Poder vs. Autoridad

Más valioso que el poder, enseña Guenon, es la autoridad. Fundada en la preeminencia inclaudicable de los valores espirituales y morales, puede darse y se ha dado la paradoja, de que las grandes autoridades carezcan completamente de poder, y que los poderosos no tengan ninguna autoridad. See complete article here

Day of Remembrance 2011

Father Mychal F. Judge, OFM 1933 - 2001



Father's Mychal Prayer

Lord, take me where You want me to go,
let me meet who You want me to meet,
tell me what You want me to say,
and keep me out of Your way.

Historia y Filosofía

"When philosophy paints its grey in grey, then has a shape of life grown old... The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk."

For Hegel, philosophy always " comes on the scene too late. History can never be comprehended except in retrospect; what philosophy, as the wisdom of hindsight, grasps of the world's reality is what is already in the process of disappearing, even as it is grasped."

Lack of Ethics

The court remains the only federal court not covered by the Code of Conduct for United States Judges. The court and the country would be better off if the justices were responsible to the code. Even without a duty to the code, each justice has a duty to its principles. Each has a duty to promote the judiciary’s impartiality. That means avoiding any activity that could raise reasonable doubts about his or her ability to decide cases fairly.


See here

Willard Cleon Skoussen and Radical Constitutionalism

Jeffrey Rosen, en su articulo en el NYT de ayer sobre "Radical Constitutionalism" menciona a un viejo conocido, ya fallecido, el Dr. Willard Cleon Skoussen como el ideologo del "Tea Party". See here

Contending Modernities

On November 18-19, dozens of scholars, religious leaders, business people, and intellectuals will gather in New York for the public launch of a new, multi-year project called “Contending Modernities: Catholic, Muslim, Secular.”

Based on the premise that Catholic, Muslim, and secular modernities each bring distinctive resources to the task of illuminating and resolving an array of characteristically modern problems, the project will examine the dynamic co-existence and competition of these “multiple modernities”—as well as the conflicts and contentions among them—with the aim of opening “new paths for constructive engagement between and among religion and secular people and institutions.”

See here

Schuon. On his Philosophy.

Elections in the US

El muerto K

Representó lo peor de la Argentina, el resentimiento, la soberbia, la prepotencia, los negocios turbios con empresarios turbios, el enriquecimiento ilícito,los ataques permanentes a las tradiciones y a la religion de los argentinos, la destrucción sistematica de las instituciones, la venganza, los golpes bajos, la alianza con los peores elementos de la sociedad ...me alegra que este capitulo se haya cerrado, pero no hay que bajar los brazos y recordar la frase de Brecht.

...

Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again. Bertold Brecht

...
De otros medios:

"La Argentina padeció a lo largo del siglo XX, y sobre todo a partir de
1930, año del golpe fascista –en sentido estricto– del general Uriburu,
gobiernos que pueden contarse entre los peores de Occidente para
sorpresa de propios y extraños, que nunca entendieron –entendimos– cómo
aquello era posible en un país culto, con la tasa de analfabetismo más
baja del mundo y con una librería en cada esquina de las grandes
ciudades. Pero de todos los que padeció, excepción hecha del período de
las juntas militares, el de este hombre que acaba de morir lleno de oro
y odio fue el peor.

Ni merece un análisis sociológico más allá de la estructura del poder. Se resume en delincuencia sindical y policial, reivindicación de un terrorismo en el cual ni siquiera había tenido el valor de militar, podredumbre ideológica, financiera y moral, y un autoritarismo que hizo perder sentido a la palabra democracia.

Chávez se explica por su rostro de animal vengativo –es un tiranuelo de los que profetizó Bolívar, "de todos los colores y razas"–. Kirchner, descendiente de croatas, era simplemente un hombre feo y desesperadamente codicioso –su viuda y presidente rinde idéntico tributo a la codicia– en el que costaba imaginar las raíces del odio, pero rebosaba de él, un odio generalizado a su país y sus paisanos."
--- Horacio Vázquez-Rial

The UN

Excelent posting by our blog-friend the Monarchist quoting Gerald Warner at the Telegraph:

Gerald Warner, where art thou?

