RENE GUENON 23

Rene Guenon, Miscellanea (Collected Works of Rene Guenon), translated from the French by Henry D. Fohr, Cecil Bethell, Patrick Moore & Hubert Schiff (Hillsdale, NY: Sophia Perennis, 1976, 2003).

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Rene Guenon, Insights into Islamic Esoterism and Taoism (Collected Works of Rene Guenon), translated from the French by Henry D. Fohr, edited by Samuel D. Fohr (Hillsdale, NY: Sophia Perennis, 1973, 2003) (Form "The Influence of Islamic Civilization in the West": "Most Europeans [and Americans?] have not accurately assessed the importance of the contribution that Islamic civilization has made to its own, nor have they understood the nature of their borrowings from this civilization in the past, some going so far as to disregard totally all that is connected with it. This is because the history they are taught makes a travesty of the facts and seems to have been altered intentionally on a great many points. Indeed, this history goes to extremes in flaunting the little respect it has for Islamic civilization, the merits of which it habitually disparages each time an occasion presents itself. It is important to point out that the teaching of history in European universities pays no heed to the influences in question. On the contrary, the truths which ought to be told on this subject, whether though teaching or writing, are systematically set aside, especially concerning the most important events." Id. at 38, 38. "Even stranger is the Europeans consider themselves the direct heirs of Hellenic civilization, whereas the facts belie this claim. The truth is that Greek science and philosophy were transmitted to Europeans through Muslim intermediaries, as history itself incontestably bears out; in other words, the intellectual patrimony of the Greeks reached the West only after it had been seriously studied in the Near East, and had it not been for Islamic scholars and philosophers, Europeans would have remained in total ignorance of these teachings for a very long time, if indeed, they would ever have come to know them." Id. at 39.).

ANOMIE AND THE WESTERN DELUSION OF IDENTITY, FREEDOM (CONTROL), AND EQUALITY

Liah Greenfeld, Mind, Modernity, Madness: The Impact of Culture on Human Experience (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard U. Press, 2013) ("Why do the secular focus of nationalism and the two principles embodied in the society constructed on its basis lead to madness--or schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness? All three of these features place the individual in control of his or her destiny, eliminating the expectation of putting things right in the afterlife, making one the ultimate authority in deciding on one's priorities, encouraging one to strive for a higher social status (since one is presumed to be equal to everyone, but one wants to be equal only to those who are superior), and giving one the right to choose one's social position (since the presumption of fundamental equality makes everyone interchangeable) and therefore identity. But this very liberty implied in nationalism, both empowering and encouraging the individual to choose what to be--in contrast to all the religious pre-national societies in which no one was asked 'what do you want to be when you grow up?' since one was whatever one was born--makes the formation of the individual identity problematic, and the more so the moire choices for the definition of one's identity a society offers and the more insistent it is on equality. A clear sense of identity being a condition sine qua non for adequate mental functioning malformation of identity leads to mental disease, but modern culture cannot help the individual to acquire such clear sense, it is inherently confusing. This cultural insufficiency--the inability of a culture to provide individuals within it with consistent guidance--was named anomie by Durkheim" Id. at 4-5.).

HANS FALLADA

Hans Fallada, Alone in Berlin, translated form the German by Michael Hoffmann, with an afterword beget Wilkes (New York: Penguin Classics, 2009).

Hans Fallada, Once a Jaibird: A Novel, translated from the German by Eric Sutton, revised by Nicholas Jacobs, Gardis Cramer von Laue & Linden Lawson (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2015).

Hans Fallada, A Small Circus: A Novel, translated from the German by Michael Hoffmann (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2015).

Hans Fallada, A Stranger in My Own Country: The 1944 Prison Diary, translated from the German by Allan Bluden, edited by Jenny Williams and Sabine Lange (New York: Polity, 2015) ("But now they tore down the dyke themselves from the outside, and created a new law, or rather one law for the Party and one for those who were not in the Party. Finally, during the war, when any real sense of the law and any faith in the law had long since been extinguished, they decided that judges must reach their verdicts solely on the basis of 'the mood of the people'. As they were not Christians, they had never read the passage in the Bible where the people cry 'Crucify him! Crucify him!', whereupon Christ was crucified--in accordance with 'the mood of the people'. And Pilate went forth, washed his hands, and asked: What is truth?" Id. at 69.).

Hans Fallada, Wolf Among Wolves: A Novel, translated from the German by Philip Owens, restored and with additional translations by Thorstein Carstensen & Nicholas Jacobs (Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2010).

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Rene Guenon, Traditional Forms and Cosmic Cycles (Collected Works of Rene Guenon), translated from the French by Henry D. Fohr, edited by Samuel D. Fohr (Hillsdale, NY: Sophia Perennis, 1970, 2003).

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Rene Guenon, Studies in Hinduism (Collected Works of Rene Guenon), translated from the French by Henry D. Fohr & Cecil Bethell, edited by Samuel D. Fohr (Hillsdale, NY: Sophia Perennis, 1966, 2001) (From Chapter 2, "The Spirit of India": 'The opposition of East and West, reduced to its simplest terms, is basically identical to that often held to exist between contemplation and action." Id. at 6. However, "contemplation is superior to action, just as the immutable is superior to change. Since action is only transitory and momentary modification of being, it could not have its principle and sufficient reason within itself, and if it is not joined to a principle that lies beyond its contingent domain it is but pure illusion, which is to say that the principle from which it draws all the reality of which it is capable--both its existence and its very possibility--can only be found in contemplation." Id. at 7. From chapter 12, "Eastern Metaphysics": "For us, the great difference between the East and West (meaning here exclusively the modern West), the only difference that is truly essential, since all the other differences are derivative, is this: on the one hand, preservation of tradition and all that it implies, and on the other hand,  the negate an loss of that same tradition; on the nose side, the safeguarding of metaphysical knowledge, on the other, utter ignorance of ll that relates to that realm...." Id. at 86, 101. "The material superiority of the West is beyond dispute; nobody denies it, but it is hardly grounds for envy. But one must go further: sooner or later this excessive material development threatens to destroy the West if it does not recover itself in time and if it does not seriously consider a 'return to the source', as goes a saying current in certain schools of Islamic esoterism. Today one hears from many quarters of the 'defense of the West', but unfortunately it does not seem to be understood that is chiefly against itself that the West seem to be defended, that the greatest and most formidable of the dangers that threaten it stem from it own present tendencies...." Id. at 101-102.).

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Rene Guenon, Studies in Freemasonry and the Compagnonnage (Collected Works of Rene Guenon), translated from the French by Henry D. Fohr, Cecil Bethell & Michael Allen (Hillsdale, NY: Sophia Perennis, 1964, 2004) ("Indeed, in a general sense what is dogmatism if not the purely sentimental and very human tendency to present one's own individual ideas (whether these pertain to a man or to a collectivity), with all the relative and uncertain elements they inevitably entail, as if they were incontestable truths? It is but a short step from this to the desire to impose these so-called truths on others, and history shows well enough how many times this step has been taken; nevertheless, on account of their relative and hypothetical--an therefore in a large measure illusory--character, such ideas constitute 'beliefs' or 'opinions', and nothing more." Id. at 2.).