Julius Evola wrote that we are living through a "destructive spiritual process" and one of its symptoms is a corruption of traditional symbols. In his essay "The Inversion Of Symbols," Evola shows that when communism won, it FLIPPED upside down the meaning of 3 vital 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/ Evola on 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 Evola notes that revolutions now mean:
• Moving AWAY from stable centers
• 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 a center nor any order, other than a badly & temporarily stemmed disorder"
7/ Evola on the Pentagram
The pentagram, a 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"
Evola is a profound writer
Over the past year, I've been reading his obscure essays and collecting insights here: memod.com/jashdholani/bo…
Find inside:
• Democracy - The New God?
• Why we need great leaders
• Our revolt against the modern world
Nihilism is the Meta Problem. Nietzsche wrote this on the first page of his last book (1889). A vague sense that nothing really matters. You need to scrub this feeling out of your soul with as much aggression and venom as you can muster. Nihilism is the master psyop
The most powerless creature in the world is not an ant, not the grounded plant, but a nihilist. The ant and the plant will automatically fight to preserve themselves but this central instinct of life has been removed from the nihilist's toolkit. He is compromised beyond saving
Those who tell you the world is worthless will, after you renounce it, rush in to rule. It's a power grab, plain and simple. This is why for Nietzsche, the way out of nihilism is not community service or "sacrifice" but Will To Power. A healthy controlling urge is the antidote
C.S. Lewis almost died in the trench warfare of WW-I
Became best friends with Tolkien
Sold 100 million books
On the cusp of WW-II, he gave an iconic lecture at Oxford University (1939)
His question:
Does beauty matter when bombs start falling?
THIS is his profound answer👇🏻
1/ The permanent human situation is endless strife, chaos and pain
C.S. Lewis:
“Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself”
Yet culture breaks out
2/ If we waited for peace to create art the first cave painting would still not be made
Always some “imminent danger” looking more important than culture
Lewis: “If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun”
Hell is betraying a friend. In Divine Comedy there are 9 circles of hell, and the lowest is divided into 4 parts, and the worst spot, where Satan himself eats you alive, is reserved for those who betray their friends and masters. That's what Brutus got for back-stabbing Caesar
The name Caesar became the dream of men for the rest of history, a name that came to mean righteous authority, a name that has had spin offs like Tzar, Kaiser, and so on
The name brutus became "brutal' - the lowest a man can sink, something almost less than human
If traitors and backstabbers are the most evil, then that means loyalty and fealty to the rightful king is the most noble thing a man can do
Skepticism is destroying your will to act. Cynicism is making you a frozen spectator of life. Thomas Carlyle wrote that skepticism contains "a whole Pandora's box of miseries." Since skepticism is OVERVALUED today, understanding its corrosive power is all the more important👇🏻
1/ Carlyle is clear that he doesn't advocate blind faith
He writes: "Doubt, truly, is not itself a crime. Certainly we do not rush out, clutch up the first thing we find, and straightway believe that!"
So what's the problem?
2/ The big problem with skepticism is this:
Asking questions goes from being a MEANS to an end (the answers)
To an END itself
People define themselves by their permanently doubtful attitude
H.P. Lovecraft transformed the horror genre, wrote 100,000+ letters to frens, and was, above all, a soulful aristocrat. Let's explore his attacks on democracy, his critique of our modern priorities, and what he believed civilization MUST aim at👇🏻
1/ A great society is only built when the most gifted contribute
And for their contribution, the aristocrats must be rewarded:
“Since the only human motive is a craving for supremacy, we can expect nothing in the way of achievement unless achievement be rewarded by supremacy”
2/ Civilization must create valuable “thoughts and objects” and aristocracy “alone” can do this
Democracies live “parasitically on the aristocracies they overthrow”
And over time, democracies use up “the aesthetic and intellectual resources which autocracy bequeathed them”