Tag: Julius Evola

Political classification and economic reductionism

At Taki’s Magazine E. Christian Kopf writes:

As conservatives and right-wingers like Oswald Spengler, Julius Evola, Whittaker Chambers and many others have pointed out for over a century, free marketeers (19th century liberals or modern libertarians) differ from Marxists and democratic socialists (20th century liberals) only superficially, while sharing fundamental traits that range from a commitment to economic reductionism (what Albert Jay Nock and Wilhelm Röpke called “economism”) to a pervasive obsession with globalism. Gutzman is right about himself and his fellow libertarians.  They are left-wingers and do not differ in fundamentals from other left-wingers.

There are number of problems with this statement.  First of all, what constitutes a “superficial” or “fundamental” trait is arbitrary. For any two schools of political thought one can find similarities that can be designated as fundamental and differences that can be designated as superficial. For example, one could just as well argue that the policy differences between liberals and traditionalists are superficial and their shared tendency to believe in the existence of non-material justifications for political authority (“human rights”, “religion”) are fundamental.  From this perspective, the real dichotomy is between positivist and superstitious political thought.

Secondly, “economic reductionism” is not a normative political view but an approach to study human interaction. Economic reductionism, and its practical application “rational choice,” may yield new knowledge or not, but it cannot be dismissed for political reasons. Despite its limitations, the economic rationality postulate has a number of advantages over its competitors. As the self-designated “conservative anarchist” Anthony de Jasay writes in his piece ‘Rational Choice in Conflict’:

…the “economic approach” really reduces to the consistent application of a workmanlike rationality postulate. It is an approach that recommends itself, not because it can conquer all, but because without the postulate, deductive reasoning about human behavior is not possible; instead “anything goes,” any retrospective explanation is as good as any other, and no discipline can be imposed to curb prattle and mumbo-jumbo. In fact…reference to rationality is required even for the concept of irrational action to have meaning. The achievement of the postulate is not so much in the new knowledge it is producing in fields to which it is a relative newcomer–notably sociology, political theory, law, and perhaps history too, though the last is a moot point–but in blowing away the vari-colored fogbanks of historicism, institutionalism, behaviorism, structuralism, functionalism, dialectical materialism, and the rest.

It may be true that the differences between classical and modern liberalism are trivial but, as argued here, this perspective does not take into account that the case for libertarianism can be argued on completely different Hobbesian, “mechanistic” grounds.  Would this kind of liberalism still be “fundamentally” the same as Lockean rights-based liberalism, or would this present a major departure from the liberal tradition?  Similarly, if traditionalist/ reactionary conclusions are reached using a strictly “materialist” outlook, would this be considered a “right wing” view?

As should be evident from these thought experiments, there is some merit to the view that there are serious limitations to the left-right dichotomy. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is whether political views are consistent with empirical observation and/or reflect coherent reasoning. No amount of (re)classification of political views  or “essentialist” searching for the “true” meaning of a word can substitute for this.

Jonathan Bowden’s Mad

From the publisher who brought us a new and expanded edition of L.A. Rollins’ excellent “The Myth of Natural Rights” comes  a rare little book by Jonathan Bowden called “Mad.” The book was originally published in 1989 but I have not been able to find much information about it. Before publication Nine-Banded Books announced it as a “Stirnerite belle letters.”

The logical positivist philosopher Hans Reichenbach wrote in his seminal work “The Rise of Scientific Philosophy”:

“The philosopher…appears incapable of mastering his desire to know. Throughout the history of philosophy we find the philosophical mind associated with the imagination of the poet; where the philosopher asked, the poet answers.”

A brief glance at a random page of Bowden’s Mad will suffice to identify the phenomenon that Reichenbach is talking about. The author identifies a dazzling number of relations between historical, sociological, political,  and psychological phenomena without providing little epistemological clues about how he has established such wisdom. For example, we learn that “death is man’s cardinal reality: an act of danger, complete self-absorption, becoming, in the moment of transfiguration, complete self-negation.”………Right. Better to treat Mad as an powerful and imaginative  form of literature!

Art exists for its own sake, and rarely benefits from being analyzed. As Bowden states himself, “science and art are brought into conflict by those who have the interests of neither near to their hearts.”

So I will suffice with quoting a number of representative passages from Mad to give you a taste of the book:

“Those who don’t lie down and die soon discover that happiness and intellect are at opposite sides of the pole.”

“Life’s essential fragility is preserved with due regard for its importance. We know that we’re perched on a knife-edge  and the slightest oscillation kills us.”

“In essence life is conflict between those in control and those endeavoring to throw off control.”

And as the writer reminds us repeatedly, “sex is the mark of the beast married to the spirit of the divine.”

In what is my favorite passage of the book, the author’s knowledge of the history of human thought meets his bleak outlook on the human condition, culminating in the following deadpan, but dead-on statement:

“Prior to the establishment of a state, life is nasty, brutish and short. Nothing changes once a state’s created. Only the longevity of the participants alters. And even that’s arbitrary.”

There is structure to Bowden’s MADness. One detects an outlook on life  similar to thinkers such as Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, Marquis de Sade, Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Stirner and Ragnar Redbeard. It should not be completely surprising, then, that  Jonathan Bowden has become associated with the “New Right,” and less fortunate, petty party politics. Despite his interest in thinkers associated with esoteric Traditionalism such as Julius Evola, it seems that his elitist moment of distancing himself from mass politics still has to come.

