The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1244: The Radical Traditionalist School of Philosophy - Part 2 w/ Thomas777

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

61 MinutesPG-13Thomas777 is a revisionist historian and a fiction writer.Thomas takes a detour from the Continental Philosophy but touches on a subject that is tangentially related: the Radical Traditionalist school, which features thinkers such as Joseph de Maistre, René Guénon, Julius Evola, and Mircea Eliade.Thomas' SubstackRadio Free Chicago - T777 and J BurdenThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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head on over to the piquinez Show.com. There you can choose from where you wish to support me. Now listen very carefully. I've had some people ask me about this, even though I think on the last ad, I stated it pretty clearly. If you want an RSS feed, you're going to have to subscribe through substack

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I can do what I'm doing with Dr. Johnson on 200 years together and everything else. The things that Thomas and I are doing together on continental philosophy, it's all because of you. And yeah, I mean, I'll never be able to thank you enough. So thank you. The Pekingona Show.com. Everything's there. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekingueno show. Thomas is back and do part two of the radical traditionalist school of philosophy.

How are you doing today, Thomas? I'm doing pretty well. I'm enjoying the summertime. I was going to, last time I was going to talk about Joseph de Meister, and I didn't get to that because we were talking about René Dion. And I'm sure some people would like me to talk about Julius Evala too. And some are moving forward, we will. But I kind of want to get back to the. main topical emphasis of the series next time.

But those demiches is important, I mean, in my opinion, I mean, I've got conceptual biases in that regard. I mean, the meister's probably, other than Francis Parker Yaki and Schopenhauer and Hegel, he's probably the thingers at the most impact on my own theoretical musings and interpretations of, all things related to the subject matter i've dedicated my scholarly life to but he's he's ill understood you know like paul godfrey who's an insightful guy um he comes close i think to

kind of defining his the you know synchresi's of de maestro in a way that most you know reasonably mainstream scholars don't, but, you know, De Maestro was not a conservative. Like, that's just the wrong way to characterize. I mean, it wasn't like the French Edmund Burke or something. He wasn't even really French. You know, he was from Sevewe, when, uh, and the Seveillards weren't interesting people because they were,

they were under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire, but they were often in revolt against its political culture. You know, and they were very much into a devolved kind of federalist type of government. De Weistracea himself was an idiosyncratic Catholic. He backed the American Revolution. He said that the Anglo-Saxons, and he viewed the Americans as the true Anglo-Saxons, which the Americans viewed themselves as. They viewed themselves as a Germanic people revolting against Latin-Aid.

tyranny like that's undeniable and like hamilton and john jay came out and said that in the federalist but you know that's that's something that people don't really seem knowledgeable about anymore because they don't really understand the kind of sectarian divide and how much it shaped you know a american political thought but uh demich also said that he said he was very critical of frenchman you know and uh he he was very critical of the catholic church you know uh he suggested that the this this kind of yeomanry uh independence uh streak that uh the angle saxon seemed to embody had had been like briotta europeans you know he he believed in a republican government with admittedly like a very authoritarian bent.

He didn't view the way forward for Europe as some sort of, you know, having some sort of like people overlord or something like that. You know, yet at the same time, you know, he was very, very devout. And, you know, you consider Catholicism to be an essential aspect of, you know, of European cultural learning as, as well as kind of, you know, like Western metaphysics real large, you know. And he's a lot of his critics in the 20th century, they, in very punitive terms, identified the maister as kind of the progenitor of fascist thought. That's not really wrong. I agree with that.

I mean, obviously, not for the same reasons they do. But, you know, there really weren't fingers of the right who had a syncretic perspective of revolutionary politics

were both authoritarian and right wing and valued traditional forms and modalities but who also had a structurally progressive view of government and things you know

Demeisra is really the first. You know, there was other people who were kind of non-ideological, who were hard to categorize. I think Hume actually was one of them, a little conservative, like the claim Hume, which I don't really understand. I mean, I've got some idea why it's, I think some of these Rockford Institute types

who are basically like liberals with reservations, like Hume is a, a guy in the empirical tradition that they can invoke without feeling, like they're betraying conservative principles, but even that is a bit, you know, incoherent. But, you know, de Maestra,

taken in total, his body of work, you know, he belongs with people like Julie Sebelah, like René Dion, you know, like some of these some of these Islamic theorists I cited. You know, and that should be clear,

