The Metaphysics of War

METAPHYSICS OF WAR

METAPHYSICS

of WAR

BATTLE, VICTORY & DEATH in the WORLD of TRADITION
by

JULIUS EVOLA

ARKTOS MMXI

Contents
Introduction

7

1. The Forms of Warlike Heroism
Third English edition publi hed in 2011 by Arktos Media Ltd. First edition published in 2007 by Integral Tradition Publishing.

21 28 35 .41 .47 54 59 66 76 86 95

2. The Sacraliry of War 3. The Meaning of the Crusades 4. The Greater War and the Lesser War. 5. Th Metaphysics of War 6. 'Army' as Vision of the World 7. Race and War. 8. Two Heroisms 9. Race and War: The Aryan Conception of Combat 10. oul and Race of War

Second edition published in 2008 by Integral Tradition Publishing. © 2011 Arktos Media Ltd. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised i? any form or ~y any means (whether electronic or mechanical), in~ludmg photoc~pymg, recording or by any information storage and retneval sy tem, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in the United Kingdom
ISS

978-1-907166-36-5 (HPS);

SIC classification: Social & political philosophy Philosophy of religion (HRAS) Editor: John B. Morgan Cover Design: Andreas Nilsson Layout: Daniel Friberg

1 I. The Aryan Doctrine of Combat and Victory

Theory of warfare and military science OWA);

12. The Meaning of the Warrior Element for the New Europe 110
I i. I -r. I
1,

Varieties of Heroism 'Ihe Roman Conception of Victory l.ib rations
I he
4 .•••••••..••

118 125 132 135

III

ecline of Heroism

ARKTOS MEDIA LTD. www.arktos.com

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140

Introduction
~ John B. Morgan IV he Julius vola to be found in this volume is one who has, thu far, remain d largely unknown to nglish-sp aking readers, apart from how he has been described second-hand by other writers - namely, the political Julius vola. With the xception of Men Among the Ruins, which defines vola's post-war p litical attitude, a well as the essays made available on-line and in print from the Jvo/a as He Is Web site, all of Evola's works which have been translated into nglish prior to the present volume have been his works on esotericism, and this is the side of his work with which nglish-language readers are most familiar. The essays contained in this book were writt n during the period of vola's engagement with both Italian Fascism and German ational Socialism, and, whil Evola regarded these writings as being only a single a pect - and by no means an asp ct of primary importance of his work, it is for these writings that he is mo t often called to account (and nearly always harshly condemned) in the court of the academicians and professional historians. For this reason "lone, then, it is of great value that these ~says are being made .ivailable so that nglish-speaking readers can now form their •iwn pinion of vola's work in this area. And for those who are lilt 'rested in vola a a teacher, then the e essays will serve to •ipcn up an area of his work that his hitherto remained largely

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7

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111.Itl \~. dIll,

METAPHY

ICS OF WAR

EDITOR'S FOREWORD

9

a gf'<Lt deal of practical advic h u 1I1( II,ulllulIl:dl, 11111\ ],] siudcn . II I~ I III pI 11 111111 rem .ml 'I' \ hile reading these essays, howII) l" II, Illal I';, ola lums .lf made n distinction between the various al'l-a~ of culture with \ hich he chose to engag - areas which have b . .n artif ially divided from each other by the philosophy of mod rnity, which treats the entire body of universal knowl dge as a creature to be dissected and examined one organ at a time, beneath a microscope, and thus each part of the creature's body i only understood as a thing in itself, without any understanding of how it relates to the whole. Evola's approach to knowledge was traditional, and therefore it was int grated in nature. For him, there was always only one ubject: Tradition, which, as his friend. Rene Guenon had first defined it, i the timeless and unchanging esoteric core which lies at the heart of all genuine spiritual paths. 'Traditionalism', a term which Evola himself never used refers to the knowledge and techniques derived from sacred texts that the individual can us to orient himself in rder to know Tradition and in knowing it, thereby live all aspects of his life in accordance with it. Politics was only of interest to vola in terms of how the pursuit of certain political goal could be of benefit toward the spiritual advancement of a traditionally-minded individual, and also in terms of how the distasteful business of politics might be able to bring modern societies closer into line with th values and structures to be found within the teachings of traditional thought. During the 1930s, two political phenomena seemed to bear some hopeful possibilities for him in terms of how they might be utili ed as ehicles for the restoration of something at least approximating a traditional society: Italian Fascism and German National ociali m (Nazism). At no point, however, wa vola a starry-eyed, fanatical revolutionary, filled with idealistic enthusiasm for the cause. Indeed, in 1930 he wrote about Fascism, 'To the extent to which ascism embrace and defend [traditional] ideals, we shall call oursel e Fascists. And this is all.' I Reflecting on his political engagements later in life, he furth r wrote:
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It

Philosophy, art, politics, science, even religion" were here stripped of any right and possibility to exist merely in themselves, and to be of any relevance outside a higher framework, This higher framework coincided with the very idea of Tradition ... [My goal was] "to defend ideals unaffected by any political regime - be it Fascist, Communist, anarchist or democratic. hese ideals transcend the political pherc; yet, when translated on the political level, they necessarily lead to qualitative diff rences - which is to say: to hierarchy, authority and imperium in the broader s nse of the word" as opposed to "all forms of democratic and egalitarian turrnoil.i Taking all of vola's comments into account, b th before and after the war, he n ver considered himself to be very much of a Fascist. Ie understood from the beginning that both ascism and ational ocialism were thoroughly modern in their conception. In 1925, 'vola had already written that Italian ascism lacked a 'cultural and spiritual root', which it had only tried to develop after gaining power, 'just as a newly rich man later tries to buy himself an education and a noble title? He attacked the notions of patriotism that -a cism tried to inculcate into Italian society a mere 'scntimentality'. He also condemned the vi lence which Mussolini wa using against his political opponents. He labelled the ~ascist revolution as an 'ironic revolution'," which left far too much of the pre-existing political order untouched (a s ntiment apparently shared by Hitler, who reputedly referred to Italian Fasism with its odd blending of the dictatorial position of 'II Duce' with the Fascist Grand Council and th traditional monarchy, as a 'half-job'). In later years he was to observe that, 'In strictly cultural terms, however, the Fascist "revolution" wis simply a joke." Both
)
I

Ibid., p. 106. Quoted in H. T. Hansen's Introduction to Julius Evola, Men Among the Ruins (Rochester: Inner Traditions, 2002), p, 36. (bid.• p. 36. "file Path of Cinnabar, p. 114.

{ I Quoted by Evola himself in The Path of Cinnobar (London: Arktos, 2009), p. 106. '.

10

M TAPHYSICS OF WAR

EDITOR'S FOREWORD

11

Fascism and ational Socialism relied n the masses for their upp rt, which set them apart from the rule by aristocracy of the traditi nal world, and ational Socialism was obsessed by a race theory deriv d from m d rn, scientific concept of evolution and bioI gy which were thoroughly anti-traditional. iven so many problems with Fascism and azism from a traditional per pective, then why did -<volaev r show any interest in them at all? The answer lies in the spirit of the times. By the 1930s, it was clear that the democratic nations of Western Europe and the United tates, the Communist oviet nion, and the fascistic countries were all on a collision course with each other. And, despite their many flaws, the fascist movements, unlike democratic and Communist societie , were at least attempting t restore something akin to the traditi nal, hierarchical order within the cial structure of the m dern world - an order which had gone unquestioned throughout the histories of all civilisations for thousands of years, prior to the onset of modernity. While Fasci m and ational ociali m were thoroughly m dernist in their conception, Evola belie ed that, given time, they could p tentially be used as a gateway to re-establish an rder in -< urope based n genuinely traditional values, and that they might even eventually give ris to genuinely traditional social forms which would supercede th m. It is in this context that these essay - some of which contain direct references to Fascism, being addres ed to either Italian or German readership a they originally were - hould be underst ad. vola's political ideal wa always the Roman Empire. It is invoked repeatedly throughout these essays. The Fascists spoke frequently about ancient Rome, just as the Nazis constantly invoked the myth of an idealised ordic past. Their understanding of the e ancient wonders, however, was of an extremely superficial ort, which in practice didn't extend beyond constructing new building in the style of the ancient world, and engendering arti tic styles that were a mere imitation of the la ical era. ola wanted to bring about change on a much deeper level. He didn't ju t want a few cosmetic chang s to be made - he want d

modern-day Italians to actually re ume thinking and behaving as their ancient ancestors had done. In short, he wanted the italians to become like the ancient Romans - in thought, word and deed. This is why, for him, Fascism fell far hort of his hopes for it - in hi writings, he ometim s referred to what he wanted as 'super-fa cism'. By using this term, he did not mean that he wished for more of what Fascism was already offering. Rather, he wa calling for a transcendence of -a cism. He wanted for the Fasci t revolution t tunnel inward, into the very soul of each individual Italian, and awaken the long-buried racial memory of their illustrious Imperial ancestors. When Italy disappointed him, he transferred his hopes to the errnans, particularly in the form of the SdJlltZJtaJ!ei (S.S.), which, with Heinrich Himmler' efforts to fashion it into something akin to a Medieval knightly order, seemed to hold a spark of the ancient Teutonic Knights within them. Evola was even invited to deliver a series f lectures to representatives of the .. leadership in 1938. However, the .S. was fixated upon the azis' purely biological definitions of racial purity and their belief in the supremacy of the ordic pe ples, and as such they were unimpressed by the ideas of the 'Latin' I ~vola, who proposed the idea that spirit and character were as Important to one's racial qualifications as ancestry and blood. lie was politely sent away.As such, vola's hop to influence the pulitical forces of the period in such a way as to implem nt his plnn for the spiritual and cultural regeneration of Europe was ru:v .r to be realised. The failure of vola's efforts, however, hould in no way be IIl1d '(stood as reducing the relevancy of the essays in this volum 1'1 mere relics of purely historical interest. Evola' writing was .1 \ ,I YS directed at the individual, and he believed that g nuine 1•• IIlg-e had to begin at that level before any•• eaningful political m III .l icial change could follow suit. Furthermore, the root of all "I I ',vola's thinking lay in the unchanging world of Tradition. I III 1 cforc, the attitudes and orientations which he encouraged his I. "It IS to adopt as a way of preparing for the worldwide struggl I I" Iirn are just as relevant to a traditionally-minded individual
I

M TAPHYSICS OF WAR

EDITOR'S FOREWORD

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he struggle and conflicts of our " II' I I II. 1111 1 II H' , ,11 'polid al or of an entir ly different sort. II" .1,11111111111'. III hcrorsm and the qualities of the warrior that I "I, \ I (I til'S II('rI.:1I1 arc urely timeless and universal. Indeed, III'V,II11'lll'S if II roisrn', ne can easily see, in the phenomenon «II II) la '$ Muslim 'suicide bombers', a supra-personal heroism of alp id ntical to that of the Japanese kamtkaze pilot that Evola d crib . While it would not be correct to label today's Islamist radicals as 'traditionalists', since their particular interpretation of Islam has modernist roots in the Nineteenth-century Salaf school, we can still see some elements of a traditional conception of the warrior in their actions. or instance, Evola describes at great length the concept of Jihad, which, as he explains, involves an inner struggle again t one's own weaknesses as well as th struggle against on's external enemies - those whose characteristics resemble those aspects of himself that the warrior is attempting to purge. Regrettably, this dual concept of jthad as consisting of an inward as well as an outward form of struggle has been rejected by today's Islamist radicals, who believe that the war against the infidels should take precedence over all other considerations. Fortunately, however, the dual understanding of jihad is still to be found among the Islamic mystics: the Sufis, wh may very well be the last guardians of a traditional Islam in the modern world. Despite these differences, however, an attack carried out by an Islamist 'suicide bomber' still retains the essential idea of selfsacrifice, and yearning for transcendence, that is to be found in the traditional warrior concept. In 'Varieties of Heroism', vola explains why those Japanese kamtkaze pilots who died while crashing their planes into merican ships should not be regarded as suicides, since the pilots carried out the e attacks with the belief that th y were merely giving up this life in favour of a more transcendent and supra-personal existence. iven that uslim 'suicide bombers' similarly believe that they are destined for Paradise as a result of their actions, the bjection to such attacks on the basis of the Qur'al1's pr hibiti n against suicide is, therefore, ludicrous. uch was, indeed, the motivation behind the famed
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Ismaili Assassins of Alamut who terroris d the Islamic world , a well as the armies of the European Crusaders, for centurie . The Assassins carried out carefully-planned attacks on individual enemie without regard for the safety of the assassin, and, as such, the technique of the 'suicide attack' was their hallmark. Th As assins were always assured, however, that ev n if they w re to die during the cour e of their attack, they would be rescued by angel, and sent to dwell in Paradise forever. Although the Assassins, who wer a small offshoot of Shi'i m, are regarded as heretics by other Muslims, we can see the roots (or, perhaps, only a parallel) of today's 'suicide bombers' in their practices which is entirely consist nt with vola's description of the supra-personal mode of death in combat. It is important for me to clarify that I am referring only to those attacks carri d out against military or political target. The mass-casualty attack on civilians which have become an alltoo-common occurrence in Iraq and el ewhere in the Islamic world in recent years, are alien to the provisions of war laid out in traditional Islam, and can be justified only within the modern innovative doctrines of tokjir - in which one can declare other Muslims to be apostates - or johil&Jah - which regards fellow Muslims as living in a state of pagan ignorance. It is likewise forbidden in the Qllr'an to attack the civilian population even of on's enemy, something which the Islamists have had to p rform theological acrobatics to circumvent in order to ju tify their bloody attacks in the West. Certainly, such murderous behaviour, which IS usually perpetrated out of desperation by individuals ch en (rom the lowest rungs of society, is not something which vola would have defined as traditional or seen as desirable , even in opposition to societies he found detestable. v la' ideal wa that of the ksbatnyo describ d by Lord Krishna in th Bhagavad(,'ila, which has been explained by A. C. Bhaktivedanta warni l'rabhupada as follows: One who gi es protection from harm i called kJbafr!ya .... The kshatrfyas are pecially trained for challenging and killing

METAPHYSICS OF WAR

EDITOR'S FOREWORD

sometimes a nece sary factor. ... Itl th ' I' ·ltgiolls law bo k it i rated: 'In the battlefield, .1 I IIlg or k..r/JClIr!ytI, while fighting another king envious of hill , IS eligible for achieving the heavenly plan ts after death as the brahmanas also attain the heavenly planet by sacrificing animals in the sacrificial fire.' Therefore, killing on the battlef Id on religiou principles and killing animals in the sacrificial fire are not at all con idered to be acts of viol nee, because everyone is benefited by the religious principles involved. 6
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15

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kshatr!Ja, therefore, is not an ordinary man but rather a man of the highe t ari tocratic attitude and behavior. He does not kill out of a desire to fulfil some selfish desire or to bring about some temporary political gain. Rather, a kshatr!Ja fights because he knows that it is the reason for his existence, his dharma. He fights to defend the principles of his religion and his community, knowing that if he carri s Out his duty, regardless of victory or defeat or ven his own personal safety, he is destin d to attain the highest spiritual platform. But, unfortunately, few genuine kshatnjas are to be found in the degenerate Kali- Yuga in which we are now living. While Evola looked to the past for his under tanding of the genuine warrior, Evola wa far ahead of his time in his understanding of politics, a were all of the 'Conservative Revolutionaries' in urope during the period between the wars who sought a form of politics beyond the banal squabble among parties that have d minated in recent centuries. n our time, however, we find that the ideas first outlined by vola and others are finding new appeal among those seeking an alternative to the seemingly unstoppable, global spread of democratic capitalism. As more people grow tired of the bland multicultural (or, more properly, anti-cultural) consumer society that is bing offered as a vision of utopia, it seems likely that vola's writings will only continue to increase
6 A. C. Bhaktiv danta Swami Prabhupada, Bhagavad-Gita as It Is (Mumbai: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. 2008), Chapter 2, Text 31, p. 105.

in rel vance as the cracks of social crisi continue to deepen. In particular, 'The Meaning of the Warrior Element for the New Europe' contains a number of insights which are just as relevant today as they wer in 1941. In this essay, vola di cusses the First World War in the context of 'democratic imperialism', and the attempt by the Allies t put to an end the last vestige f the traditional way of life that were embodied in the Central Powers. We see the exact same phenomenon at work today in the efforts of the United States to spread 'freedom' through military action in the Middle ast and elsewhere, which i similarly designed to put an end to resistance in the last ar as of the world which are still actively opposing the culture of materialism with traditional value. s such, we are now witnessing anoth r case of 'democratic imperialism' by which the present-day dem cratic powers, having already succeeded in urope, are attempting to destroy the last vestiges (and only a vestige, given how profoundly impacted by modernity the entire world has been over the last century) of the traditional conception of order. These forces will not be d feared through military means, however, but only by tho e who choose to embody the ideal of the warrior inwardly as well as outwardly, the world of Tradition being a realm which no amount of force or wealth can subdue. This introduction will not contain a biographical summary of Hvola's life, as that has already been done extensively by several writers elsewhere in the English language (most notabl , particularly in terms of his political attitudes, is Dr. . T. Han en's Introduction to Men Among the llilins), as well as in Evola's autobiography, The Path of Cinnabar. However, given that these e says arc concerned primarily with war, it is worth mentioning that I': ola did not understand war in a purely theoretical s rise. Evola served as an artillery officer in the Italian army during the First World War, and he would have served again in the Second World \: ar had not the con trover ial nature of his position in Fascist Italy interv ned to prevent him from doing o. vola practiced \\ hat he wrote. This is no more evident than in his essay 'Race .uu] War', a passage from which seems like a premonition of

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the fate that was to befall him in 1945, when he was injured and paralysed for life from the wai t down as the result of an air raid while he was working in Vienna. In it, vola mentions a German article about bombing raids by aircraft, 'in which the test of angfroid, the inuncdiate, lucid reaction of the instinct of direction in opposition to brutal or confused impulse, cannot but result in a decisive di crimination of those who have the greatest probability of escaping and surviving from those who d not'. Here we may, indeed, be catching a glimpse of the thinking behind his refusal to retreat to shelter during air raids, instead choosing to walk the treets as a t st of hi wn fate. Lastly, a word about where these e says originally appeared. In 1930, vola established a bi-weekly journal of his own, La Torre, which was to f cus on the critique of Fascism from a traditionalist perspective written by vola as well as other writers. His attacks on the failures of Fa cism angered many in the Fascist establi hme nt, however, and the authorities forced a halt to the publication of La Torre after only five i u. ola therefore realised that, if he wanted to continue to attempt to reach an audience of those who might be sympathetic to his message of reform, he would need to find well-conn ct d ascist allies who would be willing to publish his writings, and he succeeded. This is the period to which nearly all of the essay in thi book belong. Evola found an important ally in iovanni Preziosi, who was the editor of the magazine, La Vita Italiana (see 'Varieties of Heroism'). Preziosi's publication was also sometimes critical of the Fascist regime, but Preziosi himself had earned Mussolini' trust and respect, and was thus allowed more freedom of content than most others. (Acc rding to vola it was also rum ur d that Preziosi possessed an archi e of materials which, if made public, would embarrass many of the -<ascistleaders.)? Preziosi had been an admirer of Evola's La Torre, and he was also a friend of Artur Reghini, the great Italian e ot ricist who had been vola's mentor and collaborat r wh n he first began studying spirituality and mysticism. He agreed to begin publishing vola's writings in his own j urnal,
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a

and starting in 1936 he also funded many of vola's trips to ther countries, which he was making in an effort to build a network of contacts from among various' onservative Revolutionary' organi ations all over Europe, in keeping with his hopes at the time of preparing a European - rath r than a narrowly Italian elite which might one day implement his' uper-Fascisr' (or, as he himself put it, 'Ghibellin ') ideals for the entire Continent. Evola hims If wrote 'My idea was that of coordinating the various elements which to some extent, in Europe, embodied traditionalist thought from a political and cultural perspective." This desire is quite evident within the page of this book, as -<volaconstantly refers to Aryan civili ation, and cites refer nces from the whole ( f European culture and history, rath r than focusing exclusively on the Italian tradition, as most ascist writer , with their more onvcntional sense of nati nalisrn, were doing. Prezio i also introduced Evola t Roberto arinacci. Farinacci was a Fascist who had a personal relation hip with Mussolini, and he was the chief editor of If Regime FaJl1Jla (see th first six essay as well as 'The Roman C nception f Victory'), a journal \ hich was an fficial publication of the Fascist Party. Farinacci \ ;1$ indifferent to vola's past troubles with the regime, and he ".1l1ghtto elevate the cultural aspirations of the Fascist revolution. I() rhi end, he granted Evola a page of hi journal every other \ cck, in which he was giv n carte blat/che to write on whate er -ubjcct he wished. his page, which began to appear in 1933, wa ( uutlcd 'Diorama ilosofico' (philosophical Diorama), and it was .uhtidcd 'Problems of the pirit in Fasci t thies'. arinacci used IllS influ nee to deflect any attempt to rebuke Evola for writing d Ulut L'ascism from a critical perspective. 0 it was that vola was I" '11 an unassailable position from which to voice his observaIlnllS. This situation was to continue for a full decade, until 1943. I I ('tlllcntly, vola wrote the contents of the 'Diorama' himself, I'lit II ' also used it as a forum to highlight like-minded thinkers, of II II ;1 literary as well as a political inclination, whom he wished ." 111 ornote. hus, by xamining the history of Evola's effort to
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The Path a/Cinnabar, p. 110.

11/1' I'llth of Cinnabar,

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p,d.1I I, 1"1111"ll\ 11111 Ii IC' h tllIllng the Fasci t era, we can i IIII 11111 1111.111"1111'ldl II ollwir'lationshiptoFascismingenI . • I ,I 111111'111 II \\Ily It ann t be said with complete accuracy d,,, I \ ilL. \\"'1('1111 a l-as ist r an anti-Fascist. The most truthful -I' 11\\ IllS Iha I I ~vola saw in Fascism a possibility for something b 'II 'I, I IIt t hat this possibility was one that remained unrealised. l-or those newcomer to "'vola who are seeking to understand the totality of his thought, these essays are not the ideal place to start. he foundation of all of his work is the book which was published shortly before the essays in this volume were written: RevoltAgainst theModern Wodd. This book lays out the metaphysical basis for all of his life's work, and one should familiarise himself with it beforefeading any of Evola's other writings. It should also be made clear that these ssay were by no means vola's la t word on the subject of politics. Readers interested in where Evola's political thought ended up in the post-war years should consult his book Men Among the Rttins, in which he outlines his under tanding of the concept of apoliteia, or the 'apolitical stance' which he felt was a necessary condition for those of a traditional inclination to adopt in the age of Kali-Yuga - the la t, and most degenerate age within the cycle of ages a understood by in the edic tradition, and in which we are currently living. .Apoliteia hould not be confused with apathy or lack of engagement, however - it is, insn ad, a special form of engagement with political affairs that does not concern itself with the specific goals of politics, but rather with the impact of such engagement on the individual. This is not the place for an examination of this idea, however, as the essay in this book were written by a younger ola, who felt that there was still a chance of restoring something of the traditional social order via the use of profane politics. Still, it is worth noting that in the very last e say in this volume, 'The Decline of Heroism', which was written not long before Men Among the futins, we can see something of the state of vola's mind immediately after the war. Pessimism was something always alien to vola's conception of life, but in this essay we can see vola surveying the political forces at w rk in 1950 and r alising that none of them can

possibly hold any interest for those of a traditional nature. With the destruction of the hierarchical and heroic vision of Fascism , nothing was left t choose from on the political stage but the two competing ideologies of egalitarianism: democratic capitalism and Communism, both of which sought to dehumanise the individual. Moreover, vola 0bserves that war in the technological age has been reduced to the combat between machinery, and, as such, the opportunities for heroic transcendence offered by war in earlier times are no longer available. Therefore, the struggle for an individual seeking to e perience heroism will not be one of politics, or even of combat n the battlefield, but rather, it will consist of the heroic individual in conflict with the phenomenon of 'total war' itself, in which the idea of humanity faces possible annihilation. This is, indeed, the predicament in which we have all found ourselves since 1945, the year when humanity not only harnessed the ability to extinguish itself, but also began to face the pro pect of becoming lost within ever-multiplying machinery of our own cr ation. With no significant political forces opposing the conversion of our world into a uni ersal marketplace, the conflict of our time is the struggle to retain one's humanity in an increasingly artificial world. That is the only battle that r rains any g nuine significance from a traditional perspective. Most of the footn re to the texts were added by myself. A small number of footnote added by ... ola himself were included v with some of the essays and have been so indicated.

The Forms of Warlike Heroism'
he fundamental principle underlying all justifications of war, from the point of view of human personality, is 'heroism'. War, it is said, offers man the opportunity to awaken the hero who sic ps within him. War breaks the routine of comfortable life; by means of its severe ordeals, it offers a transfiguring knowledge of hfc, life according to death. The moment the individual succeeds 111 living as a h ro, even if it is the final moment of his earthly life, weighs infinitely more on the scale of value than a protracted I istcnce spent consuming monotonously am ng the trivialities r] cities. From a spiritual point of view, these possibilities make lip for the negative and destructive tendencies of war, which are u u: sid dlyand tendentiously highlighted by pacifist materialism. \ .11 make one realise the relativity of human life and therefore loll the law of a 'more-than-life', and thus war has always an 11111 materialist value, a spiritual value. ~\I(:h considerations have indisputable merit and cut off the I 1lIIII'IIng of humanitarianism, sentimental grizzling, the proIlf th champions of the 'immortal principles', and f the 11111 ru.uional' of the heroes of the pen. everthele s, it must be 11Wlt-dg I I 1I d that, in rder to define fully the conditions under 111 It I he spiritual aspect of war actually becom s apparent, it III I C' sary to examine the matter further, and to outline a sort
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I '11111I,lIly 111011 1111,1

published on 25 May 1935 as 'Sulle forme delleroismo mcnsilc, II Regime Fasclsta.

guerriero'

in

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ME APHYSICS OF WAR lu-ru nn '11010 t '01 \ arrior experience', distinguishing variCl(l:;Iorrns and arranging them hierarchically so as to highlight I It ' a:;p 'CI whi h must be regarded as paramount for the heroic c'l n nc .
01 "

THE FORMS OF WARLIKE HEROISM

23

T arrive at this re ulr, it is necessary to recall a doctrine with which the regular r aders of 'Diorama' will already be familiar, \ hich - bear in mind - is not the product of some particular, per onal, philosophical construction, but rather that of actual data, positive and bjective in nature. It is the doctrine of the hierarchical quadripartition, which interprets most recent history as an involutionary fall from each of the four hierarchical degrees to the next. This quadripartition - it must be recall d - is what, in all traditional ci ilisations, gave rise to four different castes: the slaves, the bourgeois middl -class, the warrior aristocracy, and bearers of a pure, spiritual authority. Here, 'caste' does not mean - as most assume - something artificial and arbitrary, but rath r the 'place' where individuals, sharing th same nature, the same type of interest and vocation, the arne primordial qualification, gather. specific 'truth', a specific function, defines th castes, in their normal state, and not vice versa: this is not therefore a matter of privileges and ways of life being m nopolised on the basis of a social constitution mor or less artificially and unnaturally maintained. The underlying principl behind all the f, rrnative institutions in such societies, at lea t in their more authentic historical forms, is that ther does not xi tone imple, universal way of living one's life, but several di tinct spiritual ways, appropriate respectively to th warrior, the bourgeois and the slave, and that, when the social functions and distributions actually correspond to this articulation, there is - according to the classic expre sion - an order JCCIIIld1l111 CQtl1l111 et b01tl1111.2 • This order is 'hierarchical' in that it implies a natural dependence of the inferior ways of life on the superior ones - and, along with dependence, co-operari n; the task of the superior is to attain expression and personhood on a purely spiritual basis. nly uch cases, in which this straight and normal relationship
2 Latin: 'according to truth and justice: This has long been a common legal maxim.

of subordination and co-operation exists are healthy, as is made clear by the analogy of the human organism, which is unsound if, by some chance, the physical element (slaves) or the element of vegetative life (bourgeoisie) or that of th uncontrolled animal will (warriors) takes the primary and guiding place in the life of a man, and is sound only when pirit constitutes the central and ultimate point of reference for the remaining faculties - which, however, are not denied a partial autonomy, with lives and subordinate rights of their own within the unity of the whole. inc we are not talking about just any old hierarchy, but about "rue' hierarchy, which means that what is above and rules is really \ hat is uperior, it is necessary to refer to systems of civilisation III which at the centre, there is a piritual elite, and the ways of life of the slaves, the bourgeois, and the warri rs derive their ultimate meaning and supreme ju tification from reference to the principle which is the specific heritage f this spiritual elite, and manifest Ihis principle in their material activity. However, an abnormal state IS arrived at if the centre hifts, so that the fundamental point of I cfcrcnce, instead of being the spiritual principle, is that of the vrvile caste, the bourgeoisie, or the warrior. ach of these castes manifests its wn hierarchy and a certain cod of co-operation, 11111 each is more unnatural, more distorted, and more subversive 111.ln the last, until the process reaches its limit - that is, a system III \ hich the vision of life characteristic of the laves comes to (Cit tate everything and to imbue itself with all the surviving I Ie 111 ents of social wholeness. Politically,this involutionary process is quite visible in Western lu tmy, and it can be traced through into th most recent times. l.lt -s of the aristocratic and sacred type have been succeeded by llu'llarchical warrior States, to a large e. t nt already secularised, \ IlIl 11 in turn have been replaced by states rul d by capitalist ,h.,..irchics (bourgeois or merchant caste) and, finally, we hay uucsscd tendencies towards socialist, collectivist and proletarian I III~, which have culminated in Russian Bolshevi m (the ca te

I"

d

lu- slaves).

