THINKERS OF THE RIGHT By Dr K R Bolton
“…One of the most enlightening studies of the interwar Right I’ve encountered in years.” Dr Paul Gottfried. Appraisal y Dr D !i"#alopoulos “I do not know Kerry R. Bolton in erson. !onetheless" when a coule of years ago I was doing further research on !orthern #irus Issue and I was looking for a short $ut accurate %a$riele d’&nnun'io’s $iograhy" I found" in an &thens $ooksho" his Thinkers of wo nderful $ook. (or it is one of the very few in which the term the Right. In my mind" it is a wonderful “Right” is well)defined. &nd when I say “well)defined” I mean that “Right” is given its true content and $y no means the one its adversaries want to give. &s a matter of fact" K. R. Bolton rovides" in this $ook" his readers with an answer to a very old *uery+ ,material- rogress’ is for humankind’s $est or worst/ &nd linking the Right with 0radition he accomlishes a truly remarka$le achievement" namely to oint out solutions to humans’ trials very different from the conventional ones. 1is $ook" moreover" is a scholarly written one. 1is d’&nnun'io $iograhy ,. 23) 34- is an e5emlary one. (or though %a$riele d’&nnun'io’s memory is still honoured in %reece" no$ody has" so far" develoed the (iume issue so well as K. R. Bolton. In oint of fact" the e5ressions Bolton uses" “Renaissance 6ity)7tate” and “8eague of Oressed !ations”" clearly show that the !ew 9ealand scholar has very well understood what was going on 7outhern #uroe’s coasts a$out ninety years ago….” Dr Di$itris !i"#alopoulos &thens" &ugust 244: 1982 to 1994 Law School of the University of Salonika; 1989 – 1997 Naval War Collee of !reece; 199"# 2""" $irector of the %&se&' %&se&' of the City of (thens) *resently $irector $irector of the +,le&therios -eni.elos/ -eni.elos/ 0nstit&te for istorical St&$ies)
T#in%ers of t#e Ri&#t" rivately u$lished in 2442" and reu$lished rofessionally in 2443 $y 8uton ;u$lications"
?>@A:)4). Prea$le 0he $ook was written to deal with the olitical and ideological $eliefs of certain of the intelligentsia who turned to the “Right” after a eriod of crisis ,Corld Car I in most cases-" although the ost Corld Car II Daanese novelist Eukio Fishima is included. 0hese writers resent an interesting collection and an enigma" as much of the intelligentsia of the eriod is usually associated with the 8eft. Chile the latter often found their most e5treme e5ression in communism" those dealt with in Thinkers of the Right found found their most e5treme form in (ascism. Fost however eventually reGected (ascism as $eing too much of a collectivist movement" and they remained susicious of any mass movements of either Right or 8eft.
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In writing the $ook I aimed to e5lain the reasons why some of the literati dearted from their 8eft)wing counterarts and em$raced varieties of what might $e $roadly termed 0he Right. 0his seems to $e one of the few comrehensive and wide)ranging $ooks on the su$Gect" at Rea"tionaries' least in the #nglish language" the only others known to me $eing T#e Rea"tionaries' (eats) *e+is) Pound) Eliot) *a+ren"e' A Study of t#e Anti,De$o"rati" Anti,De$o"rati" Intelli&entsia Intelle"tuials $y Dohn R. 1arrison" 7chocken Books" !E" @=AH and Jr Dohn 6arey’s T#e Intelle"tuials - t#e !asses" (a$er (a$er" 8ondon" @==2. 1oefully" Thinkers of the Right then then rovides an added contri$ution to the knowledge of the su$Gect and a different ersective in understanding. ,244=-.
vinde5Lclear.net.n' M 2442 Bolton ; O Bo5 @A2H Kaiti >2>2 !ew 9ealand K R Bolton is a (ellow of the &cademy of 7ocial and ;olitical Research" ,htt+NNwww.academy)of)social)and)olitical)research.com-. Recent u$lished works include+ “Russia and 6hina+ an aroaching conflict/”" Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Research" Cashington" 7ummer 244=-" “0he 0rotskyist &genda &gainst the (amily”" 6KR" 7ociology Jeartment" Foscow 7tate .44 including ostage" from+ Renaissance ;ress ; O Bo5 @A2H ;araaraumu Beach >2>2 !ew 9ealand
ONTENTS ;reface P (riedrich !iet'sche and Oswald 7engler 6hater @ J 1 8awrence 6hater 2 J’&nnun'io 6hater 3 Farinetti 2
6hater ? C B Eeats 6hater > Knut 1amsun 6hater A 1enry Cilliamson 6hater H #'ra ;ound 6hater : Cyndham 8ewis 6hater = Roy 6am$ell 6hater @4 ; R 7tehensen 6hater @@ Re5 (air$urn 6hater @2 Eukio Fishima 6hater @3 Dulius #vola
Prefa"e NIET/SHE AND SPENG*ER Friedri"# Niet0s"#e and Oswald 7engler loom large over the of the 24 th 6entury hori'on of #uroean thought. !iet'sche was influential in the thinking of 7engler" whilst either one or $oth had a maGor imact on the thinking of most of the writers we deal with herein. Both were rimarily concerned with *uestions of decay and the ossi$ilities of regeneration. Both held that Cestern 6ivilisation had entered a cycle of decadence that was articularly evident in the cultural" moral and siritual sheres. 0hey were therefore of great relevance to many of the new generation of artists" writers and oets who emerged from the (irst Corld Car" a war which made transarent the crisis of Cestern 6ivilisation which had really entered its cycle of decay several centuries reviously. 0he #nglish and (rench Revolutions" in the name of “0he ;eole”" marked the overthrow of the old order $y the new $ourgeoisie" the victory of money over blood!famil lineage. Jemocracy for many of the cultural elite was not a olitical creed to $e welcomed $ut rather a symtom" like $olshevism" of the rise of the masses and $ehind them of the rule of money+ of *uantity over *uality" with the arts $eing the first to $e degraded. !iet'sche and 7engler stand as the great thinkers that sought to enno$le" in a tide of intellectualism that degraded man and culture. &gainst them stood Far5 and his oosite num$ers" the li$eral economic theorists" who make of everything a matter of economics and (reud who reduces man and culture to a mass of se5ual comle5es. In addition Jarwin" who reduces man to $eing Gust another animal/ 0o !iet'sche the meaning of man was that of “ o"ercoming# his resent state" to 1ill higher forms of e5istence" which are ultimately e5ressed in the arts. 0his was seen as $eing 3
em$odied in the great men of history. 0hese great men" creators via their own individual will" are searated from the mass of humanity $y a great gulf. Fan is the tightroe $etween animal and $"erman" %A rope o"er an abss. &hat is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal#.
&mong the first sentences uttered $y !iet'scheQs rohet 9arathustra are these words that define the urose of man" %' teach ou the $"erman. (an is something that should o"ercome. &hat ha"e ou done to o"ercome him)# %All creatures ha"e hitherto created something beond themsel"es and do ou *ant to be the ebb of this great tide and return to the animals rather than o"ercome man)# %The $"erman is the meaning of the earth. +et our *ill sa The $"erman shall be the meaning of the earth#.
Jesite the Jarwinian interretations that have $een laced on !iet'sche" it was a reGection of Jarwinism that romted !iet'sche to herald the $"erman as an act of 1ill rather than as evolution through random genetic mutation. 0he human e5istence $eyond any other organism is only Gustified $y culture" which is the erfection of nature through human Cill. “This basic idea of culture in so far as it assigns onl one task to e"er single one of us: to promote inside and outside of oursel"es the generation of the philosopher, the artist, and the saint, and thus to *ork at the perfection of nature” -ntimel (editations. In the same essay !iet'sche states that the goal of humanity lies in its “ highest specimens#. !ature wants to make the life of man %significant and meaningful b generating the philosopher and artist/# 0here$y not only is man redeemed $ut nature herself. Cith the central focus of history" of mankind" of nature herself $eing eitomised $y the artist it is no wonder that !iet'scheQs hilosohy caught the imagination of so many of the creative elite. ;refiguring 7engler with a reGection of history as lineal and rogressive" !iet'sche states that what comes later in a civilisation is not necessarily what is $est. Chat is $est is reflected in the highest secimens" the artists and hilosohers" where the gulf that searates these higher men from the average citi'en is greater than that which searates the average man from the chiman'ee. 1ence #'ra ;oundQs !iet'schean attitudes towards the artist and the mass was reflected $y many other contemoraries. 7ome such as Cyndham 8ewis and #vola were even susicious of (ascism as $eing Qtoo democraticQ" too much of a mass movement. ;ound states+ “The artist has no longer an belief or suspicion that the mass, the half!educated simpering general/ can in an *a share his delights/The aristocrac of the arts is read again for its ser"ice. (odern ci"ilisation has bred a race *ith brains like those of rabbits, and... *e artists *ho ha"e been so long despised are about to take o"er control .” ?
J 1 8awrence went so far as to see himself as a coming dictator who would relieve the masses of the Q$urden of democracyQ" whilst JQ&nnun'io did actually $ecome a ruler of his own 7tate ,(iume- for a time" where the arts were the focus. !iet'sche demanded new law ta$lets uon which would $e inscri$ed the word Qno$leQ 0arathustra. 0he creative elite make their own laws through their acts of creation" and are not constrained $y the democratic mo$ with their laws" morals and values that are designed for the control of the average. 1ence" !iet'scheQs rohet 9arathustra counsels higher man to stay aloof from the masses" and from the market lace" as the masses will drag the higher man down to the dead level of Qe*ualityQ with such doctrines as democracy. 0he $"erman would $e willed into creation $y 1igher Fen striving to Qself)overcomeQ" to reach $eyond themselves through hardshi uon oneself. 0he !iet'schean $rute is one of many distortions of !iet'sche" who states that the strong are comassionate towards the lesser. Chilst !iet'sche laces culture as the criterion for defining the value of $oth societies and individuals" Oswald 7engler develos a morhology of culture as the $asis of historical analysis. Both hilosohers elevate the cultural $eyond the contemorary fads of economic" se5ual and $iological determinism" as the $asis of their world)views. 7engler in the reface to The 1ecline of The &est states that the two figures to whom he owes most are %oethe for QmethodQ and !iet'sche for the “2uestioning facult” 1ence" 7engler was also of great interest to the new generation of artists" oets and authors. 7engler e5lains that $y drawing on analogous cycles of history in each of the civilisations he could e5lain how and why Cestern 6ivilisation was undergoing a cycle of decay. 8ike !iet'sche" 7engler sees democracy" arliamentarianism" egalitarianism and the rise of money and the merchant on the ruins of the old aristocracy of $irth ,or $lood- as symtoms of the decadence that are reducing the arts to the lowest denominator. Fany of the cultural elite were of a mystical nature" such as Eeats and #vola. and their knowledge of the cyclic myths of many ancient cultures of #ast and Cest and the &mericas accorded with the cyclical conclusions drawn $y 7engler. In his influential magnum opus “The 1ecline of the &est ” 7engler reGects the Jarwinian" lineal" rogressive aroach to history" e5laining+ %' see in place of that empt figment of one linear histor... the drama of a number of might cultures, each ha"ing its o*n life3 its o*n death... Each culture has its o*n ne* possibilities of self!e4pression, *hich arise, ripen, deca and ne"er return... ' see *orld histor as a picture of endless formations and transformations, of the mar"ellous *a4ing and *aning of organic forms. The professional historian, on the other hand, sees it as a sort of tape*orm industriousl adding to itself one epoch after another#.
0his cyclic aroach to history is organic. It sees cultures as living entities with a $irth" a flourishing" a decay and death. #ach civilisation" although self)contained" has the same cyclic hases" which 7engler identifies with the four seasons. 0he winter hase is the advanced civilisation where the city relaces the country" rofit relaces heroism" and the merchant relaces the aristocrat. &s for the social castes" these cease to have a cultural value and are mere economic reflections. 0he rootless city dwelling roletariat relacing the rural yeoman and craftsman" the merchant relacing the warrior" and the $anker relacing the no$le. 1ence" what is often regarded as new’" rogressive’" modern’ and western’" the >
rise of a$ortion" family lanning" of $anking ractices" of arliaments and voting maGorities" of feminism" socialism" revolutions... have already $een layed out in the QwinterQ hase of rior civilisations. 7engler descri$es it thus+ %5ou, the &est, are ding. ' see in ou all the characteristic stigma of deca. ' can pro"e that our great *ealth and our great po"ert, our capitalism and our socialism our *ars and our re"olutions, our atheism and our pessimism and our cnicism, our immoralit, our birth control that is bleeding ou from belo* and killing ou off at the top in our brains. ' can pro"e to ou that these *ere characteristic marks of the ding ages of ancient states... Ale4andria and Greece and neurotic Rome...#
Fany of the new generation of writers were thus drawn to 7englerQs analysis of the way the rule of money" of money values and of the money $aronQs control of olitics" had $ecome determinators of the tastes of a civilisation in its final cycle. 0hey were concerned with overthrowing the rule of money and returning civilisation to its QsringtimeQ where the arts flourished under the atronage of $orn no$les. Eeats and #vola look to certain eochs of the Fedieval eriod of the Cest. #'ra ;ound sought the overthrow of the $anks through the economic theory of 7ocial 6redit" 1amsun and Cilliamson wished for a return to rural values in lace of those of the 6ity" many were attracted to (ascism. 7engler states that in the final hase of the winter cycle there arises a reaction against the rule of money. Foney marches on reaching its eak then e5hausts its ossi$ilities+ %'t thrust into the life of the eoman6s countrside and set the earth mo"ing3 its thought transformed e"er son of handicraft: toda it presses "ictoriousl upon industr, to make the producti"e *ork of entrepreneur and engineer and labourer alike, its spoil. The machine *ith its human retinue. The real 2ueen of this centur is in danger of succumbing to a stronger po*er. (one, also. 's beginning to lose its author it, and the last conflict is at hand in *hich ci"ilisation recei"es its conclusi"e form ! the conflict bet*een mone and blood.#
0he rule of money will $e overcome $y new Q6aesarsQ" strong leaders not harnessed to the lutocrats and their arliaments and media. In 7englerQs last $ook" The 7our of 1ecision, he sees the (ascist legions in Italy as heralds of the Qnew 6aesarismQ. Fussolini was much imressed with $oth !iet'sche and 7engler. 7engler resumes+ %The s*ord is "ictorious o"er mone, the master- will subdue again the plunderer- will . .. (one is o"erthro*n and abolished b blood. +ife is alpha an d omega, the cosmic stream in microcosmic form... And so ! the drama of a high culture ! that *ondrous *orld of deities, arts, thoughts, battles, cities ! closes *ith the return of the pristine facts of blood eternal that is one and the same as the e"er!circling cosmic flo*#. #apter 2
D.H. *A1RENE A
Fy great religion is a $elief in the $lood J1 8awrence @::>)@=34 is acknowledged as one of the most influential novelists of the 24th 6entury. 1e wrote novels and oetry as acts of olemic and rohecy. (or 8awrence saw himself as $oth a rohet and the har$inger of a !ew Jawn and as a leader)saviour who would sacrificially accet the tremendous resonsi$ilities of olitical ower as a dictator so that humanity could $e free to get $ack to $eing human. Fuch of 8awrenceQs outlook is reminiscent of Dung and !iet'sche $ut" although he was ac*uainted with the works of $oth" his hilosohy develoed indeendently. 8awrence was $orn in #astwood" a coal)mining town near !ottingham" into a family of colliers. 1is father was a heavy drinker" and his motherQs commitment to 6hristianity im$ued the house with continual tension $etween the arents. &t college" he was an agnostic and determined to $ecome a oet and an author. 1aving reGected the faith of his mother" 8awrence also reGected the counter)faith of science" democracy" industrialisation and the mechanisation of man. *O3E) PO1ER AND THE 4DARK *ORD4 (or 8awrence caitalism destroyed the soul and the mystery of life" as did democracy and e*uality. 1e devoted most of his life to finding a new)yet)old religion that will return the mystery to life and reconnect humanity to the cosmos. 1is religion was animistic and antheistic" seeing the soul as ervasive" %od as nature" and humanity as the way %od is self)realised. 0he relations $etween all things are $ased on duality )oosites in tension. 0his duality is e5ressed in two ways+ love and ower. One without the other results in im$alance. 1ence" to 8awrence" the love of 6hristianity is a sentimentality that destroys the natural hierarchy of social relations and the ine*uality $etween individuals. 0he criti*ue of 6hristianity is reminiscent of !iet'sche.
8ove and ower are the two threat vi$rations which hold individuals together" and emanate unconsciously from the leadershi class. Cith ower" there is trust" fear and o$edience. Cith love" there is rotection and the sense of safety. 8awrence considers that most leaders have $een out of $alance with one or the other. 0hat is the message of his novel Kangaroo. 1ere the #nglishman Richard 8ovat 7omers although attracted to the fascist ideology of Kangaroo and his Jiggers movement" ultimately reGects it as reresenting the same tye of enervating love as 6hristianity" the love of the masses" and ursues his own individuality. 0he *uestion for 7omers is that of acceting his own dark master ,DungQs 7hadow of the reressed unconscious-.
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Chat is re*uired" once the dark lord has returned to menQs souls in lace of undifferentiated QloveQ is a social order $ased on a hierarchical yramid culminating in a dictator. 0he dictator would relieve the masses of the $urden of democracy. 0his new social order would $e $ased on the $alance of ower and love" something of a return to the medieval ideal of rotection and o$edience. 0he ordinary folk would gain a new worth $y giving o$edience to the leader" who would in turn assume an awesome resonsi$ility and would lead $y virtue of his $eing circuited to the cosmos. 0hrough such a redeeming hilosoher)king individuals could reconnect cosmically and assume 1eroic roortions through o$edience to 1eroes. %ive homage and allegiance to a hero" and you $ecome yourself heroic" it is the law of man. HEROI 3ITA*IS! 1ence" heroic vitalism is central to 8awrenceQs ideas. 1is whole olitical concet is antithetical to what he called the three fanged serent of 8i$erty" #*uality" (raternity. Instead" you must have a government $ased on good" $etter and $est.
In @=2@ he wrote+ I donQt $elieve in either li$erty or democracy. I $elieve in actual" sacred" insired authority. It is mere intellect" soulless and mechanistic" which is at the root of our ro$lems it restrains the assions and kills the natural. 1is essay on 8ady 6hatterleyQs 8over deals with the social *uestion. It is the mechanistic" arising from ure intellect" devoid of emotion" assion and all that is imlied in the $lood ,instinct- that has caused the ills of modern society. 0his again is the tragedy of social Itfe today. In the old #ngland" the curious $lood connection held the classes together. 0he s*uires might $e arrogant violent" $ullying and unGust" yet in some ways they were at one with the eole" art of the same $lood stream. Ce feel it in Jefoe or (ielding. &nd then in the mean Dane &usten" it is gone...7o" in 8ady 6hatterleyQs 8over we have a man" 7ir 6lifford" who is urely a ersonality" having lost entirely all connection with his fellow men and women" e5cet those of usage. &ll warmth is gone entirely" the hearth is cold the heart does not humanly e5ist. 1e is a ure roduct of our civilisation" $ut he is the death of the great humanity of the world. &gainst this allid intellectualism" the roduct the late cycle of a civilisation" writing in @=@3 8awrence osited+ Fy great religion is a $elief in the $lood" as the flesh $eing wiser than the intellect. Ce can go wrong in our minds $ut what our $lood feels and $elieves and says" is always true. 0he great cultural figures of our time" including 8awrence" Eeats" ;ound and 1amsun" were 0hinkers of the Blood" men of instinct" which has ermanence and eternity. Rightly" the term intellectual $ecame synonymous since the @=34s with the 8eft" $ut these intellectuals were roducts of their time and the century $efore. 0hey are detached from tradition" urooted" alienated $ereft of instinct and feeling. 0he first Q0hinkers of the BloodQ chamioned e5cellence and no$ility" influenced greatly $y !iet'sche" and were susicious" if not terrified of the mass levelling results of democracy and its offsring communism. In :
democracy and communism" they saw the destruction of culture as the ursuit of the su$lime. 0heir oosite num$ers" the intellectuals of the 8eft" cele$rated the rise of mass) man in a erverse manner that would" if communism were universally triumhant" mean the destruction of their own li$erty to create a$ove and $eyond the state commissariats. 8awrence $elieved that socialistic agitation and unrest would create the climate" in which he would $e a$le to gather around him a choice minority" more fierce and aristocratic in sirit to take over authority in a fascist like cou" then I shall come into my own. 8awrenceQs re$ellion is against that late or winter hase of civilisation" which the Cest has entered as" descri$ed $y 7engler. It is marked $y the rise of the city over the village" of money over $lood connections. 8ike 7engler" 8awrenceQs concetion of history is cyclic" and his idea of society organic. 1e wished to reudiate uct of our civilisation" $ut he is the death of the great humanity of the world. &gainst this allid intellectualism" the roduct the late cycle of a civilisation" writing in @=@3 8awrence osited+ Fy great religion is a $elief in the $lood" as the flesh $eing wiser than the intellect. Ce can go wrong in our minds $ut what our $lood feels and $elieves and says" is always true. 0he great cultural figures of our time" including 8awrence" Eeats" ;ound and 1amsun" were 0hinkers of the Blood" men of instinct" which has ermanence and eternity. Rightly" the term intellectual $ecame synonymous since the @=34s with the 8eft" $ut these intellectuals were roducts of their time and the century $efore. 0hey are detached from tradition" urooted" alienated $ereft of instinct and feeling. 0he first Q0hinkers of the BloodQ chamioned e5cellence and no$ility" influenced greatly $y !iet'sche" and were susicious" if not terrified of the mass levelling results of democracy and its offsring communism. In democracy and communism" they saw the destruction of culture as the ursuit of the su$lime. 0heir oosite num$ers" the intellectuals of the 8eft" cele$rated the rise of mass) man in a erverse manner that would" if communism were universally triumhant" mean the destruction of their own li$erty to create a$ove and $eyond the state commissariats. 8awrence $elieved that socialistic agitation and unrest would create the climate" in which he would $e a$le to gather around him a choice minority" more fierce and aristocratic in sirit to take over authority in a fascist like cou" then I shall come into my own. 8awrenceQs re$ellion is against that late or winter hase of civilisation" which the Cest has entered as" descri$ed $y 7engler. It is marked $y the rise of the city over the village" of money over $lood connections. 8ike 7engler" 8awrenceQs concetion of history is cyclic" and his idea of society organic. 1e wished to reudiate the death gri of late civilisation and to revive the organic over the mechanistic. RE*IGION O*D AND NE1 8awrence sought a return to the agan outlook with its communion with life and the cosmic rhythm. 1e was drawn to $lood mysticism and what he called the dark gods. It was the QJark %odQ that em$odied all that had $een reressed $y late civilisation and the artificial world of money and industry. 1is *uest took him around the world. Reaching !ew Fe5ico =
in @=22" he o$served the rituals of the ;ue$lo Indians. 1e then went to Old Fe5ico where he then stayed for several years. It was in Fe5ico that he encountered the ;lumed 7erent" Suet'alcoatl" of the &'tecs. 0hrough a revival of this deity and the reawakening of the long reressed rimal urges" 8awrence thought that #uroe might $e renewed. 0o the <7&" he advised that it should look to the land $efore the 7aniards and the ;ilgrim (athers and em$race the Q$lack demon of savage &mericaQ. 0his QdemonQ is akin to DungQs concet of the 7hadow" ,and its em$odiment in what Dung called the Jevil archetye-" and $ringing it to consciousness is re*uired for true wholeness or individuation. 0urn to the unresolved" the reGected" 8awrence advised the &mericans ,;hoeni5-. 1e regarded his novel 0he ;lumed 7erent as his most imortant the story of a white women who $ecomes immersed in a social and religious movement of national regeneration among the Fe5icans" $ased on a revival of the worshi of Suet'alcoatl. 0hrough the &merican Indians 8awrence hoed to see a lesson for #uroe. 1e has one of the leaders of the Suet'alcoatl revival" Jon Ramon" say+ I wish the 0eutonic world would once more think in terms of 0hor and Cotan and the tree Eggdrasill.... 8ooking a$out #uroe for such a heritage" he found it among the #truscans and the Jruids. Eet although finding his way $ack to the sirituality that had once $een art of #uroe" 8awrence does not advocate a mimicing of ancient ways for the resent time nor the adotion of alien sirituality for the #uroean Cest" as is the fetish among many alienated souls today who look at every culture and heritage e5cet their own. 1e wishes to return to the su$stance" to the awe $efore the mystery of life. Fy way is my own" old red father+ I canQt cluster at the drum anymore" he writes in his essay Indians and an #nglishman. Eet what he found among the Indians was a far off innermost lace at the human core" the ever resent as he descri$es the way Kate is affected $y the ritual she witnesses among the followers of Suet'alcoatl. In 0he Coman Cho Rode &way the wife of a mine owner tired of her life leaves to find a remote Indian hill tri$e who are said to reserve the rituals of the old gods. 7he is told that the whites have catured the sun and she is to $e the messenger to tell them to return him. 7he is sacrificed to the sun... It is a sacrifice of a roduct of the mechanistic society for a reconnection with the cosmos. (or 8awrence the most value is to $e had in the life that arises from the $lood THE *ION) THE 5NIORN AND THE RO1N 8awrenceQs concet of the dual nature of life" in which there is continual conflict $etween olarities" is a dialectic that is synthe)sised. 8awrence uses sym$olism to descri$e this. 0he lion ,the mind and the active male rincile- is at eternal strife with the unicorn ,senses" assive" female-. But for one to comletely kill the other would result in its own e5tinction and a vacuum would $e created around the victory. 0his is so with ideologies" religions and moralities that stand for the victory of one olarity" and the reression of the other. 0he crown $elongs to neither. It stands a$ove $oth as the sym$ol of $alance. 0his is something of a 0ao for the Cest" of what Dung sought also" and of what the old alchemists *uested on an individual $asis. @4
0he ro$lems 8awrence $rought under consideration have $ecome ever more acute as our late cycle of Cestern civilisation draws to a close" dominated $y money and the machine. 8awrence" like Eeats" 1amsun" Cilliamson and others" sought a return to the #ternal" $y reconnecting that art of ourselves that has $een deely reressed $y the loathsome sirit of the age.
#apter 6
D7ANN5N/IO Ce artists are only then astonished witnesses of eternal asirations" which hel raise u our $reed to its destiny. %a$riele JQ&nnun'io" uni*ue com$ination of artist and warrior" was $orn in @:A3 into a merchant family 1e was a Renaissance Fan ar e5cellence. 0his warrior $ard was to have a crucial imact uon the rise of fascism desite his not always $eing in accord with the way in which it develoed. EAR*( *IFE 0he lad who in later years was to $e heavily influenced $y (riedrich !iet'sche dislayed an iron will at an early age. 8earning to swim" he would go against the current or head for the $iggest waves to discover his limits. 1is career as a oet $egan early. &t @A" he was known in Rome as an u and coming oet. Chen @= JQ&nnun'io travelled to Rome" leading a $ohemian lifestyle" working as a gossi columnist" and writing his first novel II ;iacere. & set of short stories followed" 0ales of the ;escara" cele$rating the sensual and the violent. 0hen came his novel 8e Tergini Jelle Rocce" which was imortant $ecause it introduced Italy to the ideal of the !iet'schean Overman.
JQ&nnun'ioQs first visit to %reece in @:=> insired him to write a national eic that he hoed would $ring Italy into the 24th 6entury as a great nation. I was to write a volume of oetic rose which will $e a war cry of the 8atin eoles. 8aus Titae e5ressed a agan" !iet'schean ethos" of Jesire" Tolutuousness. ;ride and Instinct" the imerial Suadriga. NE1 IDEA*S &round this time" new ideals for the coming century were emerging" esecially among young artists who were reGecting the $ourgeois li$eralism of the @=th century. In resonse to @@
the comfort seeking" security conscious $ourgeois and merchant)minded oliticians" the young artists" writers and oets were demanding nationalism and emire. 0hey were reresented $y the (uturist movement with its rovocative style and a$rasive manifestos" and led $y the oet Farinetti demanding a reGection oUastism. 0hey stood for a new age $ased on seed" dynamism" and martial valour. JQ&nnun'io wrote his lay 8a !ave that cele$rated the Tenetian city)state of the Renaissance and called for action with the slogan+ &rm the row and sail toward the wind. 0he imact of the lay was so owerful with the actors coming to real $lows and the oulace of Rome shouting its slogans. 0he King congratulated JQ&nnun'io" and &ustria officially rotested to the Italian (oreign Office. JQ&nnun'io was now a maGor influence on Italian youth and on the (uturists. 0he climate created $y the movement and himself and the Italian !ationalists ena$led the ;rime Finster 6risi to em$ark uon imerial adventures in &frica" which culminated in the resurgence of an &frican Italian emire under Fussolini several decades hence. JQ&nnun'io insired $oth the general oulation and the Italian soldiers with his writings PO*ITIS <hough not fitting into the conventional 8eft or Right" which can also $e said of the emerging Italian nationalist movement" JQ&nnun'io entered ;arliament in @:== as a non) doctrinaire conservative with revolutionary ideas. !onetheless" he had contemt for ;arliament and for arliamentarians as the elected herd.
