Holy War

[Александр Славрос 8,499]

This was supposed to be part of the original Fascism - Restoring Tradition series, lost the original notes I had for that part but then again after so long its best to do it fresh.

 

Those who read Evola's Metaphysics of War should be already familiar with the concept so I will only make a general reminder of it before I provide my own narrative.

 

In our worldview there is a differentiation between Holy or Greater War and the Lesser War. In the Golden age the Holy War is ideally presented both externally and internally, in other words it is outward wars for spiritual purposes and the inward conflict where by putting oneself through extreme conditions one overcomes whatever limitations are imposed by the body, so much so that it can create a catharsis that leads to Transcendence. But in the course of Involution the external motivation falls to the wayside as it is replaced by whatever new, temporal and material motivations that take hold, thus War looses its Holy character in its outward form, but it may still go on internally in every person who takes part in it.

 

 

While, in the cycle of the first caste, war was 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 supremacist 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 realize - in Bolshevism - another meaning of war, which finds expression in the following, characteristic words of Lenin: 'The war between nations is 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.'

 

 

The lesser war here corresponds t the exoteric war, the bloody battle 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'. No matter how terrible and tragic the events, no matter how huge the destruction, this war, metaphysically, still remains a lesser war'. The 'greater' or 'holy war' is, contrarily, of the interior and intangible order - it is the war which is fought against the enemy, the 'barbarian', the 'infidel', whom everyone bears in himself, or whom everyone can see arising in himself on every occasion that he tries to subject his whole being to a spiritual law. Appearing in the forms of craving, partiality, passion, instinctuality, weakness and inward

cowardice, the enemy within the natural man must be vanquished, it's resistance broken, chained and subjected to the spiritual man, this being the condition of reaching inner liberation, the 'triumphant peace' which allows one to participate in what is beyond both life and death.

 

Frankly that is the very essence of how our worldview sees war, what I'd like to do in this article is not so much lament over that essence, as it is very straightforward, but rather talk about the value of War in of itself and how much it has degenerated and direction it takes, which is not entirely as Evola predicted with the Lenin quote.

 

Mussolini's quote sums up the value of War and what it represents in a spiritual sense:

 

In our worldview there are two archetypes for man and woman each that deliver their respective essential nature.

 

For man the archetypes are:

• Scholar, associated with Contemplative Asceticism and the Path of Knowledge - "inner process in which the theme of detachment and the direct orientation toward transcendence are predominant." "May also lie entirely in a domain that is not connected to the external world by something tangiable". You can note how there is a theme here that parallels that of the Right Hand Path to transcendence.
• Warrior or Hero, associated with Heroic Asceticism and the Path of Action - "immanent process aimed at awakening the deepest forces of the human being and at bringing them to the limit, thus causing a superlife to spring from life itself in a context of absolute intensity" and results in a "Heroic Life". Somewhat parallels the Left Hand Path to transcendence.

 

Woman has analogical archetypes:

• Lover, Aphrodite
• Mother, Demeter

You can get the full context of these woman archetypes in Evola's Metaphysics of Sex, specifically under  the "Woman as Mother, Woman as Lover" section. What I want to bring up is how these archetypes are paralleled in nature to some extent.

 

The Scholar seeks transcendence through the strength of his own spirit and overcomes his bodily limitations with no need for external assistance, this demands the deepest understanding of ones nature in the metaphysical sense in order to navigate the process of Transcendence, clearly a Right Hand Path process which also leads one on the path to being the Absolute Man in the sense that he embodies that metaphysical essence of manhood. In parallel with the Scholar you have the Lover (again I suggest reading that section of the book because there are explanations on the specifics behind this archetype and its relationship to cruelty and what danger it presents to men, which however does not detract from the point I will be making here) and I'm putting them in parallel because in order for a woman to reach this archetype she has to come to some sort of contemplation of her own unless she's simply barren to begin with and is incapable of having children and thus reach the Mother archetype. In this contemplation the woman must come to the conclusion that the nature of woman is completely sexual which leads her on the path to becoming the Absolute Woman, for the Lover this realization means completely surrendering herself to man.

