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Julius Evola

Revolt Against the Modern World Hardcover – October 1, 1995

by Julius Evola (Author)

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With unflinching gaze and uncompromising intensity Julius Evola analyzes the spiritual and cultural malaise at the heart of Western civilization and all that passes for progress in the modern world. As a gadfly, Evola spares no one and nothing in his survey of what we have lost and where we are headed. At turns prophetic and provocative, Revolt against the Modern World outlines a profound metaphysics of history and demonstrates how and why we have lost contact with the transcendent dimension of being.

The revolt advocated by Evola does not resemble the familiar protests of either liberals or conservatives. His criticisms are not limited to exposing the mindless nature of consumerism, the march of progress, the rise of technocracy, or the dominance of unalloyed individualism, although these and other subjects come under his scrutiny. Rather, he attempts to trace in space and time the remote causes and processes that have exercised corrosive influence on what he considers to be the higher values, ideals, beliefs, and codes of conduct--the world of Tradition--that are at the foundation of Western civilization and described in the myths and sacred literature of the Indo‑Europeans. Agreeing with the Hindu philosophers that history is the movement of huge cycles and that we are now in the Kali Yuga, the age of dissolution and decadence, Evola finds revolt to be the only logical response for those who oppose the materialism and ritualized meaninglessness of life in the twentieth century.

Through a sweeping study of the structures, myths, beliefs, and spiritual traditions of the major Western civilizations, the author compares the characteristics of the modern world with those of traditional societies. The domains explored include politics, law, the rise and fall of empires, the history of the Church, the doctrine of the two natures, life and death, social institutions and the caste system, the limits of racial theories, capitalism and communism, relations between the sexes, and the meaning of warriorhood. At every turn Evola challenges the reader’s most cherished assumptions about fundamental aspects of modern life.

A controversial scholar, philosopher, and social thinker, JULIUS EVOLA (1898-1974) has only recently become known to more than a handful of English‑speaking readers. An authority on the world’s esoteric traditions, Evola wrote extensively on ancient civilizations and the world of Tradition in both East and West. Other books by Evola published by Inner Traditions include Eros and the Mysteries of Love, The Yoga of Power, The Hermetic Tradition, and The Doctrine of Awakening.

Print length

375 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Inner Traditions
Publication date

October 1, 1995
Dimensions

6 x 1.2 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

089281506X
ISBN-13

978-0892815067
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From the Publisher

Evola challenges your assumptions about fundamental aspects of modern life.

No idea is as absurd as the idea of progress, which together with its corollary notion of the superiority of modern civilization, has created its own “positive” alibis by falsifying history, by insinuating harmful myths in people’s minds, and by proclaiming itself sovereign at the crossroads of the plebeian ideology from which it originated.

In order to understand both the spirit of Tradition and its antithesis, modern civilization, it is necessary to begin with the fundamental doctrine of the two natures. According to this doctrine there is a physical order of things and a metaphysical one; there is a mortal nature and an immortal one; there is the superior realm of “being” and the inferior realm of “becoming.” Generally speaking, there is a visible and tangible dimension and, prior to and beyond it, an invisible and intangible dimension that is the support, the source, and the true life of the former.

--from chapter one

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Revolt Against the Modern World is destined to remain an essential work and frame-of-reference for anyone seriously involved in native European spirituality." ― Michael Moynihan, Vortru

"Evola does not write in abstract philosophical language but in lively prose, filled with fascinating and concrete details. Given a basic grounding in history and culture, one can dip into the book anywhere and find new twists and reinterpretations. Such an encounter with a totally original mind is a rarity in these days of bland consensus, and a thrilling one whether one agrees with Evola or not." ― Joscelyn Godwin, Gnosis Magazine

About the Author

A controversial scholar, philosopher, and social thinker, Julius Evola (1898-1974) has only recently become known to more than a handful of English-speaking readers. An authority on the world's esoteric traditions, Evola wrote extensively on ancient civilizations and the world of Tradition in both East and West. Other books by Evola published by Inner Traditions include Eros and the Mysteries of Love, The Yoga of Power, The Hermetic Tradition, and The Doctrine of Awakening.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

No idea is as absurd as the idea of progress, which together with its corollary notion of the superiority of modern civilization, has created its own “positive” alibis by falsifying history, by insinuating harmful myths in people’s minds, and by proclaiming itself sovereign at the crossroads of the plebeian ideology from which it originated.

