Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul by Julius Evola

Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul Reviews

• 
  John Dorf

  Don't tell anyone I read this
• 
  Laszlo

  Evola didn't speak to modern man. What he calls aristocrats of the soul is a man of previous eras living today. Previous epochs!
  
  The view of the archaic man is what aristocracy has always manifested. From such a vantage point, our current era maybe characterized as a waste land, void of values, of beauty, of taste and of intelligence. This is obvious wherever we turn our attention: in architecture and fine arts, in cheap, mass-manufactured products, in what music has become and last but not least in modern life-style and human relationships.
  
  Those who can see can only stay upright "among the ruins" if they assert themselves and lead an authentic existence. This is an inner practice that takes advantage of the few opportunities this era still has to offer and on higher levels even turns negatives into positives. This is what riding the tiger symbolizes, in analogy of Tantric practices and various other paths of the "left hand".
  
  Who should not read this book? Those who can fully identify with modern views and "values": positive thinkers, progressive minds,Tony Robbins fans, technocrats and similar.
• 
  Matthew W

  Julius Evola's analysis and diagnosis of the modern world in "Ride The Tiger" is very precise (unfortunately) to say the least.
  
  "Riding the Tiger" in modern times (some decades after the book was written) is no doubt a grand challenge only for those few unafraid to confront modern degeneracy head-on. As Nietzsche wrote in probably his most popular quote,"What doesn't kill us makes us stronger."
  
  But as a drunken and belligerent biker once told me, "if you mess with the bull, you get the horns."
  
  A little blood here and there never hurts.
• 
  Brett Green

  One of Evola's fundamental assumptions is that this material world of becoming is inherently inferior to immaterial one of transcendence and being. There is really never any explication of why this or what is exactly wrong with our material world. But of course people not oriented to these notions to begin with will likely never read this book to begin with. So getting in touch with being isn't for everyone. Of course, it used to be the purview of the priestly and warrior castes, but that's all gone to pot, so now it's up to those "aristocrats of the soul" to do it themselves, without the former cultural traditions and institutes of the world of tradition to help guide them.
  
  The book was first published in the early 60's. This is worth mentioning, simple context aside, because it is not only still relevant today - an author's ability to distill the eternal from the temporal being the sine qua non of his access to Truth - but because it actually reads like it was written today. We are rootless, pleasure-hungry, itinerant things with no higher minded orientation than beyond our next empty fix. He looks at art, music, drug, political, religious, family, and sexual culture and finds them all as shadows of their former selves, when they might have been effective means of helping one realize transcendence (higher meaning). And Evola fucking loves transcendence and being.
  
  I was a little worried before digging in. I had read
  Revolt Against the Modern World a while ago and found a fair amount of his account of the traditional world difficult: there are the myths of the hypoborean european ancestors, myths of the race of giants, absolute binaries of masculine and feminine, both people and entire cultures. It came across as eminently impractical, with speculation stated as fact, and as vehemently judgemental/all or nothing. This book, however, is entirely practical. It's about self-mastery. And his world of tradition as articulated in Revolt becomes distilled into basic ways of orientation towards life and earth and the transcendent, no archaic rituals or cultural practices needed.
  
  Evola goes through stop gaps yet conceived to fill in for the lost world of tradition - existentialism, modern science, democracy/liberalism, art.... - and finds them to have failed. The only recourse for those "differentiated" men among us is to return to ourselves, know ourselves, create our own law, and get ourselves right with anterior, unconditioned, and absolute being. This accomplished, we can ride out anything that comes our way (one of the chapters is titled "Invulnerability").
  
