Jash Dholani Profile picture
Dec 21 13 tweets 6 min read
Julius Evola On Symbolism🧵

In his essay "The Inversion Of Symbols"

Evola writes that when a new ideology wins -

- It remakes not just politics but also the SYMBOLS of the old order

When communism won, it transformed the meaning of three important symbols👇🏻
1/ Evola writes that modern revolutionary movements take "the principles, the forms, and the traditional symbols" of healthier societies from the past and give them a new spin

He digs into 3 symbols

- The color red
- The word revolution
- The symbol of the pentagrammic star
2/ The color red

In Ancient Rome, the Emperor was dressed and dyed in purplish Red to "represent Jove, the King of the Gods"

In Catholicism, the "Princes of the Church,” the cardinals, wear a scarlet red robe

Traditionally, red has been linked with hierarchy, order, and power
3/ In "classical antiquity," fire was linked with the color red

The "heaven above heaven" was composed of pure fire

Red stood for authority and hierarchy - but in the 20th century it was co-opted by Marxists and made to represent the opposite: equality, masses, and democracy
4/ The word Revolution

Evola: “Revolution in the primary sense doesn't mean subversion & revolt, but really even the opposite: return to a point of departure & ordinary motion around a center”

In physics this holds true: a planet's revolution means "gravitating around a center"
5/ Revolutions keep planets in a stable orbit

Traditional societies imagined a revolution to be a movement that keeps the moral universe spinning in harmony

But today a revolution means:

- Moving AWAY from stable centers
- Continuous churn
- Destruction of regularity
6/ Evola: “Modern Revolution is like the unhinging of the door, the opposite of the traditional meaning of the term: the social & political forces loosen from their natural orbit, decline, know no longer nor center nor any order, other than a badly & temporarily stemmed disorder"
7/ The Pentagram

The pentagram, a 5 pointed star, traditionally stood for man’s destiny as the microcosm that contained the macrocosm

It represented man as “the image of the world and of God, dominator of all the elements thanks to his dignity and his supernatural destination”
8/ The star represented man as “spiritually integrated & supernaturally sovereign”

But Marxists took this symbol and changed its meaning

They “terrestrialized and collectivized” it

It went on the flags of USSR and Communist China, becoming “destructive of every higher value”
9/ Evola: “This degradation of symbols is an extremely significant and eloquent sign of the times”

Symbols are the universal visual language

This radical transformation of their meaning is not accidental

They're intentionally retooled for "inversion, subversion, & degradation"
The topic of symbolism has attracted the attention of the sharpest minds of all ages

In the next piece

I collect insights from Manly Hall, Carl Jung, Ray Bradbury, and others on the meaning, power, and FUNCTION of symbols

A two minute read👇🏻

memod.com/TheSymbolsGuy/…
Thank you for reading! Appreciate your time 🙏🏻

If you enjoyed this

Do RT

Evola needs to be more widely read

Symbolism-pill your timeline👇🏻

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