In <evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com> evola_as_he_is wrote:
(...)
>> In other words : Kapitulieren niemals.
Or in Latin words (Horace): Si fractus illabitur orbis, impavidum ferient ruinae = even if the world would fall, its ruins would strike me fearless.
>>And these orientations, needless to say after our readers have been enlightened about the context in which 'Orientamenti' was written, applied obviously, contrary to what Vandermok wrongly assumed (see message 18), to the Italian, to the European, to the Western youth.
On the race, there is a curious sentence of Mussolini quoted by Evola: "the race is feeling, not reality: for the 95 %, it' s just feeling", but Evola added: When a feeling is sufficiently lively, virile and constant, tends to turn into a reality, and till the point that, under certain circumstances, the "myth of the race" can effectively create a "race", over there it did not exist: determining a certain "style", a certain "way of being", a behaviour that ends by acting in a formative way on the biological and anthropological datum, handing down itself beyond the generation that created it.
<Quando un sentimento è sufficientemente vivo, virile e costante, tende a tradursi in una realtà: e ciò fino al punto che, sotto determinate condizioni, il "mito della razza" può effettivamente creare una "razza", là dove prima essa non esisteva: determinando un certo "stile", un certo "modo d' essere" , un comportamentio che finisce col reagire formativamente sullo stesso dato biologico e antropologico, tramandandosi oltre la generazione che l'ha creato>.
(Appunti per una nuova teoria della razza, La Vita Italiana, 1938).
>>>>>>>>>>>>
In the introduction to 'Men Among The Ruins'(p. 104 in the online
version), Hansen quotes a paragraph supposedly from 'Revolt Against
The Modern World' : "The idea and only the idea can be the true
fatherland for them. Not the fact that they are of the same
nationality, that they speak the same language, and that they are of
the same blood but the fact that they belong to the same idea, should
be the deciding factor that unite or divides them." We have checked
the first chapter of 'Revolt' and have not found this sentence, nor
any sentence which would be even close to it.
On the other hand, an almost identical sentence is found in
'Orientamenti' (1950) : "The idea and only the idea can be the true
fatherland for them. Not the fact that they are of the same
nationality, that they speak the same language, but the fact that they
belong to the same idea, should be what matters today". In the
original : "Nell'Idea va riconosciuta la nostra vera patria. Non
l'essere di una stessa terra o di una stessa lingua, ma l'essere della
stessa idea è quel che oggi conta". In fact, this sentence is found in
the second chapter of 'Men Among The Ruins, in a passage dealing with
the concept of 'nation', that is, in a context in which the word
'race' does not have the ambiguity which it would have it was taken
out of the context and read by someone who is not familiar with
Evola's work. Yet, even those who are familiar with it are bound to
find this formulation clumsy, in a sense that any great European
nation was created and shaped, from Greece to Spain, from Germany to
Russia, by one blood, the Nordic one, and it was precisely this unity
of blood which prevented 'nationalisms'.
