by Ásgeir Jóhannesson
The most important writers on my route from atheism & libertarianism towards Orthodox Christianity & traditionalist conservatism have been Nassim Taleb, Roger Scruton, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Soeren Kierkegaard and Seraphim Rose. The last mentioned author, the Californian who is probably the least known of the six, is absolutely mind-blowing; the most valuable intellectual discovery I have made so far. The book by him one should read first is a very short book called *God’s Revelation to the Human Heart*. Then the ground has been prepared for the next one: *Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age*. Nihilism is a subject I have been thinking about for a long time and it surprises me how profound his understanding is and I’m struck by the quality of his analysis.
In his scheme of things, liberalism, libertarianism, anarchism, fascism, Nazism, socialism and Bolshevism are all throroughly nihilistic in character, while traditionalist monarchism (authoritarian but not totalitarian) is the best political structure.
In *Nihilism* he says e.g. the following: “In the Christian order politics too was founded upon absolute truth. We have already seen, in the preceding chapter, that the principal providential form government took in union with Christian Truth was the Orthodox Christian Empire, wherein sovereignty was vested in a Monarch, and authority proceeded from him downwards through a hierarchical social structure. We shall see in the next chapter, on the other hand, how a politics that rejects Christian Truth must acknowledge “the people” as sovereign and understand authority as proceeding from below upwards, in a formally “egalitarian” society. It is clear that one is the perfect inversion of the other; for they are opposed in their conceptions both of the source and of the end of government. Orthodox Christian Monarchy is government divinely established, and directed, ultimately, to the other world, government with the teaching of Christian Truth and the salvation of souls as its profoundest purpose; Nihilist rule – whose most fitting name, as we shall see, is Anarchy – is government established by men, and directed solely to this world, government which has no higher aim than earthly happiness.” (pp. 28-29)
“…The Nihilist “revelation” thus declares, most immediately, the annhilation of authority. Some apologists are fond of citing “corruptions,” “abuses,” and “injustices” in the Old Order as justification for rebellion against it; but such things – the existence of which no one will deny – have been often the pretext, but never the cause, of Nihilist outbursts. It is authority itself that the Nihilist attacks. In the political and social order, Nihilism manifests itself as a Revolution that intends, not a mere change of government or a more or less widespread reform of the existing order, but the establishment of an entirely new conception of the end and means of government.” (pp. 65-66)
“…To such a state has Nihilism reduced men. Before the modern age the life of man was largely conditioned by the virtues of obedience, submission, and respect: to God, to the Church, to the lawful earthly authorities. To the modern man whom Nihilism has “enlightened,” this Old Order is but a horrible memory of some dark past from which man has been “liberated”; modern history has been the chronicle of the fall of every authority. The Old Order has been overthrown, and if a precarious stability is maintained in what is unmistakably an age of “transition,” a “new order” is clearly in the making; the age of the “rebel” is at hand.” (p. 67)
Well, I do not expect you to “have ears” for such approach. Yours truly (my humble self) would have been the fiercest critic of such a transcendental perspective only half a year ago. But I’m starting to see the soundness in this kind of political thinking. Perhaps you will “have ears” for it some day as well.
