‘…a hunch that the peasantry’s chief enemy is the bureaucracy that pretends to comfort them.’
This is not a hunch. It’s a fact. And we see it being played out with the Covid lockdown. The bureaucracy will continue to receive their salaries in full while the ‘peasantry’ – the people who actually do real, useful work – are forbidden to leave their house. It is disgusting.
Moreover, I have seen quite a few interviews with Bannon and he always makes perfect sense to me. And if I want to know what’s happening out there I certainly need to include Breitbart in my news sources, because it inform me of certain events and facts that the MSM works very hard to hide.
SA
Scott Allan
4 years ago
What drivel and navel gazing is this rubbish!
Honestly this is a waste of everyone’s eyeballs.
The attempt to connect Steve Bannon to Nazi’s like Hitler and Goebbels is ludicrous.
Further he attempts to redefine Traditionalism as far right or facism. Nothing could be further from the truth.
This is the very worst of “Hack” journalism and is a clear attempt by a Corbyn disciple to use the crisis of the Corona virus to make some cheap points.
Lee Johnson
4 years ago
You are left with the impression that Gavin Haynes does not much like Bannon or Traditionalism to start with. Difficult for the review to have traction when Hitler is brought into the argument on the first line !
Wasn’t it Jamie Whyte’s “Bad Thoughts” that listed “You sound like Hitler, so shut up !” ?
Gavin Haynes worked for Vice, which is not noted for its intellectual rigour or fondness for tradition. Although it is maintaining the recent progressive media tradition of laying off most of its staff.
Yes, that has been happening for some years. I have read The Spectator for 40 years but I will not pay for it any more. And that was the last remaining product of the MSM that I was prepared to pay for. (I gave up on the TV 20 years ago and all the newspapers 15 years ago).
The irony is that in the US, Fox News is now by far the leading cable channel. CNN did not have a single news show in the top 20 in Q1. Fox had eight of the top ten shows, and 14 of the top 20. A majority of the population wishes to consume media that is more or less ‘conservative’, hence the ongoing success of the Daily Mail. But the media classes have no intention of giving people want they want.
I’d suggest those complaining about the leftward move within journalism consider the following: that, as you age and either remain ideologically static or drift slightly rightward, the personnel of most journalistic organisations maintains a consistent average age as oldies retire and youngsters are hired, and thus what you perceive as a leftward march in journalism is simply a reflection of society’s ideological trend as a whole relative to your static position. In other words, twas ever thus. One can hold steady or try to move with the times. But wishing that national organs of political opinion don’t gradually move with society doesn’t seem reasonable.
DL
David Lucas
4 years ago
I would have thought Yoram Hazony (Virtues of Nationalism) was a good reference point here – but Hazony’s distinction between imperialism and nationalism undermines Haynes’ central argument. It might not be desirable for nations and cultures to turn inwards, but it’s not in itself evil, or threatening to neighbours. It is imperialism that is a threat.
A ‘mystical’ attitude to place – the sacredness of place and home – is how we best protect the environment – not liberal ‘Anywhere’ utilitarianism. It’s hysterical that Haynes thinks going into an ‘esoteric bookshop’ is somehow suspect. But then I’ve spent a lot of time in esoteric bookshops…
DG
David George
4 years ago
Well that was interesting, I didn’t even know that what I believed had a name – I thought I was a conservative. Steve Bannon is always worth paying attention to.
All in all, I would say that the phrase “piss poor” would be a more apt description of this shoddy, unbalanced piece of “journalism” rather than the subjects it purports to engage with. This sensationalist and poorly researched screed is more suited to the likes of Haynes’ previous outlet Vice and seems rather at odds with the mission statement of Unherd.
Loved your “piss poor” remark. This is an excellent example of the waste of university. This guy needs a real 10 years hard work to snap him out of his navel gazing.
