Counter-Currents
  • Private Events
  • T&C
  • Rss
  • DLive
  • Telegram
  • Gab
  • Entropy
  • Rss
  • DLive
  • Telegram
  • Gab
  • Entropy
  • Webzine
  • Books
  • Podcasts
  • Donate
  • Paywall
  • Crypto
  • Mailing List
  • About
  • Contact
  • RSS
    • Main feed
    • Comments feed
    • Podcast feed

LEVEL2

  • Webzine
  • Books
  • Podcasts
  • Donate
  • Paywall
  • Crypto
  • Mailing List
  • About
  • Contact
  • RSS
    • Main feed
    • Comments feed
    • Podcast feed
  • Private Events
  • T&C
  • Rss
  • DLive
  • Telegram
  • Gab
  • Entropy
Print May 6, 2016 1 comment

The Era of Pyropolitics is Coming

Robert Steuckers

JordanianPilot1,342 words

Romanian translation here

What do political scientists mean when they talk about “pyropolitics”? There are two sources to explore in order to understand what they mean; first, you’ll have the whole realm of political theology to investigate, including Donoso Cortés’ thoughts about liberalism, socialism and Catholicism (this last being perceived as Tradition as such) and of course you’ll have to study thoroughly the core idea of Carl Schmitt, having proved that all political ideas have a theological background; second, you’ll have to take into consideration Schmitt’s perception of world politics as a clash between raw elements such as Earth and Water. Real politics, called in his genuine German as “das Politische,” is necessarily Earth-bound, continental and the truly efficient political man is a kind of Roman geometer who organizes the territory coming under his jurisdiction, by simply measuring it.

After both German defeats in 1918 and 1945, Earth is no longer the core element of world politics. It has been replaced by Water: it’s the new subversive and destructive dialectics of “Land und Meer,” of Land and Sea, whereby Water obtains victory in the end. Schmitt’s posthumously edited diary Glossarium insists heavily on the destructive effects of the victorious all-encompassing US-“hydropolitics.” “Pyros” means “fire” in Greek and represents, according to Michael Marder (cf. infra), another raw element combining not only the idea of a devouring/burning flame but also the corollary ones of “light” and “warmth.” Even if Schmitt reduced the possibilities of politics to two main elements (Earth and Water), this does not mean that Fire or Air didn’t exist and didn’t play a role, even less perceptible. “Fire” means therefore several phenomena: the burning force of destruction (that you find in anti-traditional revolutions), the “light-without-warmth” of Enlightenment, or the warmth of silent revolt against untraditional (abstract) institutions derived from several ideological strands of the 18th-century Enlightenment.

As no virgin territories can be conquered anymore (see Toynbee’s thoughts) and subsequently organized according to the very earth-bound principles of Roman geometers, the Earth as structuring element of true politics is gradually replaced not only by Water but also by Fire. Water, as the emblematic element of liberalism, Manchesterism, seapower, or plutocracy, doesn’t know neither clear borders nor positive rest (those who rest on sea sink and are drowned, said Schmitt in his Glossarium). No “otium” (fruitful rest, introspection, meditation) is possible anymore, only “neg-otium” (febrile nervosity of restless materialistic activities) survives and thrives. We live then in societies where only ceaseless acceleration (“Beschleunigung”) rules and cancels all sensible attempts to decelerate things (Ernst Jünger’s brother Friedrich-Georg was the main theorist of “deceleration” or “Entschleunigung,” true ecological thinking being an awkward attempt to bring back the raw element Earth on the world political stage). Domination of hydropolitics (seapower) leads to border dissolution, as we clearly can observe nowadays, and to a worldwide preponderance of economics and anti-political/anti-telluric/anti-traditional rules of moralistic law (e.g. Wilsonism).

