Samurai Jack was an American animated TV series that premiered on Cartoon Network in 2001 and ran for, eventually, five seasons. The story follows the adventure of an unnamed samurai travelling through a dystopian future governed by a demonic wizard named Aku. What makes Samurai Jack unique is the moral paradigm that can be read into the central premise of the plot, neatly summarised by the tagline of the opening sequence: ‘Gotta get back, back to the past, Samurai Jack.’
The world that the samurai fights to destroy – a world corrupted at every level by Aku’s evil – is unambiguously modern in character. When he is cast through a time portal at the end of the first episode, he falls out into the squalid depths of a futuristic inner city ghetto. He drops out of the sky into a world of towering black skyscrapers, massive electronic billboard advertisements and sky-streets jammed with flying motorcars. The thunderous roar of the city’s traffic disorients and terrifies him.
After barely surviving his dramatic entrance, he is greeted by some locals who give him the name ‘Jack’ and speak to him in what is easily recognisable as a modern urban patois. ‘Yo, Jack! That was some awesome show!’ ‘Word! Jack was all ricochetically jump-a-delic!’ Their manner of speech contrasts heavily with Jack’s own old-fashioned and deliberately measured standard English. When Jack hesitantly asks where he is, he is told by these odd strangers that he is in the ‘central hub’ of Sector D. This is a placeless place, devoid of history or culture and labelled a ‘hub’ of a ‘sector’ in familiarly modern and soulless bureaucratic fashion.
Jack then stumbles into a seedy nightclub where he becomes even more distressed than before. He holds his hands to his ears, desperate to block out the loud, thumping techno music, and looks around wild-eyed at a room full of scantily-clad dancers and hideous aliens with bionic body parts. This new world is too bright and too loud for Jack. The world he came from is tranquil, soft and full of flower-filled meadows, rolling hills and beautiful snow-topped mountains. Aku’s world is vulgar, harsh and obnoxious. Jack is a man out of time, questing through the future in order to return to the past. He fights to turn the clock back in order to prevent the world around him from ever existing and to save the world he once knew. The tale of Samurai Jack is a reactionary, luddite Odyssey.
The first scene of the first episode is like something out of a bad psychedelic trip or a nightmarish fever dream. Everything is uncanny – the sun and moon are too large, the landscape is barren and red and the lone piece of flora in the scene is a twisted black tree. The giant moon eclipses the sun, shooting red lightning through the sky as the tree twists and morphs into the demon Aku. This terrifying moment, complete with deliberately unsettling sound effects, masterfully introduces the show’s main antagonist. It is also a prime example of Tartakovsky’s use of the environment instead of dialogue to evoke emotion and convey information about his characters.
Aku is able to see Jack through a magic mirror at all times, he can shapeshift endlessly and is immune to all physical weapons. Aku is more than a demon wizard – he is a malevolent god. He is informed instantly of Samurai Jack’s arrival in the future by his informant network that, throughout the show, seems to extend into every nook and cranny of the universe. Aku’s armies are inexhaustible, dwarfed only in size by the intergalactic mining operation he employs to sustain it. The entire universe is in the grip of an Orwellian state in the service of a quasi-Gnostic demiurge. The central premise of the show itself implies the extent of Aku’s dominance – dominance so complete as to be completely insurmountable, and able to be defeated only through time travel. Genndy Tartakovsky’s finest creation is a kids TV show set in a world that is incomprehensibly awful, where the main character faces completely hopeless odds and the main antagonist is all-powerful. Jack stands alone, armed only with a magic sword and the power of righteousness, and yet it somehow feels as though Aku fears him more than he fears Aku.
For the first four seasons Jack is an unchanging constant as the setting around him is repeatedly changed in line with his journey. Dialogue and character development are conspicuously limited in contrast to many other shows, but this speaks to the genius of Samurai Jack’s unique formula. The relationship between the main character and the setting are reversed – Jack is the unchanging stage. The story takes place around him but he stays the same, dressed in his characteristic white robes, forever a fish out of water. The only exceptions to this rule are the first episode, where Jack’s character is established, and the final season on Adult Swim, which takes a different and more mature tack.
Genndy Tartakovsky’s work for Cartoon Network is understandably constrained by limits of what is appropriate for children to watch before school, but when the show was moved to Adult Swim it became free to explore darker themes. For the first four seasons, Jack turns his deadly sword on his robotic and demonic enemies only. This allowed Tartakovsky to showcase Jack’s skill, defeating hordes of enemies that sometimes cover the entire horizon, without any graphic violence. The fact that Jacks opponents until the final season remain the minions of Aku, which are overwhelmingly robots, rather than the flesh-and-blood inhabitants of his fallen world is another way in which Aku and his evil are made to seem industrial in character, in opposition to noble, agrarian Samurai Jack.
The entire show is hand-drawn without outlines so that characters blend into their backgrounds. Lineless drawings give the animation a rudimentary, child-like appeal as well as greater flexibility with regard to proportions so that all of the characters’ movements feel powerful and dynamic. Action scenes are one of the great strengths of Tartakovsky’s cartoons – evident in Star Wars the Clone Wars (2003) earlier in his career right through to Primal, which aired just recently in 2019. All of this combined with the use of comic book-esque screen framing make the series feel more like a graphic novel come to life or an anime series than a Western kids cartoon. What’s more, Samurai Jack accomplishes this without sacrificing childish entertainment value.
However, what makes Samurai Jack stand out in a sea of well-animated cartoons is the story. Jack is a unique character that represents a sentiment not often explored in visual media – the sense of longing for a world you’re not even sure exists, or ever existed. The world around Jack is fetid and evil – but the world he remembers, was it ever truly as good as he remembers it to be? Was the world that was ever free of the corruption and evil that so disgusts him about the world – the ‘world that is Aku’ – that he fights to undo? Jack’s sense of alienation is deeper than that of a stranger in a strange land – he is a man trapped at the wrong place in time entirely. Not only is the world foreign, but everything is laced with and governed by Aku’s evil. The very ground on which he walks, the air through which he moves, is hostile to him. In our world where seemingly nothing can escape the plastic-coated grip of modernity, this cartoon asks whether it really is so crazy to feel like you’ve gotta get back, back to the past, Samurai Jack.
