Comments On Vico by Enza Ferreri, Greg Johnson, et al.?

Posted by DanielS on Sunday, 05 October 2014 09:13.

A blog comment by Enza Ferreri prompts some thoughts on Vico. Of course I do not place comfort or credence in all of Vico’s ideas - unlike Johnson, I particularly do not find this comforting: “The idea of history going through the same stages over and over again.” Even so, I do respect Vico as the first prominent anti-Cartesian philosopher; who saw that an anti-modernist, turning and reconstructing process was implied by non-Cartesianism. However, I take a more hopeful view that we are not so determined to repeat unpleasantries - rather, we are free to act, at least having some alternative range of functional autonomy and agency to repeat healthy practices and forms of the past, while moving on and advancing to new ways where we are the better for it.

In any event, as he was the first major challenge to Cartesianism, and frequently cited as a forefather of social constructionism proper, I have long treated Vico as pivotal to sound philosophical underpinning of White/European nationalism - this article to note:

Yes, The White Race Is A Social Construct (Contrary to Jewish and Right Wing Denial).

WN may be finally catching-on to these correctives of typical right-wing errors.

Greg Johnson gave a speech on Vico at the recent London Forum. In anticipation, I have already invited him to speak with G.W. or James about this in an M.R. podcast, should any party be willing. As for Enza, she can come visit my town anytime she likes..

Excerpt of Enza Ferreri’s comment regarding Greg Johnson’s speech on Vico

Vico is a 17th-18th century philosopher from Naples. Most Italians know of him and his theory of the “corsi e ricorsi storici”, or the cyclical nature of history. But he’s little known in the Anglo-Saxon world, despite having had some influence, especially on James Joyce’s books. Vico’s Scienza nuova (“New Science”) is the basis for Finnegans Wake.

The idea of history going through the same stages over and over again is very far from the contemporary view of history as progress. Vico, according to Johnson, was exceptional, in that he was the first anti-Enlightenment thinker and the only one of his time, despite being himself an Enlightenment thinker in some ways.

Vico postulated a fundamental law of historical development, that follows the same pattern by evolving through three phases: the age of gods, “during which gentile [meaning “pagan”] men believed that they were living under divine rule”; the age of heroes, when aristocratic republics were established; and the age of men, or what we may call “democracy”, “when all were recognised as equal in human nature”. Here Vico is a son of his “Enlightened” times, when he talks of the necessity to respect “natural reason” and of “the human rights dictated by human reason when fully explored”.

At that point man’s increased powers of reasoning result in a state of anarchy, when everybody considers himself his own ruler and only looks after his own pleasure and short-term interest. Sounds familiar? It must do, because it’s a fairly accurate description of what we are going through now, a description which will become even more faithful as decades, nay years, nay months go by.

Then men get tired of that anarchy and “turn again to the primitive simplicity of the early world of peoples”, and to religion. Thus the cycle starts again.

The beauty of it all, said Johnson, is that Vico’s view of history enables us to stop trying to mend the present state of affairs, which is beyond repair, and instead look forward to - even accelerate - its end, which will usher a new era.

Or I would put it as “the darkest hour is just before the dawn”.

Johnson concluded his speech by saying that, whereas Giorgio Almirante, the leader of the Right-wing Italian party Movemento Sociale Italiano, said, “Julius Evola is our Marcuse, only better”, we can say that Vico is our Karl Marx, only better.

Greg Johnson on Vico:

http://cdn.counter-currents.com/radio/Johnson%20on%20Vico.mp3

Tags: Political Philosophy, Social Sciences, White Nationalism

Comments:

Posted by Dude on Sun, 05 Oct 2014 15:30 | #

Apparently audio of GJ’s speech is due to be released. I liked it. Get the feeling he prefers a degree of anonymity and therefore the full video will not be forthcoming.

Posted by awed ball on Mon, 06 Oct 2014 19:36 | #

Saturday Night Live celebrates the end of White America:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87OfXVSSQQg#t=15

Posted by DanielS on Fri, 24 Oct 2014 10:47 | #

Greg Johnson on Vico

http://cdn.counter-currents.com/radio/Johnson on Vico.mp3

Posted by DanielS on Thu, 13 Nov 2014 20:13 | #

I think its safe to say that Vico has a pivotal place in philosophical history, certainly if one is looking for key points from the Greeks to Descartes to Nietzsche and Heidegger.

