ van het Christendom – en daarmee van de Christelijk-Europese Traditie. Elke andere vorm van – nationaal-hegemoniaal of historisch-materialistische geïnspireerd – trans-nationaal ‘gezag’ (Napoleontisch-Frans Europa, Hitleriaans-Duits Europa, de ‘Sovjet-Unie’, de ‘Europese Unie’) is vanuit Traditionalistisch perspectief illegitiem. Het naderende dieptepunt van de Crisis van het Moderne Westen, gekarakteriseerd door de samenvallende noodtoestanden van etnische vervanging, antropogene klimaatverandering, transhumanistische ‘technocalypse’ en matriarchale sociale implosie, noopt tot een urgent collectief beroep op de Auctoritas van de Katechon. Meest urgent is het afweren en omkeren van barbaarse invasie en kolonisatie van West-Europa en de overzeese Anglosfeer: de urgente noodzaak van een effectieve bestrijding van het door anti-Europese ideologen aangemoedigde ‘massa-immigratie’ project rechtvaardigt een beroep op de Katechon in zijn capaciteit als ‘grenswacht’ van de Westerse Traditie.^xii Faute de mieux ziet het Neo-Eurazianisme in het uit de as van het zeven decennia Bolsjewisme en één decennium globalisme herrezen Rusland een mogelijke Laatste Katechon. Binnen Rusland zijn er tekenen die wijzen op een sociaal-culturele ontwikkeling in deze richting: het herstel van de Russische staatsautoriteit door Vladimir Poetin, de wederopleving van de Russisch Orthodoxe Kerk onder Patriarch Kirill en de coherente formulering van een alternatief metapolitiek discours onder Aleksandr Doegin staan in schril contrast met de negatieve sociaal-culturele ontwikkelingen in het ‘Westen’ (hier gedefinieerd als de Europese Atlantic Rim en de overzeese Anglosfeer).

Vrijwel onmiddellijk na de val van de communistische dictatuur in Oost-Europa (de Sovjet-Unie werd opgeheven in 1991) werd een globalistische dictatuur ingevoerd in West-Europa (de Europese Unie werd opgericht in 1992): het ‘Oostblok’ werd vervangen door een ‘Westblok’. Dit nieuwe Westblok, gekarakteriseerd door een extreem anti-traditionele ideologie en een matriarchaal-xenofiele publiekscultuur die als zoutzuur inwerken op alle vormen van authentieke autoriteit en identiteit, bedreigt het fysieke voortbestaan van de Europese volkeren nu op een veel directere manier dan het oude Oostblok ooit deed. Waar het Oostblok – althans in theorie – inzette op een ‘anagogische’ overwinning van het Europese nationalisme en een evenwichtige ‘broederschap’ van afzonderlijke volkeren, zet het Westblok in op de fysieke deconstructie van de Europese volkeren door anti-natalisme (middels sociale implosie) en etnische vervanging (middels massa-immigratie). De ex-Oostblok staten van Centraal Europa die vanaf 2004 in het Westblok werden geabsorbeerd erkennen nu dit verschil – dit is de diepere reden dat de Visegrad staten zich met hand en tand verzetten tegen het door Brussel opgelegde ‘open grenzen’ principe. Het is ironisch dat Europees klein-nationalisme de Brusselse globalisten daarbij effectief in de hand werkt: kortzichtige en kunstmatig-vergrote neo-nationalistische belangentegenstellingen tussen de Europese volkeren onderling leiden de aandacht af van hun veel grotere gemeenschappelijke belang, namelijk het overleven van de Westerse beschaving als geheel. Voorbeelden van zulke kunstmatige tegenstellingen zijn de noord-zuid verdeeldheid na de ‘Europese Staatsschulden Crisis’ van 2010, de west-oost verdeeldheid na de Russische incorporatie van de Krim in 2014 en de continentaal-insulair verdeeldheid na de ‘Brexit’ van 2016. Hier herleven – propagandistisch uitgebuite – ‘klein nationalistische’ tegenstellingen in de kunstmatige grotere setting van een zorgvuldig verzwegen maar grootschalig globalistische offensief op het geheel van alle Europese natie-staten en alle Europese volkeren tezamen.

Recente ‘separatistische’ tendensen binnen bestaande Europese staten (de afscheiding van Kosovo in 2008, het Schotse onafhankelijkheid referendum van 2014, de Catalaanse ‘onafhankelijkheidsverklaring’ van 2017) onderstrepen de actueel acute relevantie van het ‘nationalisme’ vraagstuk. De dubbele last van het achterhaalde internationale staatsrecht (‘Westfalen’ – ongedifferentieerde staatssoevereiniteit) en de achterhaalde territoriale afbakeningen (‘Versailles’ – kunstmatige staatsgrenzen) versterkt de politieke tendentie naar de ‘kleinste nationalistische deler’. Steuckers wijst op het effect van de globalistische divide et impera strategie die wordt geëffectueerd door een versterking van de moderne ‘zachte visie’ ten koste van de traditionele ‘harde visie’ op de Europese geopolitiek. Hij wijst op de historische oorsprong van de ‘zachte visie’ die ontstaat op de drempel van de Moderne Tijd: het was Frans I van Frankrijk (r. 1515-47) die voor het eerst een moderne (absolutistische) soevereiniteit bevocht op het traditionele pan-Europese (supra-nationale) oppergezag van de Rooms-Duits keizer, in casu Karel V (r. 1519-56) – hij was ook de eerste moderne vorst die Europa verried middels een buiten-Europese (Ottomaanse) alliantie. De voortschrijdende staatsrechterlijke ‘balkanisatie’ van Europa – definitief geïnstitutionaliseerd in de Vrede van Westfalen (1648) – heeft het dubbele effect van het tenietdoen van elke vorm van traditioneel-legitiem supra-nationaal gezag en het bevorderen van zowel modern-illegitiem trans-nationale machtsvormen als buiten-Europese interventies. Het bevordert het klein-nationalistische conflicten binnen Europa en ontdoet Europa als geheel van een overkoepelend beschermmechanisme: het maakt Europa zwak. De harde visie, gebaseerd op subsidiaire (gelaagde, gedelegeerde) soevereiniteit verdwijnt definitief van het Europese toneel met de val van de laatste Katechon staatsinrichtingen aan het eind van de Eerste Wereld Oorlog (de West-Romeinse Katechon, abstract vertegenwoordigt door het Habsburgse Imperium, en de Oost-Romeinse Katechon, abstract vertegenwoordigt door het Romanov Imperium). Sindsdien is het proces van staatsrechterlijke ‘devolutie’ naar steeds kleinere ‘natie-staten’ onomkeerbaar – het bereikt haar hoogtepunt met het ontdooien van de door de Koude Oorlog ‘bevroren’ kunstmatige veelvolkerenstaten (Sovjet-Unie, Joegoslavië, Tsjechoslowakije). En zo is Europa nu opgedeeld in meer dan vijftig – deels onvolledig erkende – staten en staatjes en de tendens naar versplintering is onverminderd sterk. Het herinvoeren van de harde visie op de Europese geopolitiek is een absolute voorwaarde voor het overkomen van het futiele en verzwakkende klein-nationalisme, voor het bestrijden van globalistische verdeel-en-heers strategieën en voor het redden van de Europese volkeren van de dubbele fysieke en psychische Götterdämmerung van Umvolkung (etnische vervanging) en Entfremdung (sociaal-cultureel identiteitsverlies).

Wat is het Eurazianistische alternatief voor ‘Globalië’?

Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam

– Cato Maior

Om de vraag die boven deze paragraaf staat goed te kunnen beantwoorden is een goed begrip nodig van wat de globalistische hostile elite nu precies voor ogen staat. Hier helpt Steuckers’ scherpzinnige analyse van de meest extreme vertegenwoordigers van het globalistische New World Order project: de Neocons die de Amerikaanse buitenlandse politiek overnamen na de coup d’état van ‘9//11’. Steuckers omschrijft hen als ‘herbedachte trotskisten’ die het beginsel van de ‘permanente revolutie’ op mondiale schaal invoeren voor het handhaven van de ‘unipolaire’ hegemonie van de Amerikaanse supermacht als een nuttige politieke en militaire wachthond van een informeel globalistisch bankiers regime. Inderdaad zijn er directe persoonlijke en ideologische overlappingen tussen de vroeg-21^e eeuwse nihilistische Neocons en de late-20^e eeuwse trotskistische New York Intellectuals: Francis Fukuyama wees al in 2006 op de incorporatie in de Neocon ideologie van het – diep in het trotskisme verweven – leninistische beginsel van het ‘versnellen van de geschiedenis’ door brute machtsmiddelen. De unipolaire geopolitieke strategie van de Neocons neemt inderdaad haar toevlucht tot de nietsontziende middelen om zoveel mogelijk afbreuk te doen aan alle andere (potentiële) machtspolen: het Amerikaanse machtsinstrumentarium mag dan niet in staat zijn de hele wereld direct te beheersen, maar het is wel een uitstekend instrument om alle andere machten klein te houden met een goed gekalibreerde combinatie van economische manipulatie, politieke ondermijning en militaire interventie. Shock Doctrine Disaster Capitalism is een middel voor het scheppen van een wereldwijde ‘consumenten cultuur’ (McWorld) en een globale arbeidsdeling (free trade flat world). Flower/Colour Revolution (soft power en black ops sociaal-politieke ondermijning) is een middel voor het invoeren van corrupte en dus manipuleerbare ‘democratie’ in tegenstribbelende staten (de Georgische ‘Rozen Revolutie’ van 2003, de Oekraïnse ‘Oranje Revolutie’ van 2004, de Egyptische ‘Lotus Revolutie’ van 2011 etc.). Regime Change, tenslotte, is een laatste redmiddel voor de gewelddadige liquidatie van hopeloos delinquente ‘dictators’ (Manuel Noriega 1989, Saddam Hussein 2003, Moeammar Gadaffi 2011 etc.).

De meest zichtbare toepassingen van dit Neocon machtsinstrumentarium mogen dan plaatsvinden buiten de Westerse en Westers-geallieerde wereld (propagandistisch flexibel gedefinieerd als de Orwelliaans kneedbare International Community), maar in principe is de basale strategie van de Neocon trotskisten vis-à-vis Europa niet anders. Steuckers wijst in dit verband op de cruciale rol van Duitsland: de beheersing en beknotting van de geografisch, demografisch en economisch meest formidabele natie-staat van Europa is essentieel in de Nieuwe Wereld Orde van de Neocons. De militaire vernietiging van het Derde Rijk werd daarom gevolgd door permanente militaire bezetting, systematische denazificatie, doctrinaire pacificatie en permanente schatplichtigheid (Wiedergutmachung, Euro, ‘ontwikkelingshulp’). De Neocons …considèrent l’Europe comme un espace neutralisée, gouverné par des pitres sans envergure, un espace émasculé que l’on peut piller à mieux mieux… (p.14) […beschouwen Europa als een geneutraliseerd gebied, bestuurd door clowns zonder enig statuur, een gecastreerd gebied dat men naar believen kan plunderen…]. En toch blijft in het hart van Europa het ‘Duitse gevaar’ bestaan: ondanks de brave economische afdrachten, het onderdanige buitenlandse beleid en de slaafse politieke correctheid blijft Duitsland met zijn ongeëvenaarde economische productiviteit, de robuuste sociale cohesie en de taaie intellectuele traditie een blijvend potentieel gevaar voor het unipolaire globalisme van de Neocons. Noch de enorme kosten van de Wiedervereinigung, noch de monsterlijke uitgaven aan de Euro, noch het loodzware gewicht van de ‘Eurozone Crisis’ hebben de Duitse sociaaleconomische motor doen haperen. Het is in dit licht dat de globalistische strategie van Umvolkung begrijpbaar wordt: alleen de fysieke vervanging van het Duitse volk biedt een realistische ‘hoop’ op een permanente eliminatie van het ‘Duitse gevaar’. Het feit dat dit omvolkingsproject – historisch uniek in schaal – überhaupt mogelijk is valt alleen te verklaren uit het diepe psycho-historische trauma en de decennia-lange politiek-correcte conditionering van Duitsland. De hedendaagse fysieke schending van Duitsland – actueel gerealiseerd via taḥarruš jamā‘ī en jihād bi-ssayf, praktisch: (groeps)verkrachting en (rituele) slachting – kan alleen maar écht worden begrepen uit de voorafgaande psychische schending.^xiii

De systematische globalistische strategie van Deutschland ad acta legen^xiv heeft een zekere parallellie met de Romeinse strategie versus aartsvijand Carthago – het is nuttig voor in urbaan-hedonistische stasis verzonken moderne Europeanen om deze materie te overdenken ter herinnering aan de onverbiddelijke machtspolitieke mechanismen die de geschiedenis bepalen. Net als Carthago na de Eerste Punische Oorlog (264-241 v. Chr.) werd Duitsland na de Eerste Wereld Oorlog onderworpen aan drastische territoriale amputatie en loodzware herstelbetalingen – een druk die in beide gevallen leidde tot internationale zwakte en binnenlandse verdeeldheid (verlies van maritieme grootmacht, internationaal diplomatiek prestige en binnenlandse gezagsautoriteit). In beide gevallen sloeg de door de nederlaag veroorzaakte crisis uiteindelijk om in een opmerkelijke ‘nationalistische’ wederopleving: in Carthago vormgegeven in het ‘Barcidische Rijk’ en in Duitsland in het ‘Derde Rijk’. In beide gevallen leidde deze wedergeboorte tot een hernieuwde confrontatie met de onverzoenlijk afgunstige aartsvijand: zoals het onbenullige maar beeldvormende casus belli voor Rome tegen Carthago werd geleverd door ‘Saguntum’, zo werd het voor Engeland en Frankrijk tegen Duitsland geleverd door ‘Dantzig’. Net als de Tweede Punische Oorlog (218-201 v. Chr.) betekende de volgende Tweede Wereld Oorlog het dramatische hoogtepunt van een diep-existentiële confrontatie waarin de verliezer onvermijdelijk de geschiedenis onvermijdelijk in gaat als de archetypische belichaming van een semi-metafysisch ‘Absoluut Kwaad’. De Carthaagse oorlogsleider Hannibal Barca deed Rome op haar existentiële fundamenten schudden en Romeinse denkers als Livius en Cicero beschreven hem dus als de meest monsterlijke bedreiging voor de Romeinse beschaving en de meest zuivere belichaming van barbaarse wreedheid. Net als het Latijnse spreekwoord Hannibal ante portas voor Rome, zo drukt de naam van de Duitse oorlogsleider Adolf Hitler voor het Westen een archetypische existentiële angst uit (reductio ad hitlerem…).

Net zoals de Tweede Punische Oorlog, eindigde de Tweede Wereld Oorlog met een nog draconischer ‘vrede’: in beide gevallen is er sprake van nog grotere territoriale amputaties en nog drastischer herstelbetalingen. Zoals Carthago na de Tweede Punische Oorlog, zo komt Duitsland na Tweede Wereld Oorlog onder directe militaire, politieke en economische curatele van de overwinnaars – een curatele die door de overwinnaar als een vanzelfsprekend en permanent recht wordt opgevat. In beide gevallen ziet de overwinnaar de overwonnen aartsvijand als een permanent wingewest met beperkte interne autonomie dat nooit meer een bedreiging mag worden. Toch vertegenwoordigen het fysiek voortbestaan en de socio-economische veerkracht van de overwonnene voor de overwinnaar een – deels latente maar permanente – bron van onzekerheid en angst. De Romeinse politiek van groteske inmenging in de interne aangelegenheden van het na de Tweede Punische Oorlog overgebleven romp-Carthago vertoont opmerkelijke overeenkomsten met de globalistische politiek van socio-economische manipulatie van het na de Tweede Wereld Oorlog overgebleven romp-Duitsland. In beide gevallen vertegenwoordigen de natuurlijke rijkdom, hoge productiviteit en culturele eigenheid van de gekortwiekte aartsvijand een blijvende bron van ambitie, afgunst en angst: ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam wordt het motto. Zoals onafhankelijk Carthago moest verdwijnen om de Romeinse wereldmacht te bevestigen, zo moet Duitsland verdwijnen om de globalistische wereldmacht te garanderen. Na Carthago tot het uiterste te hebben uitgezogen, gemanipuleerd en bedrogen – tot aan het uitleveren van zijn beste wapens en beste mensen toe – laat Rome uiteindelijk zijn echte gezicht zien: het komt met de eis dat de oude en rijke handels- en havenstad zichzelf afbreekt, zichzelf in brand steekt en zichzelf ‘vervangt’ door landinwaarts te verhuizen als landbouwkolonie. In confrontatie met deze eis hervindt Carthago tenslotte na jarenlange geforceerde en vernederende appeasement de moed om in vrijheid en met eer te sterven: de Derde Punische Oorlog (149-146 v. Chr.) tussen het overmachtige Rome en het ten dode gewijde Carthago lijkt meer op een executie dan op een oorlog – op de heroïsche doodstrijd volgt de volkomen verwoesting: de verbrande stad wordt met de grond gelijk gemaakt, het gedecimeerde volk wordt in slavernij verkocht en het verbeurd verklaarde land wordt met zout bestrooid. Het is – marginaal -voorstelbaar dat ook Duitsland, wanneer het ooit geconfronteerd zou worden met een openlijke globalistische eis naar zelf-opheffing via totale omvolking, uiteindelijk alsnog zou kiezen voor een Ende mit Schrecken in plaats van het geëiste Schrecken ohne Ende.^xv Het realistischer alternatief is echter hetgeen nu al zichtbaar wordt in Europa: een ‘ex-Duits’ psychohistorisch en geopolitiek ‘zwart gat’ dat heel (West-) Europa meetrekt in een historisch ongeëvenaard proces van sadomasochistische zelfopheffing. Het is dit traject van geleidelijke zelfopheffing dat voor Duitsland door Frau Merkel wordt bedreven als palliatief alternatief voor de Wagneriaanse heldendood van Carthago. Geheel ongelijk kan men haar misschien niet eens geven: wie weet welke verschrikkelijke wraak de Duitsers zouden nemen als zij op het laatste moment zouden ontwaken uit de sussende verdovingen waarmee ‘verpleegster Merkel’ hen richting ‘vrijwillige’ euthanasie begeleidt?

Het is tegen deze achtergrond dat de volle betekenis van Steuckers’ geopolitieke analyse duidelijk wordt: L’Europe-croupion, que nous avons devant les yeux, est une victime consentante de la globalisation voulue par l’hegemon américain. …En ce sens, l’Europe actuelle, sans ‘épine dorsale’, est effectivement soumise aux diktats de la haute finance internationale (p.17). [Het ‘romp-Europa’ dat we nu met onze eigen ogen kunnen zien is het gewillige slachtoffer van een door Amerikaanse hegemonie opgelegde Globalisme. …In die zin is het huidige ‘ruggengraatloze’ Europa effectief onderworpen aan het dictaat van de internationale high finance mafia.] Steuckers geeft duidelijk aan wat nodig is om aan dit dictaat te ontkomen: niets meer of minder dan een nieuwe Europese Renaissance, gebaseerd op (gelijktijdig) herstel van maximale economische autarkie (systematische her-industrialisatie, strategische handelsverdragen, gedeprivatiseerde geldschepping), herinvoering van een socio-economisch evenwichtig ordo-liberalisme (Rijnland Model, Keyseniaans Socialisme) en geopolitieke heroriëntatie op multipolariteit (Euraziatische Confederatie, Boreale Alliantie). Het uitzetten van een nieuwe geopolitieke koers, dwars in tegen de globalistische storm, vergt niet alleen een eensgezinde Europese inzet maar ook een uitgekiend Europees laveren tussen nieuwe geopolitieke machtspolen: ….[P]our se dégager des tutelles exogènes… [l’Europe faut] privilégier les rapports euro-BRICS ou euro-Shanghaï, de façon à nous dégager des étaux de propagande médiatique américaine et du banksterisme de Wall Street, dans lesquels nous étouffons. La multipolarité pourrait nous donner l’occasion de rejouer une carte contestatrice.. en matière de politique extérieure (p.18). [Om zich van vreemde voogdij te bevrijden… [moet Europa] prioriteit toekennen aan betrekkingen met de BRICS of het Sjanghai Pact,^xvi op een manier die het in staat zich los te maken uit de bankschroeven van de Amerikaanse media propaganda en het ‘banksterisme’ van Wall Street waarin we nu worden gesmoord. Multipolariteit kan ons de kans geven om een sterke kaart te spelen… op het gebied van de internationale politiek.]

Wat is de Eurazianistische visie op de globalistische ‘omvolking’?

La vérité, l’âpre vérité

– Danton

Steuckers duidt de globalistische politiek van ‘omvolking’ – door hem benoemt als ‘Grote Vervanging’ – in de eerste plaats als geopolitiek instrument, dat wil zeggen als middel ter permanente verzwakking van de Europese geopolitieke machtspool door het totaal aan economische en sociale lasten dat voorvloeit uit een volstrekt kunstmatig gecreëerde overbevolking en een radicaal tegen-natuurlijke etnische ‘diversiteit’ (overbelasting infrastructuur, dempen economische prestatie, ondermijning rechtsorde, verstoring sociale cohesie). Hij wijst op het simpele materiële belang dat ligt achter het meedogenloze omvolkingsproject: Le néo-libéralisme en place est principalement une forme de capitalisme financier, et non industriel et patrimonial, qui a misé sur le court terme, la spéculation, la titrisation, la dollarisation, plutôt que sure les investissements, la recherche et le développement, le longe terme, la consolidation lente et précise des acquis, etc. …[C’est] une idéologie fumeuse, inapplicable car irréelle… (p.19-20). [Het vigerend neo-liberalisme is een vorm van puur financieel kapitalisme, anti-industrieel en anti-patrimoniaal, dat inzet op de korte termijn, op speculatie, securisatie en dollarisatie, in plaats van op de lange termijn, op investering, onderzoek, ontwikkeling en langzame en nauwkeurige consolidatie van vermogen… [Het is] een nevelige ideologie die niet werkt omdat ze irrealistisch is…] De neo-liberale ideologie is in Steuckers’ optiek dus in de eerste plaats een ‘rookgordijn’ waarachter slechts een ‘Ponzifraude’ van kortzichtige financiële piraterij op mondiale schaal schuil gaat.

