Traditionalism: That is the Enemy!

Guillaume Faye critiques "metaphysical traditionalism" as a regressive, contradictory ideology often found in anti-liberal right-wing circles. It argues that such traditionalism, inspired by figures like Evola and Heidegger but often misrepresenting their ideas, fosters an individualistic and spiritualist worldview that undermines collective political action and historical construction. By idealizing a mythic, past "tradition" and rejecting modernity wholesale, traditionalists paradoxically mirror the linear, fatalistic mindset of the progressive ideologies they oppose. This worldview, steeped in inaction and bourgeois self-interest, distorts the essence of European tradition, which the author identifies as dynamic, constructive, and materially engaged. Ultimately, the essay condemns metaphysical traditionalism as a pseudo-revolutionary ideology that abandons real societal and cultural transformation for narcissistic contemplation and intellectual elitism.

Originally published in «Lutte du Peuple» no. 32, 1996.

Translated by Alexander Raynor¹

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Like outbreaks of acne, we see the cyclical blossoming, in circles close to what we could euphemistically call the “revolutionary right,” or more broadly the “anti-liberal right,” of surges of what can only be described as “metaphysical traditionalism.”

Authors like Evola or Heidegger are generally used as pretexts—we do mean pretexts—for the expression of these tendencies, many aspects of which strike us as negative and demobilizing. The authors themselves, however, are not to blame. To cite just these two, neither Evola nor Heidegger—whose true ideas were often far removed from those of the “Evolians” and “Heideggerians”—can, in their works, be held accountable for the criticisms one might direct at their “disciples” in the right-wing circles under discussion here.

How can this “deviation” of metaphysical traditionalism be characterized, and what are the arguments for criticizing it? This mindset is marked by three axiomatic presuppositions:

1. The life of societies must be governed by a “tradition,” the forgetting of which hurls us into decadence.

2. Everything concerning our era is overshadowed by this decadence. The further back in time we go, the less decadence there is, and vice versa.

3. Only “inner” concerns and activities ultimately matter, oriented toward the contemplation of an ineffable something, broadly referred to as “being.”

Without lingering on the relatively pretentious superficiality of this axiomatics—which favors vague obscurities of the unverifiable and gratuitous wordplay over true reflection and clarity, and which—under the pretense of depth (and sometimes even “poetry” in the case of certain authors with pronounced narcissistic tendencies)—fails to grasp the very essence of philosophy and lyricism—it is essential to recognize that this metaphysical traditionalism profoundly contradicts the very values it generally claims to defend: resistance to modern ideologies, the so-called “European tradition,” anti-egalitarianism, etc.

Firstly, the obsession with decadence and the dogmatic nostalgia it induces resemble inverted progressivism, a “reversed” linear vision of history: the same mindset, inherited from Christian finalism, as in all “modern” progressive ideologies. History is not ascending, from past to present, but descending.

However, unlike progressive doctrines, traditionalism cultivates a pessimism about the world that is profoundly demobilizing. This pessimism is of the same ilk as the naïve optimism of progressives. It stems from the same mentality and incorporates the same kind of vanity, namely a redundant prophecy coupled with a tendency to set oneself up as a judge of society, history, and one’s peers.

This type of traditionalism, with its tendency to hate and devalue everything “of the present time,” not only reflects an often unjustifiable bitterness and conceit among its proponents but also reveals serious contradictions that render its discourse incoherent and thus unconvincing.

This hatred of the present time, of the “modern era,” is absolutely not followed through in daily practice, unlike what has often been observed, for instance, in Christianity. Our anti-modernists are perfectly capable of taking full advantage of the conveniences of modern life.

In doing so, they reveal the true dimension of their discourse: the expression of a guilty conscience, a “compensation” by minds that are profoundly bourgeois, relatively ill-at-ease in the contemporary world but nonetheless incapable of doing without it.

Secondly, this type of traditionalism most often leads to an exacerbated individualism—the very same individualism their otherwise “communitarian” worldview claims to denounce in modernity.

Under the pretext that the world is “evil,” that contemporaries are, of course, decadent and foolish, and that this materialist society, “corrupted by science and technology,” fails to grasp the lofty values of interiority, the traditionalist—who always holds a lofty view of themselves—comes to no longer believe in the necessity of fighting in the world, rejecting all discipline, all solidarity with their people, and all interest in politics.

Only his hypertrophied ego interests him.

He transmits “his” thought to future generations (without perceiving the contradiction, since they are supposedly incapable of ever understanding it, being ever more decadent) like a message in a bottle.

This individualism logically leads to the exact opposite of the original ideology—that is, to universalism and implicit globalism.

Indeed, the temptation for the metaphysical traditionalist is to consider that only the communion of “spirituals” matters—the establishment of communication among men of high thought, their like-minded counterparts around the world, regardless of origin or background, provided they appear to reject “Western modernity.” Service to the people, to politics, to the community, to knowledge, or to a cause is replaced, in addition to the service and contemplation of oneself, by the service of the “idea.”

