by Greg Johnson
The male principle is associated with truth, light, the Sun, virility, activeness, and stability. Sometimes it is associated with the Universal One that existed before the Dyad. The female quality is associated with deception, changeability, the moon, the earth, darkness, wetness, passivity, and dependence on another. In Evola’s words:
What the Greeks called “heterity,” that is, being connected to another or being centered on someone other than oneself, is a characteristic proper to the cosmic female, whereas to have one’s own principle in oneself is proper to the pure male . . . female life is almost always devoid of an individual value but is linked to someone else in her need, born of vanity, to be acknowledged, noticed, flattered, admired, and desired (this extroverted tendency is connected to that “looking outside” which on a metaphysical level has been attributed to Shakti).122
These forces then manifest in actual men and women. But Evola is clear to maintain that absolute man and woman are not simply aspects of character. Instead, they are “objective elements working in individuals almost as impersonally as the chemical properties inherent in a particular substance.”123 As Evola says:
before and besides existing in the body, sex exists in the soul and, to a certain extent, in the spirit itself. We are man or woman inwardly before being so externally; the primordial male or female quality penetrates and saturates the whole of our being visibly and invisibly . . . just as a color permeates a liquid.124
As such, the absolute woman is not simply an idealized concept of woman. She is defined from the divine down to the human, and is not a human conception of something divine.
THE RELEVANCE OF THE ABSOLUTE WOMAN
The absolute woman is the rod by which all women are to be measured. Evola writes, “the only thing we can do is establish the superiority or inferiority of a given woman on the basis of her being more of less close to the female type, to the pure and absolute woman, and the same thing applies to man as well.”125 In addition, superiority is defined by how closely one realizes the absolute woman or man. “A woman who is perfectly woman is superior to a man who is imperfectly man, just as a farmer who is faithful to his land and performs his work perfectly is superior to a king who cannot do his own work,” says Evola.126
Many more characteristics are associated with the female principle than those described below; however, these are the primary ones highlighted by Evola in his writings on the subject.
THE WATERS & CHANGEABILITY
The fundamental feminine characteristic is changeability. Thus, the female is associated with water, which is fluid and adapts to whatever form it is put into, just as matter/Shakti is shaped by form/Shiva. Evola writes that woman “reflects the cosmic female according to its aspect as material receiving a form that is external to her and that she does not produce from within.”127 This fits in with Carl Jung’s description of woman’s animus, which is not self-created, but instead is a subconscious collection of the thoughts of men.
This changeability is related to woman’s tendency to live for someone outside of herself, due to the fluidity and changeability of her nature. For Evola, this means following the path of a mother or lover, fixing herself to a virile force in order to obtain transcendence. In contrast, “modern woman in wanting to be for herself has destroyed herself.”128 By believing that she is merely her personality, she loses her transcendent aspect.
This watery nature is seen in the association of the female with water. According to Evola, water represents “undifferentiated life prior to and not yet fixed in form,” that “which runs or flows and is therefore unstable and changeable,” and “the principle of all fertility and growth according to the analogy of water’s fertilizing action on earth and soil.”129
Evola also describes the correct relationship between the principle of water and that of fire, associated with the male: “when the feminine principle, whose force is centrifugal, does not turn to fleeting objects but rather to a ‘virile’ stability in which she finds a limit to her ‘restlessness.’”130
Evola assents that certain modern women may appear very unchangeable, but stresses that this is at an outer level of her being:
a possible rigidity may follow the reception of ideas due precisely to the passive way she has adopted them, which may appear under the guise of conformity and conservatism. In this way, we can explain the apparent contrast inherent in the fact that female nature is changeable, yet women mainly show conservative tendencies sociologically and a dislike for the new. This can be linked to their role in mythology as female figures of a Demeter or chthonic type who guard and avenge customs and the law—the law of blood and of the earth, but not the uranic law.131
Thus, a woman may be quite unchanging in her beliefs about society, etiquette, and morality, but will lack an attachment to a transcendent truth. Many of women’s ideas regarding social truths such as honor and virtue are “not true ethics but mere habits,” Evola says.132
This changeability of women explains the notion that women are at the same time more compassionate and more cruel than men; as woman is associated with the earth, she expresses both the tenderness of the mother and the cruelty of nature. The best example of this duality is the Greek goddess Artemis, who was both the protector of wild animals and the huntress.
WOMAN’S LACK OF BEING OR SOUL
Perhaps the most controversial characteristic of Evola’s absolute woman, which he gets from Weininger, is a common conception throughout history: that woman has no soul, or being. Weininger states that woman has no ego, referring to the Transcendental Ego of Immanuel Kant, which Evola describes as “above the whole world of phenomena (in metaphysical terms one would say ‘above all manifestation,’ like the Hindu ātman).”133 In some schools of Hinduism, the ātman (or “higher self”) is identical with the Brahman, the infinite soul of the Universe. In other Hindu conceptions, the ātman is the life-principle. As manifested existence would be impossible without the ātman, this description of woman as lacking a Transcendental Ego should not be taken to mean that women are incapable of developing and solidifying this aspect, though they may be at a disadvantage to men. Also, in the Kali Yuga, all people are the furthest removed from the divine, so modern men and women are likely in the same starting position in terms of development of Being.
