/lit/ - Literature

>>19136081
Plebs are scared of magik, but they don't understand that the real magik is the friends we make along the way.

>>19136081
Copelord who got his buck broken by Persuasion and Rhetoric due to which he developed full blown schizophrenia. I still like his elitist artfag attitude not the cringe warriorfag one.

>>19136081
>hates Americans, communists and capitalists
>criticized fascists from the right
>more rigorous antisemitism than the NSDAP
That's not why he's hated there though.

>Advocates action rather than preaching
That's why.

>>19136081
He is massively, massively cringe.
>nobody even tries to articulate a good grounded argument against his positions
"I am le magic wizard of le traditional values" is not an argument, it is a brutal and absolutely savage assault on anyone capable of feeling shame on behalf of others. Of all the profoundly gay twitter philosophers, he is by far the gayest.
>inb4 not an argument
Evola makes no argument. There is no discernible coherence in his thought. Try and reconstruct a single one of his points in a manner that does not make you seem like a 14-year old edgelord.

>>19136081
Intentionally edgy, dense, difficult, contradictory, endorsed by many idiots. It’s pretty obvious.

>>19136177
>Persuasion and Rhetoric
Give me a qrd on Michelstaedter. Was he a based a jew or a normal one?

>>19136177
His reading of Persuasion and Rhetoric is good though.

>>19136274
case in point

>>19136340
Try and reconstruct a single one of his points. No really, go ahead.

>>19136316
>Give me a qrd on Michelstaedter
He got buck broken hard by Persuasion and Rhetoric

>Was he a based a jew
He killed himself, so probably based.

>>19136357
The only thing that counts is this: we find ourselves today in the middle of a world of ruins. And the problem to be posed is: do men still exist on their feet within the middle of these ruins? And what should they, what else can they still do?

No one has learned from the lessons of the recent past if he still fools himself about the possibilities of a purely political battle and about the power of one or the other formula or system, whose new human quality is not made by a specific opposing party. Here is a principle that today more than ever should have absolute evidence: if a State possesses a political or social system that, in theory, is of value as the most perfect, but the human element was deficient, that state would descend sooner or later to the level of the basest societies. However, a people, a race capable of producing true men, men of right feeling and reliable instinct, would reach a high level of civilization and would stand on their feet in the face of the most calamitous tests even if its political system was defective and imperfect. One takes therefore a precise position against that false “political realism” that thinks only in terms of programs, party organizational problems, or social and economic prescriptions. All this belongs to the contingent, not to the essential. The measure of what can still be saved depends upon the existence — or not — of men who are in front not to preach formulas, but to be examples, not going towards demagogy and the materialism of the masses, but to awaken different forms of sensibility and interests. Starting from what can still remain among the ruins, to reconstruct slowly a new man to animate through a determinate spirit and a suitable vision of life, to fortify through the tenacious adherence to given principles – this is the true problem.

>>19136316
Evola called him a spiritual Aryan or some shit. As a young artfag he simped for the honorary dead youthful jew who broke his buck.

>>19136081
He doesn't argue in good faith. Take pic related. It's clear that he either hasn't read/understood or wilfully misconstrues, for example, both Heidegger and Jung (and Nietzsche iirc). He doesn't engage honestly with the thinkers he's trying to argue against -- he's burning down straw men.

>>19136455
What was dishonest ahout his critiques of Heidegger Jung and Neech? I thought they were pretty constructive. All of those were too tied up in philosophy (as series of relations which explains the world) therefore it fell apart the same way science would in a true test of absolute integration with mans condition.

A simple example we can point to is how prominant and profound in history is the conscious ritualistic lifestyle with a sense of eternity that can blaze through time and turmoil and how failed and impotent are the many varieties of rationalistic or merely philosophical attempts at swiping away nihilism and bestowing a meaning on life when the former has been lost.

I really don't think this can be done without a human successfully recognizing their place and role as a part of eternity. Being and Time would be great if Heidegger spent less time on the relationship between Being and Time and just combined them to get the well known Eternity. Pointing out that the beginning of ontology is Being is a remarkable observation that could have gone far if it was based in a fuller metaphysics, but it wasn't so it ended up becoming more post Neech nihilism shackles.

Evola just tried to find a more secure reconcile in these modern thinkers that would actually work, you can't knock him for that even if you disagree with him.