METAPHY

res

OF WAR

THE FORMS OF WARLIKE HEROISM

25

I
II
II 1
III

I " III

I

II I

11I1Ii/"

I'll ,Ill Ii d I Y transition from one type of I. Irum one fundamental meaning of life

till
J

I" , "" I'h,ll>" '
I 1I111( ••

ery concept, every principle, every

111111111
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"ldlf~ rent meaning, reflecting the world-vi w n t as teo

.dso tru f 'war', and thus we can approach the task • ," 1),,1 lIa II set ourselve ,of specifying the varieties of meaning \\ lilt II I aul and heroic death can acquire. War has a different l.uc, ill ace rdance with its being placed und r the sign of one ur aneth r of the castes. While, in the cycle of the first caste, war wa justified by spiritual motives, and showed clearly its value as a path to supernatural accomplishment and the attainment of immortality by the hero (this being the motive of the 'holy war'), in the cycle of the warrior aristocracies they fought for the honour and power of some particular prince, to whom they showed a loyalty which was willingly associated with the pleasure of war for war's sake. With the passage of power into the hands of the bourgeoisie, there was a deep transformation; at this point, the concept of the nation materialises and democratises itself and an anti-aristocratic and naturalistic conception of the homeland is formed, so that the warrior is replaced by the soldier-citizen, who fights simply for the defence or the conquest of land; wars, however, generally remain slyly driven by supremaci t motives or tendencies originating within the economic and industrial order. Finally, the last stage, in which leadership passes into the hands of the slaves, has already been able to reali e - in Bolshevism - another meaning of war, which finds xpre sion in the following, characteristic words of Lenin: 'The war between nations i a childish game, preoccupied by the survival of a middle class which does not concern us. True war, our war, is the world revolution for the destruction of the bourgeoisie and the triumph of the proletariat.'
IliI,
1<,

Given all this, it is obvious that the term 'hero' is a common denominator which embraces very different typ s and meanings. The readiness to die, to sacrifice one's own life, may be the sole prerequisite, from the technical and collectivi t point of view, but

also from the point of view of what today, rather brutally, has come to be referred to as 'cannon fodder'. However, it is al 0 obvious that it is not from this point of view that war can claim any real spiritual value as regards the individual, once the latter does not appear as 'fodder' but as a personality - as is the Roman standpoint. This latter standpoint is only p sible provided that there is a double relationship of mean to ends - that is to say, when, on the one hand, the individual appears as a means with respect to a war and its material ends, but, simultaneously, when a war, in its turn, is a means for the individual, as an opportunity or path for the end of his spiritual accomplishment, favoured by heroic experience. There is then a synthesi , an energy and, with it, an utmo t efficiency. If we proceed with this train of thought, it becomes rather clear from what has been aid above that not all wars have the arne possibilitie . This is becau e of analogies, which are not merelyab tractions, but which act positively along paths invi ible to most people, bet:w en the collective character predominating in the various cycles of civilisation and the element which corresponds to this character in the whole of the human entity. If, in the eras of the merchants and slaves, forces prevail which correspond to the energies which define man's pre-pers nal, physical, instinctive, 'telluric', organic-vital part, then, in the eras of the warriors and spiritual leaders, forces find expression which correspond, respectively, to what in man is character and volitional personality, and what in him is spiritualised personality, personality realised according to its sup rnatural des iny, Becau e of all the transcendent factors it arouse in them, it is obvious that, in a war, the majority cannot but collectively undergo an awakening, corresponding more or les to the predominant influence within the order of the causes which have b en mo t decisiv for the outbreak of that war. Individually, the heroic experience then leads to different points of arrival: more preci ely, to three primary such points. These points correspond, basically, to three possible types of relation in which the warrior caste and its principle can find

METAPHY

res

OF WAR

THE FORMS OF WARLIKE HEROISM

27

the other manifestation already con1.1, , d In f hl' normal s ate, they are subordinate to the spiritual IIIItll 11"'" alld th n there breaks Out a heroism which leads to If 1'1" /1It', to . upra-pcrsonhood. The warrior principle may, lie 1\\ 'V .r, construct its own form, refusing to r cogni e anything as superior to it, and then the heroic experience takes on a qualj which is 'tragic': insolent, steel-temper d, but without light. Personality remains, and strength ns, but, at the ame time, so does the limit constituted by its naturalistic and imply human nature. Nevertheless thi type of 'hero' shows a certain greatness, and, naturally, for the types hierarchically inferior to the warrior, i.e., the bourgeoi and the lave types, this war and thi heroism already mean overcoming, elevation, accomplishment. The third case in olves a degraded warrior principle, which has pas ed into the service of hierarchically inferior lements (the ca tes ben ath it). In such cases, heroic exp rience is united, almost fatally, to an evocation, and an eruption, of instinctual, ub-personal, collective, irrational force , so that there occurs, basically, a lesion and a regression of the personality of the individual, wh can only live life in a passive manner, driven either by n cessity or by the suggestive power of myths and passionate impulses. or example, the notorious stories of Remarque'' reflect only possibilitie of this latter kind; they recount the stories of human types who, driven to war by fake idealisms, at last realise that reality i something very different - they do not become base, nor deserters, but all that impels them forward throughout the most terrible tests are elemental forces, impulse, instinct, and r actions, in which there is not much human remaining, and which do not know any moment of light.
\I

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I

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energies t wards the higher solution, the only one which corresponds to the ideals from which Fascism draws its inspiration. Fascism appear to us as a recon tructive revolution, in that it affirm an aristocratic and spiritual concept f the nation, as against both socialist and internationalist collectivism, and the democratic and d magogic notion of the nation. In addition, its sc rn for the economic myth and its elevation of th nation in practice to the degree of 'warrior nation', marks po itively the first d gree of this reconstruction, which is to r - ub rdinate the values of the ancient castes of the 'merchants' and 'slaves' to the values of the immediately higher caste. The next step would be the spiritualisation of the warrior principle itself. The point of departure would then be present to develop a heroic experience in the sense of the highest of the three possibilities mentioned above. To understand how such a higher, spiritual possibility, which has been properly experienced in the greatest civilisations that hav preceded us, and which, to speak the truth, is what make apparent to us their constant and universal aspect, is mo e Ihan just studious erudition. I'his is what we will deal with in our following writings, in which we shall focus essentially on the Iraditions peculiar to ancient and Medieval Romaniry,

In a preparation for war which must be not only material, but also spiritual, it is nece sary to recognise all of this with a Clear and unflinching gaze in order to be able to orientate souls and

3

Erich Maria Rcmarqu (1898-1970) was a German writer who served in the First World War. His most well-known work is hi 1927 novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, which depict d the war in horrific and pacifist terms.

THE SACRALITY OF WAR

29

The Sacrality of War'
n our previou article, w have s en that the phenomenon of warrior heroism has different forms, and can have fundamentally different meanings, as seen from the point of view of a conception intended to stabli h the values of true spirituality. Resuming our argument from that point, we shall begin by indicating some conceptions related to ur ancient traditions, the Roman tradition. One generally has only a ecular idea of the values of ancient R me. According to this idea, the Roman was merely a soldier, in the most limit d sen e of the word, and it was by means of his merely soldierly qualities, together with a fortunate combination of circumstances, that he conquered the world. This i a false opinion. In the first place, right up until the end, the Romans considered it an article of faith that divine fore s both created and protected the greatn s of Rome - th linpenifnr and the Aetemitas.' Those who want to limit themselves t a 'positive' point f view are obliged to replace this perception, deeply felt by the Romans, with a mystery; the mystery, that i , that a handful of m n, without any really c mpelling r asons, without even ideas of 'land' or
II Regime Pascista.
2 3 Originally published on 8 June 1935 as' acrita della guerra' in 'Diorama mensile'

I

'homeland', and without any of the myths or passions to which the moderns 0 willingly resort to justify war and promote heroism, kept moving, further and further, from one country to th~ next, following a strange and irresistible impulse, basing everything on an 'asc si of power'. According to the unanimous testimony f all the Classical authors, the early Romans were highly religious uostri mazores rc/igioJ,fimi mortales, Sallust r calls" - and Cicero' and Gellius" repeat his view - but this religiosity of th irs was not confined t an abstract and isolated sphere, but pervaded their experience in its ntirety, including in itself the world of action, and therefore also the world of the warrior experience. A pecial sacred c liege in R me, th Feciale, presided over a quite definite system of rites which provided th mystical counterpart to every war, from its declaration to its termination. ore generally, it is certain that one of the principles of the military art of the Romans required them not to allow them elves to be compelled to ngage in battle before certain mystical signs had defined, so to speak, its 'moment'. Because of the mental distortions and prejudices resulting from modern education, mo t people of today would naturally be inclined to see in this an e. trinsic, uperstitiou uperstructure. The most benevol nt may see in it an ecc ntric fatalism, but it is neith r of these. The .ssence of the augural art practiced by the Roman patriciat ,like similar disciplines, with more or less the same characters which can ea ily be found in the cycle of the greater Indo- -<uropean .ivilisati ns, was not the discovery of 'fates' to be f Bowed with superstitious passivity: rather, it was the knowledge of points of juncture with invi ible influences, the use of which the forces of
,1 'Our ancestor were a most d vout race of m n; from Sallust's The Conspiracy of Catiline, chapter 12. In this passage allust praises the devotional character of the early Romans in opposition to the Romans of hi day, whom he called 'the basest of mankind' Sallust (86-34 BC) was a noted Roman historian.
r:

Imperium, which was the power vested in the leader of Rome, was believed to
originate from divine sanction. Aeternitas Imperii, meaning 'the eternity of Roman rule; was a goddess who looked after the preservation of the Empire.

Marcus Tullius Cic ro (106-43 BeE) was a philosoph Roman Republic.

r and famed orator in the

h

28

Aulus ellius (c. 125-c. 180 AD) was a Roman author who e only surviving work is his Attic Nights, which is a commonplace book of notes taken from various other sources that he had read or heard about.

30

METAPHYSICS

OF WAR

rt

I

ACRALITY OF WAR

31

men could be developed, multiplied, and led to act on a higher plane, in addition to the everyday one, thus - when the harmony was perfect - bringing about the removal of every obstacle and every resistance within an event-complex which was material and spiritual at the arne time. In the light of this knowledge, it cannot be doubted that Roman values, the Roman 'ascesis of power', necessarily possessed a spiritual and sacred asp ct, and that they were regarded not only as a mans to military and temporal greatnes , but also a a means of contact and connection with supernal forces. If it w re appropriate to do 0 here, we could produce various materials in support of this thesis. We will limit ourselves, however, to mentioning that the ceremony of the triumph in Rome had a charact r which was far more religious than militaristic in a secular sense, and that many elements seem to show that the Roman attributed the victory of his leaders less to their simply human attributes than to a transcendent force manifesting itself in a real and efficient manner through them, their heroism and sometimes their sacrifice (as in th rite known a the devotio, in which the leaders sacrificed themselves)." The victor, in the aforesaid ceremony of the triumph, put on the insignia of the supreme God of the Capitol" as if he was a divine image, and went in procession to place the triumphal laurels f his victory in the hands of this God, as if to say that the latter was the true victor. Finally, one of the origin of the imperial ap th osis, that i to say, of the feeling that an immortal tlllft/et/? wa concealed in th Emperor, is undoubtedly the experience f the warrior: the
7 S In the devotio, a Roman general would offer to sacrifice his own life in a batlle in order to ensure victory, The Capitolium was a temple on one of the seven hills of Rome which was dedicated to a triad of deities. The original triad consisted of Jupiter, Mars and Quinrus. Later it was comprised of Iupiter, Juno and Minerva. 'The numen, unlike the notion of deus (as it later came to be understood), is not a being or a per on, but a sheer power that is capable of producing effects, of acting, and of manifesting itself. The sense of the real presenc of such powers, or numina, as something imultaneously transcendent and yet immanent, marvelous yet fearful, constituted the substance of the original experience ofth "sacred" From Julius Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World (Roch ster: Inner Traditions, 1995), p. 42.

unpcrator was originally the military leader," acclaimed on the hat II fi ld in the moment of viet ry: in thi moment, he e med I ran figured by a force from above, fearful and wonderful, which Imp ed precisely the feeling of the numen. This view, we may add, i not peculiar to R me, but is found throughout the whole of Classical Mediterranean antiquity, and it was not restricted Ie victors in war, but sometimes applied also to the winners of til Olympic Games and of the bloody fights of the circus. In the IJ llades, II the myth of heroe merge with mystical doctrines, such as Orphi m,12which significantly unite the character of the victorious warrior and the initiate, victor over death, in the same symbolism, These are precise indications of a heroism and a system of alues which develop into various more or les self-consciou ly spiritual paths, paths sanctified not only by the glorious material onquest which they mediate, but also by the fact that they repres nt a ort of ritual evocation involving conquest of the intangible. Let us consider orne other evidence of this tradition, which, by its very nature, is metaphysical: elements such as 'race' cannot therefore possess more than a ec ndary, contingent place in it. We say this because, in our next article, we intend to deal with the 'holy war' practiced by the warriors of the' oly Roman .... mpire';':' hat civilisation as is well known, represents a point of creative convergence between various components: Roman, hristian, and ordic.
10 This was the case in the Roman Republic. During the Roman Empire, th title of imperator was only granted to the Emperor, and occasionally members of his family. II The plural form of Hellas, which is the ancient name of Greece. 12 Orphi m wa a r Iigion in ancient reece which differed in a number of respects from the popular religion, said to have been founded by the poet Orpheus who descended to Hade and th n returned. 13 The Holy Roman Empire, as it came to b known, was founded in 962 AD and survived in various forms unti\lS06. Its territorial makeup was always in flux, but at its peak it consisted of Central Europe, including modern-day Germany, as well as parts of present-day Italy and France. In spite of its name, Rome was rarely ever part of the Empire, and there was no direct connection between it and the original Roman Empire.

9

METAPHYSICS OF WAR

THE

ACRALITYOFWAR

33

I di 'CUSS d the relevant features of the first of .nts (i.e., the Roman). The Christian component 1111 ppea r \ .th the features of a knightly, supranational heroism ,I~ rhl' Crusade. The Nordic component remains to be indicated. J () avoid alarming our readers unnecessarily we have stated at the outset that what we ref r to has, s entially, a upra-racial character, and is not therefore calculated to encourage the stance of any self-styled 'special' people towards others. To limit ourselve to one hint at what sort of thing we here mean to exclude, we will say that, surpri ing as it may seem, in the more or less frantic ordic revivalism celebrated today ad usu»: deiphziu14 by ational Socialist Germany, we find mainly a deformation and vulgaris ation of ordic tradition as they existed originally, and as they could still be found in those princes who considered it a great honour to be able to say of themselves that they were Romans, although of th Teutonic race. Instead, for many racist writers today,' ordic' ha come to mean anti-Roman, and 'Roman' has come to mean, more or less, 'Jewish'. Having said that, we think it i appropriate to reproduce this significant formula f exhortati n to the warrior as found in the ancient Celtic tradition: 'Fight for your land, and accept death if need be, since death is a victory and a liberation to the soul.' 1 h expr ssion mors triumphoijp in our own CIa sica! tradition correspond to thi concept. A for the pr perly ordic tradition, well-known to all is the part which concerns alhalla, the seat of celestial immortality, reserved for the 'free' divine tock and the heroes fallen n the battlefield ('Valhalla' means literally 'fr m the palace f the chos n'). The L rd of this symbolic seat, Odin or Wotan, appears in the Ynglingosogo as the on who, by his ymbolic self-sacrifice on the 'world tree', showed the heroe how to reach the divine sojourn, where they live eternally as on a bright peak, which remains in perpetual sunlight, above very cloud.
, 1,1
I

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C I CJll1p1l11

According to this tradition, no sacrifice or form of worship wa more appreciat d by the supreme God, and rich in supra-mundane fruits, than that which is performed by the warri r who fights and falls n the battlefield. But this is not all. The pirits of the fallen heroes would add their forces to the phalanx of those who assist the 'cele tial heroes' in fighting in the ragtlorokk, that is to say, the fate of the 'darkening of the divine', which, according to these teachings, and also according to the Hellenes (H siod)," has threatened the world since time immemorial. We will see this motif reappear, in a different form, in the Medievallegend which relate to the 'last battle', which the immortal cmp ror will fight. Here, to illustrate the universality of these elements, we will point out the similarity b tween the e ancient Nordic conceptions (which, let us say in passing, Wagner!7 has rendered unrecognisable by means of his hazy, bombastic, characteristically Teutonic romanticism) and the ancient Iranian, and later Persian, conceptions. Many may be astonished to hear that the well-known Valkyries, which choos the souls of the warrior destined for Valhalla, are only the tran cend ntal personificati n of parts of the warriors themselv ,parts which find their exact equivalent in the Frava hi, of which the Iranian-Persian traditions speak - the Fravashi, also represented as women of light and stormy virgins of battle, which per onify more or le s the supernatural forces by means of which the human natur s of the warriors 'faithful to the God of Light' can transfigure them Iv and bring about terrible, overwhelming and bloody victories. The Iranian traditi n also includes the symbolic concepti n of a divin figure =Mithra, described as 'th warrior who never sleeps' - wh , at th head of his faithful Fravashi, fights against th emi saries

14 'Por the use of the Dauphin: after a practice of censoring the Greek and Roman classics which was promoted by Louis XIV for the education of his on, which called for the removal of supposedly offensive pas ages from them. 15 Latin: 'triumphal death'.

16 Hesiod (approx. 7th century BC) was an early Greek poet. Hi most famous work, the Works and Days, outlines the cyclical Five Ages of Man, beginning with the utopian Golden Age and ending in the apocalyptic Iron Age. 17 Richard Wagner (1813·1883), the German composer, whose works were very influential in all spheres of European culture at this time. Evola no doubt has in mind Wagner's tetralogy of music dramas, The Ring of the Nibelungen, the libretto of which is based on the ancient orse myths.

34

METAPHYSICS

OF WAR

of the dark god until the coming of the aoshyant, Lord of the future kingdom of 'triumphant' peace. These elements of ancient Indo-European traditi n in which the motifs recur of the sacrality of war and of the hero who doe not really die but becomes part of a mystical army in a co mic battle, have had a perceptible effect on certain elements of Christianity - at least that Christianity which could reali tically adopt the motto: vita est mziitia Jtlper terram;S and recognise not only salvation through humility, charity, hope and the rest, but also that - by including the heroic element, in our case - 'the Kingdom of Heaven can be taken by storm'. It i precisely this c.onvergenc of motif which gave birth to the spiritual conception of' reater War' peculiar to the medi val age, which we shall discu in our next article in 'Diorama', wh re we shall deal more closely with the interior, individual, but nevertheless topical aspect of these teachings.

he Meaning of the Crusades'
us resume our amination of those traditions concerning h .roisrn in which war is regard d as a path of spiritual I( .ilisati n in the strictest sense of the term, and thus acquires a 1I .ms end nt justification and purpose. We have already discussed lilt' .onceptions of the ancient R man world in this respect. We 1 hen de cribed the ordic traditi n regarding the imrnortalising r lmra ter of the truly heroic death n th batt! field. It was ucccssary t examine these traditions b fore considering the IIH' Ii al world, since, as is generally recognised, the Middle ges, .IS a ulture, arc e fr m the synth sis of three elements; firstly, He iman; secondly, ordic; and thirdly, Christian. Thus, we are now in a position to examine the idea of the "S;I .redness of War' as the Western Medieval age knew and culuva ed it. s should be evident, we here refer to the Crusades ,IS understood in their deepest sense, not the sen e claimed by lust rical materialists, according to which they are mere effects e if .conomical and ethnic deterrninisrns, n r the sense claimed by 'de eloped' minds, according to which they are mere phenomena I If superstition and religious exaltation - nor, finally,will we even t l'gard them as simply Christian phenomena. In respect t this last I oint it is necessary not to lose sight of the correct relationship h 'tween means and ends. It is often said that, in the rusades, the
'I

L

18 Latin: 'life is a struggle on Earth'.

I

Originally published on 9 July 1935 as 'Significate della Crociata' in 'Diorama mcnsile; II Regime Fascista.

35

36

METAPHY ICS OF WAR

1III MI·ANIN

Chri tian faith made use of the heroic spirit of Western chivalry. However, the opposite is the truth: that is to say, the Christian faith, and the relati e and contingent imperatives of the religious struggle against the 'infidel' and the 'liberation' of the 'Temple' and 'Holy Land', were mer 1ythe means which allowed the heroic spirit to manif sr itself, to affirm itself, and to realise a sort of asce is, distinct from that of the contemplative, but no less rich in spirit;ual fruits. Most of the knights who gave their energies and their blood for the 'holy war' had only the vaguest ideas and th ketchiest theological knowledge regarding th doctrine for which they fought. However, the cultural context of the Crusades contained a wealth of elements able to confer upon them a higher, spiritually symbolic meaning. Transcendent myths resurfaced from the subconscious in the soul of Western chivalry: the conquest of the 'Holy Land' located 'b yond the sea' wa much more closely as ociated than many people have imagined with the ancient saga according to which 'in the di tant a t, where the Sun rises, lies the acred city where death does not exist, and the fortunate heroes who are able to r ach it enjoy celestial serenity and perpetual life'. Moreover, the truggle against Islam had, by its nature and from its inception, the significance of an acetic te t. 'Thi was not merely a struggle for the kingdoms of the earth', wrote the famous historian of the Crusades, Kugler," 'but a struggle for the Kingdom of Heaven: the Crusade were not a thing of men, but rather of God - therefore, they should not be thought of in th same way as other human events.' Sacred war, according to an old chronicler, should be compared to 'a bath like that in the fire of purgatory, but before death'. Those who died in the Crusades were compared symbolically by Popes and priests to 'gold tested three times and refined seven times in the fire', a purifying ordeal so p werful that it opened the way to the suprcm L rd.

r et this oracle', wrote Saint Bernard,' 'whether we II III \ h ther we die, we belong to the Lord. It i a glory for you lit \1'1 In I 'a\TC the battle [unless] covered with laurels. But it i an «II ~I" 'at r gl ry to earn on the batt! field an immortal crown I I ()h ortunate condition, in which death can be approached 111111111 Car, waited for with impatience, and received with a « II II(' h art!' It was promised that the Crusader would attain an II. '1I1l11 • gl ry - gfotie asolue, in the Provencal tongu - and that 111 \\ nul I find 'rest in paradise' - tlmq"erre fit en paradis - that is to .IV. he \ ould achieve the supra-life, the supernatural tate of exi Ie III (', S irncthing beyond religious representation. In this respect, I. Ilisal m, the covet d goal of the conquest, appeared in a double I' IH' t, as an earthly city and as a symbolic, celestial and intangible ,II)' and the Cru ade gained an inner alue indep ndent of all (11111'" int guments, supports and apparent moti es. H 'side , the greatest contribution in manpower was supplied II I Ihe rusades by knightly orders such as the Templar and the I Illphts of Saint John, which were made up of men who, like the IIHlIlk or the Christian ascetic, had I arned to d spise the vanity d t his life; warriors weary of the world, who had seen everything .uu] .njoyed everything, withdrew into such order, thu making I lu-msclves ready for an absolute action, free from the interests elf .ornrnon, t mporallife, and also of political life in the narrow (,!lSC. rban VIII4 addressed chivalry as the supra-national comII run ity of th e who were 'r ady to run to war wherever it might III' .ak ut, and to bring to it the fear of their arms in defence of IIl1n ur and of justice'. They hould answer the call to 'sacred \ nr' alJ the more readily, according to one f th writ r of the IIIl) since its reward is not an earthly fief, always revocable and ( I mtingent, but a 'celestial fief'.
'I" ~
I, I

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FTHECRUSADE 37 ----------------------------------------~

I

S int Bernard ofClairvaux (1090-1153), a French abbot who was extremely influential in raising the Second Crusade. He also helped to formulate the Rule of the Knights Templar, Urban VlII (1568-1644) was Pope from 1623 until hi death, during the Thirty Years' War. He was the last Pope to use armed force in an effort to increase the area under Papal authority. He wa al 0 the Pope who condemned Galileo for his theory of heliocentrism.

I 2 Bernhard Kugler, Gesdtichte der Kreuzziige (Berlin: G. Grote, 1880). translation exi ts.
0

nglish

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1\11 1\ N I...:...N-=--=---F_T_H_E_C-=----RU_SA_D_ES
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Moreo er, the course of the rusades, with all its broader implications for th general ideology of th time, led t a purification and internalisation of the spirit of the enterprise. Given the initial conviction that the war for the 'true faith' could not but hav a victorious result, the first military setback und rgone by the Crusader armies were a s urce of surprise and dismay; but, in the end, they served to bring to light the higher aspect of 'sacr d war'. The unhappy fate of a Crusade was compared by the clerics of Rome to the misfortunes of virtue, which are mad good only in another lift. But, by taking this approach, they were already close to r cognising omething superior to both ictory and defeat, and to according the highe t importance to the distinctive a pect of heroic action which is accomplished independently of any visible and material fruit, almo t in the sense of an offering, which draw, from the virile sacrifice of all human elements , the immortali ing 'absolute glory'. One se s that in this way they appr ach d a plan that was supra-traditional, in the most strict, historical and religious s nse of the word 'tradition'. The particular religious faith, the immediate purposes, the antagonistic spirit, were revealed clearly a mer means, as inessential in themselves, as the preci e nature f a fuel which is used for the sole purpo e of reviving and feeding a Aame. What remained at the centr ,however, was th acred value of war. Thu i became possible to r cognise that the oppon nts of the moment accorded to battle the same traditional meaning. In this way and despite everything, the Crusade were able to enrich the cultural exchange between the Ghibelline! West and the rabic ast (itself the centre of more ancient traditional elements), an exchange who e significance is much gr ater than most historians have yet recognised. As the knights of the crusading orders found thems lves in the presence of knights of Arab orders
5 'The Ghibellines were a faction in the Holy Roman Empire who favoured the perial power of the Hohenstaufen throne over the power of the Vatican, a supported by their rival, the Guelphs. Evola saw this conflict as highlighting distinction between priestly and royal authority in the state, since he believed Ghibelline view 10 be the only valid one from a traditional perspective. He cusses this at length in Revolt Against the Modern World. imwas the the dis-

hi 11111

.r almost their doubles, manife ting correspondences s, u 'toms, and sometimes even symb Is so the 'sacred III' \\ III ·h had impelled the two civilisations again t each other in IIIi Ii.unc of their respective religion, led them at the same time III III' 'I, that i t say, to realise that, despite having as starting I" ,1I11s 1\ 0 different faiths, they had eventually accorded to war till Id -nri al, ind pendent value of spirituality. III our next article, we shall study the way in which, from the I"' mrs 'S f his faith, the ancient Arab Knight ascended to the 111\1' supra-traditional point which the Crusader Knight attained II, IllS hcroicasc ticism. I'(H' now, h wever, we would like to deal with a diff rent point. I I••Ise who regard the rusades, with indignati n, a among the Ill! .0,1 extravagant episodes of the 'dark' Middl Ages, ha e not , \1'11 the slightest suspicion that what they call 'religious fanati, l"IIl' was the visibl sign of the presence and ff ctiveness of a vnsn ivity and decisiveness, the absence of which is more charac11'lIsli of true barbarism. In fad, tbe man of the Crnsades u/as able to 1M, tofight and to diefor apurpose lJJhich)in its essence)tuas supra-politico! ,1/It1ll1pra-/Jllman, and to serve on a front defined no long r by what h particularistic but rather by what is universal. This remains a \ ;tllI ., an unshakeable point of reference. aturally, this must n t be misunderstood to mean that the unns cndcnt moti e may be used as an excuse for the warrior to II' irnc indifferent, to forget the duties inherent in his b longing In a race and to a fatherland. This is not at all our point, which ( (11\ ems rather the essentially deeply disparate meanings accordIng ro which actions and acrifices can be experienced, d pite the Liel that, from the external point of vi w, they may be absolutely I he same. There is a radical difference between the one who -ngages in warfare simply as such, and the one who simultane(ILlS!Y engages in ' acr d war' and finds in it a higher experience, I Ii irh desired and de irable for th spirit. We must add that although this difference is primarily an rut rior one, nevertheless, because the powers of interi rity are
III II

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abl to find expr s ion also in ext ri riry, ffects d rive from it also on the exteri r plane, specifically in the following respects: First of all, in an 'indomitability' of the heroic impuls : the one who experiences heroism spiritually is per aded with a metaphysical tension, an imp tus, wh e object is 'infinite', and which, therefore, will carry him perpetually forward, beyond the capacity of one who fights from nee ssity, fights as a trade, or is spurred by natural instincts or external suggestion. Second I) , the on who fights acc rding to the sense of 'sacred war' is spontan ously b yond ev ry particularism and exists in a spiritual climate which, at any given moment, may ery well give rise and life to a supra-national unity of action. This is precisely what occurred in the Crusade when princes and duke of every land gathered in the heroic and sacred nterprise, regardles of their particular utilitarian interests or political divisions, bringing about for the first time a great urop an unity, true to the comm n civilisation and to the very principle of the Holy R man mpire. Now, in this respect as well, if we are able to leave aside the 'integument', if we ar able to i late th essential from the contingent, we will find an element whos preciou value i not restricted t any particular historical period. To succeed in referring heroic action also to an 'ascetic' plane, and in justifying the former according to the latter, is to clear the road towards a possible new unity of civilisation, to remov every antagonism conditioned by matter, to prepare the environment for great distances and for great fronts, and, therefore, to adapt the outer purposes of action gradually to its new spiritual meaning, when it is no longer a land and the temporal ambitions of a land for which one fights, but a superior principle of civilisation, a fore hadowing of what, even though itself metaphysical, m ves ever forward, beyond every limit, beyond every danger, beyond every destruction.

h Greater War and the lesser War'
r adcrs should not consider it strange that, after having examined a group of Western traditions relating to holy war 111,11 IS to say, to war as a spiritual value - we now propose to I ,1111111<,: this ame concept as expre ed in the Islamic tradition. III 1:1("1, for our purposes (as we have often pointed ut) it is 11111 H's1ing to clarify the objective value of a principle by means II Ihe demonstration of its universality, that is to say, of its 1.111, irrni to the principle of quod ubique, quod ab omnibus, et quod 1/'111/11'1:2 nly in this way can we establish with certainty that some .dlll·S arc absolutely independent of the views of any particular 1111111 .r, and also that, in their essence, they are uperi r t the 1',11 Ii ular forms which th y have assumed in order to manifest rlu-msclvcs in one or anoth r historical tradition. The more we 11I,llIage to demonstrate the inner correspond nee of such forms .11H II heir unique principle, the more deeply the reader will become ,Ihl,· I ) delve into his own tradition, t possess it fully and t um] .rstand it from its own unique metaphysical point of origin. I I istori cally, in ord r to comprehend what concerns us here, II must first be understood that the Islamic tradition, rather than t..l\tlllg such a unique metaphysical point of origin, is essentially
III"

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(>riginally published on 21 July 1935 as 'La grande e la piccola guerra' in 'Diorama mcnsile; 11Regime Fascista.
I)" the

l.atin: 'that which is accepted everywhere. by everyone, and always'. This is an axiom atholic Church.

