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[–]NeoRail 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

In particular, he blamed the the Italian king for letting Mussolini usurp his role.

I am familiar with the things you listed before, but it is the first time I have ever heard about this and this does not sound correct to me. I am fairly certain that in Fascism Viewed From the Right he affirms that the rex-dux dyarchy is traditional and valid. In fact, from what I have seen, Evola blamed Mussolini for delegating too much of his power to the Grand Council of Fascism for no other reason than contrived pluralism, and was not fond of the King's admittedly legal coup.

Overall Evola never liked the whole idea of nationalism, and regarded that as a way to restore the Roman or roman-germanic empire.

This is a bit complicated. Evola had a strong dislike for populist nationalism, but he was fond of integral nationalism.

2) this new hierarchical state must conquer as much land as he can, possibly the whole world, and restore a hierarchy based on spiritual race and spiritual aristocracy.

I am not familiar with this either, specifically the first part. I have only read excerpts from Pagan Imperialism, though. If Pagan Imperialism was published during the world war, it would also make sense for the military aims to be this ambitious anyway, since the Axis were already at war with the whole world.

Honestly I still think that Evola was particularly weak when writing about actual politics. He made all of his best works after the war, when he had to deal only with a select group of individuals from the MSI and he was able to put forward a religious philosophy based on his understanding of the Indo-European culture.

It depends on what you mean by actual politics. I also think his post war works are more interesting chiefly because they were written for the same post war environment that we live in today - many of his other works from before or during the war have no practical significance today.

[–]Rakean93Identitarian socialist 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

am fairly certain that in Fascism Viewed From the Right he affirms that the rex-dux dyarchy is traditional and valid.

That's a different matter. The Duce itself was indeed appreciated by Evola, but he still blamed the King to let this happening instead of being he himself the leader of the fascism. It was said, if i recalll correctly, in the first volume of "introduction to the magic", which is the collection of the articles from the group of Ur. But i'll need to check. there's a chance it's from a conversation with Junio Valerio Borghese.

This is a bit complicated. Evola had a strong dislike for populist nationalism, but he was fond of integral nationalism.

He wasn't going to call himself anti-nationalistic, but at the core he was a reactionary. Evola is often extrapolated by his own historical context, but he was a son of the restauration and the catholic anti-modernist push. He was born in a period where the tradionalist right was used to read de maistre and gobineau, when it was still fresh the trauma of the french revolution, and when the catholic church published this text https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllabus_of_Errors . In fact, Evola built upon the catholic anti-modernism: his perspective was something even more traditionalist than the catholicism itself, the pagan empire. Most of the critics he moved against catholicism and modernity were, in fact, the very same critics the catholics were moving against protestantism and modernity. As a matter of fact, Evola didn't even considered the catholicism as real christianism, implying that the catholicism was actually paganism under the guise of christianity. p. 171 italian edition PI: "Abbiamo dunque confermato la recisa antitesi tra cristianesimo primitivo con la romanità; e, del pari, abbiamo confermata la distinzione del "seme cristiano" dall' "ordine cattolico", pur tenendo fermo al carattere di puro compresso, oltre che di sincretismo, che ha reso possibile quest'ordine" . p 169: "Naturalmente i cattolici non sarebbero cattolici se non sostenessero che il cattolicesimo sia il cristianesimo. Ma ciò che loro credono è un conto, ciò che dalle nozioni più elementari di una critica religiosa risulta, è un altro". [quick google trasnslation for easy check: "We have therefore confirmed the sharp antithesis between primitive Christianity and Roman times; and, likewise, we have confirmed the distinction of the" Christian seed "from the" Catholic order ", while keeping firm to the character of pure compromise, as well as syncretism, which made this order possible. " p 169: "Of course, Catholics would not be Catholics if they did not maintain that Catholicism is Christianity. But what they believe is one thing, what appears from the most elementary notions of a religious criticism is another".] This is actually a common protestant argument against catholicism: you see, evola was using both catholic [anti-modernism] and protestant [equivalence between catholicism and paganism] arguments to advance a radical proposition of tradition, going further in the list of errors of the modern world, in which he included the original extensors of the list itself: the catholics. In the same book, he also says that the real counter reformation should be aimed against christianity. That's to say, you can't separate Evola from his cultural miliue, and his cultural milieu was the spiritual salons of the reactionary monarchical right.

I am not familiar with this either, specifically the first part. I have only read excerpts from Pagan Imperialism, though. If Pagan Imperialism was published during the world war, it would also make sense for the military aims to be this ambitious anyway, since the Axis were already at war with the whole world.

both versions of pagan imperialism are pre war. He was just imperialist. It wasn''t uncommon at that age.

It depends on what you mean by actual politics. I also think his post war works are more interesting chiefly because they were written for the same post war environment that we live in today - many of his other works from before or during the war have no practical significance today.

i agree with that

[–]NeoRail 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

That's a different matter. The Duce itself was indeed appreciated by Evola, but he still blamed the King to let this happening instead of being he himself the leader of the fascism. It was said, if i recalll correctly, in the first volume of "introduction to the magic", which is the collection of the articles from the group of Ur. But i'll need to check. there's a chance it's from a conversation with Junio Valerio Borghese.

Ah, I know what you are referring to. It's not from the Ur Group writings, but I think it is from an essay called "Revolution from the Heights", although there may have been various references to this idea in different essays. My interpretation is slightly different from yours, though. Ultimately, according to Evola, every revolution is a reaffirmation and restoration of the sovereign principle, so it should proceed from the heights - in this case, the Italian monarchy. Evola didn't expressly want the King to stage a revolution though, either in order to pre-empt or remove Mussolini. In fact, he acknowledged that it is also valid for the King to simply lend his support and legitimacy to Mussolini's revolution. I don't think blame factors into his view of the 20s and 30s at all, since in his view the development of the Italian state at that time was a positive phenomenon.

He wasn't going to call himself anti-nationalistic, but at the core he was a reactionary.

I fully agree. I don't think integral nationalism and reaction are mutually exclusive, though - to my knowledge, integral nationalism was the reactionary response to leftist nationalism.

both versions of pagan imperialism are pre war. He was just imperialist. It wasn''t uncommon at that age.

Claiming the whole world is a bit more than just imperialist.

[–]Rakean93Identitarian socialist 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Revolution from the Heights

You're right!

Claiming the whole world is a bit more than just imperialist.

It was a necessary consequence; I don't think he explicitly stated that, but he was sure that the European were to rule over non Europeans - he also blamed the end of the colonisation, expecially the french one. He would probably agree with yockey when he was speaking about unlimited imperialism. So the logical conclusion, given the right of the European to rule over the other and the superiority of European would be world rule.