Not to be born is past all prizing best; but when a man has seen the light this is next best by far, that with all speed he should go thither whence he has come.50
The tragic consists in the fact that insofar as one strives to avoid a catastrophe, one actually brings a catastrophe upon himself. Such a tragic state of mind is largely rejected by the proponents of the liberal myth of progress.
Myths and the Tragic; the Coming of the Titanic Age
Without myths there is no tragic, just like without the Titans there can be no Gods. It was the twelve Titans who gave birth to the Gods and not the other way around. It was the Titanesque Cronus who gave birth to Zeus, and then, after being dethroned by his son Zeus, forced to dwell with his fellow Titans in the underworld. But one cannot rule out that the resurrection of the head Titan Cronus, along with the other Titans, may reoccur again, perhaps tomorrow, or perhaps in an upcoming eon, thus enabling the recommencement of the new Titanic age. After all Prometheus was himself a Titan, although, as a dissident Titan, he had decided to be on the side of the Gods and combat his own fellow Titans. Here is how Friedrich Georg Jünger, an avid student of the ancient Greek myths sees it:
Neither are the Titans unrestrained power-hungry beings, nor do they scorn the law; rather, they are the rulers over a legal system whose necessity must never be put into doubt. In an awe-inspiring fashion, it is the flux of primordial elements over which they rule, holding bridle and reins in their hands, as seen in Helios. They are the guardians, custodians, supervisors, and the guides of order. They are the founders unfolding beyond chaos, as pointed out by Homer in his remarks about Atlas who shoulders the long columns holding the heavens and the Earth. Their rule rules out any confusion, any disorderly power performance. Rather, they constitute a powerful deterrent against chaos.51
Nothing remains new for the locked-up Titans: they know everything. They are the central feature in the cosmic eternal return. The Titans are not the creators of chaos, although they reside closer to chaos and are, therefore, better than the Gods — more aware of possible chaotic times. They can be called telluric deities, and it remains to be seen whether in the near future they may side up with some chthonic monsters, such as those described by the novelist H. P. Lovecraft.
It seems that the Titans are the necessary element in the cosmic balance, although they have not received due acknowledgment by contemporary students of ancient and modern mythologies. The Titans are the central feature in the study of the will to power and each White man who demonstrates this will has a good ingredient of the Titanic spirit:
What is Titanic about man? The Titanic trait occurs everywhere and it can be described in many ways. Titanic is a man who completely relies only upon himself and has boundless confidence in his own powers. This confidence absolves him, but at the same time it isolates him in a Promethean mode. It gives him a feeling of independence, albeit not devoid of arrogance, violence, and defiance.52
Today, in our disenchanted world, from which all Gods have departed, the resurgence of the Titans may be an option for a dying Western civilization. The Titans and the Titanic humans are known to be outspoken about their supreme independence, their aversion to cutting deals, and their uncompromising, impenitent attitude. What they need in addition is a good portion of luck, or fortuna.
Other Books Published by Arktos
SRI DHARMA PRAVARTAKA ACHARYA
The Dharma Manifesto
ALAIN DE BENOIST
Beyond Human Rights
Carl Schmitt Today
The Indo-Europeans
Manifesto for a European Renaissance
On the Brink of the Abyss
The Problem of Democracy
View from the Right (vol. 1–3)
ARTHUR MOELLER VAN DEN BRUCK
Germany’s Third Empire
MATT BATTAGLIOLI
The Consequences of Equality
KERRY BOLTON
Revolution from Above
ISAC BOMAN
Money Power
RICARDO DUCHESNE
Faustian Man in a Multicultural Age
ALEXANDER DUGIN
Eurasian Mission: An Introduction to Neo-Eurasianism
The Fourth Political Theory
Last War of the World-Island
Putin vs Putin
The Rise of the Fourth Political Theory
KOENRAAD ELST
Return of the Swastika
JULIUS EVOLA
Fascism Viewed from the Right
A Handbook for Right-Wing Youth
Metaphysics of War
Notes on the Third Reich
The Path of Cinnabar
A Traditionalist Confronts Fascism
GUILLAUME FAYE
Archeofuturism
Archeofuturism 2.0
The Colonisation of Europe
Sex and Deviance
Understanding Islam
Why We Fight
DANIEL S. FORREST
Suprahumanism
ANDREW FRASER
The WASP Question
GÉNÉRATION IDENTITAIRE
We are Generation Identity
PAUL GOTTFRIED
War and Democracy
PORUS HOMI HAVEWALA
The Saga of the Aryan Race
RACHEL HAYWIRE
The New Reaction
LARS HOLGER HOLM
Hiding in Broad Daylight
Homo Maximus
Incidents of Travel in Latin America
The Owls of Afrasiab
ALEXANDER JACOB
De Naturae Natura
JASON REZA JORJANI
Prometheus and Atlas
RODERICK KAINE
Smart and SeXy
LANCE KENNEDY
Supranational Union and New Medievalism
PETER KING
Here and Now
Keeping Things Close: Essays on the Conservative Disposition
LUDWIG KLAGES
The Biocentric Worldview
Cosmogonic Reflections: Selected Aphorisms from Ludwig Klages
PIERRE KREBS
Fighting for the Essence
STEPHEN PAX LEONARD
Travels in Cultural Nihilism
PENTTI LINKOLA
Can Life Prevail?