I think, to anybody who spends time with the subject matter. And I mean, obviously, like, that's where I fall. You know, like, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm very much a Protestant, like, nonconformist. But I've got something of an ecumenical view of faith matters. And that's what the traditionalist school is all about. It's not all being trad or some stupid gay thing. like that you know it's it has to do with the way people approach things like

culture like race you know in terms of praxis but at the end of the day it's about metaphysics and you know we're trying to bring the metaphysical tradition back into you know the Western way of life you know and um Wolfgang Smith would get into this a lot especially in some of the stuff he wrote in the 80s and 90s. Later he got into kind of more complex rebuttals of scientism and things. But when he was writing about metaphysics and ethical stuff

primarily, you know, he'd talk about how, you know, people talk about Western things when they're really talking about like liberal universalism and stuff, which admittedly it is like a product of Western idealism. I don't mean, I don't mean colloquial. deals on me capital i okay but this idea that oh in the west where this you know the where this kind of um you know we we have these just kind of like value neutral

ideas you know on matters of culture and things and you know it's the the western tradition is you know the empirical and progressive tradition like that's nonsense that doesn't make any sense you know like that's um that's like saying that's like declaring that like arab culture is mathematics you know like or numbers like it's the conceptual syntax is not sensible okay um but like many things related categorically to the social engineering regime and all the kind of permutations of it people don't really know how to think outside that box so they don't have the tools at their disposal intellectually speaking

You know, and that's important. But then again, I'd also put Heider in that tradition. I mean, Heidegger is complicated. You know, and he was the last true colonel philosopher, in my opinion. I don't think that's disputable. But, you know, in much the same way, I think, De Meijer needs to be situated there, too. And like I said, it, De Weissor should be a brass tax thinker for any right-wing dissident, you know, and obviously where I fall on that issue, when I talk about dissident elements

and talking about people who, this is basically a matter of historical imperatives and theological belief in metaphysics. It's not, it's not guys complaining about blacks or like guys who don't like affirmative action or guys who don't like taxation. Like I'm not saying there's something wrong with contemplating those things, but it's not, we're talking about something totally different, okay? And that needs to be clarified, too. You know, I, and I don't blame Normies for not understanding these distinctions, but people who spend time in genuine distant spaces and can't grasp this,

they even need to kind of educate themselves or move on because it's, we're not here to, we're not here to spoon feed them knowledge, like their little kids or something, you know. And I feel very strongly about that, you know, not just because I'm one. holding cantankerous, but, you know, this is, you know, Gusty Spence always made the point. And obviously, I mean, he was talking about very serious partisan activity. I'm not suggesting people take on those kinds of commitments and break, you know, and break the law and stuff. But something one can extrapolate from what Spence was talking about is, like, you've got

to learn how to answer the question, like, why am I here? you know, and why am I doing what I'm doing and why am I committed to these things? You know, you, you've got to be a white man about this. You can't just sit there and decide that, you know, you want people to take on, you know, what should be your intellectual process and, like, feed you the clist notes versions of things. Like, that's bullshit. And you're wasting our time in your own. if you're not capable of, you know, kind of progressing beyond that.

But moving on, I think I got into briefly last time. You catch them in the corner of your eye. Distinctive, by design. They move you, even before you drive. The new Cooper plugin hybrid range. For Mentor, Leon, and Teramar. Now with flexible PCP finance and trade-in boosters of up to 2,000 euro. Search Coopera and discover our latest offers.

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Unwind in our luxurious spa. Savor sumptuous farm-fresh dining. relax in our exquisite accommodations. Step outside and be captivated by the wild Atlantic surrounds. Your five-star getaway, where every detail is designed with you in mind. Give the gift of a unique experience this Christmas with vouchers from Trump Dunebeg. Search Trump-Ireland gift vouchers. Trump on Doonbiog, Kush Farage. Can I interrupt before we go ahead? Some feedback I got on the first episode was that de Maestro was not particularly a fan of the Republican government here. But basically, it looks like he supported the revolution.

