Debuking Julius Evola and his influence on the AltRight

Ahh yes, I’m familiar with that. Growing up online was interesting, I was more sensitive to subtle cultural shifts and as time went on these figures would gradually expose you to alt-right/fascist ideas in small doses. It’s scary how well it works, they’ll hook onto anything they can to shove you down the rabbit hole. Outside of buddhism, popular spiritual corners tend to be neo-paganism, christianity, and occultism especially.

I think this is a brilliant idea actually, having someone like Hbomberguy, three arrows, philosophy tube, etc could help a lot with fascists attempting to take over the dhamma. I imagine it would also help people de radicalize and has some other unforeseen good affects.

I agree, I feel bad for people who act in monstrous ways, and worse yet for their victims. When we are compassionate, I think it helps us deal with the people who are acting monstrous much better as well. We think clearer.

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I did not read Evola’s book, and i know very little about fascism, but i think a better way of investigating or discussing ideas is to leave the author (or his ideological orientation) out of the equation. The following method leads nowhere in my opinion:

1- Evola was a fascist
2- Fascism is evil
3- He wrote a book
4- His understanding of Buddhism must be driven by his fascist views
5- Let us rebuke him

Instead, claims in his book can be investigated without referring to any of the above.

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With respect, probably it’s good for you to read his books and learn about fascism before telling others how they should go about dealing with either of these issues! :blush:

EDIT I just accidentally came across your other posts on this topic on another thread.

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How would reading Evola’s book or about fascism affect my input the method, Bhante?

I fail to see the connection with my other post. Could you please elaborate?

Fascism is, roughly speaking, the political ideology of Nazi Germany, and one with which Mr Evola admired very much. To the point of even having great affection and longing to be part of himmlers inner circle.
However, Evola did not call himself fascist. Rather hilariously he described himself as super fascist.

A small source on examples of fascism.
I understand your point, and there are times where even this would make sense, but in this case his ideological orientation is an inherent part of the problem and is the thing that needs to be countered.

*Super fascist :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
That said, it’s not a question of “must be driven” it is, in his own words, directly driven by his fascist ideology.
I think we can also affirm that fascism is evil, given the term was technically started by the Nazi Party of Italy’s leader Mussolini to describe his ideal rule and genocidal urges.

I’m not sure I understand what you mean, you can’t exactly investigate any of what Evola wrote without bringing up his fascism since fascist ideology was the entirety of what inspired him and his only reason, in his own words, for writing about buddhism was to contribute to his fascist interpretations of hinduism.

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What he believed might have influenced his understanding of Buddhism or Hinduism, but this would be his problem, why to make it ours? Instead, we can examine his interpretations of what the Buddha taught and avoiding entanglement with what could be his motives. If he was driven by ideology, should we do the same? How does that make us better? When prince Abhaya pinched his son as a cheap debating trick, the Buddha was not swayed by that.

Likewise :slight_smile: The alt-right pipeline is a general concept, so I feel it’s fine to link to these resources in the thread.

Here are some resources:

https://harvardpolitics.com/alt-right-pipeline/

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14 posts were merged into an existing topic: Holding thread - pl don’t contribute

Hello Erik,

I do not believe that the Buddha taught racist or supremacist ideology. He did not teach that we are equal either. In my understand, what he taught is that there is white and dark kamma and their fruits were not dismissed as meaningless. However, their ephemeral nature makes clinging to them causing suffering.

I am not a holocaust denier. I do not have the urge to confirm it all the time because i do not see value in denying it. My skepticism about history is not whether these tragic events took place or not, or whether fascism is an evil ideology or not, but the belief that a collective acknowledgement is a necessary condition for understanding evil and not repeating it. One drawback of this approach is that it could make denying historical facts appealing to many.

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It is fairly easy to see that passages such as these;

“Now, Ānanda, gifts to the following individuals may be expected to yield the following returns.

“Giving a gift to an animal, yields a return a hundred times over.

Giving a gift to an unvirtuous ordinary person, yields a return a thousand times over.

Giving a gift to a virtuous ordinary person, yields a return a hundred thousand times over (100,000).

Giving a gift to an outsider free of desire for sense pleasures, yields a return a trillion times over (1,000,000,000,000).

But giving a gift to someone practicing to realize the fruit of stream-entry yields incalculable, immeasurable returns. How much more so giving a gift to a stream-enterer? How much more so giving a gift to someone practicing to realize the fruit of once-return? How much more so giving a gift to a once-returner? How much more so giving a gift to someone practicing to realize the fruit of non-return? How much more so giving a gift to a non-returner? How much more so giving a gift to someone practicing to realize the fruit of arahantship? How much more so giving a gift to an arahant? How much more so giving a gift to a Private Buddha?