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Consorts (Part 2)
Eleanor of Aquitaine
- Life: c.1122-1st April 1244
- Reigned: 19th December 1154-6th July 1189
- Spouse(s): Louis VII of France (m.1137), Henry II (m.1152)
- Children: Two with Louis VIII, eight with Henry Il including Richard I and John
- Parents: William X, Duke of Aquitaine and Aénor de Châtellerault
- Origin: France
Early Life: Eleanor of Aquitaine was born in around 1122 in Poitiers, France. Her parents were William X, Duke of Aquitaine and Aénor de Châtellerault. Eleanor was extraordinarily well-educated, even more so than royal men at the time. She not only learned domestic skills, but her curriculum ranged from language and arithmetic to history and astronomy. The death of her brother and mother led her to become her father’s heir.
William died in 1137, leaving Eleanor the wealthiest girl in Europe at only fifteen. She held more lands than even the King of France. William had been worried about Eleanor being unprotected so made Louis VI of France her protector. Louis knew that Eleanor could bring a lot of wealth to the crown, so decided to marry her off. His eldest son Philip had died several years before so second son Louis had become his heir.
Marriages and Children: Eleanor married Prince Louis on 25th July 1137. They had two daughters, Marie and Alix. Both married noblemen. Whilst Louis was initially besotted with Eleanor, tensions soon rose and their marriage became unstable. The failure of the Crusades, Louis’ weaknesses, Eleanor’s headstrong nature and the lack of sons allowed the marriage to crumble.
Eleanor married Henry II in 1152, only weeks after her annulment. Their marriage was also turbulent and would eventually lead to Eleanor overthrowing her husband.
Her relationship with her children was somewhat better. Eleanor favoured her son Richard above the others but was close enough to each of them. She was able to closely monitor the upbringing of her daughters and ensure the marriages of her children. Richard trusted her enough to be regent whilst being away from England- he only spent six months in his kingdom during his ten year reign.
Pre-Reign and Queenship: They were Duke and Duchess of Aquitaine for about a week before discovering that the King had died. Eleanor chafed in the dull Paris castle that was now her residence, but found that the besotted Louis did anything she asked. She would use that to her advantage.
Louis soon became embroiled in war and scandal. His actions caused the death of thousands and the destruction of land. In 1145, the pair embarked on a Crusade. It was an absolute disaster and Eleanor started pushing for an annulment. The birth of a second daughter left Louis with no sons. Whilst the infertility of a spouse was grounds for annulment, having no sons wasn’t. Instead, they asked for an annulment on grounds of consanguinity as they were third cousins. This worked in 1152 and their daughters were under their father’s custody.
Concerned about her position, Eleanor decided to marry Henry, Duke of Normandy. This pleased Henry, as he was ready to be King of England and needed all the support he could get. They married on the 18th May 1152. Eleanor bore their first child, Henry, less than a year later.
In 1154, King Stephen died and Henry became Henry II. Despite having eight children together, Henry and Eleanor frequently argued. Henry was frequently unfaithful and had bastard children, with Eleanor swinging between annoyed and indifferent. One major conflict occurred when Eleanor was unhappy with the appointment of Thomas Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury. Eleanor was supported by her mother-in-law the Empress Matilda, a formidable woman in her own right.
The chroniclers of the time do not mention Eleanor’s political involvement but one would assume she had her say, despite being consistently pregnant. In 1167, Eleanor moved to Poitiers with her youngest son John. She was over forty at this point and having five sons meant that the succession was secure. Henry escorted her there.
It is said that Eleanor created the idea of Courtly Love whilst in Poitiers but there is no evidence for this. It is known that she encouraged music, literature and the arts. This era of peace ended in 1173 when her son Henry the Young King decided to rebel against his father. He travelled to Eleanor and encouraged his brothers to join him. This year and a half long rebellion ended in disaster.
Eleanor was captured by her husband and brought to England. She spent the next sixteen years as a prisoner. Whilst she was kept comfortably and enjoyed many luxuries, she was still a prisoner. Eleanor was allowed to move somewhat freely after the death of Henry the Young King but always had a ‘chaperone’ with her.
Post-Queenship: Henry II died on the 6th July 1189. Richard, Eleanor’s favourite son, was now king and had her released. With Richard away in England for all but six months, Eleanor was trusted to run the kingdom. She raised the ransom for Richard when he was captured in 1192. When Richard died, Eleanor was tasked with marrying off her granddaughters.
Eleanor retired to a convent before her death in 1204. She’d lived until her 80s, extremely unusual for the time. Eleanor had outlived all but her two of her children as well as both husbands. She is buried with her husband and Richard.
Personality: As a person, Eleanor was extremely intelligent, academic, strong-willed and headstrong. Her toughness outshone the weakness of her husbands. Eleanor was a good mother to her children but was ready to anger her husbands. She was a trusted ruler in her own right.
Legacy: Eleanor of Aquitaine is remembered as one of the most famous Queens of England. Her push to overthrow her husband did fail, but her strength is remembered. She has been commemorated on stage and screen, most famously by Katharine Hepburn in The Lion of Winter. Two of her sons would become King and her daughters married into nobility.
Margaret of France
- Life: 1158-18th September 1197
- Reigned: 27th August 1172-11th June 1183
- Spouse(s): Henry the Young King (m.1170), Béla III of Hungary (m.1186)
- Children: William with Henry the Young King
- Parents: Louis VIII of France and Constance of Castile
- Origin: France
Early Life: Margaret was born sometime in 1158 to Louis VIII of France and Constance of Castile. Her father had previously been married to Eleanor of Aquitaine so she shared half-sisters with her future husband. Louis cared deeply for his wife Constance and was devastated by her death, but married again only a month later as he’d been desperate for a son.
