A Convergence Of Catastrophes
Cover. The Course of Empire Destruction. Artist: Thomas Cole [1801 - 1848].
Preface
This text is an excerpt from Archeofuturism: European Visions of the Post-Catastrophic Age [2010] by French political theorist, journalist, and writer, Guillaume Faye [1949 - 2019].
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Synopsis
Challenging many assumptions held by the Right*, Faye believes that the future of the Right requires a transcendence of the division between those who wish for a restoration of the traditions of the past, and those who are calling for new social and technological forms - creating a synthesis which will amplify the strengths and restrain the excesses of both: Archeofuturism. Faye also provides a critique of the New Right; an analysis of the continuing damage being done by Western liberalism, political inertia, unrestrained immigration and ethnic self-hatred; and the need to abandon past positions and dare to face the realities of the present in order to realise the ideology of the future.
*Right [ideology] portion of the political spectrum associated with conservative [tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions] political thought. The term derives from the seating arrangement of the French revolutionary parliament [c. 1790s] in which the conservative representatives sat to the presiding officer’s right.
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Introduction
The thread of this book is formed by three logically connected theses.
The first argues that current civilisation, a product of modernity and egalitarianism, has reached its final peak and is threatened by the short-term prospect of a global cataclysm resulting from a convergence of catastrophes. Many civilisations have disappeared in the past, but these were disasters that only affected certain areas of the Earth, not the whole of humanity.
Today, for the first time in history, a world civilisation – the global extension of Western civilisation – is threatened by converging lines of catastrophe produced by the implementation of its ideological plans. A dramatic chain reaction of events is converging towards a fatal point which I believe may occur in the early Twenty-first century, between 2010 and 2020. This will plunge the world as we know it into chaos and cause a genuine cultural earthquake. These ‘catastrophe lines’ concern the environment, demography, economy, religion, epidemics and geopolitics.
The present civilisation cannot endure. Its foundations are contrary to reality. It is clashing not so much against ideological contradictions – which can always be overcome – but, for the first time, against a physical wall. The old faith in miracles of egalitarianism and the philosophy of progress – which suggests one can have his cake and eat it too – is now coming to an end. This fairytale ideology has led to a world of illusions that is less and less credible.
Second thesis: the individualist and egalitarian ideology of the modern world is no longer suitable in an increasing number of spheres in our civilisation. To face the future, it will be more and more necessary to adopt an archaic mind-set, which is to say a pre-modern, non-egalitarian and nonhumanistic outlook – one capable of restoring the ancestral values that inform ‘orderly societies’.
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'Today, for the first time in history, a world civilisation – the global extension of Western civilisation – is threatened by converging lines of catastrophe produced by the implementation of its ideological plans. A dramatic chain reaction of events is converging towards a fatal point which I believe may occur in the early Twenty-first century, between 2010 and 2020. This will plunge the world as we know it into chaos and cause a genuine cultural earthquake.'
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Already the advancements made in technology and science, particularly in biology and computer science, can no longer be managed with modern humanistic values and ways of thinking; already geopolitical and social events point to the tumultuous and violent emergence of problems connected to religion, ethics, food production and epidemics. It is necessary to return to primary issues.
Hence the new idea I am suggesting: Archeofuturism. This idea enables us to make a break with the obsolete philosophy of progress and the egalitarian, humanitarian and individualist dogmas of modernity, which are unsuited to our need to think about the future and survive the century of iron and fire that is looming near.
Third central thesis: we should already envisage the aftermath of the chaos, the post-catastrophic world, according to the principles of Archeofuturism, which are radically different from those of egalitarian modernity.
This book gives an outline of them. It is useless to try and conceive reforms inspired by provisional wisdom and rationality: man is incapable of doing so. Only when man finds himself with his back against the wall, in an emergency, does he react. What I will offer here is a sort of mental training for the post-catastrophic world.
The term ‘Conservative Revolution’, which is often used to describe our current of thought, is not enough. The word ‘conservative’ has demobilising, anti-dynamic and rather outdated connotations. Today it is not a matter of ‘conserving’ the present or returning to a recent past that has failed, but rather of regaining possession of our most archaic roots, which is to say those most suited to the victorious life. One example, among others, of this inclusive logic: to synthesise technological science and archaism – to reconcile Evola and Marinetti, Doctor Faust and the Labourers.
The controversy between ‘traditionalists’ and ‘modernists’ has grown barren. We should be neither of these things, but rather Archeofuturists. Traditions are made to be purged, screened and selected: for many of them breed viruses, of the kind that are exploding today. As for modernity, it probably no longer has a future.