Steuckers’ analyse van de ‘Grote Vervanging’ is speciaal interessant in de aandacht die hij besteedt aan haar inhumane gevolgen voor de recentelijk in miljoenen-sterkte door de globalisten naar Europa overgebrachte Aziatische en Afrikaanse ‘migranten’. Hij wijst op de feitelijke ‘slaven status’ en de beestachtige uitbuiting waarin de nieuwe ‘illegalen’ effectief vervallen: Les flux hétérogènes, différents des premières vagues migratoires légales vers l’Europe, génèrent, de par leur illégalité, une exploitation cruelle, assimilable à une forme d’esclavage, n’épargnant des mineurs d’âge (50% des nouveaux esclaves !) et basculant largement dans une prostitution incontrôlable. A laquelle s’ajoutent aussi les trafics [de drogues et] d’organes. Cette ‘économie’ parallèle contribue à corrompre les services de police et de justice. …Tous ces problèmes horribles, inouïs, et le sort cruel des exploités, des enfants réduits à une prostitution incontrôlée, les pauvres hères à qui on achète les organes, les travailleurs sans protection qu’on oblige à effectuer des travaux dangereux ne font pas sourciller les faux humanistes, qui se donnent bonne conscience en défendant les ‘sans papiers’ mais qui sont, par là même, les complices évidents des mafieux… Ceux-ci peuvent ainsi tranquillement poursuivre leurs activités lucratives : en tant qu’idiots utiles, les humanistes… sont complices et donc coupable, coauteurs, des crimes commis contre ces pauvres déracinés sans protection… Nos angélistes aux discours tout de mièvrerie sont donc complices des forfaits commis, au même titre que les proxénètes, les négriers et les trafiquants. Sans la mobilisation des ‘bonnes consciences, ces derniers ne pourraient pas aussi aisément poursuivre leurs menées criminelles (p.20-1). [De huidige heterogene migratiestromen, anders dan de eerste golven die Europa bereikten als legale migratie, genereren door hun illegaliteit een wrede exploitatie die leidt tot een nieuwe vorm van slavernij die ook minderjarigen (50% van de nieuwe slavenbevolking!) niet spaart wanneer zij in oncontroleerbare prostitutie vervallen. Waarbij moet worden opgeteld de handel in drugs en organen. Deze parallelle ‘economie’ corrumpeert ook het apparaat van politie en justitie. …Al deze verschrikkelijke, ongehoorde problemen en het wrede lot van de uitgebuite illegalen, de kinderen die in ongecontroleerde prostitutie belanden, de arme drommels van wie men de organen koopt, de onbeschermde arbeiders die men dwingt gevaarlijk werk te doen – ze gaan voorbij aan de valse ‘humanisten’ die met hun goede geweten te koop lopen wanneer ze ‘ongedocumenteerden’ verdedigen, maar die daarmee feitelijk medeplichtig zijn aan criminelen. Die criminelen kunnen zo rustig hun lucratieve activiteiten voortzetten: als ‘nuttige idioten’ zijn deze humanisten… medeplichtig en dus schuldig als mede-plegers van misdaden tegen armzalige ontwortelde mensen die alle bescherming ontberen. Onze predikers van het ‘humanistische’ discours van aanstellerij zijn dus medeplichtig aan misdaden die worden begaan door pooiers, slavendrijvers en mensenhandelaars. Zonder de ‘humanistische’ mobilisatie van de ‘goede gewetens’ zouden deze misdadigers niet zo makkelijk hun criminele handwerk kunnen doen.]

Steuckers’ meedogenloze analyse van het perverse pseudo-humanisme van de Social Justice Warrior activists en de Gutmensch intelligentsia geeft een belangrijke aanvulling op het groeiende publieke begrip van de directe belangen die gebaat zijn met een voortzetting van de globalistische ‘Grote Vervanging’. In die zin mag Steuckers’ analyse gelden als een laatste intellectuele nagel in de doodskist van het failliete ‘open grenzen’ discours.^xvii

Wat is de Eurazianistische diagnose van de Westerse Postmoderniteit?

We zijn geen ooggetuigen van een crisis van de Westerse beschaving,

maar van een wake bij haar stoffelijk overschot

– Nicolás Gómez Dávila

Steuckers duidt de existentiële realiteit van het hedendaagse Westen als niets minder dan wat het Traditionalisme omschrijft als de ‘Crisis van de Moderne Wereld’. Hij wijst op de absurdistische – en zelfs ronduit ‘idiocratische’ – aspecten van een ongeëvenaarde politieke degeneratie die alleen maar als doelbewust gewenst kan worden begrepen. Voor hem bestaat de massa van Westerse politici uit connards et… connasses… qui titubent d’une corruption à l’autre, pour chavirer ensuite dans une autre perversité [blaffertjes en teefjes die van de ene corruptie naar de andere wankelen om tenslotte in een andere perversiteit te kapseizen] en zijn de Westerse ‘intelligentsia’ niets anders dan festivistes écervelés qui se donnent… l’étiquette d’‘humanistes’ [hersenloze feestvierders die zich het etiket ‘humanist’ aanmeten]. Voor Steuckers is het postmoderne politiek bedrijf een technocratisme sans épaisseur éthique [technocratisme zonder ethische substantie] geleid door une série de politiciens sans envergure [et] sans scrupule [een serie politici zonder visie en zonder scrupules], afglijdend in [une] absence d’éthique dans le pôle politique qui… provoqu[e] l’implosion du pays [een ethisch vacuüm in de politieke sfeer dat.. de implosie van het land veroorzaakt]. Het resultaat is een déliquescence totale [totale ontbinding] van staatssoevereiniteit, rechtstaat, etnische identiteit en gemeenschapszin. Naar Steuckers’ mening vertegenwoordigt Frankrijk het ground zero van dit postmoderne globalistische ‘deconstructie’ proces: …la France, depuis Sarközy et Hollande, n’est plus que la caricature d’elle-même, et la négation de sa propre originalité politico-diplomatique gaullienne… (p.24) […sinds Sarkozy en Hollande is Frankrijk niet meer dan een karikaturale schaduw van zichzelf, een omkering van zijn Gaullistische politiek-diplomatieke eigenheid].

In de onderwijs sector signaleert Steuckers duidelijke tekenen van een terminale culturele degeneratie, in de hand gewerkt door verkeerd toegepaste moderne technologie en resulterend in démence digitale [digitale dementie], gekenmerkt door een gecombineerde vermindering van concentratievermogen, aandachtspanne en socialisatie. [L]’effondrement du niveau, où le prof doit se mettre au niveau des élèves et capter leur attention no matter what et la négligence des branches littéraires, artistiques, et musicales, qui permettent à l’enfant de tenir compte d’autrui, font basculer les nouvelles générations dans une déhumanisation problématique… (p.26). [Het wegzinken van het onderwijsniveau, waarbij de onderwijzer geacht wordt het niveau van zijn leerlingen op te zoeken – no matter what – en hun aandacht te winnen, en het verwaarlozen van literatuur, kunst en muziek, kennisvelden die het kind in staat stellen altruïsme aan te leren, doen nieuwe generaties in een problematische ontmenselijking vervallen…] De psychosociale impact van deze educatieve degeneratie versnelt de ‘psychiatriering’ van de hele Westerse maatschappij. Steuckers wijst in dat verband op recent onderzoek in België: [Les spécialistes voient] disparaître toute forme de ‘normalité’ et glisser nos populations vers ce qu’il[s] appelle[nt], en jargon de psychiatrie, le borderline, la ‘limite’ acceptable pour tout comportement social intégré, une borderline que de plus en plus de citoyens franchisent malheureusement pour basculer dans une forme plus ou moins douce, plus ou moins dangereuse de folie : en Belgique , 25% de la population est en ‘traitement’, 10% ingurgitent des antidépresseurs, de 2005 à 2009 le nombre d’enfants et d’adolescents contraints de prendre de la ritaline a doublé rien qu’en Flandre ; en 2007, la Flandre est le deuxième pays sur las liste en Europe quant au nombre de suicides… (p.26) [Specialisten onderkennen dat elke vorm van ‘normaliteit’ verdwijnt en dat onze bevolkingen afglijden naar wat [z]ij in psychiatrisch vakjargon de borderline noemen, d.w.z. de ‘grenswaarde’ van wat nog acceptabel is als sociaal integer gedrag – een borderline die ongelukkigerwijs door meer en meer burgers wordt overschreden om vervolgens te vervallen in min of meer zachte of min of meer gevaarlijke vormen van krankzinnigheid: zo is in België 25% van de bevolking onder ‘behandeling’, neemt 10% antidepressiva in, is alleen al in Vlaanderen het aantal kinderen en jongeren dat gedwongen is ritaline te gebruiken tussen 2005 en 2009 verdubbeld [en] is Vlaanderen in 2007 het tweede land op de Europese lijst van zelfmoord frequentie…] In de Nederlandse context wordt een equivalente psychiatriering van de publieke sfeer geïllustreerd door typerende fenomenen als ‘motivatie coach’ Emile Ratelband, ‘model persoonlijkheid’ Paul de Leeuw en ‘gewetens anesthesist ’ Jeroen Pauw.

Kenmerkend voor de psychosociale implosie van het postmoderne Westen is het verlies van alle authentieke vormen van traditionele identiteit (etniciteit, geloofsgemeenschap, geboortestand, leeftijdsklasse, geslacht, persoonlijke roeping). Steuckers wijst op het feit dat zulk consequent beoogt en doorgevoerd identiteitsverlies logischerwijs eindigt in daadwerkelijke verstandsverbijstering: Sans identité, sans tradition, sans ‘centre’ intérieur, on devient fou… Ceux qui nous contrarient au nom de leurs chimères et leurs délires, sont, par voie de conséquence, sans trop solliciter les faits, des fous qui veulent précipiter leurs contemporains au-delà de la borderline… (p.27) [Zonder identiteit, zonder traditie, zonder innerlijke ‘kern’ wordt men krankzinnig… Zij die ons in naam van hun waandenkbeelden en waanvoorstellingen tegenspreken zijn daarom – het kan zonder overdrijving gezegd worden – krankzinnigen die hun tijdgenoten over de borderline willen jagen…].

Wat is de Eurazianistische prognose voor de Westerse Postmoderniteit?

‘The End of the Affair’

Steuckers stelt dat het tot dusver ontbreken van een structureel patriottisch-identitair politiek antwoord op het globalisme in de Europese context te wijten is aan een giftige combinatie van persoonlijke na-ijver tussen kopstukken, politiek-opportunistische islamofobie (waarbij ‘islamisme’ als ideologie – Wahhabisme en Salafisme – worden verward met de ‘Islam’ als Traditie) en kortzichtige definities van (klein-)nationalistische eigenbelangen. De tendens tot (hyper-)nationalistische Alleingang die de recente Europese geschiedenis kenmerkt – en die de Europese volkeren nog steeds verdeeld – speelt het anti-Europese globalistische project in de kaart. Steuckers wijst in dat verband op de grote toegevoegde waarde van de alternatieve visie van het Eurazianisme: alleen een confederatief-opererend Euraziatische ‘imperiaal blok’ van soevereine staten kan de Europese volkerengemeenschap als geheel effectieve bescherming bieden tegen de op de Transatlantisch-Angelsaksische as gegrondveste globalistische ‘thalassocratie’. De volgende stap is de neutralisatie van het globalisme op basis van een ‘boreale alliantie’ tussen het Euraziatische blok en de overzeese Europese volkeren.

Per saldo is Steuckers echter weinig optimistisch over de kans dat de metapolitieke visie van het Eurazianisme op korte termijn in politieke realiteit zal worden vertaald. Naar zijn inschatting is de opbouw van coördinerende metapolitieke instituties – dat wil zeggen de opbouw van een pan-Europees alternatief netwerk van universiteiten, media en denktanks als tegenpool voor de instituties van het politiekcorrecte establishment – van essentieel belang. Pas vanuit een dergelijk alternatief netwerk wordt het mogelijk gecoördineerde speldenprikken (debatten, publiciteitscampagnes, verkiezingsvoorbereiding) te organiseren. Daarenboven moge vermeld zijn dat stabiele materiële faciliteiten (rechtsbijstand, vakbondsfondsen, professionele beveiliging) absolute voorwaarden zijn voor een levensvatbare politieke en activistische strategie van vreedzaam en legitiem burgerlijk verzet.

Steuckers voorziet weliswaar een einde van de globalistische Nieuwe Wereld Orde en de eraan ten grondslag liggende soixante-huitard combi-ideologie van neo-liberalisme en cultuur-marxisme, maar alleen ná een beschavingscatastrofe van ongekende omvang. Hij vermoedt dat het Westen de bittere kelk van de hemelbestormende, hyper-humanistische ‘maakbaarheid’ illusie tot op de bodem zal moeten leegdrinken. De utopische hippie dromen van de soixante-huitards – ‘vooruitgang’ en ‘maakbaarheid’ als ideologische fata morgana’s die de daadwerkelijke praktijken van de duivels-bezeten babyboomers verhullen – verworden voor volgende generaties noodzakelijkerwijs tot daadwerkelijk geleefde nachtmerries, beginnend met de Aziatische en Afrikaanse stormloop van Gog en Magog op het Europese ‘Legerkamp der Heiligen’ en de Zombie Apocalypse van extreem-matriarchale sociale implosie.^xviii Selon l’adage: qui veut faire l’ange, fait la bête… Les négateurs de balises et de limites, qui voulaient tout bousculer au nom du ‘progrès’ (qu’ils imaginent au-delà de tout empirisme), vont provoquer une crise qui rendra leurs rêves totalement impossibles pour au moins une dizaine de générations, sauf si nous connaissons l’implosion totale et définitive… Quant aux solutions que nous pourrions apporter, elles sont nulles car le système a bétonné toute critique : il voulait poursuivre sa logique, sans accepter le moindre correctif démocratique, en croyant que tout trouverait une solution. Ce calcul s’est avéré faux. Archifaux. Donc tout va s’éffondrer. Devant notre lucidité. Nous rirons de la déconfiture de nos adversaires mais nous pleurerons amèrement sur les malheurs de nos peuples (p.23). [Volgens het spreekwoord ‘wie de engel wil spelen, zal het beest spelen’… De ontkenners van de verkeersborden en de snelheidslimieten die alles omver wilden werpen in de naam van de ‘vooruitgang’ (dat zij verheven dachten boven het empirisch reglement) gaan een crisis ontketenen die hun dromen volkomen onmogelijk zal maken voor tenminste tien generaties – tenzij we een totale en definitieve implosie van de [Westerse] beschaving gaan meemaken… Wat betreft de oplossingen die wij zouden kunnen aandragen: ze zijn niets waard want het systeem maakt elke constructieve kritiek onmogelijk: het systeem moet dus zijn eigen [destructieve] logica tot het einde toe doorlopen – het verdraagt niet de minste democratische correctie want het is gebaseerd op de aanname dat er voor alles een ‘maakbare’ oplossing is. Deze berekening heeft zich als foutief bewezen. Volkomen foutief. En dus zal alles ineenstorten. Voor onze wijdgeopende ogen. We zullen lachen om nederlaag van onze vijanden, maar we zullen bitter wenen om het ongeluk van onze volkeren.]

Coda

Ongeacht de betwiste geldigheid van de Fichteaans-Hegeliaanse dialectiek in de pure filosofie (these-antithese-synthese), blijft zij waardevol als begripskader in de filosofisch geïnspireerde cultuurwetenschappen. Geprojecteerd op de Europese geschiedenis worden cyclische patronen van punctus contra punctum – consistent gevolgd door sublieme recapitulatie – herkenbaar. Een ‘Faustiaans’ element van zelfovertreffende wederopstanding is daarbij niet alleen zichtbaar in de heidens-heroïsche helft maar ook in Christelijk-ascetische helft van Europese Traditie. Le Rouge et le Noir mag daarom eindigen op een noot die beide verenigt:

Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan,

Dabei will ich verbleiben.

Es mag mich auf die rauhe Bahn

Not, Tod und Elend treiben.

So wird Got mich

Ganz väterlich

In Seinen Armen halten:

Drum lass ich Ihn nur walten.

– BWV12

Glossarium

Ethic Business	ideologisch: neo-liberale begunstiging van diaspora-economieën; economisch: ‘schaduw-economieën’ van multiculturele ‘parallelle samenlevingen’ die zich structureel onttrekken aan belastingafdracht, arbeidswetgeving en juridisch toezicht;xix
Festivisme	cultuur-historisch: existentiële conditie van urbaan-hedonistische stasis resulterend uit het neo-liberalisme; psycho-historisch: babyboom mentaliteit van après nous le déluge; sociaal-psychologisch: ‘lang leve de lol’;
Neo-Ruralisme	blanke de-urbanisatie in de eerste (stedelijk gefocuste) omvolkingsfase; inheemse exodus uit de steden van het Westen (White Flight);
Politicide	historisch: vernietiging van politieke pluraliteit door monolithisch politiek-correct partijkartel; ideologisch: invoering van dogmatische politieke-correcte consensus (‘1984’).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Noten

i De aartsengel St. Michael is de beschermheilige van de stad Brussel.

ii Vergelijk https://www.erkenbrand.eu/artikelen/de-archeo-futuristische-revolutie/ .

iii Vergelijk https://www.erkenbrand.eu/artikelen/de-identitaire-beeldenstorm/ en – korter – http://www.identitair.nl/ ‘Over ons’.

iv Voor de metahistorische achtergrond en de ontstaansgeschiedenis van de thalassocratische Moderniteit vergelijk Alexander Wolfheze, The Sunset of Tradition and the Origin of the Great War. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2018. Dit boek is nu ter gelegenheid van de eeuwviering van de Wapenstilstand van 1918 – tot 1 december – tijdelijk verkrijgbaar met een promotional discount via https://www.cambridgescholars.com/the-centenary-of-armistice-cambridge-scholars-publishing .

v De dubieuze eer van de laatste onverdund-puristische Whig History gaat naar niemand minder dan Winston Churchill met diens A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, begonnen tussen zijn twee beruchte ‘eigen doelpunt’ ambtsperiodes in de Eerste en Tweede Wereld Oorlog en door Clement Atlee alternatief betiteld als Things in history That Interested Me. Note Bene: De historiografische verguizing van Spanje werd in 1898 nog een keer dunnetjes overgedaan in de Amerikaanse journalistiek tijdens de Amerikaanse false flag oorlogshitse die vooraf ging aan de Spaans-Amerikaanse Oorlog.

vi Artikel 231 van het Verdrag van Versailles.

vii Hollywood acteur Ronald Reagan ‘schrijft geschiedenis’ in 1983.

viii De BRICS landen – Brazilië, Rusland, India, China, Zuid-Africa – zijn de actuele hoofdrol spelers in de mondiale multipolaire geopolitieke visie van het Neo-Eurazianisme.

ix Voor een korte bespreking van essentialisme en constructivisme vergelijk de inleiding van https://www.erkenbrand.eu/artikelen/de-identitaire-beeldenstorm/ .

x Een verwijzing naar de denkbeelden van de19^e eeuwse Russische ‘proto-etno-nationalistische’ narodniks die uitdrukking vonden in de 20^e eeuwse etnische politiek van de Sovjet-Unie.

xi Vergelijk https://www.erkenbrand.eu/artikelen/ernstfall-het-zwaard-van-de-kennis-in-de-crisis-van-de-moderne-wereld/ .

xii Vergelijk https://www.erkenbrand.eu/artikelen/de-gebroken-pijl-2/ .

xiii Vergelijk https://www.erkenbrand.eu/artikelen/hollensturmweek-op-erkenbrand-deel-1/ .

xiv Cf. Rolf Peter Sieferle, Finis Germania. Schnellroda: Antaios, 2017.

xv Een precieze – en dus geforceerde – historische projectie van de historische Romeins-Carthaagse confrontatie tussen 264 en 146 v. Chr. (90 jaar in totaal) op de Duits-globalistische confrontatie maakt dit scenario onwaarschijnlijk: de Duitse last stand had dan al plaats moeten vinden in het jaar 2001.

xvi Respectievelijk, het uit 2009 daterende strategische partnerschap van Brazilië, Rusland, India, China en Zuid-Afrika (verg. n.8) en de in 1996 opgerichte Sjanghai Samenwerkingsorganisatie.

xvii Vergelijk http://www.pi-news.net/2018/06/umvolkung-die-wahren-gruende/ .

xviii Thema’s die worden uitgewerkt in, respectievelijk, Jean Raspail’s boek Le camp des saints en Alexander Wolfheze’s artikel ‘De levende doden’ (https://www.erkenbrand.eu/artikelen/de-levende-doden-1/ ).

xix Steuckers refereert naar een officiële schatting die Ethnic Business becijfert op niet minder dan 18% van het Franse Brutto Nationaal Product in 2007.

Robert Steuckers: Sur et autour de Carl Schmitt

Robert Steuckers:

Sur et autour de Carl Schmitt

Sur Carl Schmitt

La décision dans l’œuvre de Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt a quitté la vie

Une doctrine de Monroe pour l’Europe

Carl Schmitt, Donoso Cortés, la notion du politique et le catholicisme

allemand

Du droit naturel et de l’essence du politique chez Carl Schmitt

L’Europe entre déracinement et réhabilitation des lieux : de Schmitt à Deleuze

Une bibliographie biographique de Carl Schmitt

Sources et postérité de Carl Schmitt

Pourquoi lire Clausewitz ?

Sur Gustav Ratzenhofer (1842-1904)

Othmar Spann et l’État vrai

La leçon du sociologue et philosophe Hans Freyer

Otto Koellreutter (1883-1972)

L’État comme machine ou les théories politiques pré-organiques

Le Triomphe, fondement du politique ?

Sur le politologue Rüdiger Altmann

Bernard Willms (1931-1991)

Der « Ganze » Rationalismus : réponse de Helmut F. Spinner au rationalisme critique par une relecture de Max Weber et Carl Schmitt

Autour des concepts de Carl Schmitt

La notion d’Ernstfall

L’ère de la pyropolitique a commencé

Carl Schmitt : État, Nomos et « Grands espaces » par Theo Hartman

Annexes

Hommage à Piet Tommissen pour ses 75 ans par Günter Maschke

Adieu au Professeur Piet Tommissen (1925-2011)

Piet Tommissen, gardien des sources

Le livre est disponible à la vente au lien suivant :
http://www.ladiffusiondulore.fr/home/693-sur-et-autour-de...

298 pages - 26 euro

Oswald Spengler et la collapsologie en 1931

Oswald Spengler et la collapsologie en 1931

par Nicolas Bonnal

Ex: http://www.dedefensa.org

Nous sommes mal partis, et nous le savons depuis longtemps maintenant. Poe, Tocqueville, Balzac nous mirent en garde à l’époque romantique puis Nietzsche, Le Bon ou le redoutable australien Pearson au demi-siècle de l’électricité et du colonialisme. Le problème c’est que nous pouvons encore être mal partis pendant encore longtemps !

