In this excerpt from the book Julius Evola: Political Traditionalism, Alexander Dugin examines Evola’s concept of the “differentiated individual,” arguing that his shifts between right-wing anarchism and pagan imperialism reflect changing responses to the external world rather than a change in his fundamental Traditionalist outlook.

In his book Ride the Tiger, the late Evola wrote that in the conditions of the complete degradation of the post-war world, approaching the lowest cyclical point in human history, in a situation where the very possibility of a Conservative Revolution has been ruled out, “differentiated individuals,” that is, people who internally belong to the world of Tradition, rather than to the desacralized modern world, had only one option left: the “catacomb front,” a desperate attempt to transform poison into medicine through personal rejection of the surrounding perverted existence.

Evola drew from his active, intense, tragic, and heroic life a sense of the impossibility of realizing Traditionalist, conservative-revolutionary ideals in the modern world: wherever anti-democratic and anti-communist forces managed to prevail, they remained largely deaf to the sacred and made no serious attempts at a genuine restoration of Tradition. True traditionalists continued to remain on the periphery throughout the short history of the states of the Third Way.

As a result of numerous manipulations with various conservativerevolutionary concepts at the ideological, party, political, and even cultural levels, it became impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff, truth from imitation. “Right-wing” values, which should have been close to Traditionalists, came to be identified with capitalism or the interests of the state bureaucracy, while among “left-wing” values, which should have been completely alien to Traditionalists, there appeared motifs of fair, accurate, and profound criticism of modern anti-traditional civilization. Thus, the proportions between “right” and “left” have been shifted and blurred.

In addition, the “subversive” forces of counter-initiation—that mysterious organization which, according to Traditionalists, controls the negative processes in civilization—try to use intellectual, financial, and propaganda control to put a wide variety of concepts at their service, distorting their original meaning in accordance with their needs.

Therefore, Evola ultimately came to the conclusion that the only criterion of authenticity for a person seeking to resist the modern world is the quality of inner differentiation, and an organic rejection of all the values of contemporary civilization, all its myths and slogans, all its pseudosanctities and pseudo-laws. The tragic outcome of the failed attempts at Conservative Revolution in Europe once again confirmed the necessity of the initial phase of “total negation” which Evola himself had experienced in practice during his Dadaist youth.

This centrality of the pure type of “differentiated individual,” beyond party or group affiliation, beyond “right” and “left,” manifested itself, in particular, in the fact that many Italian followers of Evola, beginning in the 1960s, chose the path of right-wing anarchism. This understanding of Evola’s concepts was by no means an excess or a departure from orthodox Traditionalism.

On the contrary, the disappearance of the last remnants of Tradition from the civilizational field, the complete victory of anti-sacred, cosmopolitan, subversive forces throughout the planet, and the totality of the ideological dictatorship of the system—all this forced people loyal to the logic of Conservative Revolution, that is, revolution against the world of anti-Tradition and for the preservation of the world of Tradition, to radicalize the negative, revolutionary aspect of their doctrines, to the point of adopting an extreme anarchist position. But this anarchism of differentiated individuals differs from ordinary anarchism in that it perceives total negation as a heroic overcoming: beyond the limits of negation itself lies not an abyss, but the horizon of the positive, brilliant world of the spirit, the world of Tradition, the world of the Absolute.

Some researchers of Julius Evola’s work, in particular Philippe Baillet, translator of his books into French and a profound expert on Evola’s works and life, believed that “Pagan Imperialism,” or more precisely, the status of the pagan imperialist, was in a sense the antithesis of the “differentiated man” from the book Ride the Tiger, which, in turn, is much closer to the early Dadaist period.¹ In fact, if we trace the stages of Baron Evola’s life, we will see that the logic of the path from right-wing anarchist to pagan imperialist and back to right-wing anarchist is neither a vicious circle of fate, nor a sign of degradation, nor a renegacy in relation to Traditionalism.