Nevertheless, even as a dominated element, Earth cannot be simply wiped out and remains currently silent, as if it were deeply wounded and hibernating. Hydropolitical forces should therefore try other means to destroy definitively the tacitly resisting element Earth and, subsequently, to provoke explosions on the continent, i.e., mobilize Fire as an adjuvant, a Fire they don’t manipulate themselves but leave to mercenary forces hired secretly in countries with a surplus of young jobless men to do the dirty work. The apex of sea and air power could be observed after the destruction of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 2003, without the complicity of allies and aliens (the Paris-Berlin-Moscow Axis). The war against Baathist Iraq didn’t result in a complete victory of the neocon aggressors. Sea powers, as they aren’t earth-bound powers, are reluctant to organize occupied areas like Roman geometers did. Therefore, to keep the defeated and destroyed countries in a state of total dereliction, hydropolitical powers mobilized the element Fire, i.e., terrorism (with its strategy of blowing up people and buildings and its ardent religious fanaticism, “ardent” being derived from the Latin “ardere,” meaning “to burn”). The recurrent terrorist attacks against Baghdad’s Shiite marketplaces are the most appalling actions in this return of violent pyropolitics. The same pattern of total destructive violence would be used later in Libya.

When no geometer’s skills are available and when there is no desire to create a new statehood to replace the broken one, we observe a transition to pyropolitics. The Earth-bound Baathist military elite of former Iraq itself turned also to pyropolitics by partly creating ISIS, that spread in the neighborhood, while being at the same time a revolt against the chaos generated by the neocon Bush war and a manipulation of hydro/thalassopolitical secret forces to set undesirable countries ablaze and eventually spread the devouring terrorist/fanatical Fire to the main competitors’ territories (to Europe as a harbor for refugees among whom terrorists hide and to Russia where Chechen and Daghestani terrorists are directly linked to the Wahhabite networks). The hydro/thalassopolitical strategy to set whole areas ablaze by stirring up revolts, religious hatred, and tribal enmities is surely not new but has recently taken new more gigantic dimensions.

ISIS’ pyropolitics has as a collateral effect to ridicule the “light-without-warmth” Enlightenment ideologies of the Eurocratic elites. Light alone blinds and doesn’t produce genuine solutions for new problems that were induced by the disguised foe’s hydro- and pyropolitics. A blinding political ideology determined by light alone — that is also bereft of any “warmth-giving” feelings of security — is obviously bound to fail. European states become gradually failed states because they keep to “light-only-ideologies,” being only weakly challenged by so-called “warmth-demanding” populist movements. Europe is now undergoing a double aggression under two threats: the one of “light-without-warmth” ideological systems ­– leading to what Ernst Jünger defined as “post-history” — and the one of imported pyropolitics from the Muslim world formerly set ablaze by several factors, among which the total destruction of Saddam’s Iraq is the most important. ISIS’s pyropolitics aims at setting ablaze the Western European countries held erroneously responsible for the complete collapse of Near- and Middle Eastern countries. ISIS’ pyropolitics is nevertheless a quite complex problem: the religious element in it rebels savagely against the “light-only” all determining Western and global dominant ideology and promotes a pyropolitical “warmth-based” alternative exactly like a European counterpart of it would also aim at replacing the old-fashioned and bleak “light-only” ideological nuisances by more open-hearted and warmer political systems. The neoliberal avatar of the “light-only” ideology should therefore be replaced by a “warmth-giving” solidarism, i.e., a socialism that should have lost all the “coldness” that was attributed to Soviet or French communism by Kostas Papaioannou, a voice of Communist internal criticism in the ’60s and ’70s in France.

But there is also a savage, destroying “flame-like” aspect in pyropolitics: the burning fire of explosions and machine-gun fire (like in Paris and Brussels) and of some public executions by fire in ISIS-occupied Syria, aiming at sparking fear in Europe through the media effect it has inevitably had. The use of such dimensions of pyropolitics is a declaration of war to the rest of the world, which is set as a worldwide realm of total foes (Dar-el-Harb), what cannot be accepted (as you are inevitably the foe of all those who declare you a foe, as Carl Schmitt and Julien Freund used to stress it very clearly in their works). No one can accept such a radical and fierce rejection without automatically negating themselves, their very right to live. The problem becomes still more acute as the whole system set up by the “light-without-warmth” ideology (Habermas) doesn’t accept the polemical idea of the “enemy.” In the eyes of Habermas’ followers, there is never an enemy, there are only discussion partners. But if the partners refuse to discuss, what happens? Clash is then inevitable. The dominating elite, as followers of poor silly Habermas, don’t have any response to the challenge. They will have to be replaced. It will be the difficult task of those who remember Schmitt’s and Freund’s lectures.

