Tradition and Modernity
"All that is solid melts into air" - Karl Marx These statements are perhaps the two most powerful characterizations
of the arrival of modernity and the depth of its implications, both of
which predate the resurgence of the study of the world's traditional
societies in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Both
Nietzsche and Marx are attempting to characterize the passing of a
point which cannot be undone, the emergence of a consciousness based
upon a lesson that cannot be unlearned. For these two thinkers, this
new malleability will need to be met not with denial and an aim to
undo the process of experience thus described, but to establish new
ways of being and new avenues by which to strive for fulfillment. For
Marx, the end lies in the realization of a rational and secular social
unit providing unprecedented human freedom, whilst for Nietzsche it is
in the replacement of hitherto accepted metaphysics with the fiercely
individualist project of overcoming oneself. Seeing as the
institutions whose death knells they herald were by their time already
suffering extended decay, and as "that which is falling must also be
pushed", there is little nostalgia or regret in each proclamation.
Insofar as the traditionalist thinkers subscribe to the cyclical
theory of history, there might not be much here about which they would
disagree, until one reaches discussion of the details of how the
future might play out. Nietzsche and Marx both envision this process
maintaining some stability, and both in their own ways see the change
as a step on a path to their ideal world, whether that is ultimately a
process (Nietzsche) or an end (Marx). The traditionalist viewpoint,
best exampled for our concerns by Rene Guenon and Julius Evola, holds
that the state in which we currently find ourselves, i.e. after the
dissolution of all tradition, is the penultimate stage in a great
cycle of history, with the following stage being the utter destruction
of the society and most of its people, which is followed by the birth
of a new golden age in which the ideals of spiritual tradition and
social order, authority and caste, and by extension, human
fulfillment,
are realized.
Traditionalism thus treads a fine line between a moral condemnation of
modernity, a yearning for a return to a state of lesser experience (or
delusion), and an inner belief that this is all a part of a program
which is unalterable. The depth of study of the traditionalists is
invaluable to an atomized modern individual, even if only to teach us
the completeness of other ways of being and consciousness. It is my
contention here however, that the recent resurgence of traditionalist
thought is tending toward an unrealistic nostalgia for a dead past,
and moral condemnation, which threatens by its emphasis to forget the
implausibility of reinstating by force or any other means a society
modeled upon the traditional. The central limit to this, and the
reason that sentiments like Nietzsche's and Marx's carry such weight,
is the fact that our modern world is populated by people of a modern
consciousness, and here the traditionalists are no exception.
Traditionalism as a resurgent movement in the late twentieth century
to the present has latched on to its forebears for their unparalleled
critique of modernity, and for the socio-political alternatives which
it affirms, which is only one part of the traditionalist teaching and
a secondary one at that. For the force of the critique relies on
eternal spiritual truth, as reliance on profane science (including
psychology) or progressivist history and philosophy are regarded as
being part of the problem, not a sufficient tool for critique. Yet it
is precisely the spiritual realm which has been unalterably
individuated (until such time as our civilization 'forgets'), as part
of a great process of secularization, which limits any possible
unified spiritual force and authority regardless of the traditionalist
opinion of the common truth of the world's Traditions. It is this
impasse which ensures that the determinist pessimism of the cyclical
view of history triumphing is the only path to a return to the
traditional way. Thus the central question for the student of
Tradition today is, given the seeming mutual exclusivity of modernity
and Tradition (that which gives the latter its potency but also
renders it pragmatically impotent), can traditionalism have any
legitimate socio-political aims, or if it does, has it already reached
the stage of heterodoxy?
The socio-political implications of Tradition may be briefly
summarized as follows; for further explication refer to Guenon's The
Crisis of the Modern World and Evola's Revolt Against the Modern
World. Spiritual orthodoxy is the unquestionable authority, against
which the truth and viability of all other ideas is measured. From
this there follows a spiritual and social hierarchy, determined by the
varying aptitude of different peoples for spiritual development. The
individual subject is regarded as secondary to the spiritual strivings
of the social unit, and the material component of the world and
existence is regarded as secondary to the metaphysical realm,
manifesting only the effects of the spiritual. The implications of
such a form are vast when considered from a modern viewpoint:
Tradition finds the concepts of egalitarianism, humanism, progress,
materialism, and secular science, politics and philosophy inherently
alien.
That these modern pillars are great mistakes and that the alternatives
of Tradition are ideal need not be argued for here, but I have
described the skeletal form above to illustrate a particular point
which contemporary traditionalists might quietly condone: such a
society might be imagined that fits this form without reliance upon
spiritual orthodoxy. Whilst the problem of consensus may ultimately
only be able to be solved by spiritual unity, a state that has learnt
from these ideals but manages to establish them in a secular age seems
to be more the concern of the current movement. Needless to say, the
great problem of authority remains unsolved, and it and its
installation of hierarchy must be derived by some other, most likely
modern, means. Such a project might be more of a midpoint between the
ideal of Tradition and Plato's Republic, which asserts a meritocracy
on more material and intellectual grounds.
