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Bi-Weekly Discussion - PHIL 401: Spengler & Evola

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Brian B.
Bi-Weekly Discussion - PHIL 401: Spengler & Evola

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This is going to be an online meetup using Zoom. If you've never used Zoom before, don't worry — it's easy to use and free to join.

Click on the link above the schedule date/time to log in...

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PHIL 401: OSWALD SPENGLER & JULIUS EVOLA - WHY ARE THEIR IDEAS BEING REVIVED ON THE DISSIDENT RIGHT?

INTRODUCTION:
This meetup is titled "PHIL 401" like an upper-level college course because I'm tentatively imagining it as the third in a series of discussions where we delve into some lesser known political thinkers that wouldn't typically be covered in an introduction 101-level course on political philosophy. Specifically, we'll look at older thinkers (mostly dead now) whose ideas have recently been revived and try to figure out why some people feel they're relevant to today's concerns. (The previous entries in the PHIL 401 series include a meetup on Nietzsche back in Oct. 2024 and one on James Burnham & Christopher Lasch on June 1st.)

This meetup will focus on Oswald Spengler and Julius Evola, two early 20th-century thinkers whose ideas have been revived since 2017 or so on the far-right among groups various referred to as Neo-Reactionaries, the Alt-Right, and the Dissident Right - all of whom question many of the Enlightenment-era political ideals that most mainstream conservative pundits & Republican establishment politicians still swear by.

In the 1st section, we'll look at the "conservative revolution" in Weimar Germany that spawned a variety of ultranationalist & reactionary thinkers like Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Hermann Rauschning, Edgar Jung, Ernst Jünger, and Oswald Spengler. (Julius Evola, though an Italian, is often considered a "fellow traveller" of the German conservative revolutionaries.) Plunged into a deep "cultural despair" by Germany's loss in World War 1 and the social turmoil unleashed by the rapid pace of urbanization in the 1920s-30s, they drew inspiration from various elements of the 19th century, including Friedrich Nietzsche's contempt for Christianity's "slave morality"; the anti-modern & anti-rationalist tendencies of German Romanticism; the vision of an organic and naturally-organized community cultivated by the Volkisch movement; the Prussian tradition of militaristic and authoritarian nationalism; and their own experience of comradeship & violence on the front lines of the Great War.

We'll compare & contrast the "conservative revolutionaries" of the Weimar Republic with the Neoreactionary movement that's slowly risen to prominence in Europe & America since 2010 or so, with bloggers like Nick Land, Curtis Yarvin, Costin Alamariu, Charles Haywood, and Jonathan Keeperman gaining a following among young conservatives (especially in tech) and influence among Trump staffers. To get some insight into the intellectual milieu the audience of the neoreactionaries are involved in, we'll look Mana Afsari's widely-cited essay "Last Boys at the Beginning of History" that was written right after she attended the 2024 National Conservative conference (NatCon 4) in D.C. To her surprise, she found many of these young, well-educated Trump supporters had a deep interest in art, philosophy & history and see Trump as a "great man" of history whose masculinity, ambition & focus on national greatness is inspiring to them - especially since many of them live in liberal enclaves where these sentiments are frowned upon. We'll compare this to Tara Isabella Burton's Vox article from 2018 on "The religious hunger that drives Jordan Peterson’s fandom," which was prescient in noting the overlap between some of Jordan Peterson's ideas about mythology & masculinity and those of older reactionary thinkers like Julius Evola.

In the 2nd section, we'll look at some of the major ideas in Oswald Spengler's most famous work - the two-volume series The Decline of the West (1918 & 1922). We'll try to ascertain why his concerns about civilizational decline due to spiritual exhaustion & social degeneracy which were rooted in the Late Romanticism and Social Darwinism of fin-de-siecle Europe have become popular again a century later among some American conservatives. Spengler's newfound popularity is strange considering his magnum opus's hefty length (925 to 1,271 pages depending on the edition) and its old-fashioned writing style which is alternatingly bombastic & obscure. Spengler's revival is also odd because his view that the West's decline began with the Enlightenment clashes with the typical view of American conservatives who've hitherto tended to glorify the Enlightenment as the era of the Founders and typically thought of the early-to-mid 20th century as the apex of Western civilization, with decline beginning later with the social turmoil of the 1960s. If we have time, we may also touch upon Spengler's lesser-known follow-up work, Man and Technics (1932), that had a pessimistic view of modern industrial technology despite its contribution to Western civilization's geopolitical dominance.

