The Evolian Imagination: Gender, Race, and Class from Fascism to the New Right

ABSTRACT

According to the French writer Alain de Benoist, Julius Evola's writings ground all major strands of radical-, new-, far- and alt-right thinking in Europe and beyond. His appealingly evocative and romantic vision of the world seems to offer an alternative to the liberal globalization that has left so many dissatisfied. Evola (1898-1974) rose to prominence with the publication of Revolt against the Modern World in 1934, which secured his position as a major intellectual in Mussolini's fascist Italy and attracted the attention of thinkers in Germany associated with the Conservative Revolution. After the Second World War, philosophers such as Russia's Aleksandr Dugin and France's Guillaume Faye adopted Evola's critiques of liberalism (reminiscent of Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Ernst Jünger, and Carl Schmitt). Nowadays, Italy's CasaPound and Hungary's Jobbik party rely on him for their ideology; far-right presses in Hungary (Arktos), Germany (Antaios), and Russia (Velesova sloboda) publish him enthusiastically. The Austrian Identitarian Martin Sellner tweets praise about him, the American Alt-Rightist Richard Spencer promotes him, while former Trump adviser Bannon champions him. Evola frames his analysis of race as a celebration of difference; because Evola argues racial difference is cultural and spiritual, rather than purely biological, his followers claim they are not crudely racist. Simultaneously, Evola's fanciful speculations about sun-loving Hyperboreans from the North and their Aryan descendents allows for side-trips to Atlantis, neopaganism, eastern religion and New Age thought that give his writings a countercultural edge. Similarly, his views on gender (inspired by Otto Weininger and Hans Blüher) emphasize difference between the sexes, with ascetic and warrior identities for men, while women fall into the roles of lover or mother, which has a barely suppressed erotic allure for many readers, including gay ones. In an era primed for a critique of liberal globalization, the Evolian vision of differences offers a seductive alternative.

KEYWORDS:

• Julius Evola
• New Right
• fascism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Jason Horowitz, ‘Steve Bannon Cited Italian Thinker Who Inspired Fascists,” New York Times, February 17, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/world/europe/bannon-vatican-julius-evola-fascism.html.

2 J. Lester Feeder, ‘This Is How Steve Bannon Sees the Entire World,” BuzzFeed News, November 16, 2016, https://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/this-is-how-steve-bannon-sees-the-entire-world.

3 Horowitz, “Steve Bannon.”

4 Thomas Sheehan, “Myth and Violence: The Fascism of Julius Evola and Alain de Benoist,” Social Research 48, no. 1 (Spring 1981): p. 50.

5 Franco Ferraresi, “Julius Evola: Tradition, Reaction, and the Radical Right,” European Journal of Sociology 28, no. 1 (1987): p. 107.

6 Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity (New York: NYU Press, 2002), p. 4.

7 Alain de Benoist, “Julius Evola, Réactionnaire Radical et Métaphysicien Engagé: Analyse Critique de la Pensée Politique de Julius Evola,” La nouvelle École 53–54 (2003): p. 165.

8 Allum Bokhari and Milo Yiannopoulus, “An Establishment Conservative’s Guide to the Alt-Right,” Breitbart, March 29, 2016, https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/03/29/an-establishment-conservatives-guide-to-the-alt-right/.

9 H. T. Hakl, “Julius Evola and Tradition,” trans. Joscelyn Godwin, in Mark Sedgwick, (ed.), Key Thinkers of the Radical Right: Behind the New Threat to Liberal Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), p. 54.

10 H. T. Hansen (pseudonym for H. T. Hakl), preface to Men among the Ruins: Postwar Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist, by Julius Evola, ed. Michael Moynihan, trans. Guido Stucco (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2002), p. xiii.

11 Hans Thomas Hakl, “Julius Evola and the UR Group,” Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism 12 (2012): p. 67.

12 Ibid., p. 55.

13 Julius Evola, The Path of Cinnabar: An Intellectual Autobiography, trans. Sergio Knipe, ed. John B. Morgan, 2nd ed. (London: Arktos, 2010), p.107.