Longtemps donc avant les plus lucides de nos « mécontemporains », comme dit Alain Finkielkraut, la « collapsologie » (citons en vrac nos amis Kunstler, Klein, Diamond, Orlov) intéresse de grands et controversés esprits comme Oswald Spengler. Dans son dernier chapitre de l’homme et la technique (ici retraduit de l’anglais), le célèbre auteur du Déclin de l’occident (si le contenu du livre est oublié, déjà déconstruit en son temps par Thomas Mann, le titre est demeuré magique) observe notre lent déclin.

Il attaque au dernier chapitre de son bref et très brillant essai :

« Chaque haute culture est une tragédie. L’histoire de l’humanité dans son ensemble est tragique. Mais le sacrilège et la catastrophe du Faustien sont plus grands que tous les autres, plus grands que tout ce qu'Eschyle ou Shakespeare n’ont jamais imaginé. La créature se soulève contre son créateur. »

Spengler évoque la puissance de l’Europe « nordique » et son origine… charbonnière :

« Leur pouvoir politique dépend de leur richesse et celle-ci consiste en leur force industrielle. Mais cela est lié à l’existence du charbon. Les peuples germaniques, en particulier, sont protégés par ce qui est presque un monopole des charbonnages connus, ce qui les a conduits à une multiplication de leurs populations sans égale dans l’histoire. »

Ce règne de la quantité (Spengler est contemporain de Guénon) crée le monde inégal de l’économie aux temps de la mondialisation (qui fête ses trois siècles et non ses trois décennies, lisez Voltaire) :

« Les pays industriellement pauvres sont pauvres en tous points ; ils ne peuvent donc pas soutenir une armée ou faire la guerre ; ils sont donc politiquement impuissants ; et, par conséquent, leurs ouvriers, qu'ils soient dirigeants ou dirigés, sont des pions dans la politique économique de leurs adversaires. »

Spengler souligne la grande altération physique, et même climatique du monde dit moderne :

« L'image de la terre, avec ses plantes, ses animaux et ses hommes, a changé. En quelques décennies, la plupart des grandes forêts sont parties pour être transformées en journaux d’actualité, ce qui a entraîné les changements climatiques qui menacent l’économie foncière de populations entières. D'innombrables espèces animales ont été éteintes, ou presque, comme le bison ; Des races entières de l'humanité ont presque atteint le point de disparition, comme les Indiens d'Amérique du Nord et les Australiens. »

Le golem de Prague ou la machine de Bernanos remplace le monde ancien :

« Toutes les choses organiques meurent sous l'emprise de l'organisation. Un monde artificiel imprègne et empoisonne le naturel. La civilisation elle-même est devenue une machine qui fait ou tente de tout faire de manière mécanique. Nous pensons seulement en chevaux [-vapeur] maintenant ; nous ne pouvons pas regarder une cascade sans la transformer mentalement en énergie électrique ; nous ne pouvons pas arpenter une campagne pleine de bétail en pâturage sans penser à son exploitation comme source d'approvisionnement en viande ; nous ne pouvons pas regarder la belle vieille main d'un peuple primitif intact sans vouloir le remplacer par un processus technique moderne. »

Puis Spengler annonce le grand mécontentement des années soixante, soixante-dix, la montée de l’écologie, des spiritualités emballées sous vide(Debord) et le scepticisme du progrès :

« La machine, par sa multiplication et son raffinement, va finalement à l'encontre de son objectif. Dans les grandes villes, l’automobile a, par son nombre, détruit sa propre valeur, et on marche plus vite à pied. En Argentine, à Java et ailleurs, la simple charrue à cheval du petit cultivateur s'est révélée économiquement supérieure au gros outil à moteur et chasse ce dernier. Déjà dans de nombreuses régions tropicales, l'homme noir ou brun avec ses méthodes de travail primitives est un concurrent dangereux de la technique moderne de plantation du blanc. Et le travailleur blanc de la vieille Europe et de l’Amérique du Nord commence à s’inquiéter de son travail. »

On a parlé de l’écologie. Spengler écrit sur cette fatigue (plus que crise) du monde moderne :

« La pensée faustienne commence à en avoir assez des machines. Une lassitude se répand, une sorte de pacifisme de la bataille avec la Nature. Les hommes reviennent à des formes de vie plus simples et plus proches de la nature ; ils passent leur temps dans le sport au lieu d'expérimentations techniques. Les grandes villes leur deviennent odieuses, et elles voudraient bien se soustraire à la pression de faits sans âme et au climat froid et clair d'organisation technique. Et ce sont précisément les talents forts et créatifs qui se détournent des problèmes pratiques et des sciences pour se tourner vers la pure spéculation. »

Spengler voit bien le retour à l’orientalisme :

« L'occultisme et le spiritualisme, les philosophies hindoues, la curiosité métaphysique à la couleur chrétienne ou païenne, qui étaient tous méprisés à l'époque darwinienne, sont en train de réapparaître. C'est l'esprit de Rome à l'âge d'Auguste. Par satiété, les hommes se réfugient dans les parties les plus primitives de la terre, dans le vagabondage, dans le suicide. Chaque grand entrepreneur a l’occasion de constater une diminution des qualités intellectuelles de ses recrues. »

Car Spengler annonce même le déclin du QI comme on dit aujourd’hui :

« Le XIXe siècle n’a été possible que parce que le niveau intellectuel ne cessait de s’élever. Mais un état stationnaire, à moins d’une chute réelle, est dangereux et laisse présager une fin… »

C’est la mutinerie des mains :

« Il commence sous de multiples formes – du sabotage au suicide en passant par la grève – en passant par la mutinerie des Mains contre leur destin, contre la machine, contre la vie organisée, contre tout et n'importe quoi. »

Spengler voit aussi que notre déculottée sera longue et n’aura pas de fin heureuse ou digne. La fin de l’histoire c’est la maison de retraite :

« Face à ce destin, il n’existe qu’une vision du monde digne de nous, celle qui a déjà été mentionnée comme le choix d’Achille – mieux vaut une vie courte, accalmie des actes et de la gloire, qu'une longue vie sans contenu. Déjà, le danger est si grand, pour chaque individu, chaque classe, chaque peuple, que de chérir toute illusion déplorable. Le temps ne se laisse pas arrêter ; il n'est pas question de retraite prudente ni de sage renonciation. Seuls les rêveurs croient qu'il existe une issue. »

Spengler voit aussi le problème « racial » se profiler. Le sous-homme blanc n’aura pas le courage de continuer (et on est placés avec May, Merkel ou Macron pour voir qu’il se donne les chefs qu’il mérite) et il se fera remplacer :

« Le troisième et le plus grave symptôme de l'effondrement qui commence est cependant ce que je pourrais appeler une trahison envers la technique. »

L’humanisme ou l’humanitarisme blanc fait déjà école (derrière sa puissance industrielle ou militaire Nietzsche comme Goethe voyaient notre affaiblissement) :

« Au lieu de garder strictement les connaissances techniques qui constituaient leur plus grand atout, les peuples « blancs » l’offrent avec complaisance au monde entier, dans chaque Hochschule, verbalement et sur papier, et l’hommage étonné des Indiens et des Japonais les ravissait. »

Tout cela va avec la mondialisation et le commerce bien sûr :

 « La fameuse « diffusion de l’industrie » s’est installée, motivée par l’idée de réaliser des profits plus importants en amenant la production sur le marché. Ainsi, au lieu d'exporter exclusivement des produits finis, ils ont commencé à exporter des secrets, des processus, des méthodes, des ingénieurs et des organisateurs. Même les inventeurs émigrent, car le socialisme, qui pourrait, s'il le voulait, les exploiter dans son équipe, les expulse à la place. Et si récemment, les « indigènes » ont pénétré dans nos secrets, les ont compris et les ont pleinement utilisés. »

Résultat, la bataille de Tsushima en 1905 :

« En trente ans, les Japonais sont devenus des techniciens de premier rang et, dans leur guerre contre la Russie, ils ont révélé une supériorité technique à partir de laquelle leurs professeurs ont pu tirer de nombreuses leçons. »

C’est la vengeance des « races de couleur ». A l’époque de Spengler écrivent aussi les penseurs pessimistes américains Madison Grant et Lothrop Stoddard (parodiés dans Gatsby le magnifique) :

« Le monde exploité commence à se venger de ses seigneurs. Les innombrables mains des races de couleur – au moins aussi intelligentes et beaucoup moins exigeantes – briseront l'organisation économique des Blancs à sa base. Le luxe habituel de l'ouvrier blanc, en comparaison avec le coolie, sera son destin. Le travail du blanc devient lui-même indésirable. Les énormes masses d'hommes concentrés dans les bassins miniers du Nord, les grands travaux industriels, les capitaux investis dans ces régions, des villes et des quartiers entiers, sont confrontés à la probabilité de tomber dans la compétition. »

Détroit, Cleveland, Lorraine : Spengler voit alors la fin de notre civilisation « faustienne ». A la même époque (1931 donc) André Siegfried recense le déclin de la civilisation industrielle de la Grande-Bretagne :

« Cette technique de la machine se terminera avec la civilisation faustienne et un jour restera en fragments, oubliés – nos chemins de fer et bateaux à vapeur aussi morts que les routes romaines et le mur de Chine, nos villes géantes et nos gratte-ciels en ruines comme le vieux Memphis et Babylone. L’histoire de cette technique touche à sa fin inévitable. Elle sera mangée de l’intérieur, comme les grandes formes de toute culture. Quand et de quelle manière, nous ne le savons pas. »

Spengler ignore la civilisation postindustrielle et surtout la civilisation de la dette immonde – et perpétuellement augmentée (New deal, guerres, dépenses de beurre et de canons…). Le catastrophisme ignore en effet la dimension vraie de notre catastrophe, dimension qui est de durer. Plus notre société touche le fond, plus elle creuse !

Il termine brillamment avec ce style snob et envolé que lui reprochait Thomas Mann :

« L'optimisme est la lâcheté. Nous sommes nés à cette époque et devons courageusement suivre le chemin qui nous mène à la fin prévue. Il n'y a pas d'autre moyen. Notre devoir est de garder la position perdue, sans espoir, sans secours, comme ce soldat romain dont les ossements ont été retrouvés devant une porte à Pompéi, qui, lors de l'éruption du Vésuve, est décédé à son poste, faute d'avoir été relevé. C'est cela la grandeur. C'est ce que signifie être un pur-sang. Une fin honorable est la seule chose qui ne peut pas être prise à un homme. »

On se demande toutefois quelle fin honorable nous attend…

Source 

Oswald Spengler, l’homme et la technique (cinquième partie)

Il viaggio atlantico dell’impubblicabile Jünger

Il viaggio atlantico dell’impubblicabile Jünger

Andrea Scarabelli

Ex: http://blog.ilgiornale.it/scarabelli

Londra, 1947. A due anni dalla fine del conflitto mondiale viene pubblicato un singolare volumetto, in una collana destinata ai prigionieri di guerra tedeschi detenuti in Inghilterra. È Ernst Jünger l’autore di Atlantische Fahrt, appena uscito con il titolo Traversata atlantica per Guanda, nella traduzione di Alessandra Iadicicco e con una curatela finalmente degna di questo nome. Oltre al testo, infatti, il volume contiene un ricco apparato epistolare, appendici biobibliografiche, una gran mole di note e una recensione di Erhart Kästner del 1948. Ricostruita attraverso questi ricchi apparati, la storia editoriale di Atlantische Fahrt ha del comico. Il primo libro pubblicato da Jünger nel dopoguerra, infatti, non uscì in Germania, complice il repulisti democratico che mise al bando lui e altri numi della filosofia novecentesca, tra cui Martin Heidegger e Carl Schmitt. La piazza pulita culturale e antropologica della nuova Germania finì per colpire anche lui, abbandonato a se stesso, impossibilitato a scrivere e pubblicare eppure stampato e ristampato all’estero (soprattutto in Svizzera, in quegli anni), nonostante una lunga cordata d’intellettuali fosse intervenuta a suo favore. Il veto durerà fino al 1949. Fino ad allora, nulla da fare. «Bisogna essere prigionieri tedeschi per poter leggere un certo autore proibito in Germania?» noterà amaramente lo scrittore Stefan Andres, recensendolo nel 1949.

Alla fine degli anni Quaranta, insomma, il futuro premio Goethe è in catene: ma Jünger, il reietto, si metamorfosa, cambia pelle, assumendosi il compito di fari aristocratico del dolore, come dirà pochissimi anni più tardi. È la carne degli sconfitti a reclamare attenzione in queste luminose pagine, che la sapienza europea non potrà a lungo ignorare. Un grido che di certo risulterà sgradito a certe anime belle, ma che fa delle sue parole uno dei canti più intensi del secolo XX.

Il libro, ad ogni modo, esce nel ’47, ma è il resoconto di un viaggio compiuto undici anni prima in Brasile: da Amburgo a Belém, Recife, San Paolo, Rio de Janeiro e Bahia. Con uno scalo preliminare alle Azzorre, occasione ideale per fare il punto sulla situazione della Germania, che si è appena lasciato alle spalle: «Il loro arcipelago mi è parso un simbolo della nostra situazione: come una catena di vulcani che, sull’estremo confine dell’Europa, si leva in mezzo a infinite solitudini». Decide di prendersi una pausa da una civiltà di cui comincia a intravvedere le ombre, cambiando emisfero, sotto un sole e costellazioni differenti. Un viaggio che segnerà una svolta profonda nella sua visione del mondo, spostando l’asse dalla situazione della Germania a quella mondiale, nella sua totalità, come nota Detlev Schöttker nel suo saggio in conclusione del libro. Ma Jünger ancora non lo sa, e nel Nuovo Mondo, nella sua sovrabbondanza proteiforme, cerca le immagini, i fenomeni originari di cui ha parlato Goethe nei suoi scritti sulla metamorfosi delle piante. Ognuna di queste immagini risveglia antiche reminiscenze, rendendo ogni uomo artista e artefice. L’Atlantico come specchio, nel quale il poeta delle Tempeste d’Acciaio si riconosce, ritrovandosi. Qui ogni scoperta è una (auto)rivelazione, un ritorno a casa. Lo intuisce scorgendo un pesce dalla forma bizzarra, sconosciuto alle classificazioni occidentali. Qualcosa di sopito si risveglia in lui:

«Alla vista di simili creature favolose, ciò che colpisce è soprattutto l’accordo tra apparizione e immaginazione. Non le percepiamo come se le scoprissimo, ma come se le inventassimo. Ci sorprendono e al tempo stesso le sentiamo intimamente familiari, come fossero parti di noi stessi che si realizzano in immagini. A volte, in certi sogni e, molto verosimilmente, nell’ora della morte, questa immaginazione acquista in noi una forza straordinaria. I miti nascono dove realtà superiori e supreme si accordano con la forza dell’immaginazione».

Ma il Sudamerica non è solo natura incontaminata. Tra i dedali vegetali e gli umbratili argini di fiumi senza fine svettano imponenti megalopoli ancora sconosciute agli europei di quegli anni. È proprio al cospetto di questi vertiginosi agglomerati che avviene la rivoluzione copernicana dello scrittore: la tecnica, vista all’opera nella Prima guerra mondiale e poi nelle industrie, è diventata un fenomeno planetario. Gli accoliti del Lavoratore hanno invaso il globo, trasfigurandolo, ridisegnandone le frontiere. Rio de Janeiro lo sgomenta: «La città esercita su di me un’impressione possente. È una residenza dello spirito del mondo». E proprio in queste pagine compare il nome di Oswald Spengler, che ne Il tramonto dell’Occidente aveva indicato nelle metropoli, inorganiche e amorfe, uno dei sintomi delle fasi terminali di una civiltà. Profezie amare quanto attuali, anche a distanza di un secolo dalla pubblicazione del monumentale trattato di morfologia delle civiltà.

Eppure, come scrisse Hölderlin, dove cresce il pericolo nasce anche ciò che salva, e, nel corso di questo viaggio al termine dell’Occidente, a far da buen retiro, da contrappeso alla sfrenata tecnicizzazione planetaria è ancora una volta la natura selvaggia e illibata. Lo testimonia una lettera a suo fratello Friedrich Georg, scritta il 20 novembre 1936 a Santos: «Da queste parti c’è un proverbio che mi piace tanto; dice: Il bosco è grande, e significa che chiunque si trovi in difficoltà o sia vittima di persecuzioni può sempre sperare di trovare rifugio e accoglienza in questo elemento». Probabilmente la pensano così anche alcuni dei suoi compagni di viaggio, i quali, giunti in Brasile, decidono di scendere dalla nave, non tornando in Germania. Cosa che lui invece farà, vivendo la tragedia europea sino al suo ultimo atto ma portando con sé questa immagine del bosco, sviluppata pochi anni dopo ne Il trattato del ribelle. Nel bosco vedrà l’autentica patria spirituale dell’uomo, contrapposta alla nave, dominio della velocità e del progresso, e il ribelle sarà colui che passa al bosco, dandosi alla macchia – scendendo dalla nave, appunto.

Di questo, però, non c’è ancora traccia nella sua biografia. Per ora non vi è che mare aperto e isole, l’immensità dell’Atlantico e il riparo di atolli e arcipelaghi, a ribadire quella dualità irriducibile che costituisce la quintessenza letteraria – ma non solo – di Ernst Jünger. L’oceano, nella cui malia «il nostro essere fluisce e si dissolve; tutto ciò che in noi è ritmico si ravviva, risonanze, battiti, melodie, il canto originario della vita che va cullandosi nei tempi. Il suo incantesimo ci fa tornare indietro svuotati, eppure felici come dopo una notte trascorsa danzando». Le isole, invece, che custodiscono la promessa di una gioia «più profonda della quiete, della pace in questo elemento tempestoso mosso fin dai fondali. Anche le stelle sono isole nel mare della luce dell’etere».

Le isole, il mare… Si è fatto tardi. Il nostro viaggiatore annota queste parole mentre torna nella sua Europa, martellata dall’urgenza della storia, squassata da venti che ben presto riveleranno la loro forma mostruosa e titanica. Le ultime parole del diario brasiliano sono datate 15 dicembre 1936:

«Mi sento soddisfatto del viaggio. Eolo e tutti gli altri dèi sono stati propizi. Ancora più intenso appare il piacere che vi ho provato rispetto ai tempi minacciosi che si annunciano in maniera sempre più evidente, le cui fiamme anzi già guizzano all’orizzonte».

Quelle fiamme che finiranno per incendiare una civiltà intera, una civiltà di cui Jünger sceglierà di farsi testimone, pagando in prima persona, come tanti altri, la propria inattualità.

Tag: Alessandra Iadicicco, Carl Schmitt, Goethe, Guanda, Martin Heidegger, Oswald Spengler

Terra Sarda: il mediterraneo metafisico di Ernst Jünger

Terra Sarda: il mediterraneo metafisico di Ernst Jünger

Andrea Scarabelli

Ex: http://ilgiornale.it/scarabelli

«Insel, insula, isola, Eiland – parole che nominano un segreto, un che di separato e conchiuso»: Ernst Jünger scrisse queste parole a Carloforte. Vi era giunto per la prima volta nel 1955, passando dall’isola di Sant’Antioco, attratto dalla presenza di un insetto che vive solo lì, la Cicindela campestris saphyrina. Le sue impressioni sull’isola sono riportate nel saggio San Pietro (1957), uscito in italiano nel 2015 nella traduzione di Alessandra Iadicicco. Entomologia a parte, era rimasto folgorato dal luogo, trascorrendovi le vacanze fino al 1978, all’età di ottantatré anni. Jünger era un amante delle isole, e i suoi diari (molti dei quali, purtroppo, ancora inediti da noi) stanno a dimostrarlo; del bacino mediterraneo amava soprattutto Sicilia e Sardegna. Il fascino esercitato dalle isole risale all’inizio dei tempi. Per caratteri come quello di Jünger, ogni isola è beata, nel senso di Esiodo (Le opere e i giorni): «Sulle isole beate, presso il profondo gorgo dell’oceano, vivono gli eroi felici col cuore libero da affanni. La terra feconda offre loro il frutto del miele che matura tre volte nell’anno». Anche D. H. Lawrence, tra i molti altri, era stato in Sardegna, precisamente nell’estate del 1921, assieme alla moglie Frieda. Vi era giunto da Taormina e aveva visitato Cagliari, Mandas e Nuoro. Nel suo libro Mare e Sardegna, contenente il racconto di questo viaggio, riporta un’ottima definizione di insulomania, il male di cui soffre chi prova un’attrazione irresistibile verso le isole. «Questi insulomani nati sono diretti discendenti degli Atlantidi e il loro subcosciente anela all’esistenza insulare». Una diagnosi che si attaglia alla perfezione a Jünger, amante del mare e di ciò che il mare circonda, separandolo dalla terraferma.

Come già detto, il futuro Premio Goethe approda a Carloforte nel 1955, ma il suo primo contatto con la Sardegna risale all’anno precedente. Il diario del suo mese trascorso nel piccolo villaggio di Villasimius è uscito in varie edizioni, con il titolo Presso la torre saracena. Tradotto – magistralmente – da Quirino Principe, verrà inserito insieme agli altri “scritti sardi” ne Il contemplatore solitario (Guanda, 2000) e in Terra sarda (Il Maestrale, 1999).

Ecco l’itinerario di quel primo viaggio: partito da Civitavecchia la sera del 6 maggio 1954, il Nostro arriva al porto di Olbia alle prime ore del mattino. Raggiunta Cagliari in treno, un paio d’ore di autobus lo separano da Villasimius (nel diario indicata come Illador): un percorso accidentato, su strade malmesse. Poche case coloniche, il piccolo borgo di Solanas. Dietro a ogni tornante si squadernano panorami mozzafiato, con un mare color zaffiro. Fin da subito capisce di trovarsi in un luogo tagliato fuori dalla civiltà, anche per via di un’epidemia di malaria e una carestia che fino a quel momento hanno reso Villasimius impermeabile al turismo di massa. Ancora per poco, però: proprio nei giorni della sua residenza, gli operai stanno collocando la rete elettrica, dando così il via alla modernizzazione della cittadina, che si concluderà con l’invasione di televisioni, radio, cinema, traffico, caos… La tecnica giungerà, livellando ogni differenza tra sessi e generazioni, demolendo una cultura millenaria e andando a costituire quel brodo di coltura grazie a cui la modernità trionferà anche a Illador. Ma in quel momento di tutto ciò non c’è ancora traccia. La cittadina si trova a un crocevia, e lo scrittore ha modo di fotografarla per quel che fu, «un luogo più cosmico che terrestre, lontano dal mondo». In realtà queste parole sono riferite a Carloforte, ma potrebbero estendersi alla Villasimius di allora, anzi alla Sardegna tutta, che in qualche modo agì su di lui come un «detonatore di emozioni», secondo la definizione di Stenio Solinas, che ha firmato l’introduzione a San Pietro.

