The Reign of Quantity and The Signs of the Times

29 Deviation and Subversion

The anti-traditional action by which the modern world has in a sense been ‘manufactured’ has hitherto been considered as an operation designed primarily to bring about a deviation from the normal state, that is, from the state normal to all traditional civilizations whatever may be their particular forms, something easy to understand and requiring no further comment. On the other hand, there is a distinction to be made between deviation and subversion: deviation can be regarded as comprising an indefinite multiplicity of degrees, so that it can go to work gradually and imperceptibly; this is exemplified by the gradual passage of the modern mentality from ‘humanism’ and rationalism to mechanism, and thence to materialism, and again in the process whereby profane science has elaborated successive theories each more purely quantitative in character than the last. This makes it possible to say that all such deviation, from its earliest beginnings, has steadily and progressively tended toward the establishment of the ‘reign of quantity’. But when deviation reaches its limit, it ends by being a real ‘contradiction’, that is to say a state diametrically opposed to the normal order, and only then can ‘subversion’ in the etymological sense of the word properly be spoken of; needless to say, ‘subversion’ in this sense must in no way be confused with the ‘reversal’ referred to in connection with the final instant of the cycle, it being indeed the exact opposite since the ‘reversal’ actually happens after the ‘subversion’ and at the moment when subversion seems complete, and is really a rectification whereby the normal order is re-established, and whereby the ‘primordial state’, representing perfection in the human domain, is restored.

As against this, it could be said that subversion, thus understood, is but the last stage of deviation and is its goal, or, in other words, that deviation as a whole has no tendency other than to bring about subversion, and that is true enough; in the present state of affairs, though it cannot yet be said that subversion is complete, the signs of it are very evident in everything in which the special characteristic of ‘counterfeit’ or ‘parody’ is conspicuous. This characteristic has already been mentioned more than once, and is to be dealt with more fully later. For the moment no more need be said than that this particular characteristic affords by itself a very significant indication of the origin of anything that shows it, and consequently of the origin of the modern deviation itself, the ‘satanic’ nature of which is thus brought out very clearly. The word ‘satanic’ can indeed be properly applied to all negation and reversal of order, such as is so incontestably in evidence in everything we now see around us: is the modern world really anything whatever but a direct denial of all traditional truth? At the same time, and more or less of necessity, the spirit of negation is the spirit of lying; it wears every disguise, often the most unexpected, in order to avoid being recognized for what it is, and even in order to pass itself off as the very opposite of what it is; this is where counterfeit comes in; and this is the moment to recall that it is said that ‘Satan is the ape of God’, and also that he ‘transfigures himself into an angel of light’. In the end, this amounts to saying that he imitates in his own way, by altering and falsifying it so as always to make it serve his own ends, the very thing he sets out to oppose: thus, he will so manage matters that disorder takes on the appearance of a false order, he will hide the negation of all principle under the affirmation of false principles, and so on. Naturally, nothing of that kind can ever really be more than dissimulation and even caricature, but it is presented cleverly enough to induce an immense majority of men to allow themselves to be deceived by it; and why should we be astonished at this, when it is so easy to observe both the extent to which trickery, even of the crudest sort, succeeds in imposing itself on the crowd, and also the difficulty of subsequently undeceiving them? Vulgus vult decipi was already a saying of the ancients of the ‘classical period’, and no doubt there have always been people, though never as many as in our days, ready to add: ergo decipiatur!