AB
Andrew Baldwin
4 years ago
Gavin Haynes writes a fine appreciation of Steve Bannon. Unfortunately he also writes, in neo-con fashion: “it was Dugin’s ‘tanks to Tblisi’ sloganeering that persuaded Putin to seize South Ossetia in 2008.” Haynes should know that the Georgian president at the time of the Russo-Georgian War, the highly unstable Mikheil Saakashvili, came to power after a duly elected president, Eduard Shevardnadze was deposed in an operation that smelled of American-engineered regime change. It was Saakashvili who started shelling Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, violating an agreement monitored by the OSCE between South Ossetia and Georgia agreed on in 1992. This was the conclusion of the EU’s own report on the subject, written by Swiss diplomat, Heidi Tagliavini, who did, nevertheless, criticize Russia for carrying the war much farther into Georgia proper and causing much more suffering than was necessary. South Ossetia has still not been annexed by Russia, although with the ruble as its currency and so forth, in many ways it does operate much like a part of the Russian Federation. It should be remembered that in all the time between 1992, when South Ossetia ceased to be run from the Georgian capital and 2008, Russia never recognized it as an independent state. It only did this for South Ossetia, as well as Abkhazia, after NATO countries recognized Kosovo as an independent state following its unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia. Anyone who has watched events over the last three decades in the former Soviet Union should by now have a degree of humility in predicting what will happen next. Although it now seems unlikely that Abkhazia or South Ossetia will again be part of Georgia, this is still the aspiration of many Georgians, and there are a lot of ethnic Georgians living in Georgia proper now who are refugees from Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Whatever Western journalists do, they should not propel a possible future into the present just to defame Putin or the Russian Federation. Incorporation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia into the Russian Federation is a possible outcome, but it hasn’t happened yet and may never do so.
PK
Paul K
4 years ago
‘Wodin’? Who is that? Do you mean Odin? Or Woden? Or are you confused?
Certainly this attempt to define traditionalism is confused. Obviously it is a smear-job, for starters – woo woo mysticism! Nazis! Goebbels! etc etc – but it’s also just wrong. Traditionalism as a spiritual philosphy – which is what it is, primarily, though some have tried to link it to politics, mostly unsuccessfully – focuses on the ‘perrennial’ faiths, which ar usually considered to be Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and one or two others. Mosr traditionalists – notably Guenon, who is quoted here – strongly reject the ‘occult’ and the old pagan religions. They’re regarded as falsehoods and distractions.
Mostly, though, as other commentators have noted, this is a poor, lazy and dishonest piece of ‘journalism’, which attempts not to shed light but to frighten people away from the kind of ‘fruitcake’ who might believe that there is more to life than economic growth and Vice-like arguments about ‘privelege.’ A wasted opportunity, I’d say. Next time, I recommend asking Mark Sedgewick, who has written a genuinely enlightening, and non-partisan, book on Traditionalism to do something serious instead.
JH
Hosias Kermode
4 years ago
I have tried to understand whether this article is actually saying anything and come to the conclusion it is not.
NO
northernobserver331924
4 years ago
Mr Haynes, come over to our quadrant, the water is fine.
JO
jamesjomeara
4 years ago
“Gary Lachman recently published a book on the “Alt-Right” and the occult called Dark Star Rising. In it, he takes Trump’s debt to Norman Vincent Peale, some remarks about meme magic, and an off-hand comment of Steve Bannon on Evola — not even enough material for an article — and fluffs it up to book length with a lot of hot air and filler. James O’Meara’s Magick for Housewives shows what a scholar of greater integrity, imagination, and willingness to do the necessary research can do with the same topic.” — Greg Johnson
Why does anything have to come after liberal democracy? How about we point out how well the fruits of the liberal order have equipped us to deal with this pandemic.
TF
tomfras
4 years ago
A good, thought-provoking article, thank you. I do feel that the author has too narrow an understanding of traditionalism at times. Only because it is clear that he has strong bias against it. It is certainly the quadrant of political thought given least currency in our epoch, and for obvious reasons, some of which are mentioned here. However, As the author points out, now that the other three quadrants of political thought are either failed or failing, it is important that moderation is brought to calm the tides. As such, a lot more reading and study of traditionalist thought needs to be done!!
BU
Brain Unwashed
4 years ago
What the f**k was that drivel that have just wasted my time reading
IM
Ian McGregor
4 years ago
This “intellectual” mish mash is supposed to represent something or create a new alt-right hate figure called Traditionalism with a capital “T” while disappearing up its own sophistry. It ends up being a hopeless stew of half baked thoughts intended to show the writer’s “wide ranging” knowledge. If you try to put down traditionalism with a small “t” by equating it to Nazi occultism, fascism, communism and current liberalism then you deserve to be castigated.
The small “t” traditionalism simply means tried and proven values on which a relationship, family or society can build a secure future. All the other ‘isms” have tried and failed to replace that simple philosophy.
MS
Mark Stein
4 years ago
I thought I recognised the insane, vacuous, dishonest, self-righteous style of writing. The attempt to group any one not on the loony left with Nazi is not only pathetic but sadly typical in todays media. Read this guy’s articles on Orania.