14 Ibid., pp. 112–3.

15 Hansen, preface to Evola, Men, p. 58.

16 Evola, Cinnabar, p. 153.

17 Hansen, preface to Evola, Men, p. 99.

18 Evola, Cinnabar, p. 155; see also p. 166, ft. 7, and p. 112, ft. 14.

19 Peter Staudenmaier, “Racial Ideology between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany: Julius Evola and the Aryan Myth, 1933–43,” Journal of Contemporary History 55, no. 3 (2020): p. 481.

20 Staudenmaier, “Racial Ideology,” p. 482.

21 Evola, Cinnabar, pp. 173–4.

22 Staudenmaier, “Racial Ideology,” pp. 484–6.

23 A. James Gregor, Mussolini’s Intellectuals: Fascist Social and Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), p. 219.

24 Ferraresi, “Julius Evola,” p. 108.

25 Gregor, Mussolini’s Intellectuals, p. 200.

26 Staudenmaier, “Racial Ideology,” p. 481.

27 Julius Evola, “Autodifesa,” reprinted in Evola, Men, p. 293.

28 Hansen, preface to Evola, Men, pp. 60–1.

29 Ibid., p. 61.

30 Ibid., p. xii.

31 Ibid., pp. 62–3.

32 Stéphane François, “The Nouvelle Droite and ‘Tradition,’” Journal for the Study of Radicalism 8, no. 1 (2014): p. 90.

33 Evola, Cinnabar, p. 186.

34 Benjamin R. Teitelbaum, War for Eternity: Inside Bannon’s Far-Right Circle of Global Power Brokers (New York: William Morrow, 2020), pp. 89–90.

35 Elisabetta Cassina Wolff, “CasaPound Italia: ‘Back to Believing. The Struggle Continues,’” Fascism 8 (2019): p. 74.

36 Bruce Rosenstock, “The Flight of the Gods: A Comparative Study of Martin Heidegger and Oskar Goldberg,” New German Critique 46, no. 2 (August 2019): p. 226.

37 Evola, Cinnabar, p. 145.

38 Evola, Ruins, p. 114.

39 Julius Evola, Grundrisse der faschischtischen Rassenlehre, trans. Annemarie Rasch (Berlin: Edward Runge, 1943; reprint by Deutsche Rubrik, Velesova Sloboda, 2009), 10.

40 Evola, Revolt, pp. 341–2.

41 Evola, Cinnabar, p. 141.

42 Evola, Grundrisse, p. 4.

43 Ibid., p. 5.

44 Ibid., p. 9.

45 Evola, Cinnabar, p. 138.

46 Evola, Revolt, p. 203.

47 François, “Nouvelle Droite,” p. 98.

48 Evola, Grundrisse, p. 56.

49 Ibid., p. 54.

50 Cited by Hansen, preface to Evola, Men, p. 81.

51 Staudenmaier, “Racial Ideology,” pp. 487–8.

52 Evola, Grundrisse, p. 46.

53 Evola, Cinnabar, p. 167.

54 Ibid.

55 Evola, Grundrisse, p. 68.

56 Evola, Revolt, pp. 196–7.

57 Ferraresi, “Julius Evola,” p. 111.

58 Evola, Revolt, p. 86.

59 Evola, Cinnabar, p. 140.

60 Ibid., p. 138.

61 Evola, Eros, p. 154.

62 Ibid., p. 151.

63 Evola, Revolt, p. 159.

64 Ibid., p. 165.

65 Ibid., pp. 160–1.

66 Ibid., p. 159.

67 Hakl, “Ur Group,” p. 55.

68 Evola, Men, p. 131.

69 Evola, Revolt, p. 86.

70 Evola, Men, pp. 129–30, p. 193.

71 Hansen, preface to Evola, Men, p. 62.

72 Evola, Revolt, p. 342.

73 Wolff, “CasaPound Italia,” p. 71.

74 Ibid., p. 76.

75 To the list of Evolians in the European Parliament, one could add Giannis Lagos, one of the founders of the Golden Dawn, a neo-Nazi party represented in Greece’s parliament from 2012 to 2019, when it was declared a criminal organization. The Golden Dawn promoted Evola’s Essays on Tradition and the Modern World on its website, according to an entry called “Evola Poised to Enter Greek Parliament?” in Mark Sedgwick’s blog Traditionalist from 3 May 2012 (https://traditionalistblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/evola-poised-to-enter-greek-parliament.html). In 2019, Lagos joined the European Parliament, representing a new party called the National Popular Consciousness. As of 2020, Greece was attempting to extradite him from Brussels to serve time for crimes committed while leading the Golden Dawn (Matina Stevis-Gridneff, “Greece Wants Him in Prison. Instead, He’s in the EU Parliament,” New York Times, December 19, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/world/europe/Greece-Golden-Dawn-Lagos.html).