Nevertheless, anyone who speaks of counterfeit thereby suggests the idea of parody, for they are almost synonyms; there is invariably a grotesque element in affairs of this kind, and it may be more apparent or less so, but it ought never to escape the notice of observers, even observers of only a very moderate perspicacity, were it not for the fact that natural perspicacity in that direction is abolished by the ‘suggestions’ to which they are unconsciously subjected. This is the direction in which falsehood, however clever it may be, cannot do otherwise than betray itself; it is also of course a ‘label’ of origin, inseparable from counterfeit itself, which should normally make it recognizable as such. If it were necessary to give examples chosen from the various manifestations of the modern spirit, there would be only too many from which to choose, beginning with the ‘civic’ or ‘lay’ pseudo-rites that have developed so extensively in the last few years, and are intended to provide the ‘masses’ with a purely human substitute for real religious rites, down to the extravagance of a self-styled ‘naturism’, which in spite of its name is no less artificial, not to say ‘anti-natural’, than are the useless complications of existence against which it lays claim to react by means of a ludicrous comedy having as its real purpose to make people believe that the ‘state of nature’ is to be confused with animality; meanwhile, something more than the mere comfort of the human being is now threatened with denaturation by the growth of the idea, so contradictory in itself but conforming well to a democratic ‘egalitarianism’, of an ‘organization of leisure’.[125] The things mentioned here are intentionally only such as are known to everyone and they undeniably belong to what may be called the ‘public domain’ and can be grasped without trouble by anyone; is it not strange that those who feel the absurdity of all this, to say nothing of its danger, are so rare as to be really exceptional? Such things as these ought to be spoken of as ‘pseudo-religion’, ‘pseudo-nature’, ‘pseudo-comfort’, and the same is true of many other things; if one wanted always to speak strictly according to truth, the word ‘pseudo’ would continually have to be put in front of the name of all the products of the modern world, including that of profane science itself — for it is only a ‘pseudo-science’ or imitation of knowledge — in order to give a true indication of what it all amounts to: falsifications and nothing else, and falsifications of which the objective is only too clear to anyone still capable of reflection.

So much for that; and now let us return to considerations of a more general kind. What is it that makes this counterfeit possible, and even increasingly possible and increasingly perfect of its kind, if indeed any such words can be used in such a connection, as the descending course of the cycle proceeds? The profound reason lies in the relation of inverse analogy that exists, as explained, between the highest and the lowest points: it is this that makes possible in particular, and in a degree corresponding to that of the approach to the domain of pure quantity, the realization of those sorts of counterfeits of principial unity as are manifested in the ‘uniformity’ and ‘simplicity’ toward which the modern spirit tends, and in which its efforts to bring everything down to the quantitative point of view are most completely expressed. This perhaps shows more clearly than anything else that deviation has, so to speak, only to be developed and allowed to pursue its course to the end in order finally to lead to subversion properly so called, for when that which is most inferior (it being in this case a question of something inferior even to all possible existence) seeks to imitate and make a counterfeit of superior and transcendent principles, then is the time when real subversion can justly be spoken of. Nevertheless it is as well to recall that in the nature of things the tendency to pure quantity can never produce its full effect; therefore, in order that subversion may reach its term the intervention of something else is necessary. At this stage what was said earlier on the subject of dissolution could be repeated, but from a slightly different point of view; obviously that which appertains to the final point of cyclic manifestation is equally concerned in both cases; and that is exactly why the ‘rectification’ of the ultimate instant must appear precisely as a reversal of all things, when it is seen in relation to the state of subversion existing immediately before that instant.

Bearing in mind this last point, this much more can be said: the first of the two phases that have been distinguished in anti-traditional action represents simply a work of deviation, the particular end of which is a materialism of the crudest and most complete kind; as for the second phase, it could be specially characterized as a work of subversion (for that is the point to which it leads most directly) destined to end in the setting-up of what has been called an inverted spirituality, as will be seen more clearly from what follows. The inferior subtle forces that are called in during this second phase can certainly be described as ‘subversive’ from every point of view; and it was considered right to apply the word ‘subversion’ above to the ‘inverted’ utilization of the remains of ancient traditions abandoned by the ‘spirit’; and the two cases are in any case similar, for under such conditions corrupt vestiges themselves necessarily fall into the lower regions of the subtle domain. Another particularly clear example of the work of subversion will be given in the next chapter, in the form of the intentional inversion of the legitimate and normal meaning of traditional symbols; this will afford in addition an opportunity to give a fuller explanation of the double meaning usually contained in symbols themselves; for so many references to double meanings of this kind have already been made in the course of this study that a little more detail on the subject will not be out of place.