In order to understand both the spirit of Tradition and its antithesis, modern civilization, it is necessary to begin with the fundamental doctrine of the two natures. According to this doctrine there is a physical order of things and a metaphysical one; there is a mortal nature and an immortal one; there is the superior realm of “being” and the inferior realm of “becoming.” Generally speaking, there is a visible and tangible dimension and, prior to and beyond it, an invisible and intangible dimension that is the support, the source, and the true life of the former.
--from chapter one

This present “civilization” . . . has brought to all strata of society and to all races the following “gifts”: restlessness, dissatisfaction, resentment, the need to go further and faster, and the inability to possess one’s life in simplicity, independence, and balance. Modern civilization has pushed man onward; it has generated in him the need for an increasingly greater number of things; it has made him more and more insufficient to himself and powerless.
--from chapter thirty‑five

Even though it may be destined to disappear, modern civilization is certainly not the first to become extinct, nor is it the one after which none will follow. In the life of what is conditioned by space and time, lights are continually being put out and kindled again; cycles end and new ones begin. As I have said, the doctrine of the cycles was known to traditional man, and only the ignorance of modern man has induced him to believe that his civilization, which is characterized by the deepest roots in the temporal and contingent element, will enjoy a different and privileged fate.
--from the conclusion

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Inner Traditions; First Edition (October 1, 1995)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 375 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 089281506X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0892815067
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.79 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.2 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #31,113 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4 in Hermetism & Rosicrucianism
- #27 in General Anthropology
- #37 in Political Philosophy (Books)

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Julius Evola

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Julius Evola (1898-1974) has been one of the most misunderstood and controversial authors of the Twentieth century. Born in Rome, Evola began his pursuit of truth as a Dadaist painter and an Idealist philosopher, but quickly lost his taste for modernism and moved on to metaphysics, religion, and the occult. Encountering the work of René Guénon, who became a lifelong friend, Evola embraced his concept of the Tradition and his critique of the modern world, and spent the remainder of his long career elaborating his own, more individualised variation of the principles first explicated by Guénon, offering a unique view of how one can put into practice the doctrines of a genuine spiritual path. Believing that Tradition was an idea which should encompass the social as well as the spiritual world, Evola saw some hope for a remedy to the ills of modernity in Fascism, although he never joined the Party, and his writings on the subject were more critical than complimentary of the movement.

Nevertheless, his involvement branded him as a Fascist in the eyes of his opponents, and this label continues to follow his name to this day. After 1945, Evola remained aloof from politics, and attempted to define the most effective stance for an inhabitant of the modern age to adopt and still retain something of traditional wisdom. He remained almost entirely unknown in the English-speaking world until the 1990s, when Inner Traditions began publishing its translations of Evola’s works. Since then, Evola’s ideas have given rise to a new breed of spiritual seekers and anti-modernists in the English-speaking world. Arktos has published his books, Metaphysics of War, which is a collection of his essays from the 1930s and ‘40s; The Path of Cinnabar, which is his intellectual autobiography; Fascism Viewed from the Right, which is his post-war analysis of the positive and negative aspects of Italian Fascism; and Notes on the Third Reich, which performs a similar analysis upon German National Socialism.

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The individual in the world today is the "nomad of the asphalt"

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 5, 2015

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Julius Evola says a lot that goes unspoken in this Kali Yuga/dark age.

In a very real sense the world is lining up with with "New Russia against the west. It is shaping up to be a huge confrontation clearly Putain has read some of this material.