I've no idea where The Much Honoured the Laird of Craigenmaddie has gotten to these past few weeks, but I miss him dearly. No one, it seems, is better equipped at encapsulating the ills of our time than he:


"The EU and the UN are working to establish a monocultural world government. Its malign culture is one of population control, secularism, relativist morality, materialism, self-conscious modernity, equality of all under the benign rule of the totally unequal governing elite. It promotes the New Man: cellophane-wrapped, emasculated by health and safety, dedicated to extending his meaningless and despiritualised existence by medical improvements, inhabiting cities rendered anonymous by globalised architecture and the ubiquity of international corporations.

The intolerable antithesis of that Utopian future is any society that values tradition, that clings to custom, that engages in virile activities such as hunting or bullfighting, that serves God rather than Mammon. The free spirit who owns a gun, cherishes wildernesses not yet tamed into heavily sign-posted heritage parks, practises Christianity in the manner of his forefathers, respects animals as part of creation but would never equate their status with human beings – such men are a hostile spectre haunting the social engineers charting our global future. They must be eliminated, and useful idiots in politically correct parliamentary assemblies are the instruments of that purge."

Fútbol y Política

"Football (il calcio) has constantly mirrored the political circumstances of Italy and has been regarded as a legitimate arena for activism by political actors across the spectrum: Mussolini’s PNF (Partito Nazionale Fascista), liberals, pro-catholic, and right and left organizations have all valued the game as a tool for their proselytizing (Agnew, 2006, Foot, 2006 Ginsborg, 2001; Martin, 2004, Porro, 1992). Political careers run synonymously with positions within football clubs."

Alberto Testa, Words and actions: Italian ultras and neo-fascism, Social Identities Vol. 14, No. 4, July 2008, 473-490. London: Routledge

Anthony Gimigliano (A. James Gregor)

Conoció a Julius Evola personalmente y es el especialista norteamericano mas prolífico en Italian Studies. Enseña en UC Berkeley desde 1967. Su tesis doctoral (Ph.D Columbia) fue sobre Gentile,

Giovanni Gentile : philosopher of fascism, New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2001

Books
A survey of Marxism: problems in philosophy and the theory of history, New York : Random House, 1965
"Contemporary Radical Ideologies: Totalitarian thought in the twentieth century", New York: Random House, 1969
The ideology of fascism : the rationale of totalitarianism, New York: Free Press, 1969
An Introduction to Metapolitics: A Brief Inquiry into the Conceptual Language of Political Science. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1971. 415p.
The Fascist persuasion in radical politics, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974
Interpretations of Fascism, Transaction Publishers and Morristown, N. J.: General Learning Press, 1974
Young Mussolini and the intellectual origins of Fascism. , Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. 271p.
Italian Fascism and Developmental Dictatorship, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979. 427p.
Ideology and development: Sun Yat-sen and the economic history of Taiwan, with Maria Hsia Chang and Andrew B. Zimmerman, China research monographs, Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, Berkeley, no. 23, 1981
The China connection: U.S. policy and the People's Republic of China, 1986
Arming the dragon: U.S. security ties with the People's Republic of China, 1987
In the shadow of giants: the major powers and the security of Southeast Asia, 1989
Marxism, China, & Development: Reflections on Theory and Reality, New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publisher, 1995
Phoenix: Fascism in Our Time. New Brunswick: Transaction, 1999. 208p.
The Faces of Janus: Marxism and Fascism in the Twentieth Century. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000. 256p.
Giovanni Gentile : philosopher of fascism, New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2001
A Place in the Sun: Marxism and Fascism in China's Long Revolution, Westview Press, 2000
Origins and Doctrine of Fascism: Giovanni Gentile, Transaction Publishers, 2nd ed. 2004
The Search for Neofascism, Cambridge University Press, 2006
Mussolini's Intellectuals: Fascist Social and Political Thought, Princeton University Press, new ed. 2006
Marxism, Fascism, and Totalitarianism: Chapters in the Intellectual History of Radicalism, Stanford University Press, 2008