Crocevia per la Sardegna, gli anni Cinquanta lo sono anche per Jünger: dopo aver visto l’Europa messa a ferro e fuoco dalle forze scatenate della tecnica, che aveva in qualche modo celebrato nel suo Der Arbeiter, agli inizi degli anni Trenta, il suo sguardo muta radicalmente, dando vita a opere come Il trattato del ribelle, che esce nel 1951, e soprattutto Il libro dell’orologio a polvere, pubblicato lo stesso anno di quel suo primo viaggio sardo. Se il primo è l’invito a riparare in un bosco del tutto interiore, al riparo dalle barbarie della tecnica e della tirannide, l’ultimo è uno studio comparato dedicato agli orologi naturali (clessidre, meridiane, gnomoni e così via) e a quelli meccanici, insieme alle nozioni di tempo che veicolano. Così come c’è un tempo storico, scandito dagli orologi meccanici, ce n’è anche uno cosmico, misurato dalle ombre proiettate dal sole e dall’affastellarsi dei chicchi di grano nelle clessidre. Sarà questa compresenza, come vedremo, a scandire il suo primo soggiorno sardo.

Torniamo alla Villasimius degli anni Cinquanta, la cui case sono ancora illuminate da candele, una cittadina semi-diroccata circondata da immense spiagge deserte e torri in rovina, i cui ospiti non sono miliardari o attricette o parvenu ma pastori, elettricisti, ciabattini e pescatori, insieme a impiegati statali trasferiti lì per qualche oscuro regolamento di conti burocratico. In loro compagnia, annoterà in San Pietro,

«L’uomo della terraferma viene trattato con una benevola superiorità. Gli manca quell’impronta degli elementi che qui ha lasciato il suo segno».

Saranno queste figure semplici, dalla pelle coriacea battuta dal Sole e saggiata dal vento, i compagni di quelle lunghe giornate, anche perché il protagonista della nostra storia si è guardato bene dal portarsi dietro un libro, un giornale o una compagnia umana. Ama stare con la gente comune e partecipa a feste e banchetti, cene e battute di caccia, passeggiate e sessioni di pesca, ben sapendo che è possibile studiare un luogo anche senza orpelli letterario-filosofici. La pensione in cui alloggia – gestita da una certa Signora Bonaria – diventa così il teatro d’interminabili discussioni (ma anche di lunghi silenzi, scanditi da un vino nero come la notte e pranzi pantagruelici). Cogli abitanti del luogo Jünger parla un po’ di tutto, ma perlopiù ascolta, di passato e presente – il futuro, quello, mai – dalle usanze locali alla Storia, che ha ovviamente attraversato anche quei corpi. Dopo cena, talvolta, i doganieri intonano il canto del «Duce Benito», non senza prima essersi tolti le uniformi. Uno dei suoi interlocutori gli dice di esser stato ferito nella Prima Guerra Mondiale e di aver perso un figlio nella seconda. Anche lui ne sa qualcosa. Reclina il capo, mentre il suo pensiero va alle scogliere di marmo di Carrara, dove è caduto suo figlio Ernstel.

I giorni passano e il Signor Ernesto – così lo chiamano a Illador – fa lunghe passeggiate, attraversando campi imbionditi dai cereali, muraglie di fichi d’India e una macchia mediterranea issatasi eroica sotto un sole sferzante, che dardeggia la costa, irrorata dal mare. Di tanto in tanto il suo sguardo si posa sull’Isola dei Gabbiani e su quella dei Serpenti (oggi Serpentara), nei pressi di Castiadas, sormontate rispettivamente da un castello in rovina e un faro. A colpirlo è l’abbondanza della natura, che non fa economia né lesina in sperperi («è ben oltre la funzionalità», parole che avrebbero sottoscritto Georges Bataille e Marcel Mauss), la stessa che fece esclamare, dall’altra parte del mare, allo Zarathustra nietzschiano:

«Ho imparato questo dal sole, quando il ricchissimo tramonta: getta nel mare l’oro della sua inesauribile ricchezza, così che anche il più povero pescatore rema con remi d’oro! Vidi questo una volta e alla vista non mi saziai di piangere».

Se fu un tramonto ligure a dettare queste parole a Nietzsche, che le scrisse a Rapallo, Jünger cercò il Grande Meriggio di Zarathustra in Sardegna, come disse una volta Banine, sua correttrice di bozze e compagna di viaggio ad Antibes. Ma il Sole e il mare mediterranei gli sussurrano, soprattutto, di avere ancora un’immensa riserva di tempo. E il tempo gli darà ragione, facendolo vivere sino al 1998, all’età di centotré anni.

L’enigma del tempo, che ha incantato Borges e gli spiriti più eletti del Novecento: ecco ciò che Jünger incontra in Sardegna in quella tarda primavera, non ancora estate. Il Contemplatore Solitario si tuffa nel miracolo della storia nei nuraghi presso Macomer, adornati da licheni, che dovettero apparire antichi già ai Fenici. Il suo sguardo si amplia, sfondando gli orizzonti storiografici moderni, andando oltre le sue Colonne d’Ercole, impresa conclusa cinque anni dopo in quello che forse è il suo libro migliore, Al muro del tempo, trattato di metafisica della storia che analizza il tempo storico come una parentesi, nata dalla messa al bando di forze mitiche che stanno per fare ritorno. Ebbene, il passaggio dalla storia del mondo (Weltgeschichte) alla storia della terra (Erdegeschichte) ha luogo forse per la prima volta al cospetto di un nuraghe che, come ha scritto Henri Plard, curatore de Il contemplatore solitario, ricorda a Jünger il fenomeno originario di cui ha parlato il suo maestro Goethe, che si cela dietro a tutte le manifestazioni naturali. Da esso nascerà la torre, il granaio, il castello… Archetipi? Null’affatto. Gli archetipi sono molti, il fenomeno originario è uno.

Questa compresenza, ai suoi occhi, sceglie quello sardo come territorio d’elezione. È come se in certi luoghi la geografia costringesse la storia a venire allo scoperto, esibendo i propri caratteri fondamentali. Anche perché qui il passato vive in una contemporaneità assoluta, plastica. La Sardegna jüngeriana è in grado di cicatrizzare e risanare antiche ferite. Qui tutto è presente, l’eternità coesiste con il tempo: «La storia diventa un mysterium. La successione temporale diventa un’immagine campata nello spazio», parole che – come scrive Quirino Principe – ricordano quelle di Gurmenanz del Parsifal wagneriano: «Figlio mio, qui il tempo diventa spazio». Il cerchio si chiude.

Il sigillo di quel viaggio è una fuoriuscita dalla storia non veicolata dalla ratio ma dalla contemplazione delle forme, del loro stile. È nella continuità delle forme, nella loro metamorfosi, a manifestarsi il fenomeno originario. Che non è un’idea astratta, ma qualcosa d’immanente al reale, la messa in forma di un destino e allo stesso tempo la sua più alta meta. Contemplando il reale e non dissezionandolo, come fa invece la scienza moderna, ci reinseriamo nei meccanismi che regolano il cosmo. Ciò è molto facile in Sardegna – e in Italia – scrive Jünger, dove la compresenza di presente e futuro è visibile a livello geografico, territoriale, elementare, ma anche fisiognomico. Lì può accadere, passeggiando per luoghi affollati, d’incontrare un viso particolare, con tratti inusuali. Allora ci fermiamo, percorsi da un brivido. I tratti intravisti sono antichi, forse addirittura preistorici, e l’osservazione si spinge allora sempre più a ritroso, nelle profondità dei secoli e dei millenni, fino al limite estremo del muro del tempo. «Sentiamo che ci è passato vicino un essere originario, primordiale, venuto a noi da tempi in cui non esistevano né popoli né paesi». Ma la stessa cosa accade anche se ci mettiamo a riflettere su noi stessi: per quale motivo non siamo tutti uguali, ma nutriamo peculiari inclinazioni per la caccia o la pesca, per la contemplazione o l’azione, «per lo scontro in battaglia, per l’occulta magia degli esorcismi? Seguendo le nostre vocazioni, consumiamo la nostra più antica parte di eredità. Abbandoniamo il mondo storico, e antenati sconosciuti festeggiano in noi il loro ritorno».

È la contemplazione e non l’analisi a permettere questa fuoriuscita dal tempo – la stessa di cui parlò Mircea Eliade, che tra l’altro diresse con Jünger «Antaios», dall’inizio degli anni Sessanta a metà dei Settanta. Ebbene, sulle colonne di quella meravigliosa rivista uscì, nel 1963, lo scritto jüngeriano Lo scarabeo spagnolo, sempre nato in terra sarda. Qui la meditazione su uno scarabeo intravisto sul gretto di un fiume (Riu Campus) diventa occasione per riflettere sulla caducità delle cose. Tutto muore e trapassa nell’inorganico, ma guai a chi non lo inserisce in un contesto più alto. Guai a chi si esaurisce nel presente, nella storia. Guai a non vedere nel transeunte l’orma dell’eterno. Chi abbia il coraggio di avventurarsi nei labirinti della contemplazione, tuttavia, scoprirà scenari inediti, all’interno dei quali anche l’uomo acquisisce facoltà nuove:

«Ognuno è re di Thule, è sovrano agli estremi confini, è principe e mendicante. Se sacrifica l’aurea coppa della vita alla profondità, offre testimonianza della pienezza cui la coppa rinvia e che egli incarna senza poterla comprendere. Come lo splendore dello scarabeo spagnolo, così le corone regali alludono a una signoria che nessuna conflagrazione universale distrugge. Nei suoi palazzi la morte non penetra; è solo la guardiana della porta. Il suo portale rimane aperto mentre stirpi di uomini e di dèi si avvicendano e scompaiono».

Avventurandoci in questa Babele di dimensioni storiche e piani dell’essere, lo stesso linguaggio finisce per rivelare la propria insufficienza e naufraga, laddove la traiettoria di un insetto è in grado di ripetere il moto planetario. Servendoci di un’antica immagine, il linguaggio discorsivo è come una canoa utile per attraversare un fiume, ma che una volta espletato questo compito va abbandonata a riva. Il percorso deve proseguire in altro modo. Così sono i nomi, che non si limitano a designare cose, ma rinviano sempre a qualcos’altro,

«ombre d’invisibili soli, orme su vasti specchi d’acqua, colonne di fumo che s’innalzano da incendi il cui sito è nascosto. Là il grande Alessandro non è più grande del suo schiavo, ma è più grande della propria fama. Anche gli dèi, là, sono soltanto simboli. Tramontano come i popoli e le stelle, eppure hanno valore i sacrifici che li onorano».

Come già accennato, i diari di Illador-Villasimius sono dedicati alla Torre Saracena di Capo Carbonara; vi si arriva facilmente, percorrendo un sentiero – nulla di particolarmente impegnativo – che dalla lunga spiaggia bianca porta alle pendici dell’antica torre di vedetta. L’11 maggio, ai piedi della solitaria costruzione arroventata dal sole (oggi conosciuta come Torre di Porto Giunco), Jünger avverte «un alito di nuda potenza, di pallida vigilanza». Un sentore di perenne insicurezza, d’instabilità. Comprende di trovarsi in un luogo di confine, Giano bifronte che unisce e separa a un tempo, linea di frontiera tra Oriente e Occidente, storia e metastoria. Segno liminare tra terra e mare che impone un aut-aut, ci torna una decina di giorni dopo, assieme a un certo Angelo (uomo mercuriale), armato di martello e scalpello. Lascia una traccia, com’era – ed è tutt’ora – uso fare. Quella traccia è ancora lì, a distanza di oltre cinquant’anni: E. J., 22.V.54. Dopodiché ridiscende il sentiero, fino alla spiaggia. Guardandola dall’alto, si è accorto che presenta singolari striature rosate: sono conchiglie frantumate. Frugando, ne trova una semi-intatta, la cui forma lo sgomenta. È una conchiglia a forma di cuore, la cui perfezione formale rimanda a un ordine che è di questo mondo ma in esso non si esaurisce. È come se la bacchetta di un direttore invisibile avesse dato il la a un’esecuzione di cui non udiamo che gli echi. E, ancora una volta, ecco emergere dalla contemplazione la Terra originaria, in una magnifica assenza di umanità. È ad essa che il piccolo oggetto rinvia: una proprietà, annota Jünger, ben nota a quei popoli antichi che utilizzavano le conchiglie come moneta, al posto dell’oro. La sua forma potrebbe condurci

«a fiammeggianti soli. Colui che vaga per la nostra terra la esibisce come un geroglifico. Il guardiano del portone di fiamma vede a quale sublime configurazione è adatta la polvere che turbina su questa stella. Qualcosa d’immortale lo illumina. Dà il suo segnale: la conchiglia si trasforma in ardore incandescente, in luce, in pura irradiazione. Il portone si apre di scatto».

Abbiamo detto che la Sardegna segna, in qualche modo, l’approdo di Jünger ai grandi spazi di una storiografia ultraeuclidea, mostrandogli un territorio innervato da un destino antecedente a quello dei manuali. I nuraghi precedono le piramidi, le mura di Ilio e il palazzo di Agamennone. Un giorno si trova nei pressi di Punta Molentis, al largo della quale si dice esserci un antico porto sommerso. Chissà, magari a questo porto corrisponde anche una città, secondo un’antica leggenda diffusa in tutte le coste mediterranee. È un’immagine molto potente del senso della storia. Come ha scritto Predrag Matvejević nel suo magnifico Breviario mediterraneo,

«un porto affondato è una specie di necropoli. Divide lo stesso destino delle città o delle isole sommerse: circondato dagli stessi misteri, accompagnato da questioni simili, seguito dagli stessi ammonimenti. Ciascuno di noi è talvolta un porto affondato, nel Mediterraneo».

Sempre nei pressi di Punta Molentis, dove un’esile lingua di sabbia separa i due mari, trova un’antichissima grotta, addirittura più vecchia degli stessi nuraghi. È stupefatto: per inquadrare questa rudimentale abitazione, occorre adottare scale temporali molto più ampie di quelle storiografiche. Luoghi del genere intimano al visitatore di confrontarsi con regioni sommerse del proprio Io, abbandonando gli orpelli mentali usuali:

«A volte, l’uomo è costretto dall’urgenza del destino a uscire dai palazzi della storia, a venire al cospetto di questa sua primitiva dimora, a domandarsi se ancora la riconosca, se sia ancora alla sua altezza, se ne sia ancora degno. Qui egli è processato e giudicato dall’Immutabile che persiste al fondo della storia».

L’uomo tende a ricacciare questo Immutabile in un lontanissimo passato, nell’alba dei tempi. Una sciocchezza: esso è «al centro, nel punto più interno della foresta, e le civiltà gli girano intorno». Al pari del mito che, come aveva scritto nel Trattato del ribelle tre anni prima, non è la narrazione dei tempi che furono ma una realtà che si ripresenta quando la storia vacilla sin dalle fondamenta.

Meditando su ciò che ha appena visto, con maschera e tubo respiratorio, si getta nell’acqua poco profonda e attraversa la piccola laguna a nuoto. È una delle sue attività preferite, specie in Sardegna. In quel periodo nessuno degli abitanti fa il bagno, ma lui è abituato ad altre latitudini, e non perde tempo. C’è un vecchio epitaffio, inciso sulle rovine accanto al porto di Giaffa, nei pressi di Tel Aviv, che recita: «Nuoto, il mare è attorno a me, il mare è in me, e io sono il mare. In terra non ci sono e mai ci sarò. Affonderò in me stesso, nel mio proprio mare». In queste antichissime righe, c’è tutto Jünger, sospeso sulla superficie acquea di un mare cristallino, a riflettere sui sottili legami tra passato e presente, mito e storia.

Teatro di queste incursioni è il Mediterraneo, qui inteso in senso più che geografico. Agorà e labirinto, «perduto mare del Sé» (Janvs), archivio e sepolcro, corrente e destino, crepuscolo e aurora, apollineo e dionisiaco, «è una grande patria», scrive Jünger, «una dimora antica. A ogni mia nuova visita me ne accorgo con evidenza sempre maggiore; che esista anche nel cosmo, un Mediterraneo?». Se è vero, come scrive Matvejević nel suo libro già citato, che «il Mediterraneo attende da tempo una nuova grande opera sul proprio destino», quella di Jünger potrebbe esserne la bozza. Un destino osservato sulle rocce e sulle piante, abbrivio a dèi ed eroi omerici, simulacri di battaglie cosmiche che si compiono dall’aurora dei tempi. Tutto ciò è riflesso nei volti che ha modo d’incontrare, nelle calette in cui si avventura e negli insetti che osserva, con la discrezione di un entomologo professionista. Tutte maschere di una sola cosa:

«Terra sarda, rossa, amara, virile, intessuta in un tappeto di stelle, da tempi immemorabili fiorita d’intatta fioritura ogni primavera, culla primordiale. Le isole sono patria nel senso più profondo, ultime sedi terrestri prima che abbia inizio il volo nel cosmo. A esse si addice non il linguaggio, ma piuttosto un canto del destino echeggiante sul mare».

Un mare da cui si accomiaterà il primo giugno, ma solo per qualche tempo (mediterranea è anche, in senso eminente, la certezza del ritorno). Jünger prepara i bagagli, e percorre a ritroso il suo viaggio. Sulla strada verso Cagliari, s’imbatte nei bunker eretti dalla Wehrmacht durante la Seconda guerra mondiale. Forse la foresta se li inghiottirà. Difficile che invecchino bene, come invece il Forte di Michelangelo a Civitavecchia, le macchine da guerra di Leonardo o le prigioni di Piranesi… Prende il treno per Olbia. Dopo settimane di astinenza dalla modernità, compra un giornale, solo per vedere quanto poco il mondo sia cambiato. L’argomento à la page è la bomba atomica, il tono è «come sempre noioso, irritante, indecoroso. Ci si domanda a volte a quale scopo si paghi l’onorario ai filosofi». Chissà cosa direbbe oggi, di fronte a certe querelle da bettola… Dopodiché, in nave fino a Civitavecchia, dove lo attende un treno, diretto a Nord. La linea passa da Carrara, mentre a sinistra c’è sempre il mediterraneo, muto spettatore di un dolore non ancora cicatrizzato. «Il mare è una lingua antichissima che non riesco a decifrare» scrisse il suo amico Jorge Luis Borges nel 1925 (nel saggio Navigazione, uscito ne La luna vicina).

Il congedo di Jünger dalla Sardische Heimat è solo temporaneo. Vi tornerà diverse volte, finché le condizioni di salute glielo permetteranno. Nato sotto costellazioni settentrionali, in quel lontano 1954 ha subito un fascino cui è molto difficile sottrarsi, e ora non può che rispondere periodicamente a quest’appello. «Mare! Mare! Queste parole passavano di bocca in bocca. Tutti corsero in direzione di esso… cominciarono a baciarsi gli uni cogli altri, piangendo» ci rivela Senofonte nelle Anabasi, descrivendo la reazione dei soldati greci, dopo un lungo peregrinare a terra, affacciatisi sul Mediterraneo. Furono forse le stesse parole che rimbombarono nelle orecchie del Contemplatore Solitario a bordo di quell’autobus, tra un tornante e l’altro, tra un mare e l’altro, fino a Illador, oasi di un passato martoriato e misteriosa prefigurazione di un destino a venire.

Tag: Al muro del tempo, D. H. Lawrence, Esiodo, Friedrich Nietzsche, Il contemplatore solitario, Il trattato del ribelle, Mircea Eliade, Predrag Matvejević, Quirino Principe, San Pietro, Stenio Solinas, Villasimius

Conférence: le mouvement völkisch

Editions du Lore: parution du tome deuxième de Robert Steuckers sur la "Révolution conservatrice" allemande

Editions du Lore: parution du tome deuxième de Robert Steuckers sur la "Révolution conservatrice" allemande

Pour se procurer ce volume:

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ENTRETIENS, CONFERENCES ET PHILOSOPHIE AUTOUR DE LA REVOLUTION CONSERVATRICE

Entretien avec Robert Steuckers sur la « révolution conservatrice » allemande dans la revue Le Harfang

Entretien avec Robert Steuckers sur Ernst Jünger, Armin Mohler et la « révolution conservatrice » pour la revue Philitt (Paris)

Entretien avec Robert Steuckers sur la "révolution conservatrice" pour l’hebdomadaire Rivarol

Ma découverte de la « révolution conservatrice ». Entretien avec Thierry Martin (Université Paris IV)

Conférence de Robert Steuckers sur la révolution conservatrice allemande à la tribune du « Cercle Non Conforme »

Bibliographie jüngerienne

Treize thèses et constats sur la « révolution conservatrice »

Retrouver un âge d’or ? Intervention au Colloque Erkenbrand, Rotterdam, octobre 2017

Conception de l’Homme et révolution conservatrice : Heidegger et son temps

Heidegger, la tradition, la révolution, la résistance et l’ « anarquisme »

Heidegger et la crise de l’Université allemande

La philosophie politique de Heidegger

La philosophie de l’argent et la philosophie de la Vie chez Georg Simmel (1858-1918)

Arnold Gehlen et l’anthropologie philosophique

Une critique de la modernité chez Peter Koslowski

REVOLUTION CONSERVATRICE ET GEOPOLITIQUE

Rudolf Kjellen (1864-1922)

L’œuvre géopolitique de Karl Haushofer

L’itinéraire d’un géopolitologue allemand : Karl Haushofer

Une thèse sur Haushofer

EN FRANCE, APRES LA REVOLUTION CONSERVATRICE

En souvenir de Jean Mabire

En souvenir de Dominique Venner

Ernst Jüngers Entwurf von der „Herrschaft und Gestalt des Arbeiters“

Ernst Jüngers Entwurf von

der „Herrschaft und Gestalt

des Arbeiters“

Philologischer

Versuch einer Annäherung

ISBN: 978-3-8260-5824-0
Autor: Dietka, Norbert
Year of publication: 2016

 

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Pagenumbers: 226
Language: deutsch

Short description: Mit dieser „philologischen Annäherung“ an Ernst Jüngers Hauptwerk „Der Arbeiter. Herrschaft und Gestalt“ (1932) wird erstmalig der Versuch unternommen, den gesamten Text des äußerst umstrittenen Großessays von der Entstehung her, ergo bezugnehmend auf Jüngers „Politische Publizistik“ (1919-1933), zu beleuchten sowie die Programmschrift „Die totale Mobilmachung“ von 1930 und den Essays „Über den Schmerz“ von 1934 als integrative Bestandteile einzubeziehen. Dabei wird nicht unterschlagen, dass Jüngers gewichtiger Beitrag zur Zeitgeschichte bislang zahlreiche Exegesen hervorgerufen hat – eine diesbezügliche Werkübersicht ist angefügt. In erster Linie aber sollen der Text selbst und die zeitnahe Reaktionen auf diesen Text untersucht werden – keine ideologiekritische Bewertung ist intendiert, vielmehr wird hier eine sachliche, kontextuelle Analyse vorgelegt.