The birth of Louis’ son and Margaret’s half-brother worried Henry II, so he had his son Henry betrothed to Margaret.
Marriages and Children: Henry and Margaret married in around 1170. When Henry was crowned Junior King in 1170, she was not crowned with him. This infuriated Louis, so Henry II had Margaret crowned in 1120 to pacify him.
We know little of Henry and Margaret’s relationship. It’s believed Henry may have wanted an annulment in regards to her apparently infertility. What they were like as a couple is unknown.
Margaret bore one child, William, when she was about nineteen. He died a few days later. His birth seemingly left Margaret unable to have any more children.
Margaret remarried in 1186 to Béla III of Hungary. We do not know what their relationship was like.
Queenship: Henry was never officially king, so Margaret was classed as a Junior Queen. Rumours circulated that she was having an affair but this is highly unlikely. We know next to nothing about her reign and it doesn’t look as though she had any real power.
Margaret was widowed in 1183.
Post-Queenship: Margaret, still young, married in 1186. Her new husband was Béla III of Hungary, making her the Queen of Hungary. She bore him no children though he already had heirs, so it was not as important. He died after ten years of marriage. Margaret died a year later aged about thirty-nine. She is buried in the Cathedral of Tyre, Lebanon, though it no longer stands.
Personality: With almost no historical records, we know nothing of Margaret as a person.
Legacy: Again, lack of records means that Margaret has no lasting impact. Many do not know that she was even a Queen (kind of). As she had no living children, she is not an ancestor of any royals.
Berengaria of Navarre
- Life: c.1165-1170-23rd December 1230
- Reigned: 12th May 1191-6th April 1199
- Spouse: Richard I (m.1191)
- Children: None
- Parents: Sancho VI of Navarre and Sancha of Castile
- Origin: Spain
Early Life: Berengaria was born between 1165 and 1230 to Sancho VI of Navarre and Sancha of Castile. She was the eldest of six children. There is no information on her early life so we do not know anything about it. The only thing we know is that Berengaria met her future husband Richard at a tournament years before their betrothal.
Marriage: Richard’s mother Eleanor of Aquitaine promoted an alliance with Navarre due to its strategic locations. He had been engaged to the sister of the French king, but his own father had taken her as a mistress so the engagement was broken off. Alys, the princess, was the half-sister of Richard II’s half-sister.
Richard and Berengaria wed on the 12th May 1191. She was in her early to mid twenties, which was very old for a noble bride of the era. The pair rarely spent time together due to Richard’s role in the Crusades and his apparent disinterest in his bride. They had no children, believed to be down to either infertility or lack of time together. Some believe that the marriage was never actually consummated.
Queenship: Berengaria joined Richard in the Holy Lands following the wedding. The failure led Berengaria and her sister-in-law Joan to head back to France. It would be another three years before husband and wife saw each other again. Berengaria spent her time in France during her husband’s captivity, helping her mother-in-law raise the ransom. She continued to live there upon Richard’s release as he returned to England and then shored up his lands on the continent.
The Church was angered at Richard seemingly ignoring Berengaria and the Pope told him to reconcile with her. Once Richard was finished with his business, he returned to Berengaria. He’d accompany her to church once a week but they still did not have a child.
Post-Queenship: Richard died on the 6th April 1199, leaving Berengaria a widow. She was not at his bedside upon his death and had not even been summoned by Eleanor of Aquitaine. Berengaria retired to her dower lands, but found that most of them had been seized by John. She asked her mother-in-law and the Pope to intercede on her behalf. They did, but Berengaria would only be paid back upon the ascension of John’s son.
Berengaria entered a convent in 1129 and died one year later. She was buried in Les Mans but her burial place has been moved more than once.
Personality: We know extremely little of Berengaria. One contemporary called her ‘elegant and prudent,’ whilst noting her musical talent. She joined her husband on the Crusades, so she was likely a tough and devout woman.
Legacy: Berengaria is barely remembered to this day. She is called the only English queen to never enter the country, though she likely visited after her husband died. Berengaria did not have any children that would go on to be ancestors of Europe.
Isabella of Angoulême
- Life: c.1186/1188- 4th June 1246
- Reigned: 24th August 1200-19th October 1216
- Spouse: John (m. 1200), Hugh X of Lusignan (m. 1220)
- Children: Five with John, including Henry III, and nine with Hugh
- Parents: Aymer, Count of Angoulême and Alice of Courtenay
- Origin: France
Early Life: Isabella was born around 1186-1188 to Aymer, Count of Angoulême and Alice of Courtenay. She was the only surviving child of her parents but little else is known about her early life. Through her mother, she was related to the French monarchy. She was originally engaged to Hugh IX of Lusignan and was sent to his court.
Marriages and Children: John of England had previously been married to Isabel of Gloucester. Their marriage was annulled on grounds of consanguinity, they were so closely related that they weren’t allowed to have sex. John cast his eye on Isabella for two reasons: her renowned beauty and to prevent her from marrying the powerful Hugh.
John was besotted by Isabella and reportedly neglected his duties to be with her. She was a high-spirited and headstrong woman with a personality to match his own. Unfortunately, John was also cruel and took mistresses. He blamed Isabella for his own failures.
They had five children together, the first born seven years after their marriage. Henry III would be King of England, Richard King of Rome, Joan Queen of Scotland, Isabella Holy Roman Empress and Eleanor, a prominent noble.
Queenship: Isabella did not have the most enjoyable time as Queen. Hugh of Lusignan was not thrilled about John having stolen his fiancée and kicked up a stink. The King of France then took John’s French possessions and gave them to Hugh. John blamed this on Isabella, despite him having pushed to marry her. Isabella was blamed by the elites for John’s misadventures despite her being a child. They called her a seductress and a Jezebel.