1e had written in 8a Tergine+ & 7tate erected on the $asis of oular suffrage and e*uality in voting" is not only igno$le" it is recarious. 0he 7tate should always $e no more than an institution for favouring the gradual elevation of a rivileged class towards its ideal form of e5istences 1e took his seat and forced a new election in @=44 $y crossing the floor and Goining with the 8eft to $reak a olitical imasse. 1e then stood for the 7ocialist ;arty" among whose leadershi at the time was Fussolini" although continuing to seak of a national consciousness that was contrary to the internationalism of the mainstream 7ocialists" as indeed Fussolini was to do. <hough he was not re)elected JQ&nnun'io had contri$uted to the formation of an ideological synthesis" along with the nationalists and the (uturists that was several decades later to transcend $oth 8eft and Right and emerge as (ascism. JQ&nnun'io e5ressed the new synthesis of the coming olitics thus+ #verything in life deends uon the eternally new. Fan must either renew himself or die. 1OR*D 1AR JQ&nnun'io was living in (rance when the war $roke out. 1e visited the front" and resolved to return to Italy to agitate for his countryQs entry into the war. 8ike Fussolini and Farinetti" JQ&nnun'io saw the war as the oortunity for Italy to take her lace among the great owers of the 24th century. JQ&nnun'io was invited to seak $efore a crowd at an official oening of the %ari$aldi monument" declaring his own 7ermon on the Fount+ Blessed are they" who having yesterday cried against this event" will today accet the sureme necessity" and do not wish to $e the 8ast $ut the (irstV Blessed are the young who" starved of glory" shall $e satisfiedV Blessed are the merciful" for they shall $e called on to *uench a slendid flow of $lood" and dress a wonderful wound... 0he crowd was ecstatic. @2
&t >2 and considered a national treasure" having reesta$lished an Italian national literature" there was ressure to dissuade him from enlisting in the army" $ut he was commissioned in the !ovara 8ancers" and saw more than >4 actions. 7uch was the daring of his ventures that ItalyQs leading literary figure soon $ecame her greatest war hero. 1e flew many times over the &ls at a time when such a fete was considered e5traordinary. 0he &ustrians ut a $ounty on his head. 1e resonded $y entering Buccari har$our with a small $and of hand icked men in a mo)tor$oat" firing his toredoes and leaving $ehind ru$$er containers each containing a lyrical message in indeli$le ink. JQ&nnun'io was esecially noted for his air e5cursions over enemy lines droing roaganda leaflets. It was during his flight over ;ola that he first used the war cry" #GaV #GaV #GaV &lalaV 0his was said to $e the cry used $y &chilles to sur on his horses. It was later adated $y JQ&nnun'ioQs own 8egionnaires when they took (iume and eventually $y the (ascists. &fter serious damage to an eye" he was told not to fly again" $ut within several months had returned to the air and was awarded a silver medal. 1e then slogged it out on foot in the assault from 6astagna to the sea. 1e returned from the war an international hero having $een awarded a gold medal" five silver" a $ron'e" and the officerQs cross of the 7avoy Filitary Order. 1e also received the Filitary 6ross from Britain with many other countries adding to his decorations. FI5!E &fter the &llied victory" Italy did not receive the rewards she had e5ected. (iume was a articular oint of contention. Tenetian in culture and history" the city ort had $een occuied $y the (rench" #nglish" &merican and Italian troos yet the Italian %overnment favoured turning its administration over to Eugoslavia. Fussolini" Farinetti and JQ&nnun'io again Goined forces to agitate on the common theme that Italy should anne5e (iume. Eoung officers formed an army with the motto+ (iume or deathV JQ&nnun'io was asked to lead an e5edition to take the city for Italy.
&t dawn on @2th 7etem$er @=@=" JQ&nnun'io marched off at the head of a column of 2:H veterans. &s they marched through Italy towards (iume" they icked u soldiers and sulies along the way. By the time JQ&nnun'io reached they city he had gathered an army of @444. JQ&nnun'io confronted the Italian commander of the city and" ointing to his medals declared" (ire first on this. %eneral ;ittalugaQs eyes filled with tears and he relied+ %reat oetV I do not wish to $e the cause of silling Italian $lood. I am honoured to meet you for the first time. Fay your dream $e fulfilled. 0he two em$raced and entered (iume together. Once JQ&nnun'io had taken (iume others from all over Italy flocked to him" nationalists" anarchists" futurists" syndicalists" soldiers and men of the arts. In this mad and vile world" (iume is the sym$ol of li$ertyW" declared JQ&nnun'io. RENAISSANE IT(,STATE JQ&nnun'io the Renaissance Fan recreated (iume as a 24th 6entury renaissance city)state. It would $e the catalyst for a 8eague of Oressed !ations to counter the 8eague of !ations of the $ourgeois owers. 0he (ree 7tate of (iume was roclaimed with the 7tatute of the 6arnaro. 0his instituted hysical training for youth" old age ensions" universal education" aesthetic instruction" and unemloyment relief. ;rivate roerty was recognised $ut on the condition of its roer" continuous and efficient use. 6ororations and guilds after the medieval manner were esta$lished to reresent workers and roducers in lace of @3
the old olitical arties. Both freedom of religion and atheism were rotected. & 6ollege of #diles was Xelected with discernment from men of taste and education" who would maintain aesthetic standards in the architecture and construction of the city)state. 0he arliament" or 6ouncil of the Best" was enGoined to minimise chatter" with sessions held with nota$ly concise $revity. & higher cham$er was called the 6ouncil of ;roviders. JQ&nnun'io oversaw the whole edifice as the 6ommandante. Fusic was elevated as a religious and social institution $y statute. (or @> months" the 6ommandante held out against allied rotests and the $lockade erected $y his own %overnment. B*OKADE 0he Italian %overnment eventually tightened its $lockade" which resulted in food shortages at the time of the #uroean wide influen'a eidemic. 0o counter the $lockade JQ&nnun'io formed the
%overnment troos now moved on (iume. JQ&nnun'io ordered a general mo$ilisation. 1e hoed that Italian troos would not fire on fellow Italians. 7uch a notion was reugnant to JQ&nnun'io" as it had $een to %eneral ;ittaluga when he gave way to JQ&nnun'ioQs occuation. Filitary oerations $egan on 2?th Jecem$er @=24. 0he 6hristmas of Blood as JQ&nnun'io called it. 24"444 troos $egan to move against JQ&nnun'ioQs 3444. 0he &n) drea Jona sailed within firing range. JQ&nnun'io was given an ultimatum to surrender or suffer $om$ardment. &fter some shelling of the $alconies of the city $egan" the women came forth holding aloft their $a$ies" shouting" 0his one ItalyV 0ake this one. But not JQ&nnun'ioV 0he 6ommandante gathered his 6a$inet together and announced his caitulation. <hough his men had reulsed the %overnments troos for five days" the city could not withstand heavy shelling. I cannot imose on this heroic city its ruin and certain destruction" said JQ&nnun'io. FASIS! JQ&nnun'io retired to a secluded house he called 0he 7hrine of Italian Tictories. 1e resumed his writing. 1e remained the most oular figure in Italy whom $oth (ascists and anti)(ascists tried to recruit. Jesite what he considered FussoliniQs $etrayal over (iume" he refused to assist the anti)fascists. On 2H Octo$er @=22" the (ascists marched on Rome. 0he new regime esta$lished on a more realistic and ragmatic $asis the romantic and visionary ideals that JQ&nnun'io had $riefly realised at (iume. Fany of the traings of the (ascist movement were first used $y JQ&nnun'io" including the revival of the Roman salute and the use of the $lackshirt. Fussolini adoted JQ&nnun'ioQs style of seaking to the oulace from $alconies with the crowds resonding.
@?
Italy was organised as a 6ororate ,guild- 7tate as (iume had $een" and cultural figures were esecially esteemed. In @=2? most of (iume was secured from Eugoslavia. 0his and such actions as the Rome)Berlin a5is" the withdrawal from the 8eague of !ations and the invasion of &$yssinia drew JQ&nnun'io closer to the (ascist regime. <hough he refrained from articiation in u$lic life" the regime $estowed JQ&nnun'io with honours" made him a rince" u$lished his collected works" and made him an honorary general of the air force and resident of the &cademy of Italy. On @ Farch @=3:" JQ&nnun'io died suddenly of a cere$ral haemorrhage. &t JQ&nnun'ioQs funeral" Fussolini said+ Eou may $e sure Italy will arrive at the summit you dreamed of.
#apter 8
FI*IPPO !ARINETTI (ilio Farinetti is unlike most of the ost)@=th 6entury cultural avant)garde who were re$elling against the sirit of several centuries of li$eralism" rationalism" the rise of the democratic mass" industrialism and the rule of the moneyed elite. 1is revolt against the levelling imact of the democratic era was not to hark $ack to certain erceived Qgolden agesQ such as the medieval eras uheld $y Eeats and #vola" or to reGect technology in favour of a return to rural life" as advocated $y 1enry Cilliamson and Knut 1amsun. 0o the contrary" Farinetti em$raced the new facts of technology" the machine" seed" and dynamic energy" in a movement called (uturism. 0he futurist resonse to the facts of the new age is therefore a *uite uni*ue reaction from the anti)li$eral literati and artists and one that continues to influence certain asects of industrial and ost)industrial su$ cultures. &n e5amle of a contemorary cultural movement aralleling (uturists is !ew 7lovenian &rt" which like futurism em$odies music" grahic arts" architecture" and drama. It is a movement whose influence is felt $eyond the $orders of 7lovenia. 0he $est)known manifestation of this art form is the industrial music grou 8ai$ach. Farinetti is also the inventor of free verse in oetry" and (uturist adherents have had a lasting imact on architecture" motion ictures and the theatre. 0he (uturists were the ioneers of street theatre. 0hey insired $oth the 6onstructivist movement in the <77R and the #nglish Torticists #'ra ;ound and Cyndham 8ewis. Farinetti was $orn in &le5andria #gyt in @:HA. 1e graduated in law in %enoa in @:==. <hough the olitical and hilosohical asects of the course held his interest" he travelled fre*uently $etween (rance and Italy and interested himself in the avant)garde arts of the later @=th 6entury romoting young oets in $oth countries. 1e was already a strong critic of the conservative and traditional aroaches of Italian oets. 1e was at this time an @>
enthusiast for the modern" revolutionary music of Cagner" seeing it as assailing Xe*uili$rium and so$riety...meditation and silence... By @=4?" (uturist elements had manifested in his writing" articularly in his oem Jestruction that he called an erotic and anarchist oem" a eulogy to the avenging sea as a sym$ol of revolution. &fter an aocalytic destruction" the rocess of re$uilding $egins on the ruins of the Old Corld. 1ere already is the raise of death as a dynamic and transformative. Cith the death of FarinettiQs father in @=4H" his wealth allowed him to travel widely and he $ecame a well know cultural figure throughout #uroe. !iet'sche was at this time one of the most well known intellectuals who desired li$eration from the old order. !iet'sche was widely read among the literati of Italy" and JQ&nnun'io was the most rominent in romoting !iet'sche. &mong the other hilosohers of articular imortance whom Farinetti studied was the (rench syndicalist theorist 7orel" who inclined towards the anarchism of ;roudhon. 0his reGected Far5ism in favour of a society comrised of small roductive" cooerative units or syndicates and founded a new myth of heroic action and struggle. ReGecting much of the acifism of the left. 7orel viewed war as a dynamic of human action. 7orel in turn was himself influenced $y !iet'sche" and alying the !iet'schean Overman to socialism" states that the working class revolution re*uires heroic leaders. 7orel $ecame influential not only among 8eft wing syndicalists $ut also among certain radical nationalists in $oth (rance and Italy. F5T5RIST !ANIFESTO FarinettiQs artistic ideas crystallised in the (uturist movement that originated from a meeting of artists and musicians in Filan in @=4= to draft a (uturist Fanifesto. Cith Farinetti were 6arlo 6arra"
0he (uturists were contemtuous of all tradition" of all that is ast+ Ce want to e5ult aggressive motion...we affirm that the magnificence of the world has $een enriched $y a new $eauty+ the $eauty of seed. 0he machine was oetically eulogised. 0he racing car $ecame the icon of the new eoch" which seems to run as a machine gun. 0he (uturist aesthetic was to $e Goy in violence and war" as the sole hygiene of the worldW. Fotion" dynamic energy" action" and heroism were the foundations of the culture of the (uturist future. 0he fisticuffs" the srint and the kick were e5ressions of culture. 0he (uturist Fanifesto is as much a challenge to the olitical and social order as it is to the status *uo in the arts. It declared+ @. Ce intend to sing the love of danger" the ha$it of energy and fearlessness. 2. 6ourage audacity and revolt will $e essential elements of our oetry.
@A
3. < to now literature has e5alted a ensive immo$ility" ecstasy" and slee. Ce intend to e5alt aggressive action" a feverish insomnia" the racerQs stride" the mortal lea" the unch and the sla. ?. Ce affirm that the worldQs magnificence has $een enriched $y a new $eauty+ the $eauty of seed & racing car whose hood is adorned with great ies" like serents of an e5losive $reath)a roaring car that seems to ride on grae shot is more $eautiful than the victory of 7amothrace. >. Ce want to hymn the man at the wheel" who hurls the lance of his sirit across the #arth" along the circle of its or$it. A. 0he oet must send himself with ardour" slendour and generosity" to swell the enthusiastic fervour of the rimordial elements. #5cet in struggle" there is no more $eauty. !o work without an aggressive character can $e a masteriece. ;oetry must $e conceived as a violent attack on unknown forces" to reduce and rostrate them $efore man. H. Ce stand on the last romontory of the centuries. Chy should we look $ack when what we want is to $reak down the mysterious doors of the imossi$le/ 0ime and sace died yesterday. Ce already live in the a$solute" $ecause we have created eternal" omniresent seed. :. Ce will glorify war)the worldQs only hygiene)militarism" atriotism the destructive gesture of freedom)$ringers" the $eautiful ideas that kill" and scorn for women. =. Ce will destroy the museums li$raries academies of every kind" will fight moralism feminism" every oortunistic or utilitarian cowardice. @4. Ce will sing of great crowds e5cited $y work" $y leasure" and $y riot. Ce will sing of the multi)coloured" olyhonic tides of revolution in the modem caitals" we will sing of the vi$rant nightly fervour of arsenals and shiyards $la'ing with violent electric motors" greedy railway stations that devour smoke)lumed serents" factories hung on clouds $y the crooked lines of their smoke $ridges that stride the rivers like giant gymnasts" flashing in the sun with a glitter of knives adventurous steamers that sniff the hori'on+ dee)chested locomotives whose wheels aw the tracks like the hooves of enormous steel horses $ridled $y tu$ing+ and the sleek flight of lanes whose roellers chatter in the wind like $anners and seem to cheer like an enthusiastic crowd. It is from Italy that we launch through the world this violently usetting incendiary manifesto of ours. Cith it" today" we esta$lish (uturism" $ecause we want to free this land from its smelly gangrene of rofessors" archaeologists" ciceroni and anti*uarians. (or too long has Italy $een a dealer in second)hand clothes. Ce mean to free her from the num$erless museums that cover her like so many graveyards. Fuseums+ cemeteriesV... Identical" surely" in the sinister romiscuity of so many $odies unknown to one another. Fuseums+ u$lic dormitories where one lies forever $eside hated or unknown $eings. Fuseums+ a$surd a$attoirs of ainters and scultors ferociously @H
slaughtering each other with colour)$lows and line)$lows" the length of the fought)over wallsV 0hat one should make an annual ilgrimage" Gust as one goes to the graveyard on &ll 7oulsQ Jay" that we grant. 0hat once a year one should leave a floral tri$ute $eneath the %io)conda" I grant you that... $ut I donQt admit that our sorrows" our fragile courage" our mor$id restlessness should $e given a daily conducted tour through the museums. Chy oison ourselves/ Chy rot/ &nd what is there to see in an old icture e5cet the la$orious contortions of an artist throwing himself against the $arriers that thwart his desire to e5ress his dream comletely/ &dmiring an old icture is the same as ouring our sensi$ility into a funerary urn instead of hurtling it far off in violent sasms of action and creation. Jo you then wish to waste all your $est owers in this eternal and futile worshi of the ast" from which you emerge fatally e5hausted" shrunken" $eaten down/ In truth we tell you that daily visits to museums" li$raries" and academies ,cemeteries of emty e5ertion" 6alvaries of crucified dreams" registries of a$orted $eginningsV- are" for artists" as damaging as the rolonged suervision $y arents of certain young eole drunk with their talent and their am$itious wills. Chen the future is $arred to them" the admira$le ast may $e a solace for the ills of the mori$und" the sickly" the risoner... But we want no art of it" the ast" we the young and strong (uturistsV 7o let them come" the gay incendiaries with charred fingersV 1ere they areV 1ere they areV... 6ome onV set fire to the li$rary shelvesV 0urn aside the canals to flood the museumsV... Oh" the Goy of seeing the glorious old canvases $o$$ing adrift on those waters" discoloured and shreddedV... 0ake u your icka5es" your a5es and hammers and wreck" wreck the venera$le cities" itilesslyV 0he oldest of us is thirty so we have at least a decade for finishing our work. Chen we are forty" other younger and stronger men will ro$a$ly throw us in the waste$asket like useless manuscrits)we want it to haenV 0hey will come against us" our successors will come from far away" from every *uarter" dancing to the winged cadence of their first songs" fle5ing the hooked claws of redators" sniffing dog)like at the academy doors the strong odour of our decaying minds which will have already $een romised to the literary catacom$s. But we wonQt $e there... &t last theyQll find us)one winters night)in oen country" $eneath a sad roof drummed $y a monotonous rain. 0heyQll see us crouched $eside our trem$ling aerolanes in the act of warming our hands at the oor little $la'e that our $ooks of today will give out when they take fire from the flight of our images. 0heyQll storm around us" anting with scorn and anguish" and all of them" e5aserated $y our roud daring" will hurtle to kill us. Jriven $y a hatred the more imlaca$le the more their hearts will $e drunk with love and admiration for us. InGustice" strong and sane" will $reak out radiantly in their eyes. &rt" in fact" can $e nothing $ut violence" cruelty and inGustice. @:
0he oldest of us is thirty+ even so we have already scattered treasures" a thousand treasures of force" love" courage" astuteness" and raw will)ower" have thrown them imatiently away" with fury" carelessly" unhesitatingly" $reathless" and unresting...8ook at us Ce are still untiredV Our hearts know no weariness $ecause they are fed with fire" hatred and seed... Joes that ama'e you/ It should" $ecause you can never remem$er having livedV #rect on the summit of the world" once again" we hurl our defiance at the stars. Eou have o$Gections/)#noughV #noughV Ce know them... CeQve understoodV... Our fine deceitful intelligence tells us that we are the revival and e5tension of our ancestors) ;erhasV... If only it were soV) But who cares/ Ce donQt want to understandV...Coe to anyone who says those infamous words to us againV 8ift u your heads. #rect on the summit of the world" once again we hurl our defiance after starsV & lethora of manifestos $y Farinetti and his colleagues followed" futurist cinema" ainting" music ,QnoiseQ-" rose" lus the olitical and sociological imlications . 1AR) THE 1OR*D7S ON*( H(GIENE FarinettiQs manifesto on war shows the central lace violence nd conflict have in the (uturist doctrine.
Ce (uturists" who for over two years" scorned $y the 8ame and ;aralysed" have glorified the love of danger and violence" raised atriotism and war" the hygiene of the world" are hay to finally e5erience this great (uturist hour of Italy" while the foul tri$e of acifists huddles dying in the dee cellars of the ridiculous alace at 0he 1ague. Ce have recently had the leasure of fighting in the streets with the most fervent adversaries of the war and shouting in their faces our firm $eliefs+ @. &ll li$erties should $e given to the individual and the collectivity" save that of $eing cowardly. 2. 8et it $e roclaimed that the word Italy should revail over the word (reedom. 3. 8et the tiresome memory of Roman greatness $e cancelled $y an Italian greatness a hundred times greater. (or us today" Italy has the shae and ower of a fine Jreadnought $attleshi with its s*uadron of toredo)$oat islands. ;roud to feel that the martial fervour throughout the nation is e*ual to ours" we urge the Italian government" (uturist at last" to magnify all the national am$itions" disdaining the stuid accusations of iracy" and roclaim the $irth of ;an)Italianism. (uturist oets" ainters" scultors" and musicians of ItalyV &s long as the war lasts let us set aside our verse" our $rushes" scaulas" and orchestrasV 0he red holidays of genius have $egunV 0here is nothing for us to admire today $ut the dreadful symhonies of the shranels and the mad scultures that our insired artillery moulds among the masses of the enemy. ARTISTI STOR! TROOPER Farinetti $rought his dynamic character into an aggressive camaign to romote (uturism. 0he (uturists aimed to aggravate society out of $ourgeoisie comlacency and the safe @=
e5istence through innovative street theatre" a$rasive art" seeches and manifestos. 0he seaking style of Farinetti was itself $om$astic and thunderous. 0he art was aggravating to conventional society and the art esta$lishment. If a ainting was that of a man with a moustache" the whiskers would $e deicted with the $ristles of a shaving $rush asted onto the canvas. & train would $e deicted with the words Quff" uff. Both the words and deeds of the (uturists matched the nature of the art in e5ressing contemt for the status *uo with its reoccuation with astism or the asse. Farinetti for e5amle" descri$ed Tenice as a city of dead fish and decaying houses" inha$ited $y a race of waiters and touts. 0o the (uturist Boccioni" Jante" Beethoven and Fichelangelo were sickening Chilst 6arra set a$out ainting sounds" noises and even smells. Farinetti traversed #uroe giving interviews" arranging e5hi$itions" meetings and dinners. Termilion osters with huge $lock letters selling QfuturismQ were lastered throughout Italy on factories" in dance halls" cafes and town s*uares. (uturist erformances were organised to rovoke riot. %lue was ut onto seats. 0wo tickets for the same seat would $e sold to rovoke a fight. Q!oise musicQ would $lare while oetry or manifestos were recited and aintings shown. (ruit and rotten saghetti would $e thrown from the audience" and the erformances would usually end in $rawls. Farinetti relied to Geers with humour. 1e ate the fruit thrown at him. 1e welcomed the hostility as roving that (uturism was not aealing to the mediocre. PO*ITIS 0he first olitical contacts of Farinetti and the (uturists were from the 8eft rather than the Right" desite FarinettiQs e5treme nationalism and call for war as the hygiene of mankind. 0here were syndicalists and even some anarchists who shared Fari)nettiQs views on the energising and revolutionary nature of war and gave him a recetion.
In @=4=" Farinetti entered the general elections and issued a (irst ;olitical Fanifestos which is anti)clerical and states that the only (uturist olitical rogramme is national ride" calling for the elimination of acifism and the reresentatives of the old order. Juring that year" Farinetti was heavily involved in agitating for Italian sovereignty over &ustrian ruled 0rieste. 0he olitical alliance with the e5treme 8eft $egan with the anarcho) syndicalist Ottavio Jinale" whose aer rerinted the (uturist manifesto. 0he aer" 8a demoli'ione was not secially anarcho)syndicalist" $ut of a general com$ative nature" aiming to unite into one fascio all those of revolutionary tendencies" to Xoose with full energy the inertia and indolence that threatens to suffocate all life. 0he hrase is distinctly (uturist. Farinetti announced that he intended to camaign olitically as $oth a syndicalist and a nationalist" a synthesis that would eventually arise in (ascism. In @=@4" he forged links with the Italian !ationalist &ssociation" which from its $irth also had a ro)la$our" syndicalist asect. In @=@3 a (uturist olitical manifesto was issued which called for enlargement of the military" an aggressive foreign olicy" colonial e5ansionism and an)Italianism" a QcultQ of rogress" seed and heroism" oosition to the nostalgia for monuments" ruins and 24
museums" economic rotectionism" anti)socialism" anti)clericalism. 0he movement gained wide enthusiasm among university students. INTER3ENTIONIS! 0he chance for ItalyQs lace in the sun came with Corld Car I. !ot only the nationalists were demanding ItalyQs entry into the war" $ut so too were certain revolutionary syndicalists and a faction of socialists led $y Fussolini. (rom the literati came JQ&nnun'io and Farinetti.
In a manifesto addressed to students in @=@? Farinetti states the urose of (uturism and calls for intervention in the war. (uturism was the doctor to cure Italy of astism" a remedy valid for every country. 0he ancestor cult far from cementing the race was making Italians anaemic and utrid. (uturism was now $eing fully realised in the great world war. 0he resent war is the most $eautiful (uturist oem which has so far $een seen. (uturism was the militarisation of innovating artists. 0he war would swee away all the roonents of the old and senile" dilomats" rofessors" hilosohers" archaeologists" li$raries" and museums. 0he war will romote gymnastics" sort" ractical schools of agriculture" $usiness and industrialists. 0he war will reGuvenate Italy+ will enrich her with men of action" will force her to live no longer off the ast" off ruins and the mild climate" $ut off her own national forces. 0he (uturists were the first to organise ro)war rotests. Fussolini and Farinetti held their first Goint meeting in Filan on Farch 3@st @=@>. In &ril" $oth were arrested in Rome for organising a demonstration. (uturists were no mere wind$ags. !early all distinguished themselves in the war" as did Fussolini and JQ&nnun'io. 0he (uturist architect 7ant #lia was killed. Farinetti enlisted with the &lini regiment and was wounded and decorated for valour. F5T5RIST PART( In @=@:" Farinetti $egan directing his attention to a new ostwar Italy. 1e u$lished a manifesto announcing the (uturist ;olitical ;arty" which called for Revolutionary nationalismX for $oth imerialism and social revolution. Ce must carry our war to total victory.
Jemands of the manifesto included the eight hour day and e*ual ay for women" the nationalisation and redistri$ution of land to veterans heavy ta5es on ac*uired and inherited wealth and the gradual a$olition of marriage through easy divorce a strong Italy freed" from nostalgia" tourists and riests industrialisation and modernisation of Xmori$und cities that live as tourist centres. & 6ororatist olicy called for the a$olition of arliament and its relacement with a technical government of 34 or ?4 young directors elected form the trade associations. 2@
0he (uturist arty concentrated its roaganda on the soldiers" and recruited many war veterans of the elite &rditi ,daredevils-" who had $een the $lackshirted shocktroos of the army who would charge into $attle stried to the waist" a grenade in each hand and a dagger $etween their teeth. In Jecem$er @=@=" the (uturists revived the (asci or QgrousQ" which had $een organised in @=@? and @=@> to camaign for war intervention" and from which was to emerge the (ascists. F5T5RISTS AND FASISTS 0he first Goint ost)war action $etween Fussolini and Fari)netti took lace in @=@= when a 7ocialist ;arty rally was disruted in Filan.
0hat year Fussolini founded his own (asci di 6om$attimento in Filan with the suort of Farinetti and the oet
Of Fussolini the statesman" Farinetti wrote+ ;rohets and forerunners of the great Italy of today" we (uturists are hay to salute in our not yet ?4 year old ;rime Finister of marvellous futurist temerament. 22
In @=23" Farinetti $egan a rarochement with the (ascists and resented to Fussolini his manifesto 0he &rtistic Rights ;romoted $y Italian (uturists. 1ere he reGected the Bolshevik alignment of (uturists in the <77R. 1e ointed to the (uturist sentiments that had $een e5ressed $y Fussolini in seeches" alluding to (ascism $eing a Xgovernment of seed" curtailing everything that reresents stagnation in the national life.
#apter 9
1 B (EATS 0he rise of industrialism and caitalism during the @=th century $rought with it social dislocation" an ur$an roletariat on the ruins of rural life" and the rise of commercial interests. 7mashed asunder were the traditional organic $onds of family and village" 23
rootedness to the earth through generations of oneQs offsring and to the cycles of nature. Cith the ascendancy of materialism" came certain economic doctrines" $oth (ree 0rade caitalism and Far5ism" and the new $elief in rationalism and science over faith" the mysteries of the cosmos and the traditional religions. 0he forces of money had defeated everything of the 7irit. &s the %erman)hilosoher historian" Oswald 7engler e5lained in his Jecline of the Cest. Cestern 6ivilisation had entered its end cycle. 7uch forces had $een let loose as long ago as the #nglish Revolution of 6romwell and again $y the (rench Revolution. 1owever" there was a reaction to this redicament. 0he old conservatives had not $een u to the task. 0he siritual and cultural reaction came from the artists" oets and writers who reach $eyond the material and draw their insiration from the well)srings of what the sychologist 6. %. Dung identified as the collective unconscious. 0his reaction included not only the olitical and the cultural $ut also a siritual revival e5ressed in an interest in the metahysical. GO*DEN DA1N &mong those reacting in what the Italian author and metahysician #vola called the revolt against the modern world was the Irish oet Cilliam Butler Eeats" leader of the Irish literary renaissance" and winner of the !o$el ;ri'e for 8iterature in @=23. Eeats was $orn in @:A>. Jesite his #nglish and ;rotestant $ackground. 1e was involved in the Eoung Ireland movement" much of his oetry cele$rating the Irish re$ellion and its heroes. Eeats also $ecame an early mem$er of the Ju$lin 1ermetic 7ociety" studied 1indu hilosohy under the 0heosohist Fohini 6hatterGee" and Goined the 0heosohical 7ociety in @:=>.