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1,1 \\ "ole bing to a spiritual law. Appearing in the forms of , I 1\ IlIg, partiality, passion, instinctuality, weakne s and inward ,II It e, the enemy within the natural man mu t be vanquished, II 'I':-'I~tan e broken, chained and subjected t the piritual man, "II h 'Ill T the condition of reaching inner liberation, the 'trium1,111111 I 'ace' which allows one to participate in what is bey nd 1.,.111 II • and death. . 'om may ay that this is simply asceticism. Th gr at r, holy II I~ the a ce is which ha alway been a philo ophical goal. It , • lid lb· tempting to add as well: it is the path of those who wish III ,':-.ntpe from the world and who, using the excuse of inner ItlII t .uion become a herd of pacifi t cowards. Thi i not at all 1111 \ ay hings are. After the distinction between the two types of \.11 I h r is their synthesis. It is a feature of heroic traditions that tile' ' prescribe the 'lesser war', that is to say the real, bloody war, " .111 in trument in th reali ati n f the 'greater' or 'holy war'; • I III I h so that, finally, both become one and the same thing. 'I'hus, in Islam 'holy war' - jibad - and 'the path of God' are Itll('1" bangeable terms. The one who fights is on the 'path of (.nd'. well-known and quite characteristic saying of this tradi11.111 is, 'The blood of hero s is closer to the Lord than the ink •tI s h lars and the prayers f the pious." nee again, as in the tradition already reviewed by us, as in the He "nan ascesis of power and in the classical mors ttillmpbalis, action ,It ruins th alue of an inner 0 rcoming and of an approximation t.) a life no longer mixed with darkness, contingency, uncertainty ,IIII death, In mor concrete terms, the pr dicarnents, risks and I I.d 'at peculiar to the event of war bring about an merg nee e II the inner 'enemy', which, in the forms f the instinct f Ifpics rvation, cowardice, cruelty, pity and blind riotousnes , ari e ,ISobstacles to be vanquished just as one fights the outer enemy. II i cI ar from this that the decisive point is constituted by one's rnncr orientation, one's unshakeable persistence in what is piritual
t

dependent upon its inheritance of the Persian tradition - Per ia, as is well known, having possessed one of the highest pre- uropean civilisations. The original Mazdaist conception of religion, as military service under the sign of the 'God of Light', and of exist nee as a continuous, relentless struggle to rescue beings and things from th control of an anti-god, is at the centre of the Persian vision of life, and should be considered as the metaphysical counterpart and spiritual background to the warrior enterpri e which culminated in the creation of the mpire of the 'kings of kings' by the Persians. After the fall of Persia' power, ech es of such traditions persi ted in the cycle of Medieval Arabian civili ation in forms which became lightly more materialistic and sometimes exaggerated, yet not to such an extent that their original elements of spirituality were entirely lost. We bring up traditions of that kind here, above all becau e they introduce a concept which is very useful in further clarifying the order of ideas set out in our latest articles; namely, th concept of the 'greater' or 'holy war', as distinct from the 'less r war', but at the same time as related to the latter in a special manner. The distinction itself derives from a saying of the Prophet, who, returning from a battle d clared, 'I return now from the lesser to the greater war," The lesser war here corresponds t the xoteric war, the bloody battl which is fought with material arms against the enemy, against the 'barbarian', against an inferior race over whom a superior right is claimed, or, finally,when the event is motivated by a religious justification, against the 'infidel'. 0 matter how terrible and tragic the events, no matter how huge the destruction, this war, metaphysically, still remains a lesser n/ar'. The 'greater' or 'holy war' is, contrarily, of the interior and intangible rder - it is the war which is fought against the enemy, the 'barbarian', the 'infidel', whom everyone bears in himself, or whom v ryone can see arising in himself on every occasion that he tries to subject
3 This is recorded in the Hadith (oral traditions) of the Prophet Muhammad - sp cifically, in the Tarikh Baghdad of Khatib aI-Baghdadi (13:493, 523). The text goes on to say that Muhammad' followers asked him, 'What is the greater war?; to which he repli d, 'The war against the lower part of our nature.'

I I , \

I am uncertain of the origin of this saying, but it is contradicted by another Hadith taken from the AI-/aami' al-Saghir of Imam al-Suyuti: 'The ink of the scholar is holier than the blood of the martyr:

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1111 I,IU.

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in this double struggle, so that an irresistible and blind changing of oneself into a ort of wild animal does not occur, but, instead, a way is found of not letting the deepe t forces e cape, a way of seeing to it that one is never overwhelmed inwardly, that one always remains supreme master of oneself, and, preci ely because of this sovereignty, one remains able to affirm him elf against ev ry possible limitation. In a tradition to which we will dedicate our next article, this situation is r presented by a most characteristic symbol: the warrior is accompanied by an impassive divine being who, without fighting, leads and guides him in his struggle, side by side with him in the arne war chario . This symbol is the personified expression of a duality of principl s, which the true hero, from whom something sacred always emanates, maintains uncea ingly within himself. To return to the Islamic tradition, we can read in its principal text, 'So let those who sell the life of this world for the ext World fight in the Way of Allah. If someone fights in the Way of Allah, whether he is killed or is victorious, We will pay him an immense reward'S (4:74). The metaphysical premises for this are prescribed as follows: 'Fight in the Way of Allah against those who fight you' (2:190); 'Kill them wherever you come across them' (II, 191); 'Do not becom faint-hearted and call for peace' (47:35);' he life of this world i merely a game and a diversion' (47:36); 'But whoever i tight-fisted is only tight-fisted to hims If' (47:38). This last principle is obviously a parallel to the evangelical text: 'Whoever eek to save his life will lose it, and whoev r loses his life will preserve it'," as is confirmed by these further passages: 'You who have imanFwhat is the matter with you that when you are told, "Go out and fight in the way of Allah", you sink down heavily to the earth? Are you happier with this world than the
5 The Noble Quran: A New Rendering of Its Meaning in English ( orwich: Bookwork, 2005), interpreted by Aisha Bewley. All quotes from the Quran are taken from this edition. Luke 17:33, as rendered in Holy Bible: The New King James ( ashville: T. Nelson,
1982).

I I \ 'odd?" (9:38); " ay [to the Companions]: "What d you I III II II us except for one of the two best things [martyrdom " II 1111 'I?" (9:52). I 11I':,t' -x rpts too are worth noting: 'Fighting is prescribed for , II I \ "Ii ir it is hateful to you. J t may be that you hate something IIIII It ISgood for you and it may be that you love something II!11'11 I:;bad for you. Allah knows and you do not know' (2:216), 1IIII,,1M I, "Whcn a Stllrl' i sent down saying: "Have tman in lIah Illd .Ill Jihad together with His Messenger", those among them Idl \ -alrh will ask you to xcus them, saying, "Let us remain Hie dlOSC who stay behind." They are pleased to be with those \ 1111 ~I:l behind. Their hearts have been tamped so they do not 1I11I1<,:,lal1u. the Messenger and those who have iman along But IIIl 111mhave donejihad"vith their wealth and with themselves. lilt'\' ar the people who will have the good things. They are the "111 ho are successful' (9:86-89). ...\ Tit .rcfore we have here a sort of amorfatt/ a mysteri us way ,01 liltuiting, evoking and heroically resolving one's own destiny IIIIII . intimate certainty that, when the 'right intention' is present, 11l'1i ll indolence and cowardice are vanquished, and th leap a I" voud the lives of oneself and others, beyond happiness and IIlis Iortune, is driven by a sen e of piritual destiny and a thirst IIII 1 he ab olute existence, then one has given birth to a force luch will not be able to mis the supreme goal.' hen the crisis ••I I ragic and heroic death bee mes an insignificant contingency "Ill .h can be expressed, in religious terms, in the following words: \ ...for th who fight in the Way of Allah, He will not let their ,II lions go astray. He will guide them and better their condition ,111 II will admit them into the arden which H has made I l.nown to th m' (47:4-6). s if by a circular path the reader is thus brought back to the :',1111 • ideas which were examined in our previous writings on the Sill iec f tradition, whether classical or ordic-Medieval: that i Ie)say, to the idea of a privileged immortality reserved for hew s,

6
7

II

A slIra is a chapter of the Quran. l.utin: 'love of fate'

Arabic: 'belief:

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who alone, according to esiod, pass on to inhabit symbolic island, which image forth the bright and intangible existence of the Olympian . III Additionally, in th Islamic tradition, there are frequent reference to the idea that s me warriors fallen in th 'sacred war' are in reality not dead,. I in a s n e which i not symbolic in any way, and which need n t be referr d to supernatural states cut ff from the energies and destinies f the living. It is not possible to ent r into this domain, which is rather mysterious and requires th support f reb r nces which would ill befit the pres nt artid . What we can say definitely is that, ev n today, and particularly in Italy, the rites by which a warrior community declare its mo t her ically fallen companions tiJJ'pr ent' have regained a special evocative force. He who begins fr m the belief that everything which, by a proces of involution, retains today only an allegorical and, at best, moral character, whereas it originally possessed the value of reali(y, and every rite contained real aaion and not mere 'c r mony' - for him these warrior rites of today could perhaps provide material for meditation, and he could perhaps approach the my tery contained in the teaching already quoted: that i , the idea of heroes who r ally never died, and the idea of victors who, like the Roman aesar, remain a 'perpetual victor' at the centre of a human tock.

The Metaphysics of War1
e will conclude ur eries of essays for the Diorama' on the ubject f war as a spiritual valu by discussing another 11 .iditi n within the Indo- uropean heroic cycl , that of the /l/Jt(WIIJad-Gita, which is a very well-known text of ancient Hindu rsdorn compiled essentially for the warrior caste. \) e have not chosen this text arbitrarily and we would not \\ rsh anyone to imagine that we offer a newspaper like the Regime ,1111 les on exotic ubject as objects of curiosity. ow that our dts ussi n of the Islamic tradition has allowed us to express, in ",I'll Tal terms, the idea that the internal or 'greater war' is the .urninable counterpart and soul of the xternal war, so a di cussion ( 11 I he tradition contained in the at rernentioned text will allow us I. 1 prescnt a clear and concise metaphysical vision of the matter. On a more xterior plane, such a discu sion of the Hindu I ',,1:>1 (which is the great, heroic East, not that of Theosophists, humanitarian pantheists or old g ntlem n in rapture before the \ .urou andhis and Rabindranath Tagores") will as ist also in the
Originally published on 13 August 1935 as 'Metafisica della guerra' in 'Diorama mensilc, II Regime Fasclsta.
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10 The gods of the Greek pantheon. II For example, Qurim 1:154: 'Do not say that those who are killed in th Way of Allah are dead. On the contrary, they are alive but you ar not aware of it,'

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was a highly influential Bengali artist and philosopher who won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature, which brought him great international fame at the time Evola was writing. Although Tagore drew upon his native Hindu tradition in his works, he emphasized the individual over tradition, .md integrated elements of artistic modernism into his work. From the perspecrive of Evola' conception of tradition. therefore. he was a poor representative of the Hindu tradition.

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correction of a viewpoint and the supra-traditional understanding which are among the fir t necessitie for the New Italian. 'or too long we have permitted an artificial antithesis between Ea t and West: artificial because, as ussolini has already pointed out, it opposes to the ast the modern and materiali tic West, which, in fact, has little in common with the old r, truer and greater Western civili ation. The modern West is ju t as opposed to th ancient West as it is to the a t. As soon as we ref r t previou time we ar effectively in the presence of an ethnic and cultural heritage which is, to a large xtent, common to both, and which can only be described as 'Indo-European'. The original ways of life, the spirituality and th institution of the first coloniser f India and Iran have many points of contact not only with thos of the Hellenic and ordic peoples, but also with th se of the original Romans themselves. The traditions to which we have pr viously referred offer example of this: most notably, a common spiritual conception of how to wage war, how to act and die heroically - contrary to the views of those who, on the ba is of prejudices and platitudes, cannot hear of Hindu civilisation without thinking of nirvana, fakirs, escapism, negation of the Western' values of pers nhood and 0 on. he text to which we have allud d and on which we will bas our discussion is pr sented in the form of a conversation between the warrior rjuna and the divine Krishna, who act as the spiritual master of th former. The conversation takes place shortly before a battle in which Arjuna, th victim of humanitarian scruples, is reluctant to participate. In the previous article we have already indicated that, from a piritual point of view, the two persons, rjuna and Krishna, are in reality one. hey represent two different parts of the human being - Arjuna the principle of action, and Krishna that of transcendent knowledge. The conversation can thus be under tood as a sort of monologue, developing a progressive inner clarification and solution, both in the her ic and th spiritual sen e, of the pr blern of the warrior's activity which poses itself to Arjuna a he prepares for battle.

ow, the pity which prevent the warrior from fighting when h . recognises among the ranks of the enemy some of hi rstwhile Iri nds and closest relatives is described by Krishna, that is to ay II' the spiritual principle, a 'impurities ...not at all befitting a man \ ho knows the value of life. hey 1 ad not to higher planets but In infamy' (2:2).3 We have already s en this theme appear many times in the II aditional teachings of th West: '[E]ither you will be killed on I h ' battlefield and attain the heavenly planets, or you will conquer and enjoy the earthly kingdom. her fore, get up with deterrninaI ion and fight' (2:37). However, along with this, the motif of the 'inn r war', t be lou zht at the same moment, is outlined: 'Thus knowing oneself I() I e transcendental to the material senses, mind and intelligence, ( ) mighty-armed rjuna, on sh uld steady the mind by deliberate spiritual intelligence and thus - by spiritual strength - conquer I his insatiable nemy known as lust' (3:43). The internal enemy, which is passion, the animal thirst for hf , i thu the counterpart of the external enemy. This is how Ihe right orientation is defined: 'Therefore, 0 Arjuna, surrend rIng all your works unto Me, with full knov ledge of M , without d ·sires for profit, with no claim to proprietorship, and fr e from lethargy, fight' (3:30). This d mand for a lucid, supra-conscious heroism rising above Ih pa sion is important, as is thi excerpt, which brings out the ·haracter of purity and absoluteness which action should have so as t be considered 'sacr d war': 'Do thou fight for the sake of lighting, without considering happiness or distress, loss or gain, VI tory or defeat - and by so doing you shall n ver incur in' (2:38). We find therefore that the only fault or in is the state of an III omplete will, of an action which, inwardly, is still far from Ih ' height from which one's own life matters as little as those of ell h rs and no human measure has valu any longer.
>

\

From A. C. Bhaklivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Bhagavad-Gita as It Is. All quotes from th Bhagavad-gita are taken from this edition.

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It is preci ely in tIll respect that the text in que tion contains considerations of an absolutely metaphy ical order, intended to show how that which acts in the warrior at such a level is not so much a human force as a divine f rce. he teaching which Krishna (that is to ay the 'kn wledge' principle) gives to Arjuna (that is to say t the 'action' principle) to make his d ubts vani h aim , first of all, at making him understand the distinction between what, as absolute spirituality, is incorruptible, and what, as the human and naturalistic element, exists only illusorily: Those who are seers of the truth ha concluded that of the non-exi tent [the material body] there is no endurance and of the eternal [the soul] there is no change .... That which pervade the mire body you should know to be indestructible. No one is able to destroy that imperishable souL ... Neither he who thinks the living entity the slayer nor he who thinks it slain is in knowledge, for the self lays not nor is slain .... He is not lain when the body is slain. ... The material body of the inde tructiblc, immeasurable and eternal living entity is sure to come to an end; therefore, fight...' (2:16, 17, 19,20, 18). But there is more. The consciousness of the metaphysical unreality of what one can lose or can cause another to lose, such as th ephemeral life and the mortal body - a consciou ness which corr sponds to the definition of human exi tence as 'a mere pastime' in one of the traditions which we have already can idered - is a ociated with the idea that spirit, in its absoluteness and transcendence, can only appear a a destructive force toward everything which is limited and incapable of 0 ercoming its own limited nature. Thus the problem arises of how the warrior can evoke the spirit, precisely in virtue of his being necessarily an instrument of de truction and death, and identify with it. Th answer to this problem is precisely what we find in our texts. The God not only declares, 'I am the strength of the strong, devoid of passion and de ire .... I am the original fragrance of th earth, and I am the heat in fire. I am the lif of all that lives, and I am the penance of all a cetics .... I am the original seed of all existences, th intelligence of the intelligent, and the prowess of

.dll ow rful men' (7:11,9, 10), but, finally, the God reveals himself III Arjuna in the tran cendent and fearful form of lightning. We I IIus arrive at this general vision of life: like electrical bulbs too IlIlghtly lit, like circuits invested with too high a potential, human IWlngs fall and die only because a power burns within them which u.rnscends their finitude, which goes beyond everything th y can Iii I and want. This is why they develop, reach a peak and then as II I) erwhelrned by the wave which up to a gi n point had carried rh -rn ~ rward, sink, dissolve, die and return to the unmanifcst. 1\111 the one who does not fear death, the one who is able, so to p .ak, to assume the powers of death by becoming everything hi h it destroys, overwhelms and shatters - this one finally passes I,l' -ond limitation, he continues to remain upon the crest of the W,I\' , he does not fall, and what is beyond life manifests itself \'11 hin him. Thus, Krishna, the personification of the 'principle I d spirit', after having revealed himself fully to Arjuna, can say, '\' i h the exception of you, all the soldiers here on both sid s will be slain. Therefore get up. Prepare to fight and win glory. ( llilquer your enemies and enjoy a flourishing kingdom. Th yare .rlr -ady put to death by My arrangement, and you, [0 Arjuna], 1,11\be but an instrument in the fight .... Therefore, kill them and III) not be disturbed. Simply fight, and you will vanquish your I'll .mies in battle' (32-34). We se here again the identification of war with the path of (;oc!', of which we spoke in the pr vious article. Th warrior I -ascs to act as a person. When he attains thi level, a great nonhuman force transfigures his action, making it absolute and 'pure' pl' iscly at its extreme. Here is a very evocative image belonging III the same tradition: 'Life -like a bow; the mind -like the arrow; I II . target to pierce - the supreme spirit; to j in mind t pirit a Ihe shot arrow hits its target.' This is one of the highest forms of m taphysical ju tifica11I)f1 war, one of the most comprehensive of images of war as ••.• acted war'.

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I 111M ETA PHYSICS OF WAR
I
'Il("

53

To conclude this excursion into the forms f heroic tradition, as presented to us by many different time and pe pies, we will only add a few final words. We have made this voyage into a world which, to some, could seem olltre<i nd irrelevant, out of curiosity, not to display a peculiar erudition. We have undertaken it instead with the precise intention of showing that the sacrality of war, that is to ay, that which provides a spiritual ju tification for war and the necessity of war, constitutes a tradition in the highest sense of the term: it i something which has app ared always and everywhere, in the ascending cycle of ev ry gr at civilisation; while the neurosis of war, the humanitarian and pacifist deprecation of it, as well as the conception of war a a 'sad necessity' or a purely political or natural phenom non - none f!! tbis corresponds to airy tradition. All this is but a mod rn fabrication, born yesterday, as a side-effect of the decompositi n of the democratic and materialistic civilisation against which today ncv revolutionary forces are rising up. In this sense, everything which we have gathered from a great variety of sources, constantly eparating the es ential from the contingent, the spirit from the letter, can be u ed by u as an inner fortificati n, as a confirmation, as a strengthened c rtainty. or only do a fundamentally virile in tinct appear justified by it on a superior basis, but also the po ibility pre ents itself of determining the form of the heroic experience which correspond to our highest vocation. Here we must refer t the fir t articl of this ries, in which we show d that there can be heroes of very different sorts, even of an animalistic and sub-personal sort; what matters is n t m rely th general capacity to throw oneself into combat and to sacrifice oneself, but also th precise spirit according to which such an cv ent is exp rienced. But we n w have all the elements n eded to specify, from all the varied ways of understanding, the heroic experience, which may be considered the supreme one, and which can make the identification of war with the 'path of

r 'ally true, and can mak one rec gnise, in the hero, a form divine manife tati n. Another previous consid ration must be recalled, namely, that I III' \ arrior's vocation really approache this metaphysical peak IIIII r -Ilects the impul e t what is universal, it cannot help but II lid toward an equally universal manifestation and end for his I 1\ \" t hat is to say, it cannot btlt predestine that racefor empire. For only IIII ('Inpirc as a sup rior order i.n which apax flillmpbaii/' is in force, "I II!)>';as the earthly reflection I f the vereignty of the 'supra1111( is adapted to f rces in the field of spirit which reflect th I,' "I a 1 and free energie of nature, and are able to manifest the 111.11.1 of purity, power, irresistibility and transcendence .tcr ver 1I11'_IIIIos,passion and human limitation.
I

d

4

French: 'to go to excess'

I .um: 'peace through victory'

ItM Y' AS VISION OF THE WORLD

55

'Army' as Vision of the World1
ndoubtedly, the new Fasci t generation already possesses a broadly military, warlike orientation, but it has not yet grasped the necessity of integrating the details of simple discipline and psychophysical training into a superior order, a general 1S10n of life.

U

The ethical aspect
One begin to see this when one tudies our ancient tradition , which, certainly not by chance, so oft n used a symbolism taken from fighting, s rvingand assertin oneself heroically, to expre s purely spiritual realities. The group of initiates was called stratos, or 'army>, in Orphism; mzies expres ed a degree of the Mithraic hierarchy; symbols of agony always recur in the sacred representations of classic Romanity, and passed, in part, to Chri tian asceticism it elf. But here we shall deal with something more precise than mere analogies, namely, the related doctrine of 'holy war', f which we have spoken previously in our books, as well as in these pag s. We shall confine ourselves to the ethical field and refer to a special and central attitude, calculated to bring about a radical change of meaning in the wh Ie field of value, and to raise it to a plane of
I Originally published on 30 May 1937 as 'Sulla "Milizia" quale visione del rnondo' in 'Diorama mensile; II Regime Fascista.

manliness, separating it completely from all bourg ois attitudes, humanitarianism, moralism and limp conformi m. The basis of this attitud is summed up in Paul's w ll-kn wn phras , vita est militia super terram. It is a matter of conceiving the 11t'lIlg here below as having been ent in the guise of a man on.a 111I:->5ionmilitary service to a rem te front, the purpose of this of 11I1~5ion always being directly sensed by the individual (in the not .1 III manner that one wh fights in the outposts cannot always lorrn a precise idea of the overall plan to which he contributes), IHit in which inn r nobleness i alway measured by the fact of 1csisting, of accomplishing, in spite of all, what must be accomplish d, in the fact of not doubting, nor hesitating, in the fact of ,I rid lity stronger than life or death. The first results of this view are an affirmative attitude with 1('SP .ct to the world: assertion and, at the same time, a certain lu-cdom. He who is really a soldier is so by nature, and therefore It· " use he wants to b so; in the mi ions and ta ks which are ~',IV .n 0 him, consequently, he recognise himself, 0 to speak. j ,t! .wise, th one who conceives his existence as being that of ,I soldier in an army will be ery far from considering the w rId .1',, vale of tears from which to flee, or as a circus of irrati nal 1\ .nt at which to throw himself blindly, or as a realm for which ,,1//,(' died constitutes the supreme wi dom. Though he is not unaware of the tragic and negative ide f s many things, his way ,.r r acting to them will be quite different from that of all other IIII:n. His feeling that this world is not his Fatherland, and that it lit) 'S not repre ent his proper condition, so to speak - his feeling I hat, ba ically, he 'comes from afar' - will r main a fundamental (.j .mcnt which will not gi e rise to mystical e capism and spiritual \\ cakness, but rather will enable him to minimise, to relativise, to •d"l'f to higher concept of measure and limit, all that can seem tlnl ortant and definitive to thers, starting with death itself, and \.11 onfer on him calm force and breadth of ision.
>

I

l.atin: 'seize the day:

54

56

METAPHYSICS

OF WAR

\1 MY' AS VISION OF THE WORLD

57

The Social Aspect
The military conception of life, then, leads to a new sense of social and political solidarity. It goes beyond all humanitarianism ~n~ 'socialism': men are not our 'broth rs', and our 'neighb ur' 1S lO a wayan insolent concept. Society is neither a creature of neces ity, nor something to be justified or sublimated on the ba is of the ideal of honeyed universal love and obligatory altruism. Every ciety will instead be essentially conceived in the terms of the ~olidarity existing between quite distinct being, each one determined to protect the dignity of its personality, but neverthele~s united in a common action which binds them side by side, :V1th~utsentimentali m, in male comradeship. Fidelity and incerlty, WIth the ethic of honour to which they give rise, will thus be se n as the true basis of every community. According to ancient Indo- ermanic legislation, killing did not appear to b as erious a fault as betrayal, or even m re lying. A warlik ethics would also lead to more or less this attitude and it would be inclined to limit the principle of solidarity by means of those of dignity and affinity. The soldier can regard as comrades only those whom he holds in e teem and who are resolute to hold to their posts, not those who give way, the weak or the in pt. Be ide, the one wh.o guides has the duty of gathering and pushing forward the valid forces, rather than wasting them on concern and lament for those who have already fallen, or have yielded or have landed themselves in ails-de-sac:

Sense of Stoicism
However, the views we put forward here are most valuable in terms of inner strengthening. Here we enter in the field of a properly Roman ethics, with which the reader should already be familiar through those excerpts from classical authors which are published on a regular basis in the 'Diorama'. As we have stated pr viou ly, we speak here of an inner chan e, by virtue of which one's reactions towards fact and life- xperiences become absolutely different, and~ rather than being negative, as they are generally, becom posmve and con tructive, Stoic Romanity offers us an excellent

1I1~I~hl into thi , provided that it is known as it really was, as true Ilil I indomitable life-affirmation, far from the preconceiv d opinI!.IIS \ hich end avour to make us see in the Stoic only a stiffened, h.mlcn d being bee me foreign to life, Can one really doubt this, h '11 , cneca ' affirms the true man as superior to a god, since, 111111· he latter is protected by nature from misfortune, man can 11.(' " the latter, challenge it, and show him elf superior to it? Or I hen he calls unhappy tho e who have never been so, ince they lr.rv 'n cr managed to know and to measure their force? In these 1IIIIIors precisely one can find many elements for a warlike system 101 "hies, which revolutionises completely the common manner 1 II Ihinkjng. A very characteristic aspect of this viewpoint is this: IIll' one who is sent off to a dangerous place curses his fate only II Itl' is a vile person; if he is a heroic spirit, he is instead proud of II, sin he knows that his commander chooses the worthiest and II )l1g st for any risky mission and for any post of responsibility, 1":1\ Ing the most convenient and secure posts only to those whom I", basically does not hold in esteem, This same thought is appropriate to the most dark, tragic, ,I", ouraging moments of life: it is necessary to discover in these 1 IIIt .1' a hidd n providentiality or an appeal to our nobility and ,liP .rioriry. '\l ho is worthy of the name of Man, and of Roman', eneca \ 111 .s precisely, 'who does not want to be tested and does not 1,1,.1 for a dangerous task? For the strong man inaction is torture, I'lu-re is only one sight able to command the attention even of a ,',IIt!, and it is that of a strong man battling with bad luck, specially rl IH.' has himself challenged it.' This is a wisdom, besides, which is taken from ancient ages, nul finds a place even in a general conception of the history of IIt ' \ orld. If He iod, before the spectacle of th Ag of Iron IIll' dark and deconsecrated age which is identified a th last .1,',', .xclaimed, 'If only then I did not have to live [in the Age of
, Seneca (4 I3C-65 AD) was a noted Roman writer and philosopher. He commitll'd suicide after being accused of involvement in an assassination plot against the Emperor Nero.

58

METAPHY ICS OF WAR

lron], but could hav either di d first or b en born afterwards!'," a teaching p culiar to th ancient Indo-Germanic traditions was that precisely th se who, in the dark age, resist in spite of all will b able to obtain fruits which those who lived in more favourable, less hard, periods could seldom reach. Thus the vi ion of ne's life as membership within an army gives shape to an ethic of it own and to a precise inner attitude which arouses deep forces. On this basis, to eek m mbership in an actual army, with its disciplines and its readines D r absolute action on the plane of material struggle, is the right direction and the path which must be followed. It is necessary to first feel on elf to be a soldier in spirit and to render ne's sen ibility in accordance with that in order to be able to do this also in a material sense sub equently, and to avoid the dangers which, in the sense of a mat rialistic hardening and overempha is on the purely physical, can otherwise come from militarisation on the external plane alone: wherea ,given this preparation, any external form can ea ily become the symbol and instrument of properly spiritual meanings. Fa cist system of ethics, if thought through thoroughly, cannot but be directed along those lin s. ' corn for the easy lif ' is the starting point. The further points of reference must still be placed as high as possible, beyond everything which can speak only to fe ling and b yond all mere myth. If the two most recent phases f th involutionary process which has led to the modern decline ar first, th ri e of the bourgeoise, and sec nd, the c llectivisati n not only of the idea of the tate, but also of all values and of the concepti n of ethic itself, then to g beyond all this and t reassert a 'warlike' vi i n of life in the afor mentioned full sense must constitute the precondition for any reconstruction: when the world of the masses and of the materialistic and sentimental middle classes gives way to a world f 'warriors', the main thing will have be n achieved, which makes possible the coming of an even high r rder, that of true traditional spirituality.
4 H siod, 7heogony (Cambridge: Library, 2006), pp. 101·102. Harvard University Press/The Loeb Classical

ace and War1
n of the most seriou obstacle to a urely bi 1 gical formulation of the doctrine of race is the fact that cr ssI,!t,t, ling and contamination of the blood are not the only cause ,01 I h . decline and decay of races. Races may equally degenerate Illd come to their end because of a process - so to speak - of u uu-r .xtinction, without the participati n of external factors, In 1'111 ,I r biological terms this may correspond to th e enigmatic uuu-r ariations' (idiovariations) which science has been forced to II I (tgnise are just a powerful as variations due to cross-br eding III hringing about mutations. 'I'hi will never be completely understood if the biological conI I pi ion of race is not integrated with that 'racism of the second IIHI of the third degree' of which we have repeatedly p k n hr. 't IS only if race is considered as existing not only in the body, but ,d:-.o in the soul and in the spirit, as a de p, meta-biological force " hi ch conditions both the physical and the PS) chical structures III I h . organic totality of the human entity - it is only if this emi1I1'IIIIy traditional point of view is assumed - that the my teryof t Ill' decline f races can be fathomed in all its a peers, ne can I hen realise that, in a way analogous to the individual abdication ,IIHI inner breakdown of the individual, where the loss of all moral unsion and the attitude of passive abandonment can gradually
I ( )riginally published on 20 October 1939 as 'La razza e la guerra' in La Difesa del/a 1<lIzza.

