"The perfection of the human being is the
end to which every healthy social institution must be subordinated, and it must
be promoted as much as possible. This perfection must be conceived on the basis
of a process of individuation and of progressive differentiation. In this
regard we must consider the view expressed by Paul de Lagarde, which can be
expressed approximately in these terms: everything that is under the aegis of
humanitarianism, the doctrine of natural law, and collectivity corresponds to
the inferior dimension. Merely being a "man" is a minus compared to
being a man belonging to a given nation and society; this, in turn, is still a
minus compared to being a "person," a quality that implies the shift
to a plane that is higher than the merely naturalistic and "social"
one. In turn, being a person is something that needs to be further
differentiated into degrees, functions, and dignities with which, beyond the
social and horizontal plane, the properly political world is defined vertically
in its bodies, functional classes, corporations, or particular unities,
according to a pyramid-like structure, at the top of which one would expect to
find people who more or less embody the absolute person. What is meant by
"absolute per-son" is the supremely realized person who represents
the end, and the natural center of gravity, of the whole system. The
"absolute person" is obviously the opposite of the individual. The
atomic, unqualified, socialized, or standardized unity to which the individual
corresponds is opposed in the absolute person by the actual synthesis of the
fundamental possibilities and by the full control of the powers inherent in the
idea of man (in the limiting case), or of a man of a given race (in a more relative,
specialized, and historical domain): that is, by an extreme individuation that
corresponds to a de-individualization and to a certain universalization of the
types corresponding to it. Thus, this is the disposition required to embody
pure authority, to assume the symbol and the power of sovereignty, or the form
from above, namely the imperium."
"The first of these foundations is that
the measure of what one can demand from others is dictated by the measure of
what one can demand from oneself; he who does not have the capability to
dominate himself and to give himself a code to abide by would not know how to
dominate others according to justice or how to give them a law to follow. The
second foundation is the idea, previously upheld by Plato, that those who
cannot be their own masters should find a master outside of themselves, since
practicing the discipline of obeying should teach these people how to master
their own selves; thus, through loyalty to those who present themselves as the
representatives of an idea and as the living approximations to a higher human
type, they will remain as faithful as possible to their best nature. This has
always been recognized in a spontaneous, natural way, and has created in
traditional civilizations a special fluid, the vital sub-stance of the organic
and hierarchical structures, long before people fell Ander the spell of the
suggestions or shallow rationalism espoused by subversive ideologies. In normal
conditions all this goes without saying; thus, it is absurd to say that the
only way in which the highest degrees in the social hierarchy were able to
retain control was to apply physical force, violence, and terror and that
people obeyed only out of fear or servility, or for their self-serving
purposes. To think so is to denigrate human nature even in its most humble
representatives, and to suppose that the atrophy of every higher sensibility
that characterizes most people in this final age has always and everywhere
ruled supreme.
Superiority and power need to go hand in
hand, as long as we remember that power is based on superiority and not vice
versa, and that superiority is connected with qualities that have always been
thought by most people to constitute the true foundation of what others attempt
to explain in terms of brutal "natural selection." Ancient primitive
man essentially obeyed not the strongest members of society, but those in whom
he perceived a saturation of mana (i.e., a sacred energy and life force) and
who, for this reason, seemed to him best qualified to perform activities
usually precluded to others. An analogous situation occurs where certain men
have been followed, obeyed, and venerated for displaying a high degree of
endurance, responsibility, lucidity, and a dangerous, open, and heroic life
that others could not; it was decisive here to be able to recognize a special
right and a special dignity in a free way. To depend on such leaders
constituted not the subjugation, but rather the elevation of the person; this,
however, makes no sense to the defenders of the "immortal principles"
and to the supporters of "human dignity" because of their obtuseness.
It is only the presence of superior individuals that bestows on a multitude of
beings and on a system of disciplines of material life a meaning and a
justification they previously lacked. It is the inferior who needs the
superior, and not the other way around. The inferior never lives a fuller life
than when he feels his existence is subsumed in a greater order endowed with a
center; then he feels like a man standing before leaders of men, and
experiences the pride of serving as a free man in his proper station. The
noblest things that human nature has to offer are found in similar situations,
and not in the anodyne and shallow climate proper to democratic and social
ideologies."
Men among the ruins, Chapter III
Julius Evola