Foving to 8ondon in @:=H" Eeats Goined the 1ermetic Order of the %olden Jawn" one of the rimary influences in the revival of interest in metahysics. (or Eeats the mystical was the $asis of $oth his oetry and his olitical ideas. Eeats was articularly interested in the Irish mystical tradition and folklore. 1e saw the easantry and rural values as $eing necessary to revive against the onslaught of materialism. 1e aimed to found an Irish 1ermetic Order su$stituting the alien #gytian deities of %olden Jawn ritual with those of the Irish gods and heroes. Eeats saw the mythic and siritual as the $asis of a culture" roviding the underlying unity for all cultural manifestations" a unity of $eing" where" writing in reference to the By'antium culture+ Y0heZ religious" aesthetic and ractical life were one... the ainter" the mosaic worker" the worker in gold and silver" the illuminator of sacred $ooks were a$sor$ed in the su$Gect matter" and that of the vision of a whole eole. It might seem a arado5 to the 8eft that such men of the Right were instrumental in introducing the Cest to the wisdom of the #ast" for all traditional civilisations have a arallel outlook in their eriod of 1igh 6ulture. ;ound utilised 6hinese characters in his oetry" translated 6hinese te5ts and referred to the ideas of 6onfucius as finding e5ression in (ascism. #vola $rought the ethics of the 7amurai and the ractices of 0antra to the notice of the Cest. It was cosmoolitanism that these oets and writers reGected" seeing it as the duty of the culture)$earing stratum to restore the unity of culture to the nation" to reudiate an international art" icking stones and sym$ols where it leased" as Eeats ut it+ 2?
0o deeen the olitical assion of the nation that all" artist and oet" craftsman and day la$ourer" would accet as common design. ARHET(PES AND THE !5*TIT5DE ;re)dating the sychologist 6arl DungQs theory of archetyes" Eeats held that sym$ols had an autonomous ower of their own in the unconscious. It was these sym$ols" age)long inherited memories" uon which the artist and the oet drew as the source of creativity.
0o Eeats" individuality is not as imortant as our age has imagined. 0he daimons of the ancient memories acted uon the individual" and oneQs creativity was an e5ression of these forces. 0hese sym$ols and images could $e $rought to consciousness and e5ressed artistically via magic and ritual. EeatsQs oetry was intended as an e5ression of these sym$ols. 0his resurgence of these age)long memories re*uired a revolt of soul against intellect now $eginning in the world. Eeats was articularly concerned that commercialism would mean the ushing down of cultural values in the ursuit of rofit rather than artistic e5cellence. 1ence" he called for a revival of aristocratic values. 1e lamented that" the mere multitude is everywhere with its emty hotograhic eyes. & declaration of war on the masses $y higher men is called for. #verywhere the mediocre are coming in order to make themselves master. 1is aeal was to the artist and to the individual of taste and culture for" as the hilosoher !iet'sche had ointed out" culture is the faculty that distinguishes the h uman from other organisms. In this sirit" Eeats alauded !iet'scheQs hilosohy as" a counteractive to the sread of democratic vulgarity. 0his susicion of democratic vulgarity was oetically e5ressed for e5amle in @=2@ in 0he 8eaders of the 6rowd+ 0hey must to kee their certainty accuse &ll that are different of a $ase intent ;ull down esta$lished honour hawk for news Chatever their loose fantasy invents... EeatsQs keen sense of historical conte5t is reflected in his 0he 6urse of 6romwell. 1ere he identifies the #nglish Revolution as what we can see as the inauguration of the cycle of Foney over Blood" in 7englerian terms the victory of the merchant class over the traditional order" which was to $e re)re)enacted in the (rench Revolution. 0he Bolshevik Revolution was of the same sirit of money against $lood" of the materialistic against the sirit and culture. &ll three revolutions were carried out in the name of the eole against the traditional rulers" only to create a greater tyranny in the service of money. 7engler had written in 0he Jecline of the Cest 0here is no roletarian" not even a communist movement" that does not serve the interests of money. 6romwellQs #nglish revolution has had lasting conse*uences for the entire Cest. 0he cycle of Foney over culture and tradition that 6romwell inaugurated has never $een overcome. 2>
&merica was founded on the same ;uritan money ethics and continues to sread that sirit over the farthest reaches of the world. 6romwellQs murderous crew have $rought forth the moneyQs rant on the $lood of what is no$le. Eou ask what I have found" and far and wide I go+ !othing $ut 6romwellQs house and 6romwellQs murderous crew 0he lovers and the dancers are $eaten into the clay &nd the tall men and the swordsmen and the horsemen" where are they/ &nd there is an old $eggar wandering in his ride ) 1is fathers served their fathers $efore 6hrist was crucified O what of that" O what of that/ Chat is there left to say/ !o longer are there left those of no$le tradition" those who served as art of a long heritage" the tall men and the old gaiety of the easant village" the s*uireQs hall and aristocratQs manor have $een $eaten down. &ll neigh$ourly" content and easy talk are gone" But hereQs no good comlaining" for moneyQs rant is on. 0he artists" once atronised $y the aristocracy" must now rostitute their art for the sake of money on the mass market" as scrit writers" and Qu$lic entertainersQ to sell a roduct. &ll individuals are now roducers and consumers" including the artist roducing for a consumer market. &nd we and all the Fuses are things of no account. Eeats considered himself to $e the heir to a tradition and lived in that service. 0hat the swordsmen and the ladies can still kee comany" 6an ay the oet for a verse and hear the fiddle sound" 0hat I am still their servant though all are underground... Eeats considered himself the remnant of a tradition" and uheld the old values for the return of no$ility" high culture and the organic community. ORDER FRO! HAOS One roduct of democracy and caitalism that Eeats feared was the roliferation of what he regarded as inferior eole. Eeats advocated lanned human u)$reeding and Goined the #ugenics 7ociety. &s with his olitical and cultural views his outlook on eugenics had a mystical $asis" relating reincarnation to the race soul. In his @=3: oem
that arts one in death only $riefly from the world. Fany times man lives and dies Between his two eternities 0hat of race and that of soul &nd ancient Ireland knew it all. 0he eugenic and the divine com$ine within the artist+ ;oet and scultor" do the work" !or let the modish ainter shirk Chat his great forefathers did" Bring the soul of man to %od" Fake him fill the cradles right. 1owever" in the modern age 0he greater dream had gone. 6onfusion fell uon our thought. It is the duty of the cultural)$earing stratum to set the culture anew $y remem$ering what had once $een+ Irish oets" learn your trade" 7ing whatever is well made" 7corn the sort now growing u &ll out of shae from toe to to" 0heir unremem$ering hearts and heads Base)$orn roducts of $ase $eds. EeatsQs antidote to the modem cycle of decline is to return to the traditional order of easant" s*uire" monk and aristocrat+ 7ing the easantry and then 1ard)riding country gentlemen" 0he holiness of monks" and after ;orter)drinkersQrandy laughter 7ing the lords and ladies gay 0hat were $eaten into the clay 0hrough seven heroic centuries 6ast your mind on other days 0hat we in coming days may $e 7till the indomita$le Irishry... 0he modern era is comared to the traditional $y way of a man in a golden $reastlate under the old stone cross" sym$ols of a no$le age. In 0he Old 7tone 6ross Eeats writes+ & statesman is an easy man. 1e tells his lies $y rote & Gournalist makes u his lies &nd takes you $y the throat 7o stay at home and drink your $eer &nd let the neigh$ours vote 7aid the man in the golden $reastlate
I lived among great houses" Riches drove out rank. Base drove out the $etter $lood. &nd mind and $ody shrank... 0he aristocracy of old the no$le lineage of $lood" has $een relaced $y new rich" the merchants" our new rulers are those who measure all things $y rofit. FA** AND RISE In @=2@ a year rior to FussoliniQs assumtion to ower" Eeats had rohesied in 0he 7econd 6oming the aroach of a figure from out of the democratic chaos" a rough $east who would settle matters amidst a world where" when things fall aart" the centre cannot hold.
0he theme is 7englerian" $ut no dou$t drawn uon EeatsQrecognition of the cyclic nature of history which is the way of seeing the world in all traditional civilisations" from %reek to &'tec to 0eutonic and 1indu. 1owever" the 7englerian theme allows for not only a decline and fall of a civilisation $ut an interim cycle where the Qnew 6aesarQ emerges from the decadent eoch to inaugurate a revitalisation of the civilisation. 0he oem oens with an allusion to the QturningQ of the historic cycles+ 0urning and turning in the widening gyre the falcon cannot hear the falconer+ 0hings fall aart" the centre cannot hold Fere anarchy is loosed uon the world" 0he $lood dimmed tide is loosed" and everywhere 0he ceremony of innocence is drowned+ 0he $est lack all conviction" while the worst &re full of assionate intensity. One can read in the a$ove what aears to $e then the growing tide of Bolshevik revolution amidst the loss of tradition and of the a5is around which civilisation is maintained. 0he answer is the rise of a strong leader who will get civilisation $ack on course" the Qnew 6aesarQ" that 7engler saw in the ossi$ility of Fussolini. 7urely some revelation is at hand 7urely the 7econd 6oming is at hand Eeats saw hoe" like 7engler" in (ascist Italy. 0he Ireland that reacts from the resent disorder is turning its eyes towards individualist Italy. Eeats suorted %eneral #oin OQJuffy and the Irish Blueshirts. OQJuffy" a hero of the Irish revolt and Fichael 6ollinsQ rincial aide" created a mass movement and #ire was almost $rought civil war $etween the Blueshirts and the IR&. Eeats wrote some marching songs for the movement. 0hese sang of the heroes of Ireland" and of the need for a renewed social order. Chen nations are emty u there at the to" Chen order has weakened and faction is strong" 0ime for us to ick out a good tune" 0ake to the roads and go marching along... 1owever" Eeats" like Cyndham 8ewis and others was susicious of any movement that aealed to the masses" and of what he saw as the demagoguery of the (ascist leaders in aealing to those masses. 0his was regardless of the fact that the masses were $eing won 2:
over to national ideals and away from the internationalism of the 6ommunists. Eeats died in @=3=.
#apter :
KN5T HA!S5N Knut Ha$sun has had a decisive imact on the course of 24th century literature" $oth in #uroe and &merica" yet he is little discussed let alone honoured even in his native !orway. #rnest 1emingway tried to emulate him as did 1enry Filler" who called 1amsun %the 1ickens of m generation#. 0homas Fann wrote" “ ne"er has the 8obel Pri9e been a*arded to one so *orth of it#. 1erman 1esse called 1amsun his favourite author. &dmired $y 1 % Cells" Kafka" and Brecht" 1amsun always enGoyed a great following not only in %ermany $ut also in Russia" lauded esecially $y Fa5im %orky. #ven inside the 6ommunist 7tate 1amsun continued to $e u$lished desite his olitics. (or 1amsun saw in !ational 7ocialist %ermany an attemt to reconnect man with the soil in the face of industrialisation and materialism. 1amsunQs influence on literature will continue" even if his name remains o$scured. ORIGINS 1amsun was $orn Knut ;edersen of an imoverished easant family of seven children on ?th &ugust @:>=. 1is father was a farmer and a tailor his motherQs lineage was of Tiking no$ility. Knut had a hard u$ringing on his uncleQs farm where he was sent when he was nine. But his uncle also ran the local li$rary" which gave Knut the chance to $egin his self) education. Knut left his uncleQs farm in @:H3" and over the ne5t few years worked at a variety of Go$s" la$ouring" teaching" and clerical" as he widely Gourneyed a$out. *ITERAR( STIRRINGS &t @: he had u$lished his first novel called The Enigmatic $ne" a love story. 0his was followed $y a oem A Reconciliation. 1e then aid for the u$lication of another novel ;orger . But acknowledgement as a writer was a decade away as there was little interest in his easant tales. In @::2 Knut travelled to the <7&" Goining the great !orwegian emigration to that country. Between numerous Go$s he was a$le to get some newsaer articles u$lished and $egan a series of lectures on authors among the !orwegian community. (rom this early start" 1amsun wrote without moral Gudgement" as an o$server of life. 1e was the first to develo the novel $ased on the sychology of characters. 1amsun wrote of what he saw and felt articularly identifying with the workers and the trams. But he was soon disillusioned with &merica and had a low regard for its lack of real culture. 1amsunQs first maGor literary work came in @::: when he succeeded in getting u$lished a short story in a maga'ine" which was to form art of his novel" 7unger. 0he story gained him access to the literary scene in 6oenhagen. 1amsun $ecame a cele$rity among the young intellectuals. 1e was invited to lecture $efore university audiences. 1e was commissioned to write a $ook on &merica in @::= setting aside the comletion of 7unger. 0he result was $n the
materialism of the country. 1is contemt for democracy as a form of desotism is e5ressed+ his a$horrence for its levelling nature and mo$ olitics. &merica is a land where the highest morality is money" where the meaning of art is reduced to cash value. 1e also e5resses his misgivings a$out the resence of &fricans in the <7&. 0he 6ivil war is descri$ed as a war against the aristocracy $y northern caitalists. 1e writes+ %'nstead of founding an intellectual elite, America has established a mulatto stud farm#. FA!E 7unger aeared in mid @:=4. It has $een descri$ed as one of the great novels of ur$an alienation. 8ike much of his writing it is artly auto$iograhical. It centres on a young $udding writer trying to fend off overty" wandering the streets in rags" $ut in some odd way enGoying the e5eriences desite the hardshi. 0hrough an act of will the character maintains his identity. 0his was erhas the first novel to make the workings of the mind the central theme. It was a genre he was to continue e5erimenting with over the ne5t ten years. 1e contended against contemorary sychology that states that individuals are not dominated $y a single ersonality tye. Instead they have a comle5 of tyes that are often not integrated. 1e wrote of his aim for literature+
%' *ill therefore ha"e contradictions in the inner man considered as a 2uite natural phenomenon, and ' dream of a literature *ith characters in *hich their "er lack of consistenc is their basic characteristic.#
1amsunQs ne5t great novel of the @:=4s was (steries" virtually a self)ortrait. One reviewer descri$ed 1amsun as e5ressing %the *ildest parado4es#, a hatred of the $ourgeoisie academics and the mass. 0he rincial character" !agel" is resented in the form of free flowing thought associations and a stream of consciousness. Editor +nge is a thinly veiled attack on an antagonistic and influential newsaer editor. 1ere 1amsun identifies himself as “a radical *ho belongs to no part, but is an indi"idual in the e4treme#. 0he $ook caused uroar among literary circles" $ut sold well. 1aving outraged the literary esta$lishment" 1amsun ne5t set a$out criti*uing the younger set of artists as arrogant and talentless wastrels in Shallo* Soil. 1ere 1anka 0idemand" a li$erated and modern woman of the tye detested $y 1amsun" finds her true nature $ack with her hard working hus$and and children" after an affair with an artist. 7he realises her mistaken course" on the verge of divorce" when she sees her children. 1ere 1amsun sets out his constant theme of rediscovering oneQs roots in the simle life" in family and children. 0he =areno trilogy focuses 1amsunQs growing anti)democratic sentiment in the character of Ivar Kareno" a young hilosoher who states+ %' belie"e in the born leader, the natural despot, not the man *ho is chosen but the man *ho elects himself to be ruler o"er the masses. ' belie"e in and hope for one thing, and that is the return of the great terrorist, the li"ing essence of human po*er, the
1amsun had $ecome a cele$rity" cheered in the streets $y crowds although he desised the u$licity and u$lic attention. 0ravelling to Russia he finds to his dismay the &merican tye of modernity and industrialism even under the 6ommunists. 0ravelling on to 0urkey he finds more to admire in the Qancient racesQ" having left) 34
“...the life of chatter and cackle behind#. 0hey smile and are silent. Fay$e itQs $est that way. The =oran has created an attitude toward life which cannot $e de$ated" or discussed at meetings. 0he attitude is simly this+ ;happiness is to sur"i"e: after*ards things *ill be better. >atalism.#
7uch a reGection of the modern rationalist sirit of #uroe and &merica was %simple, like iron.# 8ikewise his admiration for the simlicity of the Russian who %still kno*s ho* to obe#. 1amsunQs oem +etter to ron in 7ea"en is regarded as one of his most radical writings. 1e aeals to 8ord Byron to return and save society from degeneration" democracy and feminism. In @=3? 1amsun wrote an article. &ait ? See in which he attacked the oonents of !ational 7ocialist %ermany" and sarcastically asked if a return of 6ommunists" Dews and Bruning to %ermany is refera$le. O5PATION In &ril @=?4 the %ermans occuied !orway to secure the sea route" after the British had on several occasions $reached !orwegian neutrality" including the mining of !orwayQs territorial waters. 1amsun wrote in Tidkun SuislingQs newsaer that he hoed %ermany would rotect !orway from Britain in the Cest and 6ommunism in the #ast. Ironically" Suisling" his very name $ecoming synonymous with QtraitorQ" was the only olitician who had camaigned $efore the war for a strong defence caa$ility" and was articularly ro)British" having $een honoured $y the British %overnment for looking after British interests in Russia. 1e sought an alliance of !ordic nations including %ermany and Britain" against 6ommunism. 0he only strong resistance against the %erman invasion came from a garrison commanded $y an officer who $elonged to the Suisling arty. 0he King and %overnment *uickly fled" leaving !orway without a %overnment. Suisling steed in to fill the void as the only olitical figure willing to try and look after !orwegian interests under the occuation. 1e declared himself Finister ;resident" $ut $ecause he was not a liant tool he did not enGoy the confidence of the %erman military authorities. 1e was soon forced to resign in favour of an administrative council under %erman control" $ut eventually regained a measure of authority. Feanwhile" 1amsun urged !orwegians to rally $ehind Suisling so that some form of sovereignty could $e restored. 1e descri$ed Suisling as %more than a politician, he is a thinker, a constructi"e spirit.# It was a view that was to $e e5ressed after the war $y British Gournalist Ralh 1ewins" who had himself done his share during the war to $esmirch SuislingQs name. 1amsunQs longest wartime article aeared in the %erman language erlin!Toko!Rome eriodical in (e$ruary @=?2. 1e wrote+
%Europe does not *ant either the Je* or their gold, neither the Americans nor their countr#.
3@
Jesite 1amsunQs ro)%erman sentiment he chamioned the rights of his countrymen" including those who resisted the %erman occuation. 1e attemted in intercede for the writer Ronald (angen" and many others" who had $een arrested $y the %estao. In @=?3 1amsun and his wife acceted the invitation of %oe$$els to visit %ermany. %oe$$els wrote of 1amsun as $eing %the embodiment of *hat an epic *riter should be#. 1amsun was e*ually imressed and sent %oe$$els the !o$el medal he had $een awarded" which %oe$$els acceted as 1amsunQs %e4pression of solidarit *ith our battle for a ne* Europe, and a happ societ#. Chilst en route to !orway from %ermany" 1amsun met 1itler" a meeting which did not go well" as 1amsun took the oortunity to condemn the military administration of !orway which had rendered Suisling owerless. 1owever" 1amsun continued to suort %ermany and e5ressed his ride in a son Goining the !orwegian Caffen 77. In @=?? he visited a ;an'er division and toured a <)Boat. 1amsun received his :>th $irthday greetings from 1itler. In @=?> a stroke forced 1amsun to *uieten his activities. But with 1itlerQs death 1amsun defiantly wrote a tri$ute for the ress+ %' am not *orth to speak his name out loud. 8or do his life and his deeds *arrant an kind of sentimental discussion. 7e *as a *arrior, a *arrior of mankind, and a prophet of the gospel of ;ustice for all nations. 7e *as a reforming nature of the highest order, and his fate *as to arise in a time of unparalleled barbarism, *hich finall failed him. Thus might the a"erage *estern European regard 7itler) &e, his closest supporters, no* bo* our heads at his death# POST ,1AR PERSE5TION Fem$ershi of SuislingQs arty was declared a criminal offence and 1amsunQsQ sons 0ore and &rild were among the first of =4"444 to $e arrested. Farie and Knut were arrested a few weeks later. Jue to his age" at :A" 1amsun was sent to a hosital rather than rison" although the stress and treatment struck considera$ly at his still *uite good health. 1e was defiant and stated he would have assisted the %ermans more if he could. 1e was sent to an old folkQs home where he was a oular guest. 1owever" rosecuting !orwayQs leading cultural figure" like &mericaQs dealing with #'ra ;ound for treason" was an em$arrassing matter. 6onse*uently he sent @@= days in a sychiatric clinic. 0he sychiatrists found in him" as in the characters of his novelQs" a comle5 interlay of traits" $ut the most rominent of all they descri$ed was his “ absolute honest”. 0he conclusion was that 1amsun was not insane $ut that he was mentally imaired. 1owever" a reading of his auto$iograhical $n $"ergro*n Paths, written amidst the threats of rosecution and the interrogations" shows him to $e erfectly lucid. 1amsun" as his last writing shows" although deaf and going $lind retained his mental faculties imressively" along with a certain fatalism and humour. <hough the &ttorney %eneral oted not to roceed against 1amsun" the 6rown wished to try him as a mem$er of the !ational 7amlung ;arty run $y Suisling. 0o 1amsun the action at least meant that he was $eing officially acknowledge as of sound mind. 1e was fined ?2>.444 kroner. Cith ruinous fines hanging over them the 1amsunQs returned to !orholm. On aeal the fine was reduced to 32>.444 kroner. 0ore was also fined" and his $rother &rild was Gailed until @=?= for his mem$ershi of the !orwegian Caffen 77. Farie was released from Gail in @=?:. 32
1amsunQs $n $"ergro*n Paths was u$lished in @=?= and $ecame an immediate $est seller" although 1amsun ended his days in overty on his farm. 1e died in his slee on @=th (e$ruary @=>2. #apter <
HENR( 1I**IA!SON 1enry Cilliamson was of the (irst Corld Car generation from whose e5eriences emerged a new $ut eternal world)view. Cilliamson" like Knut 1amsun in !orway" saw mansQ lace in !ature as the ultimate source of oneQs $eing" an idealisation of nature as a reaction against the machine and the $ank. 0he hoe was of a new 7ringtime for the Cest in 7englerian terms" the rural against the ur$an" the rootedness of the soil and of working the land" against the ne$ulous city masses. It was what 7engler had called the final $attle of 6ivilisation) Blood &gainst Foney. Eet" whilst Cilliamson" like #'ra ;ound and 1amsun" are recognised as having a crucial imact uon 24th 6entury literature" these figures have $een consigned to the memory hole. 0his is due to them not only having identified with new olitical forms $ut ,unlike some of their contemoraries- to have never reudiated them. (or this they cannot $e forgiven $y the li$eral and Dewish coteries that control Cestern u$lishing and literary and artistic criticism. CilliamsonQs outlook shaed $y $oth his e5eriences in the trenches and in his attachment to nature" unsurrisingly led him to an areciation of !ational 7ocialism" with its concet of QBlood and 7oilQ" and to the (ascism of 7ir Oswald Fosley. Cilliamson was $orn @st Jecem$er @:=> in 8ondon" the son of a $ank clerk. &s a child" he had an intense love of nature" sending much time e5loring the near$y Kent countryside. 1e was intent on closely o$serving things for himself" this faculty remaining with him throughout his life and forming his writing style as the author of his famous and well)loved nature $ooks. 1OR*D 1AR I Cilliamson enlisted in the army on the out$reak of the war" and fought on the 7omme and at ;asschendale where he was seriously wounded. 1e was invalided home in @=@>" $ut was $ack as an officer in (rance in @=@A. 1e came out of the war as a 6atain with a Filitary 6ross. It was his war e5eriences" together with his love of nature that romted him to seek out and e5erience the life flow that ervades all e5istence.
&n enduring e5erience for Cilliamson was the 6hristmas 0ruce of @=@?" when %ermans and #nglishmen left their trenches to fraternise and lay soccer. Fen such as Cilliamson returned from the war far from hating %ermans and determined that never again would Q$rother #uroeansQ fight among themselves for the sake of greed and selfishness ANIENT S5N*IGHT &fter demo$ilisation" Cilliamson returned to his family home and entered emloyment with the Ceekly Jisatch in (leet 7treet. 1e had his first articles u$lished in several maGor eriodicals. In @=@=" he read 0he 7tory of Fy 1eart $y the @=th 6entury #nglish nature 33
writer Richard Deffries. 0his was to have a crucial imact uon Cilliamson as a revelation that he ) the individual self) is more than an isolated echo $ut a link that stretches without $eginning or end in a cosmic flow. It was the sun that reresented the sym$ol of this timelessness and unity. (or Cilliamson this truth ) known to all traditionalist civilisations" $ut smothered in our materialistic society ) is that of a mystical union $etween the eternal sunlight and the earth. 0he sym$ol of the ancient sunlight was something Q$orn withinQ. Cilliamson came to feel the long life of the earth $ack in the dimmest ast while the sun of the moment was warm on me... 0his sunlight linked me through the ages to that ast consciousness. (rom all the ages my soul desired to take that soul)life which had flowed through them as the sun$eams had continually found on earth. It was now that he em$arked on the first volume" 0he Beautiful Eears" of (la5 of Jream. In @=22" Cilliamson returned to the countryside and rented a cottage that had $een $uilt in the days of King Dohn" ne5t to the local church in %eorgeham" !orth Jevon. Cilliamson lived here hermit)like and studied nature in detail" traming the countryside and sleeing out. 0he doors and windows of his cottage were always oen" and he gathered a$out him a family of dogs" cats" gulls" $u''ards" magies and an otter cu$. 0he otter" 0arka ,meaning little water wanderer-" had $een rescued $y Cilliamson after a farmer had shot its mother. 0he otter would walk like a dog alongside Cilliamson. One day it walked into a ra$$it tra" anicked and fled. Cilliamson sent years looking for 0arka following the rivers 0aw and 0orridge. 1e didnQt find 0arka" $ut his intimate contact with nature insired him to write his most famous nature $ook 0arka 0he Otter. ;u$lished in @=2H" this oular $ook was an intimate descrition of the #nglish countryside" and gained Cilliamson the 1awthorne ;ri'e for 8iterature in @=2:. In @=2>" he married and his first son was $orn the following year. In @=2=" the family moved to 7hallowford" Jevon" where over the ne5t thirteen years four further children were sired" and more $ooks were u$lished" including 7alar the 7almon. (rom @=3H)?> the Cilliamson family lived at the Old 1all (arm in !orth !orfolk" where many more $ooks and articles were written" and a si5th child was $orn. NATIONA* SOIA*IS! 8ike Fosley and the many veterans who Goined his British
!ot only did the fraternity that had $riefly e5isted $etween %ermans and #nglishmen on the 7omme on 6hristmas Jay @=@? forever affect him" $ut he was also greatly influenced $y the act of the %erman officer who had heled him remove a wounded British soldier caught in $ar$ed wire on the front line. Cilliamson was therefore a$le to contrast what he knew of the chivalry of the %ermans with the anti)%erman hate roaganda that the ress had $egun to resurrect with the advent of 1itler. Cilliamson saw in !ational 7ocialism a sirit that could $ring a dying Cestern civilisation $ack to its wellsring of life. 1e felt duty)$ound to raise a voice. 1e was one of the first to commit himself to Fosley and the British
Cilliamson attended the @=3> !urem$erg 6ongress and was imressed $y the economic and social achievements of %ermany whilst the British continued to languish in overty and unemloyment. 1e saw a racial community $ased on the values of land and a revived easantry" freed from $ankerQs interest" guaranteed from foreclosure" and the ioneering conservation laws and roGects. Cilliamson saw in the faces of the %erman eole e5ressiveness and confidence that looked as if they were $reathing" e5tra o5ygen as he ut it. In the 1itler Eouth" reminiscent of his days as a Boy 7cout" Cilliamson o$served+ the former allid leer of hoeless slum youth transformed into the suntan" the clear eye" the $road and easy rhythm of the oised young human $eing. 8est it $e o$Gected that Cilliamson was seeing %ermany through rose coloured glasses" very much the same descrition was given $y the &merican Gournalist Cilliam 7hirer" author of the erennially u$lished $asic anti)!a'i te5t 0he Rise and (all of the 0hird Reich whose hatred of 1itler is $eyond dou$t. 0he young in the 0hird Reich were growing u to have strong and healthy $odies" faith in the future of their country and in themselves and a sense of fellowshi and camaraderie that shattered all class and economic and social $arriers. I thought of that later" in the Fay days of @=?4" when along the road $etween &achen and Brussels one saw the contrasts $etween the %erman soldiers" $ron'ed and clean cut from a youth sent in the sunshine on an ade*uate diet" and the first British war risoners" with their hollow chests" round shoulders" asty comle5ions and $ad teeth ) tragic e5amles of the youth that #ngland had neglected so irresonsi$ly in the years $etween the wars. ,7hirer" 2>A-. 0o Cilliamson" !ational 7ocialist %ermany reresented ...a race that moves on oles of mystic" sensual delight. #very gesture is a gesture from the $lood" every e5ression a sym$olic utterance. #verything is of the $lood" of the senses. Cilliamson said" 0he sirit of the farm and what I was trying to do there" was the sirit of Oswald Fosley. It was all art of the same $attle. ,7kidelskyCith characteristic descritiveness" Cilliamson" writes+ Rats" weeds" swams" deressed markets" la$ourers on the dole" rotten cottages" olluted streams" olitical arties and class divisions controlled $y the money ower" wealthy $anking and insurance houses getting rid of their land mortgages and investing their millions a$road ,$ut not in the emire-" this was the real #ngland of the eriod of this story of a !orfolk farm. In 0he 7tory of a !orfolk (arm he writes of his vision+ One day the sewage of the cities will cease to $e oured into the rivers" and will $e returned to the land" to grow fine food for the eole. One day salmon will lea again in the clear waters of the 8ondon River and human work will $e creative and Goyful. One day the soul of man" shut in uon itself during the long centuries of economic struggle" will arise in the light of the sun of truth. &nd now I lay down the en and return to the lough. 3>
In 0he ;hoeni5 %eneration" he e5resses his vision again through the auto$iograhical ;hili Faddison" the returned soldier" his generation denied the Qland fit for heroesQ that had $een romised $y the oliticians+ ...Chen the soilQs fertility is $eing conserved instead of raed" when village life is a social unity" when ride of craftsmanshi returns" when everyone works for the sake of adding $eauty and imortance to life" when every river is clean and $right" and the roud words QI serveQ are in everyoneQs heart and urose. 0hen my country will $e good enough for me. Cilliamson wrote for FosleyQs aer &ction. 1e called for &nglo)%erman $rotherhood" recognising that 1itler desired nothing more than eace with Britain. 1e saw that the result of another war would $e the $ringing of &siatic Bolshevism to the heart of #uroe. 1e sought to have his friend 0. #. 8awrence ,of &ra$ia- Goin with Fosley in a eace camaign. 8awrence was returning from having osted his letter to Cilliamson agreeing to such a camaign when he had his fatal motor$ike accident. Cith FosleyQs rallies attracting larger audiences than ever in @=?4" Cilliamson wrote to Fosley. If he could see 1itler" as a common soldier who had fraternised" on the faraway 6hristmas Jay of @=@?" with the men of his 8in' $attalion under Fessines 1ill" might I not $e a$le to give him the amity he so desired from #ngland" a country he admired... Cilliamson visited Fosley full of hoe" $ut FosleyQs reaction was that N am afraid the curtain is down. Cilliamson nodded" and asked Fosley what he would do. Fosley relied that he would carry on as long as ossi$le working for eace. In @=?4 around a thousand #nglishmen were interned without trial for oosing the war" including Fosley and :44 B<( mem$ers. Cilliamson was among those arrested. Cilliamson was aroled on condition that he remained silent. Cith this defeat of %ermany Cilliamson stated that his hoes for a regenerated #uroe had $een killed. GA*E OF THE 1OR*D 1is marriage $roke u in @=?H. 1e returned to !orth Jevon to live on the hillto hut he had $ought in @=2:. In 0he %ale of the Corld" the last volume of his @> volume auto$iograhic 6hronicles of &ncient 7unlight" Cilliamson has his main character ;hili Faddison ,i.e. himself- *uestioning the legality of the !urem$erg 0rials" the devastation of %ermany" and uts the $lame for the mass deaths in %erman concentration cams artly on the &llied $om$ing of the %erman transort system.