In 1203, Isabella’s castle was besieged by rebels. John set out to rescue her but was scared of being captured himself, so he sent out a force. A year previously, he’d personally rescued his mother. She would spend most of the years from 1207 pregnant. Her children would be raised away from her and she wasn’t allowed a government role. Whilst John abducted noblewomen and had illegitimate children, rumours of Isabella’s adultery made her extremely unpopular.
Post-Queenship: Isabella was forced to live under guard as French forces made ground in England. On the 18th October 1216, John died. This may have been a relief for Isabella on a personal level but her son was still underage. In order to cement her son’s claim, Isabella took him to Gloucester and had him crowned. Her unpopularity meant that she was not part of his regency council.
Isabella then headed to France to take control of her lands. Her daughter Joan was engaged to Hugh IX’s son Hugh X and had been sent to live at their court. When Hugh X saw Isabella, he decided to marry her instead. Joan was promised to the King of Scotland. The English were furious that Isabella had not sought their permission and took away her dower lands. Isabella retaliated by threatening to keep Joan in France. Alexander of Scotland wanted his bride, so a settlement was reached.
Isabella would have nine children with Hugh. This marriage was likely better for Isabella as Hugh included her in governance and both of their signatures were found on documents. She did not have a good relationship with the sons from her first marriage, especially as it was decades before she saw them again. Isabella also resented having to defer to other women even though she was the former Queen.
After being snubbed by the King of France’s mother, Isabella started plotting against him. After she was implicated in an attempted poisoning, Isabella fled to an abbey for protection in 1244.
Isabella died on the 4th June 1246, aged between 58 and 60. She was little mourned in England, but her son did ensure she was moved from the abbey to be buried with his grandparents.
Personality: Isabella was a strong and tenacious woman who didn’t hesitate to get what she wanted. Contemporaries called her a Jezebel and overly ambitious, blaming her for affairs that may not even have happened. Isabella was also very young at the time. She ultimately wanted some happiness after being married off as a child bride and blamed for her husband’s misdeeds. Though contemporaries may have been overly critical of her, Isabella did steal her daughter’s fiancé and threatened to keep her away. She also left her children to look after themselves.
Legacy: Isabella is poorly remembered due to her apparent poor behaviour and being a seductress. We must remember that women of the time were overly blamed for everything and that she was also a CHILD at the time. Isabella did her duty in that she provided an heir and all of her royal children married well.
Eleanor of Provence
- Life: c.1223-24/25th June 1291
- Reigned: 14th January 1236-16th November 1272
- Spouse: Henry III (m.1236)
- Children: Five, including Edward I
- Parents: Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Provence and Beatrice of Savoy
- Origin: France
Early Life: Eleanor was born in Provence in about 1223 to Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Provence and Beatrice of Savoy. She was the second of four sisters, all of whom would marry kings. Margaret would become the Queen of France, Sanchia Queen of Germany and Beatrice Queen of Sicily. Sanchia’s husband was Henry III’s younger brother.
It seems that Eleanor was well-educated, with a zeal for reading and poetry. Little is known about her early life, though it’s known her father was a generous and shrewd man, whilst her mother was very intelligent.
Marriage and Children: Eleanor’s family worked to marry her off to Henry III. Henry had been king for ove twenty years after attaining the throne at a young age. It worked and Eleanor set off to England, marrying Henry on the 14th January 1236.
The two enjoyed a loving marriage. Eleanor was intensely loyal to her husband and Henry is not believed to have had any mistresses, a rarity for the time. They spent a lot of time together and Henry trusted Eleanor to act as regent. Discord did occur when Eleanor attempted to intervene in favour of an uncle, causing Henry to banish her from court and seize her lands. They eventually reconciled.
Eleanor and Henry would have five children, four of whom lived to adulthood. Their eldest son Edward would become Edward I and daughter Margaret would wed the King of Scotland. She seemed to have a good relationship with her children and was instrumental in their upbringing. The pair were devastated when their daughter Katherine died at only three years old.
Queenship: As Queen, Eleanor set out to bring a cultural renaissance to England. She likely found England dull and dry compared to her home. Eleanor encouraged literature, poetry and the arts. She was also seen as fashionable and brought many new trends over from the continent. On top of that, Eleanor enjoyed gardening.
Unfortunately, Eleanor was deeply unpopular. She tended to be interested and involved in politics, which was seen as unbecoming for a Queen and a foreigner. Eleanor also brought a large retinue with her, angering the people and those at court. The nobles at court were worried about foreign influence, whilst the common people worried about cost. Eleanor was once booed and pelted with food as she headed through London. She also invited unpopularity with her lands and willingness to tax.
Post-Queenship: Henry III died on the 16th November 1272. Eleanor was not active politically as Dowager Queen, instead focusing on her family. She helped raise her grandchildren, including Edward’s son Henry. So close was their relationship that Eleanor tended to Henry during his illness and was with him when he died at the tender age of six.
In 1286, Eleanor followed the trend of many queens and retired to a convent. She lived there with two of her granddaughters.
Eleanor finally died in June 1291. She was buried in an unmarked grave and is thus the only Queen whose burial place remained unknown.
Personality: Eleanor was principally a lover of the arts, with poetry being her greatest joy. She was also a deeply loyal wife and loving mother, enjoying a mutually faithful relationship with her husband. Eleanor also cared deeply for her grandchildren. She was intelligent and erudite, enjoying the privilege of being her husband’s regent when he was abroad. Surviving letters show a sense of compassion. Unfortunately, Eleanor could be ruthless. She was happy to tax her subjects highly, hated the Londoners and expelled all Jews from her lands.
Legacy: Eleanor is primarily remembered for her cultural and fashionable activities, particularly poetry. Many letters from her survive, which give historians a great insight into Eleanor as a person.