  Evola's treatment of Nietzsche is quite fair, seeing him as having stated the fundamental problem of the death of God, but not finding a way out of it: starting with a latent assumption of transcendence but then failing to find it in the material here and now of this world. Heidegger and Sartre, though acknowledging the fundamental nature of a preexistent "project" by which the individual orients himself, still maintain (Sartre) that "existence precedes essence". Evola says:
  
  

  We have seen that the obscurity already inherent in existentialism is exacerbated in Heidegger by his view of man as an entity that does not include being within himself (or behind it, as its root), but rather before it, as if being were something to be pursued and captured.

  p.95
  
  This is the "horizontal" vs "vertical" orientation that Evola so criticizes the "existentialists" for. Those "nauseant" feelings of "guilt", "debt", and "bad faith". Evola speaks of Jaspers on this point:
  
  

  My guilt lies in the destiny of having chosen (and of not having been able not to choose) only the one direction that corresponds to my real or possible being, and negating all the others. This is also the source of my responsibility and "debt" toward the infinite and eternal.

  p.92
  
  This won't do! Not for a hardcore motherfucker like Evola. Contra the existentialists, he posits his own, "positive" doctrines: find the transcendent dimension within oneself, posit laws by which to follow, follow them with your whole being (do not find yourself forever split and divided like the existentialists)...and then it gets sort of weird. Basically, at this point, find yourself in some limit like experiences that will force your through the fire, and either purify or destroy you. He says stuff like this in the book like it's just the way it is. And maybe it is like that. But remember, ultimately, in being, there is no law, there is just what is: "In Islam, long before nihilism, the initiatic Order of the Ismaelis used the very phrase 'Nothing exists, everything is permitted.'" This is the way it operates within Zen. I'm sure there are many other examples. His description of Karma is clear on this point as well.
  
  So these are the essentials. You're basically on your lonesome to accomplish this stuff. As for the rest, his critique of art, politics, the sexes...it's all on point, surprisingly so. Don't exalt your ego, find meaning in higher things, be dutiful...I dunno, it's all good stuff and inspiring.
• 
  TR

  A breath of fresh air and a very interesting for those who agree with Evola. The critiques of Sartre, Nietzsche and Heidegger are well-composed and would be of interest for general philosophy readers.
  
• 
  Brett Childs

  This is more a general review of the author and his followers, rather than this work in particular.
  
  In summary, I personally haven’t found Evola very helpful or enlightening. He takes a very long time to say things that can be put far simpler, and he makes his writing unnecessarily complicated - much like a university professor who decides to write a bunch of nonsensical jargon that others won’t understand but will at least seem intelligent, the longer, the more bizarre words and the more vague the better. Intellectual elitism at its finest.
  Whenever he does have or makes a good point it’s after trudging through 5 or 10 chapters of practically nothing or just nothing new, and they’re usually things you could find far easier and simpler in other authors or even just reading the source material instead of this pedantic medium.
  You’re also likely to end up running into pretty shaky grounds and claims made by him, some that he and the founder of the Traditionalist School disagree on and others that he takes great lengths and mental gymnastics to justify but to little success. Hence, I suppose, trying to lose the reader in his over complication of a topic; in true intellectual fashion.
  
  I give this one here a 3 (I gave it 4 before my review but changed my mind) because despite the fact that I personally severely disliked reading it, I’d like to remain dispassionate about it and at least give it a mid-tier rating. I can appreciate the work in it and the validity of the truer statements within though buried underneath so much filler, and despite the things I and Tradition would disagree on or find just unnecessary and off-topic.
  I wouldn’t recommend Evola to anybody, there’s far better out there.
  
  Part II here refers in general to observations about his followers:
  
  I decided to pick Evola up after a long time of neglect because I didn’t expect much from him and found his fans weren’t my kind of people, “you’ll know him by his fruits”. I finally did get around to reading a handful of his work and essays of his online just to say “I did” and to give it a fair chance, I’ve been reading books from other Traditionalist writers anyways, especially Guénon who I do enjoy; unfortunately my experience with Evola just proved my initial feelings justified, more certain and left me more averse.
  