Cilliamson remained loyal to 7ir Oswald Fosley ,the character 7ir 1ereward Birkin in 0he %ale of the Corld-. In this last volume he has Faddison write some notes for guidance to any young" writer" a survivor of the 7econd Corld Car who asires to write a Car and ;eaces for this age. Cilliamson asks hoefully whether such a writer might write from his own sirit and vision" unimeded and unimaired $y contemorary massed emotions to truly show the luminous ersonality of &dolf 1itler+ to write with divination and truth" without admiration or contemt" and a$ove all without moral Gudgement" of the causes and effects of the tragic slit in the mind of #uroean man" from which arose this war. 0he creator of a work of art" continues CilliamsonNFaddison" will reveal the truth of this age" holding in $alance the forces and counter forces which led to the disintegration of the Cest. 3A
0he mind of the oet must with detachment assess the fatal war with an admired sister nation" which resulted in e5osing the Cest to a greater ruin from the #ast" $ecause a leader ,6hurchill- ursued BritainQs centuries old olicy of #uroean $alance of ower and there$y endorsed the further decline of the Cest $y destroying %ermany. CilliamsonNFadison" *uestions whether there was a soul of Britain or Gust a disrutive determinationX" arising from its island isolation and its osition of wealth from trade. Its olicy for four hundred years has $een to rule $y money" thus keeing in division the continent of #uroeX" as Cinston 6hurchill has written in an early auto$iograhy &nd will history decide that this #uroean of great talent and emotion Y6hurchillZ felt it to $e his crowning urose in life to $alk and destroy a fellow #uroean Y1itlerZ of genius ) who could $uild only $ecause he had forced out money for moneyQs sake/ 0he war had $een that of the Qsiritually damagedQ. 0he %erman leadershi was $eing tried and e5ecuted unchivalrously" for war crimes" when the 7oviets had $een guilty of Katyn. Chen thousands of shokeeers in (rance were murdered and their shos looted and condemned as Qcolla$oratorsQ. #arly in 0he %ale of the Corld" Faddison notes that after Berlin had $een su$dued from the shelling $y @@"444 guns" rae and sadism receded slow murder. !either those Qwar criminalsQ nor their Russian %enerals are $eing tried at !urem$erg."Chat of the so) called &llied war crimes/ Ce are imotent to do anything a$out the loss of ;olandQs integrity. Chat the war was a$out for 6hurchill" and those who sought to kee #uroe down and divided" was the reventing of 1itler from making #uroe united and self)sufficient" and indeendent of loans and imorts. (or this is what the war was a$out it was not directly a$out 7ynagogues $urned down or heads shaved or 6atholics saying Fass or anything else which the man in the street was told" since that was &88 he could comrehend. 0he war" was" and remains" an economic war and historically seaking" the misery of generations is less in eternity than a wave e5ending itself on a rock. 0he #uroean wave $reaks" and is no more. Cilliamson has a doctor attached to the disossessed
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Faddison notes on the radio news the final words of the defendants at !urem$erg as they went to the deaths on the scaffold. Immediately he makes a note+ 1erman %oring shot down Fanfred 6loudesley over Fossy (ace Cood at 1avrincourt in @=@:. 1e saw that his enemy" who had killed nine of his Richtofen 7taffel ilots" had the $est surgeons and treatment in hosital. 0his morning %oring committed suicide" $etter to have died on the cross" old Knight of the Order ;our le Ferited. <hough Cilliamson does not say it" one here wonders what it was that made the victory of Corld Car II and its aftermath so different from that of #uroeQs revious $rothersQ wars u until @=@:. !aoleon had $een comforta$ly e5iled and continued to e5ercise dominion over his island home and was treated honoura$ly. 0he Kaiser was e5iled to 1olland. Eet" now the %erman leadershi was condemned to death on a new set of legal rinciles alien to the Cestern ethos and contrived for the secific urose of eliminating them. 0his was not Cestern Gustice and chivalry" $ut Old 0estament vengeance POST 1AR AND OS1A*D !OS*E( Cilliamson was one of the first to resond to FosleyQs call for a
In 0he %ale of the Corld" he descri$es FosleyQs ,7ir 1ereward BirkinQs- $ackground. BirkinQs olitical career" after returning from Corld Car I" had $egan with original thinking at least two generations $efore his time. 1e was the youngest mem$er to enter ;arliament soon after the war. 1e left the 0ory ;arty $ecause of its staid manner and Goined the 8a$our arty. Fany ercetive men recognised him as a young man of outstanding $rilliance" industry and courage. !ow let the author of this $ook seak for himself. Cilliamson then *uotes from FosleyQs $ook 0he <ernative+ Ce were divided and we are con*uered. 0hat is the tragic eitah of two war generations. 0hat was the fate of my generation in @=@?" and that was the doom of a new generation of young soldiers in @=3=. 0he youth of #uroe shed the $lood of their own family" and the Gackals of the world grew fat. 0hose who fought are in the osition of the con*uered" whatever their country. 0hose who did not fight" $ut merely rofited" alone are victorious. Cilliamson takes u FosleyQs ost)war analysis" stating that (ascism had failed $ecause it was too national. Its oonent" financial democracy failed too. It could only frustrate those who would $uild a !ew Order. 0here follows a large segment from 0he <ernativeX" ending with a call for #uroeans to overcome their old wounds and rivalries and march onward in the #uroean 7irit. Cilliamson remained true to what he had always $elieved. 8ike #'ra ;ound and Knut 1amsun" he was denied all honours and ignored for decades. Cilliamson was even denied an honorary doctorate from the university to which he was a $enefactor.
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In @=>4" he remarried and sired another son" divorcing in @=A:. 1is 6hronicle of &ncient 7unlight was written $etween @=>@ and @=A=" and was acclaimed as a masteriece of #nglish literature" desite the efforts of certain interests to o$literate his name. 1e u$lished his final $ook 0he 7candaroon in @=H2" the story of a racing igeon. In @=H?" he $egan working on the scrit for a film of 0arka.
E/RA PO5ND #'ra ;ound" heralded as the Qfounding father of modern #nglish literatureQ yet denied honours during his life" was $orn in a frontier town in Idaho in @::>" the son of an assistant assayer and the grandson of a 6ongressman. 1e enrolled at the
rise of materialism" democracy and the masses as demeaning the arts" as newsaers and dime novels relaced literature" and the mass market determined cultural e5ression. 1ence" many were to seek a counter)revolution in the return of aristocratic societies or saw a modem alternative in (ascism. SOIA* REDIT ;ound em$raced the 7ocial 6redit economic theory of FaGor 61 Jouglas" $eing romoted $y 0he #nglish Review. By su$ordinating money to the interests of society rather than allowing the ower of the $ankers to run unfettered" money would $ecome the servant of society and not the master. Foney or more correctly credit would $e the lu$ricant of commerce" a means of e5changing goods and services" rather than a rofit making commodity in itself. 1ence" the corruting influence of the ower of money on culture and work would $e eliminated. Juring the @=34s and ?4s ;ound wrote a series of $ooklets on economics" succinctly and lucidly descri$ing economic theory and history.
&t the same time ;ound continued to $e insired $y the classical mystery religions and $y the Qlove cultQ of the 0rou$adours" who had $een suressed. 1e was also imressed $y the ideas of 6onfucius who taught a civic religion that assigned everyone a social duty" from emeror to easant as" a means of achieving a $alanced social order. 1e saw later" in fascist Italy" the attainment of such a 7tate. FASIS! ;ound considered in (ascism the fulfilment of 7ocial 6redit olicy" in $reaking the ower of the $ankers over olitics and culture. 1e considered that artists formed a social elite $orn to rule" $ut not as art of a democratic mandate. &rtists are the antennae of the race" $ut the $ullet)headed many will never learn to trust their great artists.
;ound had written in @=@? that the artist has had sense enough to know that humanity was un$eara$ly stuid... But he has also tried to lead and ersuade it" to save it from itself. In @=22 ;ound wrote that the masses are mallea$le and that it is the arts that set the casts to mould them. (or ;ound and others such as Cyndham 8ewis and 8awrence" $ehind mass) man and its doctrines of democracy and communism" stood the real tyranny of the $ankers. ;ound considered the $ulk of humanity to $e Qra$$leQ" the waste and their manure from which grows the tree of the arts. 1e writes in 0he 6antos of the masses and their olitical leaders $ecoming a torrent of e5crement" democracies electing their sewage. If one considers that the very essence of $eing human" of that which differentiates man from all other organisms" is the attainment of culture" then those from the culture)$earing minority of any society are definers of the human tye. 0he masses of eole are herded around $y a variety of forces" $oth malignant and $enign. Fany of the culture)$earing stratum" as we are considering them here" saw the rise of a new era that laced economics a$ove culture. Both communism and democracy sold their economic doctrines under the slogan of the Qhainess of the greatest num$erQ" as $eing the ultimate urose of a social ?4
order. 0he moneyed elite has relaced the cultural elite as the definers of the human tye. 0he aristocracy of money has relaced the old aristocracy of $lood. ;ound " 8ewis and Eeats all viewed the rise of these fundamentally a)cultural doctrines with alarm. 7ome like ;ound saw in fascism the means $y which the economic could $e su$ordinated to the cultural. 0hen the masses could $e harnessed for a cultural urose $y an Qartist)statesmenQ such as Fussolini. Others such as Eeats $elieved a return to an older order" $ased on aristocracy and its atronage of the arts was the way $ack to something $etter than crass materialism and what was then develoing into the o culture of our time. ;ound hoed the natural rulers $orn to the urle" would wrest control from the lutocrats and Bolsheviks. Criting in 0he #goist in @=@? ;ound stated+ 0he artist no longer has any $elief or susicion that the mass" the half)educated simering general... can in any way share his delights... 0he aristocracy of the arts is ready again for its service. Fodern civilisation has $orn a race with $rains like those of ra$$its" and we who are the heirs of the witch doctor and the voodoo" we artists who have $een so long desised are a$out to take over control. (or those who value things $eyond the material" such a cast)mould is refera$le to that which has dominated the ast two centuries" that of the merchant and the $anker. ;ound saw (ascism as the culmination of an ancient tradition continued in the ersonalities of Fussolini" 1itler and the British (ascist leader 7ir Oswald Fosley. 1e had studied the doctrines of the ethnologist (ro$enius during the @=24s" which gave a mystical interretation to race. 6ultures were the roduct of races and each race had its own soul" or aideuma of which the artist was the guardian. In Fussolini" ;ound saw not only a statesman who had overthrown the money ower" $ut also someone who had returned culture to the centre of olitics. 1e said+ Fussolini has told his eole that oetry is a necessity of state" and this dislayed a higher state of civilisation than in 8ondon or Cashington. Criting in his @=3> $ook Defferson andNor Fussolini ;ound e5lained+ I donQt $elieve any estimate of Fussolini will $e valid unless it starts from a assion for construction. 0reat him as &R0I(# and all the details fall into lace.. 0he (ascist revolution was (OR the reservation of certain li$erties and (OR the maintenance of a certain level of culture" certain standards of living... ;ound and his wife Jorothy settled in Italy in @=2?. 1e met Fussolini in @=33. 1e also $ecame a regular contri$utor to the eriodicals of FosleyQs British
social credit olicy that ;ound was advocating" and which was $eing undertaken in Italy and %ermany. 0his had resulted in roserity with a credit suly indeendent of the rivate $anking system. 0he Bank of #ngland intervened to comel the colonies to withdraw the scrit at a rate of devaluation that caused deression and unemloyment. 0he colonists re$elled. But eole such as &le5ander 1amilton ensured that an indeendent &merica was soon again su$Gect to the orthodo5 financial system of rivate $anking control. 8incoln attemted the same resistance to the $ankers and issued his famous Q8incoln %reen$acksQ. ;ound ointed out in that Fussolini had instituted $anking reform in @=3>" and delored the lack of knowledge and understanding around the world on what Italy was achieving. 0he <.7. constitution rovided for the same credit system" giving the government the rerogative to create and issue its own credit and currency. ;ound saw arallels $etween (ascist Italy and the tye of economic system sought $y certain &merican statesmen such as Defferson and Dackson. ;oundQs 6anto 8T ,Cith
AGED (rom the late @=34s ;ound $egan to look with favour at the economic system created $y 1itlerQs regime" and regarded the Rome)Berlin &5is as the first serious attack on usurocracy since the time of 8incoln.
In @=?4" after having returned to Italy from a tour of the <7& during which he attemted to oose the move to war against the &5is" ;ound offered his services as a radio $roadcaster. 0he $roadcasts" called 0he &merican 1our" $egan in Danuary @=?@. ;ound considered himself to $e a atriotic &merican. 1e considered the real traitors to $e Roosevelt and his mainly Dewish advisers. &fter the Roosevelt instigated Daanese attack on ;earl 1ar$our ;ound attemted to return to the <7&. 1owever" the &merican #m$assy revented him. ;ound was stranded in Italy. Cith no means of livelihood" ;ound resumed his $roadcasts" attacking the Roosevelt administration and usury with a mi5 of cultural criticism. In @=?3 ;ound was indicted in for treason. 1emingway" concerned at the fate of his old mentor after the war" suggested the ossi$ility of an QinsanityQ lea and the idea caught on among some of his literary friends who had o$tained good Go$s in the <7 %overnment. Other interests were ressing for the death enalty for &mericaQs most eminent man of letters. 0wo days after FussoliniQs murder ;ound was taken from his home $y Italian artisans after he had unsuccessfully attemted to turn himself over to the &merican forces. ;utting a $ook on 6onfucius into his ocket" he went with the artisans e5ecting to $e murdered" as a $loodlust was now turned against all those who had $een loyal to Fussolini. Instead" he ended u in an &merican cam at ;isa constructed for the most vicious military risoners. ;ound was confined in a $are" concrete floored" iron cage in the $urning heat" lit continuously throughout the night. 1e had a hysical $reakdown and was transferred to a medical comound" where he $egan his ;isan 6antos. In !ovem$er @=?>" he was flown to Cashington and Gailed. 1e" like Knut 1amsun in !orway" was an em$arrassment due to his fame. & trial would $ring rolonged u$licity. 1e was therefore declared insane and sent to a ward for the criminally insane at 7t. #li'a$ethQs mental institution. 1ere his literary outut continued over the course of @3 years" and he translated 344 traditional 6hinese oems that were u$lished $y 1arvard in @=>?. ;ound maintained his olitical $eliefs and among his visitors was Dohn Kaser" a fiery young intellectual admirer of ;oundQs oetry" who $ecame notorious as an agitator for racial segregation in the southern 3. In*uiries from the Dustice Jeartment solicited an admission that at most ;ound had a Qersonality disorderQ. By the mid)@=>4s" various influential figures and maga'ines were camaigning for his release" and the oet Ro$ert (rost was articularly instrumental in gaining his release. &fter @3 years confinement ;oundQs treason indictment was dismissed on the @:th &ril @=>:. ?3
On 34 Dune @=>:" ;ound set sail for Italy. Chen he reached !ales" he gave the fascist salute to Gournalists and declared all &merica is an asylum. 1e continued with 0he 6antos" and stayed in contact with olitical ersonalities such as Kaser and Oswald Fosley. 1e remained defiantly oosed to the &merican system when giving interviews" desite the rotests to the Italian government $y <7 dilomats. Because of his olitics" #'ra ;ound was refused the honours due to him until after his death on @st !ovem$er @=H2. #apter >
1(NDHA! *E1IS ;ercy Cyndham 8ewis is credited with $eing the founder of the only modernist cultural movement indigenous to Britain. !onetheless" he is seldom soken of in the same $reath as his contemoraries" #'ra ;ound" Dames Doyce". 0 7 #liot and others. 8ewis was one of the num$er of cultural figures who reGected the $ourgeoisie li$eralism and democracy of the @=th century that descended on the 24th. 1owever" in contradiction to many other writers who eschewed democracy" li$eralism and the 8eft" 8ewis also reGected the counter movement towards a return to the ast and a resurgence of the intuitive" the emotional and the instinctual a$ove the intellectual and the rational. Indeed" 8ewis vehemently denounced J 1 8awrence" for e5amle" for his esousal of instinct a$ove reason. 8ewis was an e5treme individualist" whilst reGecting the individualism of @=th 6entury li$eralism. 1is esousal of a hilosohy of distance $etween the cultural elite and the masses $rought him to !iet'sche" although aalled $y the oularity of !iet'sche among all and sundry and to (ascism and the raise of 1itler" $ut also the eventual reGection of these as $eing of the masses. Born in @::2 on a yacht off the shores of !ova 7cotia" his mother was #nglish" his father an eccentric &merican army officer without income who soon deserted the family. Cyndham and his mother arrived in #ngland in @:::. 1e attended Rug$y and 7lade u$lic schools $oth of which o$liged him to leave. 1e then wandered the art caitals of #uroe and was influenced $y 6u$ism and (uturism. In @=22" 8ewis e5hi$ited his ortfolio of drawings that had $een intended to illustrate an edition of 7hakeseareQs 0imon of &thens" in which 0imon is deicted as a snaing uet. 0his illustrated 8ewisQ view that man can rise a$ove animal $y a classical detachment and control" $ut the maGority of men will always remain as uets or automata. 1aving read !iet'sche" 8ewis was intent on remaining a 9arathustrean tye figure" solitary uon his mountain to far a$ove the mass of humanity. 3ORTE? 8ewis was originally associated with the Blooms$ury grou" the retentious and sno$$ish intellectual deni'ens of a delineated area of 8ondon who could make or $reak an asiring artist or writer. 1e soon reGected these arlour ink li$erals and vehemently attacked them in 0he &es of %od. 0his resulted in 8ewis largely $eing ignored as a significant cultural figure from this time onward. Breaking with Blooms$uryQs Omega Corksho" 8ewis founded the Re$el &rt 6entre from which emerged the Torticist movement and their ??
maga'ine Blast. 7ignatories to the Torticist Fanifesto included #'ra ;ound" (rench scultor 1enri %audier)Br'eska and ainter #dward Cadsworth. ;ound who descri$ed the vorte5 as the oint of ma5imum energy coined the name Torticism. Chilst 8ewis had found $oth the stasis of 6u$ism and the fren'ied movement of (uturism interesting" he $ecame indignant at FannettiQs descrition of him as a (uturist and wished to found an indigenous #nglish modernist movement. 0he aim was to synthesis cu$ism and futurism. Torticism would deict the static oint from where energy arose. It was also very much concerned with reflecting contemorary life where the machine was coming to dominate" $ut reGected the (uturist romantic glorification of the machine. Both ;ound and 8ewis were influenced $y the 6lassicism of the art critic and hilosoher 0 # 1ulme" a radical conservative. 1ulme reGected @=th century humanism and romanticism in the arts as reflections of the Rousseauan ,and ultimately communistic- $elief in the natural goodness of man when uncorruted $y civilisation" as human nature infinitely mallea$le $y a change of environment and social conditioning. & definition of the classicism and romanticism" which are constant in 8ewisQ hilosohy" can $e readily understood from what 1ulme states in his u$lication 7eculation+ 1ere is the root of all romanticism+ that man" the individual" is an infinite reservoir of ossi$ilities" and if you can so rearrange society $y the destruction of oressive order then these ossi$ilities will have a chance and you will get rogress. One can define the classical *uite clearly as the e5act oosite to this. Fan is an e5traordinarily fi5ed and limited animal whose nature is a$solutely constant. It is only $y tradition and organisation that anything decent can $e got out of him. 8ewisQs classicism is a dichotomy" classicism versus romanticism" reason versus emotion" intellect versus intuition and instinct" masculine versus feminine" aristocracy versus democracy" the individual versus the mass" and later fascism versus communism. &rtistically also classicism meant clarity of style and distinct form. ;ound was drawn to the manner in which" for e5amle" the 6hinese ideogram deicted ideas succinctly. 1ence" art and writing were to $e $ased on terseness and clarity of image. 0he su$Gect was viewed e5ternally in a detached manner. ;ound and 1ulme had founded the Imagist movement on classicist lines. 0his was now suerseded $y Torticism" deicting the comle5 $ut clear geometrical atterns of the machine age. In contradiction to Italian (uturism" Torticist art aimed not to deict the release of energy $ut to free'e it in time. Chilst deicting the swirl of energy the central a5is of sta$ility dissociated Torticism form (uturism. 0he first issue of Blast descri$es Torticism in terms of 8ewisQ commitment to classicism+ 8ong live the great art vorte5 srung u in the centre of this town. Ce stand for the reality of the ;resent ) not the sentimental (uture or the scaring ;ast... Ce do not want to make eole wear (uturist atches" or fuss eole to take to ink or sky $lue trousers... &utomo$ilisim ,Farinetteism- $ores us. Ce do not want to go a$out making a hulla$aloo a$out motor cars" anymore than a$out knives and forks" elehants or gas ?>
ies... 0he (uturist is a sensational and sentimental mi5ture of the aesthete of @:=4 and the realist of @:H4. In @=@A his novel 0arr was u$lished as a monument to himself should he $e killed in the war in which he served as a forward o$servation officer with the artillery. 1ere he lam$astes the $ohemian artists and literati e5emlified in #ngland $y the Blooms$ury coterie+ Eour fla$$y otion is a mi5ture of the lees of 8i$eralism" the oor froth $lown off the decadent !ineties" the wardro$e)leavings of a vulgar $ohemianism.... Eou are concentrated" highly)organised $arley water there is nothing in the universe to $e said for you+ any efficient state would confiscate your roerty" $urn your wardro$e ) that old hat and the rest ) as infectious" and rohi$it you from roagating. & $reed of mild ervasive ca$$ages has set u a wide and creeing rot in the Cest... that any resolute ower will $e a$le to wie u over night with its eyes shut. Eour kind meantime make it indirectly a eriod of tri$ulation for live things to remain in your neigh$ourhood. Eou are systemis)ing the vulgarising the individual+ you are the advance coy of communism" a false millennial middle)class midd le)class communism. Eou are not an individual+ you have. I reeat" no right to that hair and to that hat+ you are trying to have the ale and eat it too Eou should $e in uniform and at work. !O0 uniformly O<0 O(
In accusing yourself" stick to the 6ode of the Fountain. But crime is alien to a 1erdsmanQs nature. Eourself must $e your 6aste. 6herish and develo side $y side" your si5 most constant indications of different ersonalities. Eou will then ac*uire the otentiality of si5 men... #ach trench must have another one $ehind it.
?A
7end some of your time every day in hunting your weaknesses caught from commerce with the herd" as methodically" solemnly and vindictively as a monkey his fleas. Eou will find yourself swarming with them while you are surrounded $y humanity. But you must not $ring them u on the mountain... Jo not lay with olitical notions" aristocratisms or the reverse" for that is a comromise with the herd. Jo not allow yourself to imagine a fine herd though still a herd. 0here is no fine herd. 0he cattle that call themselves QgentlemenQ you will o$serve to $e a little cleaner. It is merely cunning and roduced $y a roduct called soa... Be on your guard with the small herd of gentlemen. 0here are very stringent regulations a$out the herd keeing off the sides of the mountain In fact your chief function is to revent their encroaching. 7ome in moment of $oredom or vindictiveness are at to make rushes for the higher regions. 0heir instinct fortunately kees them in crowds or $ands" and their tresassing is soon noted 6ontradict yourself. In order to live you must remain $roken u. &$ove this sad commerce with the herd" let something verita$ly remain un eu sur la montagne &lways come down with masks and thick clothing to the valley where we work. 7tagnant gasses form these Eahooes*ue and rotten herds are more dangerous than the wandering cylinders that emit them... Our sacred hill is a volcanic heaven. But the result of the violence is eace. 0he unfortunate surge $elow" even" has moments of eace. FASIS! ;overty dogged 8ewis all his life. 1e" like ;ound" looked for a society that would honour artists. 8ike ;ound and J 1 8awrence" he felt that the artist is the natural ruler of humanity" and he resented the relegation of art as a commodity su$Gect to the lowest denominator to $e sold on a mass market.
