Transversal Psychology by Davide Moiso.
This speech was givern at a New Right meeting in central London on 16th January 2005.
The MSI leader, Almirante, once memorably described Evola as “our Marcuse, only better.” But “anti-Marcuse” would have been more apt, because whilst Evola, like Marcuse, diagnoses modern man as “One-dimensional,” he does not seek to replace him with new illusions: instead of Utopia, he offers Tradition.Central Themes in Evola’s Thought
In Evola’s literary production it is possible to single out three major themes. The first theme is xeniteia, a word that refers to the condition of living abroad, or of being absent from one’s homeland. In Evola’s works one can easily detect a sense of alienation, of not belonging to what he called the “modern world.”
Throughout his life, Evola never really “fitted in.” Whether during his artistic, philosophical or esoteric phase, he always felt like a straggler, seeking to link up with “the rest of the ‘army.’” The modern world he denounced in his masterpiece, Revolt against the Modern World, took its revenge on him: at the end of the war he was surrounded by a world of ruins, isolated, avoided, and reviled. Yet he managed to retain a composed, dignified attitude and to continue in his self-appointed task of night-watchman.
The second theme is apoliteia, or abstention from active participation in the construction of the human polis. Apoliteia, according to Evola, refers essentially to an inner attitude of indifference and detachment, but it does not necessarily entail a practical abstention from politics, as long as one engages in it with a completely detached attitude: “Apoliteia is the inner, irrevocable distance from this society and its ‘values’: it consists in not accepting being bound to society by any spiritual or moral bond.” This attitude is to be commended because, according to Evola, in this day and age there are no ideas, causes and goals worthy of one’s commitment.
Finally, the third theme is autarkeia, or self-sufficiency. The quest for spiritual independence led Evola far away from the busy crossroads of human interaction, in order to explore and expound paths of perfection and asceticism.
This latter point represents the real difference between Evola and Stirner’s egoism, even if I personally prefer to consider the two perspectives as a continuum.
Where Stirner makes the Individual unique, Evola adds the attribute of the Absolute, creating a movement towards an atharaxia which, far from the confused Pyrronistic passivity, is – on the contrary – proactive and autopoietic, as in certain perspectives of Buddhism. We will see how pivotal these themes are within the perspective of TP.
Transversal Psychology: An introduction
Oh no! Another specification in the field! Do we really need it? Is the world of psychology not multi-faceted enough?
Yes, it is indeed, and it is extremely divided as well. The numberless perspectives in psychology are, in most cases, in fact opposing each other instead of working strategically together, and, while exploring their theoretical frameworks, it is apparent why that cannot be prevented. Most of the existing perspectives assume a milestone for their epistemological theoretical frames and this factor alone appears to create the demon of incompatibility.
However, without even opening the door of micro-level specific orientations, which will require a never-ending exploration of their basic philosophies and beliefs, at a macro–level we can separate the Red Sea of Psychology (which is mainly encased in the frame of deterministic and mechanistic philosophy influenced by Descartes) with the rod of the attitude towards research and methodology, defining the two main chunks of the field: qualitative and quantitative approaches.
Let’s use the rod again, so the waters can go back to normality, since Transversal Psychology utilises both, and it does so synergically.
What is Transversal Psychology?
In reality we could have called it either Idealistic or Traditional, but that would have caused a limitation, a label since the beginning.
Transversal psychology is focussed on the Ego as a subject which chooses the way it decides to perceive the world , and in this the Idealism can be seen as more than present, like most of the themes of Eastern philosophies like Yoga, and particularly in the Tantric interpretation of Hinduism and Buddhism. It can also be seen as a particular aspect of Existentialism, since Transversal Psychology’s concept of the Ego can be exchanged with Binswanger’s or the Heideggerian being-in the-world.
A process of classification and labelling, however, should be considered as the first mistake, if rigidly applied to Transversal Psychology. Of course, the fact that a language is utilised here in its written format means that this process cannot be completely avoided, but, recalling the Foucauldian concept of discourse, we can say that Transversal Psychology is a discourse about discourses, a meta-discourse, in other words. This, itself, is a label. The process of classification, however, loses its credibility as an outer reality, since in Transversal Psychology the only recognised reality is the Ego. It is the Ego which classifies, which creates those discourses that would never have existed in any other way. In fact, because the Ego can label each existing thing in a way which is determined by itself, the objective reality does not make sense any more, nor does a label.
Transversal Psychology refers strongly, indeed, to the philosophies of Max Stirner (particularly in the concepts contained in The Ego and its own) and Julius Evola, with his Theory and phenomenology of the Absolute Individual, not forgetting the contribution of Traditional philosophies (of which Evola is an illustrious example).
In those philosophies the Ego cannot be stated, demonstrated as it is, but just as it is not, in its dual aspect of the transcendent and the immanent, which co-exist in order to experience the world and re-absorb the experience into a level where things cannot be communicated. The Individual becomes absolute because he owns himself : all the perceptions are his possibilities of experience of the world, and the choice regarding those experiences and their availability is made through an act of will of the Ego, which “shapes” the outer reality that therefore does not objectively exist, if not in the form of the “perceived”.