H. P. LOVECRAFT
The Conservative
CHARLES MAURRAS
The Future of the Intelligentsia & For a French Awakening
MICHAEL O’MEARA
Guillaume Faye and the Battle of Europe
New Culture, New Right
BRIAN ANSE PATRICK
Rise of the Anti-Media
The Ten Commandments of Propaganda
Zombology
Tito Perdue
Morning Crafts
William’s House (vol. 1–4)
RAIDO
A Handbook of Traditional Living
STEVEN J. ROSEN
The Agni and the Ecstasy
The Jedi in the Lotus
Richard Rudgley
Barbarians
Essential Substances
Wildest Dreams
ERNST VON SALOMON
It Cannot Be Stormed
The Outlaws
SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR
Celebrating Silence
Know Your Child
Management Mantras
Patanjali Yoga Sutras
Secrets of Relationships
TROY SOUTHGATE
Tradition & Revolution
OSWALD SPENGLER
Man and Technics
TOMISLAV SUNIC
Against Democracy and Equality
ABIR TAHA
Defining Terrorism: The End of Double Standards
The Epic of Arya (2nd ed.)
Nietzsche’s Coming God, or the Redemption of the Divine
Verses of Light
BAL GANGADHAR TILAK
The Arctic Home in the Vedas
DOMINIQUE VENNER
The Shock of History
MARKUS WILLINGER
A Europe of Nations
Generation Identity
DAVID J. WINGFIELD (ED.)
The Initiate: Journal of Traditional Studies
1) Robert Luft. Die Verchristung der Deutschen (München: Ludendorffs Verlag, 1937), p. 55. ↵
2) Emile Cioran. Histoire et utopie in Œuvres (Paris: Quarto Gallimard, 1995), (my translation), p. 1009. ↵
3) William Shakespeare, Macbeth (Act III, Scene 1), edited by E. K. Chambers (Toronto Morang Educational Co. Ltd., 1907), p. 60. ↵
4) Ludwig Clauss, Rasse und Charakter (Frankfurt am Main: Diesterweg, 1942) (my translation), p. 78. ↵
5) Homer. Iliad, Book XXII, transl. G. Chapman (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1884), pp. 279–289. ↵
6) Seneca. Letter LIX “On Pleasure and Joy” in Epistles, (Los Angeles: Enhanced Media Publishing, 2016), p. 130. ↵
7) Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, transl. from the German by E. F. J. Payne, Vol. II (New York: Dover Publications, Inc.), p. 578. ↵
8) Dante, The Divine Comedy, Purgatorio, Canto XIV, transl. by h. Wadsworth Longfelow (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin and Co.,1867), p. 74. ↵
9) Ezra Pound. Fascist Cantos, translated from the Italian by Jack Ross (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1997), p. 15. ↵
10) Sophocles, Oedipus the King (Vv. 375–378) in The Three Theban Plays, translated by Robert Fagles (London: Penguin Books, 1984), pp. 177–78. ↵
11) Cf. F. Roderich-Stoltheim (Theodor Fritsch). The Riddle of the Jew’s Success, translated from the German by Capel Pownall (Leipzig: Hammer Verlag, 1927). Arthur Trebitsch. Deutscher Geist oder Judentum (Berlin: Antaios Verlag, 1921). ↵
12) William Shakespeare. Richard III in The Plays of William Shakespeare, Vol. VIII (London: Printed for Vernor, Hood and Sharpe, 1809), p. 116. ↵
13) Duc de la Rochefoucauld. Reflections; Or Sentences and Moral Maxims, translated by J.W. Willis Bund, J. Hain Friswell (London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co. Ltd., 1898), p. 93. ↵
14) Friedrich Schiller, The Robbers (Act I, Scene 1) (London: Printed for GG and J Robinson; Bell and Bradfute, Edinburgh, 1800), p. 11. ↵
15) Harold Covington, The Brigade (Longview: Northwest Publishing Agency, 2007). ↵
16) Ibid., Cioran, Histoire et utopie (my transl.), p. 1009. ↵
17) J. Salwyn Schapiro, “Thomas Carlyle, Prophet of Fascism.” The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 17, No. (June, 1945), pp. 97–115. ↵
18) Werner Sombart, Händler und Helden; patriotische Besinnungen (München/Leipzig Duncker und Humblot, 1915), p. 38. ↵
19) Ibid., p. 64. ↵
20) Henry Barbusse. Staline; un monde nouveau vu à travers un homme (Paris: Flammarion, 1935), p. 311. ↵
21) Kurt Eggers, Vater aller Dinge; ein Buch des Krieges (Berlin: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1943), p. 37. ↵
22) Friedrich Georg Jünger, Die Titanen (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1944). ↵
23) Friedrich Georg Jünger, Les Titans et les dieux: mythes grecs, trans. François Poncet (Paris: Krisis, 2013). ↵
24) T. Sunic, “Emile Cioran and the Culture of Death,” in Postmortem Report (Shamley Green: Wermod & Wermod), pp. 48–58. ↵
25) Arthur Schopenhauer, Die Kunst glücklich zu sein (München: C.H. Beck, 1999), p. 56. ↵
26) Clément Rosset, Schopenhauer, Philosophe de l’Absurde (Paris: PUF, 1967), p. 97. ↵