Evola short definition of tradition.
"The traditional world knew divine kingship. It knew the bridge between the two
worlds, namely, initiation; it knew the two great ways of approach to the
transcendent, namely, heroic action and contemplation; it knew the mediation, namely, rites
and faithfulness; it knew the social foundation, namely, the traditional law and the
caste system; and it knew the political earthly symbol, namely, the empire.

These are the foundations of the traditional hierarchy and civilization that have
been completely wiped out by the victorious "anthropocentric" civilization of our
contemporaries. "

He goes on to describe Royal tradition in great societies Egypt China ect.

This is at times hard to take. but much needed critique of what some call the current dark age.
For example Evola on the destruction of the family and women in Soviet Russia are "two sides of the same coin."

On America

"In America everything works toward this goal; conformism in terms of "matter of fact" and "like-mindedness"

On the matter of leaving people alone.

It has rightly been observed that every American (whether
he be named Wilson or Roosevelt, Bryan or Rockefeller) is an evangelist who can-
not leave his fellow men alone, who constantly feels the need to preach and work for
the conversion, purification, and elevation of each and everyone to the standard
moral level of America, which he believes to be superior and higher than all others.
This attitude originated with abolitionism during the Civil War and culminated with
the double democratic "crusade" in Europe envisioned by Wilson and by Roosevelt.
And yet even in minor matters, whether it be prohibitionist or the feminist, pacifist,
or environmental propaganda, we always find the same spirit, the same leveling and
standardizing will and the petulant intrusion of the collective and the social dimen-
sion in the individual sphere. Nothing is further from the truth than the claim that the
American soul is "open-minded" and unbiased; on the contrary, it is ridden with
countless taboos of which people are sometimes not even aware.

Evola points out the individual in the world today is the "nomad of the asphalt"

Again two sides of the same coin.
"Is all this that far off from Lenin's recommendation to ostracize "every view
that is supernatural or extraneous to class interests" and wipe out as an infectious
disease any residue of independent spirituality? Does not the technocratic ideology
arise both in America and in Russia from the ranks of secularized and all-powerful
men?"

Have women become strong under the Soviet and American system?

Evola on women. Would seem horribly offsenive in some aspects
The Soviet emancipation of the woman parallels that emancipation that in America the feminist idiocy,
deriving from "democracy" all its logical conclusions, had achieved a long time ago
in conjunction with the materialistic and practical degradation of man. Through count-
less and repeated divorces the disintegration of the family in America is characterized
by the same pace that we could expect in a society that knows only "comrades."
The women, having given up their true nature, believe they can elevate themselves
by taking on and practicing all kinds of traditionally masculine activities. These women
are chaste in their immorality and banal even in their lowest perversions; quite often
they find in alcohol the way to rid themselves of the repressed or deviated energies
of their own nature. Moreover, young women seem to know very little of the polarity
and the elemental magnetism of sex as they indulge in a comradely and sportive
promiscuity. These phenomena are typically American, even though
their contagious diffusion all over the world makes it difficult for people to trace their origin to America."

Somewhat critical towards Nationalism
"Even when nationalism speaks of "tradition," it has nothing to do with what used
to go by that name in ancient civilizations; it is rather a myth or fictitious continuity
based on a minimum common denominator that consists in the mere belonging to a
given group. Through the concept of "tradition," nationalism aims at consolidating a
collective dimension by placing behind the individual the mythical, deified, and
collectivized unity of all those who preceded him. In this sense, Chesterton was right to
call this type of tradition "the democracy of the dead." Here the dimension of -
transcendence, or of what is superior to history, is totally lacking. "

More in favor of caste
"In the context of a living tradition, the castes represented the natural "place" of
the earthly convergence of analogous wills and vocations; also, the regular and closed
hereditary transmission forged a homogeneous group sharing favorable organic, vi-
talistic, and even psychic proclivities in view of the regular development on the part
of single individuals of the aforesaid prenatal determinations or dispositions on the
plane of human existence. The individual did not "receive" from the caste his own
nature; rather, the caste afforded him the opportunity to recognize or remember his
own nature and prenatal will, while at the same Lime presenting him with a kind of
occult heritage related to the blood so that he would be able to realize the latter in a
harmonious way."