BC
Basil Chamberlain
4 years ago
Traditionalism is not a topic of which I’ve done a major study; but I can’t help wondering if it’s actually more modernist a philosophy than it wants to admit. As I see it, the distinguishing feature of really traditional (small “t”) philosophies, and the societies that evolve from them, is a commitment to a specific doctrinal or dogmatic truth. Thus, for example, Christianity separated itself from Judaism on the basis that Christians claimed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, a statement that orthodox Jews would consider blasphemous. Really traditional societies are non-relativistic and often intolerant, though not invariably so; tolerance can exist in such a context through the acknowledgement that one might be honestly mistaken.
Traditionalism (capital “t”) on the other hand is premised on the erasure of real dogmatic differences between the traditional religions; all are supposed to be united to the transcendent. Traditionalists are enjoined to commit themselves to one of the world’s primordial religious traditions (they must not mix and match), but in a fundamental sense it doesn’t really matter which tradition they choose. This is surely a grave heresy from the point of view of any of the Abrahamic religions, though perhaps less so from that of the eastern creeds. For an illiberal philosophy, moreover, Traditionalism is curiously relativistic, preaching that no established tradition can be criticised from the outside. This is surely alien to most pre-modern orthodoxies, many of which routinely declared that the competing creeds were false.
Traditionalism, as I understand it, seems like an attempt to re-create the world as a living museum. The museum has a Christian section and an Islamic wing; one room is dedicated to the Buddha, and another to the idols of antiquity. Like the curator of a museum, Traditionalism does not choose between or judge its exhibits; all are considered of value. A museum might have trouble deciding whether to put a sixteenth-century Japanese Christian icon in the room devoted to Japan, or in the room containing Christian artefacts; in the same spirit, Traditionalism rejects syncretism,
But in the end, what could be more modernist a project than the creation of a museum?
BM
journovox
3 years ago
So for Americans on the Left, this is scary, but destroying half the Middle East – a goal shared by both liberal and neocon is somehow fine? FYI – wokeism is way closer to fascism than this stuff. If you want to understand wokeism, just open Mien Kampf in front of a mirror….as for this author, who writes: “Traditionalism is a total rejection of racism in that it is a brotherhood of the spirit”, apparently that is now a problem? I guess it would be as nothing is a racist as the theories of the wokerati.
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‘…a hunch that the peasantry’s chief enemy is the bureaucracy that pretends to comfort them.’
This is not a hunch. It’s a fact. And we see it being played out with the Covid lockdown. The bureaucracy will continue to receive their salaries in full while the ‘peasantry’ – the people who actually do real, useful work – are forbidden to leave their house. It is disgusting.
Moreover, I have seen quite a few interviews with Bannon and he always makes perfect sense to me. And if I want to know what’s happening out there I certainly need to include Breitbart in my news sources, because it inform me of certain events and facts that the MSM works very hard to hide.
What drivel and navel gazing is this rubbish!
Honestly this is a waste of everyone’s eyeballs.
The attempt to connect Steve Bannon to Nazi’s like Hitler and Goebbels is ludicrous.
Further he attempts to redefine Traditionalism as far right or facism. Nothing could be further from the truth.
This is the very worst of “Hack” journalism and is a clear attempt by a Corbyn disciple to use the crisis of the Corona virus to make some cheap points.
You are left with the impression that Gavin Haynes does not much like Bannon or Traditionalism to start with.
Difficult for the review to have traction when Hitler is brought into the argument on the first line !
Wasn’t it Jamie Whyte’s “Bad Thoughts” that listed “You sound like Hitler, so shut up !” ?
Gavin Haynes worked for Vice, which is not noted for its intellectual rigour or fondness for tradition. Although it is maintaining the recent progressive media tradition of laying off most of its staff.
Yes, that has been happening for some years. I have read The Spectator for 40 years but I will not pay for it any more. And that was the last remaining product of the MSM that I was prepared to pay for. (I gave up on the TV 20 years ago and all the newspapers 15 years ago).
The irony is that in the US, Fox News is now by far the leading cable channel. CNN did not have a single news show in the top 20 in Q1. Fox had eight of the top ten shows, and 14 of the top 20. A majority of the population wishes to consume media that is more or less ‘conservative’, hence the ongoing success of the Daily Mail. But the media classes have no intention of giving people want they want.
I’d suggest those complaining about the leftward move within journalism consider the following: that, as you age and either remain ideologically static or drift slightly rightward, the personnel of most journalistic organisations maintains a consistent average age as oldies retire and youngsters are hired, and thus what you perceive as a leftward march in journalism is simply a reflection of society’s ideological trend as a whole relative to your static position. In other words, twas ever thus. One can hold steady or try to move with the times. But wishing that national organs of political opinion don’t gradually move with society doesn’t seem reasonable.