8ewisQs olitical and social outlook arises form his aesthetics. 1e was oosed to the rimacy of olitics and economics over cultural life. 1is $ook 0he &rt of Being Ruled in @=2A first details 8ewisQs ideas on olitics and a reGection of democracy with some favoura$le references to (ascism. 7uort for (ascism was a roduct of his 6lassicism" hard" masculine" e5actitude and clarity. 0his classicism romted him to alaud the rigidly organised (ascist 7tate" $ased on changeless" a$solute laws that 8ewis alied to the arts" in oosition to the Qflu5Q or changes of romanticism. 8ewis suorted 7ir Oswald FosleyQs British (ascist movement and Fosley records in his auto$iograhy how 8ewis would secretly arrange to meet him. 1owever" 8ewis was oen enough to write an essay on (ascism entitled 8eft wing for British
Far5ist roaganda in favour of the <77R amounted to vast sums financially. Far5ism is a sham" a mas*uerade in its chamionshi of the oor against the rich. 0hat Russian communism is not a war to the knife of the Rich against the ;oor is only too lainly demonstrated $y the fact that internationally all the Rich are on its side. &ll the magnates among the nations are for it all the imoverished communities" all the small easant states" dread and oose it. 0hat 8ewis is correct in his o$servations on the nature of Far5ism is evidenced $y the anti) Bolshevist stance of ;ortugal and 7ain for e5amle" while $olshevism itself was funded $y financial circles in !ew Eork" 7weden" and %ermany the Car$urgs" 7chiff" and Olaf &sch$erg the so)called QBolshevik BankerQ. 8ewis concludes his $rief article for the B<( Suarterly $y declaring (ascism to $e the movement that is genuinely for the oor against the rich" who are for roerty whilst the suer)rich are against roerty" since money has merged into ower" the concrete into the a$stract... Eou as a (ascist stand for the small trader against the chain store for the easant against the usurer+ for the nation" great or small" against the suer)state for ersonal $usiness against Big Business for the craftsman against the Fachine for the creator against the middleman for all that rosers $y individual effort and creative toil" against all that rosers in the a$stract air of 1igh (inance or of the theoretic $allyhoo of internationalisms !onetheless" 8ewis had reservations a$out (ascism Gust as he had reservations a$out commitment to any doctrine. (or him the rincile of action" of the man of action" $ecomes too much of a fren'ied activity" where sta$ility in the world is needed for the arts to flourish. 1e states in 0ime and Cestern Fan that (ascism in Italy stood too much for the ast" with emhasis on a resurgence of the Roman imerial i merial slendour and the use of its i ts imagery" rather than the realisation of the resent. &s art of the 0ime cult" it was in the doctrinal stream of action" rogress" violence" struggle" of constant flu5 in the world" that also includes Jarwinism and !iet'scheanism desite the continuing influence of the latter on 8ewisQs own hilosohy. &n early areciation entitled 1itler was u$lished in @=3@" sealing 8ewisQ fate as a neglected genius" desite his reudiation of $oth anti)7emitism in 0he Dews)&re 0hey 1uman/ and !a'ism in 0he 1itler 6ult $oth u$lished in @=3=. Cell $efore such $ooks" 8ewisQ satirising and denigration of the $ohemian li$eral Blooms$ury set had resulted in what his self)styled literary $odyguard" the oet and fellow Rightist Roy 6am$ell" calls a 8ewis $oycotts Chen lifeQs $read and $utter deended on thinking ro)Red and to generate oneQs own ideas was a criminal offence. TI!E AND SPAE & healthy artistic environment re*uires order and disciline" not chaos and flu5. 0his is the great conflict $etween the romantic and the classical in the arts. 0his dichotomy is reresented in olitics and the difference $etween the hilosohy of 0ime and of 7ace" the former of which is eitomised in the hilosohy of 7engler.
hilosohers relegated culture to the olitical shere. 0he cyclic and organic interretations of history are seen as QfatalisticQ and having a negative influence on the survival of the #uroean race. 8ewis does not concur with 7engler" who sees culture as su$ordinate to historical eochs that rise and fall cyclically as living organisms. 0here is no common historical and cultural outlook reresenting any secific cycle" $ut many ages co)e5isting simultaneously and reresented $y various individuals. 0his time hilosohy was in contrast to that of 7ace or the 7atial" and resulted in the tye of ongoing change or flu5 that 8ewis oosed. 8ewis looked with reverence to the %reeks" who e5isted in the ;resent" which he regarded 7engler as disaraging" in contrast to the Q(austianQ urge of Cestern Fan that looked to destiny. DE!ORA( 8ewisQs antiathy towards democracy is rooted in his theory on 0ime. Of democracy" he writes in Fen Cithout &rt. !o artist can ever love. Jemocracy is hostility to artistic e5cellence" and fosters $o5 office and li$rary su$scrition standards. &rt is however timeless" classical.
Jemocracy hates and victimises the intellectual $ecause the QmindQ is aristocratic and offensive to the masses. 1ere again 8ewis is at odds with others of the Right" with articular antiathy toward J 1 8awrence. &gain" it is the dichotomy of the Qromantic versus the classicalQ. 6onGoined with democracy is industrialisation" $oth reresenting the masses against the solitary genius. 0he result is the herding of eole into enormous mechanised masses. 0he mass mind... is re*uired to gravitate to a standard si'e to receive the standard idea. Jemocracy and the advertisement are art and arcel of this de$asement and $ehind it all stands money" including the millionaire $ohemians who control the arts. Faking a romantic image of the machine" starting in Tictorian times" is the roduct of our Foney) age. 1is oosition to Italian (uturism" often mistakenly e*uated with Torticism" derives artly from (uturismQs idolisation of the machine. Torticism" states 8ewis" deicts the machine as $efits an art that o$serves the ;resent" $ut does not idolise it. It is technology that generates change and revolution" $ut art remains constant it is not in revolt against anything other than when society romotes conditions where art does not e5ist" as in democracy. In 8ewisQs satirisation of the Blooms$ury deni'ens" he writes of the dichotomy e5isting $etween the elite and the masses" yet one that is not $y necessity malevolent towards these masses+ 0he intellect is more removed from the crowd than is anything+ $ut it is not a sno$$ish withdrawal" $ut a going aside for the uroses of work" of work not without its utility for the crowd... Fore than the rohet or the religious teacher" ,the leader- reresents... the great unworldly element in the world" and that is the guarantee of his usefulness. &nd he ?=
should $e relieved of the futile cometition in all sorts of minor fields" so that his urest faculties could $e free for the maGor tasks of intelligent creation. 4s. &ll the dilemmas of the creative seeking to function socially centre uon the nature of action+ uon the necessity of crude action" of calling in the $ar$arian to $uild a civilisations. 0his was of course the dilemma for 8ewis in his early suort for 1itler and for Italian (ascism. RE3O*T OF THE PRI!ITI3E Other symtoms of the romantic eoch su$verting cultural standards include the feminine rincial" with the over reresentation of homose5uals and the effete among the literati and the Blooms$ury coterie the cult of the rimitive and the Qcult of the child"Q that is closely related to the adulation of the rimitive.
(emale values" resting on the intuitive and emotional" undermine the masculine rational" the intellect" the feminine flu5 against the masculine hardness of sta$ility and disciline. 0o 8ewis revolutions are a return to the ast. (eminism aims at returning society to an idealised rimitive matriarchy. 6ommunism aims at a returning to rimitive forms of common ownershi. 0he idolisation of the savage and the child are also returns to the atavistic. 0he millionaire world and 1igh Bohemia suort these" as it does other vulgarising revolutions. 0he suosedly outrageous" to 8ewis" is tame. 8ewisQs $ook ;aleface+ 0he ;hilosohy of the Felting ;ot insired as a counter)$last to J 1 8awrence" was written to reudiate the cult of the rimitive" fashiona$le among the millionaire $ohemians" as it had $een among the arlour intellectuals of the @:th century the Rousseauean ideal of the return to nature and the no$le savage. <hough J 1 8awrence was writing of the rimitive tri$es to insire a decadent #uroean race to return to its own instinctual $eing" such QromanticismQ is contrary to the classicism of 8ewis" with its rimacy of reason. In contradiction of 8awrence" 8ewis states that" I would rather have an ounce of human consciousness than a universe full of Qa$dominalQ afflatus and hot" unconscious" QsoullessQ mystical thro$$ing. In ;aleface 8ewis calls for a ruling caste of aesthetes" much like his friend #'ra ;ound and his hilosohical oosite 8awrence+ Ce $y $irth the natural leaders of the white #uroean" are eole of no olitical or u$lic conse*uence any more... Ce" the natural leaders of the world we live in" are now rivate citi'ens in the fullest sense" and that world is" as far as the administration of its traditional law of life is concerned" leaderless.
>4
8ewis ooses the Qmelting otQ where different races and nationalities are $ecoming indistinguisha$le. Once again" 8ewisQ o$Gections are aesthetic at their foundation. 0he !egro gift to the white man is Ga''" the aesthetic medium of a sort of frantic roletarian su$conscious" degrading" and e5citing the masses into mindless energy" an idiot mass sound that is Far5istic. O!P5*SOR( FREEDO! By the time 8ewis wrote 0ime and Cestern Fan he $elieved that eole would have to $e comelled to $e free and individualistic. Reversing certain of his views esoused in 0he &rt of Being Ruled" he now no longer $elieved that the urge of the masses to $e enslaved should $e organised" $ut rather that the masses will have to $e comelled to $e individualistic.
I $elieve they could with advantage $e comelled to remain a$solutely alone for several hours every day and a weekQs solitary confinement" under leasant conditions ,say in mountain scenery-" every two months would $e an e5cellent rovision. 0hat and other coercive measures of a similar kind" I think" would make them much $etter eoles RET5RN TO SOIA*IST ENG*AND In @=3=" 8ewis and his wife went to the <7& and on to 6anada where 8ewis lectured at &ssumtion 6ollege" a situation that did not cause discomfort" as he had long had a resect for 6atholicism although not a convert. 8ewis as a eretual olemicist $egan a camaign against e5treme a$straction in art" attacking Dackson ;ollock and the #5ressionists.
8ewis returned to #ngland in @=?>" and desite $eing comletely $lind $y @=>@ continued writing" in @=?: his &merica and 6osmic Fan ortrayed the <7& as the la$oratory for a coming new world order of anonymity and utilitarianism. 1e also received some QofficialQ recognition in $eing commissioned to write two dramas for BB6 radio" and $ecoming a regular columnist for 0he 8istener. & ost)war oem" 7o the Fan Eou &re auto$iograhically continues to reflect some of 8ewisQ a$iding themes that of the creative individual against the a5is of the herd and 1igh (inances 0he man I am to $low the $loody gaff If I were given latforms/ 0he riff)raff Fay $e handed all the trumets that you will. !o so the golden)tongued. 0he window sill Is all the ulit they can hoe to get. 8ewis had $een systematically stifled since $efore Corld Car I when he $roke with the Blooms$ury wealthy arlour Bolsheviks who ruled the cultural esta$lishment in Britain. 8ewis continued with Q1erdsmanQs rinciles of eschewing $oth Bolshevism and ;lutocracy" staying a$ove the herd in solitude+ Chat wind an honest mind advances/ 8ook !o wind of sickle and hammer" of $ell and $ook" !o wind of any arty" or $lowing out >@
Of any mountain $lowing us a$out Of 1igh (inance" or the foot)hills of same. 0he man I am he who does not lay the gameV 8ewis felt that everything was drying u in #ngland" e5tremism was eating at the arts and the rot was ervasive in all levels of society 1e writes of ost)war #ngland+ 0his is the caital of a dying emire ) not crashing down in flames and smoke $ut e5iring in a eculiar muffled way. 0his is the #ngland he ortrays in his @=>@ novel Rotting 1ill ,#'ra ;oundQs name for !etting 1ill- where 8ewis and his wife lived. 0he Celfare 7tate sym$olises a shoddy utility standard in the ursuit of universal hainess. 7ocialist #ngland causes everything to $e su$standard including shirt $uttons that donQt fit the holes" shoelaces too short to tie" scissors that wonQt cut" and inedi$le $read and Gam. 8ewis seeks to deict the socialist dra$ness of @=?4s Britain. A. 8ewis died in @=>H" eulogised $y 0 7 #liot in an o$ituary in 0he 7unday 0imes" a great intellect has gone.
#apter @
RO( A!PBE** Roy a$pell was $orn in Octo$er @=42 in the !atal Jistrict of 7outh &frica. 1e enGoyed an idyllic childhood" growing u in 7outh &frica $eing im$ued as much with 9ulu traditions and language" as with his 7cottish heritage. 1e showed early talent as an artist $ut an interest in literature including oetry soon $ecame redominant. In @=@: he traveled to #ngland to attend O5ford where $y this time he was an agnostic with a love for the #li'a$ethan literature. 6am$ellQs friendshi with the comoser Cilliam Calton at O5ford $rought him into contact with the literati including 0. 7. #liot" the 7itwells and Cyndham 8ewis. 1e was $y now reading (reud" Jarwin and !iet'sche" and had a distaste for &nglo)7a5onism and the @drabness of England6 and found an affinity with the 6elts. 1e also identified with the (uturist movement in the arts. 6am$ell writes at this time in a manner suggesting the
%...Art is not de"eloped b a lot of long!haired fools in "el"et ;ackets. 't de"elops itself and pulls those fools *here"er it *ants them to go... >uturism is the react ion caused b the faintness, the morbid *istfulness of the smbolists. 't is hard, cruel and glaring, but al*as robust and health.# >2
6am$ell continues $y descri$ing the new art in !iet'schean and Jarwinian terms of struggle" survival and victory" $ut also suggesting something of his own colonial character+ %'t is art pulling itself together for another tremendous fight against annihilation. 't is *ild, distorted, and ugl, like a *restler coming back for a last tussle against his opponent. The muscles are contorted and rugged, the ees bulge, and the legs stagger. ut there it is, and it has *on the "ictor.#
6am$ell escaed from #nglandQs [drabness6 to ;rovence where he worked on fishing $oats and icked graes. Jesite his agnosticism he was imressed $y the simle faith of the easants" and started writing oems of a religious nature such as Saint Peter of the isher6s Praer, which took ten years to comlete and ortrays 6am$ellQs siritual odyssey 1e returned to 8ondon in @=2@ married Fary %arman and $ecame highly regarded among the Blooms$ury coterie who were imressed with his rough manners and hard drinking. 1is wife insired his first eic oem The >laming Terrapin" written whilst the coule lived for over a year at a remote Celsh village where their first daughter was $orn. 0 # 8awrence was immediately imressed with the oem and took it to Donathan 6ae for u$lication. 0his esta$lished 6am$ellQs reutation as a oet. NIET/SHE) HRIST - THE HEROI POET The >laming Terrapin is a com$ination of 6hristianity and !iet'sche. In a letter to his arents 6am$ell sought to e5lain the sym$olism as $eing founded on 6hristQs statement
%E"er tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is, he*n do*n and cast into fire#, and %5e are the salt of the earth but if that salt shall ha"e lost its sa"our it shall he scattered abroad and trodden under the feet of men.#
6am$ell now realised that 6hrist" was the first to %proclaim the doctrine of heredit and sur"i"al of the fittest#, and that his %aristocratic outlook# was misunderstood $y !iet'sche as $eing a religion of the weak. Corld Car I had destroyed the $est $reeding stock and demoralised humanity. 0he Russians for e5amle had succum$ed to Bolshevism. But 6am$ell hoed that a ortion might have $ecome enno$led from the suffering. 1e continued to e5lain that the deluge in The >laming Terrapin reresents the Corld Car" and that the !oah family reresents %the sur"i"al of the fittest#, triumhing over the terrors of the storm to colonise the earth. 0he terrain in eastern tradition is the tortoise that reresents %strength. longe"it, endurance and courage# and is the sym$ol of the universe. It is this %flaming terrapin# that tows the &rk" and wherever he crawls uon the earth creation $lossoms forth. 1e is %masculine energ# and where his voice roars man srings forth from the soil. 1is acts of creation are $orn from %action and flesh in one clean fusion#. 0he oem u$lished in @=2? in Britain and the <7& received critical acclaim from the ress as a fresh and youthful $reath" as $reaking free from $oth the $analities of the ast and from the scetical nihilism of the new generation. 6am$ell and his family returned to 7outh &frica where he was welcomed as a cele$rity. 1ere 6am$ell lectured on !iet'sche" >3
and raised !iet'scheQs condemnation of the meanness of modern democracy. In this lecture 6am$ell also attacked the ascendancy of technology" stating that the rush to rogress and enthronement of science during the revious century has outaced mans’ mental and moral faculties and that man has $ecoming suddenly %lost#. %All those useful mechanical tos *hich man primaril in"ented for his o*n con"enience ha"e begun to trannise e"er moment of his life.#
0his was a theme that concerned 6am$ell throughout his life. In a oem written a year later entailed The Serf. 6am$ell roclaimed the tiller of the soil as %timeless# as he %ploughs do*n palaces and thrones and to*ers#. 0he tiller of the soil" states a hoeful 6am$ell" endures through eternity whilst the cycles of history rise and fall around him. 0his gives a sense of ermanence in a constantly shifting world. 1is oem in honour to his wife 1edication to (ar he $ecame editor of oorslag and was closely associated with Cilliam ;lomer whose first novel Turbott &olfe involves inter)racial marriage. 1owever" desite their friendshi and 6am$ellQs disdain for the racial situation in 7outh &frica he reviewed ;lomerQs novel and found it having “a "er strong bias against the *hite colonists.# !evertheless" 6am$ell was not imressed $y what he considered as white 7outh &frica"
%reclining blissfull in a grocer@s paradise on the labour of the nati"es.#
6am$ell resigned from editorshi after the u$lisherQs interference. 7ome of 6am$ellQs $est oems written in 7outh &frica at this time are considered to $e among his $est. To a Pet ?
In @=2: the 6am$ells returned to ;rovence. 0he atmoshere was altogether different from #ngland and the wealthy socialist intelligentsia from which he sought escae. 0he 6am$ells fully involved themselves in the community" cele$rated the harvest feasts and welcomed the local folk into their home. 6am$ell $ecame a cele$rated figure in the dangerous sort of Qwater GoustingQ. 1e also assisted in the ring at $ullfights. 6am$ell found in the customs and culture of the ;rovencal villagers sta$ility and ermanence in a changing world o$sessed $y science and QrogressQ. 1is own aesthetics" at the $asis of his reGection of li$eralism and socialism" was a synthesis of the romanticism of ;rovence and the 6lassicism of the %raeco)Roman. 1e admired 6aesar" the martial ethos and the stoicism of the ancients. 1is ideal was a com$ination of aesthete and athlete. In Taurine Pro"ence" u$lished in @=32 6am$ell writes of this. %...So men in *hom the heroic principle *orks *ill be dri"en b their "er e4cess of "italit to flaunt their defiance in the face of death or danger, as in the modern arena.#
6am$ell" freed from the #nglish intelligentsia" now renewed his attack with fury. Criting in @=2: in 7crutinies b arious &riters" he states that the dominant hilosohy of the contemorary writer is dictated $y %fear of discomfort, e4citement or pain than b lo"e of life.# 1is attack on the %se4!socialism# of Blooms$ury as $eing fla$$y and effete is contrasted with his own ro$ust nature that could not fit in with the simering and decadent atmoshere of the intellectual. (ollowing on from Cyndham 8ewisQ scathing attack on Blooms$ury" The Apes of God, which 6am$ell enGoyed immensely" 6am$ell wrote The Georgiad in @=3@" as his own $roadside. 0his would $ring against him the mi5ture of condemnation and silence that the intellectual coterie had $een using against Cyndham 8ewis. The Georgiad e5resses 6am$ellQs disdain for the way Blooms$ury makes sickly everything it touches. 6am$ell comares his own QhateQ with that of their “ dribbles”. +ike luke*arm bilge out of a running leak Scented *ith la"ender and stale cologne +est b its true efflu"ium should be kno*n The stagnant depth of en" that ou s*im in, &ho hate like gigolos and fight like *omen. B5*1ARK OF HRISTENDO! In @=33 the 6am$ells left ;rovence for 7ain due to financial hardshi" desite the success of 6am$ellQs acclaimed volume of oems Adamastor, u$lished in $oth the <7& and #ngland. 0his was the final work to $e well received from the Blooms$ury crowd" whilst his Georgiad received what The Times +iterar Supplement was to recall in @=>4 as a %conspirac of silence#. 0he 6am$ells arrived at Barcelona where a right)wing electoral victory resulted in strikes and violence $y the anarchists and where machine guns were much in evidence on the streets. 1owever" the 6am$ells were greatly imressed $y the traditional 6atholic culture. 6am$ell descri$ed himself for the first time as a Q6atholicQ in his @=33 auto$iograhy roken Record, attacking $oth #nglish ;rotestantism as %a co*ardl form of atheism# and the (reudianism that ervaded the Blooms$ury rogressives. 1e contrasted this with the >>
%traditional human "alues# that continued to form the $asis of 7anish culture. roken Record was a $reak with modernism" $ut still lacked a coherent hilosohy. Jesite the reference to 6atholicism" 6am$ell had not yet converted" $ut siritual *uestions had long occuied him" with an interest in Fithraism emerging in ;rovence. 0his cult was still to $e seen in the shrines of ;rovence. 0hat it was the religion most favoured $y the Roman legions" with its strong martial ethos" together with the mythos of the $ull" aealed to 6am$ell. 1owever" he had also $een strongly imressed with the faith and traditionalism of the fishermen and farmers among whom he had $een so oular in ;rovence. 1is (ithraic Sonnets are a reflection of 6am$ellQs own siritual odyssey $eginning with Fithras and ending with the triumh of 6hrist" a mi5ture of the two religions. 0he Fithraic con*uering sun. Sol 'n"ictus, the $yword of the Roman legions" $ecomes transmogrified as the 7un of the 7on of %od" @the shining orbB reflecting as a mirrored shield the image of 6hrist. It is with these vague feelings towards 6hristianity and 6atholic culture that the 6am$ells moved south to the rural village of <ea in @=3?. 6am$ell continued to sing the song of 6atholicism in martial terms" of the solar 6hrist as QcatainQ winning the $attle of faith. 7ain $reathes its 6atholic tradition and in The >ight 6am$ell writes again with a martial flavour" an aerial dog)fight for 6am$ellQs soul his %red self# of atheism shot down $y the %*hite self “of the 7olar 6hrist" %the unkno*n pilot.# &t <ea" 6am$ell was again imressed with the %freshness, bra"er and re"erence# of the eole " received $y the village riest (ather %regorio. 1is daughter &nna related many years later" that for 6am$ell" 7ain was the last country left in #uroe that was still a astoral society whilst much of the rest had $ecome industrialised under the imress of ;rotestantism. 7uch was 6am$ellQs aversion to machinery that he never learnt to drive or even used a tyewriter. &t this time 6am$ell wrote Rust. 0he rust of time that $rings ruin to the intentions of those who would industrialise and modernise. %So there, and there it gna*s, the Rust, Shall grind their plons into dust...# *AKE(S OF APITA*IS! 6am$ellQs olitical outlook $ecomes coherent with his religious conversion. &n article u$lished in @=3> in the 7outh &frican maga'ine The
%The artist as romantic Crebel6 is the tamest mule imaginable. 7e dates from the industrial era and has been politicised to pla into the hands of the great sndicates and cartels. >irst b dogmatising immoralit, breaking up the %>amil#, that one definiti"e unit that ha"e *ithstood the *hole effort of centuries to ensla"e, dehumanise and mechanise the indi"idual, thereb cheapening and multipling labour. 't is the %'ntellectual# *hich had been chiefl politicised into selling his fello* mates to capitalism, *hether the capitalism be disguised as a "ast inhuman state Das in the -SSR under communism or *hether a gang of indi"iduals. The last centur has seen more class!*ars, and *ars bet*een generations, than an other period. The ha"e been deliberatel fostered b capitalism, of *hich bolshe"ism is merel an anonmous form. 1i"ide and rule, said A
2uarrel and our authorit *ill be supreme. A thousand artists and reformers *ith the highest ideals ha"e leaped ignorantl and romanticall into these rackets, and b means of causing hate bet*een man and *oman, father and son, class and class, *hite and black, almost irretrie"abl embroiled the human indi"idual in profitless, e4hausting struggles *hich lea"e him at the merc of the unscrupulous fe*.#
In @=3A 6am$ell met British (ascist leader 7ir Oswald Fosley" at the suggestion of Cyndham 8ewis. <hough 6am$ell declined to Goin Fosley as British (ascismQs official oet" his oetry was to aear in FosleyQs maga'ines $oth $efore and after the Car TO*EDO THE SARED IT( 0he 6am$ells ne5t moved to 0oldeo" which had $een 7ainQs caital under 6harles T during the 1oly Roman #mire. 0he city was isolated and timeless" medieval" full of churches" monasteries" convents and shrines. 0he old (ortress" the &lca'ar" designed to lay a ivotal role in the defence of 6hristendom against Bolshevism" served as a military academy. 0he city was full of riests" nuns. monks and soldiers" a com$ination of the religious" the military and the traditional that romted 6am$ell to call 0oldeo the %sacred cit of the mind.# 0he assumtion to ower of the 8eft)wing ;oular (ront resulted in the release of communist and anarchist revolutionaries from gaol amidst increasing olitical violence in Fadrid and Barcelona and street fighting $etween 8eft)wing and Right)wing factions. 6hurches were now $eing desecrated and destroyed throughout 7ain. 0he violence reached 0oledo where riests and monks were attacked and a church set a$la'e. 0he 6am$ells sheltered several 6armelite monks in their home. 6am$ell" well known for his anti)Bolshevik views and for his faith was severely $eaten $y %overnment “red” guards and araded through the streets to olice head*uarters. 1is gysy friend" with whom he was riding at the time of his cature" QFos*uitoQ Bargas" was murdered at the time of the arrest. 6am$ell was ro$a$ly sared this fate $y $eing a foreigner. In his tri$ute to his friend 'n (emoriam of (os2uito" 6am$ell writes with tyical stoicism and faith when $eaten $loody and dragged through 0oledo+
' ne"er felt such glor As handcuffs on m *rists. ( bod stunned and gor &ith tooth marks on m *rists...
Chilst 7ain was on the verge of civil war the 6am$ells were confirmed into the 6hurch $y 6ardinal %oma" &rch$isho of 0oledo and ;rimate of 7ain" in a secret ceremony. In Duly @=3: the %overnmentQs red guards killed arliamentary oosition leader 6alvo 7otel" the leader of the monarchists. (our days later the military under %eneral (ranco revolted against the %overnment to restore order and li$erty of worshi. Cith the &lca'ar $eing a military academy 0oldeo was easily taken $y !ationalist troos" and easants from the surrounding countryside fled to the city for refuge. 0he %overnment militia from Fadrid reared to attack 0oledo and the &lca'ar was $om$ed and shelled. 0he 6am$ells hid the archives of the 6armelite monks at their home for the duration of the civil war. 7eventeen 6armelite monks were herded into the streets $y the red forces and shot. &mong them was the 6am$ellQs father confessor who died with a smile and the shout of >H
%+ong li"e amed for saving life under fire on multile occasions" met (ranco and was resent at the !ationalist victory arade in Fadrid. 0he 6ivil Car was to result in the murder of @2 $ishos. ?.@:? riests. 2"3A> monks and around 344 nuns %eorge Orwell who had gone to 7ain along with others of the literati to fight with the Reds" was to remark that %lo*ering Rifle is a detailed e5lanation of his oetical credo" a tri$ute to his 6atholicism" to 7ainQs faith and martyrdom and also a condemnation of the British intelligentsia. It his introductory note 6am$ell e5lains that @humanitarianism6 is the ruling passion6 of the British intelligentsia which
%sides automaticall *ith the 1og against the (an, the Je* against the
&s a form of @moral per"ersion6 it was natural that such humanitarians sided with Bolshevik mass murderers. 0he oem $egins with a descrition of the ,fascist- salute" the %opening palm, of "ictor# the sign" of %palms triumphant foresting the da.# By contrast is the clenched fist of communism" %a +ife!constricting tetanus of fingers#, the sign of an %out*orn age# under which %all must star"e under the lo*est :
martyrs of the !ationalist cause are descri$ed in mystical terms" each death %a splinter of the
0he Far5ist deaths on the other hand were vacuous" for their gods are economics" science" gold and se5" and as e5onents of a$ortion and $irth control they are the essence of anti)life. But caitalism" is Gust as much a de$asement of man" as communism+ To cheapen thus for sla"er and hire The racket of the 'n"ert and the Je* &hich is through art and science to subdue. 7umiliate, and to pulp reduce The 7uman Spirit for industrial use &hether b
0hose who are de$ased the most are" under democracy" elevated to ositions of honour and state" elected $y the voting masses who are mesmerised $y the media and the literati" the oliticians hang a$out the 8eague of !ations That sheen club of communists and masons 7e bombs the Arabs, *hen his Je*s in"ade.