>>19136081
Esotericists are basically, well, fucking retardednand want to turn real life in Harry Potter.

>>19136274
the modernist lab rat struggles grasping at air and shadows to comprehend the pre-modern worldview

>>19136274
I think we can agree you're beinv unfair in claiming he makes no assertion whatsoever. That being said, lets discuss and examine parts of his position you identified and disagreed with.

Can you actually explain his position on Tradition and why his definition of Tradition might be important to consider?

Can you explain what "Magic" is and why he may have considered it relevant to the discussion?

Lets hear it then.

>>19136081
Evola has nothing interesting to say other than schizo babble.

>>19136691
You will never find any serious answer here.
Just look at the replies, the quality of this board is at an all time low.

>>19136081
I tried reading his book on Buddhism but I got filitered after like two chapters. How do I into Ebola?

>>19137409
Take your time and try to comprehend it as a metaphysics rather than mere phenomenon

>>19137401
Yeah as per usual every day this website gets worse and worse as only people with valuable perspectives leave and get on with their lives.

>noooooooooooooooooo you have to take our """"""thinkers""""""" seriously!

>>19137409
I think there's an optimum sequence of reading his texts.
I was told to start at his Grail book, which was a good introduction to a lot of his concepts. I felt I probably missed a lot of meaning in the first reading so I'm reading some of the source Grail texts for better context and knowledge before diving in again.
I've also been reading metaphysics of war on the side, which is much easier to get into. Less esoteric.
Hopefully, I can start his book on Hermetic Tradition soon.
Probs going be ages before I even read Revolt lol

>>19136081
its just commie seething that they got filtered trying to read him

>>19136081
He takes other strains of philosophy and makes them sound retarded

>>19137528
Because he's not preaching philosophy to begin with, he debunks it.

People hate Evola because other people like Evola thats about it.
midwits think they're smart for hating on actual intellectuals

>>19137443
I learned so much from this board, but I think it's time for me to take a long break too.
I browse the archives more than this board nowadays.

>>19136081
He's a complete hack who tried to hijack pereniallism by making it modern.
I concede the attempt is very kino though

>>19137409
Read Guénon first

>>19137556
this

>>19136081
because fascism bad mmkay

>>19137544
is there a decent way to browse the archives? I have been spoiled by 4chanX

>>19137525
The only real way is to start with his philosophical book (Theory and phenomenology of the absoluet individual). That's where his arguments are. Those arguments go as far as logic can go for understanding what's the problem and what can be done about it. After that - coherently - he stops philosophizing and switches to practice. People here like >>19136274 are reading his practice books and crying that the argument is not fully developed.

If you're not an occultists then Evola will filter you. There's no way around that.

If you are an occultist then you'll see that Evola has lots to offer, but can be limiting if you take him as the final answer

>>19136081
I have read Evola for two years (2017-19) during a very sad alt-right phase, and I have posted in several threads articulating my opnions on why he is a derivative philosopher and an objectively bad researcher. He is both argumentatively and methodologically weak.
>argument from authority: tries to convince the reader of the existence of higher metaphysical planes by adding up religious texts and cultural artifacts of various kind as evidence.
>poor research: if you are still on-board despite his fallacious basis for argumentation, you can still notice a lot of cherry-picking as long as you read the original sources, especially in ancient Greek and ancient Eastern philosophy. He purposedly bends the meaning of many great philosophers to fit them into his own narrative and make it look as if they are all referring to the same philosophical grounding.
Basically, his weaknesses are those of each and every perennialist - with the difference that he unironically believes in the existence of Atlantis and in the fact that human beings evolved out of a super-race of white hyperboreans living in the arctic circle, as he writes in Revolt. These are his real, historical conclusions drawn from examinations of mystical cults in the west (for atlantis) and solar cults in northern europe (for the hyperboreans). If you know how to use google and you have elementary school education, you can see why people have a problem with these kind of theories, and the way he gets there.
Once you start reading real philosophy, such as Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus, you will find much better articulated arguments on the existence and experience of higher metaphysical planes, without carrying into the game embarassing theories about the supremacy of white men evolving from hyperboreans. You can do perfectly good philosophy with Evola's positions, but he's very clearly more interested in some sort of weird LARP than in doing any kind of actual philosophical work.