Robert Steuckers
Forest-Flotzenberg, May 2016

Source: Michael Marder, Pyropolitics: When the World is Ablaze (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015).

Related

  • Neema Parvini’s The Populist Delusion

  • “Should War Be Criminalized?”

  • Payton Gendron & the Buffalo Massacre

  • Social Change’s Best Practices

  • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 422
    Ask Me Anything & the Russo-Ukrainian War with Greg Johnson

  • This Weekend’s Livestreams
    Greg Johnson on Carl Schmitt’s Theory of the Partisan & Mark Gullick on The Writers’ Bloc

  • “Enough from the Clown!”
    Up Schmitt’s Creek with Justin Trudeau

  • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 417
    Greg Johnson on Carl Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political

Tags

Carl SchmittgeopoliticsISISJuan Donoso CortésRobert Steuckersterrorism

Previous

« Genocidal Intentions:
Jared Taylor Debates Wilfred Reilly on Racial Diversity

Next

» Counter-Currents Radio Podcast 159
Greg Johnson & Guillaume Durocher
Living as a Dissident

If you have Paywall access,
simply login first to see your comment auto-approved.

Note on comments privacy & moderation

Your email is never published nor shared.

Comments are moderated. If you don't see your comment, please be patient. If approved, it will appear here soon. Do not post your comment a second time.

  • Recent posts

    • Neema Parvini’s The Populist Delusion

      Greg Johnson

    • Europe’s Eastern Shield

      Nicholas R. Jeelvy

      4

    • Céline vs. Houellebecq

      Margot Metroland

    • White Identity Nationalism, Part 3

      Neil Kumar

      2

    • White Americans’ Racial Consciousness is No Longer an Unknown Quantity

      Beau Albrecht

      15

    • The Tex-Mex Misfit Massacre

      Jim Goad

      18

    • White Identity Nationalism, Part 2

      Neil Kumar

      3

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 448
      The Writers’ Bloc with Karl Thorburn on Mutually Assured Destruction

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • The US Spring Primaries are a Sign that White Identity Politics is Here to Stay

      Cyan Quinn

      6

    • The Union Jackal, May 2022

      Mark Gullick

      5

    • White Identity Nationalism, Part 1

      Neil Kumar

      4

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 447
      New Ask Me Anything with Greg Johnson

      Counter-Currents Radio

      3

    • On Racial Humor

      Spencer J. Quinn

      26

    • Facts on the Ground

      Hamilton T. Burger

      4

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 446
      James J. O’Meara on Hunter S. Thompson

      Counter-Currents Radio

      2

    • O Manifesto Nacionalista Branco:
      Parte 3, Genocídio Branco

      Greg Johnson

    • The Worst Week Yet:
      May 15-21, 2022

      Jim Goad

      24

    • Lauren Oyler’s Fake Accounts

      Anthony Bavaria

      6

    • The Copypasta Apocalypse
      From Jesus to Gendron, via Brother Stair

      James J. O'Meara

    • The Life & Death of a Patriot:
      Personal Reflections on the Great Replacement

      Veiko Hessler

      2

    • Remembering Richard Wagner
      (May 22, 1813–February 13, 1883)

      Greg Johnson

    • This Weekend’s Livestreams
      James O’Meara on Counter-Currents Radio & Karl Thorburn on The Writers’ Bloc

      Greg Johnson

      4

    • The Counter-Currents 2022 Fundraiser
      Every Man an Editor

      Greg Johnson

      7

    • Against the Negative Approach in Politics

      Nicholas R. Jeelvy

      6

    • What Christian Nationalism Looks Like in Current-Year America

      Robert Hampton

      25

    • “Should War Be Criminalized?”