BritanniaQs trident had $ecome a %gra"eard spade# whilst condemning %ermany and Italy. “&ho from the dead ha"e raised more "ita forces/# (ranco" Fussolini and ;ortugalQs 7ala'ar had @mu99led up the soul destroing lie6 of communism" and as 7ain had shown" victory would come through nationhood" not 8eague sanctions" wealth or arms. Feanwhile Britain shunned its un$ought men" such as 6am$ell who $rings %the tidings that 1emocrac is dead.# Chen the 6am$ells travelled to Italy in @=3: the e5iled 7anish king &lfonso III who was greatly imressed with >lo*ering Rifle cordially greeted them. Of course the British literati were outraged" and even some 6atholics felt the oem lacked QcharityQ. 1AR SER3IE 6am$ell and his wife returned to 0oledo in @=3=" the !ationalists having triumhed. But there was now widesread famine. Fary oened a sou kitchen and refur$ished the damaged chael and $oth literally gave their clothes away to hel the distressed inha$itants. &s the world war aroached 6am$ell considered that there would $e two great contending forces. (ascism and 6ommunism. Cith the e5cetion of what he considered to $e a agan orientation in %ermany the (ascist states were eminently 6hristian and allowed 6hristians the right to live whereas Bolshevism simly killed and degraded everything" >=
$eing the enemy of every form of religion. 1owever" desite his antagonism to the #nglish $ourgeoisie and democratic Britain. 6am$ell always had an admiration for the heroic sirit of the British #mire and a feeling for those Britons facing an enemy. 1e sought to enlist" although under no illusions a$out the Gustice of the &llied cause. 1is animosity $y this time was against all systems" fascism" democracy and $olshevism" which he du$$ed as >ascidemoshe"ism. 1is ideal was not the cum$ersome state of any of these systems $ut that of small" self) reliant and co)oerating" family $ased communities" like those he had e5erienced in ;rovence" 7ain and ;ortugal. In the (oon of Short Rations 6am$ell considered the &llied cause to $e that of $oth socialism and the multi)national cororations" twin figures of a universal sameness. 1e saw that the ost)war world would $e ever more deersonalised and mechanical. 6am$ell could not sit still or take a soft otion as a num$er of his ro)war 8eft)wing intellectual accusers were doing whilst Britons marched to war. 1e lamooned these hyocrites such as 7ender and 6ecil Jay)8ewis who had a Go$ in the Finistry of Information" when they attacked his “fascism”" and he wrote The olunteer@s Repl to the Poet stating+ 't *ill be the same, but a blood sight *orse... Since ou ha"e a hand in the game... 5ou coin us the catch*ords and phrases >or *hich to be slaughtered...
1owever" $ecause of his age and a $ad hi 6am$ell had to $e content with the home guard until @=?2 when he was recruited into the &rmy Intelligence 6ors due to his skills in languages. Britain in wartime had in 6am$ellQs view awakened from its Qdra$nessQ to $ecome again a *arrior nation6. 6am$ell was oular with the troos as a QgrandfatherlyQ figure" and was stationed in #ast &frica. 6ontracting malaria and with a deteriorating hi condition necessitating the use of a cane" he was discharged with an %e4cellent militar record# POST,1AR 1OR*D 0he #ngland of the ost)war years returned to its dra$ routine and worse still for 6am$ell" the rosects of an all)consuming welfare state. 6am$ell soon went $ack into fighting mode against the 8eft)wing oets with The Talking ronco ,a name that 7ender had alied to him-. #ven Tita 7ackville)Cest" calling 6am$ell %one of our most considerable li"ing poets# acclaimed this volume. Jesmond Fc6arthy writing in The Sunda Times regarded 6am$ell as %the most democratic poet#, not olitically" $ut in his feeling for the common man and for the common soldier. Others were of course outraged. 6ecil Jay) 8ewis $elieved 6am$ell should $e sacked as a %fascist# from the Go$ he now had as roducer of the BB6 talk rogrammes" since he was not fit to “ direct an ci"ilised form of cultural e4pression#. 6am$ell was horrified $y the &llied victory that had laced half of #uroe under the <77R. 1owever" he was e*ually horrified $y the rest of the world falling under the dominion of the multinational cororations and their creed of glo$al consumerism" or what we today call glo$alisation. (or 6am$ell the 6old Car was a contention $etween two e*ually internationalist forces. 1is daughter &nna wrote in @=== that 6am$ell admired all tyes of ethnic civilisation as oosed to the mass conformity of Far5ism and the A4
glo$alisation of the likes of Facdonald and 6oca)6ola. 1is concern was in %e"erthing becoming the same#. 1e would have $een “ horrified b *hat the *orld has become no*” she wrote. Jesite 6am$ellQs sensitivity to $eing called a %fascist#, he was unaologetically a man of the “Right”" of tradition and nationalism" and continued to forthrightly e5ound this osition after the war in his oetry and essays. Criting in “ A 1ecade in Retrospect# in the Desuit Gournal The (onth Fay @=>4" he refers to the %Gaderene stampede# of rogress for the want of two sensi$le stand$ys ,a $rake and a steering wheel-. “ Tradition and Reaction#, %A bod *ithout reactions is a corpse. So is a Societ *ithout Tradition.# In @=?= 6am$ell left his Go$ with the BB6 to take over the editorshi of The @. In @=>2 the family moved to ;ortugal. Before leaving #ngland 6am$ell got together with a num$er of 7outh &frican literary friends" and signed an oen letter to the 7outh &frican %overnment rotesting voting restrictions on the coloured oulation. 1owever" 6am$ellQs misgivings a$out the 7outh &frican situation were not romted $y the li$eral desire for a democratic" monocultural state. 1e feared that antagonism $etween the races would result in Bolshevism and the destruction of his rustic ideal. Cith the advent of Black rule" free market caitalism was ushered in on the wings of Far5ism and revolution. 0oday the &!6 today calls glo$alisation and trade li$eralisation the %correct path to (ar4ism! +eninism#. In @=>? his views on his native land were given when acceting an honorary doctorate from !atal. In an off the cuff seech" much to the em$arrassment of the li$eral audience" he defended 7outh &frica against #nglandQs condemnation of aartheid" ridiculing 6hurchill and Roosevelt" who had sold %t*o hundred million nati"es of Europe” to the far worse slavery of $olshevism. Chilst in the <7& on a seaking tour he raised %the t*o greatest 5anks# 7enator Fc6arthy and %eneral Fac&rthur. In &ril @=>H returning from 7ain" 6am$ell and his wife had a motor accident. 6am$ellQs neck was $roken and he died at the scene. Fary survived him $y 22 years. #dith 7itwell who converted to 6atholicism through the e5amle of the 6am$ells" remarked+ %7e died as he had li"ed, like a flash of lightning#.
#apter2
P R STEPHENSEN Per"y Re&inald Step#ensen was one of &ustraliaQs re)eminent Qmen of lettersQ" whose work includes $iograhies and short stories. 1e also served as a ghost writer and a mentor. 7tehensen sought to develo an &ustralian national culture and $ecame a olitical activist and u$lisher in order to foster such a culture and sense of @Australianit@. 8ike many others such as ;ound and 1amsun whose olitics veered to the “Right”" 7tehensen is often unacknowledged desite his ivotal role in develoing an &ustralian literature and defining an &ustralian culture. Born in Sueensland in @=4@" of 7candinavian descent" 7tehensen was from an early age of a olemical disosition and was inclined towards the 8eft as a university student. In @=2@ A@
he was a founding mem$er of the &ustralian 6ommunist ;arty. &fter graduating in the arts he took a teaching osition in @=22 and formed a communist association. 1e was also one of the first to write an in deth review of J 1 8awrenceQs novel =angaroo, when serving as a writer for a 8a$our ;arty newsaer in Bris$ane. In @=2? he was elected SueenslandQs Rhodes 7cholar and enrolled in the 7chool of ;hilosohy and ;olitical #conomics at O5ford in #ngland. 1e was one of the few mem$ers of the 6ommunist ;arty at O5ford and was active in sreading roaganda in suort of Indian indeendence. Chatever 7tehensenQs ideological commitment to 6ommunism it seems likely that his motivation was urely a reaction against $ourgeoisie society. &s the u$lisher of the +ondon Aphrodite during the late @=24Qs 7tehensen wrote an article in raise of the Russian &narchist leader Bakunin with articular attention to him as a man of ure action and vitality. 0his devotion to the no$ility of the deed reflects the influence of !iet'sche on 7tehensenQs thinking and he translated and u$lished a coy of !iet'scheQs Antichrist in @=2=. In @=2H 7tehensen took over the >anfrolico Press which secialised in limited editions. 1e went on to esta$lish the (andrake Press and u$lished a volume of aintings $y J 1 8awrence and heled to u$lish an undercover edition of 8awrenceQs +ad irst ”. FO5NDATIONS OF A5STRA*IAN 5*T5RE In Duly @=3> 7tehensen u$lished The >oundations of
%As the culture of e"er nation is an intellectual and emotional e4pression of the genius loci, our Australian culture *ill di"erge from the purel local colour of the ritish 'slands, to the precise e4tent that our en"ironment differs from that of ritain. A hemisphere separates us from @home@, *e are Antipodeans3 a gum tree is not a branch of an oak3 our Australia culture *ill e"ol"e distincti"el.# A2
%...*hat is a national culture) 's it not the e4pression, in thought form, of art!form, of the Spirit of a Race and of a Place)# “ 't is culture that pro"ides @permanence@ for a nation *hilst a ll else mo"es on.
It is literature" according to 7tehensen" that gives the greatest sense of Place and Race and Permanence to a nation and which indeed creates the nation. Ro$ert Burns is an e5amle of the way 7cotland as an “ idea” is e5ressed. Cith #ngland" 6haucer" 7hakeseare" Jickens... more so than the oliticians" merchants and soldiers. 0he “ idea” of the (rench nation has $een likewise e5ressed through Fontaigne" Ra$elais" Toltaire" Tictor 1ugo" Bal'ac..." and %ermany lives in %oethe" 1eine" Kant" 1egel and Richard Cagner. Russia has its Jostoevsky" 0olstoy " 6hekov" Fa5im %orky 7candinavia" I$sen and Knut 1amsun... 1owever" in the case of &ustralia" art was more reflective of an emerging &ustralian culture than was its literature. #arly &ustralian literature $ased around the ulletin maga'ine" and eitomised $y oets and writers such as 1enry 8awson" was of a rough nature $ecause it was a radical resonse to British denigration of &ustralians as QconvictsQ. 8andscae ainting in &ustralia" however" was never $ased on a Gournalistic element. 8andscae ainters had to e5amine &ustralia carefully" e5ressing %the Spirit of the Place#, the strange contours of the land" the solitude and the light *uality of the atmoshere that sym$olise most urely what is &ustralian. &ustralian ainters were also deendent uon an audience and a market within their nation" and not that of the world market lace where art is rostituted for money. 0he ainting is individual whilst the $ook is mass roduced. <hough the art can $e internationally areciated it is “ nationall created ” , “ formed locall no matter ho* it might tra"el ”. Regardless of how travel and communication $reak down $arriers local cultures remain. & creative thinker contri$utes to the culture of his own eole first and then to the culture of the world. But a writer or an artist needs the stimulus of his own eole. Jesite the universalising tendencies at work" &ustralia had the right to $ecome a nation" $ut there cannot $e a nation without %a national place idea, a national culture.# 7tehensen attacks those academics who sought to demean &ustralia as a nation and as a culture $y forever su$ordinating &ustralia to Britain and the British #mire. 1e acknowledges that it is the #nglish culture from which &ustralian culture will roceed" $ut it was the lant that would grow" rather than the #nglish fertiliser that would now $e of concern. 6ulture is the essence of nationality" the nation" an e5tension of the individuals that comrise it" @generation after generation@. !ationality gives the individual a sense of ride and meaning. 7tehensen draws on a 7englerian cyclic analysis of history in stating that nations and emires eventually undergo decline over the course of centuries. 1e foretells BritainQs decline during the 24th century. THE P5B*IIST In @=3> a wealthy $usinessmen" C D Files" whose wartime activities included oosition to A3
conscrition and advocating the concet of Q&ustralia (irstQ" contacted 7tehensen after reading >oundations. 0ogether they launched a maga'ine" the Publicist. 0he aer lasted until @=?2. It was descri$ed as %the paper loal to Australia >irst#. Files was in editorial control. 1is views were overtly ro)&5is. %erman" Italian and Daanese roaganda material was sold at the Publicist offices. & free hand for Daan in 6hina was suorted" at a time when the 8eft was calling for a $oycott of Daan. 7tehensen viewed Daan as “the onl countr in the *orld completel free of international Je* >inance.” 7tehensen $elieved that there would $e a world war involving &ustralia within a few years ,@=3H-. 1e saw no advantage to &ustralia in sending her men to sill their $lood in #uroe. Fany &ustralians remem$ered the huge losses suffered during Corld Car I caused artly $y the unrealistic orders of British commanders. &lready in @=3A the Publicist was running a satirical recruiting oster referring to the coming %Great European &ar#, %1on@t Go@ 5our
In @=3= as the crisis in #uroe was fast aroaching" 7tehensen wrote" “Chy need &ustralians $emoan the a$sortion of 6'echoslovakia $y %ermany when &ustralia is already Qa$sor$edQ $y British and &merican Dew)6aitalists” Jesite the radical tone of Files and 7tehensen the Publicist attracted a num$er of rominent cultural figures" such as lan Fudie and Re5 Ingamells" who wrote on the arts. It also offered a generous amount of sace for right of rely to its enemies. In @=3= 7tehensen advocated the need for a heroic leader+ %A man of harsh "italit, a born leader, a man of action, no *hat sicklied o@er *ith the pale cast of thought. >anatics are needed, crude harsh men, not s*eetened and decorous men, to arouse us from the letharg of decadence, softness and lies *hich threatens death to *hite Australia.#
Jemocracy was art of the weakness and decay of the modem world. In a radio talk in @=3: 7tehensen stated “&e oppose democrac as a political sstem, because *e belie"e it can ne"er e"ol"e the bold leadership that *ill be necessar to guide Australia through the difficulties of the coming ear .” TO1ARDS A PART( (rom @=3A the Publicist started utting forth ideas for an &ustralia (irst arty. In @=3: readers’ grous suggested a twelve oint rogramme as a $asis for discussion. 0he rincial grou was the 5abber
rather than sending &ustralian troos far afield" and the right to negotiate indeendently and sue for a searate eace. 7tehensen formed the Australia >irst (o"ement in 7etem$er @=?@. & maGor element in the formation of the movement was the 7ydney &omen@s Guild of Empire" formerly antagonistic towards the Publicist due to the issue of loyalty to Britain. 0he mainstay of the %uild was &dele ;ankhurst Calsh of the British suffragette family. On migrating to &ustralia she had married the militant 7eamenQs irst was revented from holding further u$lic meetings $y the olice. STEPHENSEN7S PO*ITIA* DE!ANDS 7tehensen had u$lished several manifestos in the Publicist for a olitical movement $eyond the more moderate version that was temorarily adoted for immediate wartime use. 1is ideas for a ost)war arty included olicies more far ranging and ela$orate. In articular they convey 7tehensenQs aversion to democracy as causing arty and economic divisions" aealing to the lowest denominator for vote catching uroses" undermining leadershi" avoiding resonsi$ility and leading to “deca”. 7tehensen osited his fifty)oint manifesto for an Australia >irst Part to $e founded after the war. In the @st Fay @=?4 issue of the Publicist these $rief oints were greatly e5anded uon. On @st &ugust @=?@ under the heading “To*ards a 8e* $rder ” it was stated that these were rinciles" not lanks" for a democratic arliamentary arty. “ $ur self!imposed task *as to thro* a stone into the stagnant pond of Australian political complacenc” 7tehensen writes in the ream$le. 0he first three oints call for &ustralian self)reliance" culturally" and olitically" against imitating ideas from a$road and deendency uon others. & %distincti"e national Australian culture# is regarded as the rere*uisite for “ 8ational -nit, 8ational
$ecome a ower over the nation" the 7tate would $e re*uired to intervene. (urther oints call for frankness and honesty in dilomacy" with a @li"e and let li"e@ attitude minus the moralising towards others that leads to war 0he emhasis on defence was to $e to rotect &ustralia rather than serve other interests overseas. &n attitude of friendliness was to $e fostered towards nations $ordering the ;acific Ocean" which could only $e achieved when &ustralia was not su$ordinate militarily and dilomatically to British or other interests. 7tehensen considers a declining $irth rate a symtom of decadence which would lead to the e5tinction of &ustralia" esecially when there were suggestions to make u for the oulation short fall through immigration. 1e called for a white &ustralia as a %biological aim# to create a ermanent home for ersons of %European racial deri"ation#. 0his would e5clude “7emites” and other non)a$sor$a$le immigrants. 1owever" 7tehensenQs chamionshi of %Aranism# cannot $e dismissed as a simle racial suremism. 7tehensen was an avid suorter of &$origine rights" serving as secretary of the Aborigines6
0he organic social order had e5isted until the (rench and &merican Revolutions. 7tehensen e5lains how these uheavals undermined the traditional social order with “democratic sectionalism#, and “an alleged e2ualit inspired b the thoughts of J. J. Rousseau#, the (rench rationalist hilosoher. 0he result" under the facade of democracy and e*uality" has $een not to emower Qthe eoleQ" $ut to emower industrial and financial interests which are a$le to use democracy to undermine any authority and ower. 1owever" 6ororativism ena$les the social organism to function as %an integral *hole# su$Gecting AA
sectional interests" whether class or arty" to the interests of the community" like the cells of $iological organism all function for the common good of the whole organism. Chilst 7tehensen $elieves this 6ororatist or organic state as necessary to $ring harmony $etween the social and economic classes" and e5ects $oth caital and la$our to restrain their sectional demands for the $enefit of the whole" his ideas on financial and economic olicy do not seem to have $een well develoed. Jesite his oosition to “international Je* finance#, as he ut it" and his recognition that the &5is countries had thrown off the ower of the lutocrats" his statements of olicy do not reflect a recognition that the &5is economies were $ased on 7tate regulation of credit and currency creation and a system of trade $ased on $arter. Instead 7tehensen ots for more orthodo5 $anking ractices and condemns theories of credit e5ansion and secifically 7ocial 6redit" to which many like minded men of letters such as #'ra ;ound and 0.7. #liot adhered to as a means of overthrowing the rule of money. 1e does however e5ect caitalists to invest their caital into roductive enterrises rather than those of a seculative nature" once the 7tate has ensured an economic climate generating reasona$le returns for such investment. . STEPHENSEN7S ;REASONED ASE AGAINST SE!ITIS! 7tehensen" like other Rightist men of letters such as #'ra ;ound" retained friendshi with Dews as individuals they e5ressed animosity towards a erceived Dewish olitical agenda and regarded Dews as an unassimilata$le minority. 7tehensen resented “ Reasoned 444 years $y a most e5clusivistic racialism. 7tehensen states that with such a dou$le standard no$ody likes $eing %humbugged#. 7tehensen comares the manner $y which a small num$er of Dews are a$le to wield immense influence through a suerior close)knit communal organisation to the manner $y which communist cells were a$le to insinuate themselves into institutions and get their measures adoted $y an unsusecting and largely lethargic maGority. 0he @too!9ealous propagandists of the Je*ish used!European 7omogeneit@. #uroean migrants had discarded their Old Corld ties and amalgamated to form what was $ecoming an &ustralian nationality. &ustralia had %antedated 7itler@s @racial theories@ b fift ears.” AH
It is of interest that the white &ustralia olicy was not an imerial or caitalistic origins $ut was one of the rimary aims of the &ustralian 8a$our ;arty" which met rincial oosition from $oth the British 6olonial Office and from &ustralian $usiness interests which sought a ool of coolie la$our. 7hould Dews forego their Dewishness and fully integrate and intermarry there would $e no Dewish ro$lem. 0hat they do not do so is their choice" and 7tehensen is here convinced that they will never forsake their Dewishness" so the Dewish ro$lem will remain. %7ere then *e are faced *ith a defiance b Je*s of the fundamental principle of >used! European 7omogeneit *hich it is the basic aim of Austr alian national polic to establish and maintain. The claim the right not onl to settle here but to maintain themsel"es in perpetuit, as a self!segregated minorit, of different an d distinct racial stock from the rest of the Australian communit.#
It is" as he oints out" a matter of ersective. &s a non)Dew in any conflict of interest $etween Dew and %entile he would instinctively side with his own. 7tehensenQs loyalty was to &ustralia and a large migration of Dewish refugees from #uroe would undermine the &ustralia which he wished to see develoing as a nation" culture and eole on its own account. INTERN!ENT 7uch sentiments were regarded as treasonous $y the authorities whose %overnment had tied &ustralia to British imerial and &merican interests. &dditionally" several individuals and grous had gained the attention of the military intelligence as ossi$le colla$orators in the event of a Daanese invasion. 7ome of these had had some contact with 7tehensenQs Australia >irst (o"ement . Q#nemy aliensQ" including those who were anti)(ascist" were $eing interned. 7i5teen suorters of the movement" including 7tehensen" were detained under Regulation 2A at 8iverool internment cam in Farch @=?2. ;olice occuied the Publicist office. 0he oet and author lan Fudie" an e5ecutive mem$er of the movement" although *uestioned" was not interned" although he was to comment that he must $e either as QguiltyQ or QinnocentQ as those who were. The ulletin remained strongly oosed to the internments" and made much of one of the internees $eing @an $ld 1igger@. 0he latter" Fartin Catts" a holder of the Filitary medal from Corld Car I" and several others were conditionally released after several months. 1owever" Catt’s Go$ had gone and he died several weeks later of $ronchial neumonia" e5acer$ated $y his internment. ,1is wife Jora" who was art Dewish" was to retain a lifelong activity with the &ustralian Q Right@ -. 0ransferred to 8oevday" then to 0atura cams" 7tehensen sent three and a half years interned. &fter the war several e5)internees continued to camaign for e5oneration and two issued a rerint of the @=?2 issues of the Publicist to rovide a @durable historical record6 that would show their loyalty and atriotism. POST,1AR 0he oet and author lan Fudie had $een keen to see Australia >irst revived. 1owever" 7tehensen was otimistic regarding the develoment of &ustraliaQs national consciousness" and $elieved the aims of the movement were $eing realised. 0he imerial connection was A:
dissiating and there was a growing interest in &ustralian culture. (or the first decade after the war 7tehensen was mainly involved in assisting &ustralian writers" rincially (rank 6lune. By @=>= 7tehensen had sufficiently re) esta$lished his literary reutation to $e asked to undertake a 6ommonwealth 8iterary (und lecture tour of 7outh &ustralia with his old friend lan Fudie. 0he lectures were u$lished as 8ationalism in Australian +iterature. Other such lectures followed in Sueensland in @=A@. 1is continuing theme of an &ustralian national culture $y this time was meeting with wider suort. 7tehensenQs literary outut continued at an imressive rate" and included The iking of an 1iemen@s +and, The
#apter 22
RE? FAIRB5RN Fany would o$Gect to identifying & R J. (air$urn with the “Right”. &s a central figure in the develoment of a !ew 9ealand national literature" much of the contemorary self) aointed literary esta$lishment would wish to identify (air$urn with Far5ism or li$eralism" as were other leading literary friends of (air$urn’s such as the 6ommunist R.&.K. Fason. 7ome critics even attemt to identify) (air$urn’s eic oem 1ominion with “Far5ism” desite (air$urn’s own commitment to 7ocial 6redit and secific reGection of Far5ism and the materialist interretation of history. 'ndeed, the primar influences on >airburn *ere distinctl non !+eft, and include 1 7 +a*rence, 8iet9sche, $s*ald Spengler and of course Social a irburn described himself at times as an %anarchist#, it *as of a most unorthodo4 tpe, being neither of the nature of the +eft *ing nor of the +ibertarians. >or >airburn outspokenl re;ected all the baggage dear to the +eft, including feminism, and internationalism. 7is @anarchism@ *as the tpe of indi"idualism of the Right that called for a return to decentralised communities comprised of self!reliant craftsmen and farmers. 7is creed *as distinctl nationalistic and based on the spiritual and the biological components of histor and culture, both concepts being antithetical to an form of +eftism. Ce feel more than Gustified then in identifying (air$urn as a “ Thinker of the Right ”. (air$urn was $orn in @=4? in modest though middle class circumstances. 1e was roud of $eing a fourth generation !ew 9ealander related to the missionary 6olenso. RECETION OF RATIONA*IS! <hough critical of the 6hurch hierarchy and $riefly involved with the Rationalist &ssociation" (air$urn was for most of his life a siritual erson" $elieving that the individual attains to the most rofound identity of who he is" $y striving towards %od. 1e $elieved in a A=
$asic 6hristian ethic minus any moralism. (air$urn soon realised that rationalism $y itself answers nothing and that it reGects the dream world that is the source of creativity. 1e was in agreement here with other oets of the Right such as Eeats" and identified with his friend %eoffrey ;otocki who called oets a “siritual aristocracy”" $ut at this time thought socialism would “ free artists of economic, *orldl shackles.” 1e was yet to discover the economic and olitical alternatives that would achieve this whilst retaining the siritual $asis of culture that the socialistQs dialectical materialism reGected. ENG*AND ;otocki had left !ew 9ealand in disgust at the cultural climate" and ersuaded (air$urn to Goin him 8ondon" since !ew 9ealand revented them from doing what they were $orn here for" “to make and to mould a 8e* 0ealand ci"ilisation”" as ;otocki stated it. >airburn arri"ed in +ondon in IKL. +ike Potocki he *as not impressed *ith bohemian societ and the loomsbur intellectuals *ho *ere riddled *ith homo se4ualit to *hich both Potocki and >airburn had an abiding dislike. 1owever away from the $ohemianism" the intellectualism and retentiousness of the city" (air$urn came to areciate the ancestral attachment with #ngland that was still relevant to !ew 9ealanders through a continuing “earth)memory”. In 8ondon he felt the decay and decadence of the city. 8ike the !orwegian novelist 1amsun and the #nglishman Cilliamson" (air$urn conceived of a future “ tilling the soil ”. 1e now stated+ “ '@m going to be a peasant, if necessar, to keep in touch *ith life. ” SOIA* REDIT In @=3@ (air$urn was introduced to & R Orage" who had u$lished Katherine Fansfield and was editing the 8e* English &eekl which was $ringing forth a new generation of talents to #nglish literature" including #'ra ;ound and 0 7 #liot. Orage had $een a Qguild socialistQ" advocating a return to the medieval guilds which had uheld craftsmanshi and reresented interests according to oneQs calling rather than olitical arty. Orage had also discovered 7ocial 6redit economics" and it is likely that Orage introduced (air$urn to 7ocial 6reditQs founder FaGor 6 1 Jouglas. (air$urn was now reading Oswald 7engler" author of the then influential 1ecline of The &est, which identified the cyclic and organic nature of history" of the rise and fall of civilisations. Cestern 6ivilisation" said 7engler" had reached its cycle of decline during which the city" merchants and money are the focus" relacing the rural community" the knight" aristocrat" easant and craftsman. 7engler" drawing on arallels with revious civilisations" held that each civilisation in its final or Cinter cycle undergoes a last $urst of vigour under the leadershi of a great leader or Q6aesarQ tye who overthrows the ower of the merchant. 0his Qnew 6aesarismQ" according to 7englerQs fatalistic interretation of history" is the Qlast hurrahQ ,as we might ut it- of a civilisation $efore its inevita$le death. 1owever" (air$urn felt that the vitality of the individual could $e the answer to a reinvigorated culture" rather than the rise of new 6aesars. 0his $elief reflects two maGor influences on (air$urn" that of the %erman hilosoher (riedrich !iet'sche and of the #nglish novelist J 1 8awrence" who looked to the heroic individual. Chilst (air$urn agreed with Far5 that caitalism causes dehumanisation. he reGected the Far5ist interretation of history as $ased on class war and economics. Faterialistic H4
interretations of history were at odds with (air$urnQs $elief that it is the Infinite that touches man. (air$urn met the 7oviet ress attache in #ngland $ut concluded that the <77R had turned to the @=th century Cestern ideal of the machine. 1e did not want a Far5ist industrial su$stitute for the caitalist one. 1ence (air$urnQs answer amidst a decaying civilisation was the vital individual+ not an alienated QindividualQ thrown u $y caitalism" $ut the individual as art of the family and the soil" ossessing an organic rootedness a$ove the artificiality of $oth Far5ism and caitalism. 6ulture was art of this sense of identity as a manifestation of the siritual 8ot surprisingl, >airburn *as increasingl distanced from his communist friends. 7e *as repelled b communist art based on the masses and on science, *hich he called @false@. 7e *rites: “airburn@s spiritual, anti! materialist sentiments, as a means of bringing English culture out of decadence. >airburn also sa* in 1 7 +a*rence %a better ralling point than +enin.# 7e *as similarl impressed *ith 5eats. To R A =. (ason, the 8e* 0ealand poet and communist, he *rote: %our real life is ;
conscious and self!contained nation on her o*n account. ' should tr, for the time being, to gi"e the thing a strong militar fla"our. 8o pacifism, @idealism@, passi"e resistance, or other such useless sentimentalities. Then, *hen the time came, a >ascist coup might be possi ble”. %ut Social airburn condemned the @internationalism@ of the +eague of 8ations as reall representing @supernationalism@ *hich *ould result in *ar, *hich of course it did: a *ar against the self!sufficient A4is nations *hich had opted out of the *orld trading and financial sstem. On his return to !ew 9ealand (air$urn" instead of launching his own movement wholeheartedly camaigned for 7ocial 6redit" mainly through his osition as assistant secretary of the &uckland (armersQ arming >irst. & ost he held until $eing drafted into the army in @=?3. TO1ARDS A NATIONA* 5*T5RE >airburn no* began to paint in earnest and made some mone as a fabric designer. 7e spurned abstract art and particularl Picasso, as falsifing life. Abstraction, like rationalism, *as a form of intellectualism that took life apart. >airburn belie"ed in the total indi"idual. 'n art this meant snthesis, of building up images, not breaking them do*n. 7e *rote of this:
“ 'f art does anthing it snthesises, not analses, or it is dead ar t.
