This article actually does give a fairly good short summary of the ideas of the late great Rene

Guenon, despite
misrepresenting Julius Evola.

I haven't really paid much attention to Guenon or Evola since coming to graduate school. Yet I cannot deny
that Rene Guenon probably played the most important transformative role in my intellectual career, and
ultimately in my life's choices. My very first facebook photo I ever had, when I started facebook in 2008, was
a picture of Evola. When I was an undergraduate freshman, I introduced myself as "I'm Alexander Shepard,
and I am in love with Rene Guenon." A professor sitting right to me gave me a strange look and said. "I'm not
going to say who i'm in love with." I then had to explain that Guenon was my favorite philosopher who had
been dead for over half a century. For probably about 90% of my papers, as my former philosophy professor
Tabor Fisher will remember, I wrote advancing Guenon's perspectives. Especially in one class where I
contrasted Guenon with Spinoza, Hume, and Neitzche, which I later consolidated into an article entitled
"Guenon Against the World: The difference between Primordial and "Enlightened" metaphysics." and
Published in Aristokratia, and is available in my Academia.edu page.

However, for a multitude of reasons, I ended up burning out of Guenon and Evola. Partially it was due to
greater exposer of various Mystics whom the Traditionalists themselves relied on, such as Eckhart, Ibn
Arabi, Al-Ghazali, and finally the great Suhrawardi. More importantly it was the realization that even
though the theories work well in certain areas: mainly theology, mysticism, art, literature etc and to a
certain extent, their social criticisms of certain functions in modernity are interesting at least, it suffers
from the same flaw, as the great Mircea Eliade pointed out, as Freudianism, Marxism, and other all-
encompassing procrustean unfalsifiable hypothesis suffer from. Literally everything in the world can be
twisted in some way shape or form, be twisted to fit their theories of social degradation following
civilizations loss of their access to the sacred. Their universal rejection of biological evolution and
insistence that all of history is a decline and a regress in all circumstances is hard to follow considering
significant areas of certain social, moral, scientific, or technological progress, and the undeniable
scientific reality of biological evolution. Their theories of a universality of all religious traditions are
interesting in some respects, and certainly the commonality of a universal mystical experience cannot
be denied, especially the universality of the concept of Theosis/Fana/Mokhsha or the mystical path in
general. However, they conveniently gloss over irreconcilable differences across the worlds traditions,
going to great lengths to explain away key differences in doctrine, such as the Trinity, an irreconcilable
difference between mainstream Christianity and Islam. Or the doctrine of reincarnation, an
irreconcilable difference between eastern and western religions. Or the Caste System, which Guenon
rigorously defended as a universal institution, and saw the wests decline as personified in Caste
regression. He identified the Protestant reformation as the Kshatriyas revolting and Brahmin authority,
the French and American revolutions as revolts of the Vaishya against Kshatriya authority, and the
communist revolutions as revolutions of the Sudras against the Vaishya. However for a number of
reasons this analysis is patently absurd. The so-called “Sudra revolutions” occurred in civilizations which
Guenon would have deemed closer to Traditionalist civilizations, ie, Russia and China, and had not past
through periods of social or technological modernization. France was still a firmly Catholic country with
the Church reigning supreme. England at the time of the revolution had a parliamentary system, as the
monarchy had largely become ceremonial after the glorious revolution.
However, having said that it’s important to note, as I have said multiple times before, that if Guenon
was alive today, he would have nothing but contempt for Bannon. If Evola would slap Bannon into next
week, Guenon would blast him into eternity. This article already does a satisfactory job explaining their
differences. However, I do need to add something important. Guenon in his early career believed it to
be possible to bring about a “restoration” in the west. However, after he settled in Egypt, until he died in
1951, he rejected the possibility of resurrecting any “traditional” civilization, and openly denounced
fascism on more than one occasion. He also adamantly rejected nationalism, civil or racial, in all of its
forms, and specifically likened it, together with Capitalism, Communism, Freudianism, Theosophy,
Spiritism, Religious fundamentalism, and environmental destruction as symptoms of modern
decadence.

On the subject of environmental destruction, Trump’s denial of the science of global warming, his
support for the keystone pipeline, and all of his other fronts in the war on life itself are at the polar
opposite of what Guenon and Evola advocated, as they both saw respecting the environment as an
important feature of traditional civilization. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, professor at George Washington
University has written on this subject in detail and his lectures are available for public view on youtube.

In regards to Evola, I have stated before and will state again, that Evola would not support Trump or
Bannon, in any way shape or form. For Trump represents the very decadence that Evola disdained, A
manifestation of Capitalism and Populism, specifically the two things Guenon and Evola disdained most
about American culture. Evola, contrary to Bannon, was also an ardent Islamophile, writing extensively
in his magnum opus Revolt against the Modern World:

“Islam, which originated among the Semitic races also consisted of the Law
and Tradition, regarded as a formative force, to which the Arab stocks of the
origins provided a purer and nobler human material that was shaped by a
warrior spirit. The Islamic law (shariah) is a divine law; its foundation,
the Koran, is thought of as God's very own word (kalam Allah) as well as a
nonhuman work and an "uncreated book" that exists in heaven ab eterno.
Although Islam considers itself the "religion of Abraham" it is nevertheless
true that (a) it claimed independence from both Judaism and Christianity; (b)
the Kaaba, with its symbolism of the center, is a pre-Islamic location and
has even older origins that cannot be dated accurately; (c) in the esoteric
Islam tradition, the main reference point is al-Khadir, a popular figure
conceived as superior to an pre-dating the biblical prophets (Koran 18:59-
81). In early Islam the only form of asceticism was action, that is, jihad,
or "holy war"; this type of war, at least theoretically, should never be
interrupted until the full consolidation of the divine Law has been achieved.
Finally, Islam presents a traditional completeness, since the shariah and the
sunna, that is, the exoteric law and tradition, have their complement not in
vague mysticism, but in full-fledged initiatory organizations (turuq) that
are categorized by an esoteric teaching (tawil) and by the metaphysical
doctrine of the Supreme Identity (tawhid). In these organizations, and in
general in the shia, the recurrent notions of the masum, of the double
perogative of the isma (doctrinal infallibility), and of the impossibility of
being stained by any sin (which is the perogative of the leaders, the visible
and invisible Imams and the mujtahid), lead back to the line of an unbroken
race shaped by a tradition at a higher level than both Judaism and the
religious beliefs that conquered the West.”
However, more specifically, what Evola despised most about Americanism is the notion of a “Self-made
man” Which Evola found to be the opposite of true traditional civilization. I think anyone can infer what
Evola would say to Trump, given his following paragraph on American decadence.

“in a society which has lost all sense of tradition the notion of personal
aggrandisement will extend into every aspect of human existence, reinforcing
the egalitarian doctrine of pure democracy. If the basis of such ideas is
accepted, then all natural diversity has to be abandoned. Each person can
presume to possess the potential of everyone else and the terms 'superior'
and 'inferior' lose their meaning; every notion of distance and respect loses
meaning; all life-styles are open to all. To all organic conceptions of life
Americans oppose a mechanistic conception. In a society which has 'started
from scratch', everything has the characteristic of being fabricated. In
American society appearances are masks not faces. At the same time,
proponents of the American way of life are hostile to personality.”

Trump represents the very “self-made man” that Evola blasts in his paragraph. No, Evola and Guenon
were not right about everything, however, there is still a lot of timeless wisdom in their works, especially
for those interested in philosophy, theology, and the history of religions. However, if for nothing else for
the sake of intellectual honesty, Bannon and Trump should not be seen as their byproduct.