Yorgos's Updates

""It seems that nothing exists for modern men beyond what can be seen and touched; or at least, even if they admit theoretically that something more may exist, they immediately declare it not merely unknown, but unknowable, which absolves them from having to think about it. "

The crisis of the modern world is that progress will eventually destroy us, more than likely by the hands of the very ideal itself. The birth pangs of this destruction were already felt in Guenon's time, and in our time they're felt even more so. Guenon claims that we are nearing the end of the Kali Yuga (the Hindu version of the apocalypse.) Despite this gloomy outlook, he offers a way out; Reform.

"...The west really is in great need of defense, but only against itself and its own tendencies, which, if they are pushed to their conclusion, will lead inevitably to its ruin and destruction; it is therefore 'reform' of the west that is called for,"

Guenon's idea of reform though is a sort of esoteric and universalist idea of tradition that he sees as alive in the East and dead in the West. This is where I completely disagree with his outlook. I don't see the east as being the answer or this convoluted gnostic perspective of tradition that both Guenon and Evola adhere to. I sympathize with his hope later in the book that Catholicism could potentially bring back a sacred order, but as he admits these modern ideas have poisoned the minds of most Christians in both the Catholic church and in Protestantism.

Despite his faults, Guenon is abundant in insight. For example, his tying together of progress to evolutionism and naturalism. That in a naturalistic worldview of constant 'becoming' there is no room for the metaphysical, or what lies outside of the naturalistic world as stable and constant eternal principles. Which added some interesting nuance to my understanding of absolute truth compared to relativism. Absolute truth being the constant and eternal principles that never change, and relativism only that which is constantly changing in a purely material world of 'becoming'.

Guenon seems to be telling us through different iterations and examples about the ways the progressive perspective has flipped everything upside down on its head.

"Nothing and nobody is any longer in the right place; men no longer recognize any effective authority in the spiritual order or any legitimate power in the temporal; the 'profane' presume to discuss what is sacred, and to contest its character and even its existence; the inferior judges the superior, ignorance sets bounds to wisdom, error prevails over truth, the human is substituted for the Divine, earth has priority over heaven"

In the traditional sciences before, our understanding stood on the foundation of metaphysical principles, but we have removed those and focused specifically on the material side of things. We have redirected our focus to the detailed accumulation of knowledge now, and for what reason? To better understand higher truths as was previously the case? Sadly no. Only to employ our knowledge into the development of material things that make life more convenient. And to what does all of this scientific progress contribute to?

"a change that is the direct opposite of 'progress', amounting indeed to a veritable regression of intelligence."

Guenon's pinpointing of the individualistic (humanist) perspective as the determining cause of the present decline of the west is another insightful perspective. Man strives in all that he does whether art, science, or philosophy to be the first. A creator of an original idea, thus portraying to the world his authenticity as a true individual. Guenon explains how this is but a meaningless fantasy in an individualistic world. That truth and true ideas belong to all men. That truth is not the product of the human mind, but exists independently of us as an eternal principle.

Like many who critique modernism Guenon sees the reformation as a pivotal point in the deviation of the west toward the individualist perspective. Consider this quote,

"Individualism necessarily implies the refusal to accept any authority higher than the individual, as well as any means of knowledge higher that individual reason."

The implications of this are apparent in the reformation, as the reformers questioned the authority of the catholic church and sought to bring biblical interpretation down to the level of each individual through 'sola scriptura'. I would make the argument though that they were retrieving a previous biblical culture in the early church and placing the authority in the written word of God, not that of a human institute or that of the individual. Even so, I think it is obvious that it has a direct corollary to the modern individualist world. This can be seen in modern Protestantism, where Christian belief has split into thousands of individualistic denominations where you can choose whichever one fits you personally, and heck if you'd prefer a slightly different denomination, create your own!

His critiques on religion in the modern world were piercingly accurate for the majority of the west,

"The state of mind we are referring to is primarily one that consists, so to speak, in 'minimizing' religion, in treating it as something to be kept on one side and relegated to as limited and narrow field as possible so that it remains completely fenced off, with no real influence on the rest of existence."

This is tremendously accurate when considering the modern Christianity of our world today where the Christians are generally indistinguishable from the secularists.

His critiques on equality also shine light into our society. Guenon claims that equality is a "pseudo-principle" because it does not actually exist. That it is a logical fallacy to believe that two beings can be at the same time completely distinct from each other yet completely alike in every way. That fitting all of humanity into a precise uniformity is an impossible task. Do all people learn the same things the same way that warrants a uniform education? Are all people capable of understanding the same things? Even if my resume is the same as another person in every respect are we both equally qualified for the job?

"...it must be noticed that not merely does a man, in the present state of affairs, fulfill his proper function only in exceptional cases and as though by accident... but it also happens that the same man is called upon to fulfill successively completely different functions, as though he could change his aptitudes at will."