He had no problem with the abandonment of the crown. But around 1797, he started having questions about how it was operated. And he thought that there, he thought that the, the revolution was much better than the one that happened in France. But he said he saw too much enlightenment ideology creeping in around that time to. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, that's why Jeffersonism is bullshit. And I don't know why so many white nationalist type guys consider themselves Jeffersonians. Like I think part of that, like that was, and that goes way back.

Even like a bunch of like lost cause types and say, you know, they're Jeffersonian. It's like why. Like Jefferson was a, Judge Jefferson was something of a cretan. You know, and he, he was basically, you know, he fancied himself as this kind of cosmopolitan, like worldly man. And, you know, so it was like what he did, like, he was praising the Jacobin cause. It was basically equivalent to like some Hollywood stars. something like pretending he supports you know whatever the the kind of current thing is it's really not a good look and no demascha was talking about the you know the period of active

hostilities and um you know Hamilton uh Jay who was Hamilton's protege and Hamelin was watching this protege these guys were defining uh what the revolutionary philosophy was and it was an aristocratic secession. I mean, that's why the Confederates view themselves is, you know, we're realizing the ideals of the revolution. You know, it had nothing to do

with enlightenment imperatives. You know, that's why, that's a point the Canada made, too. Like, this, the kind of dilettante faction among

the founding fathers you know, they decided they want to include this like asinine storing language about like, oh, men, being created equal. It's like a meaningless phrase. And notice how like that doesn't emerge anywhere in the Constitution because it's meaningless. And that's also, you know, not something that would have gotten past a proverbial veto of, you know,

the real Vanguard descent deck. But, you know, the... The people seem to not understand also. One of the reasons de Maestro took the perspective he did, it's not like the French crown was killing it and doing great things before 1789. There's a reason why revolutions happen. You know, and De Maestra and the St. Petersburg dialogues, part of this owed to his views on theodicy and metaphysics,

you know, he said the revolution, you know, he looked at J. of men's being basically subhuman and the scum of the earth but he also said that like the revolution had to happen you know and he's like the reign of terror was like a punishment against the hubris of sinners who made it happen but also because the world as we know it in our fallen state is essentially a giant altar of sacrifice you know this stuff of history is literally the mass sacrifice of human beings and this constant agonistic uh struggle of apocal forces that leaves a tremendous suffering, including of innocent people and children. Okay, but you've got to look at the kind of cosmic balancing of fates, as it were, that,

you know, what is good and what is godly eventually does come out on top, and you got to look at humanity like in total. There are no actual innocent individuals. Okay. So that's the way that he was looking at it. That's the way that he approached it. Um, and uh, honestly, I don't think there's anybody after 1783 other than in, you know, I, the, the American Revolution has envisioned, it failed by the time of the final constitutional convention, which is why things like Shave's rebellion happened, which is why the war between the states happened, and which is why, uh, America's political culture, was a mess in the 90 intervening years, okay?

But that's kind of a subject for another dedicated episode or series. But I, if I can reduce why I believe Demichael belongs in the traditionalist camp, it's, as I can't remember if I raised this last time, it's the concept of Sophia Perenice. Perennial wisdom, you know, which is a subject matter that it's concerned primarily and essentially in first and last metaphysics. Okay. The understanding that all science, all knowledge, all wisdom that can be said to be perennial and enduring comes from metaphysics. and metaphysics are in fact a reflection of you know as our all natural laws a reflection of the divine principle

and the mind and hand of God okay that's a traditionalist perspective in a nutshell and the enlightenment and everything that followed is a repudiation of that principle. It's essentially

taking the same kinds of ideological imperatives that inform Newtonian physics and, you know, attempting to rebut metaphysics. You know, applying that the same kind of anti-reason, punitive critique to

the human condition in ethical terms. you know and uh you'll find uh the traditional view also is that like through science and through empirical um practices you know that that that reveal doesn't repudiate you know knowledge of god it it clarifies it you know in the pauline letters there's this is reflected same as in the correct you know the idea the invisible deeds of the creator are clearly seen you know in the things that are made you know that's Romans science in the traditional sense is a matter of a what Wolfgang Smith called quote reading the icon you know

really it was Francis Bacon who kind of is the progenitor of scientism in a more direct way than Newton

but both need to be kind of considered as constituting the foundations of that particular conceptual prejudice this, but like the idea of

discovering causal chains and reducing these things to purely physical phenomenon and like atomic matter that somehow repudiates God like that that requires a I mean all these things require like a leap

of illogic as I think of it like saying anything with like Darwinism okay but that kind of tautology that kind of you know the kind of western version of Lysenkoism I think it's like baconism and like anytime anybody invokes that well you know there nobody believes in God because of science like that that that's basically a bachonian pachsholid okay ready for huge savings well mark your calendars from