Evola expands on the notion, stating that if soul means “psyche” or “principle of life,” then “it should signify in fact that woman not only has a soul but is eminently ‘soul,’” whereas man is not a soul but a “spirit.” He continues: “the point we believe settled is that woman is a part of ‘nature’ (in a metaphysical sense she is a manifestation of the same principle as nature) and that she affirms nature, whereas man by virtue of birth in the masculine human form goes tendentially beyond nature.”134
DECEPTION & A CONNECTION TO TRUTH
Another attribute of absolute woman is deceitfulness. In fact, Evola states that it is so essential that telling lies has been acknowledged as an essential characteristic in female nature “at all times and in all places by popular wisdom.”135 According to Weininger, this tendency is due to her lack of being. With no fixed essence, most women (and modern men) are attached to no transcendent truth, and therefore there is nothing to lie against—Truth only exists when one has substance and values. In Evola’s words:
Weininger observed that nothing is more baffling for a man than a woman’s response when caught in a lie. When asked why she is lying, she is unable to understand the question, acts astonished, bursts out crying, or seeks to pacify him by smiling. She cannot understand the ethical and transcendent side of lying or the fact that a lie represents damage to being and, as was acknowledged in ancient Iran, constitutes a crime even worse than killing. . . . The truth, pure and simple, is that woman is prone to lie and to disguise her true self even when she has no need to do so; this is not a social trait acquired in the struggle for existence, but something linked to her deepest and most genuine nature.136
This quality of deceit
fulness, while springing from the fundamental makeup of women, should not imply that it must be accepted as a given trait of all women, as Weininger sometimes implies. For, just like man, the ultimate goal of a woman’s existence is to connect with and live by the transcendent, which requires a fixation that cannot accept deception.
WOMAN’S INTUITION, MAN’S ETHICS & LOGIC
Another idea Evola gets from Weininger is the notion that absolute woman, since she lacks being, also lacks memory, logic, and ethics.137 In order to explain this, Evola distinguishes between two kinds of logic: everyday logic, which women can use quite successfully (though sometimes like a “sophist”) and “logic as a love of pure truth and inward coherence.”138 This distinction can most commonly be seen when women use logic in arguments as a means to personal ends, rather than to arrive at a truth beyond their desires. Evola writes:
woman, insofar as she is woman, will never know ethics in the categorical sense of pure inner law detached from every empirical, eudemonistic, sensitive, sentimental, and personal connection. Nothing in woman that may have an ethical character can be separated from instinct, sentiment, sexuality, or “life”; it can have no relationship with pure “being.”
Women’s primary tool of cognition is not logic but intuition and sensitivity.139
In explaining memory, Evola turns to Henri Bergson, who described two types of memory. One is more common in women: the memory connected to the subconscious, which may remember dreams, have premonitions, and unexpectedly recall forgotten experiences. The second type of memory, which women lack due to their fluid nature, is “determined, organized, and dominated by the intellect.”140
THE FEMALE PRINCIPLE AS POWERFUL, SOVEREIGN, & ACTIVE
Generally the female principle is described as passive, and the male as active. According to Evola, this is only true on the outermost plane. On the subtle plane, he says, “it is the woman who is active and the man who is passive (the woman is ‘actively passive’ and the man ‘passively active’).”141 In Hindu terms the impassible spirit (purusa) is masculine, while the active matrix of every conditioned form (prakriti) is feminine.142 To use the creation of a child as an example, man gives his seed, but it is woman who actively creates and gives birth to the child.
Mythology supports the sovereign aspect of woman. Evola gives the examples of the Earth goddess Cybele drawn in a chariot led by two tame tigers, and the Hindu goddess Durga seated on a lion with reins in her hands.143 Evola states that man knows of this sovereign quality in women, and “often owing to a neurotic unconscious overcompensation for his inferiority complex, he flaunts before woman an ostentatious manliness, indifference, or even brutality and disdain. But this secures him no advantage, on the contrary. The fact that woman often becomes a victim on an external, material, sentimental, or social level, giving rise to her instinctive ‘fear of loving,’ does not alter the fundamental structure of the situation.”144
ASSOCIATION WITH THE DEMONIC & ASPIRATION
Another “negative” quality of the absolute woman is that of aspiration, in the sense of a sucking quality, which also is associated with the demonic. On a profane level, in a degenerate form, this could be the woman who is constantly demanding more from her husband and others—more time spent together, a better car, a bigger house, or more attention. Since she has no “soul” (as defined above), she must fill the void within herself by sucking the vital force from others in emotional, monetary, or temporal vampirism.