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'The controversy between ‘traditionalists’ and ‘modernists’ has grown barren. We should be neither of these things, but rather Archeofuturists. Traditions are made to be purged, screened and selected: for many of them breed viruses, of the kind that are exploding today. As for modernity, it probably no longer has a future.'
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The world of the future will be precisely as Nietzsche and the great but unjustly – or perhaps justly – ignored philosopher Raymond Ruyer foresaw it. In this book, I also aim to positively define the flexible and rather neutral concepts of ‘postmodernity’ and ‘anti-egalitarianism’ by constructing a new term that describes an ideology to be developed: vitalist constructivism.
‘Convergence of catastrophes’, ‘Archeofuturism’, ‘vitalist constructivism’: I have always tried to come up with new concepts because only through ideological innovation can we avoid rigid and obsolete doctrines in a world that is rapidly changing and where dangers are taking shape. In such a way, an idea armed with ever new weapons can win the ‘war of words’, shock reality and stir people’s conscience.
I am showing some paths, not formulating dogmas; my aim is not so much to assert my theses [which belong to what Socrates called doxa – ‘opinion’ that is open to question], but rather to launch a debate on crucial problems, in such a way as to make a break through the ideological insignificance, blindness and poverty that have intentionally been created by the system to divert people’s attention and conceal its own complete failure.
In a society that considers all genuine ideas subversive, which seeks to discourage ideological imagination, and which aims to abolish thought in favour of spectacle, the main goal must be to awaken people’s consciences, raising traumatising problems and sending ideological electroshocks: shocking ideas.
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We should make a break with soft ideas, now that the real issues are becoming central again. Some people may regard many of my suggestions as ideologically delinquent in the context of the ruling ideology and pseudo-virginal chorus of the self-righteous. Well, they are.
You may wonder why I have not published any ideological texts in thirteen years and have only now resumed my battle of ideas. It is mainly because after spending a long time ‘with the enemy’, I have understood many things and have been able to renew and adjust my position. To be radically opposed to a given model of society, it is necessary to know it well, from the inside. It is always very interesting to stand at the heart of the military apparatus of the enemy, to be in the world without being of the world: the cobra tactic
No doubt, the new courses I am suggesting we should take are far more radical than those I promoted thirteen years ago – ‘radical’ being a synonym not of ‘extremist’, but of ‘fundamental’.
Our current of thought is being offered a real historical chance, for: first, facts are proving us right; second, the global system established by our ideological enemy is about to collide with the wall of reality and plunge into the abyss, both in France and worldwide; and third, the ruling ideology has nothing new to offer – no solutions – unless it contradicts itself.
Its only answer consists of simulacra* and pretences, in an attempt to make people forget and to divert their attention: what Guy Debord described as the strategy of ‘spectacle’ at a time when this was still going strong. Instead, today, despite being a thousand times more sophisticated, this strategy is seizing up and shaking like a motor with an empty tank. We are facing a deafening ideological silence, made of worn-out, softened values and a lack of conviction in their own beliefs. Nor do establishment intellectuals have any intellectual Viagra to get some stimulation. This is a critical combination of circumstances which we should grab by the hair.
* simulacrum [n.] 1590s, 'an image, that which is formed in likeness of an object,' from Latin simulacrum 'likeness, image, form, representation, portrait,' a dissimilation of simulaclom, from simulare 'to make like, imitate, copy, represent,' from the stem of similis 'like, resembling, of the same kind' [see similar]. It is attested by 1805 as 'something having the mere appearance of another thing,' hence 'a specious imitation.'
We must take up the idea of Revolution again, a notion that has been misinterpreted and betrayed by the charlatans of the Left for over two centuries. Once, the newspaper Combat used the nice slogan ‘from Resistance to Revolution’.
It is not a matter of simply resisting the destruction that unfolds before our eyes and is spreading with a power we find hard to conceive, but rather of envisaging an ‘aftermath of the system’, on the basis of a worldview [and of the ideologies and doctrines stemming from it and which it will be worth describing] that is genuinely revolutionary: a worldview, that is, which makes a radical break with contemporary values and morals, in order to train spirits for the world of the future and create active minorities ready to experience this break and adopt an Archeofuturist ethic with detachment.
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'Let us take advantage of the present global crisis and formulate suggestions that may stir the conscience of the young. We should avoid being backward-looking, concerned with restoration and reaction, for it is the last few centuries that have spawned the pox that is now devouring us.'
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Our current of thought, broadly conceived, must necessarily unite on a European level, forgetting about provincial disputes and narrow doctrines, in such a way as to seize the opportunity it is being offered: to acquire the monopoly over alternative thought – rebel thought.