In the 3rd section, we'll look at some of the major ideas in Julius Evola's most famous work - Revolt Against the Modern World - and compare & contrast them with Spengler's ideas about historical cycles & civilizational decline, and briefly discuss Evola's relationship with Mussolini's fascist movement. Evola had the advantage over Spengler in that he lived well into the post-war era and was able to adapt his mysticism to the New Age ideas that rose to popularity in the 1960s, so we'll also briefly touch upon some ideas from Evola's post-war works like Men Among the Ruins (1953), Eros and the Mysteries of Love (1958), Ride the Tiger (1961), The Path of Cinnabar (1963) and Fascism Viewed from the Right (1964). We'll try to ascertain why Evola's traditionalist take on "perennialism" (the belief in a primordial truth underlying all world religions) and his idea that we're living through a spiritual "dark age" have become popular among some American conservatives, especially the sort of young men who were previously drawn to Jordan Peterson's mix of Jungian archetypes & evolutionary psychology.

Please note this discussion will focus on aspects of Spengler & Evola's philosophies that have been recently revived or reinterpreted, and why that's happened over the last 8 years or so, rather than trying for a more comprehensive approach you'd see in a typical college philosophy class. The videos & articles I've linked under each section are intended to give you an idea of how/why some intellectually-inclined conservatives today are attracted to Spengler & Evola, but also how left-wing intellectuals & journalists are noticing and responding to this attraction and criticizing it. We'll consider how the latter may unintentionally be helping popularize them through a "Streisand effect" or what the French call succès de scandale, i.e. edgelords may be attracted to certain ideas that are labelled by the moral guardians of mainstream society as "evil" and "dangerous".

However, we probably shouldn't overstate the influence of Spengler & Evola on American society at large or the rank & file Trump supporters. A quick search of their names on Google Trends suggests they're still less well-known than their left-wing contemporary thinkers like Antonio Gramsci or Theodor Adorno who are hardly household names -- probably because the latter two are still assigned reading in some college courses. It also appears Spengler & Evola are less well-known than current neoreactionary figures like Curtis Yarvin & Darryl Cooper, who are in turn less well-known than mainstream conservative pundits like Ben Shapiro & Charlie Kirk.

RELEVANT MATERIAL FROM PAST MEETUPS:

Back in May, we had a meetup entitled "WWII Revisionism & The Right: Why Are Neocons & Populists Debating Churchill and the Holocaust?" In the Intro section, I explained that the recent debates over Tucker Carlson & Joe Rogan hosting podcaster Darryl Cooper to discuss his contrarian views on WWII are part of a "new brand of right-wing historical revisionism, which often includes a rejection of the Founding Fathers & formerly admired Republican presidents like Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower & Ronald Reagan; a sympathetic view of far-right governments of the past like the Confederacy, Nazi Germany, Francoist Spain & Pinochet's Chile; and admiration for a variety of reactionary intellectuals of the past (e.g. Joseph de Maitre, Friedrich Nietzsche, Oswald Spengler, Julius Evola, Martin Heidegger, Carl Schmitt)."

Since the 1st section deals with comparisons between Weimar Germany and modern-day America, it's worth checking out a Skeptic meetup from Jan. 2021 entitled "Bad History & Our Political Crisis". The 2nd section dealt with surface-level similarities & deeper structural differences between the tumultuous Weimar Republic that was subverted by the Nazis and the polarization & political violence of current U.S. politics that has many political scientists worried.

Since the 1st section will touch upon the growing gender divide in American politics that has opened many young men to radical right-wing ideas, it may be useful to refer back to a meetup from June 2024 entitled "Which Party's Coalition Will Crack First?", specifically the 1st section that looked at data on the growing gender divide among younger voters. This trend was confirmed by the Nov. 2024 presidential election and a Democrat-funded study released in June - the "Speaking with American Men Project" - offered more details.

