tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post3498816999518648420..comments2024-02-13T12:50:30.457-05:00Comments on Rants Within the Undead God: Julius Evola and the Sham of Conservative PhilosophyBenjamin Cainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-59019455552622131692019-09-03T09:36:28.230-04:002019-09-03T09:36:28.230-04:00Can you give at least an example of how I've s...Can you give at least an example of how I've strawmanned Evola? I provide lengthy quotations from him to represent his views. <br /><br />In any case, my main criticism, that social hierarchies are natural (found everywhere in the wild) and thus not evidence of anything supernatural is broad and doesn't even depend on the details of his mysticism. Do you deny that Evola regarded traditional social hierarchies as manifesting a supernatural order? This is just the essence of conservative propaganda, from Plato to Christianity (divine right of kings) to Evola and Hitler to the North Korean dictatorship. It's always the same: a minority of elites deserves to rule over the masses because God says so. <br /><br />But what's easier to believe, that God cares whether one glorified monkey rules over another or that social hierarchies are due to the law of oligarchy, that they evolve naturally and therefore represent in humankind the _betrayal_ of our creative potential to transcend nature? Evolva and the conservatives reverse matters, because their hallowed Traditional societies are obviously just incursions of primitive natural impulses into human affairs, dressed up with mystical and theological gibberish for rhetorical cover.Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-14235516053597425672019-09-03T01:50:29.598-04:002019-09-03T01:50:29.598-04:00there is so much to disagree in this article. not ...there is so much to disagree in this article. not aiming at being thorough, serves me no purpose at all, not my fight. even the "out of africa" theory is just a theory, it has been debated and alternatives exist, so don't take it for gospel, pun intended. evola is a wayyyyy better thinker than you deliberately represent him here. i completely disagree with "most thorogh and poignant critique" assertation by uknown just above. it certainly is NOT that, it's the exact opposite, hastily conconcted and boring. you construct a deliberately simplified effigy of evola that could serve you best in burning it trimphantly. the troble is, that's not the real evola. you do that quite a lot, an intrinsic element of your style perhaps, constructing a simplified effigy of some perceived opponent or another, just for the sake of sparkly public burning. you would make a fine inquisitor ;) most are pretty dumb "thinkers" in reality, so no big deal, serves them well, one may say they deserve it for being dumb and yet pompous. have your fun writing, and i'll have my fun reading. the whole scheme breaks down though when you apply it to bigger and complex thinkers though. as i said, not my fight. for the record, most elites are any combination of dumb, insane, ridiculous, evil. it's just a sad observation that this article is not very deep, to say the least.zombiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16170901618171176202noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-63710356713679907392019-08-24T02:37:55.537-04:002019-08-24T02:37:55.537-04:00Most thorough and poignant critique of Evola and h...Most thorough and poignant critique of Evola and his brand of Tradition I've encountered. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02475251993726846254noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-19646696117267008782019-08-18T14:10:57.984-04:002019-08-18T14:10:57.984-04:00That's true. Nietzsche might be opposed more t...That's true. Nietzsche might be opposed more to pity than to compassion, assuming that compassion can be honourable whereas pity usually has a Christian basis. The worst kind of pity would be the Christian kind where you pretend to care about someone who's suffering whereas you're really looking down on that person. It's the self-deception and the lack of "authenticity" or intellectual integrity that would especially bother Nietzsche, I think.Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-65576589804484212382019-08-17T17:22:49.684-04:002019-08-17T17:22:49.684-04:00Thanks very much for the answer and the links, Ben...Thanks very much for the answer and the links, Ben!<br /><br />The phenomenon of compassion is very puzzling. I, for one, think that Nietzsche, generally speaking, confuses pity with compassion, and was against the former. I don't think that compassion, as understood by hindouism or buddhism, is really something you can teach or preach. It's a natural disposition present in a very few 'enlightened' (un) lucky people. I mean compassion as represented by the sanskrit phrase "Tat Tvam Asi" translated as 'you are that'. It would be ludicrous to think that one can instill such a spiritual state through abstract teachings of morality, or by means of organized religion. <br /><br />Nevertheless, the phenomenon of compassion exists, and I agree that it can be thought of as a kind of natural, nobler, elitism, as opposed to the material, filthy, pseudo-elitism, of modern society. <br /><br />On strictly evolutionary terms, however, I'm not sure it constitutes an advantage.