Kemal considers these points:
It’s possible to allow emotion and sentimentality to obscure clear perception. When you are facing dire situations, this tendency must be fought with all discipline. Criticisms of the West are sometimes met with knee jerk and snarky responses along the lines of ‘..well would ‘ya prefer Somalia or Bangladesh? – Other than showing a mind numbing softness of thought, this illustrates something profound, for those who truly love the West. The lack of discernment. The very people most needing to consider certain things – if for the saving of their own communities and civilization – are those most likely to retain an inability to truly critically examine their own ground, except in the most superficial corners. This is dangerous to them, and what they wish to save – so too is a lack of discernment concerning what they should be trying to save anyway, and what is simply false nostalgia.
The number of appreciators of Rene Guenon’s thought who, somehow, are still invested with a sense of the superiority of Western Civilization, Races, Democracy, and Man, never ceases to amaze me. It’s as if one is a child picking the tasty candy and leaving the peanuts, which at least are more wholesome. This tendency is strong among Catholic traditionalists and certain neo-Pagan traditionalists strongly enamored with Evola, who also show a similar lack of discernment in regards to certain statements of Evola.
The danger is to those who do love the best of the West’s heritage, and wish to “save” it, (and by default saving the world not because the world particularly needs one Civilization’s inputs, though it is enriched by it’s, as well as others’, inputs – rather Guenon’s main point is that the main danger to “the world” in the first place was and is the out of control civilization of West) such must abandon all sentimentality for their own self protection, if nothing else, and consider certain matters more deeply. For their own sake, if not for everyone else.
This excerpt from Guenon’s ‘A Material Civilization’ also featured in Crisis of the Modern World suggests things that we Westerners need to consider more deeply. I’ve added line breaks in Guenon’s normally dense prose here and there to aid readability.
Excerpts from Guenon: “One hears of the ‘benefits’ claimed for what men have agreed to call ‘progress’, and that one might even consent so to call, provided one take care to make it clear that there is no question of any but a purely material progress; but are not these ‘benefits’, of which people are so proud, very largely illusory? Our contemporaries claim they increase their ‘welfare’ by this means; in our opinion, the end they set themselves, even if it were really attained, is hardly worth the expenditure of so much effort; but what is more, it seems a very debatable question whether they do attain it.
In the first place, the fact should be taken into account that not all men have the same tastes or the same needs, and that there are still some who would wish to avoid modern commotion and the craving for speed, but who can no longer do so. Could anyone presume to maintain that it is a ‘benefit’ to these people to have thrust on them what is most contrary to their nature? It will be said in reply that there are few such men today, and this is considered a justification for treating them as a negligible quantity; in this, as in the field of politics, the majority arrogates to itself the right to crush minorities, which, in its eyes, evidently have no right to exist, since their very existence defies the egalitarian mania for uniformity.
But is the whole of mankind be taken into consideration, instead of merely the Western world, the question bears a different aspect: the majority we have just spoken of then becomes am minority. A different argument is therefore used in this case, and by a strange contradiction it is in the name of their ‘superiority’ that these ‘egalitarians’ seek to impose their civilization on the rest of the world, and that they bring trouble to people who have never asked them for anything; and, since this ‘superiority exists only from the material point of view, it is quite natural that the most brutal means are used to assert it. Let there be no confusion on this point: if the general public accepts the pretext of ‘civilization’ in all good faith, there are those for whom it is no more than mere moralistic hypocrisy, serving as a mask for designs of conquest or economic ambitions.
It is really an extraordinary epoch in which so man men can be made to believe that a people is being given happiness by being reduced to subjection, by being robbed of all that is most precious to it, that is to say of its own civilization, by being forced to adopt manners and institutions that were made for a different race, and by being constrained to the most distasteful kinds of work, in order to make it acquire things for which it has not the slightest use.
For that is what is taking place: the modern West cannot tolerate that men should prefer to work less and be content to live on little; as it is only quantity that counts, and as everything that escapes the senses is held to be nonexistent, it is taken for granted that anyone who is not in a state of agitation and who does not produce much in a material way must be ‘lazy’. In evidence of this and without speaking of the opinions commonly expressed about Eastern peoples, it is enough to note how the contemplative orders are viewed, even in circles that consider themselves religious.
In such a world, there is no longer any place for intelligence, or anything else that is purely inward, for these are things that can neither be seen nor touched, that can neither be counted nor weighed; there is a place only for outward action in all its forms, even those that are the most completely meaningless. For this reason it should not be a matter of surprise that the Anglo-Saxon mania for sport gains ground day by day: the ideal of the modern world is the ‘human animal’ who has developed his muscular strength to the highest pitch; its heroes are athletes, even though they be mere brutes; it is they who awaken popular enthusiasm, and it is their exploits that command the passionate interest of the crowd. A world in which such things are seen has indeed sunk low and seems near its end”
“The lack of discernment. The very people most needing to consider certain things – if for the saving of their own communities and civilization – are those most likely to retain an inability to truly critically examine their own ground, except in the most superficial corners. This is dangerous to them, and what they wish to save – so too is a lack of discernment concerning what they should be trying to save anyway, and what is simply false nostalgia.”
Desis are the most guilty of this.
I find Westerners to be much more tolerant of criticism to their countries and cultures, and also more likely to criticise themselves.
Guenon was writing in the 1920s, LONG before World War II and the Cold War, so Western Arrogance was much higher then, World War II humbled many people and caused them to realize that the future may not be boundless evolution and progress after all. An increasingly self-questioning trend set into Western thought at every level and increasingly many people are more and more open to re-evaluating their situations and even being open to other cultures, their experiences, and contributions. There is still a sort of tragic hubris and arrogance that I argue, as an observant Westerner, happens to be widespread. It’s weaker than before, but we truly do stand at the edge of a precipice.
I find many people guilty of this lack of discernment; it’s easier to notice in one’s own community, and there’s also the matter of education and class.
I’ve found many Desis and Chinese to be very resistant towards criticism of their communities and cultures, but have found many others who were very, very, open to such. In fact some of the most virulent and vicious critics of India and Pakistan, culture, people, traditions, etc., were very well educated Desis. This makes sense because some of the most virulent and vicious critics of American culture traditions and people often tend to be well informed Americans, both conservative and progressive/liberal.
As for tolerance, I’ve often noticed this tolerance only goes so far, and its also a matter of what set you happen to be hanging out with, how educated they are, whether they are liberal or conservative, and many other factors. It is there, among certain people, but it would be a mistake to assume it’s universal.
In general, as a Westerner, I believe that many Westerners to this day utterly lack a degree of the discernment Guenon was speaking of, of the degree to which our actions or lack thereof affect other peoples and cultures. Or of the degree to which our comforts ride on the backs of the labor and starvation of others. Or the degree to which our comforts are literally pissing into the collective environment for all of humanity.
What you and I may notice may both be valid and yet different because we may be observing different people or noticing different things due to differing experiences or priorities.
[…] Kali Yuga: Rant, Sunday 5/29/11, On Progress, Excerpts from “A Material Civilization” by Rene Guenon […]