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“Traditionalism: The Radical Project for Restoring Sacred Order”, by Mark Sedgwick (Book Review)
In 2014, speaking via Skype to a conference held at the Vatican, Donald Trump’s later advisor, Steve Bannon, casually mentioned Julius Evola (1898-1974), a thinker little known outside Italy, and who even within Italy was conventionally dismissed as a former Fascist whose writings still exerted a pernicious influence on the ’far right’. When that comment was unearthed by the US media in 2016, it sparked a furore amongst those desperate to discredit Trump as a danger to democracy. It also drew mainstream attention to a strange and possibly wide-reaching philosophy.
Evola’s Fascist sympathies went much deeper than anti-communist or nationalist sentiment, being rooted at least partly in a colourful and irrational worldview referred to by some authors (although not Evola) as ‘Traditionalism’. Through him, Bannon, and so by extension Trump, were potentially ‘linked’ to much broader intellectual currents, with connections across everything from the abstractest metaphysics to the earthiest ecologism.
There existed, obscure but important scholars had long argued, a mystical ‘perennial philosophy’ of transcendent religiosity and social stratification that was simultaneously as ancient as origin myths and applicable to modern discontents. Over the centuries, this concept has attracted intellectuals as diverse as the 15th century humanist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and Brave New World author Aldous Huxley. Other than Evola, its best-known and most systematic modern exponents were two metaphysicians, the Frenchman René Guénon (1886-1951), and the Swiss Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998), who issued writings and launched initiatives that channeled underlying cultural gloom, and still resonate powerfully. Like Evola, Guénon did not use the term Traditionalism, but his writings are regarded as key texts.
As well as Bannon, ‘Traditionalist’ sympathies of some kind were avowed by, or detectable in, influencers outside America – Hungarian politician Gábor Vona, the Russian ideologue Aleksandr Dugin (whom Bannon met in 2018, and who was supposedly an influence on Putin), and the Brazilian writer, Olavo de Carvalho, credited with helping Jair Bolsonaro win the presidency in 2019. Beyond politics, the connections were even more diffuse, with well-known academics, artists and even King Charles III (when Prince of Wales), articulating Traditionalist tropes to combat anomie and materialism, and promote organic agriculture, small-scale economics, traditional arts, and interfaith dialogue. But did all these different things have anything in common other than root-and-branch discontent with a drably dispiriting status quo? What possible relevance could Traditionalists’ distaste for democracy, and even politics, have for determinedly populist politicians?
This is a long-standing area of interest for Oxford-educated Arabist, Mark Sedgwick, now professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University. His 2003 book, Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century, was the first to draw mainstream attention to Evola, Guénon, Schuon, and others dubbed or self-described as Traditionalists. He brings to this discussion special insight into Islamic influences on Traditionalism, from the inner ecstasies of Sufism to the academically distinguished elucubrations of the contemporary Iranian-American theologian, Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Along the way, he treats ably and interestingly of many subjects, from Hindu ideas about caste via 17th century theories of history to the trajectory of Western feminism, and analyses the influence of Jordan Peterson, whom he regards as a Traditionalist for the internet age.
Traditionalism is a catch-all sort of term, and its outcomes are so diverse it is difficult to discern much consistency at all. Had it not been for Bannon’s remark, it is hard to imagine many even noticing Traditionalism existed. Conceptual complexity could help account for Traditionalism’s apparent ascent; as the author notes, “That which is not easy to understand is not easy to deny”. Sedgwick also suggests that Guénon’s theories may be fundamentally flawed because based on early 20th century understandings of ‘the East’ which are now regarded as too colourful and generic, even condescendingly ‘Orientalist’. Evola’s more dynamic and Western-oriented variant is likewise a product of its time, suffused with Nietzschean contempt for Christianity, and the epochal pessimism of thinkers like Oswald Spengler (even though he criticized both). Sedgwick nevertheless treats it as a coherent corpus of thought, with much relevance for today.
The central element of all variants of Traditionalism is ‘perennialism’ – the notion that beneath all the exoteric differences of world religions there is a unifying ‘sacred order’ understood only by the deepest thinkers, although hazily intuitable by the masses, if only they can be detached from the trammels of modernity. This is not just a tradition, but the Tradition that unlocks all cosmologies, and renders the most impassioned theological and political disputes not just superficial, but almost risible. Traditionalist writings are predictably esoteric, aimed solely at a supposedly more spiritually attuned elite.
Traditionalists tend to be greatly interested in such things as hermetic philosophy, occultism, shamanism, and symbolism, and believe strongly in what the ethnomusicologist Benjamin R. Teitelbaum called “spiritual mobility” (see his 2020 book, War for Eternity). They regard 21st century preoccupations like equality, gender politics, individualism, material progress, and technology as mere aspects of modernity, harmful or simply inconsequential.
The second ingredient is a belief in cosmic circularity, as opposed to the ideas of inevitable linearity inherent in mainstream Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and so throughout modern politics. The world, in this reading, goes through ‘ages’ of decline that can be followed by renewal. An original golden age of unity and quality is ineluctably succeeded by silver, bronze and ultimately dark ages of increasingly mechanistic reductionism – what Guénon memorably called the “age of quantity” – after which the cosmic wheel turns back to the start.
‘Golden Age’ thinking is common to many civilizations, but there are especially close parallels with the four ages (Yugas) of Hinduism, with ‘Kali Yuga’ (the last, sin-filled age of conflict) a shorthand term for today among ‘Aryan’-interested Rightists. This process is almost irrespective of politics, although some theorists see an expeditious role for ‘disruptors’. Evola saw Fascism as a means of reconstituting the Roman Empire, and Bannon saw (and perhaps still sees) Trump as a kind of creative destroyer of consensus, but politics has been a lower priority for other Traditionalists, who concentrated instead on transformation through self-realization.