59

60

METAPHYSICS

OF WAR

I(

C' A DWAR

61

find expression in a true physical collapse, or can paralyse natural organic resources far more efficiently than any threat to the body - so developments of the same nature can occur on th plane of those greater entities which are human races, on the greater scale in space and in time of their aggregate life spans. And what we have just pointed out about organic resources neutralised, when the inner - moral and spiritual- tension of an indi idual is lacking, can even allow us to con ider less simplistically and Ie materialistically the matter of racial alterations due to mixing and contamination, as well. his is quite similar to what happens in infection. It is known, in fact, that bact ria and microbes are not always the sole effecti e an~ unilatera~ causes of illnes : for a disease to be acquired by contagIOna certain mor or less strong predisposition is necessary. The state of integrity or tonicity of the organism, in turn, conditions this predi position, and this is greatly affected by the spiritual factor, the presenc of th whole being to himself, and his state of inner in~epidity or anguish. In accordance with this analogy, we may believe that, for cross-breeding to have a really, fatally, inexorably degen~rative outcome for a race, it is nece sary without exception that this race already be damaged inwardly to a certain extent, and that the tension of its original will be lax as a result. When a race has been reduced to a mere ensemble f atavistic automatisms, which have become the sole surviving vestige of what it once was, then a collision, a lesion, a simple action from outside, is enough to mak it fall, to disfigure it and to denature it. In uch a case, it do s not behave like an elastic body, ready to react and to resume its original shape after the collision (provided, that i , that the latter does not exceed certain limits and doe not produce permanent actual damage), but, rather, it behaves like a rigid, inelastic body, which passively endures the imprint of external action. On the basis of these consideration two practical tasks of racism can be distinguished. Th first task could be said to be one of passive defence. This means sheltering the race from all external actions (cro sings, unsuitable forms of life and culture,

hich could present the danger to it of a crisis, a mutation or .1 II .naturation. The second task, in contrast, is active resistance, ind onsists in reducing to a minimum the predisposition of the 1.11 -r degeneration, that is to say, the ground on which it can be I posed passi ely to external action. This means, ssentially, 'to ;IIl' its inner race; to see to it that its intimate tension i never 1.1( king; that, as a counterpart of its physical integrity, within it til -r is something like an unc ntrollable and irreducible fire, .d\ "ys yearning for new material to f ed its blaz ,in the form of 11('\ bstacles, which defy it and force it to reas ert it elf. This second task is obviously more arduous than the first, luxausc it can demand solutions which vary from individual to mdividual, and because external, general and material mea ures .Itt' of little u e for it. It is a matter of overcoming the inertia of prrir, that force of gravity which is in force in human interiority 110 I· than in the outer, physical world, and here finds expres1011 precisely in the inclination to abandonment, to 'take it ea y', II. always follow the path of least resistance. But, unfortunately, 1(If' the individual a well as for the race, to overcome this danger " IS necessary to have a support - for the ability to act directly, to .ilv ay remain at the crest of the wave, to maintain an inner initiaI IV • which i always renewed, without the need for renewed stimuli, 1.111 nly occur as the result of an exceptional endowment, and v.rnn t reasonably be demanded as a matter of course. As we hav x.u I, for tension which has bee me latent to reawaken before it is .1 H late and the processes of the automatisation of race follow, an t ,Iistacle, a test, almost a challenge, is necessary. It is then that the I I isis and the deci ion occur: by their way of reacting, the de per, III .ra-biological powers of the rae then show whether they have I «mained stronger than the contingencies and the destinie of the I',.V .n period of history. In the ca e of a positive reaction new PClt ntialities come from deep in ide to again saturate the racial I II' uit. new ascending cycle begins for that race. In some cases, it is even possible that precision cross-breeding 1111 urally kept within very stringent limits - carries out a function 1,1 that kind. Thi is well-known in zootechnics. The 'pure breed' in
I II ) ~
i

62

METAPHYSICS

OF WAR

1'/\( 'J: A
1.111011

D WAR

63

ome animal species is both the result of the preservation of heredity and of judicious cross-breeding. We do not share th opinion

of Chamberlain.? who was inclined to apply this kind of thinking to the 'superior races' of humanity. However, it is a well-proven fact that in some ari toeratic families, which, with their centuriesold blood law, have been the only experimental field for racism in history so far, some cross-breeding have had precisely the merit of preventing extinction of the line through inner degeneration. Here -let us stress - the cross-breeding has the function of an ordeal, not a rule - an ordeal, moreover, which can al 0 present a dangerou challenge for the blood. But danger reawakens the spirit. Before the heterogeneous element introduced by crossbr eding, the homogenous nucleus is called to reaffirm itself, to assimilate to himself what is alien, to act towards it in the capacity of the 'dominant' towards the 'recessive', in terms of the Laws of Mendel.' If the reaction is positive, tile result is an av akening. The stock which seemed spent and exhausted reawaken. But if it has already fallen too much, or if the heterogeneity is exce ive, the ordeal fails and the decline is quick and definitive. But the highest instrument of the inner awakening of race i combat, and war is its highest expression. That pacif m and humanitarianism are phenomena closely linked to internationalism, democracy, cosmopolitanism and liberalism is perfectly logical- the same anti-racial instinct present in som is reflected and confirmed in the others. The will towards sub-racial levelling inborn in internationalism finds its ally in pacifist humanitarianism which has the function of preventing the heroic test from disrupting the game by galvanising th surviving forces of any remaining not completely deracinated peoples. It is odd, howev r, and illu trates the errors to which a unilaterally biological forrnu2 Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855-1927) was one of the most influential racial theorists of the early Twentieth century. His most important work was The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (New York: John Lane, 1910). Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884) was a Czech-German scientist, and is often called 'the father of modern genetics; Mendel's Laws of Inheritance, based on hi study of plants across several generations, attempted to define how specific characteristics are transmilled from parents to their offspring.

f the racial problem can lead, that the racial theory of IIIIS$'1 ctions',a xpressedforexamplebyVacherdeLap uge,4 ".11 takes, to a certain extent of the same incomprehen ion of the p"slli e meaning of war for race - but h re, in the face of full J III " I dge of the facts - as is found in internationalist democI 111~m. Io be specific, they supp se that every war turns into a I"' .gl'cssive elimination of the best, of the exponents of the still"111(' race of the various peoples, thu facilitating an involution. This is a partial view, because it only considers what is lost till ough the disappearance of some individuals, n t what is unused to a much greater extent in others by the experience ," wa which otherwise would never have been aroused. This "I'lomes even more bvious if we do not consider ancient wars Iii .h were largely fought by elit s while the lower strata were Ip.II··d by them, but rather modern wars which engage entire .1' In -<.1 nations and which, moreover, in their character of t talII\" involve not only physical but also moral and spiritual forces ," .ornbatants and non-combatants alike. The Jew Ludwig" '''PI' .ssed fury about an article published in a erman military II" i 'W which brought out the possibilities of election related to .111 bombardments, in which the test of ang-fr id, the immediate, lurid reaction of th instinct of direction in opposition to brutal II' on fused impulse, cannot but result in a decisive discriminaIII H1 f those who ha e the greatest probability of escaping and urviving from those who do not The indignation of the humanitarian Jew Ludwig, who has 1I~' orne the bellicose propagator of the 'new Holy Alliance' .II',ainstfascism, is powerless against what is truthful in consider.ruons of this sort. If the next world war is a 'total war' it will als
(; orges Vacher d Lapouge (1854-1936) was a French anthropologist, ocialist, nnd racial theorist. He was the author of L.:4ryen: son role social (The Aryan and l lis Social Role), published in Paris in 1899 and never translated into English. In thi, work he classified the various races, and proposed that the European Aryans are in opposition to the Jews as racial archetypes. His ideas were highly influential upon the racialist and eugenics movements.
r

3

Emil Ludwig (1881-1948) was primarily known at the time as th author ofa number of popular biographies of historical figures, including Goethe, Bismarck and Mus olini.

64

METAPHYSIC

OF WAR

I' \( E AND WAR
\ 1111

65

m an a 'total test' f the surviving racial forces of the modern world. Without doubt, some will collap e, wherea other will awak and ris. amel ss catastrophes could e en be the hard but necessary price of heroic peaks and new liberations of primordial fore s dulled through grey centuries. But uch is the fatal c ndition for the creation of any new world - and it is a new world that we seek for the future. What we have said here must be considered as a mere introduction t the que tion f the siznificance which war has, in general, for race. Three fundamental points should be con idered in conclusion. First, since we proceed from the assumption that there is a fundamental difference between human races - a difference which, according to the doctrine of the three degrees of racism," is not restricted to corporeality but cone rns also soul and spirit - it should be expected that the spiritual and physical behaviour towards the experience or test of war varies between the various race; it will therefore be both necessary and interesting to define th sense according to which, for each pecifi.c race, the aforementioned reaction will occur. Second, it is necessary to consider th interdependent relationship between what a well-understood racial policy can do to promote the aims of war, and, conversely, what war, in the presupposition of a correct spiritual attitude, can do to promote the aims of race. We can speak, in thi respect of a sort of g rm, or primary nucleus, created initially or reawakened by racial policy, which brings out racial values in the consciousness of a pe ple; a germ or nucleus which will bear fruit by giving the war a value, while conversely the experience of war, and the instinct and currents of deep forces which emerge through such an exp rience, give the racial ense a correct, fecund direction. nd this leads us t the third and last point. Pe ple are accustomed to speaking t 0 generally, and too romantically, about 'heroism', 'heroic experience' and the like. When they are done
6 For more on Evola's theory of race, s e 'Julius Evola's Concept of Race: A Racism of Three Degrees' by Michael Bell at Counter-Currents, www.counter-current . comf2011l02Ijulius-evulas-concept-of-race/. Available as of26 April 2011.

such romantic assumptions, in modern times, there seem to uuin only mat rial nes, such that men who rise up and fight III ronsid red simply as 'human material', and the heroi m of lit. • nrnbaranrs is related t viet ry as merely a means to an end, dw -nd itself being n thing but the increase of the material and I IIIIIimic p wer and territory of a given state. 111 view of the considerations which have b n p inted out I" II', i is necessary to change these attitudes. rom the 'ordeal 11\ j rr .' of the primordial fore s f race and heroic experience, dIIiv . all ther experience, has been a means to an essentially 1'1111 ual and interior end. ut th re is more: heroic experience ,Id f -rcntiates it elf in it results not only according to the various I 111':-;, but als according to the extent to which, within each race, I lip .r-race has formed itself and come t power. The vari us d. )'.1 ccs of this creati diff r ntiation correspond to so many \ ,IY:; being a hero and to s many forms of awakening through of III loi experience. On the lowest plane, hybrid, essentially vital, III','III tive and c llective forces emerge - this is som what similar IfI III, awakening on a large scale of the 'primordial horde' by the Iltdnrity,unity of d stiny and holocaust which is peculiar to it. t lI.tdually,this mostly naturalistic xp ri nce is purified, dignified, IIld becomes luminous until it reaches its highe t form, which fill' .sponds to the Aryan conception of war as 'holy war', and d VI tory and triumph as an apex, since its value is identical to tilt· values of holiness and initiation, and, finally, of death on th 1',Itli ,/1 ld a mol'S trillmpbalis, as not a rhetorical but an effective 11\ 1'1' orning of death. I laving indicated all these points in a basic but, we trust, sufIIInntly intelligible manner, we propose to tackle them one by one III\ rirings which will f llow the present one, each of which will !'l' -j (ically c n ider the varieties of heroic experience according III fa C and then the vision of war peculiar to the ordic-Aryan 11111 rio-Roman tradition in particular.
II I ! I I

() II • ROISMS
It
I

67

Two Heroisms'
o pursue our previou discussions about th varied meanings that the fact of war and the experience of heroism can represent for the race it is necessary to briefly explain the concept of the 'super-race' and the related distinction between races as given by 'nature' and races in the higher, human and spiritual sense. ccording to the traditional view, man as such is not reducible to purely biological, instinctive, hereditary, naturalistic determinisrns; if all this has its part, which i wrongly neglected by a spiritualism of dubious value, the fact still remains that man distinguishes himself from the animal insofar as he participates also in a super-natural, super-biological element, olely in accordanc with which he can be free and be himself. Generally, these two aspects of the human being are not necessarily in contradiction with one another. Although it obeys its own law , which must be respected, that which in man is 'nature' all w itself to be the organ and instrument of expression and action of that in him which is more than 'nature'. It is only in the vision of life peculiar to emitic peoples, and above all to the Jewish people, that corporeality becomes 'flesh', as root of every sin, and irreducible antagonist of spirit. We should apply this way of seeing the individual to these vaster individualities which are race. orne race can be compared
1 Originally published on 20 Razza. overnber 1939 as 'Due eroismi' in La Difesa della

T

animal, or to the man who, degrading himself, has passed , r r , 1 purely animalistic way of life: such are the 'rae s of nature'. I II\' , arc not illuminated by any superior element; no f rce from II II)V • supports them in the vicissitudes and contingencies with hll h their life in pace and in time presents them. In these .11 (I -als,what predominates in them is the collectivist elem nt in till' form of instinct, 'genius of the species', or spirit and unity I" I h . horde. Broadly speaking, the feeling of race and blood III •t' an be stronger and surer than in other people or stocks: urvcrtheless, it always represents something sub-personal and .mplctely naturalistic, such as, for example, the dark 'totemism' :-i:lVageopulations, in which the totem, which is in a way th p III I~I al entity of the race or tribe but meaningfully associated i , If h a given animal species, is conceived as something prior to I .Il h individual, as soul of its soul, not in the abstract, in theory, 1,"1 in every expre sion of daily life. Having referred to the sav,1)"l'S, incidentally, and reserving the right to return eventually to Ihl' argument involved, we must indicate the error of those who I I Insider the savages as 'primitives', that is, as the original forms of humanity; from which, according to th usual mendacious theory <I' Ihe inferior miraculously giving rise to the uperior, superior r. IC.'S ~ould have 'evolved'. In many cases it is exactly the contrary "hi h IS true. avages, and many races which we can consider as 'natural', are only the last degenerate remnant f vanished, far .uucrior, superior races and civili ations, even the name of which 11,\, often n t reached us. This is why the presumed 'primitives' \ 'ho till exist today do not t nd to 'evolve', but rather disappear .lcfinitively and become extinct. In other races, however the naturalistic element is, so to speak , Ih . vehicle of a superior, super-biological element, which is to I h former what the spirit is to the body. uch an element almost ;1": ays becomes incarnated in the tradition of such races and in Ihe elite which embodies this tradition and keeps it alive. Here, Ihcrefore, there is a race of the spirit behind the race of body .md blood in which the latter expresses th former in a more or
f II '

I"
I'

66

68

METAPHYSICS

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till"

69
'advanced' spirit who invents a superiority for himself on the lusis of rhetoric, empty speculations and exquisite aestheticisms; II'l' pacifist, the social climber, the neutralist humanitarian, all this h.ilf-extinguished material of which so significant a part of th modern world i made up, is actually a product of racial degeneration, the expression f the deep crisis of the Man of the West, .rll rhe more tragic as it is not even felt as such. Let us now come to the fact of war and the experience of heroism. Both we hav claimed in our previous writings, are IIlS\ rument of awakening. An awak ning, however, of what? War " peri need, determines a fir t selection; it separat s the strong r Iorn the weak, the h roes from the cowards. '-orne fall, others .isscrt themselves. But thi is not enough. ari us ways of being heroes, various meanings, can arise in heroic experience. From t',1 h race, a different, specific reacti n must be expected. Let us I more this fact for now and follow instead the 'ph en om nology' •If the awakening of race d tel'mined by war, that is, the various \ -pical modalities of this awakening, working theoretically 00 the distinction which has just b en made ('race of nature' and 'superI a e') and practically on the concrete aspect, that is to say the fact Ihat since it i no longer specialised warlike elites but masses which face war, war therefore to a great extent concerns th mixed, bourg ois, half-degraded type, whom we have described .ibovc as a product of crisis. To put such a product of crisis to the test of fire, t impose lip n him a fundamental alternative, not theoretical, but in terms nf reality and even of lit and death: this is the first healthy eft ct of the fact of war for race. Ignis essentiae, in the terminology of ancient alchemists: the fire which tests, which strips to the 'essenc '. To follow this development more concret ly we shall refer \0 the unique documentation which is found in famous authors S ich as, for example, Erich Maria Rernarque and the French Rene Quinton.'
, Rene QUinton (1866-1925) was the author of Soldier's Testament: Selected Maxims of Rene Quinton (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1930). This is the English version of the book discussed by Evola below.

less p rfect manner according to the circumstances, individuals, and often caste, in which this rae is articulated. 1 he truth of thi i clearly felt wh rever, in symb lie form, Antiquity attributed 'divine' or 'celestial' origins to a given race or caste. In this context, therefore, purity of blood, or the lack of it, is no longer sufficient to defin the essence and rank of a given race. Where the regime of the castes was in force every caste could obviously be considered 'pure' because the law of endogamy or non-mixing applied to all of them. ot to have merely pure blood, but to ha e - symbolically - 'clivine' blood, instead defined the superior caste or race with respect to the plebeian one, or to what wc have called the 'race of nature'. Hence the fact that, in the ancient Indo-Germanic civili ations of the East, the community or spiritual race of the arya identified itself with that of the dv!ja, the 'twice-born' or 'reborn': this was a refer nce to a supernatural element pertaining to it, to latent gifts of 'race' in a superior sense, which a special ritual, compared to a second birth or to a r generation, had to progressively confirm in the individual. But maybe we will have to go back 0 er this al 0; these points are, however, sufficient for the argument which we now intend to make. We need only add that, if we look at humanity today, not only is it difficult to find a group which maintains one race of the body or another in the pure state, but it should unfortunately also be recognised that the general di tinction between naturalistic race and uperior races, or super-races, becomes in ery many cases extremely uncertain: often, m dern man has lost both the steadiness of instinct of the 'races of nature' and the superiority and metaphysical tension of the' uper-race'. He looks rather like what primitive peoples in reality, and not in the view of evolutionists, are: beings which, even though they proceed from originally superior races, have degraded themsel s to animalistic, naturalistic, amorphous and semi-collectivist ways of life. What Landra/ has accurately describ d in these page as 'the rae of the b urgeois', of the petty conformist and right-thinking man,
2 Guido Landra was an anthropologi t, and wa the first director of the Office of Racial Studies, a department within the Ministry of Popular Cultur of ascist Italy.

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eryone know Remarque as the author of the notorious novel Ail Qlliet on the WcstCrtl Fml1t,4 considered a mas terpiece 0 f defeatism. Our opinion in this matter is no diff r nt: it is nevertheless worth examining this novel with the coldest objectivity. Th characters of the novel are teenagers who were imbued as volunr er with every sort f 'idealism', resonant with that rhet rical, romantic and choreographically heroic conception of war spread by those people who, with fan far and beautiful speeches, had limited themselves to accompanying them to the station. Once they have reached the front and have been caught in the true experience of modern war, they come to realise that it is something quite different and that non of the ideal and the aforementioned rhetoric can support them any longer. They do not become either vile wretches or traitors, but their inner being is transformed; it i an irremediably broken generation, even where the howitzers have spared it. They advance, they often become 'heroe '- but as what? They feel war to be an elemental, impersonal, inhuman vicissitude, a vicissitude of unleashed forces, in which to survive is only possible by reawakening as beings made of instincts which are absolute, as lucid as they are inexorable, instincts almost indep ndent from their persons. The e are the forces which carry such youngsters forward, which lead them to assert themselves where other would have been broken, or would have been driven crazy, or would have preferred the fate of the deserters and the vile wretches: but, beyond this, no enthusiasm, no ideal, no light. To mark in a morbidly evocative manner the terrible anonymity of this vicissitude, in which the individual no longer counts, Remarque make the book end with the death of the only young per on in the original group who had scaped, and who dies almost at the threshold of the armistice, on a day so calm that the communiques confine thems lve to this sentence: 'All quiet on the western front'. Even leaving asid the fact that the author of this book actually wa a combatant, it would be hard to say that processes of this sort
4 All Quiet on the Western Front (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1929). It i perhaps the most famous anti-war novel ever written.

", flnl 'novelistic', without relation to r ality. The defeatism of III III) ik, its insidious and deleterious side, lies rather in reducing 1111 \ hole war, that is, all the possibilities of the experience of II, to a single, certainly real, but particular, a pect of it; in fact 1111 IS III rely the negative outcome of a test, which, howe er, • III he overcome by other positively. A point should be borne III IIIIIHJ: the anti-bourgeois thesis. p to this point, we can even 1'111' \ i h Remarque. War acts as a cathar is, a a 'purification': 1/111 1'.IJ£'I1tiae. Beautiful words, beautiful feelings, rhetorical flights, 111) diS and watchwords, humanitarianism and verbose patriotism III sw .pt away, and 0 is the petty person with the illusion of II 111 portance and its usefulne . All this is far too little. One I 111 th fac f pure forces. And, to resist, one must reawaken III ('\ isc as an embodiment of pure forces intimately connected till the depth of race: forgetting one's own '1', ne' own life. 11111 It is pr cisely here that the two opposite possibilities show rlumsclve : once the superstructures of the 'race of limbo', of IIII bourgeois, half-extinguished man, hav b en blown up, two 1\'\ of vercoming the 'human' are likewise open: the shift t till sub-human, or the shift to the super-human. In one case, 1111 beast reawakens; in the other, the hero in the true sens , the .II I~'I and traditional sense; in the former, the 'race of nature' II \ IV'S, and, in the latter, the 'super-race'. Remarqu only knows illt first solution. Some years ago, a work by Rene Quinton was published in 1 1..1 1:1n translation: Massimc sllllagllcrra. It represents another very IIIJ1ularestimony. ight times injured in the World War, repeatt e ell decorated with the m t coveted decorations, Quinton can •• 11\ IOUly aspire to the generic qualification of 'hero'. But what lIu':lning has this 'h ro' experienced in war? This book is the 111\" er, War i conceived and justified by Quinton biologically, 111 (IO'e dependency on the instincts of the species and 'natural , kcrion'. Some quotations: There are, at the base of any being, tw motive: th egoistic one which drive him t conser e

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'11)

II R

ISMS

73

his own life, and the altruistic one which leads him to forget himself, to sacrifice himself for a natural end which he does not know and which becomes identified with the benefit f the species. Thus, the weak, in the service of the species, attacks the more powerful, without prud nee, without reason, without even hoping to win. The genius of the pecies commands him to attack and to gamble his life [...] The male and the female are created for the service of the species. The males are organised t fight each other [for the purpose of sexual selection]. War is their natural state, as for the female the sacred order is to conceive and then to nurture. Hence this singular conception of heroi m: The hero does not act from a sense of duty, but from love [meaning: according to race instincts, which the sexual function obeys]. In war man is no longer man, he is only the male [...] War is a chapter of love - males bee me intoxicated with tearing each other to pieces. The drunkenness of war is a drunkenness of love. The instrument of the species, of the race of the body, in a primordial outburst, according to Quinton: Thus, there is nothing sublime about the hero, nor about the heroic mother who rushes towards a fire in order to save her child: they are the born male and female.

1,1 rndi ate the conclusion that all this leads to, we will quote these
1IIIIh

-r excerpts from Quinton: very ideal is a pretext to kill. Hatred i the most important thing in life.The wise men who no longer hate are ready for sterility and death. You must not understand the [enemy] peoples, you must hate them. The more man rises, the more his hatred for man grows. ature has by no means created males, and peoples, in order for them to love each other.

I 'lu- joy of hurting the adversary constirutes, then, one of the , ~ -ntial elements of the hero.

Socialised life is composed of merely artificial duties. War frees man from these and returns him to his primal instincts. cvolutionistic-biological framework of a view such as this, rlu-sc instincts are es entially dependent on race, in the ense of
III

Ihe

I'l' ·lCS. .J ust as it would be inaccurate to regard Remarque merely as a

1.lll11diced efeatist, so it would b inaccurate to r gard Quinton d III 'J" ly as a combatant who, in trying to express his experiences theoretically, became a victim of the notorious theory of combat ,IS the natural selection of the species. There is more. There is, .lcspite several features of caricature and one-sidedness, a sign I If real life. Actually, the lion can arise from the sheep precisely III rhis sense. Man reawakens and resumes contact with the deep Inr e of life and race from which he had become alienated, but III order to be no more than a 'male' and, at best, a "magnificent lx-asr of prey". In th realm of the 'races of nature', this may lie n rmal, and the phenomena by which experiences f that 'ort are likely to be accompanied - horde solidarity, unity of

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I III irncntal humanitarian, has a baleful, deplorable, deleteri us .Iuracter for 'human values', and shows itself in tead here to have pl1 itual value. ven death - death on the batdefield - becomes, III Ihis respect, a testimony to life; hence the Roman conception •II Ihe mors tnilmphafis and the ordic conception of Valhalla as a 1,1.1 c of immortality exclusively reserved for 'heroes'. But there is Ill( I)" .: th assumptions of such heroic experience seem to possess III almost magical effectivene s: they are inner triumphs which , .111 determine yen material victory and are a sort of evocation ,II divine forces intimately tied to 'tradition' and the 'race of th prrit' of a given stock. That is why, in the ritual of the triumph III Rome, the victorious leader b re the insignia of the Capitoline .hvmiry. Th se r mark are ufficient to allow the reader to anticipate I h,1I what we say is not a mere 'theory' of ours, a phil sophicaJ I H isirion or interpretation thought up by us. This doctrine of heroI~m as a sacred and almost magical culmination, this mystical and 1<,(' .tic conception of fighting and of winning, it elf xpre s s a III c cise tradition, today forgotten but extensively documented in IIIl' t stirnonies of ancient civilisations, and especially of ryan mcs, This is why, in a subsequent article, we propose to express I he same meanings by making ancient myths and symbols and uiuals, Roman and Indo-Germanic, speak, which will clarify \\ hat, so far, we ha e had necessarily to expose in a synthetic and l'.(·neral form.
C

1'1

I,

I

destiny, etc. - may even have a healthy, reviving effect for a given organised ethnic group. But from the point of view of one who already belong to a 'race of the spirit' this can only be his ordeal of fire turned into a fall. The catharsis, the amputation of the 'bourgeois' excrescence br ught about by war, here, exposes not what is superior to the ideal of personality but what is inferior to it, marking the borderline point of the involution of the race of the spirit into that of the body. To use the terms of anci nt Aryan traditions, this is pitr:yana, the path of those who are dissolved in dark ancestral forces, not dbJajlana the 'path of gods'.5 Let us now consider the other possibility, that i , the case in which the experience of war turns into a re t ration, an awakening, of the race f the spirit, or 'super-race'. We have already stated the normal relationship in the uper-race between the biological element and the super-biological one, or, if we prefer, between the 'vital' element and the prop rly spiritual one. The former must be considered as an instrument for the manifestation and expression of the latter. Having this point of reference, the essentials of the positive solution can be expressed in a very simple formula: heroic experience and, in gen ral, the experience of risk, of combat, of painful tension must constitute for the individual one of those inner culmination in which the extreme intensity of life (que/' biological element) i almost transformed into something more-than-life (the supra-biological element). This implies a freeing upwards from the confines f individuality and the assumption of th bursting upwards of the d eper side of one's own being as the instrument of a sort of active c tasy, implying not the deepening but the transfiguration of personality, and, with it, of all lucid vision, precise action, command and domination. uch moments, such culminations of heroic experience, not only do not exclude, but actually demand all the aspects of war that have an 'elemental', destructive, we could almost say telluric, character: precisely that which, in the eyes of the petty individuality and the petty '1', the unwarlike 'intellectual' and the
5 6 This is discussed in the Upanisads, especially Brhadaranyaka Upanisad. Latin: 'by virtue of being:

J

,\t 'I, AND WAR: THE ARYA

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77

Race and War: The Aryan Conception of Combat'
nour previous article, dealing with the capacity f war and heroic experience to bring ab ut an awakening of deep forces connected to the substratum of the race, we have seen that, in the most general way, two distinct, and indeed opposite, types appear. In the first type, the petty bourgeois pe.rson~li~r - tamed, conformist, pseudo-intellectual or emptily idealistic - may undergo a disintegration, involving the emergence of elementary forces and instincts, in which the individual regresses to the pre-personal stage of the 'races of nature', which exhaust them elv s in a welter of conservative and affirmative instincts. In the second type, in contrast, the most 'elern ntal' and nonhuman aspects of the heroic experience become a means of transfiguration, of elevation and integration of per onality in - so to peak - a transcendent way of being. This constitutes an evocation of what we have call d 'the race of the spirit', that is, of the spiritual element from 'above', which, in superior stocks, acts formatively on the purely biological part, and i at the root of their 'tradition' and of their prophetic greatness - simultaneously, from the point of view of the individual, these are experiences which Antiquity, and pecifically Aryan antiquity, considered no
Originally published on 20 December 1939 as 'La razza e la guerra: la concezione ariana del combattere' in La Difesa della Razza.

I

I•.~ri h in supernatural fruit than those of asceticism, holiness uu] .vcn initiation. Having thus recall d our point of departure, I. I 11:-; specify the subjects which we intend to develop further. f 'U s t () f all, as we have said, we want to pres en t a brief accoun t III~ h make it apparent that the aforementioned conception of III rnism, far from bing the product of a particular speculation ," ours or of an empty rhetorical projection, corr sponds to I pre ise tradition which appears in a whole series of ancient 1\ rlisations. In the econd place, we want to develop the At) an «lI icepti n of 'victory', understood preci ely as a 'mystical' value, I, »cly connected to an inner rebirth. Finally, passing to a more , oil or te plane, we want to see, in general terms, of what is the III haviour of the various race in relation to this order of ideas. 1,1 f h present articl , we will deal thoroughly with the first point. Broadly speaking, we find that, especially among ancient \, ICIO humanity, war were thought of as imag s of a perennial II ',ill b tween metaphysical forces: on one hand there was the ( )1 -rnpian and luminous principle, uranic and solar truth; on the III II -r hand there was raw force, the 'titanic', telluric element, 1,,1 rharic' in the classical sense, the dernonic-f minine principle I haos. This view continually recurs in reek mythology in \ .irious symbolic forms; in still more precise and radical terms II :Ippears in the general ision of the world of the Irano- ryan 1,1 cs, which considered themselve literally to be the armies of 1111' od of Light in his truggle against the power of darkness; III, persist throughout the Middle Ages, often retaining their • lussical features in spite of the new religion. Thus, rederick I of "\\" bia,2 in his fight against the rebellious Commune, recalled the vmbol of Hercules and the arm with which this symbolic hero «II 1 orian-Aryan and Achaean-Aryan stock fought as all of the '( >lympian' forces against the dark creatures of chaos. This g neral conception, intimately exp rienced, could not help but be reflected in more concrete f rms of life and activity,
I I I I •

)

Prederick 1(I 122-1190), also known as Barbarossa (Redbeard), was the Holy Roman Emperor. He led six invasions of italy, and was a Crusader. According to legend, he was also on of the holders of the Spear of Destiny (the Lance which pierced the side of hrist), and will one day return to restore Germany to its former greatness.

