New Essay at The European Conservative: “The Forgotten European”

Tags

Abendland, Catholicism, christendom, Europe, European Union, Hermann Platz, Otto von Habsburg

My essay “The Forgotten European: Hermann Platz’s Vision for Peace” was recently published by The European Conservative. Here’s an excerpt from the introduction:

In this day and age, when the alarms of war are once again sounding their mournful message of death—when the postwar vision of a peaceful and united Europe seems as distant as the utopian hopes surrounding the first League of Nations—it might seem strange to write about an obscure German professor of Romance Languages who never held a significant public office until the last few weeks before his death. Hermann Platz was a humble man of grand ideas, yet he never lived to see even the first inklings of his plans unfold, as he died after a botched throat operation. His name has been consigned to the most obscure corner of academic history, forgotten by most of the people whose lives were shaped by his vision. Yet his message of unity and peace founded on man’s supernatural calling endures even today.

Read the whole essay here: https://europeanconservative.com/articles/essay/the-forgotten-european-hermann-platzs-vision-for-peace/

“It happens to Peoples as well as to Individuals” – Il Guelfo: Journal of Independence for the Mezzogiorno, August 2, 1910

Tags

Civilization, History, Kingdom of Two Sicilies, Legitimism, Legitimist, Nicola Montalbo

By Nicolà Montalbò

Translated by M.T. Scarince 

It happens to peoples as well as to individuals… 

When by the influence of malicious agent one has fallen into a state of torpor, atrophy, and despondency, which makes one rebellious against every noble and generous initiative –apathetic and indifferent to everything around– and lose knowledge of one’s state, in no condition to distinguish the true from the false, the good from the evil, it sometimes happens that, for one reason or another, by some intrinsic or extrinsic force a certain shock takes place in the organism. Then the torpor comes to an end and a remarkable reaction overtakes the individual. Excitement succeeds atrophy, lethargy is replaced by impulsiveness, indeed, insomnia. And if during the period of organic numbness, the feelings of honor and self-esteem have not been totally lost the waking individual feels horror of himself and the life he has lived to that point, and gives himself to repairing his past.

Thus it is with peoples: In a moment of unconsciousness or under the nightmare of deceptive mirages, a people can fall into a lethargic state and become prey to the first daring and reckless rogue who happens to know how to take advantage of a state of daze or torpor, to impose a heavy yoke on them, to dishearten and debase them, to crush with the iron foot every vestige of freedom and stifle every cry for independence. As long as the lethargic state lasts and atony invades the fibers of the organism of that people, the rogues succeed: the pain of wounds is not felt nor the shame of vituperation. But if the awakening takes place, if the fibers are shaken and the nerves shudder, the people regain consciousness of themselves and their worth, raise their heads, shake off the yoke, invoke their rights, claim their freedoms, drive out the rogues, reclaim their independence, return to those who are the highest expression of this independence, its brightest symbols; invoke those who with freedom and independence can restore their peace, prosperity, and splendor.

Such is the state of our people today: this our Mezzogiorno of Italy, which is awakening from its long torpor and is regaining awareness of its value, of its rights.

In vain do professional enchanters resort to their arts, their spells, to put him to sleep once again; in vain they prepare new soporifics for him with rejoicings and commemorative parties, with madness and revelry, with lying and deceitful re-enactments.

It’s worse: their cacophony hurts him, increases the tension of his nerves, produces new shocks, new abhorrence of the current state of things: the present is there, before his eyes, in all its horror; the past is placed before his mind in all its enticements, in its radiant brightness of all the goods, of all the riches, of all the happiness that the Glorious Dynasty of Charles III brought to our lands.

From this dynasty, which for one hundred and twenty-six years made the joys and sorrows of the southern people of Italy its own and gave it all of itself, is the worthy heir and descendant His Excellency the Count of Caserta Don Alfonso Maria of Bourbon, for whom August 2 marks his Name Day.