Phurpa Sadhana

Beyond Capitalism & Marxism

All this is proof of the true pathology of our civilization. The economic factor exercises a hypnosis and a tyranny over modern man. And, as often occurs in hypnosis, what the mind focuses on eventually becomes real. Modern man is making possible what every normal and complete civilization has always regarded as an aberration or as a bad joke—namely, that the economy and the social problem in terms of the economy are his destiny.

Thus, in order to posit a new principle, what is needed is not to oppose one economic formula with another, but instead to radically change attitudes, to reject without compromise the materialistic premises from which the economic factor has been perceived as absolute.

What must be questioned is not the value of this or that economic system, but the value of the economy itself. Thus, despite the fact that the antithesis between capitalism and Marxism dominates the background of recent times, it must be regarded as a pseudo-antithesis. In free-market economies, as well as in Marxist societies, the myth of production and its corollaries (e.g., standardization, monopolies, cartels, technocracy) are subject to the "hegemony" of the economy, becoming the primary factor on which the material conditions of existence are based. Both systems regard as "backward" or as "underdeveloped" those civilizations that do not amount to "civilizations based on labor and production"—namely, those civilizations that, luckily for themselves, have not yet been caught up in the feverish industrial exploitation of every natural resource, the social and productive enslavement of all human possibilities, and the exaltation of technical and industrial standards; in other words, those civilizations that still enjoy a certain space and a relative freedom. Thus, the true antithesis is not between capitalism and Marxism, but between a system in which the economy rules supreme (no matter in what form) and a system in which the economy is subordinated to extra-economic factors, within a wider and more complete order, such as to bestow a deep meaning upon human life and foster the development of its highest possibilities. This is the premise for a true restorative reaction, beyond "Left" and "Right," beyond capitalism's abuses and Marxist subversion. The necessary conditions are an inner detoxification, a becoming "normal" again ("normal" in the higher meaning of the term), and a renewed capability to differentiate between base and noble interests. No intervention from the outside can help; any external action at best might accompany this process.

In order to resolve the problem, it is necessary, first of all, to reject the "neutral" interpretation of the economic phenomenon proper to a deviated sociology. The very economic life has a body and soul of its own, and inner moral factors have always determined its meaning and spirit. Such spirit, as Sombart has clearly shown, should be distinguished from the various forms of production, distribution, and organization of economic goods; it may vary depending on individual instances and it bestows a very different scope and meaning on the economic factor. The pure homo oeconomicus is a fiction or the by-product of an evidently degenerated specialization. Thus, in every normal civilization a purely economic man—that is, the one who sees the economy not as an order of means but rather as an order of ends to which he dedicates his main activities—was always rightly regarded as a man of lower social extraction: lower in a spiritual sense, and furthermore in a social or political one. In essence, it is necessary to return to normalcy, to restore the natural dependency of the economic factor on inner, moral factors and to act upon them.

Once this is acknowledged, it will be easy to recognize the inner causes in the actual world (which have the economy as their common denominator) that preclude any solution that does not translate into a steeper fall to a lower level. I have previously suggested that the uprising of the masses has mainly been caused by the fact that every social difference has been reduced to those that exist between mere economic classes and by the fact that under the aegis of antitraditional liberalism, property and wealth, once free from any bond or higher value, have become the only criteria of social differences. However, beyond the strict limitations that were established within the overall hierarchical system prior to the ascent of the economy, the superiority and the right of a class as a merely economic class may rightly be contested in the name of elementary human values. And it was precisely here that the subversive ideology introduced itself, by making an anomalous and degenerative situation into an absolute one and acting as if nothing else had previously existed or could exist outside economic classes, or besides external and unfair social conditions that are determined by wealth alone. However, all this is false, since such conditions could develop only within a truncated society: only in such a society may the concepts of "capitalist" and "proletarian" be defined. These terms lack any foundation in a normal civilization, because in such a civilization the counterpart constituted by extra-economic values portrays the corresponding human types as something radically different from what today is categorized as "capitalist" or "proletarian." Even in the domain of the economy, a normal civilization provides specific justification for certain differences in condition, dignity, and function.

