Comments on: Do What Thou Wilt

By: Clint

Clint — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:58:00 +0000

Hmmm, not too impressed with his political manifesto.

http://home.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/debenoist/alain9.html

I think I’ll wait until the reviews are in, before I run out and buy the book.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:57:27 +0000

Henry: I have to admit I hardly know Heidegger. I’m looking forward to read your review on “On Being a Pagan”, Henry. Once I find the time to read Benoist I will write something on it here & we can probably be more accurate about what is boring (bad) or exciting (good) about him. Either way I will be happy to discuss it with you.

Clint: Thanks for the recommendation. I think I haven’t read even one Sci-Fi novel in my life. That’s a shame! I bought a Sci-Fi novel by mad & ingenious legend, Philip K. Dick, & hope that it will get me into Sci-Fi. I will have a try on the “Fall Revolution” series by Ken MacLeod, too. I also still have to read Robert Anton Wilson’s underground classic, the “Illuminati” trilogy. I was told by my brother I would love it!

Guard the secret flame,

Matt.

By: Henry

Henry — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:56:54 +0000

Re: Heidegger – he isnt an existentialist at all! That’s a common misunderstanding, mostly the fault of Sartre. He explicitly repudiated existentialism’s focus on human subjectivity and not even that long after Being and Time was published (and even that book is much deeper than just some existentialist catechism. I wrote an esaay about this back in uni, maybe I should post it to my journal?)

I have written a 12,000 word essay about “On Being A Pagan” which will appear on this site in due course… and among other things it deals at length with Heidegger and Nietzsche as influences on Benoist.

I would hope that Mr B has evolved since he wrote On Being A Pagan in 1981… in my opinion its a woeful book. As you’ll see from my essay on it his grasp of Heidegger is particularly sloppy or at the least woefully inconsistent…

Clint, you’d probably like Benoist more than I do, but I think you’d also get bored of how (IMHO) pedantic and superficial a lot of On Being A Pagan is.

By: Clint

Clint — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:55:09 +0000

Actually, the entire ‘Fall Revolution’series by Ken MacLeod is great. (If you like Sci-Fi novels with Socialists, Anarchists, Libertarians and Greens running every which-way.)

Can’t say that I’ve read Benoist, but I do like to think that my ethical/political world view has a lot in common with those of the ancient heathens.

It always surprises me, how many people proclaim themselves Pagan or Heathen but just end up trading in one form of impractical, heavy handed moralism for another.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:54:34 +0000

Well, I will have to study Benoist in- depth before I will conclude how useful he is to me or in the context of the neo-pagan revival. I guess you are talking about his famous book “On Being a Pagan”. Didn’t you want to review it here? I saw de Benoist talking in Berlin & that was far more than existentialism (Heidegger is far more an existentialist than Benoist – though in German they call his school of thought “Existenzphilosophie”). Benoist spoke of the transcendent dimension as the last abode that postmodern capitalism cannot “sell”. Hence its negation of the Transcendent dimension & religious Tradition. Hence monoculture capitalism supports fluffy, New Age-y “anything goes”-relativism. And this is only the tip of the iceberg about what Benoist has to say. That’s why I regard him to play in the same intellectual league as such French thinkers as Bourdieu.

And concerning the story about Loki & my “babysitter”: Loki whispered something in his ear & my “babysitter” committed suicide. After that I realized that for those who become who they are, there are no guarantees. Blessed are the Mad for they touch the Holy!

Hail Loki! AUM KAOS.

By: Henry

Henry — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:54:11 +0000

Heidegger suggests that conscience is ontologically rooted in the call of the authentic self to the everydayness of human being back to its deepest potential.

We tend to fall away from ourselves, distracted and lost in the thingly world; for Heidegger it is the conscience which nags at us in such tranquilised states that there is more to life than this.

You can see how authoritarian social structures such as those deployed by Christianity throughout history have ben able to subvert this call.

I’m not very impressed by Benoist’s critique of monotheistic ethics though, nor by Benoist much in general. He thinks himself a pagan but from what I’ve read he never got further than wanky existentialism with bells on. Boring.

Loki ate my babysitter so I had to raise myself ;)

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:53:47 +0000

Now you made me interested & I think I will read this book by Ken Macleod. As life is often full of coincidences I just read something about this author somewhere else whilst surfing through the internet. Moral & ethics is an important distinction. I wonder where this false moral came from. Though I have to research this I guess it comes from Kristjan conceptions, and not Heathen/Pagan ones. I even once read that the conscience is a product of Christianity & hasn’t existed in this form before. Karlheinz Weißmann said this in praise of Christianity. But the more interesting thing is that it hasn’t changed the world at all – the crimes committed in the name of God are countless until this very day. The critique goes much deeper & Alain de Benoist has to say some interesting things about that. However, I start to believe that our Heathen Tradition answers most of the questions.

Hail Loki!