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Trump on Dunebiog, Kush Farage. Um, and, uh, the traditionalist perspective rejects all of that. In contrast to most conservatives who accept that kind of nonsense, you know, and that's, I, it's imperative to breach with conservative thought entirely. You know, if you want to consider yourself seriously and completely informed about the current dilemma, like in a partisan capacity, you know, that's not, I'm not saying everybody needs to think like I do or people need to, you know, know, prioritize the authorities and theorists that they think are most important in the way exactly like I do, but you're not in the game if you don't realize that, you know, you're not really taking a partisan position against, against the kind of pillars of regime thought, unless you, you know, make that sort of leap of, of, um, of logic.

And, and acknowledge that, you know, the, the, uh, aforementioned is totally lacking in, and, um, intellectual rigor. It's essentially a faith-based enterprise, you know, um, and that's, that's one of my litmus tests, you know, um, when I come across people who defend these things, things, I realized, well, you know, they're not one of us. And that's fine, but I, um, you know, it's, it's imperative to not structure your conceptual life around, you know, these kinds of arbitrary parameters that reflect the extent power structure. Um, you know, and that's, if you're, if, if, if, if people or say, you know,

what's the significance of that to Praxis? Well, I just gave it to you there. So the scientist perspective, it's a reductionist to methodology, okay? And methodology without substance, you know, is the absence in metaphysics.

And, you know, it becomes a structure without essence, okay? And like I said at the top of the hour, that's kind of the essence of debate and switch of when people, when regime people and regime adjacent people talk about like Western. That's what they're talking about. They're talking about this kind of hollowed out scientism that, you know, rejects metaphysics, has no cultural orientation, you know, is basically this, you know, premise and it's kind of like radical humanism. But it's not an active humanism or a creative humanism. It's a debased humanism that is essentially anti-culture and, you know, casts cultural activity and the sources of cultural activity in a punitive light.

So, you know, it was essentially reduces man to the state of an animal. And that's not accidental, nor is it incidental. But, you know, and, you know, And as these tendencies were taking shape as historical phenomenon, you know, de Maistre was like observing them in situ. And like a lot of theorists, like FICTA is another one. Fictas got more, it's been, has had more of an impact on kind of, you know, the mainstream academic than De Maister has.

But similarly, Ficto was another political theorist who was tremendously impactful, but who is not widely read and really hasn't been, you know, for generations. Like a friend of mine said these certain thinkers like this are, they're like the philosophical equivalent of the like the Velvet Underground. They're like guys who like well-known philosophers read, but who, like most students of these subjects, don't know about, you know, just like the Velvet Underground is like a band that, like, a lot of guys listened to who went on to start bands. I think, I think, I think, I think Johnny Ramon might have made that observation. But, yeah, that struck me as funny, but it also happens to be true.

I hadn't thought about it like that before. But, you know, so that's one of the missions. of people who abide the traditionalist perspective is, you know, to return the structure of Western or Occidental Intelligence. You know, this idea that there going to be some sort of a cultural perspective that doesn't imply a world view for a discrete historical orientation, you know, that's nonsense. it's a kind of sophistry that doesn't stand up to intellectual rigor but again it's like really not supposed to because the whole

purpose of these things like by design it's supposed to take questions of metaphysics off the table and going to deprive people of the syntax and the conceptual vocabulary required to discuss and structure these things you know and that's

a very insidious thing okay to say the least but that's part of its purpose and you know if you uh you know

people talk disdainfully about stuff like pop science I mean as they should but I mean that that's part of the whole point is uh you know a lot of the kind of gatekeepers of scientism they want to maintain