1ence there was a recirocal interaction $etween the artist and the u$lic. YBoth ossessed a shared sense of values and origins" in former times" whether easant or no$le" in comarison to the formlessness of the resent day cosmoolitanismZ. “The artist has brought contempt upon himself b letting himself be used for ends that he kno*s to be destructi"e. doing so he has brought art and his o*n tpe close to e4tinction.” !otes in the Fargin. Action. @=?H@>orm@ in art, geometricall, is fundamental. 't is the primar responsibilit of art schools to teach @traditional techni2ues@ then allo* those *ho ha"e genuine talent to flo* from there. (air$urn lectured in art history at the #lam 7chool. &uckland airburn, *ho considered his *orks de"oid of form, @ contrivedQ and Qretentious hum$ugQ.
“ 'n design, in colour, in 2ualit of line, in e"er normal attribute of goo d painting, the are completel lacking "” (air$urn said of Fc6ahonQs aintings. 1e also considered modern music sensationalist" without content" form or order" reflecting the chaos of the current cycle of Cestern civilisation. (air$urn" in accordance with his olitical nationalism" advocated a !ew 9ealand national culture arising from the !ew 9ealand landscae. 1e $elieved that oneQs connection with oneQs lace of $irth is of a ermanent *uality" not Gust as *uestion of which lace in the world one found the most leasant in which to live. Criting to Fason in Dune @=32" he stated that the criterion of @fortune!hunting@ in choosing where one lives cannot satisfy @anbod *ho is unSemitic like mself .’ (air$urn e5lains that the art which is manufactured for the market $y those who have no attachment to any secific lace" is Dewish in nature. “The Je*s are a non!territorial race, so their genius is turned to dust and ashes. Their *orks of art ha"e no integrit ! ha"e had none since the left Palestine.
“ Je*ish standards ha"e infected most &estern art. 't is possible to loo k on e"en the @self! conscious art@ of Poe. audelaire, (allarme. Pater ! > (air$urn decried the develoment of a Qone worldQ cosmoolitan state" which would also mean a standardised world culture that would $e reduced to an international commodity”+ “The aspiration to*ards @one *orld@ ma ha"e something to be said for it in a political sense e"en here, *ith massi"e 2ualifications, but in the *ider field of human affa irs it is likel to pro"e ruinous. 'n e"er countr toda *e see either a dri"e as in Russia and the -SA or a drift as in the ritish
The situation toda has pro"ed >airburn correct, *ith the transnational corporations defining culture in terms of international marketing, breaking do*n national cultures in fa"our of a global consumer standard. This mass global consumer culture is most readil definable in the term %American#. (air$urn oosed 7tate atronage of the arts" however" $elieving that this cut the artist off from the cycle of life" of family and work" making art instead" contrived and forced. 1e also oosed the rostitution of the nation and culture to tourism" more than ever the great economic anacea ) along with world trade ) heralded $y the oliticians. In a letter to the !9 1erald written in (e$ruary @=>> he states+
“ (a ' suggest that there is no surer *a in the long run to destro (aori cult ure than to take the more colourful aspects of it and turn them into a @tourist attraction@. 'f the elements of (aori culture are genuine and ha"e an place outside of a museum, the *ill be kept ali"e b the (aori people themsel"es for their o*n cultural not commercial needs. The use of (aori songs and dances to tickle the pockets of passing strangers, and the encouragement of this sort of cheap;acker b the pakeha are degrading to both races ... And the official encouragement of (aori songs, dances and crafts as side!sho*s to amuse tourists is both "ulgar and harmful ” DO!INION OF 5S5R( In @=3> he resolved to write an eic oem a$out !ew 9ealand. 0he result was 1ominion. It is an attack uon greed and usury" and is reminiscent of #'ra ;oundQs airburn no cause for optimism. The Part had indeed adopted a Social
“The house or the go"ernors, guarded b eunuchs, and o"er the arch of the gate these *ords enraged: 7e *ho impugns the usurers 'mperils the State.# 0hose who serve the governors are icked from the enslaved" well aid for their services to Qkeep the records of deca@ " with @cold hands... comuting our ruin on scented cuffs.Q (or the rest of the eole there is the “ treadmill... of the grindstone god ”.Q 0he unemloyed and those on relief work as (air$urn had $een when he returned to !ew H>
9ealand" were @*itnesses to the constriction of lifeQ which was necessary to maintain the financial system. !or did the countryside escae the ravages of the system. 0he farms are @mortgaged in bitterness...Q to the $anks. 0he city is" “a paper cit built on the rock of debt, held fast against all *inds b the paper*eight of debt. The li"ing saddled *ith debt. A load of debt for the foetus... And all o"er the hand of the usurer, land angel of darkness, (ild and triumphant and much looked up to.” 6olonisation had $ought here the ills of the Fother 6ountry" and de$t underscored the lot. “The di"ided the land, Some for their need, And some for sinless, customar greed...# >airburn@s ans*er is a return to the land.
“ >air earth, *e ha"e broken our idols: and after the das of fire *e shall come to ou for the stones of a ne* temple.” The destruction of the usurers@ economic sstem *ould result in the creation of a ne* order: the land freed of debt *ould ield the foundation for @a ne* temple@ other than that of the usurer ORGANI FAR!ING In @=?4 (air$urn e5tended his advocacy to include organic fanning" and he $ecame editor of ood remains the basis of ci"ilisation, but industrial farming is spirituall barren.” 0he tye of community (air$urn sought is $ased on farming" not industry that gives rise to fractured" contending economic classes. Industry reduces life to a matter of economics.. In a lecture to the &uckland (a$ian 7ociety in @=?? (air$urn stated+
%'t is natural for men to be in close contact *ith the earth3 and it is natural for them to satisf their creati"e instincts b using their hands and brains. 7usbandr, @the mother of all crafts@, satisfies these t*o needs, and for that reason should be the basic acti"it in our social life ! the one that gi"es colour and character to all the rest.#
In the same lecture he sells out his ideal society+ “The decentralisation of the to*ns, the establishment of rural communities *ith a balanced economic life, the co!operati"e organisation of marketing, of transport and of HA
necessar drudger, the controlled use of manufacturing processes...” In @=?A (air$urn ela$orated again on his ideal of decentralisation" regarding the cororation as soulless and the 7tate as the $iggest of cororations+
“0he $est status for men is that of indeendence. 0he small farmer" the small tradesman" the individual craftsman working on his own ) these have $een the mainstay of every sta$le civilisation in history. 0he tendency for large num$ers of men to forsake" or to have taken from them" their indeendent status" and to $ecome hangers)on of the state" has invaria$ly $een the relude to decay.” NE1 BARBARIS! , A!ERIA AND THE 5SSR (air$urn feared that the victors of Corld Car II" &merica and the <77R would usher in a new age of $ar$arism. In @=?A he wrote in an unu$lished article to the 80 7erald: @The ne4t decade or t*o *e shall see American economic po*er and American commercial culture e4tended o"er the *hole of the non!Russian *orld The earth *ill then be nicel partitioned bet*een t*o barbarisms... 'n m more gloom moments ' find it hard to form an opinion as to *hich is the greater enem to &estern ci"ilisation ! Russian materialism ! the open enem, or American materialis m *ith its more insidious influence. The trouble is that *e are bound to stick b America *hen it comes to the point, ho*e"er *e ma dislike certain aspects of American life. >or some*here under that (ae &est e4terior there is a heart that is sound and a conscience that is capable of accepting guilt .”
#5erience has shown that (air$urnQs @more gloom momentsQ were the most realistic" for &merica triumhed and stands as the ultimate $ar$arian threatening to engulf all cultures with its materialism" hedonism and commercialism. 0he Russian military threat was largely $ogus" a convenient way of herding sundry nations into the &merican or$it. 0he <77R is no more" whilst 'mperium Americana stands sureme throughout the world" from the great cities to the dirt road towns of the 0hird Corld" where all are $eing remoulded into the universal citi'en in the manner of &merican tastes" ha$its" seech" fashions" and even humour. BIO*OGIA* I!PERATI3ES (air$urn regarded feminism as another roduct of cultural regression. In The &oman Problem he calls feminism an Qinsidious hysterical rotestQ contrary to $iological and social imeratives. 1e saw the $iological urge for children as central to women. (air$urn also considered $iological factors to $e more imortant than the sociological and economic" therefore utting him well outside the or$it of any 8eft)wing doctrine" which reduces history and culture into a comle5 of economic motives.
“$ur public policies are for the most part anti!biological. Social securit legislation concerns itself *ith the care of the aged long before it looks to the health and "italit of oung mothers and their children. &e spend "ast sums of mone on hospi tals and little or nothing on gmnasia. %...&e discourage our children from marring at the right age. *hen desire is urgent, and the pel"ic structure of the female has not begun to ossif3 *e applaud them *hen the spend the first ten ears of their adult li"es establishing a profitable cosmetic business or a legal practice de"oted to the defence of safe breakers.#. %The HH
feminists must feel a sense of elation *hen the see an attracti"e oung *oman clingi ng to some pitiful ;ob or other, and drifting to*ard spinsterhood, an emotion that *ould no doubt be shared b the geo!political e4perts of Asia, if the *ere on the spot.#
Indeed" what has feminism shown itself to $e" desite its retensions as $eing QrogressiveQ. other than a means of fully integrating women into the market and into roduction" whilst a$ortion rates soar/ (air$urn saw Far5ism" (eminism and (reudianism as denying the Q organic nature@ of man. H. 1e continues to $e recognised as a founder of a !ew 9ealand national literature" al$eit one that has not $een much added to $eyond that small num$er of individuals from the @=34s. #apter 26
(5KIO !ISHI!A Eukio Fishima was $orn into an uer middle class family in @=2>. &uthor of a hundred $ooks" laywright" actor" he has $een descri$ed as the Q8eonardo da Tinci of contemorary Daan" and is one of the few Daanese writers to have $ecome widely known and translated in the Cest. DARK SIDE OF THE S5N 7ince Corld Car II" the Cest has forgotten the 7hadow soul of Daan" as Dung would have termed it" the collective imulses that have $een reressed $y QOccuation 8awQ and the imosition of democracy. 0he Daanese are seen stereotyically as $eing overly olite and smiling $usiness e5ecutives and camera snaing tourists. 0he emhasis has $een on the soft counterart of the Daanese syche" on the chrysanthemum ,the arts- as Fishima uts it" and the reression of the word ,the martial tradition-. 0he &merican anthroologist Ruth Benedict wrote of the duality of the Daanese using this sym$olism in her 6hrysanthemum and the 7word" to which Fishima referred arovingly. 1e insisted that Daan return to a $alance of the arts and the martial sirit" to what" again referring to Dung" would $e called individuation" in allowing the reressed 7hadow archetye to reassert itself. Fishima was himself that synthesis of the scholar and the warrior" who reGected ure intellectualism and theory in favour of action.
H:
THE 1A( OF THE SA!5RAI FishimaQs aesthetic was the $eauty of the violent death" the death of one in his rime" an ideal common in classical Daanese literature. &s a sickly youngster" FishimaQs ideal of the heroic death had already taken hold+ & sensuous craving for such things as the destiny of soldiers" the tragic nature of their calling... the ways they would die.
1e was determined to overcome his hysical weaknesses. 0here is much of the !iet'schean QOvermanQ a$out him" of self)overcoming ersonal and social restraints to e5ress his own heroic individuality. 1is motto was+ Be 7trong. ,1e had read !iet'sche during the war-. Corld Car II had a lasting imact on Fishima. &long with his fellow students" he felt that conscrition and certain death waited. 1e $ecame chairman of the college literary clu$" and his atriotic oems were u$lished in the student maga'ine. 1e also co)founded his own Gournal and $egan to read the Daanese classics. 1e associated with a literary grou" Bungei Bunka that $elieved war to $e holy. 0he Daanese Romanticists were another literary grou avowing the same rinciles with which Fishima was in contact. Fishima $arely assed the medical e5amination for military training. 1e was drafted into an aircraft factory and several other such Go$s. In @=??" he had already had his first $ook" 1ana'akan no Fori ,0he (orest in (ull Bloom u$lished" a considera$le feat in the final year of the war" which $rought him instant recognition. 1I** TO HEA*TH In @=>2" Fishima" esta$lished as a literary figure" travelled to the <7&. 7itting in the sun in transit a$oard shi" something he had $een una$le to do in his youth $ecause of his weak lungs" Fishima resolved to match the develoment of his hysi*ue with his intellect.
1is interest in the 1ellenic classics took him to %reece. 1e wrote that" In %reece there had $een however an e*uili$rium $etween the hysical $ody and intelligence" soma and sohia... 1e discovered a Cill towards 1ealth" an adatation of !iet'scheQs Cill to ;ower" and he was to $ecome almost as noted as a $ody $uilder as he was a writer. In @=AA Fishima wrote 0he goal of my life was to ac*uire all the various attri$utes of the warrior. 1is ethos was that of the 7amurai Bun$uryodo)ihe way of literature ,Bun- and the 7word ,Bu-" which he sought to cultivate in e*ualQ measure" a $lend of art and action. But my heartQs yearning towards Jeath and !ight and Blood would not $e denied. 1e e5ressed the 7amurai ethos+ 0o kee death in mind from day to day" to focus each moment uon" inevita$le death".." the $eautiful death that had earlier eluded me YCorld Car IIZ had also $ecome ossi$le. I was $eginning to dream of my caa$ilities as a fighting man. In @=AA" he alied for ermission to train at the army cams. In the sirit of Bun$uryodo" FishimaQs novels lotted the course of his life. In @=AH" Runaway 1orses had as its hero a right)wing terrorist who commits hara)kiri after sta$$ing to death a $usinessman.
H=
&lready in @=A4 Fishima had written his short story ;atriotism" in honour of the @=3A !i ni Roku re$ellion of army officers of the Kodo)ha faction who wished to strike at the 7oviet
&t the office of a right)wing student Gournal" a do'en eole gathered. Fishima wrote on a iece of aer+ Ce here$y swear to $e the foundation of Kokoku !ion YImerial DaanZ. 1e cut a finger" and everyone else followed" letting the $lood fill to the $rim of a cu. #ach signed the aer with their $lood and drank from the cu. 0he 0atenokai ,7hield 7ociety- was $orn. 0he aims of the society were+ ,i- 6ommunism is incomati$le with Daanese tradition" culture and history and runs :4
counter to the #meror system ,ii- the #meror is the sole sym$ol of our historical and cultural community and racial identity and ,iii- the use of violence is Gustifia$le in view of the threat osed $y communism. 0he em$lem that Fishima designed for the society comrised two ancient Daanese helmets in red against a white silk $ackground. 0he militia was designed to $e a stand $y the army" descri$ed $y Fishima as the worldQs least armed" most siritual army. By this time" Fishima felt that his calling as a novelist was comleted. It must have seemed the right time to die. 1e had $een awarded the 7hinchosha 8iterary ;ri'e in @=>? for the 7ound of Caves and the Eomiuri 8iterary ;ri'e in @=>H for 0he 0emle of the %olden ;avilion. 1is novels 7ring 7now and Runaway 1orses had sold well in @=A=" $ut Fishima started to feel the antagonism of the 8eft)wing dominated literary elite and his 7ea of (ertility received the silent treatment. 1is sole defender at this time was Easunari Kawa$ata" who had received the !o$el ;ri'e for literature in @=A:" Fishima missing out $ecause the !o$el ;ri'e committee assumed he could wait awhile longer in favour of his mentor. Kawa$ata considered FishimaQs literary talent as e5cetional. Fishima wrote of the intellectuals as" 0he strongest enemy within the nation. It is astonishing how little the character of modern intellectuals in Daan has changed" i.e. their cowardice" sneering" Qo$GectivityQ" rootlessness" dishonesty" flunkeyism" mock gestures of resistance" self)imortance" inactivity" talkativeness and readiness to eat their words. HAGAK5RE FishimaQs destiny was shaed $y the 7amurai code e5ounded in a $ook that he had ket with him since the war. 0his was 1agakure" the $est)known line of which is+ I have discovered that the way of the 7amurai is death.
1agakure was the work of the @Hth century 7amurai Docho Eamamoto" who as a riest was to dictate his teachings to his student 0ashiro. 1agakure $ecame the moral code taught to the 7amurai" $ut did not $ecome availa$le to the general u$lic until the latter half of the @=th century. Juring Corld Car II" it was widely read" and its slogan on the way of death was used to insire the Kamika'e ilots. (ollowing the occuation it went underground" and many coies were destroyed rather than have them read $y the &mericans. Fishima wrote his own encasulation and commentary on 1agakure in @=AH. 1e stated in his introductory remarks that this is the one $ook that he has referred to continually in the twenty years since the war" and that during the war he had always ket it close to him. Immediately following the war" Fishima relates that he felt isolated from the rest of literary society" which had acceted ideas that were alien to him. 1e asked himself what his guiding rincial would $e now that Daan was defeated. 1agakure was the answer" roviding him with constant siritual guidances and the $asis of my moralityX. 8ike all other $ooks of the war eriod" this had $ecome loathsome" to $e wied from the memory" $ut in the darkness of the times it would now radiate its true light.
:@
0he heroic death is the culmination of the life of the man of action. (or the man of action death is the single oint of the comletion of oneQs life. It must $e taken at the right time. Fishima found the social and moral criticism of Docho relevant to ost)war Daan. FE!INISATION OF SOIET( 0he feminisation of the Daanese male ,contemorarily as a result of the influence of &merican democracy- was" Fishima ointed out referring to 1agakure" also noted $y Docho during the eaceful years of the 0otcugawa era. 0he @:th century rints of coules together hardly distinguish $etween male and female" with similar hairstyles" cut and attern of clothes" even the same facial e5ressions" which make it imossi$le to tell who is the male and who the female. Docho records in 1agakure that during his time" the ulse rate that differed $etween the genders had $ecome the same" and this was noted when treating medical ailments. 1e called this fumigation the female ulse. E*EBRITIES REP*AE HEROES Docho condemns the idolisation of certain individuals achieving what weQd today call cele$rity status. Fishima comments+ 0oday" $ase$all layers and television stars are lionised. 0hose who secialise in skills that will fascinate an audience tend to a$andon their e5istence as total human ersonalities and $e reduced to a kind of skilled uet. 0his tendency reflects the ideals of our time. On this oint there is no difference $etween erformers and technicians. 0he resent is the age of technocracy... differently e5ressed" it is the age of erforming artists. It means secialisation and therefore the confinement of the individual into a single cog. BOREDO! OF PAIFIS!
&fter finding his lace in society and the struggle is over" there is nothing left for youth" aart from retirement" and the eaceful" $oring life of imotent old age. 0he comfort of the welfare state ensures against any need to struggle" and one is simly ordered to rest. Fishima comments on the e5traordinary num$er of elderly who commit suicide. !ow we might add the even more e5traordinary num$er of youth that commit suicide. Fishima e*uates socialism and the welfare state" and finds that at the end of the first" there is the fatigue of $oredom whilst at the end of the second there is suression of freedom. ;eole desire something to die for" rather than the endless eace that is uheld as a
element of mental health...1agakure insists that to onder death daily is to concentrate daily on life. Chen we do our work thinking that we may die today" we cannot hel feeling that our Go$ suddenly $ecomes radiant with life and meaning. E?TRE!IS! Fishima states that 1agakure is a hilosohy of e5tremismX 1ence" it is inherently out of character in a democratic society. Docho stated that whilst the %olden Fean is greatly valued" for the 7amurai oneQs daily life must $e of a heroic" vigorous nature" to e5cel and to surass. Fishima comments that going to e5cess is an imortant siritual sring$oard. 0here is something in this that is reminiscent of !iet'sche and of the heroic vitalism e5ounded in the west $y J 1 8awrence and #rnst Dunger and others. INTE**ET5A*IS! Of intellectuals" Fishima shares the same contemt as the other 0hinkers of the Right who are attuned to the life force or elan vital that transcends the intellectualism that arises from the cities of civilisations in decline. Docho had stated that+ 0he calculating man is a coward. I say this $ecause calculations have to do with rofit and loss" and such a erson is therefore reoccuied with rofit and loss. 0o die is a loss" to live is a gain" and so one decides not to die. 0herefore one is a coward. 7imilarly a man of education camouflages with his intellect and elo*uence the cowardice or greed that is his true nature. Fany eole do not realise this.
Fishima comments that in DochoQs time there was ro$a$ly nothing corresonding to the modem intelligentsia. 1owever" there were scholars" and even 7amurai themselves" who $egan to form themselves into a similar class in an age of e5tended eace. Fishima identifies this intellectualism with humanism. 0his intellectualism means" contrary to the 7amurai ethic" one does not offer oneself u $ravely in the face of danger. NO 1ORDS OF 1EAKNESS 0he 7amurai in times of eace still talks in a martial sirit" Docho taught that the first thing a 7amurai says on any occasion is e5tremely imortant. 1e dislays with this one remark all the valour of the 7amurai.
Fishima comments that there is never a word of weakness uttered $y a 7amurai. #ven in casual conversation" a 7amurai must never comlain. 1e must constantly $e on his guard lest he should let sli a word of weakness. ¬her rincile One must not lose heart in misfortune. F*O1 OF TI!E 7omething of the cycles of a civilisation from health to degeneracy and death" as 7engler and Dulius #vola showed" are also ortrayed in 1agakure $y Docho as the flow of time. Fishima oints out that whilst Docho laments the decadence of his era and the degeneration of the young 7amurai" he o$serves the flow of time" realistically stating that it is no use resisting that flow.
&s Docho stated+ 0he climate of an age is unaltera$le. 0hat conditions are worsening steadily is roof that we have entered the last stage of the 8aw. 0his refers to the entering of three rogressively :3
degenerate stages according to the Buddhist cycles of history. Docho emloys the analogy of seasons Gust as Oswald 7engler did in descri$ing the cycles of a civilisation from $irth" flowering" withering and death. 1owever" the season cannot always $e sring or summer" nor can we have daylight forever. Chat is imortant is to make each era as good as it can $e according to its na)ture. Docho does not recommend either nostalgia for the return of the ast" or the QsuerficialQ attitude of those who only value what is modem" or QrogressiveQ as we call it today. Dulius #vola" the Italian Q0hinker of the RightQ" ela$orating on the cyclical nature of history similarly recommended to young activists concerned at the demise of Cestern 6ivilisation that they cannot return to the ast nor revent the resent cycle. 0hey must ride the tiger" see out the resent era and to lay the foundations for a cultural renewal. SA!5RAI7S DESTIN( 2> !ovem$er @=H4 was chosen as the day that Fishima would fulfil his destiny as a 7amurai. (our others from the 0atenokai Goined him. &ll donned head$ands $earing a 1agakure slogan. 0he aim was to take %eneral Fishita hostage to ena$le Fishima to address the soldiers stationed at the Ichigaya army $ase in 0okyo. Fishima and his lieutenant Fonta would then commit 1ara)kiri. Only daggers and swords would $e used in the assault" in accordance with 7amurai tradition.
0he %eneral was $ound and gagged. 6lose fighting ensued as officers several times entered the generalQs office. Fishima and his small $and each time forced the officers to retreat. (inally" they were herded out with $road strokes of FishimaQs sword against their $uttocks. & thousand soldiers assem$led on the arade ground. 0wo of FishimaQs men droed leaflets from the $alcony a$ove" calling for a re$ellion to restore !ion. &t mid)day recisely Fishima aeared on the $alcony to address the crowd. 7houting a$ove the noise of helicoters he declared+ Daanese eole today think of money" Gust money+ Chere is our national sirit today. 0he Dieitai YarmyZ must $e the soul of Daan. 0he soldiers Geered. Fishima continued+ 0he nation has no siritual foundation. 0hat is why you donQt agree with me. Eou will Gust $e &merican mercenaries. 0here you are in your tiny world. Eou do nothing for Daan. 1is last words were+ I salute the #meror. 8ong live the emerorV Forita Goined him on the $alcony in salute. Both returned to FishitaQs office. Fishima knelt shouting a final salute" and lunged a dagger into his stomach" forcing it clockwise. Fonta $ungled the decaitation leaving it for another to finish it. Fonta was then handed FishimaQs dagger $ut called uon the swordsman who had finished off Fishima to do the Go$ and ForitaQs head was knocked of in one swoo. 0he remaining followers stood the heads of Fishima and Forita together and rayed over them. @4"444 mourners attended FishimaQs funeral" the largest of its kind ever held in Daan. I want to make a oem of my life Fishima had written at 2? years of age. 1e had fulfilled his destiny according to the 7amurai way+ :?
0o choose the lace where one dies is also the greatest Goy in life. &fter his death" his commentary on the 1agakure $ecame a $est seller.