  I believe the reason Evola is so popular with the far-right and the like is because of his associations with Fascism even though he was never a fascist anyways and has his own criticisms of Italian Fascism and more so the NSDAP. This along with the fact he’s rather ‘edgy’, likes to talk about war, warriors, kings, sex, Left-Hand topics, etc.
  Further, #RevoltAgainstTheModernWorld is a very simple and vague phrase that nearly anybody can use, I’d wager over half of the trad fads who use it haven’t actually read the namesake book, or if they have, observation and context shows they very often have no idea what it means - but it’s just easy to see how and why it’s popular. Another easy to grab statement is his call to “be radical, be absolute”, whatever his fans decide to define what that means.
  Lastly I think it has to do with the pedantic nature of his writing itself, it’s easy to gloat, consciously or unconsciously, over reading Evola and feeling clever and superior for it - over “understanding��� what he has said beneath clusters of mental gymnastics and unnecessary complication. Funnily enough this still counts even if what he said flies right over the readers head; Evola simply fulfils a role of pseudo-elitism. If you say you’ve read him, can quote him or just reference him, then the only explanation is you must be quite red pilled, learned and just plain based - you’re in the club.
  
  This also just goes hand in hand with the general trend of why people even get into “traditional” values, and it’s worth noting people mix the definitions of whatever they define “traditionalism” as and the capital T philosophy of the “Traditionalist School” extremely often - again going to show that people either don’t read authors like Evola and other Traditionalists or they do and it goes over their heads.
  For example, it’s noticeable in men that quite a lot of them get into these things for either bizarre desires and fetishisms or insecurities and they will call on the vague definitions and cherry picking of “tradition” and on biology to make it all work out (the “Traditions” of the contents in Evola and others are in fact separated from what they call the “profane” things of biology, time and place).
  It’s easy to get into a trend that calls for masculine superiority when the man himself is an Üntermensch, spiritually and mentally speaking. It’s easy to get off at the thought of “authoritarian” and “warrior” aesthetics and the ‘no homo’ in ogling body builders, it’s easy to make the sexual metaphysical in an attempt to rationalize human lust, it’s easy to find ‘traditional’ backing and approval to justify the search for a trad wife.
  And at the end of the day I think we have to admit that much of this hype over finding traditional waifus is because a lot of guys are lazy children who want to marry their mothers and have a fetish for blonde hair.
  I’m picking on the men here because Evola has a “masculine” appeal in particular.
• 
  Brendan

  A feckless, fascist, pile of dreck.
• 
  A.

  Evola, like acid, burns through everything he touches. He knows pretty well how to destroy modern concepts (this is the good side), but has no idea what needs to be done, no alkali to oppose the acid. His orientations have the serious potential to lead 'evolians' either astray, or to a cul-de-sac.
  
  If you're confortable with such readings, focus on the masterpiece that is "The Reign of Quantity" instead, written 16 years before Ride the Tiger, and notice the vast differences for yourself. Someone correctly described "Reign" as making "all other contemporary critiques seem half-hearted by comparison."
  
  Titus Burckardt has an interesting review of Ride The Tiger in his "Mirror of Intellect" article collection. Also check Tim Winter's (Abdal Hakim Murad) commentary video "Riding the Tiger of Modernity".
• 
  Joshua

  THE Evola book to read. If you read only one volume of Evola, this is it. It holds his criticisms of the modern world and espouses individualism and personal responsibility while providing a commentary on the perils of modernity.
• 
  Merinde

  I'm at about 70%, and so far he mostly seems to be very busy pointing out how wrong other people are. I also feel he simplifies a lot of things and maybe doesn't understand them as well as he likes to imagine. While I found a lot of original and interesting ideas in this book so far, I do also feel...well. This entire book so far seems to be about how amazing he and people who are like him are and why. Though there are some interesting points he also loses a lot of credit by over simplifying all the rest. The chapter about music got on my nerves especially. Perhaps because this was a subject I am actually very familiar with. As a musician, I obviously couldn't appreciate what felt like an elephant barging into a porcelain cabinet. He just stamps about and glosses over and expects to understand. Well, no. That just won't work.
  
  Nevertheless...I think I might finish this book, though it's been a drag so far. He might have something interesting to say after all, if he ever gets over bashing other people and pointing out why they are supposedly misguided, stupid, or both.
  