In June 2022, we had a meetup entitled "Is 'Constitutional Conservatism' Dying?" In the 4th section, we looked at the debate between "post-liberal conservatives" like Sohrab Amari & Patrick Deneen and "constitutional conservatives" like David French & Jonah Goldberg over whether the latter's "live & let live" approach is undermining social conservatism. To the extent that neoreactionary thinkers like Curtis Yarvin & Costin Alamariu have become popular on the right since then, along with a revival of reactionary thinkers like Spengler & Evola, this suggests the "constitutional conservatism" that looked favorably on Enlightenment liberalism may be declining among conservative elites. Or if their influence is exaggerate, this may be a type of "highbrow moral panic" similar to liberal pundits' concerns about the malign influence of Leo Strauss & Samuel Huntington on neoconservatives in the George W. Bush administration.

As a contrast to Spengler & Evola's spiritual theories of civilizational cycles, it might be good to refer to Peter Turchin's more recent work on historical cycles which is more grounded in empiricism & materialism. Way back in March of 2017, we had a meetup entitled "The Tactics & Patterns of Political Violence" and in the 2nd section we looked at Turchin's "structural-demographic theory" of Turchin which is based on more flexible oscillations & feedback loops in demographics, wages & rent rooted in the ideas of classical economists like Thomas Malthus & David Ricardo, as well as the musings of the earlier Islamic thinker Ibn Khaldun on the fiscal cycles of empires and the rise & fall of "asabiyyah" (social solidarity). Turchin posits 3 intersecting social cycles that drive social conflict within societies (i.e. popular immiseration, intra-elite competition, state bureaucracy expansion), and he thinks American society has an uptick in social conflict about every 50 years. He also posits a longer 250-year "secular cycle" of social integration & disintegration.

DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO PREPARE FOR OUR DISCUSSION:

The videos & articles you see linked below are intended to give you a basic overview of Weimar Germany's "Conservative Revolution" and its relevance to the Neoreactionary movement today, as well as some of Oswald Spengler & Julius Evola's major works and the ideas contained therein. As usual, I certainly don't expect you to read all the articles prior to attending our discussion. The easiest way to prepare for our discussion is to just watch the numbered videos linked under each section - the videos come to about 80 minutes total. The articles marked with asterisks are just there to supply additional details. You can browse and look at whichever ones you want, but don't worry - we'll cover the stuff you missed in our discussion.

In terms of the discussion format, my general idea is that we'll address the topics in the order presented here. I've listed some questions under each section to stimulate discussion. We'll do our best to address most of them, as well as whatever other questions our members raise. I figure we'll spend about 30 minutes on each section.

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I. THE "CONSERVATIVE REVOLUTION" IN WEIMAR GERMANY & PARALLELS WITH AMERICA'S NEOREACTIONARY MOVEMENT & RECENT "BRO-REVOLUTION":

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1a) Pomen, "German Conservative Revolution" (video - 15:01 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAxXOMZSTXo

1b) Shadi Hamid & Santiago Ramos w/ Mana Afsari: "Why do 'Sensitive Young Men' Love Trump?" (video - 53:39 min, listen to 12:20)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRpnagok8XU

II. SPENGLER'S THE DECLINE OF THE WEST (TWO VOLUMES: 1918, 1922) & ITS MODERN REVIVAL

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2a) Michael Button, "Is Western Civilization about to Collapse?" (video - 14:06 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDm0RLkX0bI

2b) Auron MacIntyre, "Spengler On Birthrates, Feminism, And Collapse" (video - 9:13 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCR3S59QbPE

III. EVOLA'S REVOLT AGAINST THE MODERN WORLD (1934), HIS POST-WAR WORKS & THEIR MODERN REVIVAL:

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3a) Democracy Now w/ Joshua Green, "A Look at How a Racial Theorist Tied to Mussolini & Hitler Influenced Steve Bannon" (video - 14:28 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVoXgnZ3V7k

3b) Carl Benjamin & Harry Robinson (Lotus Eaters), "Julius Evola’s Fascism Viewed From the Right" (video - 15:35 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XxkC8BEeDQ

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