Skip to search.

Breaking News Visit Yahoo! News for the latest.

×Close this window

rouesolaire · rouesolaire@yahoo.fr | Group Member  - Edit Membership Start a Group | My Groups
evola_as_he_is · EVOLA AS HE IS

The Yahoo! Groups Product Blog

Check it out!

Group Information

  • Members: 121
  • Category: Spirituality
  • Founded: Nov 19, 2004
  • Language: English

Yahoo! Groups Tips

Did you know...
Hear how Yahoo! Groups has changed the lives of others. Take me there.

Messages

  Messages Help
Advanced
Evola on the Middle Ages   Topic List   < Prev Topic  |  Next Topic >
Reply  | 
RE: [evola_as_he_is] Evola on the Middle Ages

There is little to dispute in the realm of ideas, but some care must be taken in their interpretation.

 

First of all, ideals can be compared to other ideals, but it is illegitimate to compare the ideal to the actual, as if they were on the same plane. The actual embodies the ideal (or principle), to a greater of lesser degree of fidelity. This requires judgment – we can focus on the fidelity or on the infidelity  of a particular civilisation to a set of principles, but to understand the principles probably requires both.

 

For example, rather than looking at the “chivalric code” (is there a Latin version available?) through modern eyes, we can look through medieval eyes.

 

Dedication to feudal duties, not lying, begin loyal, unceasing war, love of country --- there is nothing at all to dispute here.

As for (1) and (2) – devotion to church teachings and its defence -- we can consider that to be a manifestation of the virtue of “piety”, a virtue even to the Romans. (As to the relative dominance of the pope and the sovereign, that will have to wait for a discussion of de Maistre and Donoso Cortes in relation to Evola.)

 

As for “respect” for weakness, that is either a mistranslation or misunderstanding. Yet, of course it is a duty to protect the weak. What Roman father would fail to protect his wife and children? Wasn’t  it an obligation for the lord to protect his serfs? The King to protect his subjects? Did not even the Romans supply bread to the poor? Or, to be a man, does it mean one should kick a beggar in the street while walking by? Protecting the weak maintains the proper relationship between the strong and the weak and makes clear their hierarchical relationship. It was not the Medieval civilisation that reversed that … it was the (pseudo)Reformers and Jacobins.

 

To be generous and give largesse? This is nothing but the Roman virtue of hospitas, or hospitality. To give largesse -- when it is not a duty -- is magnanimity, another virtue.

 

As mentioned, the relationship between the Knight and Lady does indeed reflect Hindu and Buddhist Tantrism. If it eventually assumed a sentimental attitude, that is indeed unfortunate, but that does not indicate the complete absence of Principle … only its imperfect or incomplete application.

 

It is hardly obvious that a “flesh and blood” woman was considered to be required for spiritual fulfilment. We can start with the Knightly devotion to Mary – hardly “flesh and blood”. For the Knights and troubadours, as a matter of fact, a “Platonic” love was considered superior. At a time of arranged marriages, this sort of love was allowed, and did not manifest erotically. To criticise it when it did become sexual and sentimental, is again to attempt to compare the actual to the ideal. In its higher manifestations, it remained unrequited. We need not go further than Dante and Beatrice or the Persian poet Hafiz and the princess to see that spiritual realisation does not depend on a “flesh and blood” woman.

 

Closer to our own time, one should track down Leopardi’s “Dialogo di Torquato Tasso e del suo genio familiare” – if one has a sense of humour -- but that will take as a little far from the subject at hand.

 

The only real objection I hear is that the Middle Age was not the Roman Empire, but neither was the Roman Empire the Vedic civilisation. Both Evola and Guénon had high regard for Medieval Europe. In our era, which is absolutely devoid of virtue, it behooves us to look very carefully at the most recent period in European history when an authentic civilisation did manifest.

 



Sat Mar 17, 2007 2:56 pm

hyperborean
Offline Offline
Send Email Send Email
 | 
Expand Messages Author Sort by Date

In "Sintesi di dottrina della razza", Evola listed three great Aryan civilisations: (1) The Vedic civilisation (2) The Roman civilisation (3) The Nordic-Roman...
Toni Ciopa
hyperborean Offline Send Email
Mar 13, 2007
9:44 am

This an accurate summary of "Phratry of the Sentinels of the Future". However, your views on the relationship between heathenism and Christianity are...
evola_as_he_is Offline Send Email Mar 13, 2007
5:41 pm

... On the same note, let us recall a footnote from the first part of Henry de Montherlant's 'Solstice de Juin': 'A true mockery, chivalry since the XIIIth...
larco_e_laclava Offline Send Email Mar 16, 2007
9:51 am

There is little to dispute in the realm of ideas, but some care must be taken in their interpretation. First of all, ideals can be compared to other ideals,...
Toni Ciopa
hyperborean Offline Send Email
Mar 17, 2007
8:48 pm

There is no such thing as a single 'code of chivalry', this code of conduct was clearly understood although it was never clearly formulated. In fact, there...
evola_as_he_is Offline Send Email Mar 19, 2007
8:51 pm

I agree with this views, crualty is not worthy of a real Tradition , this kind of cynical thinking seems more like ultra-modern libéralism selfish way of life...
stephane.leperchois
stephane.lep... Offline Send Email
Jul 5, 2007
4:54 pm

I don’t recall very much from Evola on the specific details of public policy. However, in general, in an organic society policies arise in a natural way...
Toni Ciopa
hyperborean Offline Send Email
Jul 10, 2007
12:23 pm

Copyright © 2012 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Privacy Policy - Terms of Service - Copyright Policy - Guidelines NEW - Help