Let us take advantage of the present global crisis and formulate suggestions that may stir the conscience of the young. We should avoid being backward-looking, concerned with restoration and reaction, for it is the last few centuries that have spawned the pox that is now devouring us.
It is a matter of returning to archaic and ancestral values, while at the same time envisioning the future as something more than a mere extension of the present. Against modernism, futurism. Against attachment to the past, archaism. Modernity has failed, it is crumbling, and its followers are the real reactionaries.
We are standing face to face with the barbarians. The enemy is no longer outside but inside the City, and the ruling ideology, paralysed, is incapable of spotting him. It stammers, overcome by its own moral disarmament, and is giving up: this is the time to seize the reins.
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'Present society is an accomplice to the evil that is devouring it. For this reason, if the ideas our current of thought espouses will prove an effective alternative, they will be accused by the chorus of false virgins of two demonising anathemas: subversion and sedition.'
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Present society is an accomplice to the evil that is devouring it. For this reason, if the ideas our current of thought espouses will prove an effective alternative, they will be accused by the chorus of false virgins of two demonising anathemas: subversion and sedition.
Why not? We should expect this. We should engage in battle without complaining about censorship and persecution, and without being surprised, should the ruling ideology betray its own principles to fight against its absolute enemy.
With respect to the system, and especially the intellectual Left – its most faithful guard dog – our current of thought and its associated political forces now find themselves in much the same situation Leftists and anarchists were facing in May ’68 with respect to the establishment.
Still, there are some considerable differences: on the one hand, radical Leftists and anarchists at the time were leading a struggle for workers’ empowerment, a backward-looking, symbolic battle with no real stakes; on the other, more traditional Leftists and the Right-wing ruling power at the time ultimately shared the same egalitarian ideology, while disagreeing as to how and to what extent this should be applied.
As for the far Left of today, as we shall see, it serves to accelerate official ideology and praxis, while concealing the role it plays through pseudo-dissent: actually, in no way does it challenge the dominant global model of civilisation or economy.
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As Hölderlin’s famous verse goes, ‘This is the midnight hour of the world.’ And when the sun rises, the morning will have to belong to us. Giorgio Locchi used to say much the same thing: we are living in the interregnum between the collapse of a system and the creation of the new metamorphic universe.
There is a present need to develop a worldview that may serve as the common denominator for our current of thought on a European level, and which in the face of an emergency may enable us to overcome minor disputes caused by differences in doctrine or attitude. The notion of Archeofuturism may certainly contribute to this. As Nietzsche already prophesised, ‘The man of the future is he who will have the longest memory.’
Clearly, I remain loyal to the overall notion of ‘nationalism’, understood however in its European, continental understanding as opposed to the French, which we have inherited from the dubious philosophy of the Revolution. To be a nationalist today is to assign this concept its original etymological meaning, ‘to defend the native members of a people.’
This entails a break with the traditional idea of nation and citizenship we have inherited from the egalitarian philosophy of the Enlightenment. To be a nationalist today is to embrace the notion of a ‘European people’, which exists and is under threat, but is not yet politically organised for its self-defence.
It is possible to be a ‘patriot’, someone tied to his sub-continental motherland, without forgetting that this is an organic and vital part of the common folk whose natural and historical territory – whose fortress, I would say – extends from Brest to the Bering Strait.
It is quite true that the form of present-day Europe, this ‘thing’, must be fought. Yet, the historical tendency of the European peoples to unite in the face of adversity must be defended to the very end. Some of my positions in this book, in favour of the establishment of a United States of Europe or Eurosiberian Federation, may shock certain people. But let there be no doubt: I am not a partisan of the spineless Europe of the Amsterdam Treaty, nor am I an enemy of France.
Again, what I am suggesting here are paths: I am providing weapons to launch the debate and trying to point to some ‘value guidelines’ – in no case am I offering a closed doctrine. The European youth – the genuine one – needs ideas to face the imminent danger, not video-centric revelries or humanitarian whimpers in a climate of sophisticated censorship and repression.
The ‘Mitterrand generation’ is dead, engulfed by ridicule and paralysed by failure. Now is the time for a dissident generation to rise. It is up to her to imagine the unimaginable.
If it is to survive, our folk – whether in Toulouse, Rennes, Milan, Prague, Munich, Antwerp or Moscow – must revert to and embrace ancestral virility. Otherwise, as is already happening, we shall be submerged by more vital, more youthful and less well-meaning peoples with the complicity of a delinquent bourgeoisie that – whatever it may do – will itself be swept away by the tide it has so heedlessly caused.
Let us dare to think the unthinkable. Let us explore and continue along the path paved by an early riser and visionary: a certain Friedrich Nietzsche. From Resistance to Revolution, from Revolution to Rebirth.