In all cases, we are dealing with the same type of human personality—the “differentiated man” (uomo differenziato). This type is a fundamental and unchanging point of reference, a kind of “non-human” presence within a purely human personality, the presence of a higher and spontaneous force from above. In history and over time, it is not this type itself that changes, but the world external to it, and these external changes provoke corresponding reactions, varying depending on the circumstances.

In a period when anti-sacred, anti-traditional, and anti-spiritual processes are evident in civilization, when these processes begin to prevail, the “differentiated individual” emphasizes his rejection of the external world, his negation, his anarchism, his “no.” And here we are not talking about the destructive or creative tendencies of one nature or another, but about a fundamental and profound reaction that is virtually impossible to imitate or calculate. In this case, it does not matter whether a person puts forth alternative values or not—they may find themselves in a situation where they are unable to find adequate intellectual or cultural forms to express their inner ideals.

The only thing that matters is that they organically reject the desacralized world and refuse to obey its laws, recognize its priorities, or succumb to the hypnosis of its exhortations and threats. But, unlike pure nihilists, unlike anarchists on the left, in the event of the slightest signs of reverse processes of spiritual restoration in the external world towards the restoration of Tradition, the return to the sacred, the “differentiated man” immediately discovers the affirmative, creative side of his inner nature, reveals his inner great “yes,” the “eternal yes of being” (“ewige Ja des Seins”), as Nietzsche wrote.

At such a moment, the external world, trying to revive its lost sacredness, inevitably suggests to the “differentiated man” constructive terms for expressing his position, which may sometimes be inaccurate or pragmatic, but which in any case reflect a deep sacred impulse—alive, concrete, and organic.

Thus, the “differentiated man” becomes the creator and defender of the empire when the tendencies toward the restoration of the sacred order, the highest symbol of which is the sacred empire, break the unidirectionality of the processes of historical involution, degradation, and civilizational decadence, when new and fresh forces rise up against the “sunset of Europe.”

Taking all this into account, it can be unequivocally stated that the ideological shifts in Julius Evola’s worldview reflect not his private and individual path, but the fate of the archetype, the fate of the “differentiated man” par excellence, the logic of the tragic struggle of the defender of Tradition in our dark age.

When attempts to implement a Conservative Revolution externally end in failure, when anti-sacred forces once again begin to dominate completely, leaving no external possibility for resistance, then anarchic motives become relevant again, and denial is required once more, even more decisive and absolute, tempered by the experience of dashed hopes. But even this “no” is not final and irrevocable.

The “differentiated individual” cannot change his inner nature and become a classic nihilist. As soon as the first opportunity arises to change the external situation again, a great creative force will open up on the other side of anarchism—an immanent and concrete, global and all-encompassing force for the creation of a new empire or the restoration of an ancient, eternal, unique one.

1. Philippe Baillet, “Un viatique pour l’homme noble quand il n’y a plus rien à aimer” in Julius Evola, Chevaucher le tigre (Paris: Guy Trédaniel, 1982).

Excerpt from the book: Julius Evola: Political Traditionalism.

In this landmark volume, Alexander Dugin presents a far-ranging panorama of the life, works, and contested legacy of the Italian Traditionalist Julius Evola. The fruit of nearly half a century of engagement with Evola’s works, Dugin’s essays weave together philosophical, esoteric, and biographical perspectives to illuminate key dimensions of the Evolian project.

From Evola’s early Dadaist experiments and philosophical writings to his explorations of Tantra, alchemy, and the Holy Grail; from his engagements with the Conservative Revolution and Fascism to his reflections on the “differentiated man” and “riding the tiger” — Dugin re-reads Evola as a phenomenologist of initiation and as a revolutionary forerunner of Traditionalist politics.

Situating Evola’s relevance within Russian Traditionalism, the Fourth Political Theory, and the crisis of Postmodernity, Dugin argues that Evola is by no means a figure of the past, but a vital force in the present.

Julius Evola: Political Traditionalism is essential reading as an introduction to Evola’s oeuvre, a unique showcase of Dugin’s thought, and a summons to reawaken Traditionalist thinking and action today.