They defend “values,” wherever these might be embodied. Hence, for some: a fascinated orientalism; for others: militant globalism; and for all, a jaded indifference to the fate of their own people.

This even leads to outright Christian-like mentalities on the part of “philosophers” who generally make it their mission to combat Christianity.

Examples abound: prioritizing intention over results; adopting, for judging an idea or value, criteria intrinsic to that idea or value rather than criteria of effectiveness; or a spiritualist mindset that evaluates every culture or project based on its “spiritual value” rather than its material effects.

This last attitude, moreover, is obviously far removed from the “paganism” of Europe to which our traditionalists often lay claim.

Indeed, by examining a work, a project, or a culture solely in their “spiritual” aspects, they affirm the Christian principle of separating matter and spirit, of a dualistic dissociation between pure idea and concrete production.

A culture, a project, or a work is only production, in the concrete and dynamic sense of the term.

From our perspective, there is no separation between “value” and “production.” The lyrical, poetic, and aesthetic qualities of a culture, a work, or a project are intimately integrated into their form, into their material production. Spirit and matter are one and the same. The value of a man or a culture lies in their actions, not in their “being” or their past.

It is precisely this idea—drawn from the most ancient European traditions—that our metaphysical traditionalists, brimming with their spiritualism and their monotheism of “tradition” or the quest for “Being,” betray so gleefully.

Paradoxically, nothing could be further from European traditions than the traditionalists themselves. Nothing could be closer to the Near Eastern monastic spirit.

What characterizes European tradition—and what the cults from the East have sought to abolish—is the exact opposite of what today’s European traditionalists defend.

The European spirit, in its most grand and civilizing form, was optimistic, not pessimistic; externalized, not internalized; constructivist, not spiritualist; philosophical, not theological; future-oriented, not fixated on the past; the builder of its own traditions and forms or immutable ideas; conquering, not contemplative; technical and urban, not agrarian; attached to cities, ports, palaces, and temples, not to rural backwaters (the domain of the subjugated), etc.

In truth, the mindset of today’s traditionalists is fully part of the Western commercial civilization, just as museums are part of the civilization of supermarkets. Traditionalism is the shadow, the justification, the living cemetery of the modern bourgeois.

It provides the bourgeois with a supplement of the soul. It convinces them that it is not serious or inconsistent to love New York, television series, and rock music, so long as one has “interiority.”

The traditionalist is superficial: a slave to pure ideas and contemplations, to gratuitous games of pseudo-philosophy, they ultimately view thought as a distraction, as a pleasant and vaguely aesthetic exercise—akin to a collector—rather than as a means of action, of transforming the world, of constructing culture.

The traditionalist believes that values and ideas preexist action. They do not understand that action precedes everything, as Goethe said, and that it is through the dynamic combination of will and action that ideas and values emerge a posteriori.

This insight sheds light on the true function played by traditionalist ideologies within the “anti-liberal” right. Metaphysical traditionalism serves as a justification for abandoning any struggle, any concrete intention for a European reality different from today’s.

It is the ideological expression of a pseudo-revolutionary current. Not only do its regressive utopias, nebulous and abstruse considerations, and idle metaphysics engender fatalism, inaction, and a loss of energy, but they also reinforce bourgeois individualism by implicitly extolling the ideal of the “thinker”—ideally contemplative and disembodied—as the pivot of history. Men of action and true historical personalities are then devalued.

Because the traditionalist ultimately cannot tolerate the “community,” they declare it impossible here and now, and reduce it to an idealized, regressive vision cast into the mists of some primal “tradition.”

In this sense, “anti-modern” and “anti-bourgeois” traditionalism objectively belongs to the system of bourgeois ideologies. Similarly, their hatred of the “present” serves as a convenient pretext to declare any concrete historical construction, even against this present, impossible.

Fostering—at the core of their discourse—an absurd confusion between the “modernity” of Europe’s techno-industrial civilization and the “modern spirit” of egalitarian and Western ideologies (which they baselessly declare to be linked), they distort, devalue (sometimes in favor of an idealized “traditional” Third World), and abandon to Western and American influences the very genius of European civilization.

Like Judeo-Christianity, though in another way, the traditionalist says “No” to the world, and in so doing, undermines the tradition of their own culture. At heart, a traditionalist is someone who has never understood what a tradition truly is, just as an idealist is someone who has never understood what an idea truly is.

Finally, from the perspective of “thought,” since this is the metaphysical traditionalist’s main battleground, what could be more harmful to the intellect, more contrary to the quality of intellectual debate and reflection, than making thought gratuitous and contemplative, disembodying it from any “political” project (in the Nietzschean sense), and derailing it into an elitist library-bound narcissism or the self-regard of a salaried autodidact?

Let us dare to move past the Evolians and Heideggerians.

But let us read Evola and Heidegger: to put them into perspective, rather than emasculate them on glossy paper.

1. Another version of the English translation of this essay is available over at Counter-Currents. Translated by Greg Johnson.