I would have thought Yoram Hazony (Virtues of Nationalism) was a good reference point here – but Hazony’s distinction between imperialism and nationalism undermines Haynes’ central argument. It might not be desirable for nations and cultures to turn inwards, but it’s not in itself evil, or threatening to neighbours. It is imperialism that is a threat.
A ‘mystical’ attitude to place – the sacredness of place and home – is how we best protect the environment – not liberal ‘Anywhere’ utilitarianism. It’s hysterical that Haynes thinks going into an ‘esoteric bookshop’ is somehow suspect. But then I’ve spent a lot of time in esoteric bookshops…
Well that was interesting, I didn’t even know that what I believed had a name – I thought I was a conservative. Steve Bannon is always worth paying attention to.
The author of this piece doesn’t seem to have much of a grasp of Traditionalism, a school of thought comprised of a veritable elite of 20th century metaphysicians and theological scholars coming from a variety of spiritual traditions throughout the world (Guénon, Evola, Titus Burckhardt, Hossein Nasser, Frithjof Schuon, Huston Smith, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Marco Pallis, Martin Lings etc. etc.). It seems more of a mixture of a lazy skim-reading and subsequent shilling of Teitelbaum’s book combined with Haynes own bitchy political prejudices. Its poor research demonstrated by the fact that even an imbedded link within the article itself shows that Dugin’s “Fourth Political Theory”is not a” a book on Traditionalism” but, unsurprisingly, a book on political theory! (As an aside, if this article is anything to go by, Teitelbaum himself also seems to have a very shallow understanding of the Traditionalist school, and its “big reveal” re:Bannon has been an open secret since at least mid-2017(!), being covered by the likes of Joshua Green in Vanity Fair around that time!)
All in all, I would say that the phrase “piss poor” would be a more apt description of this shoddy, unbalanced piece of “journalism” rather than the subjects it purports to engage with. This sensationalist and poorly researched screed is more suited to the likes of Haynes’ previous outlet Vice and seems rather at odds with the mission statement of Unherd.
Loved your “piss poor” remark. This is an excellent example of the waste of university. This guy needs a real 10 years hard work to snap him out of his navel gazing.
Gavin Haynes writes a fine appreciation of Steve Bannon. Unfortunately he also writes, in neo-con fashion: “it was Dugin’s ‘tanks to Tblisi’ sloganeering that persuaded Putin to seize South Ossetia in 2008.” Haynes should know that the Georgian president at the time of the Russo-Georgian War, the highly unstable Mikheil Saakashvili, came to power after a duly elected president, Eduard Shevardnadze was deposed in an operation that smelled of American-engineered regime change. It was Saakashvili who started shelling Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, violating an agreement monitored by the OSCE between South Ossetia and Georgia agreed on in 1992. This was the conclusion of the EU’s own report on the subject, written by Swiss diplomat, Heidi Tagliavini, who did, nevertheless, criticize Russia for carrying the war much farther into Georgia proper and causing much more suffering than was necessary. South Ossetia has still not been annexed by Russia, although with the ruble as its currency and so forth, in many ways it does operate much like a part of the Russian Federation. It should be remembered that in all the time between 1992, when South Ossetia ceased to be run from the Georgian capital and 2008, Russia never recognized it as an independent state. It only did this for South Ossetia, as well as Abkhazia, after NATO countries recognized Kosovo as an independent state following its unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia. Anyone who has watched events over the last three decades in the former Soviet Union should by now have a degree of humility in predicting what will happen next. Although it now seems unlikely that Abkhazia or South Ossetia will again be part of Georgia, this is still the aspiration of many Georgians, and there are a lot of ethnic Georgians living in Georgia proper now who are refugees from Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Whatever Western journalists do, they should not propel a possible future into the present just to defame Putin or the Russian Federation. Incorporation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia into the Russian Federation is a possible outcome, but it hasn’t happened yet and may never do so.
‘Wodin’? Who is that? Do you mean Odin? Or Woden? Or are you confused?
Certainly this attempt to define traditionalism is confused. Obviously it is a smear-job, for starters – woo woo mysticism! Nazis! Goebbels! etc etc – but it’s also just wrong. Traditionalism as a spiritual philosphy – which is what it is, primarily, though some have tried to link it to politics, mostly unsuccessfully – focuses on the ‘perrennial’ faiths, which ar usually considered to be Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and one or two others. Mosr traditionalists – notably Guenon, who is quoted here – strongly reject the ‘occult’ and the old pagan religions. They’re regarded as falsehoods and distractions.