Not with the fluttering of flags unfurled in the wind, nor with cannon shots echoing over the sea of Parthenope and along the valleys and slopes of burning Vesuvio, nor in the thousand little flames seen from the windows and balconies of the homes of our Naples but in hearts the people of the South we celebrate this day.  

This is a celebration entirely of sentiment, respectful love, profound devotion, dear memories, and immense admiration for the sublime civil and military virtues, for the excellent qualities of mind and heart that adorn the person of the august Head of the Royal House of Naples. This celebration today and our best wishes for his health and for his happiness come from our hearts. Our thoughts fly to him, mindful of a past of homeland glories and greatness, and on him, on his Royal Consort, on the entire Royal Family we implore blessings and favors from God and the cessation of the evils that afflict our native land.

New Essay at New Polity: “Pagan Laws and the People of God”

Tags

christendom, Classical Legal Tradition, Modern State, New Polity, Paganism, People of God, Political Philosophy, Political Theology

New Polity: A Journal of Postliberal Thought recently published my essay “Pagan Laws and the People of God.” Here is an excerpt from the introduction, you can read the whole essay by purchasing the issue or subscribing to the journal here.

The dawn that dispelled the horrendous night that morn
Was not a Sabbath of rest but a Saturnalia of sorrow
The impious demon rejoiced in seeing the breach of peace between brothers
There never was greater slaughter, nor field so full of war
The laws of Christendom are turned into a rain of blood.
Thus the gluttony of Cerberus pleases the infernal powers.

— Angelbert, Versus de bella que fuit acta Fontaneto

These poignant verses describe the aftermath of the Battle of Fontenoy, a decisive moment in the fratricidal war between the three grandsons of Charlemagne. In the eyes of the Frankish poet, the order of the Lex Christianorum—the reign of peace—had given way to the old blood-soaked anarchy of paganism; the divinely instituted leisure of the Sabbath had yielded to a Saturnalia of debauchery. These verses could equally well describe the situation of Catholics in the modern administrative state, a model of state which has come to dominate the political life of many countries. The atrocities of the modern state are without number; for example, in America, until very recently, this form of state sanctioned at its highest levels the mass destruction of innocents in the womb. A growing school of postliberal “juridical thinkers” blame our moral and spiritual decay on the refusal to ground our law in the “Classical Legal Tradition.” They claim that the basic apparatus of the modern state is merely abused; politicians educated in the tradition of classical legal thought can and should adopt “the apparatus of the administrative state” to successfully adapt and adjust “broad positive instruments to changing social, economic, and technological circumstances.” This claim (and the booming juristic community that has rallied around it) lacks any sense of the traditional perspective which pits Catholic society and the Western European tradition of governance against the depredations of the pagan civilizations that it converted and conquered. From this perspective, the modern administrative state has revived the despotism of the pagans.

The full essay can be found in the print issue of New Polity Volume 4 Issue 3. 

The Last World Emperor: A Review of Charles V by Dr. Otto von Habsburg

Tags

Age of Discovery, Book Review, Charles V, christendom, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Spain, New World, Otto von Habsburg

Otto von Habsburg, Charles V, trans. Michael Ross (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970)

Born on the eve of the cultural and political upheaval of the sixteenth century, Charles V inherited a vast and wide-reigning authority as King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor that few men in history have ever rivaled. Dr. Otto von Habsburg, a descendant of Charles and heir of the last Habsburg emperor, prefaces his renowned ancestor’s 1967 biography by stating “later centuries were incapable of grasping Charles V’s conception of the world.” Nevertheless, Habsburg argues that challenges facing Europe in the present day are similar enough to the cultural revolution of the sixteenth century that “Charles V, once regarded as the last fighter in a rearguard action, is suddenly seen to have a been a forerunner.” Throughout the book he explores the relevance of the deeply Catholic and chivalric vision of Christendom that motivated Charles’ reign. It might seem easy to accuse the author of a favorable bias towards his subject, an accusation from which the book is not entirely immune. However, such an accusation ignores the real awareness of Charles’s vision that Habsburg gains from his concrete understanding of his own familial tradition. Otto von Habsburg’s Charles V offers a brilliant insight into the world and worldview of the history-shaping emperor, yet its lack of primary source citations and heavy reliance on secondary sources render it more of an introduction to its subject, and not, as seems to have been intended, an analytic biography.