this illusion that there's an esoteric knowledge that like very few men can actually grasp which in the case of the subject matter that they promote or the absence of subject matter maybe more appropriately like that's that's it that's a ruse it's a canard but um they're trying to maintain some sort of uh appearance of uh elitism it's almost rabbinic you know like i have the key to the inner sanctum you don't you can't possibly understand like how dare you criticize this perspective because you can't

really understand it you know um like how people can't claim that whose stock and trade is trying to like abolish metaphysics and higher thought is laughable but again the whole point is to kind of strip away the layers of uh meaningful contemplation and beyond that the capability to engage in meaningful contemplation but moving on um a bit of background at the meister himself like Like I said, he was born in Savoy in 1753. He was born in April. And increasingly, I'm finding myself agreeing with Kerry Mullis.

I'm not going to run out and get into astrology. But I'm starting to believe that people's birth order within their family, as well as the month of the year, that calendar they are born, does impact in some way their character and their intellectual tendencies. I find a lot of great men are born in April. and I find a lot of crazy people are born in September, which probably doesn't bode well for me because I'm one of those people, but be as it may.

He was a son of a high court judge who'd been ennobled by the king of Sardinia, owing to his work in legal theory and specifically legal reform. This is Demestra's father, Francois Xavier de Meistre. From from from from a from a From a couple of completing his early education Um He uh studied at Turin as soon as he gained his degree

Uh he was appointed a public prosecutor in the Senate of Savoy Um The Senate of the Savoy was actually a judicial panel Um of which his father was the president presiding judge. This was in 1774. So the kind of early iterations of Jacob and sentiment were very much jumping off. But Savoy was sort of insular. You know, like I said, it was historically part of the Holy Roman Empire, or I mean under its authority. But it was very much like an island, like figuratively and literally. You know, and until 1789,

it was pretty much untouched by revolutionary activity and political disturbances and convulsions. And I think that's one of the reasons why. I mean, Demice was obviously a thoughtful and sensitive and very religious guy, you know, a legal scholar from a family of intellectuals who had been ennobled. So, you know, it's a background,

that's a unique background. you know on the one hand it's middle class and bourgeoisie and professional and upwardly mobile on the other hand I mean it it was aristocratic like the lifestyle

that he and his family lived you know and so like a young guy or a youngish guy by that time period by the end of that time period you know something like

The 1789 Revolution would have really, really disturbed the kind of habits of somebody like Joseph de Maestro. Ready for huge savings? We'll mark your calendars from November 28 to 30th because the Liddle Newbridge Warehouse sale is back. We're talking thousands of your favorite Liddle items all reduced to clear. From home essentials to seasonal must-habs. When the doors open, the deals go fast. for yourself. The Lidl Newbridge Warehouse Sale, 28th to 30th of November. Lidl, more to value. You catch them in the corner of your eye. Distinctive, by design. They move you, even before you drive.

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trading as Kupra Financial Services is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. And now, this is over the next to the hamciere. It's lear, that a lot of GUEHWA and not great gree in Aundun, and leander Gaela to Gael Fadah, Gael, Deirin. In the Ergrid, we're doing to talk in one-of-he-he-one-hae to find one-oen-voin-voin-ha. It's a lot of doing on the anguxtricers,

on as to refer to all the town, gnaw, and people, tariff in the pastes to want to be in the eyes. Follam, I'm not more, in Ergrid Pongahy. And his entire kind of world view, um, it would have prompted deep contemplation

on the cause of these things, in addition to, you know, more sanguinary and immediate survival concerns. but um Savoy was also like a very pious place very very Catholic

um Demaisha's mother was a very devoted she was some kind of I don't know exactly how the Catholic lady how they figure into church hierarchy his mother was like the equivalent to what in my tradition it would be like a deaconess

okay like a laywoman in Catholicism you know who was a very insinuated into the church, okay? But when he returned home from taking his law degree, the Meister joined a Masonic Lodge.

The thing is, though, Freemasonry was pretty diverse, especially in its early iterations. Some of them were atheistic and positively pro-Jacob. and their sentiments. You know, some were phylo-Semitic in weird ways.