 

In the case of the Warrior/Hero you have a catharsis event that tests everything in man that makes him that from a metaphysical viewpoint and he conducts war on his bodily bindings and anchors to the material world, he purifies himself. Likewise the Mother undergoes a catharsis event of motherhood and maternity that tests everything in woman that makes her that from a metaphysical viewpoint in accordance to the understanding that woman is completely sexual, but in this case this is delivered through the biological function of reproduction and completely surrendering herself to her children (while man completely focuses in himself, woman always places focus outside herself in someone else - that is the ideal state).

 

Thus, War is to Man what Maternity is to Woman. In this comparison we gain a new dimension and insight into the true essence of War. Obviously men can fail the test of War as the catharsis to transcendence, same as women can fail their catharsis of motherhood. A coward is thus just as heinous as a neglectful or abusive mother (worse still a mother that kills her kids).

 

Brought together with the fact that we don't share the humanitarian notion of all life being sacred one can see how War becomes a value in of itself, rather than being a disaster or horror. One would ask if that means we're against Peace and doesn't the Golden Age imply there being a state of Peace during said Age?

 

Savitri Devi for one insists on there being true Peace in the Golden Age and that being what destroyed her example of the Man Above Time who refused to coordinate a defensive War against those who sought to destroy his kingdom because he was already operating by the rules of the Golden Age because he had that state realized in himself and thus abhorred War. However this is more a values argument since she she implies Peace being the value of the Golden Age and that being why there'd be Peace in the Golden Age - I'm not entirely convinced by this.

 

For one thing we know for certain that the Golden Age can be achieved only through War in the first place (something even Devi admits), the first true Holy War both externally and internally since Involution began, lead by the Invisible Army, the Wildes Heer, in the Age of Heroes. It starts at the 11th hour of the Dark/Iron Age (Kali Yuga) and ushers in the new Golden Age. If anything a good deal of the new Golden Age would be spent leading a global spiritual conquest during which the Emperor of the World would be likely to present himself.

 

The real difference is that the world is smaller today than it used to be, so one could argue that some prolonged Peace would have been possible for traditional societies of the past Golden Age simply because they couldn't wage war far enough and the contenders were too far away leaving no one to fight. On the one hand one can see how this would then inevitably lead to decay and deterioration that would start the Involutionary process, so with that in mind it all seems to fit. On the other hand, the world being smaller makes for global conquest far more realistic but it may also mean abrupt end to War simply because there is nothing left to wage War on and thus leading back to peace and decay. Which again, seems to fit the cyclical understanding of history. This, however is a side note to some extent, an interesting question to mule over but not that important for now, since War is still inevitable.

 

What I, again, wanted to discuss is War as a value and how it has deteriorated.

 

First of all about the degeneration of Lesser War in its motivations. For the most part Evola's right, Lesser war had been changing its motivations in accordance to the Age, from true Holy Wars to wars for allegiances (temporal or religious rulers) and lands, to wars for national and economic interests. However what followed was not the Lenin quote class war of the masses in the worker/serf sense, but rather the lessening of the national interest aspect and the rise of war for economic profiteering and ususry. Most temporal leaders are no longer interested in maintaining a strong and healthy nation, but rather in maintaining a state of consumerist complacency within the nation, wars are not fought for strengthening the nation by strengthening its economy but wars are now fought for strengthening the economy for the sake of the economy. Where once the State Leviathan controlled economy for its interests, now economy rides on the back of the Leviathan. This is happening in tandem with degeneration of society and the approaching Race War which will come either as the last rebellion of the inferior against the superior (which will be the quintessential rock-bottom of war in terms of motivations) or as the Rise of the Invisible Army (which will be the return of the true Holy War).

 

Next I'd like to mention degeneration of Lesser War in terms of practices involved. In our worldview it is maintained that nobody is born as someone by accident and everyone has a destiny (in the Francis P. Yockey sense of potential), a role to play. Not everyone are cut out to be Warriors and not everyone should be, which is exactly why Warriors used to have their own caste and it was the second caste in the organic hierarchy (marking close relation to the spiritual caste because of the high probability of Warriors becoming Heroes and thus Transcending). However with deterioration we have come to the concept of Soldier, which has less to do with your natural vocation and more to do with new temporal mechanics. A Soldier is less than a Warrior because anyone can be a soldier, even those who were not meant to face conditions of War (while War is to Man what Maternity is to Woman, not all people are born with that destiny/potential for Transcendence in the first place, while some may not have the capacity to do it through War but can do so through Contemplation, which was most likely the practice of the Divine Royalty, the highest caste).