“How much more so giving a gift to the Supreme Buddha?

Can lead a person to draw wrong conclusions if they are to ignore verses like these;

“One to whom it might occur,
‘I’m a woman’ or ‘I’m a man’
Or ‘I’m anything at all’—
Is fit for Mara to address.”

I am not even going to try explaining any of this because if i am misunderstood, i too, might be called a fascist or whatnot.

To refute stupid views one can point out things like the hypocrisy of any one person who looks down on another when he himself has actually been just like that a countless amount of times [in past lives].

Whosoever debased by his pride, exalts himself and belittles other — know him as an outcast.

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It’s disturbing that a Buddhist would have the view that people should not be speaking out against racism. That is very regressive and it opens the door to discrimination and violence. Racism is not equal to anti-racism. Racism and other forms of hate have very real consequences.

Burying our heads in the sand and feigning ignorance about racism is backward. It does a disservice to those who are oppressed through acts of hate. Buddhism in the 21st century should be making the world a better place, not making things worse.

Also notice the reemergence of both-sides-ism. This time in the form of racism and anti-racism being equated with one another. Yes, I will question those motivations. :neutral_face:

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Participants are requested to please avoid calling each other names, accusing others of being fascists, racists, antisemitics etc.

This thread is temporarily suspended, pending moderator deliberations.

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Please be advised, for the second time,

This topic is now on a 30 minute timer, which means you will spend some time thinking before you post.

When you reflect, if you know: ‘This verbal action that I wish to do would lead to my own affliction, or to the affliction of others, or to the affliction of both; it is an unwholesome verbal action with painful consequences, with painful results,’ then you definitely should not do such a verbal action.

But when you reflect, if you know: ‘This verbal action that I wish to do would not lead to my own affliction, or to the affliction of others, or to the affliction of both; it is a wholesome verbal action with pleasant consequences, with pleasant results,’ then you may do such a verbal action.

and I can make go make dinner for my kids without having to worry about this topic blowing up again.

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You cannot avoid presenting Evola as a fascist because he is specifically showing buddhism in the light of fascist philosophy. It’s eel-wriggling to try and avoid that at all, The thread was aptly titled “Debunking/Rebuking Julius Evola and his influence on the AltRight” because his views are and remain inspired by and to the end goal of promoting a fascist dhamma. We aren’t talking about Julius Evola the person, we are talking about his ideas of “should the dhamma be used to justify killing Jewish people?”
“Are non whites human enough to practice the dhamma?”
“Does the dhamma advocate violence and slaughter?”
“Does the dhamma advocate caste systems?”
“Are non whites not human at all?”
“Is it alright to kill the people I dislike?”
Presenting Evola with his views in mind are presenting him in an honest way and giving preparation to see what he’s actually saying. I think also it’s a bit unwise to hold opinions such as yours when you haven’t read into his book at all nor who he is and have claimed a general lack of knowing to what fascism properly is. If you don’t know who the person is, how can you have any kind of view on him at all, wrong or right?

Thats because it is suspicious. You can’t “decouple from his personal view” when his personal view is the entire foundation and purpose of his writings. If perhaps, like HP Lovecraft, he’d just been writing on something without meaning to invoke his biases…then this kind of position makes sense. We can learn and appreciate alot of Lovecrafts work when we read it as it is.
But, the issue is that he isn’t like Lovecraft, he wasn’t writing from as non personal a point as possible. He specifically wrote about buddhism within the confines of his own views, to promote and advocate his views as being the dhamma.
Debunking his views is no different than when they rebuked Devadatta on account of his own views as well.

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As we are not discussing Evola the person, we must be discussing his views on Buddhism. Have you read the book Dana? If so, please quote where in the book he proposes what you described above. If you cannot find any, then quote from the book what you find evil so we can discuss it rationally.

Thanks

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His views on buddhism, are inherently, his personal views involving fascism.
He says this himself, openly even. He directly states he wrote about buddhism and interpreted buddhism to promote those views. You cannot separate his personal views from his views on buddhism when he himself pointed out they were connected and aimed towards the goal of promoting fascist spirituality.
We’ve given examples, links, quotes, proving the claims given in the thread.
You can’t separate his fascist ideology from his views on buddhism when his views are buddhism were in his own words only a vehicle to connect to his fascist interpretations of hinduism.
Julius Evola was not shy about this, he has said himself that his goals were to promote his view when he wrote, and when he talked about his view of buddhism.

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Your views about him are duly noted, but again, have you read the book? can you quote what you find evil from the book?

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