>>19139438
also Evola writes explicitly about not wanting to be confused with occultists such as Kremmerz, so getting to Evola because you like the "occult" and believe in magic isn't really going to work, according to Evola.

>>19139467
Lmao selfhating altrighter. Are you 19? I see this pattern a lot with casuals, riding on the bandwaggon, and then, when perceiving their own immaturity, simply admonishing what they followed before.
You truly believe this is progress for you, lad?
Go back, and please read him again. Evola deals with Plato and Plotinus very well. You're trying to do something with your ego right now, thus you ought to be ignored.

>>19136081
I only read some portions of his books and I could never take him seriously or read more of him because of his indulgence in alchemy. If he was so wise, why did he dwell on this snake oil shit. If anyone indulges alchemy I discard him immediately.

>>19139467
>tries to convince the reader of the existence of higher metaphysical planes
The reader should already know of such things. So Evola has no reason to prove to the reader. He isnt writing for degenerate ideology obsessed polcuck hylics that jerk off to tranny porn.

>>19136691
He's begging the question. He assumes that his Traditionalism is true, and therefore everything that doesn't conform to it is false. This isn't really a problem, but you have to already be convinced to get something out of the book. Regarding specific critiques: I can't recall the arguments in detail, it's been years since I read it. But for example, what exactly is the difference between Evola's Differentiation and Jung's Individuation? I get the impression that Evola has a personal dislike for Jung more than anything else. When it comes to Heidegger, as far as I remember, he is mainly critiquing "thrownness" (Geworfenheit) and in effect being-towards-death (Sein-zum-Tode) because it's a rootless, untraditional view of existence. Fair enough, but these concepts has to be understood in the context of the entirety of Being and Time. (And moreover, the later Heidegger criticized himself on this point.)
Evola is best when he's lecturing, not when he's arguing.

>>19136081
Feels over reals

>>19139568
His problem with Jung is that he psychologizes myth and holds back from metaphysical inquiry. In his professional work, anyhow. It's important to understand the difference between soul and spirit if you seek to understand Evolas system and metaphysics whatsoever, and Jung muddles these, the same way all the other movements of the late 19th century did, thus barring any experience of realities higher than the soul.

>>19139563
>degenerate ideology obsessed polcuck hylics
Aristocrats of the Soul
>that jerk off to tranny porn.
riding the tiger

>>19136316
He's mystic-tier imo, described by friends as a Buddha figure. More Germanic than Italian in temperament. Looking back I see now what an impact reading him one year ago had on me, really got me embracing death. A book on him which I really recommend is Thomas Harrison's 1910: The Emancipation of Dissonance, which compares Michelstaedter to various Central European expressionists

>>19136081
I never see anyone even say what his positions are let alone refute them

>>19136081
You either like him or you don't. It's really that simple. There is no argument to be made for or against him.

could someone explain evola's views on homosexuality to me?
i've read an exempt, but didn't completely understand everything since i lacked context

(someday i'll read him properly, but right now my main priority are the greeks)

>>19139510
I am 30, I had my alt-right phase after the death of a parent, a very bad break up and difficulties finding a job after university. I read Evola, Eliade, tons of classics and a lot of religious writings and was horribly angry all the time. Things sorted themselves out in a couple of years and as soon as I got back on my feet I stopped hating "modernity", which really is just an excuse to hate other people and blame them for my mistakes. It helped because now the pandemic put me back in a rather bad place, in terms of money and relationship, but I can recognize when I slide into mental illness - blaming jews and women for problem that are mostly either dependent on me (insecurities, fear, etc.) or on the fact that life is simply hard and at least 70% made of evil. I can assure you that you live a lot better as soon as life stops looking like the third Lord of the Rings movie and you stop believing that some evil faction of jews/women is responsible for your problems. The world isn't worse now than it ever was at any given moment in history, and even if it is, this is all I have got, so I am going to make the best of it starting from where I am now. But for as difficult as things may be, I'm not going back to a mindset where I think of other people as my enemies.

>>19136340
Cringe.

>>19136939
>LARPing as a traditionalist on a lewd imageboard populated by bona fide autists that is designed to be as addictive and conducive to internet addiction as possible.
Go chop some wood you fucking faggot. Cringe levels off the fucking chart.