Some were into neoplatonism and things like that. And some were very much into, like, mysticism. You know, the lodge that Demisha joined, their patron saint was St. Martin. And, you know, this was well after Freemasonryadmini-admin category condemned by the Pope, but there was an inner conflict among some of these guys like the Maistra who joined lodges that were not anti-Catholic, and that in fact were very much into things we'd probably consider to be interested adjacent to alchemy and occultism, frankly, but also

Christian mysticism, and stuff in the tradition of Meister Eckert as well. was what the kind of stuff that some of these men would be taken in by. So the Freemasonry to which de Maestro was insinuated, it was mystical and occultic rather than enlightened. And it could probably be called conservative. It could be called anything. But it was definitely not democratic. It was definitely not reformist. You know, and this wasn't the only lodge like this.

was others there were guys who became like arch anti-jacovens and anti-enlightment partisans who came out of Masonic lodges so it's complicated okay um at any event um in the years immediately prior of the revolution he was uh he was criticized heavily by his fellow senators as well as not a few clergymen in Savoy because he consistently defended freedom of thought especially of

aristocrats and his first reaction to the Jacobin Revolution was somewhat of a wait and see position like when I being clear what was happening and the megasidal excesses and the um the the uh you know the the the the based uh and sacral de sentiments you know he became an arch partisan against it you know but again early on you know the french crown was failing france was uh losing out in the grue

great power political struggles, you know, relative to our rivals. And Demois's view was that, you know, France is a great nation, possessed of a great destiny. You know, if the revolutionary armies are going to return France to their greatness, you know, there's, you know, that, then, then, you know, it's godly. You know, even if the blood of innocence is going to, is going to flow, you know because again you know the the process of history is a is a sacrificial um process you know which is why and we'll get into this too um demyce's view is that the most sacred figure in national politics is the executioner you know the executioner is a great man not because he's just because he's singularly terrifying but he's the distilled essence of size

because he wields the power of life and death and through that like monumental power to like deliver death to like any man or woman You know he stands like sing early above all All who populate the nation You know um he's a high priest of sacrifice You know and in the architect of the historical process and God's will but you know when um but any enthusiasm for the jagman cause subsided um you know around the time uh if not before then definitely around the time savoy was assaulted by uh the new french republican army in 1792 um but by the time

they assaulted he'd already become this firebrand um partisan against revolutionary revolutionary ambitions and jakemism in general and a month after french armies entered the savoyard territory he fled the country because he was almost certainly going to be executed you know or uh thrown into some dungeon and left a rot um or or drowned uh on a you know like like so many tens of thousands were you know for counter revolutionary thought or habits. He returned briefly in 1793 to see if the revolutionary

fervor had abated. And tragically, he had a wife and children by this time and, you know, he wanted to be with them, but he went to begin clear that you know, the cycle of killing and revolutionary

and the revolutionary cycle, like, it was peaking, if anything. It wasn't abating he he left again he didn't see his family again for 20 years although he was in like avid correspondence and it's true that he it's clear that you know the the truth of the matters being asserted in his letters to his wife and whatnot very much a tragedy and figure but um he established himself uh in sardinia uh and sardinians are interesting people i mean all all italians are but he became in sconed at Lausanne and he was made a former representative of a Sardinian crown and then he became an active counter-revolutionary in addition to kind of beginning his career as a

prolific writer a lot of what he wrote wasn't widely published to a general literate audience until the 1880s but locally this was very widely circulated among counter-relutionary circles and it played a his work played a huge role in motivating and kind of consolidating a counter-revolutionary sentiment especially among because in like corsica serdina and on the mainland of illi there was a all kinds of refugees who were like fleeing the terror you know um and uh the book considerations on france which is for the first thing published locally in 7096 that that became kind of the seminal anti-jacob and screed you know and um a couple years later uh he returned to the mainland

and eventually settled in venice and he found way to Piedmont around 1799, 1800. Then by this time, he'd become kind of, you'd become like literally this itinerant kind of political soldier and writer. And that made him amenable to being deployed far and wide as a representative of the Sardinian crown. So he got sent to St. Petersburg in 1802,

and he really found a home in Russia. The Russians then is, Now, you know, they're very welcoming of a certain type of heterodox thinker from the West. You know, that's almost a cliche. You know, whether you're talking about arch right wingers, whether you're talking about Kim Filby and the Cambridge 7, whether you're talking about snouting, you know, this goes way back. And that's, um, this was his most prolific period and his most intellectually rigorous. That's when he wrote the St. Petersburg dialogues, obviously.