Der Autor Norbert Dietka studierte Germanistik und Geschichte an der Universität Dortmund und wurde dort mit einer Arbeit über die Jünger-Kritik (1945- 1985) 1987 promoviert. Dietka war bis 2013 im Schuldienst und versteht sich heute als freier Publizist. Der Autor hat mehrere Beiträge zur Jünger- Rezeption in der französisch-deutschen Publikationsreihe „Les Carnets“ der „Revue du Centre de Recherche et de Documentation Ernst Jünger“ (Rédacteurs en chef: Danièle Beltran-Vidal und Lutz Hagestedt) veröffentlicht und war zuletzt mit einem Aufsatz am Projekt „Ernst Jünger Handbuch“ des Verlages J. B. Metzler (hg. von Matthias Schöning) beteiligt.

Leopold Ziegler. Eine Schlüsselfigur im Umkreis des Denkens von Ernst und Friedrich Georg Jünger

Leopold Ziegler.

Eine Schlüsselfigur im Umkreis

des Denkens von Ernst und

Friedrich Georg Jünger

 

ISBN: 978-3-8260-3935-5
Autor: Kölling Timo
Year of publication: 2008

Price: 26,00 euro

 

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Pagenumbers: 172
Language: deutsch

Short description: Der große Einfluß, den das Werk des Philosophen Leopold Ziegler (1881-1958) auf das Denken der Brüder Ernst Jünger und Friedrich Georg Jünger ausgeübt hat, ist bislang nicht nur unterschätzt, sondern im Grunde überhaupt noch nicht zur Kenntnis genommen worden. Die vorliegende Studie, die zugleich als Einführung in Zieglers Werk gelesen werden kann, legt diesen Einfluß erstmals frei. Im Zentrum steht der Nachweis, daß Ernst Jüngers umstrittene und in vielerlei Hinsicht rätselhafte Konzeption des „Arbeiters“ als metaphysische „Gestalt“ sich in allen ihren wesentlichen Momenten auf Leopold Zieglers Buch „Gestaltwandel der Götter“ zurückführen läßt. Der entscheidende Grundgedanke Zieglers wird von Jünger aber in sein Gegenteil verkehrt: aus der philosophisch fruchtbaren Konzeption einer mystischen Teilhabe wird die theoretische Sackgasse einer magischen Identitätstheorie. Der Aufweis dieser Differenz erlaubt es, Zieglers Denken, das in seinem Kern der Versuch einer zeitgemäßen Erneuerung der Philosophia Perennis mit den Mitteln einer negativen Geschichtsphilosophie ist, gegen das Konstrukt der sogenannten „Konservativen Revolution“ abzugrenzen. Der Autor Timo Kölling lebt und arbeitet als freier Schriftsteller in Frankfurt am Main. Seit März 2007 Arbeitsstipendium der Leopold-Ziegler-Stiftung. http://www.leopold-ziegler-stiftung.de

Leopold Ziegler,

Philosoph der letzten Dinge.

Eine Werkgeschichte 1901-1958.

Beiträge zum Werk, Bd. 4

ISBN: 978-3-8260-6111-0
Autor: Kölling, Timo
Band Nr: 4
Year of publication: 2016

 

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Pagenumbers: 540
Language: deutsch

Short description: Leopold Ziegler (1881–1958) ist der Poet unter den deutschsprachigen Philosophen des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts. Seiner Philosophie eignet ein künstlerischer Zug, der ihren sachlichen Gehalt zugleich realisiert und verschließt, ausdrückt und verbirgt. Ziegler hat sein Anliegen in Anknüpfung an Jakob Böhme, Franz von Baader und F. W. J. Schelling als „theosophisches“ kenntlich gemacht und damit die Grenzen der akademischen Philosophie seiner Zeit weniger ausgelotet als ignoriert und überschritten. Timo Köllings im Auftrag der Leopold-Ziegler- Stiftung verfasstes Buch ist nicht nur das erste zu Ziegler, das nahezu alle veröffentlichten Texte des Philosophen in die Darstellung einbezieht, sondern auch eine philosophische Theorie von Zieglers Epoche und ein Traktat über die Wiederkehr eines eschatologischen Geschichtsbildes im 20. Jahrhundert.

Der Autor Timo Kölling ist Lyriker und Philosoph. Als Stipendiat der Leopold-Ziegler-Stiftung veröffentlichte er 2009 bei Königshausen & Neumann sein Buch „Leopold Ziegler. Eine Schlüsselfigur im Umkreis des Denkens von Ernst und Friedrich Georg Jünger“.

Die Ordnung der Dinge. Ernst Jüngers Autorschaft als transzendentale Sinnsuche

Die Ordnung der Dinge.

Ernst Jüngers Autorschaft

als transzendentale Sinnsuche

 

ISBN: 978-3-8260-6533-0
Autor: Rubel, Alexander
Year of publication: 2018

 

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Pagenumbers: 200
Language: deutsch

Short description: Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit dem Gesamtwerk Ernst Jüngers aus einer ganz bestimmten Perspektive, die bislang noch nicht erforscht wurde: Ernst Jünger wird als Autor der Transzendenz gedeutet, dessen Werk in besonderem Maße von der religiös-transzendentalen Bewältigung der Kriegserfahrung im Ersten Weltkrieg bestimmt ist. Jüngers Werk ist vor diesem Hintergrund in seiner Gesamtheit als Manifest einer Sinnsuche zu interpretieren, mit welcher der Autor der eigenen Kontingenzerfahrung ein sinnvolles, religiös-metaphysisch grundiertes Ordnungssystem entgegenstellt. Jünger erscheint in dieser Deutung nicht als moderner Autor, etwa als Vertreter eines eigenständigen deutschen Surrealismus (in diesem Sinne deutete K-H. Bohrer Jüngers Frühwerk), sondern bleibt einer traditionellen Denkweise verhaftet, die das Grundproblem der Moderne ignoriert: Die Erfahrung der Kontingenz. Anders als die meisten Autoren der literarischen Moderne akzeptiert Jünger die Kontingenz des individuellen Lebens nicht, sondern insistiert auf einem Sinn des individuellen Lebens ebenso hartnäckig wie auf der Ordnung des Kosmos, die sich freilich nicht offenbart, sondern die es in der Welt der Erscheinungen mit subtilen Methoden erst aufzuspüren gilt.

Der Autor:

 

Alexander Rubel ist Inhaber einer Forschungsprofessur am Archäologischen Institut der Rumänischen Akademie in Jassy (Rumänien), dem er seit 2011 als Direktor vorsteht. Neben Arbeiten aus seinem engeren Fachgebiet publiziert er zu breiteren kultur- und literaturwissenschaftlichen Themen.

Carl Schmitt fra “terra e mare” alla ricerca di un “nomos” per la Terra

da Giovanni Balducci

Ex: http://www.barbadillo.it

Nella postfazione a Terra e mare di Carl Schmitt, dal titolo “Il potere degli elementi”, il grande quanto sfortunato filosofo e storico della filosofia Franco Volpi (scomparso prematuramente nel 2009 a soli 57 anni in un banale incidente in bici), facendo fede sul resoconto di un discepolo del grande giurista tedesco, ci presenta la suggestiva immagine di uno Schmitt che nel suo eremo di Plettenberg, in piena seconda guerra mondiale, si interroga circa le sorti del mondo e dell’Europa in particolare, sublimando la sua nostalgia e il proprio isolamento accostando la sua sorte a quella di eminenti predecessori o di mitiche figure di valenti outsider, fra cui Niccolò Machiavelli, che dopo aver insegnato al mondo gli arcana imperii ebbe a terminare i suoi giorni nel suo ritiro di San Casciano e il letterario Benito Cereno, il capitano “bianco”, uscito dalla penna di Herman Melville, ammutinato da schiavi “negri”.

Il grosso problema che a quel tempo ossessionava Schmitt era riuscire a dirimere il conflitto, da lui individuato, fra le due concezioni del mondo cattolica ed ebraica, che caratterizzava la civiltà occidentale. Schimitt, che stranamente – stando al racconto – ha appeso alla parete del suo studio un ritratto del politico ebreo Benjamin Disraeli, quando nelle case di ogni buon tedesco anni ’40 l’unico quadro a campeggiare era quello del Führer, non fa mistero di ritenere come interpretazione vincente la visione ebraica della storia, intesa come progresso dell’umanità verso un “futuro regno di pace”, o se si vuole, verso la “Nuova Gerusalemme”, lontana sì nel tempo, ma situata nell’aldiquà, e dunque ben più concreta di quell’ipotetico aldilà cui anelava la teologia cristiano-cattolica.

Per Schmitt, tuttavia, il cristianesimo può essere interpretato come una sorta di divulgazione “essoterica” fatta ai gentili della vera dottrina giudaica. In effetti, nella stessa interpretazione della Genesi, come espressa nello Zohar, suo commentario cabbalistico, si afferma che compito di ogni pio ebreo e di ogni uomo di retta volontà tra i gentili sarebbe quello di operare per la realizzazione del «tikkun» , la riparazione dell’anima umana (tikkun ha-nefesh) e di rimando del mondo (tikkun ha olàm), riportando la “presenza divina” (Shekhinah), o meglio sarebbe dire, rendendo la stessa presente, nel dominio degli uomini, riscattando in tal modo il peccato di Adamo, che osò separare sé stesso dalla Totalità universale e divina. Lo stesso Disraeli, del resto appare a Schimitt come «un iniziato, un saggio di Sion»: è quanto testualmente scrive nell’edizione di Terra e Mare del 1942; frase saggiamente espunta a guerra finita.

Un altro tema forte delle cogitazioni del grande giurista tedesco è la lotta tra le categorie giuridico-politiche di «Staat» (“Stato”), quella, per intenderci, dello stato “Leviatano” introdotta da Hobbes, e quella, verso cui Schmitt è più propenso, ritenendola superiore sia allo «Staat» di Hobbes sia all’ideologia völkisch che animava l’azione di Hitler e del nazionalsocialismo, di «Großraum» (“grande spazio terrestre”, o anche “ spazio imperiale”).

Questa variante era preferita da Schimitt alla stessa Lega delle Nazioni, incapace di dirimere le grandi questioni europee ed internazionali e di dare nuova legge e nuovo ordine al mondo, secondo il famoso concetto schmittiano di «nomos della terra». Essa inoltre si mostrava in tutta la sua debolezza al confronto con gli Stati Uniti d’America, che Schmitt vedeva come il vero nuovo “arbitro della terra”.

Egli, tuttavia, pur ammirando la dottrina Monroe, che secondo la sua visione delle cose aveva consentito agli Stati Uniti di assurgere al primato internazionale, costituendosi come un mix di indipendentismo e sovranità (isolazionismo?) e interventismo mirato in spazi extranazionali, riteneva che gli Stati Uniti, pur non essendo, a differenza dell’Inghilterra, un fattore di “dissolvimento”, non potevano rappresentare quella che per lui doveva essere la figura del katèchon, capace di frenare il processo dissolutivo dell’Ecumene occidentale, e per due gravi motivi: l’incapacità dimostrata nel recidere il cordone ombelicale dalla madrepatria britannica e al contempo l’ideologia accarezzata di un “nuovo secolo americano”.

Ecco che proprio questo farebbe declassare agli occhi di Schmitt gli Stati Uniti, da possibile katèchon, al ruolo addirittura di “ acceleratore involontario” della definitiva dissoluzione della società occidentale.

La concezione marittima del potere, come portata avanti dagli inglesi, per Schmitt, infatti, aveva avuto un ruolo determinante nella fine della concezione continentale, dunque terrestre, dello Ius publicum Europaeum e dell’ordine tradizionale del Vecchio continente, tendendo essa a radicalizzare i conflitti fino a promuovere l’ideologia di una “guerra totale” , che più non si limita al mero scontro fra eserciti belligeranti, ma porta alla “criminalizzazione” di interi popoli, e addirittura degli stati che commerciano o in qualche modo sono accusati di sostenere l’economia del nemico.

Schmitt paragona l’Inghilterra a una “nave” – a una “nave pirata” ad esser precisi – del resto, gran parte del suo impero è stato costruito grazie ad azioni che non tenevano in nessun conto alcuna legge e il Diritto delle genti. Veri e propri atti di pirateria di schiumatori e buccaneers, come quelli di Francis Drake, poi divenuto Sir, hanno rappresentato il suo quasi consueto modus operandi.

Era pressappoco quanto si stava già profilando sullo scenario di guerra cui Schmitt sta assistendo. Siamo per la precisione nell’anno di “grazia” 1942, quando, sbarcando in Irlanda, giunge in Europa il primo contingente militare statunitense, e la guerra dopo aver attraversato gli elementi terra e aria, si appresta ad interessare l’elemento acqua, facendosi poi addirittura sottomarina.

@barbadilloit

Di Giovanni Balducci

Monika Berchvok Speaks With Robert Steuckers

Translation: https://institutenr.or

 

Following the publication of Pages celtiques by éditions du Lore and the trilogy Europa by éditions Bios of Lille, Monika Berchvok subjected the author of these works, Robert Steuckers, to a rapid fire volley of questions, showing that even the rebels of the young generation of the 2010s want to know the oldest roots of this silent revolt which is growing across all of Europe. Monika Berchvok previously interviewed Robert Steuckers during the publication of La Révolution conservatrice allemande by éditions du Lore in 2014.

Your career is extremely intellectually wealthy. What is the origin of your engagement? 

To speak of intellectual wealth is certainly exaggerated: I am above all a man of my generation, to whom they still taught the “basics”, which today, alas, have disappeared from academic curricula. I experienced my childhood and adolescence in a world that was still marked by quiet tradition, the mores and manners were not those of the industrial world or the service sector, where we increasingly separate from concrete and tangible reality, increasingly acquiring an unbounded pretension and arrogance against “provincials,” like me, who remain anchored in the muck of reality with their heavy boots (yes, yes, that’s from Heidegger…). My father, who really hadn’t been to school, except to the primary school in his Limburg village, wanted nothing to do with the fashions and crazes that agitated our contemporaries in the 1960s and 70s; “all fafouls,” he claimed, “fafoul” being a Brussels dialect term used to designate idiots and cranks. I lived in a home without television, far from and hostile to the mediocre little universe of the pop tune, variety show, and hippy or yéyé subculture. I still thank my progenitor, 25 years after his death, for having been able to totally resist the miserable abjection of all those years where decline advanced in giant steps. Without television, it goes without saying, I had a lot of time to read. Thanks Papa.

Next, I was a gifted student in primary school but fundamentally lazy and desperately curious, the only life saver, to avoid ending up a tramp or a prole, was learning languages to a competent level because, in Brussels, I lived on a street where they spoke the three national languages (and the dialectical variants), with the Russian of a few former White officers and their children who wound up in our fair city in addition. With this linguistic plurality, the task was already half done. Clément Gstadler, a neighbor, an old Alsatian teacher who had ended up in Belgium, told me, donning his ever present traditional hat of the Thann countryside and with a razor sharp Teutonic accent: “My boy, we are as many times men as languages we know.” Strengthened by this tirade hammered into me by Gstadler, I thus enrolled, at the age of eighteen, in Germanic philology and then in the school of translators – interpreters.

The origin of my engagement is the will to remain faithful to all these brave men that we consider anachronistic today. On their certitudes, under siege, we must erect a defensive structure, which we hope will become offensive one day, resting on principles diametrically opposed to the hysterics of the trendy people, to construct in our hearts an alternative, impregnable fortress, that we are determined never to give up.

How do you define your metapolitical combat? 

Dilthey, with whom the alternative minded of our type unfortunately aren’t familiar enough, partially constructed his philosophical system around one strong simple idea: “We only define what is dead, the things and facts whose time has definitively ended.” This fight is not over because I haven’t yet passed from life to death, doubtlessly in order to thwart those who my stubbornness displeases. It is evident, as a child of the 1950s and 60s, that my first years of life unfolded in an era where we wanted to throw everything away. It’s of course a gesture that I found stupid and unacceptable.

Retrospectively, I can say that I felt, in my young mind, that religion left the scene as soon as it renounced Latin and the spirit of the crusader, very present in Belgium, even among peaceful, calm, authors, like a certain Marcel Lobet, totally forgotten today, doubtlessly because of the excessive moderation of his words, nevertheless ultimately invigorating for those who knew how to capture their deep meaning. The philosopher Marcel Decorte, in his time, noted that society was disintegrating and that it was collapsing into “dissociety,” a term that we find again today, even in certain left wing circles, to designate the present state of our countries, weakened by successive waves of “civilizational negationism,” such as the ideology of Mai 68, New Philosophy, neo-liberal pandemonium, or gender ideology, all “dissociative” phenomena, or vectors of “dissociation,” which today converge in the Macronist imposture, mixing together all these baneful delusions, seven decades after opening Pandora’s Box. Thus the metapolitical combat must be a combat that unceasingly exposes the perverse nature of these civilizational negationisms, continuously denouncing above all the outfits, generally based beyond the Atlantic, that fabricate them in order to weaken European societies to create a new humanity, totally formatted according to “dissociative” criteria, negators of reality as it is (and cannot be otherwise, as the relevant philosopher Clément Rosset remarked, who unfortunately passed away in recent weeks). To make a metaphor with the ancient world, I would say that a metapolitical combat, in our sense, consists of, as the European history expert of Radio Courtoisie Thomas Ferrier said, putting all these negationisms in Pandora’s Box, from which they sprang, then closing it.

You mention “bio-conservatism” in your recent works? What does this term cover? 

I didn’t mention “bio-conservatism.” My editor, Laurent Hocq of Editions Bios, believes that it’s a path we will need to explore, precisely in order to fight “civilizational negationisms,” notably all the elements that deny the corporeality of man, his innate phylogenetics, and his ontology. For me a well conceived bio-conservatism must go back to the implicit sociology that Louis de Bonald sketched in the 19^th century, critiquing the individualist drift of the Enlightenment philosophers and the French Revolution. Romanticism, in its non-ethereal or tearful aspects, insists on the organicity, vitalist and biological, of human and social phenomena. We must couple these two philosophical veins – traditional conservative realism and organic Romanticism – and then connect them to the more recent and more scientifically established achievements of biocybernetics and systems theory, while avoiding falling into perverse social engineering as desired by the Tavistock Institute, whose cardinal role in the elaboration of all forms of brain washing that we’ve endured for more than sixty years was investigated by the “conspiracy theorist” Daniel Estulin, now living in Spain. The “Tavistockians” used biocybernetics and systems theory to impose a “depoliticized” culture across the Western world. Today these disciplines can be perfectly mobilized to “re-politicize” culture. Laurent Hocq wants to initiate this work of metapolitical mobilization with me. We will have to mobilize people competent in these domains to complete the task.

At the end of the road, rethinking “bio-conservatism” is nothing more or less than the will to restore a “holistic” society in the best sense of the term as quickly as possible, that is to say a society that defends itself and immunizes itself against the fatal hypertrophies leading us to ruin, to degradation: economic hypertrophy, juridical hypertrophy (the power of manipulative and sophist jurists), the hypertrophy of the services sector, hypertrophy of petty moralism detached from reality, etc.

Localism is also a theme that often reoccurs in your recent books. For you the return to the local has an identitarian dimension, as well as a social and ecological one? 

Localism or the “vernacular” dimensions of human societies that function harmoniously, according to timeless rhythms, are more necessary than ever at a time where a sagacious geographer such as Christophe Guilluy notes the decline of “France from below”, the marvelous little provincial towns that are dying before our eyes because they no longer offer a sufficient number of local jobs and because their light industry has been relocated and dispersed to the four corners of the planet.
Attention to localism is an urgent necessity in our time, in order to respond to a terrifying evil of neo-liberalism that has expanded since Thatcher’s accession to power in Great Britain and all the fatal policies that the imitators of this “Iron Lady” have seen fit to import into Europe and elsewhere in the world.

The refusal of the migratory “great replacement” happens through an understanding of immigration movements in the era of total globalization. How can the tendency of migratory flows be reversed? 

By not accepting them, quite simply. We are a stubborn phalanx and it is imperative that our stubbornness become contagious, taking on the appearance of a global pandemic.

Nevertheless, when you mention the fact that there must be an “understanding of migratory movements,” you indirectly underline the necessity of deeply understanding the contexts from which these migrants come. For half a century, and even longer since Mai 68 had antecedents in the two decades that preceded it, we have been fattened on junk culture, of inane varieties, which occupies our minds with time consuming spectacles and prevents them from concentrating on things as real as they are essential. A good state is a state that inquires about the forces at work in the world. Whether migratory flows are accepted or not, every host state, guided by a healthy vision of things, should draw up an economic, ethnic, and social cartography of the populations coming from the emigrants’ countries.

For Africa, that means understanding the economic state of each migrant exporting country, the possible system of kleptocracy that reigns there, the ethnic components (and the conflicts and alliances that result from them), the history of each of these political or anthropological phenomena, etc. This knowledge must then be delivered by an honest press to the citizens of our countries, so that they can make judgments about credible pieces and not be forced to vote according to unremitting propaganda based on inconsistent slogans.

For Syria we should have known, before the waves of refugees spilled into Europe, the religious and tribal structures of the country in a very precise manner: actually, the media, generally uncultivated and dependent on the “junk culture” imposed on us for decades, discovered the Syrian divisions that had been ignored until now. Only a handful among us has a clear notion of who the Alawites or Yezidis are, knows that the Syrian Christian communities have complicated divisions, understands the tacit alliance that unites Alawites with Twelver Shiites, understands that the principal enemy of the Ba’athist political system is the Muslim Brotherhood, which fomented the terrible disorders of 1981-1982 that ravaged Syria in the time of Hafez al-Assad, father of the current president. In short, the general public knows nothing about the complexity of Syria. The only bone it has to gnaw is the slogan that decrees Assad is a horrible monster, fit to be eliminated by fundamentalist assassins or American bombs.