He also critiques democracy and articulates that the greatest error in democracy is simply this: that a man cannot be ruler and ruled at the same time. The vilest trick that is played on a democratic society is that it is being constantly told that the individual has the freedom and the power to choose when truly it is the work of others in power guiding society to choose what it has determined for them to choose. Public opinion is very easily guided and modified to whichever end the beneficiary desires, and the majority leading the society is always incompetent to choose based off of a greater knowledge. They believe whatever the societal hive-mind reverberates to them and vote thus.

"The opinion of the majority cannot be anything but an expression of incompetence, whether this be due to lack of intelligence or to ignorance pure and simple; certain observations of 'mass psychology' might be quoted here, in particular the widely known fact that the aggregate of mental reactions aroused among the component individuals of a crowd crystalizes into a sort of general psychosis whose level is not merely not that of average, but actually of the lowest elements present."

As I just read Dostoevsky's Demons this month, I still have this vivid image from the book of the masses being like the swine that Jesus casts the demons into and they destroy themselves by drowning in the sea. Without expounding too much, Dostoevsky shows through this relevant classic that Ideas are like demons in the masses causing a frightening mass psychosis, and they are planted there by someone, we can be sure of that.

The idea of the elite is something that democracy despises. This is why it hates authority. Democracy has power in numbers, and the Aristocracy has power in its few intellectually superior Elites. The democracy ultimately sacrifices the few to favor the many, and likewise sacrifices quality for quantity.

Here are a number of quotes from Guenon on both egalitarianism and democracy:

"...also the envy and even hatred felt toward those who possess wealth by those who do not; how could men to whom egalitarian theories have been preached fail to revolt when they see all around them inequality in the most material order of things, the order to which they are bound to be the most sensitive?"

"The very foundation of the democratic idea is the supposition that one individual is as good as another, simply because they are equal numerically and in spite of the fact that can never be equal in any other way."

"...equality is in fact impossible, and since despite all efforts toward leveling, the differences between one man and another cannot in practice be entirely suppressed..."

"...the social distinction that counts most in the present state of things is that based on wealth, that is to say on purely outward superiority..."

Where I most agree with Guenon is in his view that progress and modernity have destroyed our spirituality and made us rely too heavily on the material things of this earth. That it has robbed man of any transcendental substance and replaced it with simple amenities and conveniences.

Guenon argues that our pursuit of science is simple pragmatism that justifies industry. That we pursue with all our strength the development of new technologies to dominate the material world and bend it to our will, the result of which is sickly ironic in that we have done nothing but enslave ourselves to materialism in this pursuit. Our jobs for the sake of this behemoth progress are menial and impersonal and we perform repetitive tasks like machines. The object of our progress is to merely produce as much as we possibly can, quality be damned.

"The modern West cannot tolerate that men should prefer to work less and be content to live on little"

Everything is controlled by finance; it is the only distinguishing differentiator between people that still exists in our egalitarian society. It drives every aspect of society from our politics to our occupations and fears, to our daily grind at work.

We are being led by democracy through materialist propaganda towards the ever-allusive idea of progress, and as we continue on, driven by more and more accumulation, things speed up. We discover new things, we have more technological breakthroughs, we invent new things that help us accumulate faster and the combination of these findings begin to compound and catapult us into more and more progress that is seemingly never ending, but as we move faster and faster into the future, we are not taking the time to consider anything anymore. How do these technologies effect our lives and the future of humanity? The goal is purely mathematical and materialistic it has no time for reflection. Its goal is to overindulge on information and bring forth a technological future that no man could ever have dreamed of for the sake of more and more accumulation of material things, and the question we ultimately have to ask ourselves is, ‘is it worth it?�� All of this progress. The loss of our spirituality, the loss of our intellect, the loss of the ability to contemplate and reflect, to slow down and to give our whole lives to something greater, to recognize transcendent and sublime beauty. Progress has obviously had many advantages don’t get me wrong, but we have to ask ourselves if what we are sacrificing for those things is ultimately worth it. We have to wonder at the fact that we have now in our time conveniences and luxuries that mankind in no other age could have ever imagined that have been made available to everyone worldwide, yet we are more unhappy than ever. The more that we accumulate, the more that we feel we are lacking. The modern world has created for us a sea of unnecessary needs that when satiated give us temporary and fleeting bouts of "happiness", even sex has been brought down to this level where it lacks any higher principle and is merely another material industry, so that sexual desires like any other desire can be satiated with the click of a button on the computer. We work to obtain money because it is through this means that we obtain our material satisfactions, and the more that we accumulate the more that we want and the more that we are told that we need. This monstrous cycle is absorbing us entirely manufacturing our never-ending pursuit of happiness in this life through material means that never actually satiate the true longing of our souls for the eternal."