Moreover, in the contemporary chaos it is also necessary to acknowledge what is caused by an ideological infection. It is not entirely correct to say that Marxism arose and took hold because there was a real social question that needed to be addressed (at best this may have been the case during the early stages of the industrial revolution); the opposite is true—to wit, that for the most part the social question gains precedence in today's world only as a result of the presence of Marxism. The social question artificially arises through the concerted effort of agitators, those who are engaged in "rekindling class consciousness." Lenin did not assign to the Communist Party only the task of supporting "workers' movements" where they arose spontaneously, but rather the task of creating and organizing them everywhere and by every means. Marxism gives rise to the proletarian and class mentality where it previously did not exist, stirring excitement and creating resentment and dissatisfaction in those societies where the individuals still lived in the station allotted to them by life. In those societies an individual contained his need and aspirations within natural limits; he did not yearn to become different from what he was, and thus he was innocent of that Entfremdung ("alienation") decried by Marxism. Incidentally, we should recall that Marxism proposes to overcome this alienation through something worse—namely, the "integration (or, we should say, disintegration) of the person into a collective entity (i.e., the 'people,' or 'the party')."

I am not espousing an "obscurantism" for the benefit of the "ruling classes"; as I have stated previously, I dispute the superiority and the rights of a merely economic class living in a materialistic fashion. Nevertheless, we need to side against the idea or myth of so-called social progress, which is another of the many pathological fixations of the economic era in general, and not the legacy of leftist movements alone. To this effect, the eschatological views of Marxism do not differ very much from the "Western" views of prosperity: both Weltanschauungen [worldviews] essentially coincide, as do their practical applications. In both Marxism and free-market economies we find the same materialistic, antipolitical, and social view detaching the social order and people from any higher order and higher goal, positing what is "useful" as the only purpose (understood in a physical, vegetative, and earthly sense); by turning the "useful" into a criterion of progress, the values proper to every traditional structure are inverted. In fact, we should not forget that the law, meaning, and sufficient reason for these structures have always consisted in references for man to something beyond himself and beyond the economy, wealth, or material poverty, all these things having only a secondary importance. Thus, it can legitimately be claimed that the so-called improvement of social conditions should be regarded not as good but as evil, when its price consists of the enslavement of the single individual to the productive mechanism and to the social conglomerate; or in the degradation of the State to the "State based on work," and the degradation of society to "consumer society"; or in the elimination of every qualitative hierarchy; or in the atrophy of every spiritual sensibility and every "heroic" attitude. Hegel wrote, "Happiness is not to be found in the history of the world [in the sense of material comfort and social prosperity]; even the few happy periods found here and there are like white pages." But even at an individual level, the qualities that matter the most in a man and make him who he is often arise in harsh circumstances and even in conditions of indigence and injustice, since they represent a challenge to him, testing his spirit; what a sad contrast it is when the human animal is granted a maximum of comfort, an equal share in a mindless and "bovine" happiness, an easy and comfortable life filled with gadgets, radio and TV programs, planes, Hollywood, sports arenas, and popular culture at the level of Reader's Digest.

