/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14415476]

La crise du monde moderne is Guenon’s masterpiece. It is one of the most frequently translated of his works, and has remained in print and generally available since publication, being today a standard part of the publisher Gallimard’s popular and prestigious Folio series (the French equivalent of Penguin Modern Classics). It is probably the best starting place for any reader interested in investigating the original texts of Traditionalism.

Among the refinements introduced in La crise du monde moderne is more palatable terminology, with “sacred science” effectively replacing the “pure intellectuality” of Orient et Occident, and “profane” replacing “common.” The style is also much improved. What remains of the discussion of the “intellectual elite,” for example, is introduced as follows: “If everyone understood what the modern world really is, it would immediately cease to exist, since its existence, like that of all limitations, is purely negative; it exists only by the negation of traditional and suprahuman truth.” The improved style and the clarity and force of La crise du monde moderne may well be the result of the conditions under which it was written—in a hurry. Many writers find that what is written almost without thinking on a subject that has been well digested is better than what is written painstakingly with the benefit of extensive revision, and this seems to have been the case for Guenon. The origin of the book was the suggestion by Gonzague Truc, a publisher and a friend of Guenon, that Guenon write a book summarizing their many conversations. Guenon did so, producing what Truc called “a work of inspiration.”

As well as being an improvement on previous works from the point of view of style and organization, La crise du monde moderne refines the Traditionalist concept of “inversion.” In addition to a chapter on social chaos there is a discussion of individualism as both a modern superstition and a modern illusion: Guenon explains how modern “individualism” in fact destroys real “individuality.” Both social chaos and individualism were issues in 1927 and remain issues today. More important, La crise du monde moderne starts with a discussion of the Hindu concept of cyclical time, in which the final era, the kali yuga (literally “fourth age,” glossed by Gue´non as “dark age”) is a 6,000-year period of decline. It is in the kali yuga that we presently find ourselves (according to both Guenon and most Hindu writers). The theory of cyclical
time and kali yuga complete one aspect of the Traditionalist philosophy by providing the explanation for the state of affairs explored by Guenon elsewhere:
inversion is a characteristic of the kali yuga.

[Anonymous No.14415872]

>>14415476
The crisis of the modern world is too shallow and credulous to be philosophical, and too dry and cumbrous to be polemical

[Anonymous No.14415921]

>"The crisis of the modern world is too shallow and credulous to be philosophical, and too dry and cumbrous to be polemical"

[Anonymous No.14415948]

>>14415921
posting wojaks, memes, anime etc... is pathetic

>>14415476
Le règne de la quantité is a weight class above but I share your sentiment.

[Anonymous No.14415965]

>>14415476
>La crise du monde moderne is Guenon’s masterpiece.

No. That's The Reign of Quantity.

[Anonymous No.14417158]

bump

[Anonymous No.14417385]

basée et rougepillée