Published for the first time in the 1950s, in the aftermath of the Second World War and in full division of the world into opposing blocs, the “Guidelines” by Julius Evola have been an irreplaceable source of inspiration for entire generations of young idealistic and traditionalist militants. That breviary in 11 points that the “black baron” composed among the smoking rubble of the defeat of the Axis and which was intended to be a guide for those who, after the war, felt they belonged to the ranks of the marginalized by the emerging progressive society has recently returned ” on the shelves” in a new edition, published by Cinnabar. An opportunity to discover (or rediscover) this short text (only 78 pages) which, in various passages and beyond the author’s starting positions, retains a surprising relevance.
The criticism that Evola makes of the condition of post-war man (in which the thinker saw a substantial anthropological decay taking place), now imbued with a bourgeois mentality, concentrated exclusively on questions of “belly” or on the achievement of an illusory security, leads him to a substantially pessimistic judgment regarding the hopes placed in the various movements or political models theoretically alternative to the hegemonic system. For the “baron”, in fact, the first revolution to be carried out for the recovery of Tradition was (and is) the internal one. That is, that aimed at building ourselves as new men, “standing in a world of ruins.” Without this necessary work, it is not possible for him to aspire to any change. “The first problem, the basis of all others – according to Evola – it is of an internal nature: getting up again, resurrecting internally, giving oneself a shape, creating order and straightness within oneself” Why “before thinking about external actions, often dictated only by momentary enthusiasms, without deep roots, one should think about self-formation, about action on oneself, against everything that is formless, elusive and bourgeois“.
Work with incendiary content, “Guidelines” it is also a notable historical document about the author’s ideas: the warning given to anyone is devoid of possible misunderstandings (the thought was evidently aimed at the political militants of the “right” of the time, when the Italian Social Movement was still a newborn) he placed hopes, perhaps in an anti-communist perspective, in the Western and American-centric model. And, also from this point of view, Evola is almost prophetic in certain passages of his criticism of the “Americanism“. Steps which, however, do not deserve to be anticipated here but which, rather, should be discovered by reading them. Along with many others.