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.., mbolically to an age of the unleashing of purely terrestrial and II .sccrated forces. It is important to note that similar meanings remain under the (]ulstian outer garment in the Medie al ideol gy of the Crusades. 'I'h libe.ration of the Temple and the conquest of the Ioly Land had a much closer relationship than is commonly suppos d with ,111 ient traditions relating to mystical A gard, a distant land of heroes, where there is no death, and whose inhabitants enjoy an III rruptible life and sup rnatural calm. 'Holy war' appeared as .1 ery spiritual war, so much so that it could be compared liter.illy by ancient chroniclers to 'a bathing, which is almost like the lite of purgatory before d ath' - a cl ar reference to the ascetic 11 caning of combat. 'It is a glory for you never to lea e the battle [unless] covered with laurels. But it i an e en greater glory to earn on the battlefield an immortal crown ..: said Saint Bernard 10 the Crusaders, addressing especially the Templar , in his De I,.III/de ouaeMilitiae.5 Glorie asoille/' attributed to the Lord who is :Ib ve, in th skies - in excelsis Deo - was promised to th warrior 111 Pro encal text _ Moreover, the first military s tbacks undergone by the Crusad("·S, which were initially a source of surprise and dismay, served 10 purify the notion of war from any residue of materialism and uperstitious d votion. The unhappy fate f a crusade was .ompared by the Pope and the clerks to that of an unfortunate life, which is judged and rewarded only according to the criteria of a non-earthly life and justice. Thus, the Crusaders learned to r .gard something as superior to victory and defeat, and to regard all valu a re iding in the spiritual aspect of action. Thus \ e approach the most inward a pect of heroic experience, its ascetic value: it should not cause surprise if, to .haracterise it further, we now turn to the Muslim tradition, which might seem to be the opposite pole to the one just discus ed. The truth is that the races which confronted each other in th Crusades were both warlike ones, which experienced in war the
r,

raised to the ymbolic and, we could almost say, 'ritual-like' level. or our purposes, it i worth noting particularly the transformation of war into the 'path of God' and 'greater holy war'. We omit deliberately here any documentation peculiar to Romanity because we will use this when dealing, in the next article, with the 'mysticism of victory'. We will begin instead with the testimonies, which are themselves very well-known, relating to the ordic-Aryan tradition. Here, Valhalla is the place of an immortality reserved above all for heroes fallen on the battlefield. The Lord of this place, Odin or Wotan, is presented to us in the Yngfingasaga as having shown to the heroes, by his own symbolic self-sacrifice on the cosmic tree Yggdrasil, the path which lead to that divin sojourn, where they liv eternally, a if on a dazzling luminous p ak beyond the clouds. According to this tradition, no sacrifice or cult is more appreciated by the supreme God than that which is performed by the hero who fights and falls on the battlefield. In addition to this there is a sort of m taphysical counterpart reinforcing this view: the forces of the heroes who, having fallen and sacrificed themselves to Odin, have gone beyond the limits of human nature, and then increase the phalanx which this god need to fight the Rogna-rijkkr, that is, the 'darkening of the divin ') which has threatened the world since ancient times. In the _~dda) in fact, it is said that 'no matter how great the number of the hero s gathered in athalla, they will never be too many for when the Wolf comes'. The 'Wolf' here is the symbol of a dark and wild power which, previously, had managed to chain and subdue the stock of the 'divine heroes', or Aesir; the 'age of the Wolf'" is more or le s the counterpart of the' ge of Iron' in the Classical tradition, and of th 'dark age' - Kali- Yuga" - in the Indo-Aryan one: it alludes
3 The Age of the Wolf is described in the 45th verse of the 'Voluspa. or Prophecy of the Seeress, the first poem of the orse Poetic Edda. The wolf age is said to b the age of brother turning against brother, constant warfare, widespread whoredom and hardship. It is the prelude to the end of the world, although the world is destined to be recreated afterward in an even more perfect form. See The Poetic Edda (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). The last and darkest age in the Vedic, or Hindu, cycle of ages.

In Praise of the New Knighthood (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2010).
Latin: 'absolute glory'.

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()

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d .ath, had in classical antiquity. But the same conception can also h . taken in the symbolic sense in that the one who, while fighting rhc I ss r war', has triumphed in the 'greaterJihacf (by refusing 10 I t himself be overcome by the current of the inferior forces ar used in his being by the vicissitudes of war, as happens in the heroism a/a Rernarque or a la Quinton, which we discussed in the previous articl ) has oked, in any case, a force able, in principle, 10 vercome the crisi of death. In other words, even without having been killed one can have experienced death, can hav e w n and can have achieved the culmination peculiar to 'supralife', rom a higher point of view 'Paradise', 'the celestial realm', are, like alhalla, the Greek 'Isle of Heroes', etc., only symbolic figurations, concocted for the masses, figurations which actually designate transcendent states f consciousness, beyond life and d ath. Ancient Aryan tradition has the word ji'vanmllktl' to indicate a realisation of that sort obtained already in the mortal body. Let u come n w to a pure metaphysical expositi n of the doctrin in qu stion. We find it in a text originating from the ancient Indo-Aryan races, imprinted with a sense of the heroicspiritual reality which it would be hard to match elsewhere. It is the Bbagavad-Gita, a part of the epic poem, the Mababbarata.' which t an expert eye contains preci us material relating not only to the spirituality of the Aryan races which migrated to Asia, but to that of the 'Hyperborean' nuel u of these which, accordin to the traditional views to which our conception of race refer, must be considered as the origin of them all. The Bhagavad-Cita contains in the shape of a dialogue the doctime given by the incarnate divinity, Krishna, to a warrior prince, Arjuna, who had invoked him, as, overcome by humanitarian and sentimentalist scruples, he found himself no longer able to resolve to fight th nemy. The judgement of th God is categorical: it defines the mercy which had withheld Arjuna from fighting a
Il \) From the anskrit, thi term is used in the Advaita Vedanta tradition of Vedic, or Hindu, philosophy. The Mahabharata, along with the Ramayana, are the two great epic poems of the Hindu tradition. It describes th Kurukshetra War, which wa an epic struggle between two branches of the royal family.

'Ii

II

,I
'I I

'Il
'j

:11

sam upra-rnaterial meaning, even while fighting against ne other. In any case, the ideas which we wish to discuss now are essentially to be considered a echoes within the Muslim tradition of an originally Persian (Aryo-Iranian) conception as umed now by members of the Arab race. In th Muslim tradition, in fact, we find the central nucleus of the whole order of idea dealt with here in the theory of the twofold war, that is, of the 'lesser and greater Jihad. The lesser war is the material war fought against a hostile people and, in particular, against an unjust one, the 'barbarians' or 'infidels', in which case it becomes the 'lesser Jihad, identical to the Cru ade in it outer, fanatical and simply religious sense. The 'great r JiJJad is, in contrast, of the spiritual and interior order: it is the fight of man against the enernie which he bears within himself, or, more exactly, the fight of the superhuman element in man against everything which is instinctual, passi nate and subject to natural forces. The condition for inn r liberation is that these enernie , th 'infidels' and 'barbarians' within us, are pulled down and torn to shreds. ow; given this background, the e sence of the tradition in question lies ill its conceiving the le ser war, that is, the concrete, armed one, a a path through which the 'great i jibad , the inner war, can be achieved, in perfect imultaneity. For this reason, in Islam, Jihad and 'Path of od' ar ft n synonymou . And we read in the QlIr'an: 'So let those who sell the life of this world for the ext World fight in the Way of Allah. If someone fights in the Way of Allah, whether he i kill d or is victoriou , We will pay him an immens r ward' (4:74).7 nd again: ' s for those who fight in the Way of Allah, He will not 1 t their action go astray. He will guide them and better their condition and He will admit them into the Garden which He has made known t them' (47:4-6). In these last words there is an allu into the case of an effective death on the battlefield, which, therefore, a sumes the same meaning which the expres ion mors triumpbatis, triumphant
7 The references to the Qurcln and Bhagavad-Gita in this essay are identical to those in 'The Greater War and the Les er War' and 'The Metaphysics of War'.

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uu .lligible term, wherever a udden outburst sweeps up every hnite life, very limitation of the petty individual, either to destroy him, or to revive him. Moreover, the secret of the 'becoming', f I h . fundamental re tlessness and p rpetual change which characterises life here below, is deduced precisely from the situation of h .ings, finite in themselves, which also participate in S mething Infinite. The beings which w uld b describ d as 'created' by (:I1[istian terminology, are described rather, according to ancient Aryan tradition, as 'conditioned', subject to bee ming, change and disappearance, precisely because, in them, a power burns which transcends them, which wants something infinit ly vaster Ihan all that they can ever want. Once the text in various ways has given the s nse of such a vi ion of life it goes on to specify what fighting and heroic experience must mean for the warrior. Values change: a higher life manifests itself through death; and destruction, for the one who overcomes it, is a liberation - it is precisely in its most frightening a peets that the heroic outburst appears as a sort of manifestation of the divine in its capacity of m taphysical force of destruction of the finit - in the jargon of some modern philosophers this would be called 'the negati n of the negation'. Th warri r who sma hes 'degarding irnpot nee', wh faces the vicissitudes of heroism 'with your mind absorb d in the supreme spirit', seizing upon a plan according to which both the '1' and the 'thou', and theref re both fear for one elf and mercy for other, lose all meaning, can be said to assume actively the absolute divine force, to transfigure himself within it, and to free himself by breaking through the limitations relating to the mere human state of existence. 'Lif - like a bow; the mind - like th arrow; the target to pierce - the upreme spirit; to join mind to spirit as the shot arrow hits it target.' - These are the evocative expressions contained in another text of the same tradition, the Mareandeya Purana. uch, in short, is the metaphysical ju tification of war, the sacred interpretation of heroism, th transformation of the 'lesser war' into the 'greater holy war', according to the ancient Indo-Aryan tradition which gives us therefore, in the most

'degrading impotence' (2:4) and 'impurities ...not at all befitting a man who knows the value of life. They lead not to higher planets but to infamy' (2:2).Therefore, it is not on th basis of earthly and contingent necessities but of a divine judgement that the duty of combat is confirmed her. Th promise i : '[E]ither you will be killed on the battl field and attain th h av nly plan ts, or you will conquer and enjoy the earthly kingdom. Therefore, get up with determination and fight' (2:37). he inner guideline, neces ary to transfigure the 'lesser war' into greater, holy war' in death and triumphant re urrection, and t make contact, thr ugh heroic experience, with th transcendental ro t of on ' own being, is clearly stated by Krishna: 'Th refore, 0 rjuna, surrendering all your work unto Ie, with full knowl d of Ie, without de ires f< r profit, with no claims to proprietor hip, and free from lethargy, fight' (3:30). The term are just as clear about the purity' of h r ic action, which must be wanted for itself b yond every contingent motivation, every passion and all gr utility. Th words of the text are: 'Do th u fi ht for the sake f fighting, \ ith ut considering happiness or di tre , los or gain, viet ry r defeat - and by so doing you shall never incur sin' (2:38). But beyond even this a true metaphysi al justification of war is arrived at. We will try to express this in the most accessible way. The text works on the fundamental distincti n bcrx een what in man exists in the supreme sense and, as su h, i incorruptible and immutable - spirit - and the corporeal and human cl ment, which ha only an illu ory exi renee, laving stressed the m taphysical non-reality of what one can 1 se or mak another lose in the vicissitudes of combat, as ephemeral life and mortal body (there is nothing painful and tragic - it is said - in the fact that what is fatally destined to fall, falls), that aspect of the divine which appear as an ab lute and weeping force is recalled. Before the gr arne s of thi force (which Aa hes thr ugh rjuna's mind in the moment of a supernatural vision), every created, that is, conditioned, existence app ars a a 'n gation'.It can therefore be said that such a force strikes as a terrible revelation wherever such 'negation' i actively denied; that i to say, in more concret and

METAPHYSICS
I 1/1"1

OF WAH

I

I

I AND WAR: THEARYA

85

let ' and direct form, the intimate content present also in tll(' nth .r f rrnulations pointed out. In onclusion, let us mention two more points. .. The fir t concerns ~he me~ningfu1 relation, in th Bhagavad rta, between the teaching which has just been described on the one hand and tradition and race n the other. In 4: 1-3 it is said that this .is the 'solar' wisdom received from Manu, who: as is well ~own, 15 the most ancient 'divine' legislator of the Aryan race. HIS laws, for Aryans, have the same value that the Talmud has f r Hebrews: that is to say, they constitute the formative force of tho ir \'~ay of Yfe, .the essence of their 'race of the spirit'. Now, t~s pt1mOrdl~ W1~.dom, which ~as at fir t transmitted through direct succe S10n, 10 cour e of time the succe sion was broken and there~ore the science as it i appears to be lost' (4:2). It wa~ not. to.a pnest, but to a warrior prince, Arjuna, that it was rev aJed ag~ in the way ju t r counted. To reali e this wisdom by following the path of sacre.d heroism and absolute action can only mean, th.e~efore, restoration, awakening, resumption of what was at the ongm of tradition, which has survived f r centuries in the dark depths of the race and routinised itself in the customs of successiv~ ~ges. The meaning that we have already indicated, the re-galvanising effect which the fact of war in given conditions can have for the 'race of the spirit', is thu exactly confirmed. Secondly, It can be noticed that one of the main causes of the a?sis of Western civilisation lies in a paralysing dilemma, constItut~d, on ~~ on~ ha?d, .by a weak, abstract, or conventionally ~evotIonal spirituality, nch m moralistic and humanitarian irnplicatIO~S; and, on the other hand, by a paroxysmal development of action of all sorts, but in a materialistic and nearly barbaric sense. This situatio~ has remote causes. Psychology teaches us that, in the u~cons~ous, inhibition often transforms energies repre sed a~? rejected into causes of di ease and hysteria. The ancient tra~tIons of ~e Aryan races were essentially characterised by the Ideal of action: th~y .we.re par~lysed and partially suffocated by ~e advent ~f Christianiry, which, in its original form, and not without relation to elements derived from non-Aryan races, shifted

hasis of spirituality from the domain of acti n to that of , '11llll11plation, devotion and monastic asceticism. atholicism, II I. 111I " often tried to rebuild the smashed bridge - and here, 111 • lis ussing the spirit of the ru ades, we ha e already seen an ,.I'"pl f this attempt. H wever, the antithesis between passive ,'lllIlIt lity and un-spiritual activity has continued to weigh on the d. nni S of Western man and r cently it has taken th form of I 1',11'0 ysmal de elopment of all sorts of action in the already I.Ilt' I sens of action on the material plane, which, even when it , r , uls to realisation of unquestionable greatness, is depriv d of 1'1' transcendent point of r f renee. ;iven these condition the advantage of the resumption 111a tradition of action which is once again charged with spirit ;I lapted, naturally, to the times - ju tified n t only by the 11I11n diate necessities of a particular hi torical ituation, but hy a transcendent ocation - sh uld be clear to all. If beyond III . re-integration and defence of the race of th body \V must proceed to the rediscovery of values abl to purify the race of Ih . spirit of Aryan humanity from every heterogeneous 1 ment, .111 I to lead to its steady dev lopment, we think that an w, living understanding of teachings and of ideal such as those bri Ay rc ailed here is a fitting task for us to undertake.
II •• 11111
I \

•.•)UL AND RACE OF WAR

87

II .arly exhibited in the Indo-Aryan civilisation, as well as in the

Soul and Race of War'
n .previous ~ticles i~ this series we have spoken about the tJ:e vaneties of heroic pen nee and described its pos ible form from the point of view of race and spirit. We here resume the argument and discuss in more detail the heroism and sense of the meaning of combat which we need to grasp a ideals in relation to our higher rae and our higher tradition. We have already been obliged to observe that, today, 'heroi m' is often spoken f in a vague and unspecified sense. If by heroism what is meant is simply impulsivenes , contempt for danger, audacity and indifference towards one's own life there i in this a sort of common denominator which can put on the same level the savage, the gangster and the crusading knight. From the material point of view this generic h roism might be sufficient for many contingencies, especially in the context of mere human herds. rom a higher point of view, however, we must enquire further into the question of what heroes are, and what i the meaning which leads and determines individual heroic experience. or this problem various elements should be borne in mind and above all those relating to the general type of civilisation, to rae and, in a way, t caste as a further differentiation of race. Things can be clarified best if, as a tarting pint, we recall the general outline of ancient Aryan s ciaJ hierarchy as it is most
I Originally published on 5-20 September 1940 as 'Anima e razza della guerra' in La

I

ordic-Rornanic Medieval civilisation. This hierarchy was quadri1artite. t the top were the exponents of spiritual authority - we ould say, generalising, the spiritual leaders to whom the warrior nobles were subject. 'Ihen came the bourgeoisie (the 'Third 1'~stat y and, in the fourth place, the caste or class of the simple \ orkers - today we would call them the proletariat. vidently, t hi was not so much a hierarchy of men as one of functions, in which, though each function had its own dignity, the functions .ould not help but exi t normally in the relations of subordination which have just been pointed out. It is quite clear, in fact, that I hcse relations correspond exactly to those which exist berw en the various faculties of every man worthy of the name: the mind directs the will, which, in its turn, dominates the functions of the organic ec nomy - to which, finally, the purely vital forces f the body are subordinated. This outline is ery useful, if only because it allows us to distinguish general types of civilisation, and to grasp the sense of their succes ion, or their alternation, in history. Thus we have four cneral types of civilisation, distinguished according to whether they are guided supremely by the truths, values and ideals of the piritual leaders, the warriors, the bourgeoi i or the slaves. Leaving aside the Middle ges, in the quadripartite hi rarchy as it appeared among the Aryans of the ancient Mediterranean world, and still more among th se of the Hindu-Iranian ci ilisarion, the properly Aryan element was concentrated in the two superior castes and determined the alues which dominated these cultures, while in the twO other castes another blood, coming from subjugated aboriginal peoples, predominated; this fact could I ad ne to interesting conclusions about the racial background in olved in the development of the civilisation of each of the aforementioned types.

2

In pre- revolutionary France. the estates were the various orders which defined the stratification of ociety. The Third E late was comprised of the poorest elements of the populace.

Difesa della Razza.

86

88

METAPHYSIC

OF WAR

" I\JLA .rrrior'

D RACE OF WAR

89

,

, I

C nsideration of this nature, however, would ffer littl comfort to an attempt to grasp the general sense of the history of tile We t ince it is quite clear that anyone keeping in mind the outline here explained would be led to recogni e in thi history, not the much-spoken-of 'evolution', but rather an 'in olution'more precisely, successive falls from each of the four hierarchical degrees to the next. It is quite clear, in fact, that civilisation of tile pure heroic-sacral type can only be f und in a more or les prehistoric period of the Aryan tradition. It was succeeded by ci~il!sati ns at tile top of which was the authority no longer of spiritual leaders, but of exponents of warrior nobility - and this is the age of the hi torical monarchies up to the period of revolutions. With the rench and Am rican r voluti ns the Third Estate becomes the most important, determining the cycle of bourgeois civilisations. Marxism and B lshevisrn, finally,seem to lead to the final faU,th passag of power and authority to the hand of th last of the castes of ancient ryan hi rarchy. ow, returnin to ur main argument, that i , to the typol gy of heroi m, it should be noted that the transition which have just been pointed out have not only a political ignificance, but they invest the whole s n e of li ing and lead t the subordination of all values to those proper to the dominant caste or race of the spirit. Thu , for in tanc , in th first phase ethics has a sup rnatural justification and th supr me value is til c nqu st of imm rtality; in the econd phase - that is, in the civilisation of warri r nobility - thics is already 'secular': the ethics f fidelity, honour and I yalty Bourg is ethics folJow this with tile ideal f economic well-being, of prosperity and capitali t adventure. In the last phase the only ethics are those of materialised, collectivi ed and decon ecrated work as supreme alue. Analogous tran f rmati ns can be found in all fields - take for ~xample architecture: as central architectonic type the temple IS followed by the castIe, then by the city of the commune, and finalJyby the rationalis d hive-house of mod rn capitals. Another e: ample would be the family: from a unit of the heroic-sacral type, which it was in the fir t pha e, it pa es to the type of the

family, centred in the firm authority of the fath r; then It III. I',: s the family as bourgeois unity on an exclusively economic"Illimental basi; and, in the la t phase, there is the communist d,,,intcgration of the family. P ccisely the same articulations can be noticed in the types II heroic xperience and in the meaning f war and combat in ",t'llcrai. We do not ne d to dwell on the conception of war and It .roi m peculiar to th civilisations of the first type, r even to \h . original Aryans, because we have air ady ref rred repeatedly .ind at length to their traditions in previous articles. Here we will lunit our elves to saying that war and heroism in this first phase t an be viewed essentially as form of 'asceticism', as paths along which those same supernatural and in1mortality-granting fruits l:111 be picked which are promised by initiation, or by asc ticism •If the r ligious and contemplati e type. But in the sec nd pha e in th civilisation of the 'warriors' - the perspecti e has already shifted; the 'sacr d' content of heroic experience and the coo. pt of war almost as symbol and glimmer f an a cending and metaphysical struggle is veiled; what is above all important nov is fighting and waging war on behalf of one' rac ,hi honour and hi glory. With the advent of 'bourg ois' civilisati n the type of the warrior gives way to that of the s ldier and the nationalterritorial aspect which, only a little b fore, was not pronounced but is emphasised: we are in the presence of the dtoym' who takes up arms, f the pathos of war and heroism 'for freedom', that is, more or Ie s, for the cause of the 'immortal principle' of' truggle against tyranny' - the jargon equivalent of .the p ~tic~l-s cial forms f the previous civilisation of the warriors. It IS with such 'myths' that the 1914-1918 World War has be n supported, in which the Allies tated quite baldly that it repre ented for them the 'crusade of democracy', the new leap forward of the 'great r volution' for the cause f the freedom of the peoples against 'imperialism' and the residual forms of' edievalobscurantism'. In the first forms f the final phase, that is, f the 'civilisati n of the laves', the concept of war is tran f rrned; it internationali s
I

3

French: 'citizen'.

METAPHYSrCS
II~

OF WAR

-,<)uLA

D RACE OF WAR

91

·If and llccti ises itself, tending towards the concept of the We irld wide r olution of the proletariat. It is nly in the ervicc e d I his r luti n that war is legitimate, that dying is noble and rhru t h hero mu t arise from the worker. Thes are the funda'111nl .anings to which the heroic experience can conform, m kavin )'a ide its immediate and subjective aspect of impulse and hoi In's which lead beyond themselves. In talking of the penultimate phase, that is, 'bourgeois war', v . hav d liberately spoken of 'myths'. Bourgeois nature has IwO main aspects: sentimentali m and economic interest. If the it! '01 gy f 'freedom', and 'nation' democratically conceived mrr ponds t the first aspect, the second has no less weight in Ih . unc nfessed motives of 'bourgeois war'. The 1914-1918 war "he ws clearly,in fact, that the 'noble' democratic ideology was nly ;1 'U r, while the part which international finance really played IS n w w ll-known. And today, in th new war, this app ars even mor clearly: the sentimental pr text offered have proved to be III )1' • and m re inconsistent, and it is obvious, on the contrary, I h, t material and plutocratic interests, and the desire to maintain am n poly upon the raw materials of the world, as well as upon gold, are what have set the 'tone' f the fight of the democratic IIi s and have led them to take up arms and ask millions of men I( acrifice their lives. .I'hi allows us also to remark upon the racial factor. We should (lot confuse what a caste or a class i when it is a subordinate I art in a hierarchy which conforms to given values with what it 1 • omes when it seizes power and subordinates very thing to us If. Thus, the bourgeoisi and the proletariat of the modern \ odd have characters very different from those which w re .haracteri tic of the corre ponding classes in traditional Aryan i ilisations. The desecrated and dark character of the f rrner is as marked as were the sacred and spiritual superior values which, I means of participation, wer reflected in the most humbl and rnaterial forms of human activity of the latt r. -<veryusurpation ha a degradation as its fatal consequence: this process almost always presupposes the infiltration of s cially and racially inferior

"I

l'1 ments. In th case f the Western bourgeoisie these elem nts have been supplied by ebraism. Let us not delude ourselves: the I 'P of the plutocrats and of the capitalists, th thr kings of bourgeois and dem cratic civilisation, is essentially a Jewish type, even when precise physical descent from the Jewish race cannot he demonstrated. With respect to m rica, v ry n kn ws the considerations which led Sornbart" t call capitalism the quintcss 'nee of the doctrine of Mos s. It is well-known that, in the final phase of the normal society of the West which was the Ghibelline Middle ges, international trad and comm rc u ing gold were to a large extent jewish pr rogatives, and that, even in the 'b urgeois professions' of the Third Estate of that time, wherever Ihey remained in the hands of Aryan, b fore the emancipation and degeneration of the civilisation of the Communes, features of gr at dignity and probity were maintained which can hardly b fund in the modern civilisation of the merchants, i..,the bourgeois capitalist civilisation. It is essentially from theJewish element that this civilisation has drawn its 'style'. And, iven these facts, it is obvious that, by mean of I ctive affinities, this civilisation had t be completely opened to H braisrn, which has caled its main P smon f re pon ibility with ease, and has taken over control of all it powers by means of its own sp cialised racial qualities. Thus, it can well be said that the current war is one of merchants and Jews, who have mobilised the armed force and the heroic possibilities of democratic nations to defend their interests. Certainly, there are other contributory factors. ut It IS unquestionable that England is a typical case of this phenomenon, which is hardly new, and, to tell th truth, exhibit a characteristic phenomenon of inversion. To be pecific, in England monarchy and nobility still exist and, until yesterday, a military cla s with an unqu stionable heritage of character, ang-froid and contempt for danger xisted also. But it is not in such elements that the entre of the British mpire lie , but rather in the Jew and the Judaised ryan. The degenerate remains of a 'civilisation of warriors' serve
4 Werner ombart (1863-1941), a German economist, and th author of The Jews

and Modern Capitalism (London:T. F. Unwin, 1913).

92

METAPHYSICS

OF WAR

93
a higher ela s, this sam war can become a means to achieve war in the supreme sense, as asceticism and 'path of od', as culmination of that general meaning of living, of which it was said: vita est 1m/itia sttper terram. All this become integrated and - it can be added - there is no doubt that the impulse and the ability to sacrifice are up rior by far in the ne who realises thi upreme meaning in war, a compared one who stops at one of the subordinate meanings. And even on this mundane plane th law of the earth can meet with the law of God when the most tragic demands which can be made in the name of the greatness of a nation are fulfilled in an action whose ultimate sense is, however, the overcoming of the human tie, contempt for the petty existence of the 'plains', the t nsion which, in the supreme culminations of life, means choosing something which is more than life. If this is the idea of the 'holy war' as simultaneou Iy material and spiritual struggle which was peculiar to the Aryan p oples, a further, specific ret renee to Aryan Romanity is opportune to avoid some 'romantic' distortions to which that idea ha been subjected in a later period in some tocks of that people, above all ordic ones. We mean to allude to so-called 'tragic heroism', the I ve of combat for it own sake, which among ordic pe ples takes on overtones of th Titanic, the' ibelungian" and the -<austian.To the extent that this is not just literature - and bad literature - it contain glints of Aryan pirituality, certainly, but they have degenerated to the level appropriate to a simple civilisation of warriors since they have not b en able t remain on the superior level of the origins, which is n t merely heroic, but also 'solar' and 'Olympian'. The Roman conception does not know thi distortion. Inwardly, as outwardly, war cannot be the last word; it is rather the means to conquest of a power as calm as it is perfect and intangible. Beyond the mysticism of war, in the higher Aryan conc ption as well as in th Roman one, is the mysticism

a 'civilisati n of merchants', which - normally - would rather ha e had to erve them. Only those who have a precise sense of this can grasp the dark and con fused forces at work in the race of those whom Italy fights today: and it is precis Iy the character of the e forces which explains the d cline of nglish fighting ability, and the impo ibility of true heroi m and true boldness because by now even th 'mythic' premises f the 1914-1918 war are lacking, as has been pointed out just above. Let u c me now to our final pint, which is the elarificati n of th sense of our war and our heroism on the basis of the general doctrinal and hist tical views we have expres d. At the risk of being taken for hopeless t pians we wil.l never grow tired of repeating that our taking up once more f the Aryan and Roman symbols must lead to the taking up once more, al 0, of the spiritual and traditional conception which were peculiar to the original civilisati ns which de eloped under those symbols. We have spoken of the uperior ryan c nception of war and heroism as asceticism, cathar i , overcoming of the tie of the human'!' and, ultimately, effective participation in imm rtality. Now let us emphasise that the inferior is compri ed in th superi r - meaning, in our ca e, that the experience of combat according to this superior meaning must not be understood as a sort of confused mystical impulsi ness, but as the d velopment, integration and tran figuration of everything which can be experienced in war, or which can be asked of war, from any of the subordinate and conditioned standpoints. Proc eding from what is below to what is above, it can therefore be said that an unavoidable need for social justice in the international arena and a revolt against the hegemony of nations incarnating the 'civilisation of the merchants' may be the immediate determinant of the war. But the one who fight the war on such ground can find in it also the occasion to realise, simultaneou ly,a higher experience, that is, fighting and being a hero not so much as soldier but as warrior, as a man who fights and loves to fight not so much in the interest of material conquests a in the nam of his King and of his tradition. And beyond this stage, in a succe siv phase, or

5

ibelungen is the name of the Burgundian royal family in

crmanic mythology.