Again, spiritual values and the higher degrees of human perfection have nothing to do with either the presence or the absence of socioeconomic prosperity. The notion that indigence is always a source of abjection and vice—and that "advanced" social conditions represent its opposite—is the fairy tale told by materialistic ideologies, which contradict themselves when they uphold the other myth, according to which the "good guys" are on the side of the people and the oppressed workers and all the "bad guys" are to be found on the side of the wealthy classes, which are corrupt and exploitative. Both of these are fairy tales. In reality, true values bear no necessary relation to better or worse socioeconomic conditions; only when these values are put at the forefront is it possible to approximate an order of effective justice, even on the material plane. Among these values are: being oneself; the style of an active impersonality; love of discipline; and a generally heroic attitude toward life. Against all forms of resentment and social competition, every person should acknowledge and love his station in life, which best corresponds to his own nature, thus acknowledging the limits within which he can develop his potential; and should give an organic sense to his life and achieve its perfection, since an artisan who perfectly fulfills his function is certainly superior to a king who does not live up to his dignity. Only when such considerations have weight will this or that reform carried out on the socioeconomic plane be conceived and implemented without any negative consequence, according to true justice, without mistaking the essential for the accessory. Unless an ideological detoxification and a rectification of attitudes are carried out, every reform will be only superficial and fail to tackle the deeper roots of the crisis of contemporary society, to the advantage of subversive forces.
[...]

JULIUS EVOLA
Tyranny of the Economy
& Pseudo-Antithesis between Capitalism & Marxism
(from "Men Among the Ruins")

Business and Democracy

From Corporate Governance guru, Bob Monks:

"The business community has acquired such an enormous amount of power with respect to the political system that the political system seems to be simply a vehicle through which the business community expresses its power. So the energy of reform does not find expression in the political system, it finds frustration."

Libertad, igualdad y heroína

Esta semana la policia de Croacia descubrio un enorme baul en un puesto aduanero en la frontera con Serbia. Un hombre de nacionalidad noruega ingresaba al pais transportando 88,6 kilogramos de heroina almacenada en su vehiculo junto a mas de mil cajas de cigarrillos.
...
El intento norteamericano de ocupar Afghanistan e imponer su idelogia de sociedad abierta para transformar a los Tajiks, Pushtun y Hazara en una sociedad secularizada, amantes del hip-hop y la democracia ha sido un fracaso estrepitoso. Al igual que el marxismo-leninismo una generacion atras, el proyecto liberal-universalista esta estallando a pedazos contra el Kush hindu. Solo quedan huellas de un sendero de muerte y desesperacion, entre cantidades masivas de heroina - destructora del espiritu.

---

The American attempt to occupy Afghanistan and impose upon it the ideology of the Open Society- to gradually transform Tajiks, Pushtuns, and Hazara into secularized, hip-hop dancing democracy enthusiasts- has been a prideful temptation of fate. Like Marxism-Leninism a generation earlier, the liberal universalist project is shattering on the crags of the Hindu Kush. What’s left is a trail of death and despair, complemented by massive quantities of soul-killing heroin.

Liberty, Equality, Heroin
Mark Hackard
(*) Mark Hackard has a a BA in Russian from Georgetown University and an MA in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies from Stanford University.

See here

Dugin

Sobre la postmodernidad:

See here

Death to the World

Seraphim Rose

Este mundo no es el mundo de Dios sino la ilusión de los hombres; este mundo es una expresión que engloba aquello que llamamos las pasiones.

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The world is the general name for all the passions. When we wish to call the passions by a common name, we call them the world. But when we wish to distinguish them by their special names, we call them the passions. The passions are the following: love of riches, desire for possessions, bodily pleasure from which comes sexual passion, love of honour which gives rise to envy, lust for power, arrogance and pride of position, the craving to adorn oneself with luxurious clothes and vain ornaments, the itch for human glory which is a source of rancour and resentment, and physical fear. Where these passions cease to be active, there the world is dead; for though living in the flesh, they did not live for the flesh. See for which of these passions you are alive. Then you will know how far you are alive to the world, and how far you are dead to it

‑ St. Isaac the Syrian

Paying Tribute to Mary in West Sayville, New York

El domingo ultimo durante la fiesta de la Asunción

Vease el slide show aquí