While we are on the subject of the relations between Ernst Jünger and
Julius Evola, it may not be devoid of interest to make a few
comparisons between the former's figure of the 'worker' and the
latter's figure of the 'rider' in 'Ride The Tiger', as it relates to
the much debated question of Evola's so-called 'apoliteia'.
'Apoliteia', as a withdrawal from the political world, is far from
being Evola's conclusion in 'Cavalcare la Tigre', contrarily to what
is often assumed, even by some Italian specialists of his work.
Besides the fact that Evola's concern for various movements and
organisations after 1961 can be considered as 'political' in the
broad sense, the fact that he was the creator of the tricolor flag
which was used by the MSI, the main far-right Italian party after
WW2, should already get us thinking.
For Jünger, the modern man has set free a non-human force and it is
difficult for him to escape it, so he must confront it and dominate
it. This requires a new ethics, a new attitude, a new life-outlook.
One shouldn't waste time trying to restore things which just cannot
be restored : the traditional values are no longer embodied by any
institution and thus can only exist as individual values and ideas,
to be assumed by persons who, confronted by this world, decide not to
escape it but to face it, to dominate it, and to lead the movement.
As a result, the 'worker' is an apolitical human type.
If Evola agrees with Jünger's conception for the main part, he also
disagrees with it in many ways, and his differentiated human type,
his 'rider', characterised by a transcendental vocation, turns out to
be quite different from the 'worker'. The main difference between
them is that, while the 'worker' belongs to the modern world and
represents its meaning and its destiny, the differentiated man is not
the real soul of this world, but only a type, a sort of 'alien', who,
it transpires, must live in an age of dissolution, at the final point
of decay. Nevertheless, positive aspects to that situation can be
found in 'Cavalcare la Tigre'. Various possibilities exist for such a
differentiated man, straining towards transcendence in a world in
which he doesn't know what to do and how to live. These various
possibilities are clearly stated in the book. According to their
inner nature, some may choose isolation ; some may fight on the
cultural plane so that, even if the traditional world doesn't exist
anymore, it can be remembered ; others may chose to fight on the
political plane even though they are fully aware that they defend
positions already lost. For, unlike Jünger, who assumes that the old
values are incompatible with the new values, and can be experienced
only as ideas and ideals, but no longer as realities, Evola persists
in thinking that everything must be done to defend what's left of
Tradition. Those who, inspired by traditional and metaphysical
principles, refuse to look upon the political battle as lost, can
legitimately keep on fighting in the social/political sphere in the
name of Tradition, as is stated in so many words in 'Cavalcare la
Tigre'. Here, Evola refers to a political ideology he already
examined and supported in 'Men among the Ruins', akin to the thinking
of the conservative right of the nineteenth century, but enlightened
by the views of the most clear-headed members the German so-
called "conservative revolution".
If it is true that "Today there is no idea, no object, and no goal
that is worth sacrificing one's own true interest for," then,
contrarily to what the writer of a 'fire-wall' preface to one of the
books by Evola published in English assumes on the basis of a
superficial reading, it is up to the 'rider', as bearer of ideas,
objects and goals which are worth sacrificing for, to reassert these
in the shoddy world of political schemers, without making any
compromises, without diminishing these ideas, objects and goals in
order to put them within reach of the schemers, nor, a fortiori,
within the reach of the mass which, mesmerised, follows them - in
order, not to restore the ancient organism in its contingent
historical forms, but to apply the traditional metaphysical
principles, always and everywhere worthy, to new historical
conditions. Whether this is still subjectively or objectively
possible is another matter.
'Apoliteia', to quote de Turris, here refers essentially to an inner
attitude of indifference and detachment, but it does not necessarily
entail a practical abstention from politics, as long as one engages
in it with a completely detached attitude: "Apoliteia is the inner,
irrevocable distance from this society and its 'values': it consists
in not accepting being bound to society by any spiritual or moral
bond."
Informed by an interviewer in 1964 that some, after reading 'Ride the
Tiger', "had spoken of a 'neo-Evolianism' which would seem to
encourage a certain nihilism, a certain absenteeism, and the
renunciation of any positive action in the current world," Evola
replied : "The term (apoliteia) I took from the Stoics. Now, it must
be recalled that this precept of detachment from a political world
which, at the time of Stoicism, had already started ineluctably to
dissolve, had a double counterpart in the Stoics : fidelity to an
ideal state, beyond the contingent one of men and time, and,
precisely, a severe individual ethic. This is how Stoicism, at the
end of the day, revived in practice what remained of the traditional
patriarchy".
Thompkins&Cariou
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