>>19137351
No, I cannot, because there is zero coherence to his thought, which I already said, which is why I asked his fanboys to reconstruct it - I literally cannot, and my thesis is that they cannot either, a thesis which is so far not disproven.

>>19136375
>we find ourselves today in the middle of a world of ruins
No.
>And the problem to be posed is: do men still exist on their feet within the middle of these ruins
I am currently sitting down. Bitch nigger, what the fuck does this even mean? Two sentences in an you're already drowning in flowery metaphors that mean nothing.
>No one has learned from the lessons of the recent past if he still fools himself about the possibilities of a purely political battle
My historical literacy is literally equal to fucking Fukuyama: the post.
>However, a people, a race capable of producing true men, men of right feeling and reliable instinct, would reach a high level of civilization and would stand on their feet in the face of the most calamitous tests even if its political system was defective and imperfect
This reads like the platitudes of a fantasy novel. I stand by my initial diagnosis: it is impossible to coherently reconstruct anything Evola ever said.
>One takes therefore a precise position against that false “political realism” that thinks only in terms of programs, party organizational problems, or social and economic prescriptions. All this belongs to the contingent, not to the essential.
Oh wow, current political practices are contingent, very deep.
>Starting from what can still remain among the ruins, to reconstruct slowly a new man to animate through a determinate spirit and a suitable vision of life, to fortify through the tenacious adherence to given principles – this is the true problem.
Uh-huh, yes, fascinating, hero-worship, very cool.
It allows me to hammer home my initial point: of all the profoundly gay twitter philosophers, Evola is by far the gayest. Tell me, wretched internet-addict, how does shitposting cringy attempts at incitement on an imageboard full of bona fide autists help achieve the molding of the new man? Do you feel like your spirit is determinate (lmao) and your vision of life is suitable (lmao) as you endlessly F5 looking for a dopamine hit?

Evolafags are the right-wing equivalent of the cringy leftists who post about how they are going to be the finger-painting therapists of the communist utopia. It is so unfathomably fucking gay.

Ride the Tiger is a good book. Revolt Against the Modern World is not as good as Ride the Tiger, but it is still interesting. His other books, the ones I’ve read anyway, are neither as good nor as interesting as either, but are not bad per se. In the final analysis, I think he was a confused and troubled man, who was searching not only for refuge from modern life but also for something bigger which could transcend modern life. He never found that thing conclusively, but in many ways, his project was never really about finding “the thing” but the search for it. In that regard, I think he is exactly the sort of warrior or “differentiated man” that he describes and should be viewed as such. It’s a war of the pen, and in war, it’s the fight itself that matters. I think that’s admirable. He might not be able to take you to any one conclusive destination and but he can point you in a general direction. Given the circumstances, I think that’s important.

>>19140223
This is superb bait.

>>19140223

Shut up jewish woman

>>19137526
based
>>19137387
case in point

>>19139627
>implying feels aren't more real than reals, but less real than Being

>>19140298
This is why Guenon is superior. The whole war being some form of "highest transcendence" is a retarded larp - there will NEVER be a cause worthy of war until the kali yuga is over, thus not even worth discussing.

Guenon on the other hand seemed to live a comfy fulfilling spiritual life and was very content with life, and knowledgable about true tradition.

>>19140411
I disagree with that actually.

>>19139467
>he unironically believes in the existence of Atlantis
>Once you start reading real philosophy, such as Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus
Have you read the Timaeus yet?

>>19140411
>there will NEVER be a cause worthy of war until the kali yuga is over
Isn't this pretty much the central point of Ride the Tiger and even parts of Men Among the Ruins? There's an important distinction to be made between the effect of war on the individual and the justification for the war itself.
At the very least, these ideas certainly did exist traditionally and shouldn't be excluded from a discussion of our ideals just because they're impractical at present.

>>19139568
>But for example, what exactly is the difference between Evola's Differentiation and Jung's Individuation?
That the metaphor of 'vertical' transcendence in Jung is limited to a dialogue between (potentially collective) subconscious forces and our everyday consciousness, without an 'ascent' to anything which could be considered super-conscious. It may be capable for forming a more integrated personality on the mundane level but lacks a methodology to transcend that personality in a way we could equate to something like the higher jhanas in Buddhism. Even those esoteric groups who are friendly toward Jung do often seem to feel the need to expand in this direction.