Looking to the West: A Brief Study of Tolkien’s Carolingian Heritage

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Carolingian Empire, Charlemagne, christendom, Holy Roman Empire, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The West

Upreared from sea to cloud then sheer
a shoreless mountain stood;
its sides were black from the sullen tide
up to its smoking hood, 
but its spire was lit with a living fire
that ever rose and fell:
tall as a column in High Heaven’s hall,
its roots were deep as Hell;
grounded in chasms the waters drowned
and swallowed long ago
it stands, I guess, on the foundered land
where the kings of kings lie low

-J. R.R. Tolkien, Imram (The Death of St. Brendan) 

Each of the subcreative works of J.R.R. Tolkien displays a careful and thoughtful attention to the cultures and civilizations which populate his secondary reality. He drew deep and rich realities from the history of the Primary World and studying his invented histories can illuminate both philosophical and macro-historical themes with which Tolkien engaged. In particular, investigating Tolkien’s use of the West as a civilizational concept in his novel The Lord of the Rings, written between 1937 and 1954, reveals his appropriation of the Carolingian heritage of Europe, which transformed the work from what was originally intended as a “mythology for England” into what Bradley Birzer calls “a myth for the restoration of Christendom itself.” This appropriation was controversial, especially during the Second World War when the National Socialists in Germany attempted to usurp this European heritage for themselves. A close reading of The Lord of the Rings reveals the parallels between Tolkien’s restored Kingdom of the West and the Carolingian Holy Empire, the West as a source of spiritual renewal, and Tolkien’s defense of Western mythology against the Nazi usurpation of the European tradition.

New Essay: “Ruled by Different Rhythms”

Tags

Augusto Del Noce, Basilicata, Carlo Levi, Culture, Film, Francesco Rosi, Genealogies of Modernity, Modernity, Personalism, Politics, Totalitarianism

My second essay for the journal Genealogies of Modernity, “Ruled By Different Rhythms” was just published. In this essay I continue to explore the philosophical conversation between writer Augusto Del Noce and filmmaker Francesco Rosi with his film adaptation of Carlo Levi’s autobiographical book, Christ Stopped at Eboli. Here’s an excerpt:

“Christ never came here,” writes Carlo Levi, describing the desolate village of Gagliano in the hinterlands of southern Italy to which he was exiled in 1935. “Christ stopped along the coast, at Eboli.” Internal exile is a strange concept in the digital age. For a generation raised with the global reach of the internet, to whom landscapes are defined by interstate highways and airports rather than by hills and villages, this technique of isolating a political opponent seems absurd and trivial. Francesco Rosi begins his four-part TV miniseries adaptation of Levi’s year of exile (Christ Stopped at Eboli, 1979) by emphasizing his isolation: though constantly escorted, Levi is alone, his light grey suit of a fashionable cut standing out against the unrelenting black clothing of the Lucanese peasants and the dark overcast sky. They are visible only in their poverty; they are, as Rosi’s contemporary and fellow director Vittorio De Seta once titled them, “the Forgotten.” And to the inhabitants of Basilicata (ancient Lucania), the doctor from Turin is a foreigner in their forgotten country.