 

Deterioration continued further with the appearance of Total War and Total Mobilization as the mark of the industrial age, where everyone became involved in War whether they liked it or not (I suggest reading Ernst Junger's Total Mobilization work to get familiar with this state and its consequences). The introduction of nuclear weapons and the fear of Mutually Assured Destruction had almost eliminated the old ways of waging war and limited associated prospects for spiritual experiences which could be maintained even in the industrial age (look to Junger's interwar articles and J.F.C. Fuhler's works).

 

 

And today deterioration took another turn as we are faced with two new prospects: the rise of robotic warfare and the rise of private military companies. The former introduces the rock-bottom of war in terms of eliminating the human element entirely and thus War will no longer have any shred of its original value left to it, there is no chance for spiritual catharsis because those capable of undergoing it are not allowed to seek and fulfill their nature and war goes on purely for material and temporal reasons. The latter introduces the deterioration of war in terms of destroying the human element's motivation. Even today yank soldiers can delude themselves into thinking that they are fighting for their country and not for the economy that is simply utilizing the populace for its own sake and thus there is some minor higher aspiration in mind, but private militaries are only interested in their paycheck and their allegiances are connected to the economy that pays them (or which they are interested in having them pay i.e. there is the possibility of PMC's conducting their own underhanded operations in order to give someone reason to pay them).

 

Thus the time when our own Holy War comes it will not be just about its supreme spiritual goals in both external (establishing the temporal rule of our worldview) and internal forms (Transcendence, forging of new temporal Elites and the summoning of the Emperor of the World) but it will also be a War of Wars, it will be our War for restoring and upholding the Value of War as the path to Transcendence and part of our worldview against the Lesser Wars of our enemies, who will fight in defense of their petty reasons, no matter what those are and how they conduct them.

 

Just as our internal struggle is the battle of the True Self against its corrupted bodily reflection, so will our War be at struggle against its own corrupted reflections.

 

[Noidberg 4,080]

I for one welcome Lord Kalki.

[Neizbezhnost 1,302]

Haven't read metaphysics of war, just had a redpill moment- I finally understand that Mussolini quote.

 

I guess I've always had the fascist spirit because the concept of unmanned, robotic warfare has seemed terribly unaesthetic to me even from a young age. In fact, the entire concept of the degeneration of war is something I've always felt, long before I was aware of any formal "traditionalist" worldview. People who insisted on telling me of the horrors of war and that it's not something I should be interested in seemed shallow and irrelevant... temporal. The warrior has always been an idealistic, spiritual archetype for me.

[Александр Славрос 8,499]

I wouldn't claim that Mussolini put in exactly that much thought behind the quote but he did feel those basic truths through his own experiences that helped him make that observation. This is why I always oppose the idea that someone came up with Fascism or anything in it, we're not making shit up, we're just tuned into it more and manage to grasp those basic truths. Funny enough this is also what Mosley realized without going in as much depth when he said that he's tired of men who could think and wanted men who could feel.

[Torchbearer 396]

 the concept of unmanned, robotic warfare has seemed terribly unaesthetic to me even from a young age

 

But what about muh nazi mechs?

[Neizbezhnost 1,302]

I wouldn't claim that Mussolini put in exactly that much thought behind the quote but he did feel those basic truths through his own experiences that helped him make that observation. This is why I always oppose the idea that someone came up with Fascism or anything in it, we're not making shit up, we're just tuned into it more and manage to grasp those basic truths. Funny enough this is also what Mosley realized without going in as much depth when he said that he's tired of men who could think and wanted men who could feel.

 

I know, that's basically what I was trying to say about myself. Fascists naturally feel and understand these truths even if they don't understand, or are not aware of the full metaphysical reasoning behind them.