As is well-known, Evola, following his accident in Vienna in April
1945, was treated in Austria, and did not come back to Rome before
1948. He settled down there for good only in 1951, after having been
treated in various hospitals in Bologna. 'Orientamenti' was first
published in 1950 by the group which had just founded the famous
review 'Imperium', of which only four issues were published, from
Eastern to Autumn of that year, and to which Evola contributed with
three articles. Most of those who founded it were young men in their
early twenties, who belonged to that "generazione che non ha fatto in
tempo a perdere la guerra" ("the generation that didn't make it in
time to lose the war" - F. Gianfranceschi). In post-WW2 occupied
Italy, most of the editors of 'Imperium' experienced repression and
gaol, under the pretext that they were supposedly sympathisers of a
neo-Fascist underground organisation (F.A.R.). One of them, Pino
Rauti, a few months after Evola's death, recalled : "Tens and tens of
rightist Romans, mainly students, but also men who had fought for the
R.I.S. (Italian Social Republic. Note of the Editor), 'met' Evola
through his books, and read them in the cells of the Roman prison of
Regina Coeli (...) from 1946 to 1950" ("Evola : una guida per domani",
'Civiltà', II, 8-9, September-December, 1974). Giano Accame, along the
same lines, recalled : "Selected by a certain ability to face
incomprehension and isolation, to withstand conflicts, and having
built our habitat (in French in the text. Note of the Editor) through
endured brawl and discrimination, we even ended up divided among
ourselves, between Gentilians and Evolians (...) Gentilians claimed to
represent a philosopher assassinated because of his adherence to the
Italian Social Republic, but whose name was found in all school
manuals and whose value, though controversed, was universally
acknowledged. Evolians, on the contrary, huddled up against a thinker
whose name was generally ignored, who was not spoken of in any book
and in any paper, who was not established among scholarly culture and
among the republic of letters, who, save a few exceptions, was never
taken seriously by Fascism itself, but who had become the almost
secret heritage of a youthful current of Fascism, the tiny minority of
a minority, which was besides slightly mocked within the ghetto of the
vaniquished, even though the expression used to portray them had a
peculiar beauty : the current of the "sons of the Sun"."
It is to youth, to that youth, which is often referred to in
'Orientamenti', that this work was written for. There are eleven
orientations, given for the "fight to be fought, especially to youth,
so that it takes up the torch and the instructions of those who have
not fallen, learning from the error of the past and being able to
discriminate well and reconsidering all that has felt yesterday and
still feels the effect of contingent situations. It is essential not
to go down to the level of the adversaries, not to only raise mere
watchwords, not to insist excessively on what of yesterday, even if
worth being remembered, does not correspond to current and impersonal
power-ideas, not to yield to the suggestions of a false petty realism,
the tare of every 'party'. It is indeed necessary that our forces act
also in the hand-to-hand political and controversial fight to build up
all the possible room in the present situation. But, besides, it is
important, it is essential, that an élite is formed, which, in a
contemplative intensity, defines, with intellectual rigour and
absolute intransigence, the idea according to which it must be united,
and asserts this idea essentially in the shape of the new man, of the
man of resistance, of the man standing among the ruins. If he goes
beyond this period of crisis and illusory order, it is only to this
man that future will belong. But, even if the destiny that the modern
world has created for itself, and which now overwhelms it was not to
be contained, in this premisse inner positions will be maintained : in
any eventuality what can be done will be done and we will belong to
that fatherland which no enemy will ever be able to occupy nor to
destroy".
In other words : Kapitulieren niemals.
And these orientations, needless to say after our readers have been
enlightened about the context in which 'Orientamenti' was written,
applied obviously, contrary to what Vandermok wrongly assumed (see
message 18), to the Italian, to the European, to the Western youth.
version), Hansen quotes a paragraph supposedly from 'Revolt Against
The Modern World' : "The idea and only the idea can be the true
fatherland for them. Not the fact that they are of the same
nationality, that they speak the same language, and that they are of
the same blood but the fact that they belong to the same idea, should
be the deciding factor that unite or divides them." We have checked
the first chapter of 'Revolt' and have not found this sentence, nor
any sentence which would be even close to it.