94

WAR

of victory. The soldiers of Fabiu (0 did n r mantically swear to win or to die, but rather to return as victor. - as thcj indeed did. Tn the Roman ceremony of the triumph, whi h, as we said in another article, had a more religious than military haracter, th personality of the victor was in the closes relation with Jupiter, the ryan od of cosmic order and law. The au hentic idea of Pax ROfftatu? had di tinctly' lympian' chara teristics - to reali e this all one needs to do i to refer to the writers of the age of ugustus" and to Virgil') above all. I is not thc ssation of the spiritual tensi n of war, but its fecund and luminous culminati n - as such, it represents the 0 ercoming of \ ar as an end-in-itself and obscurely tragic vocation. These are the fundamental characteristi clements of the highest Aryan conception of combat. Th importance of recalling them and experiencing th m again t day annot be doubted by anyone who is aware that the current c n flict i not merely an almost 'privat 'affair between certain nations, bu is destined, by de tr ying confused and violently e tablished situations, to lead to a new general order, truly worthy f the nam : spiritually Roman.

The Aryan Doctrine of Combat and Victory'
he decline of the modern West, according to the view of a famous critic f civilisation/ clearly possesses two salient charact ristics: in the first place the pathological developm nt of activity for its own sake; in the second place contempt for the values of kn wledge and contemplation. By knowledge thi critic does not mean rationalism, intellectualism or the vain gam s of men of letters - nor by c ntemplation doe he mean cutting neself off from the world, renunciation or a misunderstood form of monastic detachment. Knowledge and conternplati n represent for him, rather, the mo t normal and appropriate forms f participation of man in supernatural, superhuman and supra-rati nal reality. otwithstanding this clarification his view in olves what is, to us, an unacceptable presupposition. In fact, h has already tacitly implied that every act in the material domain is limiting and that the highest spiritual sphere is acces ible only in ways different fr m those of action.

T

6

Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus (280 BO-203 BC) was a Roman consul who was appointed dictator of the Roman Republic after its initial defeat during the Second Punic War, in which Rome was invaded by the arthaginians under Hannibal' command. Fabius managed to keep the stronger Carthaginian force at bay by engaging in a protracted guerilla war against them, rather than by confronting them directly, which he knew would lead to defeat. For his victorious service, the Romans hailed Fabius as 'The hield of Rome'. 'lhe Roman Peace: this was a period of the history of the Roman Empire, lasting roughly from 27 BC to 180AD, during which the Empire prospered and fought no major wars. Augustus (63 B -14 AD) was the first Emperor of the Roman Empire who initiated the Pax Romana. Virgil (70-19 BC) was a Roman poet who authored the Aeneid, which wa the national epic of Class ical Rome.

7

8 9

Originally published as Die arische Lehre von Kampf und Sieg (Vienna: Anton Schroll & Co., 1941), comprising the text of the address given by Evola in erman at the Abteilung fur Kulturwissenschaft des Kaisers Wilhelm-Instituts conference, at the Palazzo Zuccari in Rome on 7 December 1940. 2 The critic referred to is probably Rene Guenon,

95

METAPIIYSI 96 -------------------------------------

S OF WAR

THEARYA

97

In this premise the influence of a vi i n of Ii~ is clearly recognisable which, in its ess nee, remains strnng t the spirit of the Aryan race, even if it is so embedded in Ihe th ught of the Christianised West that it can even be found revived in the imperial conception of Dante.' The opposition b tween action and cont mplation, however, was unknown t the ancient Aryans, Action and contemplation were not regard .d as th two terms of an opposition. They d signated merely rc distinct path to the same spiritual r alisation. In other words, it was thought that man could overcome the conditioning of individuali and participate in the supernatural reality by means of c nt mplarion or, equally, by means of action. tarting fr m thi conception w must th 'I" ~ re evaluate the character of the decline of We tern civilisation in a different way. The tradition of action is in the natur of the Aryan-Western race. Thi tradition has, however, undergon a pro ressive deviation. The modern West ha thus com t knov and honour only a secularised and materialised form of action, de iclof any point of contact with transcendenc - ad sccra .d acri iry, which has necessarily degenerated fatally into fe er and mania and become action for the sake of action, merely pr dueing simpl mechanical effects conditioned by time. In the mod 1"11 world ascetic and authentically contemplative values cannot b drax n into correspondence with such degenerate action either, but only a confused cultur and a lifeless and conventional faith. Thi is the point of reference for our analysis of the situation. If the watchword for any current movement of renewal is 'return to the origins' then recovering awaren of the ancient Aryan concepcion of action must be con ider d an ssential task. This concepti n must operate with transformati e effectiveness, voking vital forces in the new man, aware of his race. Today, we our elves propose to attempt a general survey of the speculati e universe of the ancient Aryans in order to pr vide new evidence
3 Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is regarded as the greate t writer in the Italian language and was the author of1he Divine Comedy. Here, Evola is likely referring to Dante' work of political philosophy, Monarchy ( ambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

for some fundamental el ments of our common tradition, with particular relevance to the meaning of combat, war and viet ry.

***
or the ancient ryan war had th g n ral meaning of a perpetual fi ht between metaphysical power. On the on hand there was the lympian principle of light, the uranic and solar reality; on the other hand, brute viol nee, the titanic-telluric, barbaric element in the classical s nse, the feminine-demonic ubstance. The motif of this metaphysical fight resurfac s continually through countle s forms of myth in all traditi n f Aryan origin. ny fight, in the material sense was experienced with greater or lesser awareness as an episode in that antithesis. ut the Aryan race considered itself to be the army of the Olympian principle: accordingly, it is nee sary to restore this conception among ryans, as being the justification, or the high t con ecration, of any hegem nic aspiration, but also of the very idea of empire, whose anti-secular character is basically ery obvious. o the traditionally based world view, all apparent realities are symbolic. This is therefor true of war as well, as is seen from the subjecti e and interior point of iew War and the Path of God are thus merged into a ingle entity. The significant testim ni s found within the Nordic- errnan traditions regarding this are well-known. It i neces ary to not , however, that these traditions, in the terms in which they ha e reached u , have becom fragmented and jumbled up, or constitute materialistic residue of higher, primordial ryan traditi ns, ft n decayed to the I el of popular superstitions. This consideration does not prevent us from establi hing some ess ntial motifs. irst of all, as is well-known, Valhalla i th centre of celestial immortality, r served mainly for heroes fallen on th battlefield. The lord of this place, Odin-Wotan, is presented to us in the Yngliflgasaga as ha ing shown to the her e th path which leads to the place of the gods, where immortal life A urishes. ccording to this tradition no sacrifice or cult is more appr ciat d by the

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supr m god, and none pr duces richer fruit, than that sacrific which one offers a one falls fighting on the battl field. In addition to this, behind the confused popular repre entation of the IPifdeJ Heer" this meaning i hidden: through the warriors who, falling, offer a sacrifice to Odin the power i increased which this god needs f r the ultimate battle against the Ragna-riikkr, that i , the 'dark ning of the divin " which has threatened the world since ancient times. This illustrat s clearly the ryan motif of the metaphysical truggle. In the Edda, it is said that 'no matter how great the number of the heroes gathered in Valhalla they will never be too many for when the W, If comes'. The 'w, If' here is the symbol of dark and wild powers which the world of the Aesir had managed to chain and subdu . The Aryo-Iranian c nception of Mithra, the 'sleeple warrior', who at the head of the Fravashi of his faithful wage battle against the enemies of the Aryan God of Light is completely anal ou. We will soon deal with the ravashi and their correspondence with the Valkyries of the Nordic tradition. For now: we would lik to explain the general meaning of the 'holy war' by means of other, concordant te timonics, It should not cause urprise if w r f r in the first place to the Mu lim tradition. Here, the Muslim tradition serves as transmitter of tile Aryo-Iranian tradition. The idea of 'h Iy war' - at least as far as the el ments that we are consid ring are concerned reached the Arabian tribes via the world of Persian speculation. It was, therefore, a late rebirth of a primordial Aryan heritage, and seen from thi perspective we can ce tainly ad pt it. Having said that, in the tradition in question two 'holy wars' are distinguished: the 'greater holy war' and th les er holy war'. The distinction i based on a aying of the Pr phet, who, wh n

4

German: 'wild host: This is a concept present in many ancient cultures in which a group of hunters on horseback can be seen pursuing their prey across the ky. In some versions the hunters are believed to be the souls of dead warriors being led by the gods.

he got back from a military expedition, said, 'I return n w from the lesser to the greater war'." In this respect the greater holy war belongs t the spiritual order. The les er holy war, in contra t, i the physical struggle, the material war, fought in the outer world. The greater holy war is the struggle of man against the enemies h bears in himself. M r precisely, it is the fight of the supernatural elem nt, innate in man, against everything which is in tinctual, passionate chaotic and subject to the forces of nature. Thi is also tile idea tint reveals itself in a text of the ancient Aryan warrior wisdom, the Bhagavad-Gila: 'Thus knowing oneself to be transcendental to the material senses, mind and intelligence, mighty-armed Arjuna, one should steady the mind by deliberate spiritual intelligence and thus - by piritual strength - conquer this insatiable nemy known a lust' (3:43). The nee ssary condition for th inner work of liberation is that this enemy i destroyed once and for all. In the context of a heroic tradition the less r holy war - that is, external combat - ser es only as something by mans of which the greater holy war is achieved. For this reason 'holy war' and 'Path of God' are often treated a synonymous in the text . Thus we read in tile Q1Ir'an: 'So let those who sell the life of thi world for the ext World fight in the Way of Allah. If someone fight in the Way of Allah, whether he is killed or is victorious, We will pay him an immense reward' (4:74). nd further: 'As for tho e who fight in the Way of Allah, e will not let their actions g astray. He will guide th m and better their condition and e 'will admit them into the Garden which He has made known to them' (47:4-6). This is an allusion to physical death in war, which corresponds perfectly to the so-called mors tliumphalis- 'triumphant death' - of the Classical traditions. Howe er, the same doctrine can also be interpreted in a symbolic sense. The one who, in the 'lesser holy war', has been able t live a 'greater holy war' ha created within himself a force which put him in a position to overcome the
5 All references to Islamic scriptures and the Bhagavad-Gita in thi essay are identical to those contained in 'The Greater War and the Lesser War' and 'Metaphysics of War:

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crisis of death. ven with ut getting kiJled phy ically, through the a ceticism f action and combat, one can experience death, one can win inwardly and r alise rnore-than-lif '. In the oteric respect, as a matter of fact, 'paradi " 'the c I tial realm' and anal gous expressions are nothing but syrnb Licrepresentations - c ncocted for the pe ple - of transcendent states of consciou _ ness on a higher plane than Life and death. The e considerations should all w us to discern the arne contents and meanings, under the outer garment of Chri tianiry, which the ordic-We tern heroic tradition was forced to wear during the Crusades in rdcr to be a Ie to manifest itself in the external world. In the ideology of the Crusade the liberation of the Temple and the conquest of the 'l l I)' Lan I' had points of contact - much more nurner us than ( ne is generally inclined to believe - with the Nordic-Aryan tradition, \ hich refers to the mystical sgard, the remote land f he ir and h roes where death does not reign and the inhabitants enjoy immortal life and supernatural peace. Holy war appear d as an integrally spiritual war, so much so that it could be (mpar d Literally by preachers to 'a bathing which is almost like the fire of pur at ry, bur before death'. Saint Bernard declared to the Templars, 'J l is a glory for you never to leave the battle [unless] co ered with laurels. But it is an even greater gl ry to earn on the battlefield an immortal cr wn ..: The 'absolute glory' - attributed to th ' J .ord who is ab ve, in the skies - ill excelsis Ded' - is ordain d al '0 f r the Crusader. gainst this background Jerusalem, the co ctcd goal of theIes er holy war', could be seen in th twofold asp' r f terrestrial city and celestial city and the Crusade proved to I c th ' prelude to a tru fulfilm nt of immortality. The 0 cillating military vicissitud s of the Crusades provoked bafAem nt, initial c nfusion and even a wa ring f faith. But later their sol effect was to purify the idea of holy war from every residue of materiality. The ill-fated ou come f a Crusade came to be compared to virtue persecuted by misf (tunc, a irtue
6 Latin: 'God in the hlghesr'

whose value can be judged and rewarded only in the light of a supra-terrestrial life. Beyond victory r defeat the judgement of value focused on the spiritual dimension of action. Thus, the holy war was worthwhile for its wn sake, irrespective of its visible r suit, as a means to reach a supra-per onal realisation through th active sacrifice of the human element. The ame t aching appears, levatcd to a metaphysical plane of expression, in a famou Hindu-Aryan text - the Bhagavad-Gita. .I'he humanitarian compas i n and the emotions which hold the warrior rjuna back from fighting again t th nemy are characterised by the god as 'impurities ...not at all b fitting a man who knows the alu of life. T hey lead not to higher planets but to infamy' (2:2). Instead the g d pr mises the following: '[E]ither you will b killed n the battlefield and attain the heavenly planets, or you will conquer and enjoy the earthly kingdom. Therefore, get up with d termination and fight' (2:37). The inner disposition to transmute the lesser holy war into the greater holy war i clearly described in the following terms: 'Thus knowing oneself to be tran cendentaJ to th material sen es, mind and intelligence mighty-armed rjuna, one sh uld sr ady the mind by deliberate spiritual intelligence and thus - by spiritual strength - conquer this insatiable en my known as lust' (3:43). qually clear expressions assert the purity of this action: it must be wanted for itself, beyond very material aim, beyond every passion and every human impulse: 'Do th u fight for the sake of fighting, without considering happiness or distr ss, loss or gain, victory or defeat - and by s ding you shall never incur in' (2:38). s a further metaphysical foundari n the god enlightens his Listener on me difference between absolute spirit, which is indestructible, and the c rporeal and human elements, which possess only illus ry existenc . On the one hand Arjuna b comes aware of the metaphysical unreality of what one can lose or cause others to lose, i.e., the ephemeral life and me mortal body. On the ther hand Arjuna i led t exp rienc the manifestation f th divin

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~s a ?~wer which sweeps the one who experi nee it av ay into irresistible ~bsoluteness. Compared to this force any conditioned f?n~ ~f eXlsten~e appears as a mere n gati n. When this nega~o~ IS Itself con~uously ~nd actively negated, that is, when every ~ted form of existence IS overwhelmed r destroyed in combat, this force becomes terrifyingly evident. It i in these terms that the energy suitable to provoke the heroic transformation of the individual can be properly defined. To th extent that he is able to act in the purity and absoluteness which we hav indicar d the warrior breaks the chains of the human, evokes the divine as metaphysical force of destruction f the finite, and attracts this force effectively into himself, finding in it his illumination and liberation. Th e.v?ca~ve watchword of another text, belonging to the same tradition, IS appropriate here: 'Life - like a bow: the ~~ - li~e the ar~~w; the targ t to piere - the supreme s~irit; to JOll mind to spint as the shot arrow hits it target.' It. is highly significant that the BhugOllUd-Gitu presents these teachin~s, :vhich explain how the higher form of the metaphysical realisation of combat and heroism should be understood as referring to a primordial Aryan heritag f a solar nature. hese ~eachings were in fact given by 'The Sun' to the primordial legislator of the Arya~s, Manu, and subsequ ntly maintained by a sacred dynasty of kings. In the course of centuries they came to be l?st and were ther fore newly revealed by the divinity, not to a pnest, but to a representative of th warri r nobility, Arjuna.

***
What we have discussed so far allows us to understand also the intimate content of another group of clas ical and Nordic traditions. We must start with a simple observation: in these traditions, certain specific symbolic images appear exceptionally often: that of the soul as demon, double, genius and the like; those of the Dionysian? entities and the goddes of death; and,

finally, that of a godd ss of victory, who oft n appears also as g ddess of battl . To understand the we should first clarify the meaning of the image of the soul as demon, genius or double. The man of lassical nriquity symbolised in the demon or double a deep force, which is the life of life, 0 to speak, insofar as it rules over all the corporeal and animic event which ordinary consciousness does not reach, but which, however, are determinative of the contingent existence and destiny of the individual. A do e relationship wa believed to exist between this entity and the mystical power of race and blood. The demon seems in many aspects to be similar to the lares, the mystical entities of a stock or of a progeny, of which Macrobius," for example, as erts: 'The gods are those who keep us alive - they feed our body and guide our soul.' It can be aid that there i a relationship between the demon and ordinary consciousness anal gous to that which exists between the individuating principle and the individuated principle. The former is, according to the teaching of the ancients, a supra-individual force, superior, therefore, to birth and death. The latter, i.e., individuated consciousness, conditioned by the body and the outer world, is destined as a rule to dis olution or to an ephemeral and indistinct urvival. In th ordic tradition, the image of the alkyri has more or less the same meaning as that of the demon in Classical Antiquity. In many texts the image f the Valkyrie merges with that of thefylgja, that is, a spiritual entity at work in man, to whose power the destiny of man i ubj ct. nd as kynfylgja the alkyric is -like the lares of ancient Romethe mystical power of the blood. The arne thing applies to the Frava hi of the Aryo-Iranian tradition. The -ra ashi, a famous rientalist explains, 'is the intimate power of any human being it is what keeps him alive and sees to it that he is born and exists'. At the same time the Fravashi are, like Roman lares, relat d to the primordial powers of a stock, and are, like the alkyries, terrifying godde ses of war, dispensers of fortune and victory.
8 Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius (395-423), a Roman eoplatonist philosopher. Hi primary work i the Saturnalia ( ew Yurk: Columbia University Pre s, 1969).

7

Dionysus was the Greek god of ecstasy and intoxication.

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This is the first connection we wish to examin . This myst rious power, which i the deep oul of the race and the transcendent factor at work in the individual, what can it have in common with the goddess of war? 0 understand this point correctly, it is necessary to remember that ancient Indo-Europeans had, to peak, an aristocratic and differentiated conception of immortality. Not all escape th dis olution of the 'I' into that lemuric residuum of which Hades and iflheim? were ancient symbolic representations. Immortality i the privilege of the few, and, according to the Aryan conception, pecifically the privilege of heroes. Continuing to live - not as a shadow, but as a demigod - is reserved to those which a special spiritual action has elevated from the one nature to th other. Here, we unfortunately cannot prove in extenso the following affirmation: from the operative standpoint thi spiritual action consisted of the transformation of the individual '1' from the form of rdinary human consciousness, which remains circumscribed and individuated, into a de p, supra-individual and individuating power, which exi ts beyond birth and death, a power to which we have said the notion of the 'demon' corresponds. III The demon is, however, beyond all the finite forms in which it manifests itself, and this not only because it represents the primordial power of an entire stock, but also with respect to intensity. Consequently, the abrupt passage from ordinary consciousness to the power symbolised by the d mon causes a destructive crisis, a sort of rupture, as a result of the t nsion of a potential too strong for the human circuit. et us suppose therefore the case in which, in completely exceptional conditions, the demon can itself, so to speak, burst out in the individual, making him feel its destroying tran cendence: in this case a sort of living and active experience of death would be aroused. The second conn ction, that is, the reason why in the mythical representations of Antiquity ilie image of the double or demon has been able to merge
9 In Norse mythology Niflheim was the location of HeI, which is where the souls of those who die unheroic deaths were sent.

with that of the di inity of death, therefore becomes clear. 1n the ordic traditi n the warrior sees his alkyrie as he dies r h experiences a mortal danger. Let us go further. In religious asceticism mortification, the renunciation of the 'I' and the impulse to give ones If up to od, are the preferred means by which one attempts to cause th aforementioned crisis and to overcome it effectively. -fxpression lik 'mystical death' or 'dark night of the ul', II etc., which indicat this condition, are well-known. As opposed to thi ,in the context of a heroic tradition the active impulse, the Dionysian unleashing of the el ment of action, is th preferr d means to the same end. At the lowest degree of the corresponding phenomenology we obser e, for example, dance when employed as a sacred technique to evoke and employ, through the ecstasy of the soul, forces which reside in its depth . Another life arise within the life of the individual when freed by the Dionysian rhythm, almost like the emergence of his own abysmal root. The Wildes H r, the -furies,12the rynnyes and other analogous spiritual nature are symbolic representations of this force. Th y therefore correspond to a manifestation of the demon in its terrifying and active transcendence. acred game r present a higher level of this process. A till higher level is that f war. In this way we are led back again to the ancient ryan conception of combat and warrior asceticism. Th possibility of some such upra-normal experience wa acknowledged to re id at the peak of danger and of heroic combat. The Latin word ludere (to play, to fight) already seems to c ntain the idea of resolving ruckrnann)". This is one of the many references to the property, innate to combat, of freeing one from indi iduallimitation and of bringing to emergence fre forces which are latent in the depths. The third analogy draws its
11 This is the title of a work by St. John of the Cross. 12 In Roman mythology, the Furie were female deities who took revenge on the living on behalf of dead people who had be n wronged. Their name in Greek Illythology was the Erynnyes. 13 Heinz Bruckrnann, a German scholar of Latin.

10 For a more preci e understanding of the general conception of life in which the teachings mentioned here are based, we refer the reader to our Revolt. (Note added by Evola).

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107 spiritual realisation was pre-ordained a the secret spirit of cerlain warlike enterprises of which concrete victory would be th crown. ccordingly, the material, military dimension of victory was regarded as the correlative of a spiritual fact, which brought the victory about in accordance with the nece ar} relationship between the interior and exterior worlds. Victory, then appear as the outward and visible sign of a cons cration and a mystical rebirth achieved at the same point. The Furies and death, whom the warrior has faced materially on the battl field, contested spiritually within him in the form of a threatening eruption of the primordial forces of his being. As he triumph over these, victory is his. It thu become clear why, in the traditional world, victory assumed a sacred meaning. Thus, the chieftain, acclaim d on he battlefield, pr vided a living exp rienc of the presence of a mystical power which transfigured him. he deep m anin of the rh r-worldly character bursting out in the glory and the 'divinity' of the victor - the fact that, in ancient Rome, the celebration of the triumph a sumed feature much more sacred than military - becomes therefore comprehensible. The recurrent symbolism in ancient Aryan tradition of victori ) alkyries and analogous entities which guide the soul of the warrior to the 'sky', is revealed to us in a completely different light now, as does the myth of the victorious hero, such as th Dorian lercules, who obtains the crown which makes him shar in Olympian immortality from Nike, the 'g dd s of victory'. The extent to which the perspective which want t see only 'poetry', rhetoric and fables in all this is distorted and superficial becomes clear now. My tical theology teaches that til b atifying spiritual vision is achieved in glory, and Christian iconography puts the aureole of glory around the heads of saints and of martyr. All this indicates a heritage, albeit faded, of our more elevated her ic tradition. The rye-Iranian tradition already knew, in fact, glory - buareno - understood as celestial fire, a glory which c m s down on kings and chief , renders them immortal and in victory testifies for them. And, in cIa ical Antiquity, th radiating royal

origin and foundati n from this: the demon, the lares, the individuating '1', etc., are identical not only to th Furies, the rynnyes, and other unleashed Dionysian natures, which themselv shave numerous features in common with the goddess of death; they corre pond al 0 to the virgins who guide the attacker in battle, the Valkyries and the ~ravashi. The ravashi, for example, are referred to in th texts as "the terrifying, the omnipotent", "those who storm and grant victory to the one who invoke them" - or to say it better, to the one who evokes them within himself. It is a short step from h re to our final analogy. The arne warlike entiti assume finally in Aryan traditions the features of godde es of victory , a metamorphosis which marks pr cisely the happy fulfilment of the inner experienc 5 in que tion. Just like th demon or double they signify a deep and supra-individual power which remains in its latent tate during ordinary con ciousnes ; just as the Furies and the rynnyes reA ct a sp cial manif tation of d monic eruptions and outbursts - and the goddesses of death, Valkyries,jravoJhi, tc. r fer to tile same situation, insofar as these are made p sible by means of heroic combat - so the g ddess of victory is the expression of the triumph of the '1' over thi pow r. It marks the successful impulsion towards a condition situated beyond the danger innate in the ecstasy and the sub-personal forms of destruction, a danger always waiting in ambush behind the frenetic moment of Diony ian action and of heroic action itself What finds expression in this representation of mythical con ciousness is therefore the impulse towards a spiritual, truly supra-personal state, which makes free, immortal, inwardly indestructible - which, as it is aid, "makes, of the two, one" (the two el ments of tile human essenc ). Let us come now to the 0 erall meaning of these ancient her ic traditions, that is, to the mystical conception of victory. he fundamental idea was that there was an effective corre pondence between the physical and the metaphysical, between the visible and the invi ible; a correspondence wher by the works of the spirit manifested upra-individual feature and were expressed through real operations and facts. From this presupposition, a

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109 f the events of this stormy period, but also for th configuration and the attribution of the sense of the Order which will rise from victory. ombat is necessary to awaken and temper that force which, beyond onslaughts, blood and danger, will favour a new creation with a new splendour and a powerful peace. For this reason it is on the battlefi ld that pure action must be learned again today: action not only in the sense of irile asceticism, but also in the sense of purificati n and of path towards higher form of life, forms valid in th mselves and for themselve _ this means precisely a return to ancient ry -Western tradition. rom remote times, this evocative watchword still echoes down to us: 'Life - like a bow; the mind - like the arrow; the target to pierce - the supreme spirit; to join mind to pirit as the shot arrow hit its target.' The one who till experiences combat today, in the sense of this acknowledgement of this profession, will remain standing while oth rs will collapse - and his will be an invincible force. This new man will overcome within himself any drama, any dusk, any chaos, f rrning, with the advent of the new time , the principle of a new development. Accordin to the ancient ryan tradition such heroism of the best men can assume a real evocative function, that is, it can re-establish the contact, lost for centuries, between world and supra-world. Then the meaning of combat will b ,not horrible slaughter, nor desolate destiny conditioned by the will-topower alone, but a test of the good reason and divine vocation of a stock. Then the meaning of peac will not be renewed drowning in colourless bourgeois everyday life, nor the lack of the spiritual ten ion found in combat, but the fullness of the tension itself. 'The blood of Heroes is closer t the ord than the ink of sch lars and the prayer of the pious.' The traditional conception is also based on the presupposition that, far more than individuals, the mystical primordial powers of the race are at work in 'holy war'. hese powers of the origins are tho e which creat world-wide empires and bring to men 'victorious peace'.

crown symbolised glory precisely as solar and celestial fire. In the Ary.an world light, solar splendour, glory, victory, divine royalty are ~ages and notions which appear in the tightest conjunction, not in the sense of abstractions and inventions of man, but rather ~th the me~~g of latent p tentialities and absolutely real actualised. capacities, In such context the mystical doctrine of fight and victory represent for us a luminous apex of our common tradition of action.

***
oday this tradition speaks to u in a way which is still comprehensible - provided, of course, that we renounce its outer and contingent modalities of manifestation. If we want to go beyond an exhausted, battered spirituality, built upon speculative abstractions and pieti tic feeling , and at the same time to go beyond the materialistic deg neration of action, what better points of reference can be found today than th aforementioned ideals of ancient Aryan man? But there is more. In the West spiritual and material tensions have become entangled to such a degree in recent years that they can only be resolved through combat. With the present war an age goes towards it end and forces are aining ground which can no longer be dominated by abstract idea, universalistic principle or myths conceived as mere irrationalities, and which do not in themselves provide the basis for a new civili ation. A far deeper and far more essential form of action is n w necessary so that, beyond the ruins of a subverted and condemned world a new age breaks through for Europe. ' In this perspective a lot will depend on the way in which the individual of today is able to give shape to the li ing experi nce of combat: that is, on whether he is in a position to a sume h roism and sacrifice as catharsis, and as a means of liberation and of inner awakening. This work of our combatants - inner invisible, far from gestures and grandiloquences - will have a decisive character not only for th conclusion, victoriou and definitive,

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The Meaning of the Warrior Element for the New Europe"
ne of the main oppositions which the irst World War brought to light concern the relationship between the state and the military element. What appear d was a characteristic antithesis, which in reality refl cred n t so much two different groups of people as two different ag s, two mentalities and two different conceptions of 'civilisation'. On one hand one found the idea that the military and, mor generally the warrior element is merely subordinate and instrumental to the stat . The normal and correct rulers of the state, according to this view, are what one might call th 'civil' or 'bourgeois' element. This 'bourg ois' element engages in professional politics and - to use a well-known expression - when politics must be continued by other means." the military fore s are employed. nder these condition the military element i not expected to exercise any particular influence on politic or on the life in society in general. It is acknowledged, certainly, that the military element
1 2 Originally published in March 1941 as 'Sui significate dellelernento guerriero per la nuova Europa' in La Vita Italiana. 'We s e, therefore, that War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means: A famous quotation from Claus von lausewitz (1780-1831), a Prussian military theorist. The quotation can be found in his book On War (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 42.

O

has its wn ethics and values. Howe er, this view considers it undesirable and even absurd, to apply these ethics and valu s to the entire ;ormallife f the nation. The view in question is in fact c1 sely related to the d mocratic, illumine'" and liberal belief that true civilisation do s not have anything to do with that sad necessity which is war, but that its foundation, rather than the warlike virtues, is 'the progress of the arts and sciences' and the formation of social life according to the 'immortal principles'. That is why, in such a society, one should speak of a 'so]die~' element rather than a true warri r element. In fact, ctyrnologically the word 'soldier' refers to troops which fight for a salary or a fee in the service of a class which does not itself wage war. This is, more or less, the meaning which, in spite of obligatory conscription, the military element has in liberal an~ dem~craticbourgeois States. These rates use it to resolve serious di .putes on the international plane more or less in the same way as, to the d mestic order, they use the police. o er and against this view there is the other according to which the military element permeates the political, and also the ethical, order. Military values here are authentic warrior values and have a fundamental part in the general ideal of an ethical formation of life; an ideal valid also, therefore, beyond the strictly military plane and periods of war. The result is a ~tati~~ ~f the ci ilian bourge isie, politically, and of the bourgeois sp~t In general in all sectors of social life. True civilisa~~n is co~celve~ of here in virile, active and heroic terms: and It IS on this baSIS that the elements which define all human greatne s, and the real rights of the peoples, are understood. It hardly needs to be said that, in the 1914-1918 World War, the former ideology was proper to the Allie and above all to. the western and Atlantic democracies, while the latter was essentially represented by the entral Powers. According to a well-known Masonic watchword - which we ha e 0 ften recalled here - that war

3

French: 'enlight ned'.

