Apart
from the point that Evola sees Darwinism as a modernistic and progressivist
theory (from apes to human beings) and views human history as a fall from a
god-like state, I know no further explanations for his anti-Darwinism. When
reading Walker's strange claim that the idea of evolution is not in conflict
with Traditionalism, I wonder what the Tradionalist view on Darwinism in
general is.
From `The Darwin
Inheritance' by Michael Walker:
"Man
alone of the animals on this planet is able to freely choose the direction of
his evolution. Free choice is the choice to halt one kind of evolution in
favour of another or of none. To talk of "human progress" is more problematic
than to talk of "human evolution" for progress implies a destination, evolution
does not. What is more, evolution allows, even implies, the turning of a cycle,
whereas progress implies that what is in progress is in the process of moving
towards a set target. And just as the genealogy of a species is a cycle, so is
the life of man, and if Spengler, Evola and the traditionalist authors are to
be believed, so are human orders and ages. But there is nothing in the history
of the earth which contradicts this: quite the contrary, the history of the
Earth is a history of cycles, cold and warm phases, quiet and volcanic phases.
At the same time changes take place which are irreversible: the Earth does not
expect the return of the dinosaurs, at least not in identical form. One day the
Earth will be roasted, for our Sun will not exist for ever but before it dies
will expand into a red giant and consume this planet. Suns are born and die
"like the rest of us". The existence of historical cycles of the return of
forms of civilisation and forms of man does not conflict with a theory of
evolution as such, but it does contradict unilinear theories of evolution, that
is to say those that argue that a species begins in one place and at one time
and moves always in one direction and in one line from the point of departure. Evolution is not in contradiction with
traditionalism but it is in contradiction with creationism, the argument that
each species of plant and animal was generated (created) spontaneously in a
moment by an extraneous force and for a certain purpose which cannot be
changed. The belief that life was created in its variety by a higher being
and the providence of life and death controlled utterly by that being, this
indeed is incompatible with a belief that the variety of life is formed as the
result of a reaction to the force of multifarious agencies and events working
upon the natural object."