      Greg Johnson

      5

    • O Manifesto Nacionalista Branco:
      Parte 2, Extinção Branca

      Greg Johnson

    • Morálka lidské mysli Jonathana Haidta, část druhá

      Collin Cleary

    • Animals & Children First

      Jim Goad

      41

    • The Great Replacement Prize

      Greg Johnson

    • Remembering Julius Evola
      (May 19, 1898–June 11, 1974)

      Greg Johnson

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 445
      The Writers’ Bloc with Kathryn S. on Mircea Eliade

      Counter-Currents Radio

      2

    • O Manifesto Nacionalista Branco:
      Parte 1, Introdução

      Greg Johnson

    • Extremities:
      A Film from Long Ago that Anticipated Today’s Woke Hollywood

      Stephen Paul Foster

      10

    • The National Health Service:
      My Part in Its Downfall

      Mark Gullick

      10

    • Male Supremacism in the United States?

      Margot Metroland

      2

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 444
      Ask Me Anything with Greg Johnson

      Counter-Currents Radio

      1

    • Fallen Castes

      Thomas Steuben

      18

    • Work to Be Such a Man

      Morris van de Camp

      6

    • Be a Medici:
      New Patrons for a New Renaissance

      Robert Wallace

      21

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 443
      Interview with Jim Goad

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Das Manifest des weißen Nationalismus:
      Teil 5, Die Wiederherstellung Unserer Weissen Heimatländer

      Greg Johnson

    • Where Do We Go from Buffalo?

      Jim Goad

      42

    • Rammstein’s Deutschland

      Ondrej Mann

      8

    • If I Lost Hope

      Greg Johnson

      5

    • Das Manifest des weißen Nationalismus:
      Teil 4, Wie Können Wir den Weissen Genozid Beenden?

      Greg Johnson

    • Payton Gendron & the Buffalo Massacre

      Greg Johnson

      66

    • The Counter-Currents 2022 Fundraiser
      Between Now and May 20th, Give a New Monthly Gift and Receive a New Book!

      Cyan Quinn

    • This Weekend’s Livestreams
      Jim Goad on Counter-Currents Radio & Kathryn S. on The Writers’ Bloc

      Greg Johnson

    • Remembering Hinton Rowan Helper

      Spencer J. Quinn

      11

  • Recent comments

    • Giles Corey White Identity Nationalism, Part 3 After this magisterial three-part essay, at the beginning of which Mr. Kumar painstakingly described...
    • illtakemystand White Identity Nationalism, Part 3 For coming from a person of color, these aren’t bad ideas.
    • Nick Jeelvy Europe’s Eastern Shield The Macedonian census is bullshit. Data from the state health insurance fund indicates Albanians are...
    • Vikings Europe’s Eastern Shield An even more important topic is the Albanian Question. Having traveled to all Balkan countries last...
    • La-Z-Man White Identity Nationalism, Part 2 This is powerful stuff. I get the impression I am reading a foundational document of a new nation,...
    • Alex Europe’s Eastern Shield Way to go, slandering Hungarians.
    • Bookai Europe’s Eastern Shield Antemurale Christianitatis- What a waste that idea was for my fatherland in practice. Partitions by...
    • La-Z-Man White Identity Nationalism, Part 1 Neil Kumar is a great patriot. I confess I was wholly ignorant of the Tacoma Axeman and some...
    • Alexandra O. The Union Jackal, May 2022 I love England and have friends there who have invited me to live with them for a month or two at a...
    • Rangers White Identity Nationalism, Part 2 The decline of America occurred after Nixon opened relations with a godless and perverted communist...
    • Texas Chainsaw Makeover The Union Jackal, May 2022 Had Pankhurst's statue been taken down, that would have been my good news story of the year. I...
    • Enough Already White Americans’ Racial Consciousness is No Longer an Unknown Quantity This is what I really dislike about this movement. Your mind automatically goes there because you...
    • Ryan White Americans’ Racial Consciousness is No Longer an Unknown Quantity Does this just count White women giving birth overall, not only those giving birth to White children...
    • Shift The Tex-Mex Misfit Massacre Thanks, Ms. O.  I did.
    • Beau Albrecht White Americans’ Racial Consciousness is No Longer an Unknown Quantity I do see some room for hope.  The System is losing control over The Narrative.  As long as this...
    • Beau Albrecht White Americans’ Racial Consciousness is No Longer an Unknown Quantity The way I see it, if only a few speak out, they can come down on us individually (cancel culture and...
    • Beau Albrecht White Americans’ Racial Consciousness is No Longer an Unknown Quantity Positive messages can make a real difference.  Ages ago, what pulled off the liberal blinders for me...
    • Stronza White Identity Nationalism, Part 2 These are barbaric, grisly procedures which include mastectomy, hysterectomy, castration,...
    • Rez The Tex-Mex Misfit Massacre He will spend the rest of eternity in a prison not of this world.
    • Rez The Tex-Mex Misfit Massacre It turns out you were right! This newest generation of police mostly resemble social workers trained...
  • Books