He wrote a essay on the Pope. Um, he wrote a degenerative principle of political constitutions. Um, he wrote his pre-ur putiation of the philosophies of Bacon, you know, um, and he was in Russia throughout, uh, until 18 and 17. So he witnessed the Napoleonic Wars from northern Russia, which is fascinating. Then in relatively advanced age, he finally returned to France, and all was forgiven, obviously, by that point. But along the last, too, he started writing these kind of retrospectives on the revolution. And that's when, you know, he came to – his kind of historicism came –

full circle you know it's around this time he started a you know you this was probably his most reactionary period too but it was tempered like I said by this this kind of idiosyncratic theology that tempered but was otherwise a kind of conservative historicism you know whereby you know he's like don't lament the rain of terror it had to happen It was both a crime and a punishment and an essential aspect of, you know, France's destiny and the historical process, which is always sanguinary and characteristic of suffering. You know, like he said, too, he's like, had the Revolutionary Army's not been victorious, there would have been no Napoleon, you know, France never would have achieved. greatness again and then also like you know we we wouldn't be this repentant nation that

had redeemed itself um from decrepitude you know and uh that's actually that's frankly like a very Protestant view of things like uh I can't remember who it was one of the guys of countercurrents he said that demyche was like the most like Calvinist Catholic whoever lived I I think there was nothing to that. And that's probably why I found myself receptive to do with theology. Early on, the first thing I read by him was the executioner. And I remember this was in the 90s. And that was when,

that was when even a lot of supposedly conservative Catholics were pretty milk toast. Even in a place like Chicago was a very Catholic city. And I remember the response was from a lot of these guys. I knew, like, oh, that's, that's, that's, disgusting you know like the the death penalty is anti-christ and even it wasn't that's idolatrous I'm like that I'm like you don't understand you know I'm like that's also preposterous you know and even if uh my favorite argument too is you're like you know christ is wrongfully executed I'm like no Christ had to be executed and you're not a

Christian if you don't get that you know I mean I don't want to spend this off into um this question of deep theology but I know it's coming either in the comments section or by email. When Christ cried out, like, you know, Adonai, why have you foreseeking me? That's the Hebraic, like, death prayer. He's not saying, like, oh, no, I've been condemned to death. It's, you know, our friend Andrew Iskru, I'm sure has things to say on that.

But because it may, like I, I um that's one of the things I one of the reasons I maintain that a the maestro belongs in the traditionalist um category because that that kind of theological syncretism is not accidental and again is freemasonry is a component of that you know because there is uh there isn't there's a there's a theological ecumenism to traditionalism that seems superficially inconsistent with the kind of a racialism that tends to go along with traditionalism but you know that it's not inconsistent in the least you know the the relativism or perceived relativism of capital T traditionalism

You know, it owes the belief that, you know, part of an aspect of the mind of God in the historical process is the development of discrete nations. You know, and part of what makes us human and capable of higher reason is the historical consciousness that derives from, you know, linear natality and you know the kind of shared experience of of um historical existence you know that can only come from you know the the the differences between the races of men and um you know the basis of the congregation obviously too is the fellow feeling derived from the nation and to abolish that is you know, to abolish the potentiality of Christian fellowship, and in turn to abolish the potentiality of the church,

you know, which is the body of Christ on earth, you know. So this shouldn't seem inconsistent. But at the same time, you know, again, even to somebody who's, demichita's idiosyncratic, even to somebody who's like traditionally Catholic, Okay, I mean, they can't be denied. But I'd argue, so is Machiavelli.

