1. Traditionalism relies heavily on the concept of a Perennial Philosophy. How do you see this idea holding up against the critiques of historicism and cultural relativism?
Certainly, the idea of a perennial philosophy does not fit well with the modern scholarly understanding that everything is a product of its historical and cultural contexts. Yet we do find very similar ideas re-occurring in multiple periods and places. How to understand this has been debated by historians, anthropologists, and psychologists for a long time. The explanation that there are certain structures hardwired into human brains is one way of understanding this, but is hard either to prove or disprove. Historically speaking, however, some basic ideas can undoubtedly be observed over many centuries, reappearing in different guises and in different places, as is the case with Neo-Platonism. In this case it is possible to combine perennial and historical-cultural understandings. The basic ideas of Neo-Platonism are perennial, and the different guises in which they appear reflect particular historical periods and particular contexts. One example of this is how the Islamic philosophers of Baghdad had to adapt some Neo-Platonic ideas to fit with the basic model of the Quran. The result was hectically and culturally specific, but the basic ideas survived. So what René Guénon called the esoteric and the exoteric can actually be seen historically: the esoteric is sometimes indeed perennial, and the exoteric is not, just as Guénon proposed.
2. You mention the use of guesswork and reconstruction in parts of your research. How do you address the challenges of maintaining historical rigor when dealing with secretive and fragmented movements? Were there any moments during your research that caused you to reevaluate your perspective on the movement or its key figures?
What is essential in order to maintain historical rigor is always to be sure to indicate clearly how certain we can be about particular things. In the humanities, there are very few “facts” that can be known with absolute certainty. To some extent, everything is a representation and thus an interpretation. The historian always has to summarize and reduce the messy business of reality to a narrative that makes some sort of sense. This is especially true when evidence is lacking, whether because it has been deliberately concealed, or because the relevant records did not survive or did not even exist in the first place. There are all sorts of things that require guesswork and reconstruction: the life of illiterate country-people five centuries ago, for example.
All history is provisional and subject to revision when some new evidence or a new understanding emerges. In my own work, new evidence has sometimes confirmed my guesses, so that what I once advanced as a possibility has since turned out to be a near certainty. Sometimes, of course, it works the other way. When it comes to Traditionalism, one of the most difficult questions is the relationship between René Guénon and Islam. I have changed my mind about this more than once. It was only relatively recently, for example, that I really understood how much Guénon’s early work owes to the Sufism of the Swedish painter, journalist, and Sufi Ivan Aguéli, or Abd al-Hadi.
3. How do the symbolic dimensions of Traditionalist narratives—such as the metaphysical hierarchies of castes or ages—interact with real-world hierarchies of race, class, and power, and what tensions emerge in these intersections?
Traditionalist hierarchies are not always symbolic or metaphysical. Guénon’s understanding of the caste system was based on Hindu theory, and the reality in South Asia was not so distant from the theory. Likewise, the hierarchy of the four estates in pre-revolutionary France was very real. Guénon was clear that the idea of equality was a purely modern idea, and by virtue of that, was almost certainly wrong, as other modern ideas were. In fact, equality remains an ideal—there are still hierarchies of race, class, and power in the real world, as you say. But the ideal is strongly held, and this can give rise to tensions when someone rejects it. The same is true of other modern ideals such as democracy. Traditionalist denial of these ideas is one of the things that pushes it outside the mainstream. This, of course, does not worry the Traditionalists, because they do not have a high opinion of the mainstream either.
4. Traditionalism often critiques both capitalism and communism as products of modern materialism. Given Julius Evola’s controversial alignment with fascism, how do you interpret the dual use of Traditionalism in both spiritual contexts and extremist political ideologies?
One of the most important differences between Guénon and Julius Evola was their attitudes to political action. Guénon saw it as pointless, since the intellectual and spiritual were of overriding importance. Change them, and the political and social would also change, but without change at the highest level, the political and social could not change. Evola, on the contrary, saw action as necessary, as action was a route to self-realization. He certainly engaged with fascism, though I am not sure that he exactly aligned with it, as he disagreed with both fascist and Nazi theory on a number of points. And he knew well that fascism was a product of modernity.
Traditionalism has been applied in both spiritual and political contexts. Both of these types of application have been radical, perhaps extreme. Traditionalism is never moderate. The difference is that the radical political positions of the Fascists, Nazis, and now the Far Right have been very generally condemned. Nobody much nowadays cares enough about radical spiritual positions to condemn them.
5. And Traditionalists critique of modernity includes a rejection of linear progress and equality. How do its proponents navigate the inherent contradiction of using modern institutions, such as media or global platforms, to propagate anti-modernist ideas?
I am not sure that there is a contradiction in using modern platforms to propagate critiques of modernity. The platforms and the critiques are at different levels. For the Traditionalists, what matters is the critiques. The platforms do not matter. In fact, it is one of the errors of modernity that too much importance is attached to the material. In terms of the perennial philosophy, almost all platforms are modern and irrelevant. Not just social media, but also printing, and perhaps even the use of writing. Initiation can only be given person to person, not in writing. But other ideas can be transmitted in whatever way is most convenient.
6. How does Traditionalism’s reliance on initiation and esoteric wisdom as paths to truth complicate the dissemination of its ideas in mass political movements, which often depend on simplification and populism?
Traditionalism and mass political movements are not really compatible. As you say, mass political movements depend on simplification. Traditionalism rejects this. It is profoundly elitist in its conceptions, and also elitist in practice: its books and ideas are often hard to follow, and certainly have no mass appeal. The relationship between Traditionalism and mass political movements is rather that some of those who are feeding or guiding these movements may themselves be personally inspired by Traditionalism. They do not, however, attempt to explain Traditionalism in its pure form to the masses, which would be a waste of time and effort
7. Traditionalism has been linked to far-right politics and the rise of new populist movements. Could you explain the theoretical relationship or influence between Traditionalist ideas and these movements? How do you see Traditionalism shaping debates around modernity, globalization, and identity in the broader political spectrum?