These two aspects of the unique, solipsistic Ego are mirrored by the structure of language thought by Noam Chomsky, and greatly explored by Gregory Bateson, Paul Watzlawick, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, amongst others. Every language is the superficial expression (or structure) of a deeper structure, and any variation in each one of these structures results in mutual variations and, consequently, in the way we perceive the world and interact with it.
It is not enough to operate an analysis of the language and strategically make changes, like some form of psychology does, since the individual will only become able to increase his awareness about technical changes he/she can operate (which is, anyway, an extremely good starting point).
The next and most decisive step, however, will be to reach the awareness of the act of will which decides the operation: it is the “ownness “of the Ego. In other words, here we are saying that, if an empowerment really exists, it is not given, as the mainstream of Marxist and leftist philosophies promote; nor achieved, as stated in clinically/medically-shaped psychologies, since it was already there. The act of empowerment is conceived, in other words, as being very similar, in its development, to the Eastern concept of enlightment.
It is the recognition of the Ego through itself, detached from all the environmental factors which have limited the perception of self to few possible solutions, the same factors which create the sense of anxiety well explored by Existentialism (the Sartrian “condemn to be free” is a good expression of this limited freedom).
In this scenario, it is quite understandable why our psychology must be “transversal”. The individual is asked to explore the whole range of choices under a meta-perspective which will invite the person to observe how all perspectives are the same, without containing any meaning within themselves other than the significance that the individual wants to put into them. Consequently, the individual can become each of the experiences he/she is experiencing if he/she wants to, and this operational transversalism through existence cannot be other than absolute, owned, just as the Ego is. It is a transversalism which causes a detachment from the external reality, just to own it in a better way through the awareness of the Ego.
The real state of consciousness, like quantum psychology argues, becomes a state where we are no longer under the influence of any illusion. However, where quantum psychology places the nothing as the whole, we can place the Ego first, as the aware, conscious and ultimately as the creative agent of this whole.
The becoming itself becomes an act of will of the Ego.
The Absolute Individual
Thus said, the Absolute Individual does not exist. In this apparent paradox is, in nuce, the whole philosophy behind Transversal Psychology. What does it mean?
If we consider existence as a status, we should suppose the creation of the status, which, in turn, grants the existence of the Ego, our existence. But, in order to do so, we have to explain a process (how the status was created) which includes a starting point (when that happened), an agent (who or what created it) and, if all of that is not difficult enough, we could add an even more inexplicable cause (why it was created).
Almost the same thing happens if we see the existence as an act which is beyond us, since we should understand and explain where this act emanated from and, in case, from whom.
This is matter for a whole lot of phenomena that I will call religion, which also includes pragmatic architectures of thought like Marxism and clinical psychiatry. Existence cannot even be considered as a simple being, or, like existential philosophy declares, a being-in-the-world, because we will fall into the same mistake: we have to suppose and grant reality to an external factor (in this case the world, which is a necessary condition for being, in existentialism) in order to affirm our own reality as individual.
For social-theory based movements of thought, even this latter concept does not exist, since individuality is seen, not without reason, as being a construction-creation of a particular culture (and this is particularly true for the Western one).
It is in fact true that in certain cultures, the individual is not conceived as a single unit, but exists just as a part of a social group, the tribe, the church or the society, and it is not conceived out of those entities. This peculiar aspect is reflected in the language of certain cultures. What is, then, the Absolute Individual? As Evola said: “[the Individual] is nothing: he can all”.
In this motto is encapsulated the concept of continuous becoming, a dynamic status which decisively opposes the static nature of a simple being, even the one of a being-in-the-world.
The becoming of the Absolute Individual is continuous, a-moral, a-pragmatic, and determines the non-determinability of the agent: the Individual, who is Absolute in the sense that he can choose to become everything he wants other than him.
So I am in principle nothing (= not determined), and having in this way granted my non-determinability I free myself from the cage of a label of a single role (or various, but limited roles, which I play within a given society and time) in order to become, continuously.
This apparent transformation of my self will not change, nevertheless, the fact that I am (in order to become). Nothing other than me is determined, and I am, consequently, undetermined as well for the other-than-me which exists just when I want to become that through my act of will. The existence, then, can be seen as an act, but it is an act of will which is decided by me and by no one else. But what is the purpose of this act of will?
As we will see, it is a way to gain experience of the other-than-me at a prosaic, immanent level. It is what I am doing with this experience which gives shape to my self in a certain way, when I re-absorb the immanent experience at a different level, which does not fall under the senses: the transcendent level.
The awareness of this quasi-circular movement (since the return point is not the exactly the same as the starting one, as it is said in cybernetics) throws even more light on the illusory position of who attributes to himself something other than him.
When we state: “I am…” [something; a noun or an adjective] we instantly stop the dynamicity of the process, and we start a chain of beliefs in order to sustain the truthfulness of our statement: we have created a label., we start to believe in it and we behave consequently.