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wa fought as a sort of great crusade of worldwide d mocracy" against 'militarism' and 'Prussianism', which, to those 'imperialist' nations, repr sented 'ob curantist' residues within 'dev loped' -<urope. Thi expression contains, h wever, the truth which we pointed out at the b ginning, namely that the opposition was not only between two groups of peoples but also between two ages - even though, naturally, at the time and subjectively things appeared in a very different manner. What were called in the Iasonic jargon 'anachronistic residues' meant really the urvival of values peculiar to the whole of traditional, warlike, virile and Aryan umpe, while the values of the 'developed world' did not mean anything but the ethical and spiritual declin of the We t. Moreover, we know better n w what 'imperialists' the hypocritical exponents of this latter w rld were in their own peculiar way: theirs was, to be exact, the imp rialism of the bourgeoisie and the merchants who wanted to enjoy undisturbed the b nefits of p ace, which was to be imposed and preser ed, not 0 much by their own military forces as by forces enlisted from all parts of the world and paid for this purpose. With the peace treaties and the developments of the post-war period this has b come more and more evident. The function of the military element deteriorated into that of a sort of international police force - r, rather than really 'international', a police force organised by a certain group of nations to impose, against th will of the thers and for their wn profit, a given actual situation: since this was, and is, what 'the defi nee of peace' and 'the right f nation' really m an. The d cline of all feelings of warrior-like pride and hon ur was subsequently demonstrated by the fact that all SOrts of ign ble means were developed to secure the desired results without even having to re ort to this army degraded to the status of international police: syst m of sanctions, economic blockades, national boycott, etc.

With the most recent international developments which have I .J to the loss of authority f the League of Nation and, finally, to the current war, an effecti reversal of values, not only on the political plane but also on the ethical one and in general of Ii fc-view as a whole, ha become clearly visible. The current battle IS not 0 much against a particular people but rather against a particular idea, which is more or less the same as th one supP rted by the Allies in th previous war. That war was intended to consolidate 'democratic imperialism' against any dang rous troublemakers; the new war is intended to mark the end of thi 'imperialism' and of several myths which serve it as 'alibis', and to create the preconditions for a new age in which warrior ethics are to ser e as the basis for the civilisation of the collective of I~uropean p oples. In thi ense the present war can be called a restorative war. It restores to their original standing the ideals and the views of lif and right which are central to the original traditions of the ryan pe pIes - above all the Aryo-Roman and ordic-Aryan ones - so central that, when they decayed r were abandoned, this led inevitably to the fall of each of those peoples and power passed into the hands of inferior elements, both racially and piritually. It is, however , advisable that misunderstandings do not arise about the meaning which the warrior element will have in the new Europe, focusing on the word 'militarism', similar to those already deliberately fostered - with full knowledge of the fact - by the democratic adversarie . It is not a matter of confining urope to barrack, nor of defining a wild will-to-power a IIltima ratioS or arriving at an obscurely tragic and irrational conception of life. Thus, in the first place it is necessary to become well aware that specifically warrior values, in the military context, are only representations of a reality which, in itself, can ha e a higher, not merely ethical, but even m tap hysical meaning. Here we hall not repeat what we have already had the pportunity to discuss at

4

When the United States entered the war in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson characterised it as a 'crusade for democracy'.

5

Latin: 'the last resort:

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len~th elsewhere:" we will only recall that ancient Aryan humanity habitually conceived of life as a perpetual battle between metaphysical powers, on the one hand the uranic fore s of light and order, on the other hand th dark forces of chaos and matter. his battle, for the ancient Aryan, was f ught and won both in the outer and in the inner world. And it was the exterior battle which reflected the battle to be fought in oneself, which was considered as the truly just war: the battle against those forces and peoples of the outer world which possessed the same character as the powers ~ ou~ inner ~eing which must be placed under subjection and domination until the accomplishment of a pax hillmphalis.7 What follow from this is an interrelation of the true warriorlike or heroic ethos with a certain inner cliscipline and a certain superio~ty, an interrelation which, in one form or anoth r, always appear~ In all our best traditions. That is why only one wh is short-SIghted or prejucliced can believe that the unavoidable consequence of putting forward a warrior-like vision of the world and of maintaining that the new urope will have to be formed under the sign of the warrior spirit must be a chaos of unleashed forces an? ins~c~s. Th true warrior ideal implies not only force and physical tramlOg but also a calm controlled and conscious formation of the inner being and the personality. ove for distance and ord r, the ability to subordinate one's individualistic and pa sionate element to principles, the ability to place action and.work above mere personhood, a feeling of clignity devoid of vanity are features of the true warrior spirit as essential as those
6 7 Cf. above all our work Revolt Against the Modern World. Hoepli, Milan 1934. (Note added by Evola.) Even .in ~e Chri.stian doctrine of Saint Augustine. this view on the just war clearly remains: Proficientes autem nondumque perfect! ira [to fight) possunt, ut bonus

qu~sque ex ea parte pugnet contra alterum, qua etiam contra semet ipsum; et in uno qU/ppe homine caro concupiscit adversus spiritum es spiritus adversus earnem' (De Civ.• xv. 5). ['But with the good, good men, or at I ast perfectly good men, cannot
war; though, while only going on towards perfection, they war to this extent, that every good man resists others in those points in which he re i ts himself. And in each individual "the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh" From St. Augustin's City of God and Christian Doctrine (Grand Rapids: E rdrnans, (988).) (Note added by Evola.)

which refer to actual combat: s that, from a higher point of view, c mbat itself can be worthwhile not so much for its immecliate material results as for evidence of these qualities, which have a self-evident constructive value and can amount to elements of a pecial 'style', not only in a giv n area of the nation devoted specifically to soldiering, but als in a whole people and even beyond the frontiers of a given people. his last point must be especially stressed, precisely in relation t our fight for a new urope and a new uropean civilisation. , he relation which, accorcling to the aforementioned ryan and traditional view, exists between inner struggle and 'just war' is useful, in adclition, in preventing the equivocal irrationali m of a tragic and irrational vision of the world, and also allows one to go beyond a certain hardening, devoid of light, found in som subordinate aspect of the purely military style. ccording to the highest view,which is resurfacing today in the staunchest and most potent forces of our p oples, warrior-like cliscipline and combat are connected with a certain 'transfigurati n' and participation in an effective 'spirituality'. This is how an id a of 'p ace', which has nothing to do with the materialistic, democratic-bourgeois conception i outlined: it is a peace which is not the ce sation of th spiritual tension at work in combat and in warrior-like asceticism, but rather a sort of calm and pow rful fulfilment of it. Fundamentally, it is here that the irreducible antithesis between the two different conception of 'civilisation' appear. There is not really 'imperialist materialism' and 'warlike brutality', on the one hand, and, on the other, 'love for culture' and interest in 'spiritual values'. Rather, there are spiritual values of a given type and of a properly ryan origin, which oppose a different, intellectualistic, 'humanistic' and bourgeoi conception of these. It is useless to delude ourselves that a warrior civilisation can have the ame consideration for the so-called 'world of sciences and art ' as that which they enjoyed in the previous age of liberalism and of the Nineteenth-century bourgeoisie. They may retain their own significance but in a subordinate manner, becau they r present not what is essential, but the accessory. The main thing consists

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instead in a certain inner style, a certain formation of the mind and character, a simplicity, clarity and harshness, a directly experienced meaning of existence, without expres ionisms, without sentimentalisms, a plea ure for commanding, obeying, acting, conquering and overcoming oneself That the world of 'intellectuals' considers all this as 'unspiritual' and almost barbaric j natural, but it has no significance. A very different seriousne s and depth from the point of view of which the 'culture' of the bourgeoi world appears itself as a reign of worm ,of forms without life and with ut force, belong to the 'warrior' world. It will only be in a subsequent period when the new typ of uropean i sufficiently formed that a new 'culture', less vain, less 'humanist', can be expected to reflect something of the new style. Today it is very important to become aware of these aspects of the warrior pirit so that, in forming the bases of the future agreement and comm n civilisation of the uropean peoples, abstract and outdated ideas are not again brought into play. It is only by working from the energies which in the test of the fire of combat decide the freedom, dignity and mi sion of the peoples that true under tanding, collab ration and unity of civilisation can be forged. nd as these energies have little to do with 'culture' as understood by the 'intellectuals' and the 'humanists' to which they cannot be expected to rededicate them elves, so ev ry abstract conception of right, all impersonal r gulation of the relations between the various human groups and between the various tates will appear intolerable to them. Here, another fundamental contribution which the warrior spirit can offer to the form and sense of a new European order b comes clear. Warrior spirit is characterised by direct, clear and loyal relation based on fidelity and honour and a sound instinct for the various dignities, which it can well distinguish: it opposes everything which is imper onal and trivial, In every civilisation based on warrior spirit all order depends on these element, not on legal paragraphs and abstract 'positivist' norm. nd these are also the lements which can organise the forces, aroused by the exp rience of combat and

on ecrated by victory, into a new unity. That is why, in a certain sense, the type of warrior organisation which was peculiar to orne asp cts f the feudal Roman-Germanic civilisation can gi c u an idea of what, perhaps, will work, in an adapted form, for the new Europe for which today we fight. In d aling with r lation hip~, not only man-to-man, but also tate-to- tate and race-to-race, It is necessary to be abl to conceive again of that obedience which does not humiliate but exalts, that command r leadership which commits one to superiority and a precise responsibility. Instead f the I gislation of an ab tract 'international law' c mprising pe ples of any and all sorts, an organic right of -<urop an p oples based on these direct relationships mu t come about. 51111m miq1lc.8 Thi ryan and Roman principle defines the true concept of justice on the international plane a on the personal and is intimat ly connected to the warrior vision of life: everyone must have a precise ense of their natural and legitimate place in a well-articulated hierarchical whole, must feel pride in this place and adapt themselves to it perfectly. To this end, in fact, the 'ascetic' el ment also comprised in the warrior spirit will have a particular importance. 0 realise a new uropean order, various conditions are necessary: but there is no doubt that in the first place must be the 'asceticism' inherent in warrior discipline: the ability to see reality, suppres ing every particularistic haughtiness, every irrational affection, every ephemeral pride; scorn for comfortable life and for all materialistic ideas of well-being; a styl of simplicity, audacity and conscious force, in the common effort, on all planes.

8

Latin: 'to each his own'.

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Varieties of Heroism 1
point to. which we have. often drawn ~e atte~tion of our reader IS that exarmnanon of the topic of 'inn r race' is worthwhile, however incomplete it may remain at this stage, because of th fact that, rather than just noting the occurrence or non-occurrence of struggle and death am ng a people, it is necessary to consider their distinct 'style' and attitud regarding these phenomena and the distinct meanings which they may give to strug~l and heroic sacrific at any particular time. In fact, ~t l~~st in ge~eral terms, we can speak of a scale along which individual nations may be placed according to how the value of human life is measured by them. The vicis itudes of this war have exposed contrast in this respect, which we would like to di cuss briefly here. We shall limit ~urselves essentially to the extreme cases, represented, respectively, by Russia and Japan.

A

Bolshevik Sub-Personhood
It i now well known that Soviet Ru sia's conduct of war does not attach the slightest importance to human life or to humanity as such. For them the combatants are n thing but 'human material: in th most brutal sense of this sinister expression - a sense which, unfortunately, has n w become widespread in a certain
1 Originally published on 19 April 1942 a 'Volti dellerois mo ' in 'Diorama rnensile,

II Regime Fascista.

sort of military literature - a material to which no particular attenti n need be given and which, therefore, they need not hesitate to , acrifice in the most pitil ss way, providin they ha e an adequate supply of it to hand. In general, as recent events have shown, the Ru sian can always face death readily because of a sort of innat , dark fatalism, and human life has been cheap for a long time in Russia. However, in the current use of the Russian soldier a. the raw st 'human fodder' we ee also a logical consequence f Bolshevik thought, which has the most radical contempt for all values derived from the idea of personhood and intends to fre the individual from this idea, which it regards as superstition, and ft m the 'bourgeois prejudice' of the 'I' and the 'mine', in rder to reduce him to the status of a mechanical member of a collecti e whole, which i the only thing which is regarded as important. From th e facts the possibility of a form of acrifice and heroism which we would call 'telluric' and sub-personal, under the sign of the collecti e, omnipotent and faceless man, becom s apparent. The death of the bolshevised man on the battlefield represents, thus, the logical culmination of the process of depersonalisation, and of the destruction of ery qualitativ and p rsonal value, which underlay the Bolshevik ideal of 'civilisation' all along. Here, what Erich Maria Remarque had tendentiously proposed in a book which became notorious as the comprehensive meaning of war can be accurately grasped: the tragic irrelevance of the individual in a situation where pure instinctuality, unleashed elemental fore s and sub-personal impul es gain ascendancy over all conceivable values and ideal. Indeed, the tragic nature of this is not even felt, precisely because the sense of personhood has already vanished every higher horizon is precluded and collectivi arion, even of the spiritual realm, has already struck deep roots in a new generation of fanatics, brought up on the words of Lenin and Stalin. We see here one specific 6 rm, albeit one almost incomprehensible to our uropean mentality, of readiness for death and self-sacrifice, which affords perhaps ev n a inister joy in the destruction b th of on self and of others.

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The Japanese Mysticism of Combat
Recent episodes of the Japanese war have made known to us a 'style' of dying which, from this point of view, seems to have affinities with that f Bolshevik man in that it appears to testify to the same contempt for the value of the individual and f personhood in general. Specifically, we have heard of Japan se airmen who, their planes loaded with bombs, hurl themselves deliberately upon their targets, and of soldiers who place mines and are doomed to die in their action, and it seems that a formal body of these 'volunteers for death' has been in existence in Japan for a long time. Once again, there is something in this which i hardly comprehen ible to the Western mind. However, if we try to understand the most intimate aspects of this extreme form of heroism we find values which present a perfect antithesis to thos of the lighdess 'telluric heroism' of Bolshevik man. The pr mises here are, in fact, of a rigorously religiou or, to put it better, an ascetic and mystical character. We do not m an this in the most obvious and external sense - that i , as referring to the fact that in Japan the religiou idea and the Imperial idea are one and the same thing, so that service to th mperor is regarded as a form of divine service, and self-sacrifice for the Tennc: and the state has the same value as the sacrifice of a missionary or martyr - but in an absolutely active and combative sense. These are certainly aspects of the Japanes politico-religious idea: however, a more intimate explanation of the new phenom na must be looked for, on a higher plane than thi ,in the vision of the world and of life proper to Buddhism and above all to the Zen chool, which has b en rightly defined as the 'religion of the samurai', that is, of the Japanese warrior caste. This 'vision of the world and of life' really trives to lift the possessor's sense of his own true identity to a transcendental plane, leaving to the individual and his earthly life a merely relative meaning and reality. The first notable aspect of this is the feeling of 'coming from afar' - that is, that earthly life is only an episode, it egmOill and
2 The Japanese term for the Emperor, meaning 'heavenly sovereign'

cnding are not themselves to be found here, it h~ remote causes, it is held in tensi n by a force which will express it elf subsequendy in other destinies, until supreme liberation. The second n~table aspect, related to the first, is that the reality of th~ '1' in simple human terms is denied. The term 'person' refers itself back to the meaning that it originally had in atin, nam~ly the.mask of. an actor, that is, a gi n way of appearing, a manifestation. ~ehind this, according to Zen, that is, the religion of the sam~a.t, .the~e is something incomprehen ible and uncontrollable, IOfiru.t 10 itself and capable of infinite forms, so that .itis cal~ed .ymboli~ally Stl1!ya, meaning 'empty', as against everything which IS materially substantial and bound to specific form. We see here the outline of the basis for a heroism which can be called 'supra-personal' - whereas the Bolshevik one was, contrarily, 'sub-personal'. ne can tak hold of one's own life and cast it away at its most intense moment out of sup.er-abunda.n~e in the certainty of an eternal existenc and of the indestructibility of what, never having had a beginning, cannot ~ave an end. What may seem extreme to a certain W, stern mentality becomes natural clear and obviou here. One cannot even speak here of tragedy - but for the opposite reason to that which applied in the case of Bolshevism: one cannot speak of tragedy because of the li d sense of the irrelevance of the individual in the light of the possession of a meaning and a force which, in ~fe, go~s ~eyond life. It is a heroism which we could almost call Olympian'. And here, incidentally, we may remark n the dilettante triviality of one author who in a certain articl~ has trie~ to demonstrate in four lines the pernicious character which such vtews,.oppo ed to those which hold that earthly exi tence is unique and irre ocable, must have for the idea of the state and ervice to the state. Japan offers the most categorical refutation of such wild ima~nings and the vigour with which our ally Japan wages her heroic and victorious battle demonstrates, on the contrary, the enormous warrior-like and spiritual potential which can proceed from ~e lived feeling of transcendence and supra-personhood t which we have referred.

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Roman Devotio
Here it is appropriate to emphasise that, if the acknowledgment ?f the value of personho d i peculiar to the modern West what ~s also peculiar to it i an almost superstitious emphasis on the importance of upbringing, which under recent conditions of ~emocrati ation has given rise to the famous concept of 'human tights' and to a eries of socialistic, democratic and humanistic superstitions. Along with this clearly less than positive aspect there has bee~ equal :mphas.i on the 'tragic', not to say 'Promethean', conception, which agam represents a fall in level. In opp itio? to all thi we must recall the 'Olympian' ideals of ou~ most ancient and purest traditions; we will then be able to C?nCeiVeas equa~y our an aristocratic heroism, free from passion, proper to bemgs whose life-centre is truly on a higher plane from which ~ey are able to ~url themselves, beyond any tragedy, beyond any tie and any anguish, as irresistibl forces. . . ere, a ~ttle historical rem~scence is called for. Although this ~ n t Widelyknown, our ancient Roman traditions contained motifs concerning the disinterested, heroic offering of one's own per on in the na~e of the state for the purpose of victory analogous to thos whic.hwe have seen in the Japanese mystici m ~f combat. We are alluding to the so-called deuotio. Its presupposiuon~ ~re equally sacred. What acts in it is th general beli f of the traditional man that invisible forces are at work behind the visible one and that man, in his tu n, can influence them. According to the ancient Roman ritual of deuotio as we understand it, a warrior, an.d abo all a chi ftain, can facilitate victory by ~eans of a ~ysteno~s unl ashing of forces determined by the deliberate sacrifice of hISown person, cornbin d with the will not t? come out of the fray alive. Let us recall the xecution of this ritual by Consul Decius in the war against the Latins (340 BC),3 and
3 Publius Decius Mus was ~ con ul of the Roman Republic during the Latin War. He performed the dev~tlo.pTlor to the Battle of Vesuvius after an oracle predicted that he would not survive It. When th Roman attack began to falter, he called upon the. gods to fulfil their prornise and plunged single-handed into the army of the Latins and was killed. The Romans won the battle. His on of the same name also

also the repetition of it - exalted by Cicer 4 (I-'ill. II, I~,(.I. 1111, I 37,39) - by two other members of the same family. 'l'his ruuul had its own precise ceremony, testifying to the perfect kn \ ledge and lucidity of this heroic-sacrificial offer. In proper hi rarchi al order, first the Olympian divinities of the Roman state, Janus, Jupiter, Quirinus, and then, immediately following this, the god of war, Pater Mars, and then, finally, certain indigen us gods, were invoked: 'gods - it is said - which confer power t heroes over their enemies'; by the virtue f the sacrifice which these ancient Romans proposed to perform th gods were called upon to 'grant strength and victory to the Roman people, the Quirites, and effect the enemies of the Roman people, the Quirites, with terror, dismay, and death' (cf. Livy, 8:9).s Proposed by the pontifex," the words of this formula were uttered by the warrior, arrayed in the praetesta, hi foot upon a javelin. After that he plunged int the fray, to die. Incidentally, here the transf rmation of the sense of the word deiotio must be noticed. While it applied originally to this order of ideas, that i , to a heroic, sacrificial and e ocative action, in th later rnpire it came to mean simply the fidelity of the citizen and his scrupulosness in making his payments t the stat treasury (devotio rei annonanaei. As Boocbe-Leclercq' puts it, in the nd, 'after aesar was replaced by the Christian d, devotio means simply religiosity, the faith ready frail sacrifice, and then, in a further degeneration of the xpression, devotion in the common sense of the word, that is, constant concern for salvati n, affirmed in a meticulous and tremulous practice of the
perform d the devotio during the Third amnite War in 295 Be. His son in turn sacrificed himself in the Battle of Asculum in 279 B . 4 Marcus Tullius Cicero (\06 BC-43 Be) was a great Roman tatesman and orator. Evola is likely referring to his works De Finibus. Bonorum et Malorum (About the Ends of Goods and Evils). and Tuscutanae Quaestiones (Questions Debated at Tus-

culum).
5 6 7 Titus Livius (59 BC-17 AD). author of The History of Rome. 111i5passage is taken from Uvy. vol, 3 (London: A.J. Valpy, 1833). p. 16. A ponufex was a priest in the ancient Roman religion. Augu Ie Bouche-Leclercq (1842-1923), a French scholar of Roman history. His works have not been translated.

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cult'. Leaving this aside, in the ancient Roman deuotio we find, as we have shown, very precise signs of a mysticism aware of heroism and of sacrifice, binding the feeling of a upernatural and uperhuman reality tightly to the will to truggle with dedication in the name of ne's own chieftain, one' own tate and ne's own race. Th re are plenty of testimonie to an' Iympian' feeling f c mbat and victory peculiar to ur ancient traditions. We ha e discus ed this extensively elsewhere. Let us only recall here that in the cerem ny of the triumph, the victoriou d/lX" displayed in Rome the insignia of the Olympian god to indicate the real force within him which had brought about his victory; let u recall al 0 that beyond the mortal Cae ar, Romanity worshipped Caesar as 'per nnial victor', that is, a a sort of supra-personal fore f Roman destiny. hu ,if succeeding times have made other views prevail, the most anci nt tradition still show us that the ideal of an Olympian 'h roism' has been our ideal as well, and that our people have also experienced the absolute offering, the consummation of their whole exi tence in a force hurled against the enemy in age ture which ju tifies the most complete evocation of abysmal forces; and which bring about, finally, a victory which transforms the victors and enables their participation in supra-per onal and 'fatal' powers. And so, in our heritage, points of reference are indicated which stand in radical opposition t the sub-personal and collectivist heroism we discu ed above, and not only to that, but to every tragic and irrational vision which ignores what is stronger than fire and iron, and str nger than life and death.

The Roman Conception of Victory'
allust described the original Roman as the most religious of mortals: religiommi mortales (Cat., 13),2 and Cicero said ~at ancient R man civilisation exceeded ev ry other people or nation in its sense of the sacred: omnes gentes natlonisque mperavimllS (Hat: respon., IX, 19). nalogous testirnonie are found in nu~er~u variants in many other ancient writers. As against the prejudice of a certain hi toriography which persists in assessing ancient Rome from a solely legal and political point of view, what should be brought out is the fundamentally spiritual and. sacred content of ancient Romanity, which should really be considered the ~ost important element, because it is easy to show tha.t the politlca.l, legal and ethical forms of Rome, in the last. analy.sl~,had ~~their comm n basis and origin preci ely a special religious VISion, a special type of relationship between man and the supra-sensory world. But thi relationship is of a quite different type from that characteristic of the beliefs which came to predominate subsequ ntly. The Roman, like ancient and traditional men in general, believed in a meeting and mutual interpen tration of divi.ne and hu~an forces. This led him to develop a special ense of history and tune, to which we have drawn attention in anoth r of our article here,
I Originally published on 16 May 1943 as 'La concezione roman a della Viuoria' in

S

Augustea.
8 Latin: 'leader' 2 See note 4 in 'The Sacrality of War'.

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speaking about a book by ranz Altheim.' Th ancient Roman felt that the manifestation of the divine was to be found in time in history, in e~erything which is carried out through human acti~n, rather than in the space of pure contemplation, de ached from the, world, or in the motionless, silent symbols of a l?'yperkoJmia Or super-world'. He th~s lived his history, fr m his very origins ~nwards~ ~o.re or less 1~ te~ms of 'sacred', or at the very least pr phetic history. In hi Life of Rnmll/lts (1:8) Plutarch" says in ~o.many words, 'Rome could not have acquired so much p wer If in on way or another it had not had a divine origin, such as to show to the eyes of men something great and inexplicable.' Hence the typically Roman conception of an invisible and 'mysti~al' ~ounterpart to everything visible and tangible which transpire in ~e human world. This is why rite accompani d every xplanation of Roman life, whether individual collective or political. Hence, al 0, the particular conception that the Roman had. of fate: fate for him was not a blind power as it wa for late ancle~t Greece, but the divine order of the world as development, to be interpreted ~nd understood as mean to an adequate cience, so that the directions in which human action \V uld be effective could be foretold, those along which this action could attract and actualise fore from above with a view not only to success, but also to a sort of transfiguration and higher justification. ince ~is set of ideas applied to the whole of reality it reaffirmed Itself also for ancient Rome in the field of warlike enterprises, of battle, heroism and victory. This fact allow us to see the error of ~ose wh.o consider the ancient Romans essentially as a race of erni-barbarians, who prevail d only through brutal force of arms, borrowing from other peoples, such as the Etruscans, Greeks and yrians, the elements which s rved them in lieu of true cul~e. Rather, it is true that ancient Romanity had a particular mystical conception of war and victory, whose importance has oddly escap d the pccialists in the study of Romanity, who have
3 4 Franz Altheirn, A History of Roman Religion (London: Methu n & Co., 1938). Mestrius Plutarchus (46-127) was a Greek historian. All of his biographies are collected in Plutarch's Lives.

limited themsel es to pointing out the many and well-documented traditions in question in a distracted and inconsequential manner. It was the essentially Roman opinion that, to be won materially, a war needed to be won - or, at last, fa oured - mystically. fter the attle of Trasimene, Fabius says to the s ldiers, 'Your fault is to have neglect d the acrifices and to have failed t heed the warnings of the oracles, rather than to have lacked courage or ability' (Livy, History of Rome, 17:9, cf. 31:5; 36:2; 42:2). o Roman war began without acrifices and a special college of priests - the Feciales - wa in charge of the rituals related to war, which was considered a 'just war', illS/ifill bellum, only after these had been performed. As once pointed out by de Coulanges.' the root of the military art of the Romans consisted originally in not being forced to fight when the gods were against it; that is, when by mean of 'fatal' signs the agreement of forces fr m above with human forces was perceiv d to be absent. hus, the focus of the enterprise of war fell on a more than merely human plane - and both the acrifice and the heroism of the combatant were considered to be more than merely human. The Roman conception of victory is particularly important. In this conception very victory had a mystical id in the most objective sense of the term: in the victor, the chicf, the irnperator, applauded on the battlefield, was sensed the momentary manifestation of a divine force, which transfigured and trans-humanised him. The military victory ritual itself, in which the imperator (in the original sens ,not of emperor', but of victoriou chief) was lifted on a special shield, is not devoid f symb lism, as can be inferred from Enniu :6 the shield, previously sanctified in the Capitoline temple of Jupiter, ignifie here the altisonum coeli dtlpellm, the celestial sphere, beyond which victory raises the man who has won.
5 uma Denis Fustel de Coulanges (1830-1889), a French historian. His principal work was The Ancient City: A StIldy on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome, Garden City: Doubleday, )956. Quintus Ennius (c. 239 BC-c. 169 Be) was a poet and historian of the Roman Republic. Only fragments of his works survive.

6

128

METAPHYSICS

OF WAI{ Ilk \

Revealing and unambiguous confirmations f this ancien I Roman conception are 'provided by the nature of the liturgy and the po~p of .the triumph. We speak of <liturgy' since this ceremony WIthwhich every winner was hon ured had in Rome a character much more religious than military. The victorious lead r appeared h re as a sort of manifestation or visible incarnation of the Olympian god, all the signs and the attributes of whom he wore. The quadriga of white hor es corresponded to that of th solar god of the bright sky, and the mantle of the triumphant, th purple toga mbroid red with gold stars, reproduced th celestial and stellar ~antle of Jupiter. And so did the gold crown and the sc.eptre whIch. surmounted the Capitoline sanctuary. And the winner dy d ~ face with minimum as in the cult of the temple of the Olympian God, t? which h.e then went to place solemnly ~efor .the sta~e of jupiter the triumphal laurels of his victory, intending by this that Jupiter was its true auth r, and that he himself had ga~ed i.t,ess~ntially, as a divine force, a force of Jupiter: hence the ritual ideotificarion in the ceremony. The fact that th aforemention d cloak of the triumphant corresponded t.o ilia~of ~e ancient Roman kings could give rise to further co?sIderatIons: It could remind us of the fact brought out by ~thelm that even before the ceremony of the triumph of the ~ng was defined he had appeared in the primitive Roman conception as an image of the celestial divinity: the divine order over which the latter presid d, was reAected and manifested in th ~uman ~ne, centred in the king. In this respect - in this conception, which along with everal others from the time of the origins, was to resurface in the Imperial period - Rome testifies to a unive~ ~~symbo~sm, which is found again in a whole cycle of great CI~ anons tn the Indo- ryan world and Aryo-Iranian world, In ancient Greece, in ancient Egypt and in the Far -< a r. But, n.ot.to wander from the argument, let u point ut another char~ctenstlc element in the Roman conception of victory. It is precI ely ~ cause it was se n as a more than merely human event that the VIctory f a chief often assumed for the Romans th features of a numen, an independent divinity, whose my teriou

as made the centre of a pecial system of rituals tit .It'lll .j III Ic .d it, enliv n it and confirm its invisibl presc.:n . ,11111111 111'11. The most well-known example is provided by the I uton« I 'arsatis. Each victory was believed to actualise a new centre of 1.1\' .cs, separate from the particular individuality of the m?rtal 1I1,\n who had realised it; or, if we prefer, by VIctory the VIctor had become a forc existing in an almost tran cendent order: a Ior en t of the victory achieved in a given moment of hi tory, Illi as the Roman expression stated exactly, of a 'perpetual' or 'I ,; nnial' victory. Th cult of such entities, established. b law, \ H designed to stabilise, so to speak, the presence.of ~lS force, s() that it added invisibly to those of the race, leading it towards nutc me of 'fortune', making of ach new victory a m an f r r "elation and reinforcement of the energy of the original victory. Thus in Rome since the celebration f the dead Caesar and that of hi~ victory ~vere ne and the same and the games, which had ritual meaning, were consecrated to the Victoria Caesaris h could be considered as a 'perpetual victor'. . . The cult of victory, which was believed to have prehIstOrIC origins, can be said more generally to be the secret sp~rit of .the grearne s of Rome and of It me's faith in its prophetic destiny, From the tim of Augustus the statue of th godd ss ictory had been plac d on the altar of the Roman Senate, and it w~s cust mary that every senator, before taking office.' went to this altar and burned a grain of incense. The force of victory seemed thus to presid invisibly over the deliber~tions of th~ atria;7 hands reached out toward its image when, WIth the coming of a new Princeps," fidelity was sworn to him and again o? t.he Third of January of each year when solemn prayers wer~ said in the Sen~te for the health of the -< mperor and the pro penry of the Empire. It is particularly worthy of interest that this was the most tenacious Roman cult of so-called 'paganism', surviving after the destruction of all the others.
I

7 8

The Roman

enate.