On a metaphysical level, this quality merely refers to the divine female, Shakti, pulling Shiva into the world of manifestation. Thus, it is not good or bad, except to Gnostics and other sects that believe the created world is evil. As Evola states, woman “is oriented toward keeping that order which Gnosticism, in a dualistic background, called the ‘world of the Demiurge,’ the world of nature as opposed to that of the spirit.”145 This demonic element is expressed in actual life when women draw men to the realm of earth, nature, and children. It is expressed in sex when man’s seed is drawn into the woman, creating a child bound by nature. “Although ‘woman’ can give life,” Evola writes, “yet she shuts off or tends to shut off access to that which is beyond life.”146
In some Eastern thought, the man’s seed is thought to be the spiritual manhood—hence the formation of sects that teach men to retain this force to attain liberation rather than wasting it through ejaculation. Women properly trained are said to be able to capture this essence during sex, thus seducing the man into giving up his manhood.
The positive aspect of this trait lies in woman’s ability to overcome it, most often by following the path of the mother or lover. In the actions required by these paths (if following them in an attitude of self-sacrifice and not self-aggrandizement), she no longer drains others, but instead learns to build up a vital force within herself through renunciation of desires. By relinquishing the control of the ego/personality by being devoted to others instead, woman is able to fix herself to the transcendent.
Like the other qualities of absolute woman, that of aspiration also can be found in man, especially in the Kali Yuga. Evola refers to sexual practices found in Chinese Taoism, India, and Tibet, where the man sucks the vital female energy from a woman during sex, a technique he describes as bordering on “male ‘psychic’ vampirism.”147
THE VALUE OF ABSOLUTE WOMAN IN THE MODERN WORLD
In the Golden Age, we can imagine that the metaphysical elements comprising a person manifested in the proper way. In such a time, the highest classes gave birth to the highest people; race was indicative of a corresponding inner quality; beauty on the outside attested to an inner beauty; and physical gender aligned with the qualities of absolute man or woman.
But in the Kali Yuga, there are pariahs in the highest classes, men who act like women, and men of Aryan stock who do not embody any of the virtues attributed to their race. As Evola says, it is possible for a person to be a different sex in the body than they are in the soul. These cases are similar to those where individuals of one race “have the psychic and spiritual characteristics of another race.”148
Therefore, men today may not innately possess any virile seed, just as modern women do not necessarily express the absolute female principle. In reading Evola’s work, then, we must not mistakenly interpret what he says about absolute man or woman as corresponding with individual men and women of today. Modern men and women are almost completely removed from the deepest aspects of themselves, functioning only as personalities. Thus, a person’s sex or caste has little importance in determining vocations or social relations. What relevance, then, do Evola’s descriptions of absolute man and woman have in the modern world?
An answer is found in the existential Angst that defined the 20th century. Martin Heidegger wrote of the inauthentic life, and Jean-Paul Sartre of bad faith; most people today still fit the description of mere personalities, lacking divine connections or the means to find them. In a world that has lost its values and connection to Tradition, discovering these principles in our innermost natures becomes even more important. By examining Evola’s work, and that of other Traditionalists, we can find our way back to our true selves, the true relation between the sexes, and a connection to the transcendent.
Counter-Currents/North American New Right,
June 17, 2010
D. H. LAWRENCE’S
WOMEN IN LOVE
DEREK HAWTHORNE
_____________________
D. H. Lawrence’s greatest novel is also his most anti-modern. Written between April and October of 1916 in Cornwall, during some of the darkest days of the First World War, Women in Love was conceived as a sequel to The Rainbow. Women in Love continues the story of Ursula Brangwen’s life and the fulfillment she finds in a love affair with Rupert Birkin (who does not figure in The Rainbow at all). This relationship is, in fact, paired with another: that of Gudrun, Ursula’s sister (a very minor character in The Rainbow), and Gerald Crich, Birkin’s best friend. The novel follows the course of
both relationships.
The connection between the two novels seems a tenuous one at best, however, and one can read and appreciate Women in Love without any knowledge at all of The Rainbow. This has a great deal to do with the dramatic difference in tone between the two. In a letter, Lawrence described the relationship between the two novels as follows: “There is another novel, sequel to The Rainbow, called Women in Love . . . this actually does contain the results in one’s soul of the war; it is purely destructive, not like The Rainbow, destructive-consummating.”149
Women in Love is indeed “purely destructive”: it is grimly apocalyptic and misanthropic. There is little sense of the presence of nature this time: the novel moves almost entirely within the conscious and (more importantly) subconscious minds of its four main characters. And the backdrop is the ugly, human-built mechanicalness of the industrialized Midlands. It is easy to attribute the change in tone between the two novels as due to Lawrence’s horror at the war (“The war finished me,” he later said).
But one must not lose sight of the fact that the two novels do, in fact, tell one continuous story, and that the switch in tone is appropriate to what the second half of the story depicts: the fragmentary lives of individuals struggling to find fulfillment in the modern world. In his Foreword to the novel Lawrence wrote that it “took its final shape in the midst of the period of war, though it does not concern the war itself. I should wish the time to remain unfixed, so that the bitterness of the war may be taken for granted in the characters.” For Lawrence, as for Heidegger, the war was ultimately just an inevitable extension of the industrial age itself.