It may easily be imagined that Traditionalists are prone to eccentricity; for instance, Evola believed that ‘Aryans’ were descended from an ethereal Arctic race which had decayed as they came south. In the 1980s, a writer calling herself “Alice Lucy Trent” officiated in County Donegal over a small community called the Silver Sisterhood, which worshipped a female deity, sported Victorian clothing, and refused to use electricity. Trent later changed her name to “Miss Martindale”, and moved to Oxford, to found a movement called Aristasia in a modest terraced house, where ambiguous persons wearing dresses and veils would hold ultra-reactionary court in a candle-lit, gramophone-sounding interior, and be seen driving around town majestically in a 1950s car. It was part-pantomime, part-serious critique, at once amusing and interesting.
Sedgwick rues some Rightists’ co-option of some parts of Traditionalism. Indeed, perennialism can be hard to square with ideas about a “clash of civilizations”, or immigration, or belief in physical racial differences (which even Evola downplayed). He nevertheless examines their thinking with commendable fairness. He differentiates between genuinely traditional teachings about religion and society, which really can be millennia old, and 1920s-to-present-day attempts to turn some of these teachings into realities. For Sedgwick, whatever about the youthful Evola, by his late period he had become a “non-traditional Traditionalist”, and the Evolan phraseology deployed by some on today’s radical Right is therefore mostly “post-Traditionalism”.
But logical consistency matters little in politics, even metapolitics. Traditionalism may persist as a presence on the Right, if sometimes more symbolically than as substance. Traditionalists’ emphasis on arcane knowledge is intrinsically appealing to some who aspire to be elite leaders. There are also similarities in outlooks and temperaments between Traditionalists and some Rightists – shared perspectives on the manifold problems of modernity, shared detestation of bleak materialism, and shared love of grand and sweeping narratives. As the once world-bestriding West shivers in winnowing new winds, and mainstream conservatism flounders, the epic appeal of a mythical past (and implied enchanted future) seems likely to grow. Sedgwick’s second book on this too long neglected theme makes another significant contribution to what may be an expanding as well as evolving field.
Book Details: Mark Sedgwick, London: Pelican, 2023, hb., 410pps., £25
My thanks to John Morgan for invaluable input on this article.
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John Galt, Tom Joad, and other Polemical Myths
Just about the only titles by Ayn Rand I’d feel comfortable assigning my students without previous suggestion by either student or boss would be Anthem or We the Living, mostly because they both fit into broader genres of dystopian and biographical fiction, respectively, and can, thus, be understood in context. Don’t get me wrong: I’d love to teach The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged, if I could find a student nuanced (and disciplined) enough to handle those two; however, if I were to find such a student, I’d probably skip Rand and go straight to Austen, Hugo, and Dostoevsky—again, in part to give students a context of the novelistic medium from which they can better understand authors like Rand.
My hesitation to teach Rand isn’t one of dismissal; indeed, it’s the opposite—I’ve, perhaps, studied her too much (certainly, during my mid-twenties, too exclusively). I could teach either of her major novels, with understanding of both plot and philosophy, having not only read and listened to them several times but also read most of her essays and non-fiction on philosophy, culture, art, fiction, etc. However, I would hesitate to teach them because they are, essentially, polemics. Despite Rand’s claiming it was not her purpose, the novels are didactic in nature: their events articulate Rand’s rationalistic, human-centric metaphysics (itself arguably a distillation of Aristotelian natural law, Lockean rights, and Nietzschean heroism filtered through Franklin, Jefferson, and Rockefeller and placed in a 20th-century American context—no small feat!). Insofar as they do so consistently, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged succeed, and they are both worth reading, if only to develop a firsthand knowledge of the much-dismissed Rand’s work, as well as to understand their place in 20th-century American culture and politics.
All that to say that I understand why people, especially academics, roll their eyes at Rand (though at times I wonder if they’ve ever seriously read her). The “romantic realism” she sought to develop to glorify man as (she saw) man ought to be, which found its zenith in the American industrialist and entrepreneur, ran counter to much that characterized the broader 20th century culture (both stylistically and ideologically), as it does much of the 21st. Granted, I may have an exaggerated sense of the opposition to Rand—her books are still read in and out of the classroom, and some of her ideas still influence areas of at least American culture—and one wonders if Rand wouldn’t take the opposition, itself, as proof of her being right (she certainly did this in the last century). However, because of the controversy, as well as the ideology, that structures the novels, I would teach her with a grain of salt, not wanting to misuse my position of teaching who are, essentially, other people’s kids who probably don’t know and haven’t read enough to understand Rand in context. For this fact, if not for the reasoning, I can imagine other teachers applauding me.
And yet, how many academics would forego including Rand in a syllabus and, in the same moment, endorse teaching John Steinbeck without a second thought?
I generally enjoy reading books I happened to miss in my teenage years. Had I read The Great Gatsby any sooner than I did in my late twenties, I would not have been ready for it, and the book would have been wasted on me. The same can be said of The Scarlet Letter, 1984, and all of Dostoevsky. Even the books I did read have humbled me upon rereading; Pride and Prejudice wasn’t boring—I was.
Reading through The Grapes of Wrath for the first time this month, I am similarly glad I didn’t read it in high school (most of my peers were not so lucky, having had to read it in celebration of Steinbeck’s 100th birthday). The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the book (though it certainly has faults) but in ourselves—that we, as teenagers who lack historical, political, and philosophical context, are underlings. One can criticize Atlas Shrugged for presenting a selective, romanticized view of the capitalist entrepreneur (which, according to Rand’s premises, was thorough, correct, consistent, and, for what it was, defensible) which might lead teenagers to be self-worshipping assholes who, reading Rand without nuance, take the book as justification for mistaking their limited experience of reality as their rational self-interest. One can do much the same, though for ideas fundamentally opposed to Rand’s, for The Grapes of Wrath.