Machiavelli's model of progressive statecraft was, you know, Ferdinand and Isabella Spain. You know, and that's not a very Catholic perspective in the traditional sense. But moving on, but yeah, I mean, interspersed throughout what is conventionally um precedented and stuff uh especially like the reflections on France and stuff from the period of self-imposed exile in Russia you know the starting point a demystress thought and um all traditionalist thought is uh you know God in

divine order of the starting point of understanding history and society and the reason why the Enlightenment and its progeny including the Jacob Revolution were at odds with reason is because they were at odds with God you know and um scorning the sacred character of historical processes and perennial institutions you know like a monarchy on its own terms that doesn't mean you know kings are infallible or something but the scorning these institutions in categorical terms and essential terms you know is a repudiation of the divine order in human affairs and um society and not the individual is a subject of history you know and any true kind of science

of man or science of history or theory of politics or ethics for that matter because all ethics touching concern the political you know um the subject matter can never be the individual because the individual is an abstraction you know um envisioned by social engineers who uh you know in their hubris wish to make themselves the architects of historical processes in lieu of God or by you know people who uh in large measure abide uh enlightenment conceits and who despite you know claiming to be these conservatives they uh that they claim that you know individuals are the source of vitality and institutions and these like arbitrary institutions are what needs to be preserved for you know pragmatic reasons you know or for reasons of familiarity you know like that's not a conservative

position this that's an enlightenment liberal position with certain reservations waiting to the progress and timetable of you know radical imperatives but um you know and finally you know cultural aspects, you know, not pure reason abstracted from historical contingencies, that's the only possible approach to reforming, a revolutionizing government or social relationships. Because otherwise, you're speaking of things as they are not.

You know, that's... You're talking about, like, Rawls' veil of ignorance. You know, you're saying, like, if man and society was not as it is and was perfectly malleable you know these kinds of things would be possible because the people's hierarchies of desires and people's motivations and the things that color their passions it would be you know spundedly unrelated to historical phenomenon you know and that that doesn't describe anything that actually exists so even by itself own standard. It's, you know, which is supposedly, you know, the rational and empirical.

You know, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not those things. You know, you can't, uh, and plus, too, like what's good for, because things like race and because things, uh, you know, like cultural learning of a discreet character, you know, those are the things that make it possible for us to develop a higher moral consciousness you know

you can't claim that those things are somehow at odds with what customary behavior should be and you know should not inform the wisdom of the law you know because again there's not

that does not there's not there's not there's not some sort of like alternative ethics that's you know purely secular in nature and blind to a discrete racial

and cultural realities and beyond that even you know like what is good for a in communitarian terms or what is good for a discrete race or nation of people is a

obviously contingent upon what's going to sustain that race is posterity that's the whole point you know you can't decide that you're going to remove a population

from its cultural trappings and from historical processes and like identify arbitrary things as the good because suppose according to some model where, you know, humans exist in abstraction, you know, this is, this is a sudden that's like guaranteed the dignity of all these abstracted people, according to some

arbitrary metric, usually relating to, like, wishful fulfillment and individual desires. Like, that's, that's not even sophistry. It's just nonsense. You know, it's, um, it's like saying you're going to solve a mathematical equation with, with, um, with letters that don't have a symbolic numeric value. You know, it's just like if I scribble enough words on the chalkboard, I'm going to solve an equation because I say so. You know, because numeric notation is historically contingent.

And, you know, we're just limiting ourselves with that. It's a lot of the imperfect metaphor. But yeah, that's what I got into Maestro. I don't want to spin off on another subject or we'll be here for a minute. All right. Good stuff. I know people are going to like this one. People are interested in hearing more about de Maestra. Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah, people should be reminded that places like Imperium Press are reprinting his works. So go check it out. You can, he has collected works. His letters on the Spanish Inquisition, which I've read on the show. so yeah yeah it's top notch and I'll at some point I mean

I'll I'll write some long form stuff on the executioner because that's one of my very favorite books yeah no Demitia's great stuff and highly readable you know now I'll put a little theory in and I say that if somebody who reads put a little theory all day

but yeah something people should definitely read man all right where do we find you know um check on my website it's number seven it's uh yeah it's thomas seven77.com number seven h m s seven seven seven seven seven dot com or go to substack like pretty much everything i'm doing is on substack right now or on my website um it's real thomas seven seven seven seven dot substack.com i'm going to start doing more streams and stuff like live streams you know i've been thinking about that for a minute

And I've been working on my manuscript and kind of like chilling this summer, which has been like awesome. But, you know, I'm trying to put out more content. And in my defense, I have been, I don't go more than like five days without dropping something fresh. But I want to start doing some weekly live streams and stuff. So stay tuned for that. In August, we'll kick that off at some point. Awesome. So the next step.

So thank you, Thomas. Yeah, thank you, buddy.