- 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
The paranoid schizophrenic is more correct than the normie - everything *is* connected
In a perverse way, the schizophrenic is also correct that he's the center of the world - religion also recommends that you act as if you were the spiritual center of the cosmos and all your decisions enormously important
The schizophrenic is correct too that he's a victim - in a sense, elements are always constantly conspiring against you. This world is not a vacation town but a battleground. But the schizophrenic gets the proportions wrong, and he places all agency outside of himself
His support made Lewis Carroll publish Alice In Wonderland
A “master” to CS Lewis, other fans include J.R.R Tolkien, Orwell, and Chesterton
On his 198th birthday
11 insights from MacDonald on beauty, literature, and more👇🏻🧵
1/ MacDonald created fantasy worlds full of mystifying events, and yet knew that stories need internal coherence and consistency
He wrote:
“To be able to live a moment in an imagined world, we must see the laws of its existence obeyed. Those broken, we fall out of it.”
2/ A building crashes if it defies the laws of nature - and such laws exist for stories too
MacDonald:
"The mind of man is the product of live Law; it thinks by by law, it dwells in the midst of law, it gathers from law its growth; with law alone can it work to any result."
I sometimes think "The Young Napoleon Bonaparte Studying At The Military Academy" is the hardest painting of all time
"I too love power—but I love it as an artist. I love it as a musician loves his violin. I love it for the sake of drawing sounds, chords, and harmonies from it."