The more we behave in a way that seems congruent to our belief-system, the more we are trapped within that label. If a muscle is not used for a long time it starts to get atrophic and gaining back strength and elasticity can be extremely painful. So it is for the so-called “personality”: the labels we choose to create and utilise become a habit, no real dynamic process is on course (the everyday repetition of the same patterns in order to reproduce the same personality is seen as a habit, therefore non-dynamic) and we can also be completely unaware of the other-than-me, to the point that, when it (or part of it) appears in front of us, there is a reaction of refusal and denial. It is what psychiatry calls “abnormal”.
Concept of unconscious
Milton Erickson likened the unconscious to a container of material which is unorganised for most of the time. The associations we construct are building the reality as we want to or are used to know.
That means that we all live in a dissociative state all the time, and the associative state is the exception and not the norm. In this apparently simple but extremely powerful statement lies the observation that we cannot consider any so-called disorder as wrong or pathological per se, since it will be just a particular association performed by a particular individual.
The action, by the way, is similar to the quasi-circular movement of knowledge described by Evola. The material we incorporate from the external, immanent reality constitutes the various elements not yet associated : the association itself is a process of transcendence, and cannot therefore be expressed in words.
This also explains the struggle of Psychology to explain how the mental processes take place, but, despite all attempts, obviously the only clear thing is the study of the neurobiological reactions that are happening when a cognitive process take place: all the rest is speculative thinking.
However, the mental processes are seen here as consequences of the associations, of the actions wanted by the individual in order to give a meaning to the experience of the world (which is created, as we have seen in “Egoist and Existence”, by himself), and not, ultimately, as the causes of the associations. It is better to say that they can be experienced as causes just at the immanent level, when the disempowered individual (who is the person who is not aware of the duality of the experience) relies on external factors instead of focusing onto himself.; and the biological perspective offers very few spaces for the complex nature of the individual other than his/her physiology. It is this physiology which is an external factor, since it is generalised and structured into truth. And this happens at an immanent level (“inauthentic”, we could say).
Purpose of Transversal Psychology
Resuming, Transversal Psychology is, in pseudo-quantitative psychological terms, the correlation between the immanent and transcendental position, which in the Absolute Individual has co-efficient 1 (perfect correlation) and therefore ends up to 0 (the nothingness with potentiality ad infinitum, but explored ad libitum through the individual’s act of will).
The purpose of Transversal psychology is to operate a deconstruction of the individual in order to reconstruct his individuality as a nothingness.
The act of de-construction means that the individual will become aware of the models and the filter he utilises to fulfil the role or roles he plays at an immanent level and which are the limits set by his physical senses, by the society and by his own constructed personality.
They represent limits just if they do not help the individual to move freely to all the possible options he can choose in life.
When those roles are perceived as fixed, they own the individual, as they become what Stirner calls “fixed ideas”. For example, if I believe that I am a psychologist, a husband and a catholic, more often than not I will act in the world as if those roles are true to me, and I will not explore much else outside of those experiential boundaries.
If I really own those aspects, I can “let them go” and choose to become something else, as I wish.
I am nothing; I can (do) everything.
However, in line with Stirner’s thought, owning everything means that I must respect it and not ruin it, since it is mine and I can use it for my own benefit. This is the reason why the environment, the animals and nature must be respected, since their destruction deprives the individual of their ownership.
In other words, a deconstruction without the possibility of reconstruction prevents utilisation.
Individuality is a continuous becoming the other-than-us through an act of will.
If we think in these terms, destroying what we may decide to become (in order to experience it) means simply destroying ourselves.
Political implications
The Absolute Individual escapes a process of framing in rigid categories. The Individual is, (Stirner docet) unique. Talking about classes, roles, categories, does not make any sense if we objectify these concepts.
The most evident political implication of it is, then, that the Absolute Individual is non-identifiable, and therefore potentially very dangerous within a deterministic perspective and a democratic system. The Individual is emancipate, and this notion of emancipation builds on Fromm’s (1965) dual conception of freedom; freedom from social and psychological sources of oppression (class exploitation, gender domination, and ethnic discrimination etc. as sources of social oppression, and psychological problems like fears, phobias etc…. for what concerns psychological oppression) and freedom to reach our tasks in life.
But the Absolute Individual does more than that: he makes himself emancipate and free from the category of the individual as well and the concept of emancipation as something to be achieved. He is emancipate if he decides so.
The individual may be a factory worker, but he is not belonging to the working class; he is a man (or woman) but he does not see himself as being human; he may be a Catholic, a Muslim, a Jew, a Buddhist , but just for the time being he decides to play those roles. The Absolute Individual simply is, overcoming the categories.
For these reasons the Individual decides to (and can) survive in a world of ruins created by materialism, liberalism, rationalism and cosmopolitanism: he knows, indeed, that those ruins are the roots of steel of the flowers of the Berserker rage, of the Spartan ethos, of the martial spirit of the Roman Legions, sleeping underneath the giant with clay feet of modernity.
He knows he can bring balance back to a world that has been made lop-sided with the inversion of Nature. He knows those flowers will blossom again.