>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
Rene Guenon believed much the same thing, describing Western civilisation as 'a veritable anomaly among all those that we know; this civilisation is the only one that was developed in a purely material direction' ['Orient et Occident', 1924). Mark Sedgwick writes that Tradition has a 'total lack of evolutionary optimism' ['Against the Modern World', 2004].
But yes, Evola was himself a devolutionist. In 'The Secret of Degeneration' he says '[t]here is a logical error underlying the whole doctrine of evolution. It is impossible that the higher can emerge from the lower, and the greater from the less''
lordofthespear <hailtocryptogram@...> wrote:
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."
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