Heidegger’s appreciation for the wisdom of the language for example, seems to come almost directly from Vico. There is probably not much mediation between his anti-Cartesian, post-modern, hermeneutic turn and Vico either.

I perceive some influence on Nietzsche there too, which would not be incoherent with Heidegger.

I have mainly used Vico as a historical signpost as to when the significant challenge to Cartesianism began and conceived remedies, such as social constructionism and hermeneutic process, were initiated.

I have also held fast to the fact that Vico’s central point was anti- Cartesianism. One cannot be against Cartesianism and believe all is an illusionary word game detached from facts. That means, these ideas do not have to fly in the face of concern for ontology, reality, what I might call a more careful reading say, of what it means to be an Englishman, a European, a nation, etc. However, it allows for these facts to be gauged against and placed into their historical context.

That is surely significant.

Looking more carefully at Vico’s work, he is a bit better than one might have thought.

And as the first notable opponent to Cartesianism he should be harmless for the fact that his project is duty bound to deal with the truth of facts. However, his project is liberated from the myopia of scientism - which is probably a major source of European man’s illness - the liberalism, the arbitrariness, the mere facticity.

........

While we pursue and appreciate originality of thinking at MR, certainly departure from those hide-bound to the F’s strictures, the charge of not pursuing originality per se may not be the greatest sin.

I think about the sacred…. and how it has been trampled by the scientism - liberalism continuum…the linearity of modernity…its reckless experimentalism in pursuit of endless progress..

Again, the post modern turn sees the wreckage of modernity and allows for the reconstruction of traditional practices ...and the sacral rite, the episode…all of course revisable and modified by new understandings..we can take the best of both traditional reconstruction and modernist pursuit of innovation…. but we can take the best of tradition and sacral rite. ..and history….we are not duty bound by a pledge to be original ex nihilo and to endlessly pursue novelty and new invention.

The sacred..going back to the wisdom of the language that Heidegger and Vico valued.. sa - cred. ..cred.. crede…sounds like something to go by..something in fact, cyclical, involving time and cycles, which if properly observed correspond with credibility.. the ability to establish historical continuity, coherence in protracted warrant… in a way that empirical myopia, focused on arbitrary presentation of the happenstance episode of circumstances does not afford. ...opposed to the sacral episode re enacted which does begin to build that social capital.

As I skimmed through Vico, I see him talking about people beginning with religion..and in the etymological sense of religion I can see that having truth, as you know, religion - re - ligion ... a re attachment ...to practices.. particularly featured in the sacred episode, which ensconces the essence (as opposed to the arbitrary) as presented by the cycles of time.

Posted by Vico on Mon, 08 Dec 2014 17:56 | #

14 From the forests where the urn is placed a plough stands forth, signifying that the fathers of the first peoples were the first strong men of history. Hence the founders of the first gentile nations above mentioned were the Herculeses (of whom Varro counted a good forty and the Egyptians claimed theirs to be the most ancient), for these Herculeses subdued the first lands of the world and brought them under cultivation. Thus the first fathers of the gentile nations who were just in virtue of the supposed piety of observing the auspices which they believed divine commands of Jove (from whose Latin name lous came the old word ious for “law,” later contracted to ius; so that justice among all peoples is naturally taught along with piety); prudent in sacrificing to obtain or clearly to understand the auspices, and thus to take good counsel of what, by the commands of Jove, they should undertake in life; and temperate in the institution of matrimony were also, as is here indicated, [4] strong men. Hence new principles are given to moral philosophy, in order that the esoteric wisdom of the philosophers may conspire with the vulgar wisdom of lawmakers. By these principles all the virtues have their roots in piety and religion, by which alone the virtues are made effective in action, and by reason of which men propose to themselves as good whatever God wills. New principles are given also to economic doctrine, by which sons, so long as they are in the power of their fathers, must be considered to be in the family state, and consequently are in no other way to be formed and confirmed in all their studies than in piety and religion. Since they are not yet capable of understanding commonwealth and laws, they are to reverence and fear their fathers as living images of God, so as to be naturally disposed to follow the religion of their fathers and to defend their fatherland, which preserves their families for them, and so to obey the laws ordained for the preservation of their religion and fatherland. (For divine providence ordained human things with this eternal counsel: that families should first be founded by means of religions, and that upon the families commonwealths should then arise by means of laws.)