For Africa, the only means of reducing the waves of refugees, real or solely economic, would be to put an end to evidently very kleptocratic regimes, in order to fix the populations on their native soil by redirecting sums of money toward infrastructural investment. In certain more precise cases, that would also happen through a return to a subsistence agricultural economy and a partial and well regulated abandonment of monoculture which doesn’t properly nourish populations, especially those that have opted for rural exodus towards the cities and sprawling slums, like Nigeria for example.

For Syria, we should have established a filter to sort refugees but that would have, ipso facto, privileged Muslim or Christian communities allied to the regime, to the detriment of the hostile social classes, who are totally un-integrable into our European societies, because the Salafism that animates them is viscerally hostile to all forms of syncretism and all cultures that do not correspond to it 100%. Moreover, as a general rule, the reception of migratory flows coming from countries where there are dangerous mafias is not recommended even if these countries are European like Sicily, Kosovo, Albania, or certain Caucasian countries. All immigration should pass through a well established anthropological screening process and not be left to chance, at the mercy of the “invisible hand” like the one that all the liberals expect the world to be perfected by. Non-discernment in the face of migratory flows has transformed this constant of human history into a catastrophe with unpredictable repercussions in its current manifestations, as evidently these flows do not bring us a better society but create a deleterious climate of inter-ethnic conflict, unbridled criminality, and latent civil war.

Reversing the tendency of migratory flows will happen when we finally implement a program of triage for migrations, aiming for the return of criminals and mafiosos, the psychologically unbalanced (that they deliberately send here, the infrastructure capable of accommodating them being non-existent in their countries of origin), politicized elements that seek to import political conflicts foreign to us. Such a policy will be all the more difficult to translate into daily reality where the imported mass of migrants is too large. Then we cannot manage it in proper conditions.

You knew Jean Thiriart. Does his political vision of a “Great Europe” still seem relevant? 

Jean Thiriart was firstly a neighbor for me, a man who lived in my neighborhood. I can note that behind the sturdy and gruff sexagenarian hid a tender heart but bruised to see humanity fall into ridicule, triviality, and cowardice. I didn’t know the activist Thiriart because I was only twelve when he abandoned his political combat at the end of the 1960s. This combat, which extended over a short decade starting from Belgium’s abandonment of the Congo and the tragic epilogue of the war in Algeria for the French, two years later. Thiriart was motivated by a well developed general idea: abolish the Yalta duopoly, which made Europe hemiplegic and powerless, and send back the Americans and Soviets in succession in order to allow the Europeans to develop independently. He belonged to a generation that had entered politics, very young, at the end of the 1930s (the emergence of Rexism, the Popular Front, the war in Spain, the Stalinist purges, Anschluss, the end of the Czechoslovakia born at Versailles), experienced the Second World War, the defeat of the Axis, the birth of the state of Israel, the coup in Prague, and the blockade in Berlin in 1948, the Korean War, and the end of Stalinism.

Two events certainly contributed to steer them towards an independentist European nationalism, different in sentiment from the European nationalism professed by the ideologues of the Axis: the Hungarian Revolt of 1956 and the Suez campaign, the same year, the year of my birth in January. The West, subjugated by Washington, did nothing to aid the unfortunate Hungarians. Worse, during the Suez affair, the Americans and the Soviets forced the French and British to unconditionally withdraw from the Egyptian theater of operations. Thiriart, and a good number of his companions, temporary or not, observed that the duopoly had no desire to dissolve itself or even to fight each other, to modify one way or the other the line of the Iron Curtain that cut Europe across its center, to tolerate any geopolitical affirmation on the part of European powers (even if they were members of the UN Security Council like France and the United Kingdom). The decolonization of the Congo also demonstrated that the United States was unwilling to support the Belgian presence in central Africa, despite the fact that Congolese uranium underpinned the nuclear supremacy of Washington since the atom bombs fabricated in order to bring Japan to its knees in 1945. A little history, Hergé’s brother was the only Belgian military officer not to chicken out and he showed an arrogant hostility to the NATO troops who came to take control of his Congolese base.

One thing leading to another, Thiriart would create the famous movement “Jeune Europe” that would inject many innovations into the discourse of the activist milieu and contest the established order of what one could classify as the extreme-right in its conventional forms, petty nationalists or Poujadists. The “habitus” of the extreme-right did not please Thiriart at all, who judged them unproductive and pathological. A reader of the great classics of the realist politics, especially Machiavelli and Pareto, he wanted to create a small hyper-politicized phalanx, rationally proceeding from truly political criteria and not thin emotions, creating only behavioral indiscipline. This political hyper-realism implied thinking in terms of geopolitics, having a knowledge of the general geography of the planet. This wish was realized in Italy alone, where the magazine Eurasia of his disciple and admirer Claudio Mutti has done remarkably well and has attained a very elevated degree of scientific precision.

To bypass the impediment of Yalta, Thiriart believed that we needed seek allies across the Mediterranean and in the East of the vast Soviet territorial mass: thus the attempt to dialogue with the Nasserist Arab nationalists and the Chinese of Chou Enlai. The Arab attempt rested on a precise Mediterranean vision, not understood by the Belgian militants and very well comprehended, on the contrary, by his Italian disciples: according to Thiriart this internal sea must be freed from all foreign tutelage. He reproached the various forms of nationalism in Belgium for not understanding the Mediterranean stakes, these forms turned more towards Germany or the Netherlands, England or the Scandinavian countries, an obligatory “Nordic” tropism. His reasoning about the Mediterranean resembled that of Victor Barthélémy, an adviser of Doriot and also a former communist, a reasoning shared by Mussolini as mentioned in his memoirs. Thiriart very probably derived his vision of Mediterranean geopolitics from a feeling of bitterness following the eviction of England and France from the Mediterranean space after the Suez affair in 1956 and the war in Algeria.

According to Thiriart, the Europeans shared a common Mediterranean destiny with the Arabs that could not be obliterated by the Americans and their Zionist pawns. Even if the French, the English, and the Italians had been chased from the Arabophone North African shore, the new independent Arab states could not renounce this Mediterranean destiny they shared with non-Muslim Europeans, massed on the Northern shore. For Thiriart, the waters of the Great Blue sea unite, not separate. From this fact, we must favor a policy of convergence between the two civilizational spaces, for the defense of the Mediterranean against the element foreign to this space, interfering there, constituted by the American fleet commanded from Naples.

The idea of allying with the Chinese against the Soviet Union aimed to force the Soviet Union to let go of its ballast in Europe in order to confront the Chinese masses on the Amur River front. The dual project of wagering on the Nasserist Arabs and the Chinese marked the last years of Thiriart’s political activity. The 1970s were, for him, years of silence or rather years where he immersed himself in the defense of his professional niche, namely optometry. When he returned to the fight at the start of the 1980s, he was nearly forgotten by the youngest and eclipsed by other political and metapolitical lines of thought; moreover the given facts had considerably changed: the Americans had allied with the Chinese in 1972 and, since then, the latter no longer constituted an ally. Like others, in their own corners and independently of each other, such as Guido Giannettini and Jean Parvulesco, he elaborated a Euro-Soviet or Euro-Russian project that the Yeltsin regime didn’t allow to come to fruition. In 1992 he visited Moscow, met Alexander Dugin and the “red-browns,” but unexpectedly died in November of the same year.

What we must retain from Thiriart is the idea of a cadre school formed on principles derived from pure political philosophy and geopolitics. We must also retain the idea of Europe as a singular geostrategic and military space. It’s the lesson of the Second World War: Westphalia defended itself on the beaches of Normandy, Bavaria on the Côte d’Azur and along the Rhône, Berlin at Kursk. Engines allowed for the considerable narrowing of the strategic space just as they allowed for the Blitzkrieg of 1940: with horse-drawn carts, no army could take Paris from Lorraine or Brabant. The failures of Philip II after the battle of Saint-Quentin prove it, Götz von Berlichingen never went past Saint-Dizier, the Prussians and Austrians never went past Valmy, and the armies of the Kaiser were stopped on the Marne. One exception: the entrance of the allies into Paris after the defeat of Napoleon at Leipzig. The United States is henceforth the sole superpower, even if the development of new arms and imperial hypertrophy, that it imposed on itself through unthinking immoderation, slowly break down this colossal military power, recently defied by the new capabilities of Russian or perhaps Chinese missiles. European independence happens through a sort of vast front of refusal, through the participation of synergies outside of what Washington desires, as Armin Mohler also wanted. This refusal will slowly but surely erode the supremacist policy of the Americans and finally make the world “multipolar.” As Thiriart, but also Armin Mohler, doubtlessly wanted, and, following them, Alexander Dugin, Leonid Savin, and yours truly want, multipolarity is the objective to aim for.

Three German author seem to have left their mark on you particularly: Ernst Jünger, Carl Schmitt and Günter Maschke. What do you retain from their thought?

Actually, you ask me to write a book… I admire the political writings of the young Jünger, composed in the middle of the turmoil of the 1920s just as I also admire his travel narratives, his seemingly banal observations which have made some Jüngerians, exegetes of his work, say that he was an “Augenmensch,” literally a “man of the eyes,” a man who surveys the world of nature and forms (cultural, architectural) through his gaze, through a penetrating gaze that reaches far beyond the surface of apparent things and perceives the rules and the rhythms of their internal nature.

Very soon I will release a voluminous but certainly not exhaustive work on Carl Schmitt. Here I want to remind people that Carl Schmitt wrote his first relevant texts at the age of sixteen and laid down his last fundamental text onto paper at 91. So we have a massive body of work that extends over three quarters of a century. Carl Schmitt is the theorist of many things but we essentially retain from him the idea of decision and the idea of the “great space.” My work, published by éditions du Lore, will show the Schmitt’s relation to Spain, the very particular nature of his Roman Catholicism in the context of debates that animated German Catholicism, his stance in favor of Land against Sea, etc.

Speaking about Günter Maschke interests me more in the framework of the present interview. I met Günter Maschke at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1984, then during a small colloquium organized in Cologne by high schoolers and students under the banner of the Gesamtdeutscher Studentenverband, an association that intended to oversee the student organizations which, at the time, were working towards the reunification of the country. Maschke was a thundering and petulant former leader of the activist years of 1967 and 1968 in Vienna, from which he would be expelled for street violence. In order to escape prison in West Germany, because he was a deserter, he successfully defected, via the French collective, “Socialisme ou Barbarie,” first to Paris, then Cuba. He then settled in the insular Castroist Carribean republic and met Castro there, who gave him a tour of the island in order to show him “his” sugar cane fields and all “his” agricultural property. Maschke, who can’t hold his tongue, retorted to him, “But you are the greatest latifundist in Latin America!” Vexed, the supreme leader didn’t renew his right of asylum and Maschke found himself back at the beginning, that is to say in a West German prison for thirteen months, the span of the military service he refused, as demanded by the law. In prison, he discovered Carl Schmitt and his Spanish disciple Donoso Cortès, and in the cramped space of his cell, he found his road to Damascus.

Many activists from 67-68 in Germany henceforth turned their backs on the ideologies they professed or utilized (without really believing in them too much) in their youth years: Rudi Dutschke was basically a anti-American Lutheran nationalist; his brothers gave interviews to the Berlin new conservative magazine Junge Freiheit and not usual leftist press, which repeats the slogans of yesterday without realizing that it has fallen into anachronism and ridicule; Frank Böckelmann, who was presented to me by Maschke during a Book Fair, came from German Situationism and never hesitated to castigate his former comrades whose anti-patriotism, he said, was the mark of a “craving for limits,” of a will to limit themselves and mutilate themselves politically, to practice ethno-masochism. Klaus Rainer Röhl, a nonagenarian today, was the spouse of Ulrike Meinhof, who sunk into terrorism with Baader. Röhl too became closer to the nationalists while the articles of Ulrike Meinhof in her magazine konkret would trigger the first fights in Berline during the arrival of the Shah of Iran.

Uli Edel’s film devoted to the “Baader Meinhof Gang” (2008) also shows the gradual slide of the terrorist “complex” in West Germany, which arose from an idealistic and unreasoning, uninhibited, and hysteric anti-imperialism, but often correct in some of its analyses, to pass into an even more radical terrorism but ultimately in the service of American imperialism: in his film, Edel shows the stakes very clearly, notably when Baader, already arrested and sentenced, speaks with the chief of police services and explains to him that the second generation of terrorists no longer obeys the same guidelines, especially not his. The second generation of terrorists, while Meinhof, Baader and Ensslin (Maschke’s sister in law!) were imprisoned and had not yet committed suicide, assassinated statesmen or economic decision makers who correctly wanted to pursue policies in contradiction with the desires of the United States and free West Germany from the cumbersome tutelage that Washington imposed on it. This shift also explains the attitude taken by Horst Mahler, Baader’s lawyer and partisan in armed struggle in his time. He would also pass to nationalism when he was released from prison, a nationalism strongly tinted with Lutheranism, and he would return to prison for “revisionism.” The last I heard, he was still languishing there.

At the start of the 1980s, Maschke was an editor in Cologne and notably published the works of Carl Schmitt (Land and Sea), Mircea Eliade, Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, Agnès Heller, and Régis Debray. Every year, in October when the famous Frankfurt Book Fair took place, Maschke, who thought I had the countenance of an imperturbable young reactionary, had Sigi, his unforgettable spouse who left us much too soon, set up a cot in the middle of his prestigious office, where the most beautiful flowers of his library were found. So every year, from 1985 to 2003, I frequented the “Maschke Salon,” where personalities as prestigious as the Catholic and conservative writer Martin Mosebach or the Greek political philosopher Panajotis Kondylis, the ex-Situationist Franck Böckelmann,or the Swiss polemicist Jean-Jacques Langendorf dropped by. These soirees were, I must admit, pretty boozy; we sang and performed poems (Maschke likes those by Gottfried Benn), the fun was de rigeur and the ears of a good number of fools and pretentious people must have rung as they were lampooned. I inherited a frank manner of talking from Maschke, who often reproached me, and he helped consolidate my mocking Bruxellois verve, which I owe to my uncle Joseph, my mother’s very sarcastic brother.

I can’t finish this segment without recalling the fortuitous meeting between Maschke and Joschka Fischer, the year where the latter had become a minister in the Land of Hesse, the first step that would lead him to become the German minister of foreign affairs who made his country participate in the war against Serbia. Fischer strolled down the long hallways of the Book Fair. Maschke came up to him and patted his stomach, very plump, saying to everyone: “Well, comrade Fischer, fattening up to become minister.” Next followed a torrent of acerbic words poured out on the little Fischer who looked at his sneakers (his trademark at the time, in order to look “cool”) and stammered apologies that he wasn’t. Scolding him as if he was only a dirty brat, Maschke proved to him that his Schmittian neo-nationalism was in accord with the anti-imperialist tendencies of the 1967-68 years, while Fischer’s alignment was a shameful treason. The future would give him ample justification: Fischer, former violent Krawallo (hooligan) of Hessian leftism, became a vile servant of capitalist and American imperialism: the dithyrambic phrases that he pronounced these last weeks praising Chancellor Merkel only accentuate this bitter feeling of betrayal. These remarks are evidently valid for Daniel Cohn-Bendit, today a war monger on sale to Washington. Jean-François Kahn, in an interview very recently accorded to Revue des deux mondes, spoke of him as a former sixty-eighter turned neocon in the style of the East Side Trotskyites.

In his quest after his return from Cuba and his stay in a dreary Bavarian prison, Maschke, unlike Mahler or Dutschke’s family for example, evolved, with Schmitt and Donoso, towards a Baroque and joyous Catholicism, strongly tinted with Hispanicism and rejected the uptight, Protestant, and neo-Anabaptist violence that so clearly marked the German extra-parliamentary revolutionaries of the sixties. For him as for the director Edel, the Ensslin sisters, for example, were excessively marked by the rigorous and hyper-moralist education inherent to their Protestant familial milieu, which seemed insupportable after his stay in Cuba and his journeys to Spain. Also because Gudrun Ensslin fell into a morbid taste for an unbridled and promiscuous sexuality, resulting from a rejection of Protestant Puritanism as Edel’s film highlights. The Maschkian critique of the anti-Christianity of the (French) New Right is summarized by a few choice words, as is his habit: thus he repeats, “they are guys who read Nietzsche and Asterix simultaneously and then fabricated a system from this mixture.” For him, the anti-Christianity of Nietzsche was a hostility to the rigors of the Protestantism of the family of Prussian pastors from which the philosopher of Sils-Maria came, a mental attitude that is impossible to transpose in France, whose tradition is Catholic, Maschke doesn’t take the Jansenist tradition into account. These anecdotes show that any political attitude must fall back into a kind of Aristotlean realism.

You return to the contribution of the Celtic world to our continental civilization in your book “Pages celtiques.” What do we retain from the “Gaulish” in our European identity? You return to the Irish and the Scottish nationalist movement at length. What lessons should we draw from their long struggles? 

In “Pages celtiques”, I wanted, essentially, to underline three things: firstly, the disappearance of all Celtic cultural and linguistic references is the result of the Romanization of the Gauls; this Romanization was apparently rapid within the elites but slower in the spheres of popular culture, where they resisted for five or six centuries. The vernacular culture retained the Celtic language until the arrival of the Germans, the Franks, who took over from the Romans. We can affirm that the popular religiosity retained the religiosity of “eternal peasants” (Mircea Eliade) and it remained more or less the religion whose rituals were practiced by the Celts. This religiosity of the soil remained intact under the Christian veneer, only the religion of the elites from the start. The dei loci, the gods of places, simply became saints or Madonnas, nestled in the trunks of oaks or placed at crossroads or near springs. The “de-Celticization,” the eradication of the religion of “eternal peasants,” occurred under the blows of modernity, with the generalization of television and … with Vatican II. What the French still have from the “Gaulish”, was put to sleep: it’s a fallow field awaiting a reawakening. Our essence, in Belgium, was deeply Germanized and Romanized, in the sense where the Eburons, the Aduatuques, and the Treviri were already partially Germanized in the time of Caesar or later when the Ingvaeonic Germanic tribes settled in the valley of the Meuse served Rome and rapidly Latinized.

Secondly the Celtic contribution is equally Christian in the sense where, at the end of the Merovingian era and at the start of the Pippinic / Carolingian era, Christian missions were not only guided by Rome, they were also Irish – Scottish with Saint Columban, who settled in Luxeuil-les-Bains, the formerly Gaulish, then Roman, thermal baths site. Lorraine, Alsace, Franche-Comté, Switzerland, Wurtemberg, Bavaria, Tyrol, and a part of Northern Italy received the Christian message not from the apostles who came from the Levant or missionaries mandated by Rome but from Irish – Scottish monks and ascetics who proclaimed a Christianity closer to the natural religiosity of the indigenous peoples, with some pantheist dimensions, while advocating the large scale copying of ancient, Greek and Latin manuscripts. The Christian, Celtic, and Greco-Latin syncretism that they offered us remains the foundation of our European culture and any attempt to remove or eradicate one of these elements would be a useless, even perverse, mutilation, that would deeply unbalance the foundations of our societies. The smug and foolish moralism, proper to the recent history of the Church and its desire to “third worldize,” also ruined all the seduction that the religion could exercise on the popular masses. Failing to take the vernacular (Celtic or otherwise) into account and ceasing to defend the heritage of the classical humanities (with the political philosophy of Aristotle) at any price has separated the masses from the intellectual and political elites of the Church. The parishes have lost their flocks: actually, what did they have to gain from hearing the moralizing sermons without depth repeated ad nauseum that the Church henceforth offers to them.

Thirdly, in the 18^th century, the Irish, Scottish, and Welsh Enlightenment philosophers were certainly hostile to absolutism, calling for new forms of democracy, demanding popular participation in public affairs and calling for a respect of vernacular cultures by the elite. The enlightenment republicanism of the Irish, Scottish, and Welsh hostile to the English monarchy which subjected the Celtic peoples and Scottish people (a mixture of Celts, Norwegians, and free Anglo Saxons) to a veritable process of colonization, particularly cruel, but this hostility was accompanied by a very pious devotion to the cultural productions of the common people. In Ireland, this republicanism was not hostile to the homegrown and anti-establishment Catholicism of the Irish nor to the multiple remnants of pantheist paganism that was naturally and syncretically harbored in this Irish Catholicism. The representatives of this religiosity were not treated as “fanatics,” “superstitious,” or “brigands” by the Republican elites. They would not be vilified nor dragged to the guillotine or gallows.

The Celtic Enlightenment philosophers of the British Isles did not deny rootedness. On the contrary, they exalted it. Brittany, non-republican, was the victim, like the entire West, of a ferocious repression by the “infernal columns.” It largely adhered to the ancien régime, cultivating nostalgia, also because it had, in the era of the ancien régime, a “Parliament of Brittany,” that functioned in an optimal manner. The uncle of Charles De Gaulle, “Charles De Gaulle No. 1”, would be the head of a Celtic renaissance in Brittany in the 19^th century, in the framework of a monarchist ideology. In the same era, the Irish independence activists struggled to obtain “Home Rule” (administrative autonomy). Among them, at the end of the 19^th century, was Padraig Pearse, who created a mystic nationalism, combining anti-English Catholicism and Celtic mythology. He would pay for his unwavering commitment with his life: he would be shot following the Easter Rising of 1916. Likewise, the union leader James Connolly mixed syndicalist Marxism and the liberatory elements of Irish mythology. He would share the tragic fate of Pearse.

The leaders of the Irish independence movement offer to political observers of all stripes an original cocktail of nationalist labor unionism, mystic Celticism, and social Catholicism, where the ideology of human rights would be mobilized against the British not in an individualist sense, featuring, for reference, a man detached from any social bond with the past, thus a man who is modeled as a “nameless apostasy from reality.” On the contrary, from the start Irish Republican ideology reasons according a vision of man that fits into into a cultural, social, and bio-ethnic whole. All that must also be the object of legal protection with a corollary that any attack, anywhere in the world, on one of these ethnic-social-cultural ensembles is an attack on a fundamental human right, the right to belong to a culture. So the rights of man, for the Irish, are inseparable from the cultures that animate and feed human societies.