A member of the Lost Generation, John Steinbeck was understandably jaded in his view of 19th-century American ideals. Attempting to take a journalistic, modern view of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl from the bottom up, he gave voice to the part of American society that, but for him, may have remained inarticulate and unrecorded. Whatever debate can be had about the origins of Black Tuesday (arguably beginning more in Wilson’s Washington and Federal Reserve than on Wall Street), the Great Depression hit the Midwest hardest, and the justifiable sense that Steinbeck’s characters are unfair victims of others’ depredations pervades The Grapes of Wrath, just as it articulates one of the major senses of the time. When I read the book, I’m not only reading of the Joad family: I’m reading of my own grandfather, who grew up in Oklahoma and later Galveston, TX. He escaped the latter effects of the Dust Bowl by going not to California but to Normandy. I’m fortunate to have his journal from his teenage years; other Americans who don’t have such a journal have Steinbeck.
However, along with the day-in-the-life (in which one would never want to spend a day) elements of the plot, the book nonetheless offers a selectively, one might even say romantically, presented ideology in answer to the plot’s conflict. Responding to the obstacles and unfairness depicted in The Grapes of Wrath one can find consistent advocacy of revolution among the out-of-work migrants that comprise most of the book. Versus Rand’s extension of Dagny Taggart or Hank Rearden’s sense of pride, ownership, and property down to the smallest elements of their respective businesses, one finds in Steinbeck the theme of a growing disconnect between legal ownership and the right to the land.
In the different reflections interpolated throughout the Joads’ plot Steinbeck describes how, from his characters’ view, there had been a steady divorce over the years between legal ownership of the land and appreciation for it. This theme was not new to American literature. The “rural farmer vs city speculator” mythos is one of the fundamental characteristics of American culture reaching back to Jefferson’s Democratic Republicans’ opposition to Adams’s Federalists, and the tension between the southwest frontiersman and the northeast banker would play a major role in the culture of self-reliance, the politics of the Jacksonian revolution onward, and the literature of Mark Twain and others. Both sides of the tension attempt to articulate in what the inalienable right to property inheres. Is it in the investment of funds and the legal buying and owning of land, or is it in the physical production of the land, perhaps in spite of whoever’s name is on the land grant or deed? Steinbeck is firmly in the latter camp.
However, in The Grapes of Wrath one finds not a continuation of the yeoman farmer mythos but an arguable undermining of the right to property and profit, itself, that undergirds the American milieu which makes the yeoman farmer possible, replacing it with an (albeit understandable) “right” based not on production and legal ownership, but on need. “Fallow land’s a sin,” is a consistent motif in The Grapes of Wrath, especially, argue the characters, when there are so many who are hungry and could otherwise eat if allowed to plant on the empty land. Steinbeck does an excellent job effecting sympathy for the Joads and other characters who, having worked the soil their whole lives, must now compete with hundreds of others like them for jobs paying wages that, due to the intended abundance of applicants, fall far short of what is needed to fill their families’ stomachs.
Similarly, Steinbeck goes to great pains to describe the efforts of landowners to keep crop prices up by punishing attempts to illegally grow food on the fallow land or pick the fruit left to rot on trees, as well as the plot, narrowly evaded by the Joads, to eradicate “reds” trying to foment revolution in one of the Hoovervilles of the book (Tom Joad had, in fact, begun to advocate rising up against landowners in more than one instance). In contrast to the Hoovervilles and the depredations of locals against migrant Okies stands the government camp, safely outside the reach of the local, unscrupulous, anti-migrant police and fitted out with running water, beneficent federal overseers, and social events. In a theme reminiscent of the 19th-century farmers’ looking to the federal government for succor amidst an industrializing market, Steinbeck concretizes the relief experienced in the Great Depression by families like the Joads at the prospects of aid from Washington.
However, just as Rand’s depictions of early twentieth-century America is selective in its representation of the self-made-man ethos of her characters (Rand omits, completely, World War I and the 1929 stock market crash from her novels), Steinbeck’s representation of the Dust Bowl is selective in its omissions. The profit-focused prohibitions against the Joads’ working the land were, in reality, policies required by FDR’s New Deal programs—specifically the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which required the burning of crops and burying of livestock in mass graves to maintain crop prices and which was outlawed in 1936 by the Supreme Court. It is in Steinbeck’s description of this process, which avoids explicitly describing the federal government’s role therein, where one encounters the phrase “grapes of wrath,” presaging a presumable event—an uprising?—by the people: “In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.” Furthermore, while Rand presents, if in the hypothetical terms of narrative, how something as innocuous and inevitable as a broken wire in the middle of a desert can have ramifications that reach all the way to its company’s highest chair, Steinbeck’s narrative remains focused on the Joads, rarely touching on the economic exigencies experienced by the local property and business owners except in relation to the Joads and to highlight the apparent inhumanity of the propertied class (which, in such events as the planned fake riot at the government camp dance party, Steinbeck presents for great polemical effect).
I use “class” intentionally here: though the Great Depression affected all, Steinbeck’s characters often adopt the class-division viewpoint not only of Marx but of Hegel, interpreting the various landowners’ actions as being intentionally taken at the expense of the lower, out-of-work, classes. Tom Joad’s mother articulates to Tom why she is, ultimately, encouraged by, if still resentful of the apparent causers of, their lot:
“Us people will go on living when all them people is gone. Why, Tom, we’re the people that live. They ain’t gonna wipe us out. Why, we’re the people—we go on.”
“We take a beatin’ all the time.”
“I know.” Ma chuckled. “Maybe that makes us tough. Rich fellas come up an’ they die, an’ their kids ain’t no good, an’ they die out. But, Tom, we keep a-comin’. Don’ you fret none, Tom. A different time’s comin’.”
Describing, if in fewer words than either Hegel or Marx, the “thesis-antithesis-synthesis” process of historical materialism, where their class is steadily strengthened by their adverse circumstances in ways the propertied class is not, Mrs. Joad articulates an idea that pervades much of The Grapes of Wrath: the sense that the last, best hope and strength of the put-upon lower classes is found in their being blameless amidst the injustice of their situation, and that their numbers makes their cause inevitable.