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Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 2, 2022

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Restoration - The Return to Tradition.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 19, 2001

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The Modern Age is falling and the West is in an era of decadence. The darkest of all the dark ages, what the Hindus called the Kali Yuga, is before us and Ragnarok (Twilight of the Gods) is at hand. Tradition has been trammeled upon by modern utilitarian, pragmatist, and collectivist thought and the once sacred has been made profane. Mass-man is so caught up in collectivist thought and meaningless activity that he cannot be saved. Only a select group of elite traditionalists preserving the traditional Weltanschauung can restore a transcendent order to the world after the fall of this era. An ascetic neoscholasticism is needed to preserve the tradition intact while this cycle comes to an end.
This is the message of Julius Evola in _Revolt Against the Modern World_. In this book, Evola fully dispels the modern myth of progress and reveals it as nothing more than a cover for a decadent society. Evola spends the first part of this book and much of the second part expostulating a traditional world order based on the idea of immanence-transcendence, before it's break-up at the end of the Middle Ages. He explains how an occult band of knights, members of the warrior caste, preserved tradition in the form of chivalry, during this period. However, with the advent of modern times, this tradition has largely been lost to us. Evola develops a myth of man's origins in a Golden Age, a Hyperborean race at the pole. A conflict developed between North and South, and between "solar" and "lunar" forms of religion. This conflict was at the heart of medieval Catholicism, and was reflected in the growing separation between priest and ruler. Originally, Evola argues, the Church sanctified the monarchy (the emperor) by a special rite. However, when this practice ended it made possible conflicting national loyalties to split up the medieval picture. With the Protestant Reformation which produced a strong emphasis on individualism more damage was done to the traditional world. As such, the world of tradition was lost and covered up by a world based more and more on utilitarian, hedonist, and ultimately collectivist principles, especially as witnessed in the French and Russian revolutions. This is the grim state of affairs we find ourselves in today. (Evola leaves off with a view of Europe "enclosed in the pincers" of America and the Soviet state, with America becoming more and more collectivist in nature and thinking.)
Man must return to the values which are transcendent if he ever is to create a meaningful life. And, this is precisely what is absent from today's empty, hollow society. The philosophies of radical individualism and collectivism, nationalism and communism, pervade every aspect of our existence. And, we have lost much. Only by a return to tradition can we hope to achieve a new existence with a newfound meaning.
Julius Evola was a fascinating character with much of interest to the dreamer and the mystic. Unfortunately, he allied himself with fascism briefly; however this is not the true basis for his thought.

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Maximilian

one of his best

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 18, 2020

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Evola's works are generally quite a difficult read for people with little knowledge of the esoteric world. For a newcomer, they are not works that are standalone. it is advisable you will need to have a internet search engine to help you out understand some of the things he discusses. For those who are comfortable to learn something new, this is a great book. Ride the Tiger is actually my favourite Evola book, But revolt against the modern world is a tight rival

10 people found this helpful

R. Cardim

Obra máxima do autor, é, portanto, de especial interesse para quem quer conhecê-lo.

Reviewed in Brazil 🇧🇷 on January 23, 2019

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Este extenso livro é dividido em duas partes: na primeira o autor descreve minuciosamente a visão do homem tradicional sobre tempo e o mundo e na segunda o autor analisa extensamente e com grande profundidade a história e a política sob essa perspectiva tradicional.
Surpreendente e totalmente diferente do que se lê nestes tempos em que as trevas e a ignorância dominam o mundo.
Para quem está cansado de mimimi e busca uma leitura que não é politicamente correta.

26 people found this helpful

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