    • Kerry Bolton
    • Jonathan Bowden
    • Buttercup Dew
    • Collin Cleary
    • Jef Costello
    • F. Roger Devlin
    • Julius Evola
    • Gregory Hood
    • Juleigh Howard-Hobson
    • Greg Johnson
    • Jason Jorjani
    • Ward Kendall
    • Anthony M. Ludovici
    • Trevor Lynch
    • H. L. Mencken
    • J. A. Nicholl
    • Andy Nowicki
    • James J. O'Meara
    • Michael O'Meara
    • Christopher Pankhurst
    • Tito Perdue
    • Michael Polignano
    • Spencer J. Quinn
    • Savitri Devi
    • Fenek Solère
    • Irmin Vinson
    • Leo Yankevich
    • Francis Parker Yockey
  • Webzine Authors

    Contemporary authors

    • Howe Abbott-Hiss
    • Beau Albrecht
    • Aquilonius
    • Anthony Bavaria
    • Michael Bell
    • Alain de Benoist
    • Kerry Bolton
    • Jonathan Bowden
    • Buttercup Dew
    • Collin Cleary
    • Giles Corey
    • Jef Costello
    • Morris V. de Camp
    • F. Roger Devlin
    • Bain Dewitt
    • Jack Donovan
    • Ricardo Duchesne
    • Émile Durand
    • Guillaume Durocher
    • Mark Dyal
    • Guillaume Faye
    • Stephen Paul Foster
    • Fullmoon Ancestry
    • Jim Goad
    • Tom Goodrich
    • Alex Graham
    • Mark Gullick
    • Andrew Hamilton
    • Robert Hampton
    • Huntley Haverstock
    • Derek Hawthorne
    • Gregory Hood
    • Juleigh Howard-Hobson
    • Richard Houck
    • Alexander Jacob
    • Nicholas R. Jeelvy
    • Greg Johnson
    • Ruuben Kaalep
    • Tobias Langdon
    • Julian Langness
    • Travis LeBlanc
    • Patrick Le Brun
    • Trevor Lynch
    • Kevin MacDonald
    • G. A. Malvicini
    • John Michael McCloughlin
    • Margot Metroland
    • Millennial Woes
    • John Morgan
    • James J. O'Meara
    • Michael O'Meara
    • Christopher Pankhurst
    • Michael Polignano
    • J. J. Przybylski
    • Spencer J. Quinn
    • Quintilian
    • Edouard Rix
    • C. B. Robertson
    • C. F. Robinson
    • Hervé Ryssen
    • Kathryn S.
    • Alan Smithee
    • Fenek Solère
    • Ann Sterzinger
    • Thomas Steuben
    • Robert Steuckers
    • Tomislav Sunić
    • Donald Thoresen
    • Marian Van Court
    • Dominique Venner
    • Irmin Vinson
    • Michael Walker
    • Aylmer Wedgwood
    • Scott Weisswald
    • Leo Yankevich

    Classic Authors

    • Maurice Bardèche
    • Julius Evola
    • Ernst Jünger
    • D. H. Lawrence
    • Charles Lindbergh
    • Jack London
    • H. P. Lovecraft
    • Anthony M. Ludovici
    • Sir Oswald Mosley
    • National Vanguard
    • Friedrich Nietzsche
    • Revilo Oliver
    • William Pierce
    • Ezra Pound
    • Saint-Loup
    • Savitri Devi
    • Carl Schmitt
    • Miguel Serrano
    • Oswald Spengler
    • P. R. Stephensen
    • Jean Thiriart
    • John Tyndall
    • Francis Parker Yockey
  • Departments