After the Second World War, the Welsh would take up the cause of the Bretons pursued by the Republic, which would be condemned by the International Court of Human Rights for crimes against Breton culture: this fact is quite evidently forgotten, because it was knowingly hidden. Today, notably following the peremptory tirades of the “nouveaux philosophes,” whose path begins around 1978 and continues today, forty years later (!), with the hysterical fulminations of Bernard-Henri Lévy, the Republic sees itself as the defender par excellence of human rights: it is henceforth piquant and amusing to recall that it was condemned on a charge brought by the Welsh and Irish for crimes against a vernacular culture of the Hexagon, and consequently any politically act that ultimately infringes the rights of a people’s culture, or denies it the mere right to exist and propagate, is equally a crime liable for an equivalent sentence. So there exist other possible interpretations and applications of human rights than those that automatically treat anyone who claims an identity rooted in physical belonging as backwards or potentially fascist. Thus human rights are perfectly compatible with the right to live in a rooted, specific, and inalienable culture that ultimately has a sacred value, on soil it has literally turned for centuries. Hervé Juvin, through an original and politically relevant interpretation of the ethnological and anthropological works of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Robert Jaulin, is the one who has shown us the way to follow today in order to leave behind this deleterious atmosphere, where we are called to swear an inextinguishable hatred towards what we are deep within ourselves, to rob ourselves of what’s deep in our hearts in order to wallow in the nihilism of consumerism and political correctness.

I partially owe this Celticism,both revolutionary and identitarian, to the German activist, sociologist, and ethnologist Henning Eichberg, theorist and defender of identities everyone in the world, who expressed an analogous Celticism in a militant and programmatic work, published at the start of the 1980s, at the same time Olier Mordrel published his “Mythe de l’Hexagone.” Elsewhere, my friend Siegfried Bublies would give the title Wir Selbst to his non-conformist, national-revolutionary magazine, the German translation of the Gaelic Sinn Fein (“We Ourselves”). Bublies was the editor of Eichberg’s polemical and political texts, who passed away, alas too soon, in April 2017.

In “Pages celtiques”, I also pay homage to Olier Mordrel, the Breton combatant, and define the notion of carnal fatherland, while castigating the ideologies that want to eradicate or criminalize it.

You’ve restarted Trans-European activities. How do you the judge the evolution of “identitarian”forces in Europe? 

No, I’ve restarted nothing at all. I’m too old. We must leave it to the youth, who are doing very well according to the criteria and divides inherent to their generation, according to modes of communication that I haven’t mastered as well as they have, such as social networks, videos on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, or others. The institutions challenging the ambient mismanagement are multiplying at a good pace because we are experiencing a consolidated conservative revolution in relation to what it was, lying fallow, twenty or thirty years ago. It’s true that the dominant powers have not kept their promises: from the Thirty Glorious Years, we’ve passed to the Thirty Piteous Year, according to the Swiss writer Alexandre Junod, who I knew as a child and has grown up so much … And he is still optimistic, this boy: if he wrote a book, he would have to mention the “Thirty Shitty Years.” As we’ve fallen very very low. It’s really the Kali Yuga, as the traditionalists who like to mediate on Hindu or Vedic texts say. I modestly put myself in the service of new initiatives. The identitarian forces today are diverse but the common denominators between these initiatives are multiplying, quite happily. We must work for convergences and synergies (as I’ve always said…). My editor Laurent Hocq has limited himself to announcing three international colloquiums in order to promote our books in Lille, Paris, and Rome. That’s all. For my part, I will limit myself to advise initiatives like the “Synergies européennes” summer universities, even if they are very theoretical, as they allow me to encounter and adapt fruitful strategies for the years to come.

Source: http://euro-synergies.hautetfort.com/archive/2018/05/08/m...

Ruimterevolutie: Hoe de walvisjacht ons wereldbeeld veranderde

Ruimterevolutie: Hoe de walvisjacht ons wereldbeeld veranderde

door Erwin Wolff

Ex: http://www.novini.nl

Het boek Land en zee van de Duitse rechtsfilosoof Carl Schmitt is een opvallende afwijking van zijn gebruikelijke discours. In zijn andere werken schrijft hij vooral over recht, politiek en direct aanverwante zaken. Een voorbeeld is het boek Die geistesgeschichtliche Lage des heutigen Parlamentarismus waarin Schmitt in 1923 de parlementaire democratie van de Weimarrepubliek bekritiseert. Bekender is het werk Der Begriff des Politischen waarin hij de politiek tot wij-zij tegenstellingen herleidt. In Land en zee gaat hij echter op heel andere zaken in.

Wat is de aarde eigenlijk en hoe komt het dat we de aarde zien zoals wij die zien? Hoe komt het dat wij anno 2018 de aarde zien als een groen-blauwe bol in een oneindige ruimte? Hoe kan dat zo verschillen van het wereldbeeld van andere volkeren? Volgens Carl Schmitt ligt hier een zogenoemde “ruimterevolutie” aan ten grondslag en die heeft alles te maken met de manier waarop onze voorouders naar hun wereld keken.

De eersten die de omslag maken zijn de oude Grieken in de klassieke Oudheid. Griekenland bestaat uit vele stadstaten, maar de zeemacht Athene en de landmacht Sparta steken in deze Griekse wereld boven allen uit. Het denken van de Grieken veranderde van een volk dat zich enkel met landbouw bezighield naar een zeemacht, omdat het op een gegeven moment het gehele oostelijke deel van de Middellandse zee ging beheersen. De Grieken waren opgesloten in deze context en ze misten de mankracht om hieruit te breken.

Pas toen het Romeinse Rijk uitdijde naar het tegenwoordige Frankrijk en dus naar de Atlantische oceaan, wist de klassieke Oudheid uit deze kooi te breken in de eerste eeuw van onze jaartelling. Maar toen was het eigenlijk al gedaan. Het Romeinse Rijk stortte zichzelf daarna in chaos en er was onder Romeinse leiding geen paradigmaverschuiving.

In de middeleeuwen was heel Europa, van het noorden tot het hele zuiden, opgemaakt uit verschillende agrarische staten. Aan de randen van deze boerenstaten werd er visserij bedreven. Met de Bijbel in de hand werden de Germaanse volkeren van noord tot zuid bekeerd tot het Christendom. De ruimte op de aarde is wat de Middeleeuwers betreft een heleboel land en een heleboel agrarische producten op dat land. Tot het einde van de middeleeuwen is er geen echte verandering in deze zienswijze.

In het Oude Testament is er een mythisch zeedier te vinden, de leviathan (Job, hoofdstuk 40 en 41), en leviathan gaat een grote rol spelen in de omslag van het besef van ruimte van de Germaanse volkeren in Europa. De leviathan, meestal afgebeeld als walvis, lokt de vissers van Europa de zee op omdat deze vis zich niet laat vangen aan de kust. Zonder de walvisjacht zouden de Europese vissers in een smalle strook van de kust zijn gebleven. Het besef van de ruimte op aarde verandert onder druk van de walvisjacht razendsnel. Carl Schmitt beschrijft dit fenomeen als een “ruimterevolutie”. De ruimte waarin men denkt te leven verandert van landmassa naar land- en zeemassa.

Ook de middelen om zich op de zee te begeven veranderen. De galei van de Klassieke wereld worden afgedaan en schepen die de wind opvangen met zeilen doen hun intrede. Men kan veel verder en veel sneller zich op zee begeven. Er wordt een nieuw continent ontdekt en daarmee nieuwe handel, nieuwe regels, nieuwe innovaties. Ongeveer tussen de jaren 1490 en 1600 vinden deze veranderingen plaats. Het besef van de ruimte waarin men denkt te leven verandert en de middeleeuwse ordening der dingen komt definitief ten einde. Hulpeloos rolt de Europese beschaving een nieuw tijdperk binnen.

Het begin is nog wat onhandig. Er gebeurt ook iets geks met Engeland. Vooral Engeland is in de middeleeuwen ook een boerenstaat die zich voornamelijk bezighoudt met schapen, textiel en Frankrijk proberen te veroveren. Het protestantse Engeland draait zijn rug naar het continent Europa en richt zich op de zee. Met zo’n succes zelfs dat het de katholieke landen Spanje en Portugal inhaalt. De heerschappij van de zee is van niemand of iedereen. Maar eigenlijk vooral van één land: Engeland. Dit Germaanse volk beheerst in de negentiende eeuw de zee, de zeehandel en daarmee de wereld. Zozeer zelfs dat Engeland zichzelf niet meer als Europese macht ziet.

We belanden aan in de 20e eeuw en dan vindt een tweede ruimterevolutie plaats. Het oudtestamentische monster, Leviathan, is niet meer zozeer een vis, maar een ijzeren monster in de vorm van een modern slagschip. De overgang van stoomboot naar modern slagschip is niet kleiner dan de overgang van galei naar zeilschip, verklaart Carl Schmitt. Duitsland en enkele andere landen zijn industriële machten geworden en kunnen net zo produceren als Engeland. Hiermee komt de onbetwiste heerschappij over de zee door Engeland ten einde.

Land en Zee is een bijna dichterlijke beschrijving van deze gigantische veranderingen. Het zijn mooie woorden die laten zien hoe het komt dat de Europese beschaving andere volkeren ontdekte en dat het niet die andere volkeren zijn geweest die ons ontdekt hebben.

The Historical Background of Oswald Spengler’s Philosophy of Science

Between the Heroic & the Immeasurable:
The Historical Background of Oswald Spengler’s Philosophy of Science

By A. E. Stern

Ex: http://www.counter-currents.com

Oswald Spengler’s writings on the subject of the philosophy of science are very controversial, not only among his detractors but even for his admirers. What is little understood is that his views on these matters did not exist in a vacuum. Rather, Spengler’s arguments on the sciences articulate a long German tradition of rejecting English science, a tradition that originated in the eighteenth century.

Luke Hodgkin notes:

It is today regarded as a matter of historical fact that Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz both independently conceived and developed the system of mathematical algorithms known collectively by the name of calculus. But this has not always been the prevalent point of view. During the eighteenth century, and much of the nineteenth, Leibniz was viewed by British mathematicians as a devious plagiarist who had not just stolen crucial ideas from Newton, but had also tried to claim the credit for the invention of the subject itself.[1] ^[2]

This wrongheaded view stems from Newton’s own catty libel of Leibniz on these matters. During this time, the beginning of the eighteenth century, Leibniz’s native Prussia had not yet become a serious power through the wars of Frederick the Great. Leibniz, together with Frederick the Great’s grandfather, founded the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences. Newton’s slanderous account of Leibniz’s achievements would never be forgiven by the Germans, to whom Newton remained a bête noire as long as Germany remained a proud nation.

In the context of inquiring into the matter of how such a pessimist as Spengler could admire so notorious an optimist as Leibniz, two foreign members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences merit attention. The thought of French scientist and philosopher Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, an exponent and defender of Leibnizian ideas, was in many ways a precursor to modern biology. Maupertuis wrote under the patronage of Frederick the Great, about a generation after Leibniz. Compared to other eighteenth-century philosophies, Maupertuis’ worldview, like modern biology and unlike most Enlightenment thought, presents nature as rather “red in tooth and claw.”

An earlier foreign member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, a contemporary and correspondent of Leibniz, Moldavian Prince (and eccentric pretender to descent from Tamerlane) Dimitrie Cantemir, left two cultural legacies to Western history. Initially an Ottoman vassal, he gave traditional Turkish music its first system of notation, ushering in the classical era of Turkish music that would later influence Mozart. Later – after he had turned against the Ottoman Porte in an alliance with Petrine Russia, but was driven out of power and into exile due to his abysmal battlefield leadership – he wrote much about history. Most impactful in the West was a two-volume book that would be translated into English in 1734 as The History of the Growth and Decay of the Othman Empire. Voltaire and Gibbon later read Cantemir’s work, as did Victor Hugo.[2] ^[3]

Notes one biographer, “Cantemir’s philosophy of history is empiric and mechanistic. The destiny in history of empires is viewed . . . through cycles similar to the natural stages of birth, growth, decline, and death.”[3] ^[4] Long before Nietzsche popularized the argument, Cantemir proposed that high cultures are initially founded by barbarians, and also that a civilization’s level of high culture has nothing to do with its political success.[4] ^[5] Thus was the Leibnizian intellectual legacy mixed with pessimism even in Leibniz’s own lifetime.

It was most likely in the context of this scientific tradition and its enemies that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, generally recognized as Germany’s greatest poet (or one of them, at any rate), later authored attacks on Newton’s ideas, such as Theory of Colors. Goethe, an early pioneer in biology and the life sciences, loathed the notion that there is anything universally axiomatic about the mathematical sciences. Goethe had one major predecessor in this, the Anglo-Irish philosopher and Anglican bishop George Berkeley. Like Berkeley, Goethe argued that Newtonian abstractions contradict empirical understandings. Both Berkeley and Goethe, though for different reasons, took issue with the common (or at least, commonly Anglo-Saxon) wisdom that “mathematics is a universal language.”

By the early modern age of European history, when Goethe’s Faust takes place, cabalistic doctrines, notes Carl Schmitt, “became known outside Jewry, as can be gathered from Luther’s Table Talks, Bodin’s Demonomanie, Reland’s Analects, and Eisenmenger’s Entdecktes Judenthum.”[5] ^[6] This phenomenon can be traced to the indispensable influence of the very inventors of cabalism, collectively speaking, on the West’s transition from feudalism to modern capitalism since the Age of Discovery, and in some cases even earlier. In 1911’s The Jews and Modern Capitalism, Werner Sombart points out that “Venice was a city of Jews” as early as 1152.

Cabalism deeply permeates the worldviews of many influential secret societies of Western history since medieval times, and certainly continuing with the official establishment of Freemasonry in 1717. Although the details will never be entirely clear, it is known that Goethe was involved with the Bavarian Illuminati in his youth. He seems to have experienced conservative disillusionment with it later in life. It is possible that the posthumous publication of Faust: The Second Part of the Tragedy was due at least in part to the book’s ambivalently revealing too much about the esoterica of Goethe’s former occult activities.

What is clear is that he was directly interested in cabalistic concepts. Karin Schutjer persuasively argues that “Goethe had ample opportunity to learn about Jewish Kabbalah – particularly that of the sixteenth-century rabbi Isaac Luria – and good reason to take it seriously . . . Goethe’s interest in Kabbalah might have been further sparked by a prominent argument concerning its philosophical reception: the claim that Kabbalistic ideas underlie Spinoza’s philosophy.”[6] ^[7]

At one point in the second part of Faust, Goethe shows an interest in monetary issues related to usury or empty currency, as Schopenhauer after him would.[7] ^[8] This is fitting for a story that takes place in early modern Europe and concerns an alchemist. Some early modern alchemists were known as counterfeiters and would have most likely had contact with Jewish moneylenders. Insofar as his scientific philosophy had a social, and not just an intellectual, significance, this desire on Goethe’s part for economic concreteness was perhaps what led him to reject and combat one key cabalistic doctrine: numerology.

Numerology is the belief that numbers are divine and have prophetic power over the physical world. Goethe held the virtually opposite view of numbers and mathematical systems, proposing that “strict separation must be maintained between the physical sciences and mathematics.” According to Goethe, it is an “important task” to “banish mathematical-philosophical theories from those areas of physical science where they impede rather than advance knowledge,” and to discard the “false notion that a phrase of a mathematical formula can ever take the place of, or set aside, a phenomenon.” To Goethe, mathematics “runs into constant danger when it gets into the terrain of sense-experience.”[8] ^[9]

In his well-researched 1927 book on Freemasonry, General Erich Ludendorff remarks, “One must study the cabala in order to understand and evaluate the superstitious Jew correctly. He then is no longer a threatening opponent.”[9] ^[10] In his proceeding discussion of the subject, Ludendorff focuses exclusively on the numerological superstitions in cabalism. Such beliefs are affirmed by a Jewish cabalistic source, which informs us that “Sefirot” is the Hebrew word for numbers, which represent “a Tree of Divine Lights.”[10] ^[11]

Everything about Goethe’s rejection of scientific materialism can be seen as a rebellion against numerology in the sciences – and certainly, the modern mathematical sciences stand on the shoulders of numerology, as modern chemistry does on alchemy. Schmitt once mentioned the “mysterious Rosicrucian sensibility of Descartes,” a reference to the mysterious cabalistic initiatory movement that dominated the scientific philosophies of the seventeenth century.[11] ^[12] In this Descartes was hardly alone; the entire epoch of mostly French and English mathematicians in the early modern centuries, which ushered in the modern infinitesimal mathematical systems, was infused with cabalism. Even if it were possible to ignore the growing Jewish intellectual and economic influence on that age, one would still be left with the metaphysical affinities between numerology and even the most scientifically accomplished worldview that takes literally the assumption that numbers are eternal principles.

According to early National Socialist economist Gottfried Feder, “When the Babylonians overcame the Assyrians, the Romans the Carthaginians, the Germans the Romans, there was no continuance of interest slavery; there were no international world powers . . . Only the modern age with its continuity of possession and its international law allowed loan capitals to rise immeasurably.”[12] ^[13] Writing in 1919, Feder argues with the help of a graph that that “loan-interest capital . . . rises far above human conception and strives for infinity . . . The curve of industrial capital on the other hand remains within the finite!”[13] ^[14] Goethe may have similarly drawn connections between the kind of economic parasitism satirized in the second part of Faust and what he, like Berkeley, saw as the superstitious modern art of measuring the immeasurable.

The fusion of science with numerology, it should be noted, is actually not of Hebrew or otherwise pre-Indo-European origin. It originates from pre-Socratic Greek philosophy’s debt, particularly that of the Pythagoreans, to the Indo-Iranian world, chiefly Thrace.[14] ^[15] (Possibly of note in this regard is that Schopenhauer admired the Thracians for their arch-pessimistic ethos, as though this mindset were the polar opposite of the world-affirming Jewish worldview he loathed.)[15] ^[16] In any case, Goethe recognized it as a powerful weapon. That he studied numerology has been established by scholars.[16] ^[17]

A generation before Goethe, Immanuel Kant had propounded the idea that the laws of polarity – the laws of attraction and repulsion – precede the Newtonian laws of matter and motion in every way. This argument would influence Goethe’s friend Friedrich Wilhelm von Schelling, another innovator in the life sciences as well as part of the literary and philosophical movement known as Romanticism. By the time Goethe propounded his anti-Newtonian theories and led a philosophical milieu, he had an entire German tradition of such theories to work from.

Goethe’s work was influential in Victorian Britain. Most notably, at least in terms of the scientific history of that era, Darwin would cite Goethe as a botanist in On the Origin of the Species. Darwin’s philosophy of science, to the extent that he had one, was largely built on that of Goethe and the age of what came to be known as Naturphilosophie. Historian of science Robert J. Richards has found that “Darwin was indebted to the Romantics in general and Goethe in particular.”[17] ^[18] Darwin had been introduced to the German accomplishments in biology, and the German ideas about philosophy of science, mainly through the work of Alexander von Humboldt.[18] ^[19]

Why has this influence been forgotten? “In the decade after 1918,” explains Nicholas Boyle, “when hundreds of British families of German origin were forcibly repatriated, and those who remained anglicized their names, British intellectual life was ethnically cleansed and the debt of Victorian culture to Germany was erased from memory, or ridiculed.”[19] ^[20] To some extent, this process had already started since the outbreak of the First World War.

This intellectual ethnic cleansing would not go unreciprocated. In 1915’s Händler und Helden (Merchants and Heroes), German economist and sociologist Werner Sombart attacked the “mercantile” English scientific tradition. Here, Sombart is particularly critical of what he calls the “department-store ethics” of Herbert Spencer, but in general Sombart calls for most English ideas – including English science – to be purged from German national life. In his writings on the philosophy of science, Spengler would answer this call.

Spengler heavily drew on the ideas of Goethe, and evidently also on the views of a pre-Darwinian French Lutheran paleontologist of German origin, Georges Cuvier. For instance, Spengler’s assault on universalism in the physical sciences mostly comes from Goethe, but his rationale for rejecting Darwinian evolution appears to come from Cuvier. The idea that life-forms are immutable, and simply die out, only to be superseded by unrelated new ones – a persistent theme in Spengler – comes more from Cuvier than Goethe.

Cuvier, however, does not belong to the German transcendentalist tradition, so Spengler mentions him only peripherally. On the other hand, in the third chapter of the second volume of The Decline of the West, Spengler uses a word that Charles Francis Atkinson translates as “admitted” to describe how Cuvier propounded the theory of catastrophism. Clearly, Spengler shows himself to be more sympathetic to Cuvier than to what he calls the “English thought” of Darwin.[20] ^[21]

Several asides about Cuvier are in order. First of all, this criminally underrated thinker is by no means outmoded, at least not in every way. Modern geology operates on a more-Cuvieran-than-Darwinian plane.[21] ^[22] Secondly, it is worth noting that Ernst Jünger once astutely observed that Cuvier is more useful to modern military science than Darwin.[22] ^[23] It may also be of interest that the Cuvieran system is even further removed from Lamarckism – and its view of heredity, as a consequence, more thoroughly racialist – than the Darwinian system.[23] ^[24]

Another scientist of German origin who may have influenced Spengler is the Catholic monk Gregor Mendel, the discoverer of what is now known as genetics. One biography notes:

Though Mendel agreed with Darwin in many respects, he disagreed about the underlying rationale of evolution. Darwin, like most of his contemporaries, saw evolution as a linear process, one that always led to some sort of better product. He did not define “better” in a religious way – to him, a more evolved animal was no closer to God than a less evolved one, an ape no morally better than a squirrel – but in an adaptive way. The ladder that evolving creatures climbed led to greater adaption to the changing world. If Mendel believed in evolution – and whether he did remains a matter of much debate – it was an evolution that occurred within a finite system. The very observation that a particular character trait could be expressed in two opposing ways – round pea versus angular, tall plant versus dwarf – implied limits. Darwin’s evolution was entirely open-ended; Mendel’s, as any good gardener of the time could see, was closed.[24] ^[25]

How very Goethean – and Spenglerian.

His continuation of the German mission against English science explains, even if it does not entirely excuse, Spengler’s citation of Franz Boas’ now-discredited experiments in craniology in the second volume of The Decline of the West. In his posthumously-published book on Indo-Europeanology, the unfinished but lucid Frühzeit der Weltgeschichte, Spengler cites the contemporary German Nordicist race theorist Hans F. K. Günther in writing that “urbanization is racial decay.”[25] ^[26] This would seem quite a leap, from citing Boas to citing Günther. However, in the opinion of one historian, Boas and Günther had more in common than they liked to think, because they were both heirs more of the German Idealist tradition in science than what the Anglo-Saxon tradition recognizes as the scientific method.[26] ^[27] Spengler must have keenly detected this commonality, for his views on racial matters were never synonymous with those of Boas, any more than they were identical to Günther’s.