Bowden’s H.P. Lovecraft: Aryan Mystic is a typical example of New Right writing. Bowden rightly identifies Lovecraft’s “mechanistic” and “ultra-conservative” outlook  on life but then drowns  the good man in the obligatory occultist purple prose. And that is unfortunate  because it is not hard to  picture a unique and coherent Nietzschean/Lovecraftian worldview that is strictly positivist in its epistemology, and  distinctly reactionary in its rejection of egalitarianism and democracy as an alternative to socialism, (classical) liberalism and contemporary conservatism.  But as a book about Thinkers of the Right indicates, the Traditionalist Right is just not capable of “remaining true to the Earth,” as Nietzsche put it, and remains unified in its case against “materialism” and flirtations with mysticism.

In the same piece, Bowden draws attention to H.P. Lovecraft’s publication The Conservative. Despite the growing interest in Lovecraft’s writings, prevailing orthodoxy does not make it likely that someone will produce a complete and handsome  collection of this vehicle of Lovecraft’s most reactionary thoughts  anytime soon.

Nine-Banded Books, are you listening?!

Beyond politics

In the introduction to his collection of writings, Socratic Puzzles, Robert Nozick writes that  he never responded to the sizable literature on Anarchy, State and Utopia. His natural inclination would be to defend his views. As Nozick notes, “How could I learn that my views were mistaken if I thought about them always with defensive juices flowing.” Nozick’s confession raises a more general question for an individual as he thinks about society and his place in it. How can one pursue reason and virtue when “defensive juices” are continuously being triggered by politics and ideology?

The prospect of a de-politicized society seems remote. When individuals frame their interests as a function of collective choice, perpetual strife and division is born with it. The habit to look at society as a set of problems to be solved (whether through “piecemeal engineering” and tinkering or fanatical pursuit of grandiose ideas) instead of seeing it as “a cooperative venture for mutual advantage” (as John Rawls phrased it), cultivates and reinforces the political consequentialism that permeates contemporary opinion.  Far from being the defining element of modern liberalism, this teleological perspective on society unites most modern political thinking as expressed in appeals to “Fairness,” “Growth,” “Freedom” as values that should guide public policy.

It seems counterintuitive for (classical) liberal thought not to propose the pursuit of liberty as a goal for society. But as Anthony de Jasay points out in Before Resorting to Politics,

The question of whether freedom is valuable or a free society is good ought not to enter at all into a properly thought-out political doctrine, liberal or other. It should be resolutely ignored. Whichever way the question were answered would, it seems to me, inevitably steer us in a teleological direction, and undermine the foundations on which the society that we could consider free might stand and survive.

In his book Natural Rights and History, the philosopher Leo Strauss identified Thomas Hobbes as a thinker within the Epicurean tradition that perceived man as an a-political animal. But according to Strauss, Hobbes

…gives that a-political view a political meaning. He tries to instill the spirit of political idealism into the hedonistic tradition. He thus became the creator of political hedonism, a doctrine which has revolutionized human life everywhere on a scale never yet approached by any other teaching.

But instead of following Strauss in his rejection of Hobbes’ mechanistic worldview, we only reject his “political hedonism” and restore Hobbes to its a-political Epicurean tradition by rejecting his identification of individual choice with collective choice.

The German philosopher of science Regard Radnitzky notes that “there is a striking analogy between (a) the dilemma of contractarianism in political philosophy and (b) the “justificationist” dilemma in German epistemology.” Whereas the traditional Hobbesian argument for the state does not come off the ground because of the lack of an enforcer to enforce the contract to create Leviathan, the quest for certainty leads to descriptive statements without ground or an infinite regress of arguments. If rational choice does not require political choice and the search for objective values to inform public policy will be recognized as an occult endeavor, the Aristotelian image of man as a political animal will collapse and Epicurean withdrawal from politics may take its place.

At the 2005 Austrian Scholars Conference, Martin Masse spoke favorably of Epicurus as a forerunner of libertarian philosophy:

Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, were all statists to various degrees, glorified political involvement, and devised political programs for their audiences of rich and well-connected aristocrats. Epicurus focused on the individual search for happiness, counseled not to get involved in politics because of the personal trouble it brings, and thought that politics was irrelevant….He had no political program to offer and one can find no concept of collective virtues or order or justice in his teachings….

The Epicurean wise man will keep the covenant and not harm others not because he wishes to comply with some moral injunction being imposed from above, but simply because that’s the best way to pursue his happiness and keep his tranquility of mind.

Epicurus believed that tranquility of mind could not be found in political involvement, that we can choose life without fearing death, and rejected superstition in favor of empiricism. His contractarian theory of justice anticipated a philosophical tradition that looks for the source of morals in agreement (”neither to harm nor be harmed”), but that treats politics with skepticism.

The 20th century witnessed a progressive decomposition of liberal thought and the celebration of a politicized society. No person, or according to some people, no atom, should be exempt from the special plans that are being made for this world. Although the 2008 financial meltdown could have given pause to those that see society as a means to an end, the emerging wisdom is that the current problems were caused by a lack of control instead of a lack of restraint.

During the final years of his life the reactionary thinker Julius Evola had to face the question of how a  radical traditionalist was to act in a world that had evolved into the opposite of what he stood for. Evola recommended a detached life, or as the wisdom goes, “to be in the world, but not of it.” He advocated  apolitea, the withdrawal from contemporary politics and abandonment of political activism.  Instead of fighting the current age he recommended to “ride the tiger” until the tiger is exhausted.  One does not have to follow Evola in his obscurantist philosophies to appreciate this perspective.

This is part 3 in a 3 part series on voting, elections and politics.

Part 1: The calculus of voting
Part 2: The addiction to politics