Four of this blog's eight posts for 2020 so far have been obituaries. Although this feels like the passing of a generation, the four deaths were in fact of people from three different generations: Michel Chodkiewicz (1929-2020) was from the generation that grew up immediately after the Second World War, Eduard Limonov (1943-2020) was of the generation that made the 1960s, and James Cutsinger (1953-2020) and Yahya Bonnaud (1957-2019) were of the following generation.
What is striking, however, is that three of these four were interesting primarily in religion, while today's leading Traditionalists often seem to be interested primary in politics, not religion. So something is indeed changing.
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1 comment:
It's strange that you say the traditionalists are becoming more political. According to Guenon, in his book, Reign of Quantity and the signs of the Times, this resort to a sort of conservative political traditionalism, is merely a bump on the road to complete dissolution, here is what he states concerning this:
"...Nevertheless, however powerful and clever the suggestion may be, a moment may always come when the resulting state of disorder and disequilibrium becomes so apparent that some cannot fail to become aware of it, and then there is a risk of a 'reaction' that might compromise the desired result..."
[Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, page 209]
So basically, people are panicking at the rapid changes and as a consequence of this panic, they adopt the attitude of a lesser-degenerated era, e.g. from the perspective of 2020, 1950 was a "traditional" period. Resorting to less degenerated-eras however won't change anything, since these people always fail to take recourse to legitimate, living connections to real spiritual influences, in the Guenonian sense:
"
...
when these people try to 'react' in one way or another, the best means for making their desire for 'reaction' ineffective is surely to direct it toward one of the earlier and less 'advanced' stages of the same deviation, some stage in which disorder had not yet become so apparent, and was as it were presented under an outward aspect more acceptable to anyone not yet completely blinded by certain suggestions.
...
"
[Ibid, page 213]
So that's what we're probably witnessing, with people like Steve Bannon, this whole resurgence in conservatism worldwide, brexit etc. However, eventually, the path towards total dissolution will reemerge stronger than before, before our cycle comes to a close, at least, according to Guenon's views:
"
...
In short, the 'traditionalist' is and can be no more than a mere 'seeker', and that is why he is always in danger of going astray, not being in possession of the principles that alone could provide him with infallible guidance; and his danger is all the greater because he will find in his path, like so many ambushes, all the false ideas set on foot by the power of illusion
...
"
[Ibid, page 210]
All these extracts are from the chapter: "Tradition and traditionalism", in the aforementioned book.
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