This, I submit, is as much a mythos—if a well-stylized and sympathetically presented one—as Rand’s depiction of the producer-trader who is punished for his or her ability to create, and, save for the discernible Marxist elements in Steinbeck, both are authentically American. Though the self-prescribed onus of late 19th- and early 20th-century literature was partially journalistic in aim, Steinbeck was nonetheless a novelist, articulating not merely events but the questions beneath those events and concretizing the perspectives and issues involved into characters and plots that create a story, in the folk fairy tale sense, a mythos that conveys a cultural identity. Against Rand’s modernizing of the self-made man Steinbeck resurrects the soul of the Grange Movement of farmers who, for all their work ethic and self-reliance, felt left behind by the very country they fed. That The Grapes of Wrath is polemical—from the Greek πολεμικός for “warlike” or “argumentative”—does not detract from the project (it may be an essential part of it). Indeed, for all the license and selectivity involved in the art form, nothing can give fuel to a cause like a polemical novel—as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Jungle, and many others show.
However, when it comes to assigning polemics to students without hesitation, I…hesitate. Again, the issue lies in recognizing (or, for most students, being told) that one is reading a polemic. When one reads a polemical novel, one is often engaging, in some measure, with politics dressed up as story, and it is through this lens and with this caveat that such works must be read—even (maybe especially!) when they are about topics with which one agrees. As in many things, I prefer to defer to Aristotle, who, in the third section of Book I of the Nicomachean Ethics, cautions against young people engaging in politics before they first learn enough of life to provide context:
Now each man judges well the things he knows, and of these he is a good judge. And so the man who has been educated in a subject is a good judge of that subject, and the man who has received an all-round education is a good judge in general. Hence a young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character; the defect does not depend on time, but on his living, and pursuing each successive object, as passion directs.
Of course, the implicit answer is to encourage young people (and ourselves) to read not less but more—and to read with the knowledge that their own interests, passions, neuroses, and inertias might be unseen participants in the process. Paradoxically, it may be by reading more that we can even start to read. Rand becomes much less profound, and perhaps more enjoyable, after one reads the Aristotle, Hugo, and Nietzsche who made her, and I certainly drew on American history (economic and political) and elements of continental philosophy, as well as other works of Steinbeck and the Lost Generation, when reading The Grapes of Wrath. Yet, as Aristotle implies, young people haven’t had the time—and, more importantly, the metaphysical and rhetorical training and self-discipline—to develop such reflection as readers (he said humbly and as a lifelong student, himself). Indeed, as an instructor I see this not as an obstacle but an opportunity—to teach students that there is much more to effective reading and understanding than they might expect, and that works of literature stand not as ancillary to the process of history but as loci of its depiction, reflection, and motivation.
Perhaps I’m exaggerating my case. I have, after all, taught polemical novels to students (Anthem among them, as well as, most recently, 1984 to a middle schooler), and a novel I’ve written and am trying to get published is, itself, at least partially polemical on behalf of keeping Shakespeare in the university curriculum. Indeed, Dostoevsky’s polemical burlesque of the psychology behind Russian socialism, Devils, or The Possessed, so specifically predicted the motives and method of the Russian Revolution (and any other socialist revolution) more than fifty years before it happened that it should be required reading. Nonetheless, because the content and aim of a work requires a different context for teaching, a unit on Devils or The Grapes of Wrath would look very different from one on, say, The Great Gatsby. While the latter definitely merits offering background to students, the former would need to include enough background on the history and perspectives involved to be able to recognize them. The danger of omitting background from Fitzgerald would be an insufficient understanding of and immersion in the plot, of Steinbeck, an insufficient knowledge of the limits of and possible counters to the argument.
Part of the power and danger of polemical art lies in its using a fictional milieu to carry an idea that is not meant to be taken as fiction. The willing suspension of disbelief that energizes the former is what allows the latter idea to slip in as palatable. This can produce one of at least two results, both, arguably, artistic aberrations: either the idea is caught and disbelief is not able to be suspended, rendering the artwork feeling preachy or propagandistic, or the audience member gives him or herself over to the work completely and, through the mythic capability of the artistic medium, becomes uncritically possessed by the idea, deriving an identity from it while believing they are merely enjoying and defending what they believe to be great art. I am speaking from more than a bit of reflection: whenever I see some millennial on Twitter interpret everything through the lens of Harry, Ron, and Hermione, I remember mid-eye-roll that I once did the same with Dagny, Francisco, and Hank.
Every work of art involves a set of values it seeks to concretize and communicate in a certain way, and one culture’s mythos may be taken by a disinterested or hostile observer to be so much propaganda. Because of this, even what constitutes a particular work as polemical may, itself, be a matter of debate, if not personal taste. One can certainly read and gain much from reading any of the books I’ve mentioned (as The Grapes of Wrath‘s Pulitzer Prize shows), and, as I said, I’m coming at Grapes with the handicap of its being my first read. I may very well be doing what I warn my students against doing, passing judgment on a book before I understand it; if I am, I look forward to experiencing a well-deserved facepalm moment in the future, which I aim to accelerate by reading the rest of Steinbeck’s work (Cannery Row is next). But this is, itself, part of the problem—or boon—of polemics: that to avoid a premature understanding one must intentionally seek to nuance their perspective, both positively and negatively, with further reading.
Passively reading Atlas Shrugged or The Grapes of Wrath, taking them as reality, and then interpreting all other works (and, indeed, all of life) through their lens is not dangerous because they aren’t real, but because within the limits of their selective stylization and values they are real. That is what makes them so powerful, and, as with anything powerful, one must learn how to use them responsibly—and be circumspect when leading others into them without also ensuring they possess the discipline proper to such works.