Read the whole essay here: https://genealogiesofmodernity.org/journal/2023/6/21/ruled-by-different-rhythms

New Essay on Augusto Del Noce

Tags

Augusto Del Noce, Civilization, Culture, Film, Francesco Rosi, Genealogies of Modernity, Modernity, Scientism

The journal Genealogies of Modernity has recently published my essay The Occupation That Never Ended, exploring the thematic and philosophical relationship between Augusto Del Noce’s The Crisis of Modernity and Francesco Rosi’s film Salvatore Giuliano. Here’s an excerpt:

Rosi’s film was released in 1962, nearly a decade before the Italian philosopher and political theorist Augusto Del Noce first published his scathing critique of the modern approach to power politics. Like Rosi, Del Noce is also investigating a corpse, but not that of a single man or mere individual. The body which fascinated the philosopher is the political community, slowly dissected by a new, “scientific” approach to politics.  He saw in this approach the danger of a subtler form of totalitarianism, in which “the individual is extinguished and the idea of politics is subsumed within the idea of war, even in peacetime.” This war is not aimed, as were older forms of totalitarianism, at founding or reshaping the world order. Rather, it is directed at the perfect control of a single society, a society without the divisions caused by loyalties to family, to faith, and to traditional forms of morality. Any resistance to the regime’s absolute centralization of control is characterized as a revolt against science and progress.

Read the whole essay here: https://genealogiesofmodernity.org/journal/2023/5/23/the-occupation-that-never-ended

Legitimacy and Legality Part IV: The Situation in Austria

Tags

Austria, Authority, Habsburg, Hans Karl von Zessner-Spitzenberg, Legality, Legitimacy, Politics, Restoration

By Dr. Hans Karl von Zeßner-Spitzenberg

Translated by M. T. Scarince

Translator’s note: This is the final part in a series of posts translating the work of Austrian Legitimist philosopher Hans Karl Freiherr von Zeßner-Spitzenberg (1885-1938), an active member of the Kaiser-Karl-Gebetsliga and a martyr for the cause of Austrian independence from the National Socialist occupation. Read Part I, Part II, Part III. 

II. Let us now apply these principles to the situation in Austria today.

For such an application to the Austrian situation to be of any use, everything else will be self-evident when there is clarity as to whether or not a lawful, legitimate acquisition of power is found at the infancy of today’s public authorities, or a breach of law, the moral wrong of violating existing authorities and better rights of rule. After that, the question of whether we are dealing with a merely legal power, or whether this power is free from any restitution obligation due to foreign violation of rights and therefore can be called a legitimate authority, is decided. 

The Peace Emperor, 100 Years Later

Tags

Austria, Bl. Karl of Austria, christendom, Civilization

It’s almost hard to believe that only a hundred years have passed since the death of the last Austro-Hungarian Emperor on the Portuguese island of Madeira. To simply list the changes to the world that have taken place since then would be inadequate, failing to capture the magnitude and depth of “the long twentieth century,” its joys and its horrors. For those who view recent events in a historical frame of mind, a mere century is a trifle to be added to the long ages of human existence, but in the real experience of a people, that time has already faded from living memory. So it is incredible that a man who died in obscurity on the periphery of a dying civilization finds such admiration in our troubled time.

Preface to Abendland (Abendland Vol 1. October 1st, 1925)

Tags

Abendland Movement, Austria, christendom, Germany, Hermann Platz, Holy Roman Emperor, Supernationalism, United Europe, Western Civilization, Western Culture

By Hermann Platz

Translated by M.T. Scarince

As natural as service to the fatherland is for us – only fanatics believe that they have to be suspicious of it and instruct us in it – just as natural, after we have given each country its part, is the service to the greater country that we will hereafter call the West (Abendland). Admittedly, the consciousness of our occidental solidarity has been widely lost even here on the Rhine, where almost everything ought to keep it present to us. But today is a time of crisis, a time of divorce and decision, a day of judgment and a turning point, where individuals, peoples and groups of peoples must move on towards their new horizons and tasks- or perish. It must shake us up and lead us forward! Only once, perhaps, this moment of grace, this view into the distance, this duty of reconsideration has come close to us and to the many who are looking to us for inspiration.