Evidently, without even the difficult deferral to the spiritual which
the scholars of Tradition utilized, the current movement has some
intellectual acrobatics to do if it is to present itself as a
legitimate alternative to modernity, which I suspect it does. Even
given this first step from orthodoxy, innumerable more compromises
would be required for traditionalism to establish credibility in the
modern socio-political arena. It would be firstly subject to the
modern political norm, perhaps its greatest adversary, and is thus
thrust into the undesirable position, like any move toward
authoritarianism, of having to lobby the masses on the platform of
their own illegitimacy for political decision. The modern political
system, which is the embodiment of the modern consciousness, reflects
the latter's assumption of choice, which all but invalidates an
intellectual as much as political acceptance of hierarchy. This
parallels the democratic problem, but at a much deeper level: we have
succeeded in artificially postponing what is in fact a necessity, and
we've re-established it as choice. Once that process is complete, the
only way to return is to exercise choice, as any perceived threat to
itself (the end of choice not sanctioned by itself, i.e. by force)
would be responded to with all the hostility of a being preserving its
own life. The great failure of democracy is also that which ensures
its continuance, as its fluidity can absorb and marginalize
innumerable antagonistic ideas, resulting in a terminally ill
political form that has the power do nothing but maintain its own
artificial life support. Tradition presents the alternative to this
horrible stasis, but cannot inaugurate it.
A secondary quandary for the would-be traditionalist is on the level
of the individual. If we are to accept the contention that Tradition
has value by it's potential to circumvent modern anomie and
atomization, it remains to be seen how the individuals of the current
movement are to act in order to best minimize these modern diseases in
a society void of Tradition. If one is to take solace in the latter's
lessons and remain uncompromised, one will certainly feel an increase
of alienation via social isolation, whereas if one compromises and
seeks modern institutions which may provide a limited but similar
sense of meaning to Tradition, one will certainly feel guilty at their
selfish concession, and no closer to fulfillment. These problems are,
to be sure, those of a subject in an individualist age and of an
irrevocably individualist mindset. Similarly, on the spiritual side,
traditionalists have varied interests, and in spite of the perennial
tendencies of scholars like Guenon, no traditional society has existed
with heterogeneous teachings co-extant. For a movement to solidify,
indeed, the most popular spiritual tradition would succeed in the
traditionalist movement, which, for reasons that should already be
clear, would not likely be an orthodox interpretation. We could not
escape the rule of quantity, even were we to isolate our concerns to a
particularly favored subsection of modern society. The plausibility
that Tradition might in any way deliver the modern subject from the
punishments of his world, arguably one of its chief merits, is thus
put into serious doubt.
The content behind the socio-political emphasis of contemporary
traditionalists runs dangerously close to what the scholars like
Guenon and Nasr would regard as heresy: conceiving of religion and
perhaps all metaphysics from an anthropological standpoint, regarding
it as a means to provide unity and coherence a society and nothing
more. This might be amenable to a majority of modern people, but it
also highlights the improbability of its own resurgence. The mutual
exclusivity of the two forms of society, modern and traditional, and
the paradoxes arrived at by a movement that attempts to bridge the gap
(whether it explicitly admits to it or not, it must), had a
predictable effect on the original scholars of tradition. Guenon
specifically dismisses the possibility of a "revival" at the outset of
his summary work, asserting that we've entered into a "state of
dissolution from which there is to be no emerging except through
cataclysm" (p. 11). Evola had an extended role in the politics of his
time, despite never joining any political party, though he ultimately
championed the withdrawal from modern processes at large, and the
adherence to "the Idea" rather than any political stance and
compromise in the realm of action. Both scholars conceived of their
work as merely maintaining a small flame that might outlive the
current society and be re-established after its dissolution.
Under this scrutiny, the traditionalist who can't endorse the
metaphysics of Tradition becomes predominantly the embodiment of the
modern quandary of navigating the profaned material world in search of
meaning, highlighting the tragedy of the minimal likelihood of even
realizing the vital form conducive to fulfillment. Tradition isn't
here
nullified; its critique of modernity remains supreme, but it becomes
splintered: one fragment remains of the ideals of what once was
(Tradition), and the other becomes mere reactive critique
(traditionalism). For the traditionalists, the latter must come to the
fore, due to the demands of pragmatism, but the critique is always
subsumed into its antagonist, as Marx and Nietzsche knew. In this
sense, traditionalism is indubitably a modern movement, a reaction
similar to Romanticism and Fundamentalism.
Evola, Guenon et al. realized this, and thus arrived at their
pessimism, but the traditionalists seem unwilling for the moment. The
former were specifically wary of the latter, with Guenon targeting
"traditionalists" and "traditional philosophy" (p. 23-4) as limiting
their activity to the profane realm. Reading this passage with
courage, we find that we're reading about ourselves. With this
distinction being so clearly laid out in a key text by a fundamental
scholar of Tradition, I believe we owe it to our own integrity and our
intellectual forbears, to accurately locate ourselves in this primary
aspect. From this clarification, our political engagement or
abstention can follow. To do anything less would be unacceptably
indolent imprecision. - Fieldmouse
exponentiation ezine: issue [6.0:features]
"God is dead" - Fredrich Nietzsche.