On the other hand, an almost identical sentence is found in
'Orientamenti' (1950) : "The idea and only the idea can be the true
fatherland for them. Not the fact that they are of the same
nationality, that they speak the same language, but the fact that they
belong to the same idea, should be what matters today". In the
original : "Nell'Idea va riconosciuta la nostra vera patria. Non
l'essere di una stessa terra o di una stessa lingua, ma l'essere della
stessa idea è quel che oggi conta". In fact, this sentence is found in
the second chapter of 'Men Among The Ruins, in a passage dealing with
the concept of 'nation', that is, in a context in which the word
'race' does not have the ambiguity which it would have it was taken
out of the context and read by someone who is not familiar with
Evola's work. Yet, even those who are familiar with it are bound to
find this formulation clumsy, in a sense that any great European
nation was created and shaped, from Greece to Spain, from Germany to
Russia, by one blood, the Nordic one, and it was precisely this unity
of blood which prevented 'nationalisms'
As is well-known, Evola, following his accident in Vienna in April
1945, was treated in Austria, and did not come back to Rome before
1948. He settled down there for good only in 1951, after having been
treated in various hospitals in Bologna. 'Orientamenti' was first
published in 1950 by the group which had just founded the famous
review 'Imperium', of which only four issues were published, from
Eastern to Autumn of that year, and to which Evola contributed with
three articles. Most of those who founded it were young men in their
early twenties, who belonged to that "generazione che non ha fatto in
tempo a perdere la guerra" ("the generation that didn't make it in
time to lose the war" - F. Gianfranceschi)
Italy, most of the editors of 'Imperium' experienced repression and
gaol, under the pretext that they were supposedly sympathisers of a
neo-Fascist underground organisation (F.A.R.). One of them, Pino
Rauti, a few months after Evola's death, recalled : "Tens and tens of
rightist Romans, mainly students, but also men who had fought for the
R.I.S. (Italian Social Republic. Note of the Editor), 'met' Evola
through his books, and read them in the cells of the Roman prison of
Regina Coeli (...) from 1946 to 1950" ("Evola : una guida per domani",
'Civiltà', II, 8-9, September-December, 1974). Giano Accame, along the
same lines, recalled : "Selected by a certain ability to face
incomprehension and isolation, to withstand conflicts, and having
built our habitat (in French in the text. Note of the Editor) through
endured brawl and discrimination, we even ended up divided among
ourselves, between Gentilians and Evolians (...) Gentilians claimed to
represent a philosopher assassinated because of his adherence to the
Italian Social Republic, but whose name was found in all school
manuals and whose value, though controversed, was universally
acknowledged. Evolians, on the contrary, huddled up against a thinker
whose name was generally ignored, who was not spoken of in any book
and in any paper, who was not established among scholarly culture and
among the republic of letters, who, save a few exceptions, was never
taken seriously by Fascism itself, but who had become the almost
secret heritage of a youthful current of Fascism, the tiny minority of
a minority, which was besides slightly mocked within the ghetto of the
vaniquished, even though the expression used to portray them had a
peculiar beauty : the current of the "sons of the Sun"."
It is to youth, to that youth, which is often referred to in
'Orientamenti'
orientations, given for the "fight to be fought, especially to youth,
so that it takes up the torch and the instructions of those who have
not fallen, learning from the error of the past and being able to
discriminate well and reconsidering all that has felt yesterday and
still feels the effect of contingent situations. It is essential not
to go down to the level of the adversaries, not to only raise mere
watchwords, not to insist excessively on what of yesterday, even if
worth being remembered, does not correspond to current and impersonal
power-ideas, not to yield to the suggestions of a false petty realism,
the tare of every 'party'. It is indeed necessary that our forces act
also in the hand-to-hand political and controversial fight to build up
all the possible room in the present situation. But, besides, it is
important, it is essential, that an élite is formed, which, in a
contemplative intensity, defines, with intellectual rigour and
absolute intransigence, the idea according to which it must be united,
and asserts this idea essentially in the shape of the new man, of the
man of resistance, of the man standing among the ruins. If he goes
beyond this period of crisis and illusory order, it is only to this
man that future will belong. But, even if the destiny that the modern
world has created for itself, and which now overwhelms it was not to
be contained, in this premisse inner positions will be maintained : in
any eventuality what can be done will be done and we will belong to
that fatherland which no enemy will ever be able to occupy nor to
destroy".
In other words : Kapitulieren niemals.
And these orientations, needless to say after our readers have been
enlightened about the context in which 'Orientamenti' was written,
applied obviously, contrary to what Vandermok wrongly assumed (see
message 18), to the Italian, to the European, to the Western youth.