East and West
By René
Guénon
Pub Date: 08/01
Publisher: Sophia Perennis
Binding: Paper, 132pp.
ISBN: 0900588349
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(From
The Simple Life of René Guénon, by Paul Chacornac)
World
War I had led some perceptive minds, more clear-sighted than most, to
question the value of Western civilization and its future, and the value
of modern science and philosophy as well. Among the most characteristic
testimonies to this restlessness in France we may cite Le stupide
XIXe siècle by Léon Daudet and Notre Temps by Gonzague Truc.
While some could see salvation for the West—in the intellectual
order—only through a return to Catholicism, and especially to Thomist
theology, others were advocating a return to the philosophical doctrines
of the East, of which they had formed a more or less accurate idea. All
this resulted in controversies as to whether the East, under its
religious, philosophical, and aesthetic aspects, could exercise a
substantial influence on the West, and whether such a possible influence
should be considered as beneficial or detrimental to the West. Inquiries
were commissioned by various reviews, notably Cahiers du Mois,
which devoted a substantial issue to the ‘Call of the East’. It was
in this intellectual climate that René Guénon published East and
West.
While
declaring that he was as aware as anyone else of the great distance
separating the East from the modern West, the author affirmed right at
the outset his conviction that a reconciliation between the two was both
possible and desirable. For him, the necessary and sufficient condition
for this reconciliation lay in the West’s abandonment of various
ideologies that had since the sixteenth century contributed to the
formation of the modern mentality and ruined the traditional foundations
on which medieval Christendom rested. The first part of East and West
is devoted to bringing ‘Western illusions’ into the open, and to
criticizing the real idols of the modern West—progress, science, and
‘ordinary life’. In its second part ‘possibilities for
reconciliation’ are considered, these consisting in agreement on the
principles of authentic metaphysics still preserved in the East, and the
reconstitution of a Western intellectual elite that would regain
awareness of the value and deeper meaning of its own
tradition—Christianity—through a study of Eastern doctrines based on
real sources, not the works of ‘orientalists’. As the book makes
clear, what is at issue is in no sense a ‘fusion’ of different
traditions and civilizations, but rather an entente (or agreement
based on understanding) that could rid present-day humanity of the
principal dangers that threaten it. This unexpected proposition elicited
different responses, and despite the precautions Guénon took, some did
not miss the opportunity to accuse him of being the agent of Eastern
groups set on perverting the Christian mentality—which they wrongly
identified with the modern mentality. From within Catholicism itself,
however, Léon Daudet paid tribute to Guénon in forceful terms:
“Do
not expect from me a critical analysis of East and West, which is
itself, I repeat, a critical work of exceptional insight abounding in
new horizons. The twofold view expressed by Guénon, which any heedful
and cultured man would share, can be summarized as follows:
I.
Since the time of the Encyclopedists, or even the Reformation, the West
has been in a state of intellectual anarchy that is a veritable
barbarism.
II.
The civilization of which it is so proud rests upon a collection of
material and industrial improvements (which exacerbate the risk of war)
and a weak moral and intellectual substructure which lacks any
metaphysical basis.
By
different paths, I had reached a similar conclusion in my own analysis
of the benighted nineteenth century, but my ignorance of Eastern
philosophy, of which Guénon is a master, prevented me from laying out
the formidable parallel that he presents to us. Although he does not
expressly say so, it is evident that the West is threatened more from
within, on account of its mental weakness, than from outside, where its
prospects nevertheless are also not so certain.”
Editorial
Note
East
and West, first published in 1924, was the fourth of a series of
books that cleared the ground for Guénon’s later writings. His first
book, Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines (1921),
was an exposition of metaphysics as transmitted in the Hindu tradition,
and served to establish his specific use of important terms such as ‘esoterism’,
‘tradition’, and ‘orthodoxy’. He next set about writing two
extensive volumes critiquing what he called ‘pseudo-esoteric’
groups. The first of these, Theosophy: History of a
Pseudo-Religion (1921), is an exposé of Madame Blavatsky’s
Theosophical Society; the second, The Spiritist Fallacy (1923),
examines the current of nineteenth-century spiritism that set the stage
for many occult movements that appeared toward the end of that century.
Guénon’s application of traditional metaphysics to the special case
of pseudo-esoteric groups was then broadened in the present book to the
general question of East and West as conservators and transmitters of
traditional wisdom in the modern age. The titles of its two parts,
‘Western Illusions’ and ‘How the Differences Might be Bridged’,
describe perfectly the book’s intention. Later books, especially The
Crisis of the Modern World and its magisterial sequel, The Reign
of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, further extended Guénon’s
penetrating critique of the modern world.