15 The plough rests its handle against the altar with a certain majesty, to give us to understand that ploughed lands were the first altars of the gentiles, and to denote also the natural superiority which the heroes believed they had over their socii. (The latter, as we shall see shortly, are symbolized by the rudder which is seen bowing near the base of the altar.) On this superiority of nature, it will be shown, the heroes grounded the law, the science and hence the ad ministration of divine things (i.e. the auspices), which were in their keeping.

16 The plough shows only the point of the share and hides the moldboard. Before the use of iron was known, the share had to be made of a curved piece of very hard wood, capable of reaking and turning the earth. The Latins called the moldboard urbs, whence the ancient urbum, “curved.” The moldboard is hidden to signify that the first cities, which were all founded on cultivated fields, arose as a result of families being for a long time quite withdrawn and hidden among the sacred terrors of the religious forests. These [cultivated fields] are found among all the ancient gentile nations and, by an idea common to all, were called by the Latin peoples luci, meaning “burnt lands within the enclosure of the woods.” The woods themselves were condemned by Moses to be burned wherever the people of God extended their conquests. This was by counsel of divine providence to the end that those who had already reached the stage of humanity should not again become confounded with the wanderers who still nefariously held property and women in common.

...

[Conclusion]

118 It can be seen by our reasoning in these Notes that all that has come down to us from the ancient gentile nations for the times covered by this Table is most uncertain. So that in all this we have entered as it were into a no man’s land where the rule of law obtains that “the [first] occupant acquires title” occupanti conceduntur) . For this reason we trust that we shall offend no man’s right if we often reason differently and at times in direct opposition to the opinions which have been held up to now concerning the beginnings of the humanity of the nations. By so doing we shall reduce these beginnings to scientific principles, by which the facts of certain history may be assigned their first
origins, on which they rest and by which they are reconciled. For up to now they do not seem to have had any common foundation nor any continuous sequence nor any coherence among themselves.

Posted by ItaliansWarOnImmigrants on Tue, 16 Dec 2014 09:45 | #

Beginning of an Italian Civil War against Immigration

December 15, 2014 — Enza Ferreri

http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2014/12/beginning-of-an-italian-civil-war-against-immigration/

For once we have riots that are not by anti-white black protesters — to whose violence Ferguson, among others, has accustomed us — but by indigenous Europeans defending their land against invaders.

In Rome, on the night of 10–11 November, a group of residents of the Tor Sapienza suburb living in public housing attempted to assault the local centre for refugees and asylum seekers incongruously named “Il sorriso” (The Smile), throwing stones and bottles and setting dumpsters on fire, amidst broken glass and screams of “We want to burn you”.

The reception centre houses over 40 youths — Gambians, Congolese, Ethiopians and other Africans, plus Afghans and Syrians — rescued from their boats crossing the Mediterranean.

The local residents have long been concerned about health and crime issues associated with Il sorriso and, after their complaints to the authorities went unheeded, they took matters into their own hands.

“The tension” said Tommaso Ippoliti, president of the Tor Sapienza Committee, “is skyrocketing. For years this neighbourhood has been abandoned, you cannot go out at night, and lately assaults and thefts have increased. A few days ago a girl walking her dog was molested in the park in mid-afternoon. As a committee we distance ourselves from the violence of last night, but people are rightly exasperated. We demand more security.”

“Police are scarce and the city has not responded to requests for more security and better controls of the migrant centres,” he added….

Once again, as throughout the West, the costs of immigration fall disproportionately, if not exclusively, on the working and middle classes of the countries being inundated by non-European immigration, while elites can safely ignore the problems.

...the hospitality of the immigrant centre: 30 euros a day, accommodation, food, and cigarette voucher— not a bad deal.