[Александр Славрос 8,499]

But what about muh nazi mechs?

 

MUST.GAS.JEWS...

FOLLOW.YOUR.LEADER.....DOES.NOT.COMPUTE.

 

[👌✔️💯😜😈😭👌👌 1,326]

''transcendence'' In what way? What do you and Evola mean by that.

How does one achieve this through war, especially modern one (Ukraine at the moment).

[Александр Славрос 8,499]

Did you even read the other topics?

[👌✔️💯😜😈😭👌👌 1,326]

Oh, nevermind.

[Kalash 1,520]

Haven't read metaphysics of war, just had a redpill moment- I finally understand that Mussolini quote.

 

I guess I've always had the fascist spirit because the concept of unmanned, robotic warfare has seemed terribly unaesthetic to me even from a young age. In fact, the entire concept of the degeneration of war is something I've always felt, long before I was aware of any formal "traditionalist" worldview. People who insisted on telling me of the horrors of war and that it's not something I should be interested in seemed shallow and irrelevant... temporal. The warrior has always been an idealistic, spiritual archetype for me.

 

I have also long had a distaste for the increasing mechanization of warfare. 

 

Originally my passion was to become a fighter pilot, because I had romanticized the swashbuckling image that one sees in many films about the Great War. But then I realized how flying a fighter today is not so much different from a drone, with engagement distances of hundreds of kilometers, and that fighters will probably be replaced by drones anyway. 

 

Btw, this is an interesting project which merges mechs with the 1920 Soviet-Polish War.

 

http://imgur.com/gallery/7PNy0

[Александр Славрос 8,499]

Again, industrial age warfare still had great elements to it that could've been seen in spiritual light, Junger specifically wrote on the issue in a couple of his interwar articles where he talks of the First World War.

 

Technical Battle (1925)

 

 

Indicative was the very character in which military technology was utilized, it was cruel and calculated. In some ways it was similar to the marxist understanding of production.

The spirit of time passes through all phenomena of an epoch - thinking, labor and of course, war.

 

 

Supremacy of the human soul's inner strength over technology already became noticeable in the first great battles of the modern age.  

 

 

And then the sons of the materialist age suddenly realized that in reality there was nothing that a man couldn't withstand, there is no such technology that could rival spiritual strength. We were convinced of this countless times, this fact was proven by every unknown soldier, who had passed through all the horrors of military technology and placed his indestructible, sturdy heart on the scales.  

 

 

Of course technology can lay down anyone, same as how once wild animals easily tore apart martyrs in circuses. But only he is afraid of it, who recognizes nothing but crude matter. A soldier must always remember not only the hardships and sacrifice, but also victory.

 

 

Instruments are not what's important, however without them the will has no means of expressing itself.

 

The Machine (1925)

 

 

the machine is not at fault for the world losing its deeper dimension - which is exactly the reproach used against it by the false desire to "internalize". Only man himself is at fault, if one can at all talk of faults when it comes to such matters. Today the machine is an instrument of a particular, singular man, and their massive unification becomes the instrument of the nation. And through the machine the spirit can do anything it want, just as with any other instrument.

Nietzsche's renaissance landscape had no place for the machine. But he taught us that life is not only a struggle for mere pitiful existence, that it can seek higher and more serious goals. Our task is to apply this teaching to the machine. We have no right to view it as a mere means of production, satisfaction of material wants because it can satisfy needs of a higher order. And that is why we must free it from the shadows of intellect and place it in the service of the will and blood. That which in the language of the intellect is called means of progress, in the language of blood is called means of power. 

Intellect creates the instrument, but the will of blood directs and utilizes it.

 

 

There were people who during the war, believing in the supremacy of spirit over matter, had sent soldiers into battle without modern equipment. Such mistakes were payed for dearly. Of course the spirit possesses supremacy over military technology, but this does not mean that they should be set against each other directly. The supremacy of the spirit presents itself in the ability to control technology according to one's will. In peace time we also must seek to equip the nation with newest technology. During certain times people express themselves with bombings and gas attacks, whereas in other times the cinema, radio and press becomes such a means for expression. Here we have a vast field to work with.

 

 

 

Also what I said before.