>>19140238
>No
If you think everything is all fine and good, then why were you interested in reading Evola? What did you take the title, "Revolt Against the Modern World", to mean?

>what the fuck does this even mean?
It means having the courage of your convictions. It's a common expression. For example, "if you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything".

>it is impossible to coherently reconstruct anything
The same general point, stated differently by Schopenhauer:
"...The dead conceptions of philosophy do not decide the matter, but the inmost nature of man himself, the Dæmon that guides him and that has not chosen him, but been chosen by him, as Plato would say; his intelligible character, as Kant expresses himself. Virtue cannot be taught any more than genius; indeed, for it the concept is just as unfruitful as it is in art, and in both cases can only be used as an instrument. It would, therefore, be just as absurd to expect that our moral systems and ethics will produce virtuous, noble, and holy men, as that our æsthetics will produce poets, painters, and musicians."

>>19136081
Too based for normies, who mock and belittle that which they can not comprehend

>>19137556
this... start with la crisis du mode moderne

it's a general cross-board law that whenever something becomes popular enough, it receives disproportional contrarian butthurt regardless of the content
too many Evola threads caused this

>>19136081
He looks like the villain from ratatouille

>>19136081
my problem with evola is that he never had a initiation into a tradition, so it's kind ahard for me to take his takes on traditionalism seriously

>>19137556
>>19137409
avoid guenon, his dogmatic and shallow views will be a hindrance, specially when reading about buddhism

>>19140223
Yeah I generally think that people convincing themselves that politics is like going on a magic quest which ends with oneself achieving greatness (of course everything works out perfectly up to that point) contributes to a lot pathologies. When you find it taking up a lot of time or making you angry then it's probably time to cut back.

https://youtu.be/lnoh69gEEYw

>>19140223
>this post

>>19144332
>This post

>>19140223
glad you bounce back from that anon, wish you the best

>>19136081
He literally believed in magic. Not in a cutesy "life is magical guys" way, but in an unironic manner. How the hell can I take him seriously?

>>19144408
Magick is real, but it isnt what anybody thinks. And its not really magickal, its just science. Well, it can be if thats how you want to see it, but those of us with the fruitcake temperment see it as lame, so we prefer magical to scientific as a label.
Basically, theres nothing magical about magic, but there is.

>>19144442
So, no point

>>19139467
pretty much this

>>19144463
Id rather lead you to it than preach it at you.
Magic is just the occult, the occult is just hidden knowledge, hidden knowledge is science, but as applied to concepts beyond the material realm.

>>19140238
No, you're the one who is LARPing. You secretly share all my positions, but only pretend to oppose them, LARPer!

>>19139467
Plato and Plotinus are at least as wacky as Evola.

>>19140223
9/10

>>19144408
Explain why magic isn't real, Anon

>>19140411
And *this* is why 90% of Perennialism threads suck, cause bozos like ypu, who did not understand the books they read go yappin their mouths.
You think in terms of morality, justification etc, you wouldn't had you properly read Evola and understood him.
His whole work is about the effects of actions on the individual, and how to use these to transcend. Any war may suffice for that.
You need a situation that is perilous towards consciousness to actually have an initiatic experience - be it death, sex or sleep.

>>19136274
>"I am le magic wizard of le traditional values" is not an argument
>t. Hasn't even read Evola

>>19140973
>what is the self

>>19144608
If magic was real,
1. Companies would be using it to make money
2. Every /x/phile would have a succubus wife

>>19146133
Can you at least pretend that you've read Crowley or Evola?

>>19136081
The idea that there are forces beyond mans control that influence man, and that these forces are naturally good and bad is inherently opposed to every foundational belief of any neutered and socially acceptable modern ideology, and even some portions of the Traditionalist/Alt/Fascist ideologies. It is the inherent opposite of liberalism on literally everything.
This being said running a society on Evola's principles would be impossible and should probably not be attempted. But he makes some very good stuff and convinced me of metaphysics.

>>19146092
But Jung's 'self' is the union of the unconscious and conscious, no?

>>19146133
They do, we do.

>>19146133
>If magic was real,
>1. Companies would be using it to make money
Anon I...

BTFO by jungerfag