He probably went too far in his crusade against the Anglo-Saxon scientific tradition, but as we have seen, Spengler was not without his reasons. He was neither the first nor the greatest German philosopher of science to present alternatives to the ruling English paradigms in the sciences, but was rather an heir to a grand tradition. Before dismissing this anti-materialistic tradition as worthless, as today’s historiographers of science still do, we should take into account what it produced.

Darwin’s philosophy of nature was predominantly German; only his Malthusianism, the least interesting aspect of Darwin’s work, was singularly British. As for Einstein, that proficient but unoriginal thinker was absolutely steeped in the German anti-Newtonian tradition, to which he merely put a mathematical formula. These are only the most celebrated examples of scientists influenced by the German tradition defended – maniacally, perhaps, but with noble intentions – in the works of Oswald Spengler.

Whether we consider Spengler’s ideas useful to science or utterly hateful to it, one question remains: Should the German tradition of philosophy of science he defended be taken seriously? Ever since the post-Second World War de-Germanization of Germany, euphemistically called “de-Nazification,” this tradition is now pretty much dead in its own fatherland. But does that make it entirely wrong?

Notes

[1] ^[28] Luke Hodgkin, A History of Mathematics: From Mesopotamia to Modernity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

[2] ^[29] See the booklet of the CD Istanbul: Dimitrie Cantemir, 1630-1732, written by Stefan Lemny and translated by Jacqueline Minett.

[3] ^[30] Eugenia Popescu-Judetz, Prince Dimitrie Cantemir: Theorist and Composer of Turkish Music (Istanbul: Pan Yayıncılık, 1999), p. 34.

[4] ^[31] Dimitrie Cantemir, The History of the Growth and Decay of the Othman Empire, vol. I, tr. by Nicholas Tindal (London: Knapton, 1734), p. 151, note 14.

[5] ^[32] Carl Schmitt, The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes: Meaning and Failure of a Political Symbol, tr. by George Schwab and Erna Hilfstein (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), p. 8.

[6] ^[33] Karin Schutjer, “Goethe’s Kabbalistic Cosmology ^[34],” Colloquia Germanica, vol. 39, no. 1 (2006).

[7] ^[35] J. W. von Goethe, Faust, Part Two, Act I, “Imperial Palace” scene; Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life, Chapter III, “Property, or What a Man Has.”

[8] ^[36] Jeremy Naydler (ed.), Goethe on Science: An Anthology of Goethe’s Scientific Writings (Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1996), pp. 65-67.

[9] ^[37] Erich Ludendorff, The Destruction of Freemasonry Through Revelation of Their Secrets (Mountain City, Tn.: Sacred Truth Publishing), p. 53.

[10] ^[38] Warren Kenton, Kabbalah: The Divine Plan (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), p. 25.

[11] ^[39] Schmitt, Leviathan, p. 26.

[12] ^[40] Gottfried Feder, Manifesto for Breaking the Financial Slavery to Interest, tr. by Alexander Jacob (London: Black House Publishing, 2016), p. 38.

[13] ^[41] Ibid., pp. 17-18.

[14] ^[42] See, i.e., Walter Wili, “The Orphic Mysteries and the Greek Spirit,” collected in Joseph Campbell (ed.), The Mysteries: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1955).

[15] ^[43] Arthur Schopenhauer, tr. by E. F. J. Payne, The World as Will and Representation, vol. II (Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2014), p. 585.

[16] ^[44] Ronald Douglas Gray, Goethe the Alchemist (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 6.

[17] ^[45] Robert J. Richards, The Romantic Conception of Life: Philosophy and Science in the Age of Goethe (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2010), p. 435.

[18] ^[46] Ibid, pp. 518-526.

[19] ^[47] Nicholas Boyle, Goethe and the English-speaking World: Essays from the Cambridge Symposium for His 250th Anniversary (Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House, 2012), p. 12.

[20] ^[48] Oswald Spengler, tr. by Charles Francis Atkinson, The Decline of the West vol. II (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928), p. 31.

[21] ^[49] Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), p. 94.

[22] ^[50] From Jünger’s Aladdin’s Problem: “It is astounding to see how inventiveness grows in nature when existence is at stake. This applies to both defense and pursuit. For every missile, an anti-missile is devised. At times, it all looks like sheer braggadocio. This could lead to a stalemate or else to the moment when the opponent says, ‘I give up’, if he does not knock over the chessboard and ruin the game. Darwin did not go that far; in this context, one is better off with Cuvier’s theory of catastrophes.”

[23] ^[51] See Georges Cuvier, Essay on the Theory of the Earth (London: Forgotten Books, 2012), pp. 125-128 & pp. 145-165.

[24] ^[52] Robin Marantz Henig, The Monk in the Garden: The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel, the Father of Genetics (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2017), p. 125.

[25] ^[53] Oswald Spengler, Frühzeit der Weltgeschichte (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1966), Fragment 101.

[26] ^[54] Amos Morris-Reich, “Race, Ideas, and Ideals: A Comparison of Franz Boas and Hans F. K. Günther ^[55],” History of European Ideas, vol. 32, no. 3 (2006).

 

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[34] Goethe’s Kabbalistic Cosmology: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23981598?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

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[55] Race, Ideas, and Ideals: A Comparison of Franz Boas and Hans F. K. Günther: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1016/j.histeuroideas.2006.05.001

De Carl Schmitt et du combat tellurique contre le système technétronique

par Nicolas Bonnal

Ex: https://voxnr.com

Il y a déjà cinq ans, pendant les fortes manifs des jeunes chrétiens contre les lois socialistes sur la famille (lois depuis soutenues et bénies par la hiérarchie et par l’ONG du Vatican mondialisé, mais c’est une autre histoire), j’écrivais ces lignes :

« Deux éléments m’ont frappé dans les combats qui nous occupent, et qui opposent notre jeune élite catholique au gouvernement mondialiste aux abois : d’une part la Foi, car nous avons là une jeunesse insolente et Fidèle, audacieuse et tourmentée à la fois par l’Ennemi et la cause qu’elle défend ; la condition physique d’autre part, qui ne correspond en rien avec ce que la démocratie-marché, du sexe drogue et rock’n’roll, des centres commerciaux et des jeux vidéo, attend de la jeunesse.»

L’important est la terre que nous laisserons à nos enfants ne cesse-ton de nous dire avec des citations truquées ; mais l’avenir c’est surtout les enfants que nous laisserons à la terre ! Cela les soixante-huitards et leurs accompagnateurs des multinationales l’auront mémorisé. On a ainsi vu des dizaines milliers de jeunes Français – qui pourraient demain être des millions, car il n’y a pas de raison pour que cette jeunesse ne fasse pas des petits agents de résistance ! Affronter la nuit, le froid, la pluie, les gaz, l’attente, la taule, l’insulte, la grosse carcasse du CRS casqué nourri aux amphétamines, aux RTT et aux farines fonctionnaires. Et ici encore le système tombe sur une élite physique qu’il n’avait pas prévue. Une élite qui occupe le terrain, pas les réseaux.

Cette mondialisation ne veut pas d’enfants. Elle abrutit et inhibe physiquement – vous pouvez le voir vraiment partout – des millions si ce n’est des milliards de jeunes par la malbouffe, la pollution, la destruction psychique, la techno-addiction et la distraction, le reniement de la famille, de la nation, des traditions, toutes choses très bien analysées par Tocqueville à propos des pauvres Indiens :

« En affaiblissant parmi les Indiens de l’Amérique du Nord le sentiment de la patrie, en dispersant leurs familles, en obscurcissant leurs traditions, en interrompant la chaîne des souvenirs, en changeant toutes leurs habitudes, et en accroissant outre mesure leurs besoins, la tyrannie européenne les a rendus plus désordonnés et moins civilisés qu’ils n’étaient déjà. »

Et bien les Indiens c’est nous maintenant, quelle que soit notre race ou notre religion, perclus de besoins, de faux messages, de bouffes mortes, de promotions. Et je remarquais qu’il n’y a rien de pire pour le système que d’avoir des jeunes dans la rue (on peut en payer et en promouvoir, les drôles de Nuit debout). Rien de mieux que d’avoir des feints-esprits qui s’agitent sur les réseaux sociaux.

J’ajoutais :

« Et voici qu’une jeunesse montre des qualités que l’on croyait perdues jusqu’alors, et surtout dans la France anticléricale et libertine à souhait ; des qualités telluriques, écrirai-je en attendant d’expliquer ce terme. Ce sont des qualités glanées au cours des pèlerinages avec les parents ; aux cours des longues messes traditionnelles et des nuits de prières ; au cours de longues marches diurnes et des veillées nocturnes ; de la vie naturelle et de la foi épanouie sous la neige et la pluie. On fait alors montre de résistance, de capacité physique, sans qu’il y rentre de la dégoutante obsession contemporaine du sport qui débouche sur la brutalité, sur l’oisiveté, l’obésité via l’addiction à la bière. On est face aux éléments que l’on croyait oubliés. »

Enfin je citais un grand marxiste, ce qui a souvent le don d’exaspérer les sites mondialistes et d’intriquer les sites gauchistes qui reprennent mes textes. C’est pourtant simple à comprendre : je reprends ce qui est bon (quod verum est meum est, dit Sénèque) :

« Je relis un écrivain marxiste émouvant et oublié, Henri Lefebvre, dénonciateur de la vie quotidienne dans le monde moderne. Lefebvre est un bon marxiste antichrétien mais il sent cette force. D’une part l’URSS crée par manque d’ambition politique le même modèle de citoyen petit-bourgeois passif attendant son match et son embouteillage ; d’autre part la société de consommation crée des temps pseudo-cycliques, comme dira Debord et elle fait aussi semblant de réunir, mais dans le séparé, ce qui était jadis la communauté. Lefebvre rend alors un curieux hommage du vice à la vertu ; et il s’efforce alors à plus d’objectivité sur un ton grinçant.

Le catholicisme se montre dans sa vérité historique un mouvement plutôt qu’une doctrine, un mouvement très vaste, très assimilateur, qui ne crée rien, mais en qui rien ne se perd, avec une certaine prédominance des mythes les plus anciens, les plus tenaces, qui restent pour des raisons multiples acceptés ou acceptables par l’immense majorité des hommes (mythes agraires).

Le Christ s’exprime par images agraires, il ne faut jamais l’oublier. Il est lié au sol et nous sommes liés à son sang. Ce n’est pas un hasard si Lefebvre en pleine puissance communiste s’interroge sur la résilience absolue de l’Eglise et de notre message :

Eglise, Saint Eglise, après avoir échappé à ton emprise, pendant longtemps je me suis demandé d’où te venait ta puissance.

Oui, le village chrétien qui subsiste avec sa paroisse et son curé, cinquante ans après Carrefour et l’autoroute, deux mille ans après le Christ et deux cents ans après la Révolution industrielle et l’Autre, tout cela tient vraiment du miracle.

Le monde postmoderne est celui du vrai Grand Remplacement : la fin des villages de Cantenac, pour parler comme Guitry. Il a pris une forme radicale sous le gaullisme : voyez le cinéma de Bresson (Balthazar), de Godard (Week-end, Deux ou trois choses), d’Audiard (les Tontons, etc.). Le phénomène était global : voyez les Monstres de Dino Risi qui montraient l’émergence du citoyen mondialisé déraciné et décérébré en Italie. L’ahuri devant sa télé…

Il prône ce monde une absence de nature, une vie de banlieue, une cuisine de fastfood, une distraction technicisée. Enfermé dans un studio à mille euros et connecté dans l’espace virtuel du sexe, du jeu, de l’info. Et cela donne l’évangélisme, cette mouture de contrôle mental qui a pris la place du christianisme dans pas le mal de paroisses, surtout hélas en Amérique du Sud. Ce désastre est lié bien sûr à l’abandon par une classe paysanne de ses racines telluriques. Je me souviens aux bords du lac Titicaca de la puissance et de la présence catholique au magnifique sanctuaire de Copacabana (rien à voir avec la plage, mais rien) ; et de son abandon à la Paz, où justement on vit déjà dans la matrice et le conditionnement. Mais cette reprogrammation par l’évangélisme avait été décidée en haut lieu, comme me le confessa un jour le jeune curé de Guamini dans la Pampa argentine, qui évoquait Kissinger.

J’en viens au sulfureux penseur Carl Schmitt, qui cherchait à expliquer dans son Partisan, le comportement et les raisons de la force des partisans qui résistèrent à Napoléon, à Hitler, aux puissances coloniales qui essayèrent d’en finir avec des résistances éprouvées ; et ne le purent. Schmitt relève quatre critères : l’irrégularité, la mobilité, le combat actif, l’intensité de l’engagement politique. En allemand cela donne : Solche Kriterien sind: Irregularität, gesteigerte Mobilität des aktiven Kampfes und gesteigerte Intensität des politischen Engagements.

Tout son lexique a des racines latines, ce qui n’est pas fortuit, toutes qualités de ces jeunes qui refusèrent de baisser les bras ou d’aller dormir : car on a bien lu l’Evangile dans ces paroisses et l’on sait ce qu’il en coûte de trop dormir !

Schmitt reconnaît en fait la force paysanne et nationale des résistances communistes ; et il rend hommage à des peuples comme le peuple russe et le peuple espagnol : deux peuples telluriques, enracinés dans leur foi, encadrés par leur clergé, et accoutumés à une vie naturelle et dure de paysan. Ce sont ceux-là et pas les petit-bourgeois protestants qui ont donné du fil à retordre aux armées des Lumières ! Notre auteur souligne à la suite du théoricien espagnol Zamora (comme disait Jankélévitch il faudra un jour réhabiliter la philosophie espagnole) le caractère tellurique de ces bandes de partisans, prêts à tous les sacrifices, et il rappelle la force ces partisans issus d’un monde autochtone et préindustriel. Il souligne qu’une motorisation entraîne une perte de ce caractère tellurique (Ein solcher motorisierter Partisan verliert seinen tellurischen Charakter), même si bien sûr le partisan – ici notre jeune militant catholique – est entraîné à s’adapter et maîtrise mieux que tous les branchés la technologie contemporaine (mais pas moderne, il n’y a de moderne que la conviction) pour mener à bien son ouvrage.

Schmitt reconnaît en tant qu’Allemand vaincu lui aussi en Russie que le partisan est un des derniers soldats – ou sentinelles – de la terre (einer der letzten Posten der Erde ; qu’il signifie toujours une part de notre sol (ein Stück echten Bodens), ajoutant qu’il faut espérer dans le futur que tout ne soit pas dissous par le melting-pot du progrès technique et industriel (Schmelztiegel des industrielltechnischen Fortschritts). En ce qui concerne le catholicisme, qui grâce à Dieu n’est pas le marxisme, on voit bien que le but de réification et de destruction du monde par l’économie devenue follen’a pas atteint son but. Et qu’il en faut encore pour en venir à bout de la vieille foi, dont on découvre que par sa démographie, son courage et son énergie spirituelle et tellurique, elle n’a pas fini de surprendre l’adversaire.

Gardons une condition, dit le maître : den tellurischen Charakter. On comprend que le système ait vidé les campagnes et rempli les cités de tous les déracinés possibles. Le reste s’enferme dans son smartphone, et le tour est joué.

Bibliographie:

Carl Schmitt – Du Partisan

Tocqueville – De la démocratie I, Deuxième partie, Chapitre X

Guy Debord – La Société du Spectacle

Henri Lefebvre – Critique de la vie quotidienne (Editions de l’Arche)

Ernst Jünger: Dalle rovine della Tecnica rinascerà l’età dello spirito

Marcello Veneziani

Ex: http://www.marcelloveneziani.com 

A leggerlo con gli occhi miopi del presente, L’operaio di Ernst Jünger sembra la grandiosa metafora dell’avvento dei tecnici al potere. Anzi il Tecnico stesso sembra l’Operaio in loden, versione estrema della borghesia che si è fatta globale e immateriale come la finanza rispetto all’epoca dell’oro e del decoro.

Ma più in profondità, lo sguardo profetico di Jünger è rivolto a un’epoca planetaria dominata dalla tecnica, che ha un esito a sorpresa rispetto alle sue premesse: la tecnica «spiritualizza la terra». Dopo gli dei, dopo il monoteismo, verrà lo Spirito, signore dell’Età dell’acquario, che appare attraverso i sogni e agisce mediante la magia.

Lo spirito verrà tramite la tecnica, scrive Jünger, nel suo linguaggio oracolare, a volte allusivo, in alcuni tratti reticente, ed esoterico. Dopo la catastrofe e in fondo al tunnel del nichilismo il suo pensiero intuitivo scorge una luce inattesa. Non la luce di un nuovo umanesimo, come pensavano da differenti postazioni i suoi contemporanei Maritain e Gentile, Bloch e Sartre. Ma un disumanesimo integrale, una sorta di superamento dell’umano e non in una dimensione sovrumana, alla Nietzsche, ma compiutamente inumana, geologica e spirituale.

In questa chiave, l’Operaio è un nuovo titano, quasi una figura mitologica, della razza di Anteo, Atlante e Prometeo, che mobilita il mondo tramite la tecnica, che è il suo linguaggio. L’operaio di Jünger – o Milite del lavoro, come preferivano tradurre Delio Cantimori e anche Julius Evola – compie 80 anni e per l’occasione esce finalmente in Italia Maxima-Minima, un libro breve e intenso che fu la prosecuzione dell’opera jüngeriana del ’32 a 32 anni di distanza, nel 1964.

Quando dirigevo da ragazzo una casa editrice, negli anni Ottanta, tentai temerariamente di farlo tradurre in Italia; ma alla Buchmesse, la Fiera del libro di Francoforte, l’agente letterario di Klett Cotta, l’editore tedesco, mi disse che quest’opera era già opzionata in Italia. Ci sono voluti quasi trent’anni per vederla alla luce ora, a cura e con la postfazione di Alessandra Jadicicco.

Un’opera oracolare di minima loquacità e massima densità, in cui si avverte il respiro della grandezza, dove l’eco dell’Operaio si mescola all’eco dello Stato mondiale, Le forbici, Al muro del tempo e altre opere jüngeriane del suo personale «Nuovo Testamento», come egli stesso diceva.

La tesi metafisica è quella: dalla Macchina, per inattese vie, sorgerà lo Spirito; il Mito, il Gioco, la Geologia e l’Astrologia lo porteranno a compimento. Ma dalla Tecnica sorge anche il nemico: laddove il tecnico «conquisti il governo politico, se non dittatoriale, grava la peggiore delle minacce».

Il condensato deteriore della tecnica è l’automatismo, che è il peggiore degli autoritarismi, un dispotismo che uccide la libertà alla radice. E qui Ernst Jünger ritrova suo fratello Friedrich Georg che alla Perfezione della tecnica e all’avvento degli automi aveva dedicato un lucido saggio, degno del suo germano (tradotto in Italia dal Settimo Sigillo nel 2000).

La tesi metapolitica di Jünger è invece l’avvento auspicato dello Stato planetario, dopo l’unificazione del mondo compiuta dalla Tecnica, di cui scriveva negli stessi anni in Italia anche Ugo Spirito. Dopo la patria il mondo intero sarà amato come «Terra Natia».
Destra e sinistra, rivoluzione e conservazione, sono per Jünger braccia di uno stesso corpo.

Ma il politico, rispetto a questi fenomeni grandiosi, è inadeguato, si occupa dell’ovvio dei popoli, si cura del successo e dell’attualità, non si sporge nell’avvenire e, a differenza dell’artista, non dispone di uno sguardo ulteriore.
La miseria della politica propizia il dominio della tecnica (sembrano glosse al presente…). A rimorchio della politica va la giustizia che «segue la politica come gli avvoltoi le campagne degli eserciti». Dei, padri, autorità, eroi tramontano nell’era in cui la prosperità cresce con l’insicurezza.

Tocca all’outsider, che Jünger aveva battezzato già l’Anarca o il Ribelle, avvertire come un sismografo il tempo che verrà. «L’amarezza riguardo ai contemporanei è comprensibile in chi ha da dire cose immense».
Pensieri lucidi e affilati come lame si susseguono nella prosa asciutta e ad alta temperatura di Jünger; a volte sfiorano la storia, i popoli, le culture, le razze.

Precorrendo o incrociando le tesi della Scuola di Francoforte e di Herbert Marcuse in particolare, Jünger nota che la nuova schiavitù e la nuova alienazione non si concentrano più nel tempo della produzione, ma nel tempo libero. La dipendenza si sposta dal lavoro al consumo. Jünger intuisce che la globalizzazione coinvolgerà non solo i popoli più avanzati, ma anche le società feudali e primitive, che rientreranno in pieno nel ciclo della tecnica: e ci pare di vedere le tigri asiatiche, la Cina, l’India e la Corea nel suo sguardo profetico.

Jünger critica la pur grandiosa morfologia della civiltà di Oswald Spengler e incontra invece il nichilismo attivo e poetico di Gottfried Benn e soprattutto il pensiero di Martin Heidegger, che a sua volta studia e fa studiare nei suoi seminari L’operaio e per altri sentieri raggiunge la stessa radura di Jüger, al di là dell’umano.

Ho letto in questi giorni, accanto a Jünger, gli appunti heideggeriani raccolti sotto il titolo La storia dell’Essere dove si respira in altre forme e linguaggi la stessa aria jüngeriana: il dominio planetario della tecnica, la rivoluzione conservatrice, il realismo eroico, il potere di cui i potenti sono esecutori e non dignitari, la guerra e la mobilitazione, la scomparsa dell’umano.

E affiora esplicito il nome di Jünger. Sullo sfondo, come un’allusione che vuol restare in ombra, la tragedia della Germania e dell’Europa.
Quel che alla fine apre all’apocalittico Jünger uno spiraglio di luce nella notte è l’Amor fati, l’accettazione istintiva del destino.

«Tutto ciò che accade è adorabile» scrive Jünger citando Leon Bloy. E una leggera euforia attraversa il paesaggio catastrofico, quasi una musica sorgiva tra le rovine e gli automi.

MV, Il Giornale 2 aprile 2012

 

Jesús Lorente sobre Weimar

III Encuentro Literario Editorial EAS

Jesús Lorente sobre Weimar

 

Amo del Calabozo

 

Conferencia de Jesús Lorente sobre Weimar, con introducción de Francisco José Fernández-Cruz Sequera, para el III Encuentro Literario de la Editorial EAS, en Madrid el 5 de mayo de 2018.