Another term for the Roman Emperor.

130

METAPHYSICS

OF WAR

131
aspect. The difference is certainly that they do not aim at a more than merely material action, a true evocation, to the arne extent as in the ancient Roman the ry of the deiotio. And naturally, the modern and, ab ve all, Western atmosphere for thousands of reasons which have become, so to peak, c nstitutive of our being over the centuries makes it extremely difficult to feel and to move force behind the scenes and to gi e every gesture, every sacrifice, v ry victory, transfiguring meanings, such as those discussed above. It i however certain that, ev n today, in this unleashed vicissitude one should not feel alone on the battlefields - one sh uld en e, in spite of ev rything, relationships with a more than merely human rder, and paths which cannot be assessed solely by the values of this visible reality can be the source f a force and an indomitability whose effects on any plane, in ur view, hould not be underestimated.

Other considerations could be derived from the Roman notion of mors tnilmphalis, 'triumphal death', which sh ws variou aspect with which we will perhap deal on another occasion. Here we just want to add something about one pecial a pect of the heroic dedication connected to the ancient Roman concept f deootio. It expresses what in modern terms could be called a 'tragic heroism', but linked to a s n e of supra-sen ory forces and a higher and very specific purp e. In ancient Rome deootio did not m an 'devotion' in the modern sense of the meticulous and over-scrupulous practice of a religious cult. It was, rather, a warlike ritual action in which the sacrifice of neself was vow d and one's own life was dedicated consciou ly to 'lower' powers, whose unl ashing was to contribute to bringing victory, on one the hand, by endowing one with irresistible strength and, on the other hand, by causing panic to the enemy. It was a rite established formally by he Roman State as a upernatural addition to arms in desperate cases, when it was believed that the enemy could hardly be defeated by normal f rces. From Livy (8:9) we know all the details of this tragic ritual and also the olemn formula of evocation and self-dedication which the on who intended to sacrifice him elf for victory had to pronounce, repeating it from the pontifex, clothed in the praetesta, his head veiled, his hand at his chin and his foot on a javelin. After that he plung d to hi death in the fray, a hurled, 'fatal' force, no longer human. There were noble R man families in which this tragic ritual was almost a traditi n: for exampl , three of the stock of the Deci performed it in 340 B.c. in the war against the reb llious atins, th n again in 295 in the war against the amnites, and once more in 79 at the Battle of scoli: a if this was 'a family law', as Livy puts it. As pur inner attitude this sacrifice may recall, by its perfect lucidity and its voluntary character, what still happens today in Japan's war: we have heard of special torpedo boats, or of Japanese aeroplanes, hurled with their crew against the target and, one again, the sacrifice, almost always perf. rmed by members of th ancient warri r aristocracy, the samurai, has a ritual and mystical

1.1 BERA nONS
III

133

Liberutions'
t is a principle of ancient ~ dom th~t situations a such never matter as much as the attitude that IS assumed while in them and the~~fore the meaning that is attributed to them. Christianity: ~eneralisIng from a similar viewpoint, has been able t speak f life as of a 'test' and has adopted the maxim vita CJt mzlitia J/tpcr
terram.

I

In the quiet and ordered periods of history, this wisdom is acces~ible only to a few chosen ones, since th re ate too many occaslOns. to surrender and to sink, to consider the ephemeral to ?e ~e Important, or to forget the instability and contingency which IS the natural state of things. It is on this ba is that what ~an .be call~d, in tl~e b~oader sense, th mentality of bourgeois life IS orgarused: It IS a life which doe not know either heights or de~ths and develops interests, affections, desires and passions w~lch, h0:-vevet important they may be from the mer ly earthly point of VIew,become petty and relative from the supra-individual and piritual point of view, which must always be regarded as proper to any human existence worthy of the name. . The tragic and disrupted periods of history ensure, by force of circum tances, that a great r number of per ons are led towards ~n awa~ening, towards liberation. And really and ess ntially it IS by this that the deepest vitality of a stock, its virility and its unshakability, in the superior sen e, can be measured. And today
1 Originally published on 3 November 1943 as 'Liberazioni' in La Stampa.

Italy on that front which by now no longer knows any distinclion b tween combatant and non-combatants, and has therefor s en so many tragic con equences, one should get used to looking at things from this higher perspective to a much greater extent than i usually possible or neces ary. From one day to the next, even from one hour to the next, a a result of a bombing raid one can los on's home and verything one most loved, e erything to which one had become most attached, the objects of one's deepest affections. Human exi tenc becomes relative - it is a tragic and cruel feeling, but it can also be th principle of a catharsis and the means of bringing to light the only thing which can ne er be undermined and which can never be destroyed. We need t r m mber that, for a complex set of reasons, the superstition which attaches all value to purely individual and earthly human life has spread and rooted itself t naciously - a super tition which, in other civilisations, was and remains almost unknown. The fact that, nominally, the We t professes Christianity has had only a minimal influence in thi respect: the whole doctrine of the supernatural existence of the spirit and of it urvival beyond this world has not undermined this superstition in any significant way; it ha not caus d knowledge of what did not begin with birth and cannot end with death to be applied in the daily, entimental and biological life of a sufficient number of beings. Rather, people have clung convulsively to that small part of the whole which i the hort period of thi existence of individuals, and have made every effort to ignore the fact that the hold on r ality afforded by individual life is no firmer than that of a tuft of grass which one might grab to save himself from being carried away by a wild current. It arous s this awareness precisely not as something cerebral r 'devotional', but rather as a living fact and liberating f ling, which everything today that is tragic and de tructive can have, at least for the best of us: crcati c value. We are not recommending insensitivity r some misconceived stoicism. ar from it: it is a matter of acquiring and developing a sense of detachment towards oneself, towards things and towards persons, which should instil

132

134

METAPHYSIC

OF WAR

a calm, an incomparable certainty and even, as we have befor stated, an indomitability. It is like simplifying oneself, divesting oneself in a state of waiting, with a firm, whole mind, and with an awarcnes of something which exi ts beyond all existence. hom this state the capacity will also be found of always being able to begin again, a if ex nzhzio,2 with a new and fresh mind, forgetting what has been and what has been lost, focusing only on what positively and creatively can still be done. A radical destruction of th 'bourgeois' who exists in every man is possible in these disrupted time more than in any other. In these times man can find himself again, can really stand in front of himself and get used to watching everything according to the view from the other shore, so as to restore to importance, to es ential significance, what hould b 0 in any normal exist nee: the relationship between life and the 'more than life', between the human and the eternal, between the short-lived and the incorruptible. nd to find way over and above mere a sertion and gimmickry, f r these values to be positively liv d, and to find forceful xpression in th greatest possible number of person in these hours of trial is undoubtedly one of the main tasks facing the politico-spiritual elite of our nation.

The Decline of Heroism'
ar and rearmament in t~e world ~f the 'We~tern r ' is once again about guaranteemg s cunty. Intensive propaganda with a crusading tone, u ing all its tried and tested meth ds, is in the air. Here, we cann t go thoroughly into the concrete questions which concern our specific interests, but rath r hint at s m thing more general, one of the inner contradictions f the notion f war which undermines the foundations of the so-called 'West'. Th t chnocratic error of thinking of 'war potential' primarily in term of arms and armaments, sp cial technical~industrial equipment and the like, and assessing man - according t.o the brutal expression now widespread in military lit rature - simply as 'human re ources' - ha already been widely criticised. The quality and spirit of the men to whom th arm, the means of offence and destructi n, are given have represented, still rcpr sent and will always represent the basic element of 'war potential'. 0 mobili ation will ever be 'total' if men whose pirit and vocation are up to the tests which they mu t face cannot be created. H ware things, in thi respect, in the w rld of the 'dernocraci '? They now want, for the third time in this c ntury, to lead humanity to war in the name of 'the war against war'. This requir s men to fight at the ame time that war as such is criticised. It demands heroes while proclaiming pacifism as the high t ideal.
I Originally published on I October 1950 as "Tramonte degli eroi ' in Meridiana d'ltalia.

W

2

Latin: 'out of nothing:

135

136

METAPHYSICS

OF WAR

THE DECLINE OF HEROIS

137

It demands warriors while it ha made 'warrior' a ynonym for attacker and criminal, since it has reduced the moral basis of 'the just war' to that of a large- cale police op ration, and it has reduced the meaning of the spirit of combat to that f having t d fend oneself as a last resort.

The Bourgeois Ideal
Let us examine this problem more do ely. In what cause hould the man of 'the Wes ern bl c' go to war and face d ath? It is obviously non ensical to respond in the name of the bourgeois ideal, the carefully maintained 'security' of existence which abhors risk, which promises that the maximum comfort f the human animal shall be easily accessible to all. ~ewwill be deluded enough to imagine that, by sacrificing themselves, they can secure all this for future generation. orne will try to make oth r go and fight instead f them, offering as inducements beautiful words about humanitarianism, glory and patrioti m. Apart from this, the only thing a man in uch a world will fight for i his own kin. His skin is the same in urzio Malaparte's- sense a' here: 'Certainly, only the skin is undeniable and tangible. One no longer fight for h nour, for freedom for justice. One fights f r this disgusting skin. You cannot even imagine what man is capabl of f what heroisms and infamies, to ave his skin.' If one wants a profe sion of faith from the democratic \ orld beyond all its pretences, it is contained in these words. They e:ll.-pre the only cr do, leaving aside mere verbiage and lies, with which it can spiritually equip its army. This means to ru h to the crusade against the Communist threat only ut of physical terror; of terror for one's own skin; for the frightening, wavering ideal of

Babbitt;' of b urgeois safety; of the 'civilisation' of the domesticated and standardised human animal, which eats and copulates, and the limits of whose horizon is Reader's Digest, Hollyx ood and the sport stadium. Thus, those who are fundamentally lacking in heroism will seek to awaken warriors for the 'defence of the West' by playing up n the complex of anxiety. Since they ha e deeply demoralised the true Western soul; since th y have debased and demeaned, firstly, the true basis of the tate, hierarchy and virile solidarity; and secondly, the notion of war and combat, th y mu t now play the 'trump card' of the anti-Bol hevik crusad .

Enough of Illusions
Not many illusions can remain concerning the sort of 'morality' which can support this endeavour and which no industrial mobilisation with atomic bombs, flying superforrr sses, supersonic fighter and so on, can replac . It is with these 'trump cards' alone that the Western world' now stands n the thre hold of a p ssible third worldwide cataclysm, having br ken down and insulted everything which had survived from the authentic warrior traditions of -< urope and the Fat ast. In the opposing bloc there are forces which combine technology with the elemental force of fanaticism, of dark and savage determination and f th contempt for individual life found among mas es which, whether through their wn ancient traditions or through the exaltation of the collectivist id ology, hardly value their own exi tence. Thi is th tide which will well forth not only from the Red Ea t, but from the whole of a contaminated and unleashed A ia. owever, what is really required to defend 'the West' again t the sudden rise of the e barbaric and elemental forces is the strengthening, to an extent perhaps still unknown to Western
3 Babbitt is a novel first published in 1922 by the American writer Sinclair Lewis ( ew York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.). As a re ult of its popularity, the term 'Babbitt' became synonymous with bourgeois conformism and philistinisrn, which i the theme of the novel.

2

Curzio Malaparte (1898-1957) was an Italian writer and journalist. Originally a Fascist upporter, he turned against Fascism after covering the war on the East rn front for the Italian newspapers (documented in his books Kaputt and The Volga Rises in Europe). Here, Evola i referring to his post-war novel about the struggles of life in Italy under Alii d occupation, The Skin (Evanston: orthwestcrn University Pre ,1997).

138

METAPHY

ICS OF WAR

THE DECLINE OF HEROISM

139

man, of a heroic vision of life. Apart from the military-technical ~pparatus, the world of the 'Westerner' ha at its disposal only a limp and shap less ubstance - and the cult of the skin, the myth of 'safety' and of 'war on war', and the ideal of the long, comfortable, guaranteed, 'dem cratic' existence, which is preferred to the ideal of th fulfilment which can be grasped only on the frontiers between life and death in the meeting of the e sence of living with the extreme of danger. orne will object that after all that Europe has been through, we have had en ugh of 'militarism' and war-mongering, and 'total war' should b I ft in the past and forg tten. Granted, 'militarism' can be left behind us since it is only a degraded, inferior cho of a heroic (and far from e elusively belligerent) conception, and to condemn all heroism as 'militarism' is one of the xpedients of 'democratic' propaganda, an expedi or which has now b gun to backfire on its prop nents, In any ca ,unfortunately th r probably won't be any choice. It will be hard for the fore s already in motion to stop (in general, irrespecti e of the outcome of the current Korean affair) and there will only remain one course f action: to ride the tig r," as the Hindu expr ssion put it. One of the most highly praised comemp rary writers in .urope ha written things about modern war which he expen need thoroughly and actively (he volunte red, wa injured eighte ~ times, and was awarded the highest German military decoration), whose value will becom more and more obvious in the tim s to corne." e has said that modern man, by creating the world of technology and putting it to work, ha signed his name to a debt which he is now required to pay. Technology, his creature, turns against him, reduc s him to its own instrument
4 An expr ssion freq uently used by Evola, particularly in his book of the same name, to describe the problems faced by an individual who attempts to resist the norms and values of the modern world while simultaneously being forced to live in it. E:ola is referring to the German writer Ern t Junger (1895-1998), and specifically hIS 1932 work Der Arbeiter (The Worker), which has not been translated into English. However, many of the ideas from Der Arbeiter are summarised in Junger's own essay 'Total Mobilisation; which is available in English in Richard Wolin (ed.), The Heidegger Controversy ( ew York: olumbia University Press, 1991).

and threatens him with destruction. his fact manifests itself most clearly in modern war: total, elemental war, the merciless struggle with materiality itself. an has no choice but to confront this force, to render himself fit to answer this chalJen e, to find in himself hitherto unsuspected spiritual dimensions, to awake to forms of extreme, essentialised, heroism, forms which, while caring nothing f r his person, n ertheless actualise what the aforementioned author calls the 'absolute person' within him, thus justifying the whole xperience. There is nothing else one can say. Perhaps this challenge will constitute the positive side of the gam for especially qualified men, given that game must be accepted and played out an ay. he preponderance of the negati e part, of pure destruction, may be frightening, infernal. But no other ch ice is given to modern man since he him elf is the ole author of the destiny and the a pect which he is now starting to see. This is not the moment to dwell on uch prospects. Be ides, what we have said does not concern any nation in particular, nor even the present time. It concerns the time when things will become serious, globally, not merely for the inter sts of th bourgeois, capitalist world, but for those men who know and, at that point, will still be able to gather together into an unshakeable bloc.

5

I DEX

141
Communes 77, 88, 91 Communism 9, 10, 19, 136. See also Bolshevism Conservative Revolution 14, 17 Conspiracy of Catiline, The (Sallust) 29 cosmopolitanism 62 Counter-Currents 64 cross-breeding 59,60,61,62 Crusaders 13,37,38,39, 77,79, 100 Crusades, The 32,35,36,37,38, 39,40,79,80,85,100 curia. See Senate, Roman

Index
A
Achaean-Aryan 77 Advaita Vedanta 81 Aesir 78,98, 100 Aeternitas 28 Age of Augustus 94 Alamut 13 al-Baghdadi, Khatib 42 alchem ists 69 Alighieri, Dante. See Dante Alighieri Al-Iaarni' al-Saghir (al-Suyuti) 43 Allah 44, 45, 80, 99 Allies (I914-18) 15,89, Ill, 113 Allies (l939-45) 90 Aryan 17,63,65,74,75,76,77, 78,81,83,84,85,86,87,88, 90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97, 98,99,100,101,102,104, lOS, 106, 107, 108, 109, 112, 113,114, 115, 117, 128 Aryan and His Social Role, The (de Lapouge) 63 Aryo-Iranian 80,98, 103, 107, 128 Aryo-Roman 113 Aryo- Western 109 asceticism 39,43,54,77,85,89, 92,93,100,105,109, lIS, 117 Ascoli, Battle of 130 Asgard 79, 100 Asia 81, 137 Assassins 13 atomic bombs 137 Attic Nights (Gellius) 29 Augustine, St. 114 Augustus Caesar 94, 129

Bismarck, Otto von 63 Bolshevism 23,24,88, 118, 119, 120,121,137.See also Communism Bouche- Leclercq, Auguste 123 bourgeois 22, 23, 24, 26, 55, 68, 69,71,74,76,87,88,89,90, 91, 109, 1l0, 111, 112, 115, 116,119,132,134,136,137, 139 bourgeoisie. See bourgeois Brhadaranyaka Upanisad 74 British Empire 91 Bruckmann, Heinz 105 Buddhism 120. See also Zen

c
Caesar 46, 123, 124 capitalism 14, 19,23,88,91, 139 Capitoline divinity 75,127, 128

D
Dante Alighieri 96 Deci 130 Decius Mus, Publius (all generations) 122-123 de Coulanges, Numa Deni Fustel 127 de Lapouge, Vacher 63 democracy 9,10, 14, IS, 19,27, 52,62,89,90,91, 111, 113, 115, 122, 136, 138 democratic capitalism 14,19 devotio 30, 122, 123, 130, 131 Dionysian 105, 106 Dionysian entities 102 Diorama Filosofico 17, 22, 34, 47,56 Divine Comedy, The (Dante) 96 Dorian 107 Dorian-Aryan 77 Duce, II. See Mussolini, Benito

All Quiet on the Western Front
(Remarque) 26, 70-71 al-Suyuti, Imam 43 Altheim, Franz 126, 128 America. See United States of America American Revolution (1776) 88 Ancient City, The (de Coulanges) 127 anti-god 42

carpe diem 55
Carthaginians 94 caste 22,23,24,25,27,47,68, 86,87,88,90,120 Catholicism 41, 85 Celtic 32 Central Powers IS, III Chamberlain, Houston Stewart 62 chivalry 36, 37 Christ 77 Christianity 31,32,34,35,36, 37,54,79,83,84,100,107, 114,123,132, 133 Cicero, Marcus Tullius 29, 123, 125 City of God (Augustine) 114 Clausewitz, Claus von 110

B
Babbitt 137 Barbarossa. See Frederick I Bell, Michael 64 Bengali 47 Bernard of Clairvaux, St. 37,79, 100 Bewley, Aisha 44 Bhagavad-Gita 13,14,47,49, 80,81,84,99,101,102

apoliteia 18
Arabs 38,39,80 Arbeiter, Der (Junger) 138 architecture 88 Ario-Roman 65 Arjuna 48,49,50,51, 81, 82, 84, 99,101, 102

arya 68

dvija 68

140

142
E
East, The 48, 68

METAPHYSICS

OF WAR

I DEX

143
Indo-Aryan 78,81,83,87,128 Indo-European 29,34,47,48 Indo-Germanic 56, 58, 68, 75 initiation 65,77,89 In Praise of the New Knighthood (5t. Bernard) 79 international finance 90 internationalism 62 Iran 48. See also Persia Iraq 13 Iron Age 33 Islam 12,13,36,43,80 Islamic fundamentalism. See Islamists Islamists 12, 13 Isle of Heroes 81 Ismailism 13 Italians 11 Italy 11,15,31,46,68,77,92, 133, 136

Edda 78,98
Egypt 128 Emperor, Japanese 120 Emperor, Roman 30, 31, 129 empire 53,97, 109 England 91 Ennius, Quintus 127 Erynnyes, The 105, 106 Etruscans 126 eugenic 63 Europe 10,11,14,15,17,31, 108,110,112,113,114,115, 116, 136, 137, 138 Evola as He Is 7 Evola, Julius 7-19 evolution 10,88

Century (Chamberlain) 62 France 31 Fravashi 33,98, 103, 106 Frederick 1, Barbarossa 77 French Revolution (1789) 88 Furies, The 105, 106, 107 fylgja 103
G GaliJeo 37 Gandhi, Mohandas 47 gangster 86 Gellius, Aulus 29 Germany 11, 31, 32, 77 Ghibelline 17,38,91 God 30,33,36,42,43,51,53, 77,78,80,93,97,99,100, 105, 114, 123, 128 God of Light 33, 42, 77, 98 gods 46,74,97,98,103,122, 123, 127 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 63 Golden Age, the 33 greater war. See holy war Greece 31, 126, 127, 128 Greek mythology 77,105 Guelphs 38 Guenon,Rene 8,95 H Hades 31, 104

F
Fabius, Quintu 94, 127 family 88-89 Far East, The 128, 137 Farinacci, Roberto 17 fascism 10, 63 Fascism, Italian 7,8,9, 10, 11, 15,16,17,18,19,27,54,58, 68,136 Fascist Grand Council 9 fatherland 39 Faustian 93 Feciales 29, 127 feudalism 116 First World War 15,26, 71, 89, 110, III Five Ages of Man 33

Hadith 42, 43
Hansen, H. T. 9, 15 Hebraism 91. See also Judaism Hebrew 84. See also Jews, Judaism Heidegger Controversy, The

(Wolin) 138 Hel 104 Hellades 31 Hellas. See Greece Hellenes 33 Hellenic 48 Hercules 77, 107 hero 21,24,26,34,44,53,65, 71,72,73,77,78,90,92,107 Hesiod 33,46,57,58 Himmler, Heinrich 11 Hindu-Aryan 101 Hindu-Iranian 87 Hinduism 47,48,78,81, 138 History of Roman Religion, A (Altheim) 126 History of Rome 123, 127 History of Rome, The (Livy) 123 Hitler, Adolf 9 Hohenstaufen 38 Hollywood 137 Holy Land (Palestine) 36, 79, 100 Holy Roman Empire 31, 38,40 holy war 24,31,36,41, 42, 43, 47,54,65,78,82,83,93, 98,99, 100, 101, 109. See also jihad humanitarianism 21,47,48,52, 55,56,62,63,69,71,75,81, 84, 101, 136 hvareno 107 Hyperborean 81 I Ignis essentiae 69, 71 imperium 28 India 48

J
jahiliyyah 13
Janus 123 Japan 118, 120, 121, 130 Jerusalem (al-Quds) 37,100 Jews. See Judaism

Jews and Modern Capitalism, The ( ombart) 91 jihad 12, 43, 45, 80, 81
John of the Cross, St. 105 Judaism 32,66,91. See also Hebrews and Hebraism

Julius Evola's Concept of Race
(Bell) 64 Junger, Ernst 138 Jupiter 30,94,123,127,128 [urguthine War and the

Foundations of the Nineteenth

144
Conspiracy of Catiline, The
(Sallust) 29

METAPHYSICS

OF WAR

INDEX

145
p pacifism 62, 135 Palestine. See Holy Land Paradise 12,13,81 Path of Cinnabar, The (Evola) 8, 9, IS, 16, 17 Paul, Saint 55 Pax Romana 94 Persia 33, 42, 80, 98. See also Iran Plutarch (Mestrius Plutarch us) 126

Louis XIV 32 Ludwig 63 M Macrobius, Ambrosius Theodosius 103

K Kali-Yuga 14,18,78 kamikaze 12
Kingdom of Heaven 34, 36 king, Roman 128 knight 86 knights, Arab 39 Knights of Saint John 37 Knights Templar 37 Korean War 138 Krishna 13,48,49,50,51, 81, 82 kshatriya 13, 14 Kugler, Bernhard 36 Kurukshetra War 81 kynfylgja 103 L Landra, Guido 68

Muslim. See Islam Mussolini, Benito 9,16,17,48, 63 N National Socialism 7,8,9, 10, 32 Neoplatonist 103 Nero, Emperor 57 New Italian 48 New Right. See European New Right Nibelungian 93 Niflheim 104 Nike 107 Nobel Prize 47 Nordic 10, 11, 31, 32, 33, 35, 45, 48,65,75,78,87,93,97,98, 100,102,103,105,113 Nordic-Aryan 65,78, 100, 113 Nordic-German 97 Nordic-Romanic 87 Nordic- Western 100 numen 30, 31, 128

Mahabharata

81

lares 103, 106
L'Aryen: son role social (de Lapouge) 63 Latins 122, 130 Latin War 122 Laude Novae Militiae, De (Saint Bernard) 79 Laws of Inheritance 62 League of Nations 112 Lenin, V. I. 24, 119 Lesser War 5, 41, 80, 99 lesser war (Islam). See holy war Lewis, Sinclair 137 liberalism 62, 111, 115 Livy (Titus Livius) 123, 127, 130 Lord, The 36,37,43,79,100, 109

Malaparte, Curzio 136 Manu 84, 102 Markandeya Purana 83 Mars 30, 123 Marxism 88 Masonic Ill, 112 Mazdaism 42 Medieval 11, 27, 33, 35,42,45, 79,87,89 Mediterranean 31, 87 Men Among the Ruins (Evola) 7, 9, 15, 18 Mendel, Gregor Johann 62 Middle Ages 35,39,77,87,91 middle class 24 Middle East 15

Plutarch's Lives 126
pontifex 123, 130 Pope 37, 79. See also specific Popes Prabhupada, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami 13, 14 praetesta 123,130 Preziosi, Giovanni 16,17 Princeps. See Caesar proletariat 24, 87, 90 Promethean 122 Prophet, The. See Muhammad Provencal 37,79 Pruss ian 110 psychology 84

miles 54
Ministry of Popular Culture (Italy) 68 Mithra 33, 98 modern 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 29, 31,48,52,58,62,63,64,65, 68,69,70,83,88,90,91,95, 96,122, 130, 131, 138, 139 modernism 47. See also modern modernity. See modern monarchy 9,91 Monarchy (Dante) 96 monks 37 Moses 91 Muhammad 42

o
Odin 32,78,97,98 Office of Racial Studies (Italy) 68 Olympian 77,93,94,97,107, 121, 122, 123, 124, 128 Olympian divinities 123 Olympic Games 31
On

Q
Quinton, Rene 69, 71, 72, 73, 81 Quirinus 123 Quirites 123 Qur'an, The Holy 12, 13, 44, 45, 46,80,99

War

110

Orphism

31, 54

146
R
race 10,29,31,32,39,42,53, 59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66, 67,68,69,71,72,73,74,75, 76,80,81,84,85,86,88,89, 91,92,96,97,103,104,109, 116, 118, 124, 126, 129 racism 59, 60, 62, 64 ragnarokk 32, 33, 78, 97 Ramayana 81 Reader's Digest 137 Reghini, Arturo 16 Regime Fascista, II 17,21,28, 35,41, 47, 54, 118 Remarque, Erich Maria 26, 69, 70,71,73,81, 119

METAPHYSICS

OF WAR

I

DEX

147
Victoria Caesaris 129 Victory (goddess) 129 Vienna 16,95 Virgil 94 Vita Italiana, La 16, 110 Volga Rises in Europe, The (Malaparte) 136

Sallust 29, 125 Samnites 130 samurai 120,121, 130 Saoshyant 34

Talmud 84

Tarikh Baghdad 42
telluric 25,74,77,97,119,120 Templars. See Knights Templar Temple, The (Jerusalem) 36, 79, 100 Tenno 120. See Emperor, Japanese Teutonic 11, 32, 33 Teutonic Knights 11 Theosophists 47 Third Estate 87,88,91 titanic 77,97 Torre, La 16 total war 19, 63, 138 totemism 67 tradition 17,18,31, 32, 33, 34, 38,41,42,43,44,45,46,47, 51,52,65,67,75,76,77,78, 79,80,81,83,84,85,86,88, 92,96,97,98,99,100,102, 103,105,107, 108,109,130 Trasimene, Battle of 127

Saturnalia 103
savage 67,86,137

SchutzstajJel 11
Second Crusade 37 econd Punic War 94 Second World War IS Semitic 66 Senate, Roman 129 Seneca 57 Skin, The (Malaparte) 136 socialism 56 solar 77,84,93,97, 102,108, 128 Soldier's Testament: Selected Maxims of Rene Quinton 69 Sombart, Werner 91 Soviet. See Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Spear of Destiny 77 S.S.. See SchutzstajJel Stalin, Joseph 119 Stoicism 56 stratos 54 Sufis 12 suicide bombers (Muslim) 12, 13 Sun, The (Hindu) 102 super-fascism 11 Syrians 126

w
Wagner, Richard 33 Western. See West West, The 13,38,48,49,69,88, 91,95,96,108,112,122, 133, 135, 137 Wildes Heer 98, 105 Wilson, Woodrow 111 Wolf 78,98 Wolf, Age of the 78, 98 Worker, The (Junger). See Arbeiter, Der Works and Days (Hesiod) 33 World War 71 World War, First. See First World War World War, Second. See Second World War Wotan. See Odin

Revolt Against the Modern World
(Evola) 18, 30, 38, 113

Ride the Tiger (Evola) 138 Ring of the Nibelungen, The 33
Roman Empire 10,31, 38,40, 94 Roman-Germanic 116 Romanity; medieval 27,54,56, 78,93,124,125,126 Roman Republic 29,31,94, 122, 127 Rome 10,28,29,30,31, 38,75, 94,95,103,107,123,124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130 Romulus 126 Russia 118, 119. See also Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

u
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) 10, 118. See also Russia United tates of America (U.S.A.) 10, IS, 111 Upanisads 74 uranic 77,97,113 Urban VIII, Pope 37 V Valhalla 32,33,75,78,81, 97, 98 Valkyries 33,98,103, 106, 107

y
Yggdrasil 78

Ynglingasaga 32, 78, 97 Z
Zen 120,121. See also Buddhism zootechnics 61

s
sacred war. See holy war Salafi school (Islam) 12

T
Tagore, Rabindranath 47

takfir 13

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