The rise of new populist movements needs to be understood in the wider context of changes in economic and social structures, just like the historical rise of older populist movements, such as socialism. Without industrialization and urbanization, no socialism could have come into being. With de-industrialization and related changes, old-style socialism could not survive. As we have seen, the old political center has now collapsed, so new popular movements are what is left. Traditionalism did not cause this, and cannot explain it either. However, it has certainly benefited from it. The new movements need new ideas, and although Traditionalism has been around for more than century, it is new in relation to the ideas that once circulated in the political center.
Class politics has been replaced by identity politics, and identity politics links to debates about the influence and attitude of liberalism and of so-called “global elites.” Traditionalism has plenty to say about liberalism.
8. Do you think Steve Bannon’s chaos magic-oriented PR work is effective for American elections? Is there an influence of esoteric and Traditionalist conventions on Steve Bannon?
I would not myself connect Steve Bannon or his friends with chaos magic, but Donald Trump’s approach to politics, identity, and society has certainly shown itself as very effective for American elections, and there is indeed an element of chaos there, if not of chaos magic. Chaos can be destructive, and Trump, Bannon, and other so-called “populists” are certainly trying to destroy certain ideas and institutions. Many of these would also be condemned from a Traditional perspective. Under these circumstances, it is not a case of either/or, but a case of both/and. Bannon has spoken of his debt to Traditionalism, but it would be wrong to see him as motivated only by Traditionalism. He is motivated by many things, including Traditionalism. The same is certainly true of others like him who have not spoken publicly about their inspirations.
9. Do you think the loss of cosmological depth is a significant factor in the chaotic state of the so-called “Muslim World” (if it exists)? Could the dominance of “fiqh culture” contribute to a form of epistemic violence, especially when contrasted with the ambiguity and tolerance of mystic thought? And might a return to metaphysical traditions, akin to the Neoplatonists of the Renaissance, offer a path forward?
For Guénon and Aguéli, the modernization of the Muslim world threatened all that was valuable there. Whether or not there really is a “Muslim world,” there are a number of countries with Muslim majorities that are geographically close to each other and in many of these countries things have not been going well recently. Perhaps Guénon and Aguéli were right.
It used to be popular to blame many problems in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) on colonialism, and colonialism certainly did not help. It used also to be popular in the West to blame all sorts of things on Islam, but I think that tells us more about the West than it does about the MENA region. Many now argue that the nation-state model has failed in the MENA region, and I think this is right. The nation-state model is, of course, characteristic of modernity.
For many centuries, the MENA region was dominated by dynastic empires, notably the Ottoman Empire, and like other dynastic empires, the Ottoman Empire was multiethnic, multilingual, and multireligious. Different groups lived side-by-side in the same areas. The Ottoman Empire was tolerant of difference, and this tolerance was actually encouraged by the fiqh. But modernization brought with it the nation-state model, which requires one nation, and nations tend to be monoethnic, monolingual, and mono-religious. This model first destroyed the Ottoman Empire, and then proved a poor basis for building nation-states elsewhere.
One of the consequences of all this has been the importance in the MENA region of groups and movements based on religion, from the Muslim Brothers to ISIS, and these groups have tended to emphasize the fiqh and not to be very tolerant. It is in reaction to this that some think that mystic thought may solve the problem. I am not so sure. Mystic thought is not incompatible with the fiqh. The renewal movements of an earlier era, all of which sooner or later gave rise to jihads, were Sufi-based and emphasized the fiqh: Syed Ahmad Barelvi in India, Muhammad Ahmad the pseud-Mahdi in the Sudan, Muhammad ibn ‘Abdallāh Hassan in Somalia, Muhammad ibn Ali al-Idrisi in Asir, the Sanusis in Libya…
10. Could Turkey’s increasing role in Islamic leadership under Erdoğan be viewed as part of a larger spiritual or ideological resistance to what Traditionalists see as the materialism and rootlessness of modern Western culture?
Yes and no. It is certainly a resistance to hegemonic Western culture, and thus to a certain form of modernity. And it is certainly ideological. It is less clear to what extent it is spiritual. Erdoğan’s inspirations certainly include the religious, but in the end he is a politician. Some of those close to him may share some sort of spiritual motivation as well as religious inspiration, and at least one of his close associates is known to be a Traditionalist. But in the end politics are politics, and modern politics are inevitably modern.
11. As younger generations grapple with issues like climate change, economic uncertainty, and technological advances, do you think Traditionalism will resonate with them? If so, in what forms?
Traditionalism does not directly address economic or technological issues, though it does provide an indirect solution: the economic and the technological really do not matter. Of course, it is easier for those who are relatively well-off to say that the economic does not matter! Guénon did not anticipate climate change, but the later Traditionalist Seyyed Hossein Nasr did, and his insistence that we have to return to an earlier form of relationship between humanity and nature is one that now resonates widely. It may be easier said than done, however,
The form of Traditionalism that currently resonates most with younger generations is clearly the political form. Without doubt, the single most important Traditionalist today is the Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin. Dugin has spent his career condemning American modernity and global liberalism, and this resonates with many people, in Turkey as well as in Russia and elsewhere. Some even learn to read the Traditionalist theory that underlies Dugin’s rather populist public positions.
Thank you for some very good questions!
Interview: A. Tarık Çelenk
Translator: Tuğba Ece Aksakal