#apter 28
C5*I5S E3O*A T#e na$e Culius Eola has over recent years $ecome increasingly known in less conventional strata of the #nglish)seaking world" thanks to an usurge of interest in metahysics" as many more eole are starting to look $eyond the suerficial life offered $y the materialistic society. #vola has also had an enduring imact on the ost)war so)called Q!ew RightQ. 1e is olitically heretical within the Fodern li$eral)caitalist era. Jesite his criticism of the (ascist regime of his native Italy" which resulted in the $anning of his maga'ine The To*er . #volaQs Snthesis of the 1octrine of Race was endorsed $y Fussolini as roviding a siritual and cultural concetion of race distinct from the $iological determinism of %erman !ational 7ocialism. 1ence" if it were not for #volaQs eminence as a writer on the mystical traditions of $oth the #ast and the Cest it seems more than likely that his name would have remained unknown to the #nglish)seaking world. In ost)war years" having successfully defended himself against charges of Q(ascismQ" #vola was sought out $y a new generation of national revolutionariesQ in Italy who were looking for an alternative to li$eral)caitalism and communism that would surass what they considered the now passe (ascism of their fathers and grandfathers. 0hese youths wished to make themselves the Qrevolutionary eliteQ or Qolitical soldiersQ that #vola had written would emerge to revolt against the Fodern world on an e5alted" siritual level. 0he &merican metahysical u$lishing house 'nner Traditions 'nternational has $een the most rominent in introducing #volaQs works to a wider audience in the #nglish seaking world. <hough aologetic as regards his “(ascist” ast" they have so far u$lished his Eros and the (steries of +o"e ,@=:3-" The 5oga of Po*er ,@==2-" The 7ermetic Tradition ,@==> The 1octrine of A*akening ,@==>-. Re"olt Against the (odern &orld ,@==>-" and (editations on the Peaks ,@==:-. It is Re"olt Against the (odern &orld which is #volaQs most imortant work regarding the siritual" and hence olitical and cultural light of Cestern civilisation. (or #vola the foundations of life are a reflection of the metahysical" e5ressed in the mystical dictum" “as abo"e, to belo*”. Chile em$racing the cyclical analysis of history of Oswald 7engler ,for whom #vola was the Italian translator-" #vola draws on the cyclic laws of history that were followed $y traditional civilisations from &'tec &merica" to Tedic India to #ddic of 7candinavia and 1ellas. 1HO 1AS E3O*A Baron Dulius #vola was $orn in @:=: of a 7icilian family. In his youth he was a oet and ainter adhering to the anti)traditional Jadaist and futurist movements in revolt agains t $ourgeoisie society. &fter voluntary war service as an officer cadet in the artillery" #vola :>
$egan to study mysticism and metahysics. 1e saw in the mystical traditions of $oth #ast and Cest a common reality" and in @=2H founded his own magical order" the -R grou. <hough $orn a 6atholic" #vola was at odds with the (ascist regime over $oth its accord with the Tatican" and what he saw as the mass" roletarian nature of (ascism" which he regarded as fundamentally democratic. 1is view of life is aristocratic and reactionary" although occasionally converging with asects of (ascism. <hough also at odds with the materialistic racism of 1itlerQs %ermany" #vola hoed to find common ground with the more aganistic elements" and lectured there. 1is aim $eing to esta$lish a transnational fraternity of knights who would restore tradition and chivalry. #vola saw hoe in the 77 as $eing such a knighthood. 1owever" 1immlerQs adviser on esoteric and siritual matters" Karl Fana Ciligut" for one reason or another" had E"ola@s lectures terminated. A report b 7immler@s personal staff in IKM succinctl states E"ola@s aims and ideas at this time: “0he ultimate and secret goal of #volaQs theories and roGects is most likely an insurrection of the old aristocracy against the modern world... 1is overall character is marked $y the feudal aristocracy of old”. 1e is descri$ed in the reort as a “reactionar Roman” , and his aim of a “ Roman! Germanic 'mperium” is reGected. 0he reort also refers to lans $y #vola for “ a secret international order ”. 1e was not only to $e revented from lecturing in %ermany" $ut his activities in neigh$ouring countries were to $e “ carefull obser"ed “. 1immler endorsed the reort. #vola for his art was critical of the “ centralism” and collectivism of !ational 7ocialism" criticising it as having renounced “ the ancient. Aristocratic tradition of the state”. Criting in the (ascist newsaer 8o 7tato ,@=3>- he states+ %8ationalistic Socialism has clearl renounced the ancient, aristocratic tradition of the state it is nothing more than a semi!collecti"e nationalism that le"els e"erthing flat in its centralism and it has not hesitated to destro the traditional di"ision of German into principalities, lands and cities *hich ha"e all en;oed a relati"e autonom.#
1ence #volaQs ideal for Cestern civilisation can $e seen to $e a return to the medieval secifically the %hi$elline era of the 1oly Roman #mire. 1is anti)materialist doctrine as alied to race saw him at odds not only with !ational 7ocialism $ut also with some elements within the (ascist arty" although Fussolini saw #vola’s doctrine on race as refera$le to the %erman influence. #vola considers race on three levels+ the race of the $ody ,$iological-" of the soul ,character- and of the sirit ,religious outlook-. #volaQs seeks to define his attitude in a @=?2 article in ita 'taliana entitled The (isunderstanding of Scientific Racism: %&e *ould like to make it clear that to us spirit means neither fri"olous philosoph or theosoph, nor mstical, de"otional *ithdra*al from the *orld, but is simpl *hat in better times the *ellborn ha"e al*as said *ere the marks of race: namel, straightfor*ardness, inner unit character, courage, "irtue, immediate and instant sensiti"it for all "alues *hich are present in e"er great human being and *hich, since the stand *ell beond all chance! sub;ected realit, the also dominate. The current meaning of race, ho*e"er, *hich differs :A
from the abo"e b being a construction of @science@ and a piece out of the anthropolog ical museum *e lea"e to the pseudo intellectual bourgeoisie, *hich continues to indulge in the idols of nineteenth!centur Positi"ism % E3O*A7S HISTORIA* !ETAPH(SIS 0o #vola" all traditional civilisations are $ased on siritual asirations+ what we are more commonly familiar with as the @di"ine right of kings@ $eing a vestige of this. 1ence the castes of a traditional society are $ased on a divine order. &ny undermining of this siritual order ushers in an era of chaos" the =ali 5uga or Jark &ge in 1indu mythology of which all traditional civilisations were aware. In this cosmic order" the king or emeror as a manifestation of god" is not only a olitical ruler" $ut also more imortantly a riestly ruler whose most sacred duty is to attend to the siritual concerns of his su$Gects" lest the forces of chaos return. 8ikewise" for the warrior caste the rincial duty was not merely that of a soldier in the resent sense" $ut a cosmic +arrior) restoring the central focus to a civilisation. 0he 1indus refer to this in a haga"ad Gita as a dharmic or cosmic duty of the ksatria or warrior caste. 0he Daanese e*uivalent is the 7amurai Gust as Daanese civilisation has as its a5is the Qdivine emerorQ. 0hose civilisations" which succum$ed to anti)traditional or chaotic forces" would decline+ &gain referring to the Daanese" the emeror renounced his divinity following Corld Car II under the dictate of the &mericans. #volaQs cyclic view" which he calls %the metaphsics of histor,# reGects the lineal outlook" which can $e called QJarwinianQ or rogressiveQ" which sees history as an ascending line" from rimitive to QFodernQ. 8ike 7engler" #vola sees civilisations as going through the same cycles of $irth" $lossoming and decay. 7ince he regards civilisation to $e a manifestation of the suernatural each civilisation was founded on a "entral $yt#. 0he further a civilisation goes from its foundin& $yt#) no matter how materially rogressive it has $ecome" like our resent cycle of Cestern civilisation" it slis further into chaos. One is reminded of EeatsQ oem The Second
“Turning and turning in the *idening gre. The falcon cannot hear the falconer, things fall apart, the centre cannot hold. (ere anarch is loosed upon the *orld ...” A?IS OF I3I*ISATIONS In #volaQs historical metahysics every civilisation has an a5is around which everything is focused" and that a5is in traditional civilisations is the priest,%in&) em$odying the diine order) the ae5 of a pyra$idal #ierar"#y of "aste. Ce can only consider the resent QclassesQ of this Cestern cycle to $e the most degenerate reflections of the old castes" $ased entirely on economics and devoid of siritual content. In the yramidal hierarchy of the traditional civilisations the king serves as a $ridge" or the Pontifa4 (a4imus as the Romans termed it" $etween the eole and the eternal divine order. &ll else in traditional civilisation stems from this cosmic rincile+ caste" law" war" religion" emire... Criting in Re"olt Against the (odern &orld. #vola e5lains+
%'n order to understand both the spirit of tradition and its antithesis, modern ci"ilisation, it is necessar to begin *ith the fundamental doctrine of the t*o natures. According to this doctrine there is a phsical order of things and a metaphsical one: there is a mortal nature :H
and an immortal one3 there is the superior realm of @being@ and the inferior realm of @becoming@. Generall speaking, there is a "isible and a tangible dimension and prior to and beond it, an in"isible and intangible dimension that is the support, the source, and true life of the former#. “&nywhere in the world of 0radition" $oth #ast and Cest and in one form or another" this knowledge ,not Gust a mere QtheoryQ- has always $een resent as an unshakea$le a5is around which everything revolved”
0his central focus uon which a traditional civilisation revolves is sym$olised in the @*heel@. 0he @uni"ersal king@ of 1indu cosmology is called the %lord# or %spinner of the *heel ”. 0he 1elenes called this the %*heel of generation# of %the *heel of fate#, with the motionless centre sym$olising siritual sta$ility. 0he 1indu universal lord is called also the %+ord of the +a*# or %The +ord of the &heel of the +a*#. In the #ast the a5ial sym$ol is reresented $y the mandula. Ce can also see it among the Occidental cultures in the swastikas and sunwheels. !O5NTAIN AND THE GRAI* Other sym$ols of the sirituality of traditional civilisation include the %rail Fyth and the mountain. #vola was an accomlished mountaineer. 1is $ook (editations on the Peaks ! (ountain
%ermany at its darkest hour. #vola considers the %hi$elline medieval culture as the ae5 of Cestern 6ivilisation. 0he %hi$elline during the medieval eriod was reresented $y the %erman 1ohenstaufen imerial line in oosition to the aacy. 0he result in Italy was fierce fighting $etween the two contenders for authority" the aal faction of the %uelf" often reresented $y wealthy roerty owners and merchants. &fter the e5tinction of the %hi$elline line in @2A:" %hi$elleanism came to sym$olise nostalgia for the return of the 1oly Roman #mire" which had achieved #uroean unity. 0he %rail myth according to #vola is centred around the %hi$elline tradition. It continues as an e5ression to restore #uroean 6ivilisation. 0he Knights of the %rail" states #vola" continued through the 0emlars" hence their suression $y the Tatican. 0he Rosicrucians also e5isted to restore #uroeQs tradition" hence the reference in their manifestos to %=nights of the Golden Stone#, and the resurrected King who wears a 0emlarQs cross. 0o #vola the %rail legend remains a central myth for #uroean revival and unity" a sym$ol of the warrior)riest whom he counsels to maintain siritual urity amidst the resent Jark &ge. TRADITIONA* SOIA* ORDER 0he aristocracy was not merely olitical $ut siritual and the focus of tradition" with the divine king serving as the $ridge $etween two ways of aroaching the metahysical ) heroic action and contemlation. 6ontemlation manifested in the rites of the culture the social order rested on traditional law and caste" and the earthly olitical e5ression was that of emire. 0hese foundations of traditional" civilisation" states #vola" have $een wied out $y the triumh of man)centred or %anthropocentric# civilisation of the resent day. 0he secularisation of the aristocracy in Cestern 6ivilisation had already started in the mid feudal eriod and had $ecome thoroughly rotten $y the time of the (rench Revolution. Chat relaced the no$ility was the $ourgeoisie with its money values. #vola refers to the decline of the traditional aristocracy as leading to an aristocracy of “ intellectualit” rather than of the sirit. 1ence" the original urose of rulers as $eing a $ridge to the divine has $een dead in Cestern 6ivilisation for centuries. #vola is unaologetically atriarchal" seeing the goddess worshi of certain cultures not as the most rimordial forms of worshi" as it is now fashiona$le to claim" $ut as a later develoment arising from degraded cycles of history. #vola states that traditional civilisations in their original states were solar and heavenly directed" rather than goddess and earth directed. 0he ethic of traditional civilisations is therefore of a virile nature and includes valour" honour and character as manifested at the ae5 of a civilisation in its aristocratic caste. HISTOR( (*I) NOT *INEA* #vola reGects Jarwinism $oth $iologically and historically. !either man nor nature roceeds in a linear manner. 1istory does not roceed in a straight line of evolution or rogress from QrimitiveQ to QmodernQ" with our own technological hase of Cestern civilisation $eing the ae5 of history. Rather" man has fallen from a high state through a succession of ages. #vola cites this tradition from numerous civilisations which state that manQs rimal state" far from $eing animalistic or ae)like was “ more than human”. Our resent state $iologically and culturally is therefore a de$asement. 6ontrary to orthodo5 historians" #vola considers the Renaissance as having $een the :=
oint from where Cestern civilisation $egan to decline" which was the $eginning of rationalism over the siritual and ultimately the ascent of materialism to the resent day. Juring this eriod traditional wisdom was carried underground $y secret societies such as the Rosicrucians. In oosition to these societies were those that uheld the rationalistic and materialistic doctrines through the llluminati and (reemasonry" which were influential in fomenting the (rench" &merican and other revolutions. Cith the ascent of materialism everything was de)sanctified" including the castes uon which traditional social order was $ased. 0here was a %shift in po*er# from the warrior to the merchant and to the %capitalist oligarchies# *hich have relaced the divine riest) kings. 0he result has $een increasing dehumanisation. %from a human to a sub!human tpe.# #vola refers to the @glorification of modern man@ resented under the name of @science@ with the modern ideologies of evolution and rogress. 0his means the a$andonment of %traditional truths# which held that man has a %transcendent origin#. %and ... the &est no longer belie"es in the nobilit of the origins but in the notion that ci"ilisation arises out of barbarism, religion from superstition, man from animal 1ar*in, thought from matter, and e"er spiritual form from the @sublimation@ or transposition of the stuff that originates the instinct, libido, comple4es....>reud. Jung...# Re"olt Against the (odern &orld.
0he result of the @e"olutionar@ mth@ in infiltrating every dimension has $een destructive" overthrowing @e"er "alue@, and @de!consecrating@ mankind. #vola ela$orates on an anti) Jarwinian form of QracismQ in a amhlet. Race as a Re"olutionar 'dea. 1ere he reudiates the idea that man arose from aelike creatures and evolved into higher forms and higher civilisations. Rather" he $elieves that if such aelike creatures did e5ist they $elonged to an inferior line that was not continued through homo sapiens. #vola states+ %The true and essential origin of man is to be found else*here, in superior races *ho, alread in prehistoric ages. possessed a ci"ilisation of limited material de"elopment but of notable e4tremel ele"ated spiritual content, so much so as to be smbolicall designated remembrances of all peoples, as @di"ine races@, as races of @god!like men#
#volaQs form of “racism” is osited %against the mth of the faceless proletarian mass *ithout a fatherland# . #vola considers the ractical alication of the revival of “racism” and “nationalism” as+ “One of the reliminary conditions for re)organising those forces which" through the crisis of the modern world" are sinking in the *uagmire of a mechanical" collectivistic and internationalistic indifferentiation. 0his duty is a *uestion of life and death for the future of #uroean civilisation.” 0his “racism” is a @continuation of >ascism@, %because like >ascism, it refuses to consider the single indi"idual @b himself, as an atom.# Rather this “racism” regards every man as a mem$er of a community as regards sace" time and his continuity in the ast and the future" %of a stock, of a blood, of a tradition.# 1owever" “racism”" to #vola" did not sto “ at a mere biological le"el, other*ise racism =4
*ould be *orth of the accusation b the Je* Trotsk of it being %9oological materialism#. Fan is differentiated from the animal in having not only a $ody $ut also a soul and a sirit. 0herefore men are not only different in $ody $ut also in soul and sirit. & significant e5amle is that of the Dews" who are termed “ a race of the soul “ , who have often had a disintegrating effect uon society. 0his “ race of the soul “ might e5ist within an individual whose $odily race is different. DEH5!ANISATION 0o #vola the <7& reresents the materialistic triumh over the siritual Gust as much as the <77R. 0his dehumanisation has resulted in a new human tye. 0he economic classes have relaced the castes that were reflections of divine order. 1ence" in the ower structure" the merchant relaced the warrior" the kings of money relaced the “ kings of blood and spirit ”. #vola writes of this state in Re"olt Against the (odern &orld,
%Foreover contemorary society looks like an organism that has shifted from a human to a su$human tye" in which every activity and reaction is determined $y the needs and dictates of urely hysical life.#
0his de)siritualisation is reflected in architecture. 0hrough cycles of regression the dominant $uilding has shifted from the temle ,divine ruler- to the fortress and castle ,warrior caste-" to the walled city)state ,age of merchants-" to the factory and finally to %the dull buildings that are the hi"es of mass man#. 0he family has likewise slied from $eing a manifestation of the sacred to that of a legalistic unit" and eventually will $e relaced $y %the people# and %societ# and %part# ,this $eing the stated ideal of the 6ommunists-. 8ikewise" the concet of war went through %analogous phases#, from the %sacred *ar#, to war waged for the honour of oneQs lord ,warrior caste- to those fought $y nations for economic interests ,caste of merchants-. 0he &ra$ic culture is the vestige of a civilisation that continues to uhold the concet of sacred war Jihad in our own time. In aesthetics sacred art gave way to the eic art and oems of the warrior caste" sychological art roduced for the consumtion of the merchant caste" and finally the social art roduced for the masses. &t a time when the <77R was a triumhant sectre over much of #uroe" #vola saw the final hase after the caitalistic ,the merchant caste- as $eing those of the caste of serfs reresented $y communism. 1owever" #vola recognised that the imetus even for the Bolsheviks came from &merica as the centre for the technical and mechanical world. #vola cites several 7oviet directives in the early days of the Bolshevik regime that look to &merica as having started a historical rocess of mechanisation. #vola states that &merica does not reresent a “new” or youthful nation" $ut the end roduct of a cycle of #uroean decay" “ the e4act contradiction of the ancient European tradition”. 0he &merican ideal is soulless and mechanical. Criting of &merican civilisation in a @=?> essay of that name" #vola states that although the oular notion of the <7& is that it is a %oung nation# with %the faults of outh# it is rather %the final stage of modern Europe.” 0he reresentative of %the most senile aspects of &estern
#volaQs metahysics of history concludes that" “…the final collase will not even have the character of a tragedy”. #vola called for a %ne* unitar European consciousness#. 1e thought it unavoida$le that" %fate *ill run its course, that the ri"er of histor flo*s along the ri"erbed it has car"ed for itself.# TENDERS OF THE PERENNIA* F*A!E %The possibilities still a"ailable in the last time, concern onl a minorit/#
0his minority e5ists throughout the world and those who comrise it are largely unknown to each other" $ut are united $y a siritual $ond" “ and form an unbreakable chain in the traditional spirit.” 0hey shun the sotlight of modern oularity and culture. %The li"e on spiritual heights: the do not belong to this *orld#. 0his siritual minority does not act in the world" $ut sym$olically tends to the %perennial flame# of tradition which ensures that the #arth is still connected to the %super!*orld#. #vola states that what this minority can do is to enlist others to them who are confused $y the modern world and yearn for “ liberation, though the do not kno* in the name of *hat ”. It is therefore necessary to have %*atchers# who will $ear witness to the values of tradition and firmly stand against the anti)traditional forces %to keep standing amid a *orld of ruins.# ¬her ath that #vola suggests" reminiscent of !iet'scheQs dictum %Push the falling#, is to accelerate the rocess of destruction to hasten the advent of a new order. 0his would re*uire taking on the most destructive rocesses of the modern era" whilst rotecting oneQs own soul and sirit" in order to use them for li$eration. #vola e5lained this simly $y stating" “this would $e like turning a oison against oneself or like Qriding a tigerQ" a term adoted from the Indo)&ryan or 1indu tradition. “...<hough the Kali Euga Y1indu" Jark &geZ is an age of great distractions" those who live during it and manage to remain standing may achieve fruits that were not easily achieved $y men living in other ages”. #vola was aralysed during a Russian $om$ attack on Tienna while researching the 77 archives on Fasonic grous in @=?>. 1e had never sought shelter during air raids" $ut walked through the streets %calml to 2uestion his fate#. &fter several years in hosital he returned to Rome. 1e was arrested in @=>@ on charges of %glorifing >ascism# and %intellectuall inciting secret combat groups#. &c*uitted" he remained a host to a new generation of activists who addressed him as %maestro.# #vola called for an “ anarchism of the Right ” to disrut the old order" and insire the leadershi of national revolutionary grous in Italy" as well as the olitical arties such as the F7I and the !ational &lliance. 0he latter $eing a %overnment coalition artner in Italy. 1e is lauded $y Q!ew RightQ theorists from (rance to Russia. 1is writings have $een u$lished in the #nglish language Q!ew RightQ maga'ine The Scorpion" whilst the usurge of interest in alternative sirituality has romted many who would not otherwise study ideas with such olitical imlications to read his works. #vola died in @=H?. 1is ashes were scattered in a crevice of a articular legendary glacier on Fount Rosa. =2
BIB*IOGRAPH( &ckroyd" ;eter" #'ra ;ound and his world. 0hames and 1udson" @=:4. &llott" Kenneth" 0he ;enguin $ook of contemorary verse" ;enguin $ooks" @=A>. Bentley" #ric" 0he 6ult of the 7uerman" 8ondon" @=?H. Berghaus" %unter" (uturism and olitics" Berharn $ooks" <7&" @==A. Broughton C 7" !ew 9ealand rofiles+ & R J (air$urn" Reed" Cellington" @=A:. 6am$ell Roy" 6ollected works" Tols @ and 2" 7outh &frica" @=:>. 6arrey D" 0he Intellectual and the masses" (a$er" 8ondon" @==2. 6haman R 0" Cyndham 8ewis+ fictions and satires" Tision ;ress" 8ondon" @=H3. 6ooney 7eamus" Blast 3" Black 7arrow ;ress" 6a." @=:?. 6ullen ;." 1enry Cilliamson+ nature’s visionary. !ational Tanguard \ @@H" @==H. #vola D." Feditations on the eaks" Inner 0raditions" @==:. )))Race as a revolutionary idea." ca. @=H4s. ))) Revolt against the modern world" Inner 0raditions" @==>. ))) 0he 1ermetic 0radition" Inner 0rad. @==>. ))) Fystery of the grail" Inner 0rad." @==?. (air$urn & R J 6ollected oems" 6hristchurch" @=AA. )))8etters of""" ed. 8 #dmond" O5ford . 1amilton &" &eal of (ascism" FacFillan" !E" =3
1amsun K." On overgrown aths" !E" @=A:. )))%rowth of soil" 8ondon" @=H=. 1arrison D R" 0he Reactionaries" 8ondon" @=AA. Densen R" (uturism and (ascism" 1istory 0oday" !ov. @==>. Kaufmann C" !iet'sche P ;hilosoher" ;sychologist" &ntichrist" !E" @=A:. 8ewis C" 8eft Cing" B<( Suarterly. )));aleface" 8ondon" @=2=. )))Rotting 1ill" 8ondon" @=>@. )))0arr" 6hatto and Cindus @=@:" ;enguin @=:2. )))&es of %od" 8ondon" @=32. )))&rt of $eing ruled" 8ondon" @=2A. ))) 6ode of a herdsman" @=@H. )))0ime and Cestern man" 8ondon @=2H. Fishima E" On 1agakure P 7amurai ethic and modern Daan" 8ondon @=HH. Fuirden B" ;u''led atriots" Fel$ourne" @=A:. Fullins #" 0his difficult individual P #'ra ;ound" 6a." @=A@. !iet'sche (" 0hus soke 9arathustra ,@::3-" 8ondon" @=A:=. ))) ;hilosohy of !iet'sche" ed. % 6live" !E" @=A>. ;earce D" Blooms$ury and $eyond" the friends and enemies of Roy 6am$ell" 1arer 6ollins" 244@. ;ound #" Defferson andNor Fussolini" !E @=H4 ,first ed. @=3>-. )))Tisiting card" ,Rome @=?2-" 8ondon @=>2. )))&merica" Roosevelt and causes of resent war" Tenice @=??" 8ondon" @=>@. )))Intro. 0o the economic nature of the <7&" 8ondon" @=>4. =?
)))%old and work" Raallo @=??" 8ondon @=>@. )))7elected oems @=4:)@=>=" 8ondon @=H>. )))7ocial 6redit an imact" ,@=3>-" 8ondon @=>@. )))Chat is money for/ 8ondon" @=3:" @=3=" @=>@. Rhodes &" ;oet as suerman P J’&nnun'io. 8ondon @=>=. 7hirer C" Rise and fall of the 0hird Reich" @=HH. 7kidelsky R Oswald Fosley" FacFillan @=H>. 7engler O" 7engler letters @=@3)@=3A" 8ondon @=AA. )))Jecline of the Cest ,@=@:" @=2A- 8ondon @=H@. )))1our of decision ,@=3?- !E @=A3. 7tehensen ; R" & reasoned case against 7emitism" &ustralian Suarterly" @=?4. )))Bakunin" 8ondon &hrodite" ca. @=2=. )))0owards a !ew Order" ;u$licist \@" &ug. @=?2. 7tokes 1 7 8ife and death of Fishima" ;enguin" @=:>. 0orrey # ( Roots of treason" 8ondon" @=:?. 0russel J" (air$urn" &uckland
After+ord Opening the Conservative Mind by Paul by Paul Gottfried on May 19, 2009
!ew 9ealander K.R. Bolton has sent for my $enefit $e nefit a self)u$lished self)u$lish ed work" Thinkers of the Right: =>
Challenging Materialism " which is one of the most enlightening studies of the interwar Right I’ve
encountered in years. Its author" who e5lained to me that no !ew 9ealand academic or commercial ress would touch his “e5tremist” material" lives in a corner of the world that is even more ;6 than O$amaland. Bolton’s lack of acceta$ility stems from the fact that he discusses his su$Gects" including ro)fascist !ew 9ealanders and &ustralians" without savaging them. 0hat is to say" he has the nerve to write a$out these eole without e5hi$iting the 7talinist refle5 of anti) fascist outrage. An advantage of this approach is that it allos !olton"s readership, hich is presu#ably $uite s#all, to for# so#e idea of hat fascist sy#pathi%ers ere actually li&e' (ro# listening to )onah Goldberg or Goldberg or Glenn !ec&, one #ight thin& these types ere predecessors of *obert *eich, Michael +erner, and illary Clinton, that is, fans of egalitarian politics and affir#ative-action progra#s' (ro# reading .uropean antifascists, one #ight ta&e aay another e$ually #isleading i#pression, na#ely that fascists ere and are Christian fanatics ho oppose Musli# i##igration into .urope and ho #u#ble disapprovingly about gay #arriage' /o#eho these attitudes, if left unchec&ed, e are led to believe, ould lead to another a%i olocaust, and therefore it is necessary to push entire countries into #ind-altering, reeducation progra#s to prevent this disastrous outco#e' All of !olton"s subects sa the#selves as being at ar ith #aterialis#,3 hich they associated interchangeably ith consu#er capitalis# and Mar4ist socialis#' Most of !olton"s figures held negative vies about )es as being i#plicated in both for#s of the #aterialis# they conde#ned' !ut this particular preudice did not affect so#e of !olton"s case studies, li&e 5talian proto-fascist (ilippo Marinetti, 5rish poet 6'!' 7eats and )apanese #ilitarist 7u&io #ilitarist 7u&io Mishi#a, Mishi#a, none of ho# as particularly e4ercised over the role of )es in the t he cultural decadence they attac&ed' Other fascist sy#pathi%ers treated by !olton, such as .nglish poet and (ranco-supporter *oy Ca#pbell and e 8ealander *e4 (airburn, ere Catholic converts' he last to resonated to the Catholic sense of authority and to Catholic hierarchy, and they espoused their on variations of neo-#edieval corporatis# and guild socialis#' !ut others cited in !olton"s boo&, particularly the greatest oregian novelist :nut a#sun, ere un#ista&ably Protestant; and to other fascisant literary giants, <'' +arence and Gabriel <"Annun%io, ere e4ultantly neo-pagan and effusively anti-Christian' A $uestion that occurred to #e hile reading Thinkers of the Right is is hether or not A#erican conservatives3 ould recogni%e !olton"s subects as fello-rightists' /uch a $uestion ould obviously not apply to neoconservatives and (O=-nes aficionados, groups hose vies of conservatis#3 have nothing to do ith any i#aginable authentic *ight' >nless one associates the *ight ith a de#ocratic elfare state, the oratory of Martin of Martin +uther :ing, :ing, fighting intergalactically for de#ocratic values,3 and bac&ing the +i&ud Party to the hilt, it is hard to find any fit beteen our #ainstrea# conservatives3 and GOP boosters and any historic *ight' !ut even given the non-rightist character of these fau4 conservatives, here does one place the *on Paul supporters, the Constitution Party, and other groups that have positioned the#selves outside of our establish#ent politics? Certainly such A#ericans ould have trouble recogni%ing the#selves in the ideas that !olton ascribes t o his rightist and often pro-fascist pro- fascist subects' 5 ould have to ansers to this, one of hich 5 a# ta&ing fro#
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ta&e ithout assisting the +eft to gain further control over our social institutions and our lives' !ut a orld of self-actuali%ing individuals held together by econo#ic transactions is certainly not a future that any real rightist ould hope for' At the sa#e ti#e, it is possible that a rightist ould approve of various stands that a self-described libertarian, say, *on Paul ould be ta&ing on specific issues, such as the (ederal *eserve /yste# or the piece#eal nationali%ation of the A#erican econo#y' herefore the real *ight"s present-day alliance ith libertarians ould be dictated by circu#stances' Another anser 5 ould give to the $uestion posed above is that the *ight"s beliefs stay constant but its responses ill vary fro# one age to the ne4t' he *ight alays believes as a #atter of principle and observation that hu#an beings are naturally une$ual and t hat hierarchy is essential for a sound society' 5t accepts the person as a spiritual being but reects the idea of individuals liberated fro# traditional fa#ilial and co##unal conte4ts' 5t is also categorically against such abstract concepts as hu#an rights3 and global de#ocracy,3 recogni%ing in these rhetorical labels instru#ents for the e4pansion of #anagerial poer and global social engineering' !ut having provided this list of general beliefs, it is i#perative to add that rightists react differently to hat they perceive as challenges fro# the +eft' At different ti#es and in different cultures they have proposed different alternatives; and they have not alays focused bla#e for hat they see as social derail#ents in a prudent or accurate #anner' 5t is also less relevant for identifying !olton"s subects hat they proposed as an alternative to international capitalis# or socialis# than their concern ith social order and traditional hierarchies' ote this is not being offered as a defense of the ludicrous ideas about #oney or anti-/e#itic fi4ations of an .%ra Pound or the Australian ournalist P'*' /tephensen, ho is another of !olton"s subect' 5t is rather an atte#pt to distinguish hat is $uintessentially rightist fro# hat so#e rightists #ight have e#braced as policy positions, or hi#s, in different periods' Moreover, there is a distinction to be #ade beteen the political and aesthetic *ights' One could be on both or either, a point that 5 as #ade aare of hile reading a long revie of #y boo& Conservatism in America in the ournal Quadrant by one of Australia"s pre#ier poets and novelists Peter :ocan' he revieer co##ends #y boo& as a tale of irony3 about ho a false notion that led a #ove#ent and a hole superpoer astray beca#e in the end the plain truth'3 :ocan is a#used by #y story of ho the changing conservative #ove#ent has continued to thro people off the bus3 and about ho this #ove#ent ca#e to peddle @abstract universals" applicable to anything,3 hile serving as a front for the neoconservative ascent to orld poer' At the sa#e ti#e, :ocan ta&es #e to tas& for not e#bracing the ideal of the .uropean counterrevolution' e sees #e as fi4ated on the s#all-ton Protestant, bourgeois character of the A#erican *ight, hile not recogni%ing that the !ur&ean e4a#ple that as a florid i#port of the 190s no stands as the only proper recourse for hat re#ains of the true A#erican *ight'3 Although one could retort that none of this has #uch to do ith the A#erican historical e4perience and even less ith the conte#porary .uropean, it see#s that :ocan is not spea&ing about politics' e is referring to a sensibility that celebrates gratitude rather than grievance3 and hich is aligned ith the Cavalier rather than the Puritan vie of life' According to :ocan, it is the legacy of A#erican Puritanis# that lives on in our regi#es of political correctness ith their rage to police all life to the last inch'3 e notes that 5 too ascribe this lunacy to a for# of degenerate Protestantis# but continue to find #erit in the older tradition that beca#e tisted into our current political culture' 5 shall readily concede #y ea&ness for A#erica"s bourgeois Protestant character as the source of its #oral strength and social cohesion' or a# 5 sure that one could dra as
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