/lit/ - Literature

>Our accepted axioms about “Liberty,” “Constitutional Government,” “Reform,” and the like objects, are of truly wonderful texture: venerable by antiquity, many of them, and written in all manner of Canonical Books; or else, the newer part of them, celestially clear as perfect unanimity of all tongues, and Vox populi vox Dei, can make them: axioms confessed, or even inspirations and gospel verities, to the general mind of man. To the mind of here and there a man, it begins to be suspected that perhaps they are only conditionally true; that taken unconditionally, or under changed conditions, they are not true, but false and even disastrously and fatally so.

>Ask yourself about “Liberty,” for example; what you do really mean by it, what in any just and rational soul is that Divine quality of liberty? That a good man be “free,” as we call it, be permitted to unfold himself in works of goodness and nobleness, is surely a blessing to him, immense and indispensable; — to him and to those about him. But that a bad man be “free,” — permitted to unfold himself in his particular way, is contrariwise, the fatallest curse you could inflict on him; curse and nothing else, to him and all his neighbours. Him the very Heavens call upon you to persuade, to urge, induce, compel, into something of well-doing; if you absolutely cannot, if he will continue in ill-doing, — then for him (I can assure you, though you will be shocked to hear it), the one “blessing” left is the speediest gallows you can lead him to. Speediest, that at least his ill-doing may cease quàm primùm. Oh, my friends, whither are you buzzing and swarming, in this extremely absurd manner? Expecting a Millennium from “extension of the suffrage,” laterally, vertically, or in whatever way?

>All the Millenniums I ever heard of heretofore were to be preceded by a “chaining of the Devil for a thousand years,” — laying him up, tied neck and heels, and put beyond stirring, as the preliminary. You too have been taking preliminary steps, with more and more ardour, for a thirty years back; but they seem to be all in the opposite direction: a cutting asunder of straps and ties, wherever you might find them; pretty indiscriminate of choice in the matter: a general repeal of old regulations, fetters, and restrictions (restrictions on the Devil originally, I believe, for the most part, but now fallen slack and ineffectual), which had become unpleasant to many of you, — with loud shouting from the multitude, as strap after strap was cut, “Glory, glory, another strap is gone!” — this, I think, has mainly been the sublime legislative industry of Parliament since it became “Reform Parliament;” victoriously successful, and thought sublime and beneficent by some.

>>11918293
> This idea that fascism was anti-intellectual is born from anti-fascist war propaganda and has no real factual basis.
Not anti-intellectual but anti-empiricism/rationality/materialism, and it is factual because it's been declared so by many many fascist intellectuals not their critics or opponents who were just going off what they said. The idea of meta-truths and transcendant ideals that transcend the material realm of human logic and evidence was talked about by Carlyle, Evola and many others. Hell if you went on Ironmarch.org or whatever that place was it was a central part of their infographics. But I'm interested in the 2nd part where you say " It was the fascist obsession with the material and scientific which caused guys like Evola to reject the movement" and you may be right here, I may be looking at these 5 or 6 intellectuals who are anti-rational and essoteric and you might be looking at another group and saying well Evola hated them because they were too material. So maybe our disagreement is just in these different groups of intellectuals, have you got some examples of essoteric vs materialist fascist intellectuals so I can see if I'm following you here? I would list Evola, Carlyle, Schmitt & Hegel (to a degree from his influences) as the guys that lean more towards essoteric mysticism style critiques of the enlightenment. I'm not willing to say Spengler or Madison Grant just yet but you've probably got a clearer list than I have.
>>11918326
Interesting.

>Thomas Carlyle - On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History
>Madison Grant - The Passing of the Great Race.
>Oswald Spengler - The Decline of the West
>Carl Schmitt - The Concept of the Political
>Julius Evola - Fascism viewed from the right
I think it's always nice to get a good sense of the intellectual underpinning of the ideas, rather than just a cold outline of them. Especially since the Fascists had a strange esoteric tinge to it that wasn't stricly rational like Marx tried to be like the Classical Liberals.
>>11842108
Can't help but agree, although I'm not sure we can say they completely abandoned corporatism. Are you talking about pre-war vs during the war or?

>>11704243
If you wanna go that way I think they're all spastics that are taken way too seriously on this website. Especially idiots like Evola that amount to basically being a fantasy fiction writer that was pissed off because he couldn't fit into the modern world. I wouldn't get my world view from people that idolize politics above all else and believe that redwood trees are the master race tree being swamped by disgenic trees and so need to be protected and so on. I also wouldn't get my world view from some people that deny reason and logic.