What Do Masculinists Want?

Only when the king is dead can one think political theology. If he be not dead in body, let him be afflicted unto death. By body, think the immaterial body of sovereignty.1 Yet the immaterial body of sovereignty stands—rises to presence and visibility—only in relation to the physical body of the king.2 In his physical body as a male, the king is to be manly, masculine, virile. Likewise in his immaterial body as sovereign. Kingship rests on this duality, simultaneously physical and immaterial, the constitutional foundation for any political theology worth the name.3Such is the groundwork on which we find erected the political theology of Julius Evola, the mid-twentieth-century Italian theorist of Tradition, self-avowed “superfascist,” and sometime esotericist and magician.4 In subsequent decades, his influence has grown so great that in 2003 a founder of the French New Right declared that “there is no doubt that Evolian political thought has, above all, seduced all the currents related directly or indirectly to the radical Right.”5 One now observes Evola's ongoing impact among the twenty-first-century identitarian youth movements in Europe and America, including those I have elsewhere categorized as masculinist: fixated as much on sex and gender as on civilizational, ethnic, national, or racial identities.6 Evola is an arch-masculinist, and his Traditionalism centers on a threefold decline—constitutional, sacral, and virile—from the sacred sovereigns and warrior aristocrats of a Golden Age to the long-term “devirilization” which terminates in our anarchic and disenchanted Dark Age.7 Studying Evola and his influence with care, one can better approach several questions regarding the radical Right, not least that of our title: What do (Traditional) masculinists want?While not a fascist thinker, Evola collaborated with Mussolini on racial doctrines, working to better align the Italian regime with the German Third Reich. During WWII, he engaged in esotericism research for the SS Ahnenerbe (Ancestral Heritage). Investigating Freemasonry in Vienna, Evola became paralyzed from the waist down when a shell from an Allied bombing raid exploded nearby as he tempted fate by wandering around the city. He believed the injury to be, in truth, a spiritual attack. In the 1950s, Italian prosecutors charged him with inspiring youth in the right-wing Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI). It was at this time, when called to trial and accused of being a neofascist, that Evola declared himself a superfascist: above and beyond, and thereby a critic of, fascism.8 Yet for all his postwar influence, Evola also sharply critiques right-wing vanguardism in a late work, his 1972 Men Among the Ruins: “The enthusiasm of young militants who conduct an active propaganda should be commended, but it is not enough.”9 To understand what he does offer young vanguardists requires an investigation into Traditional political theology and constitutional theory.From CasaPound Italia to the French Bloc Identitaire to the American alt-right, scholars have recently begun to study the Euro-American identitarian youth movements.10 Yet few consider political theology in such movements or the broader Right—excepting, that is, a large but dubious literature on the specter of Christian nationalism.11 Where will the contemporary Right turn for its theology? Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy?12 Perhaps strains of Protestantism: Lutheran, Calvinist, Reformed, evangelical, or charismatic? Or will the Right draw on “indigenous” European or Indo-European religions, be they Hellenic, Roman, Germanic, or Norse?13 According to Evola, while at first glance there appear to be deep divergences among these religions, upon closer inspection what proves central is how well they embody and evince Tradition. Religious divides loom too large in the self-understanding of most right-wing activists, according to Evola. It remains to be seen if the Right follows him on this point—but given his influence among identitarian youth, and indeed more broadly, it is worth considering what his political theology entails.Identitarians look for intellectual guidance not only to Evola, but also to various members of the Conservative Revolution.14 They most often reference Carl Schmitt and Martin Heidegger, each in his own way also complicit in and critical of the fascist regimes they, for a time, served.15 As a jurist and author of a landmark treatise on constitutional Schmitt identitarian constitutional as he on the of the on and and on the of the Schmitt was not a theorist of in the of Evola. as the most in the of he in a broader on as more a on or a for various and and also on constitutional Evola, and to what a the of around the the but to or masculinists draw from Evola a Traditional of and a political theology which all In the we our approach to Evola and Traditional political theology to questions which will such there in the of If what do they look To the one with a to movements or a Traditional is To the we will consider the of the as Evola the Studying great and the Evola a in Traditional and by a of as the for constitutional and and warrior Evola such with the which he in the and and from the to investigation will as first the influence of Evola on contemporary Euro-American a approach to in and and of how Evola and the as a with to in the to the of in the Traditional of sacred and on how Evola while the on of identitarian and Tradition, given and regarding the of in right-wing political of the more of the Euro-American identitarian youth movements is upon In identitarian the of gender In America, to the of the in the of the of identitarian movements is not only a on in of or but on identitarian youth movements a of the spiritual of in broader they one of intellectual the French New Right who on of in his a Evola, in a for and the of the or and the in influence on the and and in impact on and New As a but most of young in a of with of intellectual and and on what European Identitaire in in and CasaPound Italia from the by the American alt-right, a of and and in active those in As with most around the from and the the Right in and the in New Yet identitarian young to appear in the of more right-wing and In a of the who was at was the on with at his by and In a of in a of for in the identitarian the Martin an for of a in the the to those who or the youth of consider of Europe have will to they they to any they to have any more and what it to and for of the has It is a that will if we find a if our will to our and our and the that we to this in reference to the postwar and and political the late of the and the of of and of the we that there who in to the of the understand or to as have the as it is from the it as an of to the by any have all of the the and among of it and became what for Evola, the in to the and to its constitutional in a of and in which the and the As Evola In the of has from a in which the is to and to a in which this is an of its own and to all his that is of long-term of or in which to be to and and and by and and Evolian to and with reference to a this a constitutional of and and appear to be a of right-wing in Europe and its study of intellectual and is thereby well as and intellectual in Evola is not As Evola was with members of the Conservative and was a to and critic of fascist and as a postwar for right-wing movements from the of to Evolian of follows from his of a and of how a in a Golden that of or the of into in subsequent the and the or Dark Age the the Evola Evola this in his the first of the of of various and in relation to According to Tradition, is is and is and they to the of and they from above and It the the it the great of approach to the and it the and it the the and the and it the political the Traditional to sacred and warrior of or identitarian political we they as and an a in contemporary Europe and 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vanguardism in the Euro-American identitarian youth rests at the one they appear as radical They and with the They a or the they often evince to of in to the thought of the as one of and its and at who to and of if at all, do such movements right-wing vanguardism with to the a the approach this of a Traditional one the of and in Tradition, the of of any and all of of does not of well as right-wing is one of the of if any is to be in the of at great which for an several and and one can and the and by to there is no such as a Traditional in the with several and the as the to the Evola the of in the Traditional as of the political be to a that is from the one of the it be to the of the several the to a being as a was to the and to the related to the physical of the at a what or what was a of and as of which often by a of and and which by a being according to a of and who be as a In to this the of the no what his was believed to to the that and this we find the the political from the among 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