<br /><br />Kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03945767177246438466noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-13823916437524234842019-08-17T11:44:59.123-04:002019-08-17T11:44:59.123-04:00Thanks, Kevin. Nietzsche's account of how slav...Thanks, Kevin. Nietzsche's account of how slave morality overtakes the values of the power elites is plausible, but I don't think it's the whole story. Nietzsche differs from Evola, since Nietzsche's argument isn't traditionalist. Nietzsche doesn't appeal to any transcendent spiritual reality as the alleged basis of master values. His account is meant to be naturalistic, so of course the powerful are likely to have different values and characters than the weak. I've written a lot about this on my blog (see most of the links below).<br /><br />True, Nietzsche and Evola were both elitists. I'm an elitist too, but mine is closer to Jesus's: the enlightened ones tend to be among the losers and the outcasts, not the masters. Enlightenment alienates us from mass society. So those who are spiritually (or existentially) great are hardly going to be among the masters. The power elites are corrupted by their successes and by their dominance, so their values tend to be predatory or parasitic, that is, selfish and otherwise animalistic rather than far-reaching or mind-expanding. Sure, the rich become decadent and can fill their leisure time with esoteric studies, but their ideologies are typically rationalizations. They believe whatever they have to to excuse them for keeping hold of their wealth and privileges. Obviously, that's what the free market and social Darwinian ideologies are for. <br /><br />Nietzsche's defense of the master class is partly Darwinian, but he adds an aesthetic dimension since what he wants to see is a fearless, creative mentality, one that helps us cope with godless nature. Alas, the real masters (not the ideal overmen Nietzsche wanted to see rise) are too busy having their minds narrowed by their good fortune and power over others, to be thinking philosophically. True, the wealthy innovate and lead technological progress which empowers us all, to some extent. But if we look at the rise of Silicon Valley, for example, the "progress" there with smart phones and social media addicts and enslaves the majority. So that ends up being Darwinian/animalistic "creativity." <br /><br />The question I'd pose to Nietzsche is whether he thinks empathy and compassion generally are Christian and thus disposable in an existentially-respectable society. Were he to say yes, he'd have to contend with the like of Dawkins and Dennett who point out that empathy has a biological basis in our capacity to posit mental states in our explanations of each other's behaviour. Christianity hardly invented our capacity to cooperate with strangers. Presumably, Nietzsche would be in favour of compassion as long as it's honourable rather than sneaky and dishonest (like slave morality, which is based on cowardice, i.e. fear of natural reality, which leads to faith in theism).<br /><br />So should the strong empathize with the weak or should the former demonize and enslave the latter? As I think Hegel points out in his earlier discussion of master and slave, the masters seal their fate, since the master-slave relationship is toxic and self-destructive. <br /><br />You might be interested in my article on Nietzsche, by the way (the first link below).<br /><br />http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.com/2018/07/nietzsches-godless-prophecies.html<br /><br />http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2014/05/domestication-and-modern-personhood.html<br /><br />http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2014/04/sociopathic-power-elites-beta-herds-and.html<br /><br />http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2015/09/avatars-of-monstrous-nature-and.html<br /><br />http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2018/04/do-we-really-want-to-be-free.html<br /><br />http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.com/2014/06/subhumans-outsiders-and-glimpses-of.html<br /><br />http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2012/05/revenge-of-omega-men.html<br />Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-3958860443846948372019-08-16T21:52:46.689-04:002019-08-16T21:52:46.689-04:00Very good article, Ben!
What's your take on t...Very good article, Ben!<br /><br />What's your take on the master/slave morality dualism present in the "Genealogy of morality" by Nietzsche? Can a master morality (in the nietzschean sense) be even possible in a modern, secular, mass society?<br />Some of the characteristics of Evola's misguided elitism made me think of the type of aristocracy Nietzsche described in works such as the "Genealogy..." or "The Greek State", minus the metaphysical gibberish. <br /><br />http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/dv212/greekstate.pdf<br />Kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03945767177246438466noreply@blogger.com