Mostly, though, as other commentators have noted, this is a poor, lazy and dishonest piece of ‘journalism’, which attempts not to shed light but to frighten people away from the kind of ‘fruitcake’ who might believe that there is more to life than economic growth and Vice-like arguments about ‘privelege.’ A wasted opportunity, I’d say. Next time, I recommend asking Mark Sedgewick, who has written a genuinely enlightening, and non-partisan, book on Traditionalism to do something serious instead.
I have tried to understand whether this article is actually saying anything and come to the conclusion it is not.
Mr Haynes, come over to our quadrant, the water is fine.
“Gary Lachman recently published a book on the “Alt-Right” and the occult called Dark Star Rising. In it, he takes Trump’s debt to Norman Vincent Peale, some remarks about meme magic, and an off-hand comment of Steve Bannon on Evola — not even enough material for an article — and fluffs it up to book length with a lot of hot air and filler. James O’Meara’s Magick for Housewives shows what a scholar of greater integrity, imagination, and willingness to do the necessary research can do with the same topic.” — Greg Johnson
https://www.amazon.com/Magi…
Why does anything have to come after liberal democracy? How about we point out how well the fruits of the liberal order have equipped us to deal with this pandemic.
A good, thought-provoking article, thank you. I do feel that the author has too narrow an understanding of traditionalism at times. Only because it is clear that he has strong bias against it. It is certainly the quadrant of political thought given least currency in our epoch, and for obvious reasons, some of which are mentioned here. However, As the author points out, now that the other three quadrants of political thought are either failed or failing, it is important that moderation is brought to calm the tides. As such, a lot more reading and study of traditionalist thought needs to be done!!
What the f**k was that drivel that have just wasted my time reading
This “intellectual” mish mash is supposed to represent something or create a new alt-right hate figure called Traditionalism with a capital “T” while disappearing up its own sophistry. It ends up being a hopeless stew of half baked thoughts intended to show the writer’s “wide ranging” knowledge. If you try to put down traditionalism with a small “t” by equating it to Nazi occultism, fascism, communism and current liberalism then you deserve to be castigated.
The small “t” traditionalism simply means tried and proven values on which a relationship, family or society can build a secure future. All the other ‘isms” have tried and failed to replace that simple philosophy.
I thought I recognised the insane, vacuous, dishonest, self-righteous style of writing. The attempt to group any one not on the loony left with Nazi is not only pathetic but sadly typical in todays media. Read this guy’s articles on Orania.
Traditionalism is not a topic of which I’ve done a major study; but I can’t help wondering if it’s actually more modernist a philosophy than it wants to admit. As I see it, the distinguishing feature of really traditional (small “t”) philosophies, and the societies that evolve from them, is a commitment to a specific doctrinal or dogmatic truth. Thus, for example, Christianity separated itself from Judaism on the basis that Christians claimed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, a statement that orthodox Jews would consider blasphemous. Really traditional societies are non-relativistic and often intolerant, though not invariably so; tolerance can exist in such a context through the acknowledgement that one might be honestly mistaken.
Traditionalism (capital “t”) on the other hand is premised on the erasure of real dogmatic differences between the traditional religions; all are supposed to be united to the transcendent. Traditionalists are enjoined to commit themselves to one of the world’s primordial religious traditions (they must not mix and match), but in a fundamental sense it doesn’t really matter which tradition they choose. This is surely a grave heresy from the point of view of any of the Abrahamic religions, though perhaps less so from that of the eastern creeds. For an illiberal philosophy, moreover, Traditionalism is curiously relativistic, preaching that no established tradition can be criticised from the outside. This is surely alien to most pre-modern orthodoxies, many of which routinely declared that the competing creeds were false.
Traditionalism, as I understand it, seems like an attempt to re-create the world as a living museum. The museum has a Christian section and an Islamic wing; one room is dedicated to the Buddha, and another to the idols of antiquity. Like the curator of a museum, Traditionalism does not choose between or judge its exhibits; all are considered of value. A museum might have trouble deciding whether to put a sixteenth-century Japanese Christian icon in the room devoted to Japan, or in the room containing Christian artefacts; in the same spirit, Traditionalism rejects syncretism,
But in the end, what could be more modernist a project than the creation of a museum?
So for Americans on the Left, this is scary, but destroying half the Middle East – a goal shared by both liberal and neocon is somehow fine? FYI – wokeism is way closer to fascism than this stuff. If you want to understand wokeism, just open Mien Kampf in front of a mirror….as for this author, who writes: “Traditionalism is a total rejection of racism in that it is a brotherhood of the spirit”, apparently that is now a problem? I guess it would be as nothing is a racist as the theories of the wokerati.