76 Wolff, “CasaPound Italia,” p. 85.

77 John Last, “How ‘Hobbit Camps’ Rebirthed Italian Fascism,” Atlas Obscura, October 3, 2017, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hobbit-camps-fascism-italy.

78 Wolff, “CasaPound Italia,” p. 86, ft. 115.

79 Martin A. Lee, The Beast Awakens: Fascism’s Resurgence from Hitler’s Spymasters to Today’s Neo-Nazi Groups and Right-Wing Extremists (New York: Routledge, 2013), p. 188.

80 Tobias Hof, “‘The Black Carlos’: The Story of Italian Right-Wing Terrorist Stefano delle Chiaie,” Center for the Analysis of the Radical Right, January 24, 2020.

81 Hans Geier Aasmundsen, Pentecostals, Politics, and Religious Equality in Argentina (Boston: Brill, 2006), p. 32.

82 Teitelbaum, War for Eternity, 125–39. See also Mark Sedgwick, “Traditionalism in Brazil: Sufism, Ta’i Chi, and Olavo de Carvalho,” Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism 10 (2020): pp. 1–26.

83 Teitelbaum, War for Eternity, p. 165. For a translation of Araujo’s essay, see J. Michael Waller, “Brazil’s New Foreign Minister Gives Profound Philosophical Base to Trumpian Populism,” Center for Security Policy, January 7, 2019, https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2019/01/07/brazils-new-foreign-minister-gives-profound-philosophical-base-to-trumpian-populism/.

84 Ferraresi, “Julius Evola,” p. 146, ft. 76.

85 Ibid., p. 109.

86 Sheehan, “Myth and Violence,” pp. 45–6.

87 Ferraresi, “Julius Evola,” p. 144.

88 Luca Steinmann, “The Illiberal Far Right of Aleksandr Dugin,” Reset Dialogues, December 4, 2018, https://www.resetdoc.org/story/illiberal-far-right-aleksandr-dugin-conversation/.

89 Giovanni Savino, “From Evola to Dugin: The Neo-Eurasian Connection in Italy,” in Eurasianism and the European Far-Right: Reshaping the Europe–Russia Relationship, ed. M. Laruelle (Lanham, MD, and London: Rowman & Co., 2015), 104.

90 Alan Gilbert, “The Far-Right Book Every Russian General Reads,” Daily Beast, February 26, 2018, https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-far-right-book-every-russian-general-reads.

91 Teitelbaum, War for Eternity, p. 156.

92 Ibid., p. 58.

93 Gábor Vona, foreword to Julius Evola, A Handbook for Right-Wing Youth, trans. E. Christian Kopff and Anna Gyulai, ed. John B. Morgan (London: Arktos, 2017), p. 112.

94 Ibid., p. 116.

95 Ibid., p. 149.

96 Ibid., p. 99.

97 Steinmann, “The Illiberal Far Right.”

98 Teitelbaum, War for Eternity, p. 32.

99 Joshua Green, Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Nationalist Uprising (New York: Penguin, 2017), 205.

100 Joseph Bernstein, “Here’s How Breitbart and Milo Smuggled White Nationalism into the Mainstream,” BuzzFeed News, October 5, 2017, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/heres-how-breitbart-and-milo-smuggled-white-nationalism.

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Robert Deam Tobin

Robert Deam Tobin holds the Henry J. Leir Chair at Clark University (Worcester, Mass), where he researches at the intersection of German Studies and LGBTQ+ studies. He is the author of three books: Warm Brothers: Queer Theory and the Age of Goethe; Doctor's Orders: Goethe and Enlightenment Science; and Peripheral Desires: The German Discovery of Sex; as well as a co-author of LGBTQ+ Worcester for the Record and co-editor of A Song for Europe: Popular Music and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest. His current project, tentatively titled Friendship, Freedom and Fascism, looks at how sexuality has affected the politics of men who love men from the Enlightenment until now - mostly in a liberal direction, sometimes in a leftist direction, and occasionally in a far-right direction, which is where he stumbled upon Evola.