    • Book Reviews
    • Movie Reviews
    • TV Reviews
    • Music Reviews
    • Art Criticism
    • Graphic Novels & Comics
    • Video Game Reviews
    • Fiction
    • Poems
    • Interviews
    • Videos
    • English Translations
    • Other Languages
      • Arabic
      • Bulgarian
      • Croatian
      • Czech
      • Danish
      • Dutch
      • Estonian
      • Finnish
      • French
      • German
      • Greek
      • Hungarian
      • Italian
      • Lithuanian
      • Norwegian
      • Polish
      • Portuguese
      • Romanian
      • Russian
      • Slovak
      • Spanish
      • Swedish
      • Ukrainian
    • Commemorations
    • Why We Write
  • Archives
  • Top 100 Commenters
Sponsored Links
Alaska Chaga Antelope Hill Publishing Imperium Press American Renaissance A Dissident’s Guide to Blacks and Africa The Patrick Ryan Show Jim Goad The Occidental Observer
Editor-in-Chief
Greg Johnson
Books for sale
  • Trevor Lynch’s Classics of Right-Wing Cinema
  • The Enemy of Europe
  • Imperium
  • Reactionary Modernism
  • Manifesto del Nazionalismo Bianco
  • O Manifesto Nacionalista Branco
  • Vade Mecum
  • Whiteness: The Original Sin
  • Space Vixen Trek Episode 17: Tomorrow the Stars
  • The Year America Died
  • Passing the Buck
  • Mysticism After Modernism
  • Gold in the Furnace
  • Defiance
  • Forever & Ever
  • Wagner’s Ring & the Germanic Tradition
  • Resistance
  • Materials for All Future Historians
  • Love Song of the Australopiths
  • White Identity Politics
  • Here’s the Thing
  • Trevor Lynch: Part Four of the Trilogy
  • Graduate School with Heidegger
  • It’s Okay to Be White
  • The World in Flames
  • The White Nationalist Manifesto
  • From Plato to Postmodernism
  • The Gizmo
  • Return of the Son of Trevor Lynch’s CENSORED Guide to the Movies
  • Toward a New Nationalism
  • The Smut Book
  • The Alternative Right
  • My Nationalist Pony
  • Dark Right: Batman Viewed From the Right
  • The Philatelist
  • Confessions of an Anti-Feminist
  • East and West
  • Though We Be Dead, Yet Our Day Will Come
  • White Like You
  • Numinous Machines
  • Venus and Her Thugs
  • Cynosura
  • North American New Right, vol. 2
  • You Asked For It
  • More Artists of the Right
  • Extremists: Studies in Metapolitics
  • The Homo & the Negro
  • Rising
  • The Importance of James Bond
  • In Defense of Prejudice
  • Confessions of a Reluctant Hater (2nd ed.)
  • The Hypocrisies of Heaven
  • Waking Up from the American Dream
  • Green Nazis in Space!
  • Truth, Justice, and a Nice White Country
  • Heidegger in Chicago
  • The End of an Era
  • Sexual Utopia in Power
  • What is a Rune? & Other Essays
  • Son of Trevor Lynch’s White Nationalist Guide to the Movies
  • The Lightning & the Sun
  • The Eldritch Evola
  • Western Civilization Bites Back
  • New Right vs. Old Right
  • Journey Late at Night: Poems and Translations
  • The Non-Hindu Indians & Indian Unity
  • Baader Meinhof ceramic pistol, Charles Kraaft 2013
  • Pulp Fascism
  • The Lost Philosopher, Second Expanded Edition
  • Trevor Lynch’s A White Nationalist Guide to the Movies
  • And Time Rolls On
  • Artists of the Right: Resisting Decadence
  • North American New Right, Vol. 1
  • Some Thoughts on Hitler
  • Tikkun Olam and Other Poems
  • Summoning the Gods
  • Taking Our Own Side
  • Reuben
  • The Node
  • The New Austerities
  • Morning Crafts
  • The Passing of a Profit & Other Forgotten Stories
  • Rss
  • DLive
  • Telegram
  • Gab
  • Entropy
Copyright © 2022 Counter-Currents Publishing, Ltd.

Paywall Access





Please enter your email address. You will receive mail with link to set new password.

Edit your comment