27) A. Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, Vol. III, Chapter XLIII, transl. by R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. 1909), p. 323. ↵
28) A. Schopenhauer, “Free Will and Fatalism,” in The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer, transl. by T. B. Saunders (2004 Blackmask Online), p. 23, http://thule-italia.net/sitoinglese/Arthur%20Schopenhauer%20-%20On%20Human%20Nature.pdf. ↵
29) “Wille ist immer der Gegensatz des Triebes und nicht mit ihm identisch, wie es Schopenhauer aus seiner monistischen Dogmatik heraus lehrte,” in A. Rosenberg, Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts (München: Hoheneichen Verlag, 1930), [335]. Also, The Myth of the 20th Century, Book Two (Los Angeles; Noontide Press, 1982), p. 75. ↵
30) Rosset, p. 16. ↵
31) Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd (New York: MacMillan Co., 1896). ↵
32) Schopenhauer, TWAWAI, Vol. 3 of 3. on p. 434 writes: “On account of this origin (or, at least, this agreement) Christianity belongs to the ancient, true and sublime faith of mankind, which is opposed to the false, shallow, and injurious optimism which exhibits itself in Greek paganism, Judaism, and Islamism.” ↵
33) A. Schopenhauer, Parerga und Paralipomena (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1874), pp. 136–137. ↵
34) T. Sunic, “Vilfredo Pareto and Political Irrationality” in The World and I (4/1988). ↵
35) Jean Baudrillard, The Evil Demons of Images (University of Sydney: The Power Inst. of Fine Arts, 1988), p. 24. “The rhetoric and imagery of Holocaust no longer function as a site of annihilation but a medium of dissuasion.” ↵
36) Clement Rosset, Logique du pire (1971 Paris: PUF/Quadrige, 1993), p. 155. ↵
37) J. Baudrillard, Les stratégies fatales (Paris: Grasset, 1983), p. 79. ↵
38) Louis Rougier, La mystique démocratique (Paris: Albatros, 1983), p. 13. ↵
39) Nicole Belmont, Paroles païennes: mythe et folklore (Paris: Imago, 1986) quotes on page 106 the German-born English Orientalist and philologist Max Müller who sees in ancient myths “a disease of language,” an approach criticized by the anthropological school of thought. His critic Andrew Lang writes: “The general problem is this: Has language — especially language in a state of “disease,” been the great source of the mythology of the world? Or does mythology, on the whole, represent the survival of an old stage of thought — not caused by language — from which civilised men have slowly emancipated themselves? Mr. Max Müller is of the former, anthropologists are of the latter, opinion.” Cf. Andrew Lang, Modern Mythology (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1897), p. x. ↵
40) Thomas Bulfinch, The Golden Age of Myth and Legend (London: Wordsworth Editions, 1993). ↵
41) See the German classicist, Walter F. Otto, The Homeric Gods: The Spiritual Significance of Greek Religion, trans. Moses Hadas (North Stratford, NH: Ayer Company Publishers, 2001). Otto is quite critical of Christian epistemology. Some excerpts from this work appeared in French translation also in his article, “Les Grecs et leurs dieux,” in the quarterly Krisis (Paris), (Nr. 23, January 2000). ↵
42) Friedrich Schiller, The Gods of Greece, trans. E. A. Bowring. http://www.bartleby.com/270/9/2.html. ↵
43) Tomislav Sunic, “The Right Stuff,” Chronicles (October 1996), 21–22; Tomislav Sunic, “The Party Is Over,” http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/authors/Sunic-Drugs.html. ↵
44) Tomislav Sunic, “Marx, Moses, and the Pagans in the Secular City,” CLIO: A Journal of Literature, History, and the Philosophy of History (24, No. 2. Winter 1995). ↵
45) Gilad Atzmon, The Wandering Who? A Study of Jewish Identity Politics (Winchester: Zero Books, 2011), pp. 148–49. ↵
46) Alain de Benoist, “Die Methoden der Neuen Inquisition,” in Schöne vernetzte Welt (Tübingen: Hohenrain Verlag, 2001), pp. 190–205. ↵
47) Michael Grant, Myths of the Greeks and Romans (London: Phoenix, 1989), pp. 289–303. ↵
48) Albert Henrichs, “What Is a Greek God?,” in The Gods of Ancient Greece, ed. Jan Bremmer and Andrew Erskine (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), p. 26. ↵
49) Georges Sorel, Les Illusions du progrès (Paris: Marcel Rivière, 1911), pp. 5–6. ↵
50) Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, in The Complete Plays of Sophocles, ed. and trans. R. C. Jebb (New York: Bantam Books, 1979), p. 250. ↵