First, a preface: Men Among the Ruins is one of Evola's few explicitly political works, and as such it addresses particularistic questions by nature, albeit from a Traditional point of view. Anyone familiar with Evola's work understands that his treatment of the possibility of a political restoration of Traditional values (those values which are transcendent and universally true) changed over the course of his life. Keep that in mind, as Men Among the Ruins had been written still relatively early in his life and in a particular political context, no doubt. His final works would treat the question of restoration decidedly negatively -- late Evola believed no such thing would be possible due to the disappearance of worthwhile political groups and urged Traditionalists to focus on their own inner lives rather than the plane of political action. So, in surveying Evola's ideas, don't take this work as his final position on the matter.
All that having been said, I'll move onto a proper review of the book. Men Among the Ruins ranges from naive/outdated to insightful and highly valuable. I need not dwell on its flaws, since they should be evident to the reader. I'm content to highlight the best points Evola makes here which would echo throughout his later works. First of all on the matter of particularities, certain political ideas presented are very solid and could even be implemented today, particularly Autarchy.
Evola rightly figures that the only possible way a modern state could avoid the excesses of the infinite growth of capital and to maintain an "uncompetitive" form of rulership is through autarchy. This would free society from the fetters of foreign economic interests and allow a serious culture to form inside the borders against modern materialism.
Next, his proposal to solve materialism, alienation, dehumanization, and expansion under capitalism and communism is to create some form of corporatism inspired by the ancient Roman idea and the medieval artisan guilds. This could also be practiced today, as something approaching corporatism has been employed before. In Evola's opinion, bringing a spiritual dimension to labor and prioritizing quality over quantity could be fruitful, as was the case with the Roman lares and patron spirits of the Germanic guilds.
Elsewhere he elaborates on modern "conservatism," and its relationship to labor, and furthermore the role that labor should play from a Traditionalist perspective. Evola points out that modern conservative movements have become proletarianized and have formed a myth of labor. They tend to revolve around "labor ethics," and associate hard work within the economy with traditional values in a puritanesque way. Far from being a particular trait of his time, this tendency among conservatives remains today and is chiefly expressed by the American GOP, so the question remains relevant. Evola does an excellent job dispelling the myth of labor. Far from being a source of meaning or ethics, labor in the Traditional view was either amoral or decidedly negative, the latter being the case in ancient Rome where the word laborare denoted suffering or misfortune. Labor meant something closer to the way we use the term "laborious" today.
Evola explains that the Traditional aristocracy had a healthy and differentiated disdain for labor -- it was the lot of serfs, not of lords -- something unfortunately necessary. The elite were preoccupied with their divinely appointed destinies, being warfare and spirituality, the latter forming the basis of morality rather than labor. Furthermore, he addresses the question of alienation under capitalism (and communism for that matter.) Automation and industrialism have removed human autonomy from the process of production and destroyed any degree of humanized choice or intention. Modern products are austere and unsymbolic, the products of automatic processes. The people working with these machines experience dehumanization, something that would not have been the result of spiritually informed artisan work.
Further, he elaborates on the dangers that capitalism and communism both pose to Traditional society. He explains that both systems narrow the societal system of values down to materialism, labor, and production, causing an irrational collectivism to form that will replace "individualistic" Traditionalism. Evola has explored this problem in other essays, my favorite is probably Faces and Mush from Recognitions, in which he presents a similar opinion to Marcuse on the creation of artificial needs under capitalism, but from a decidedly transcendent perspective.
One of the best-known and most valuable essays in this book is "The Occult War," which is excerpted online. Here, Evola poses a powerful critique of nationalism vis-a-vis traditional empire, contrasting its focus on the ethnos and demos -- the masses of people and society of number -- to the latter's individualistic and transcendent justification which exists as a matter of cosmic hierarchy and corresponds to the law of differentiation. He also criticizes the tendency within nationalism of demagoguery -- masses of people whose lowest impulses are being exploited to cause chaotic outcomes. He urges that a properly Traditional society must operate on reason and fidelity, not demagoguery.
For all these reasons, Men Among the Ruins remains a valuable contribution to the Traditionalist school. It hits far more than it misses and contains a good deal of wisdom that reaches up to and beyond our modern day.
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Top reviews from other countries
George
Difficult reading, absolutely worth it
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 24, 2017