  EDIT: Finished it after all. I have a feeling I might actually have learned something of it after all, though I'm not yet quite sure what exactly. I have a feeling Evola could have presented his ideas much better if..well, to put it bluntly, if he hadn't had such an obviously unpleasant personality ( never mind the fact that he doesn't believe in those, really. He has one. And it is annoying). There are definitely some very thought provoking chapters in there, but even the best parts were soured by sudden - in my opinion completely uncalled for, as they often didn't add much - attacks on the ideas of others. I just expected more from the book, I guess. More insight, maybe, more original ideas. I know he thought he was writing from "tradition", so maybe not entirely original but at least clearly worded and somewhat longer parts with his own views. This book is about 70% telling how wrong people are, 15% how great it is not to be like that and another 15% of actual information. I wonder if I should try one of his other works. Right now, I don't really have the patience to put up with the whining.
• 
  Schedex

  "In this context, there is another more recent phenomenon that is heavy with significance: that is the so-called global protest movement. It took its rise in part from the order of ideas already mentioned. In the wake of theories such as Marcuse's, it came to the conclusion that there is a basic similarity, in terms of technological consumer society, between the system of advanced communist countries and that of the capitalist world, because in the former, the original impulse of the proletarian revolution is much diminished. This impulse has now been realized, inasmuch as the working class has entered the consumer system, being assured of a lifestyle that is no longer proletarian but bourgeois: the very thing whose absence was the incentive for revolution. But alongside this convergence there has become visible the conditioning power of one and the same "system," manifesting as the tendency to destroy all the higher values of life and personality. At the level more or less corresponding to the "last man" foreseen by Nietzsche, the individual in contemporary consumer society reckons that it would be too expensive, indeed absurd, to do without the comfort and well-being that this evolved society offers him, merely for the sake of an abstract freedom. Thus he accepts with a good grace all the leveling conditionings of the system. This realization has caused a bypassing of revolutionary Marxism, now deprived of its original motive force, in favor of a "global protest" against the system. This movement, however, also lacks any higher principle: it is irrational, anarchic, and instinctive in character. For want of anything else, it calls on the abject minorities of outsiders, on the excluded and rejected, sometimes even on the Third World (in which case Marxist fantasies reappear) and on the blacks, as being the only revolutionary potential. But it stands under the sign of nothingness: it is a hysterical "revolution of the void and the 'underground,'" of "maddened wasps trapped in a glass jar, who throw themselves frenetically against the walls."
• 
  Ill D

  Highly disapinting. The title, "A Survival Manual for Aristocrats of the Soul," is nothing more than a stupid misnomer. Nothing but reactionary drivel with Evola raging against Nietzche, Heidigger, and any other intellectual that didn't get his whole TRADITION schtick. Which is a real shame because, Revolt Against the Modern World is fucking great. Philosophy-tards might like it, anyone else more grounded in reality, like myself, should steer clear of this boringass work and just stick with Revolt.
• 
  Daniele Palmieri

  Non c'è niente di più proficuo di leggere un autore con vedute diametralmente opposte alle proprie.
  Evola, esponente della destra tradizionalista, ma non di quella ignorante e populista (alla Salvini, per intenderci) ma di quella ancorata ai grandi Miti della Tradizione, è uno di quegli autori con cui amo confrontarmi.
  Non condivido gran parte della sue idee e delle sue posizioni, ma è senza dubbio una lettura culturalmente appagante
• 
  William A

  A meandering diatribe of empty statements and meaningless phrases. At the end of every paragraph you expect that the next will contain some kind of nugget of wisdom, but it never comes. More ellipses, more commas and the voluminous prose of someone who is sorely missing an editor.
• 
  Alexej Gerstmaier

  Barely comprehensible, requires deep knowledge of philosophy that I do not (yet?) possess. Lots of meaningless, empty phrases.
  
  Strongly disagree with Evola that science does not produce true knowledge because it is merely concerned with manipulating and predicting reality. He uses this, admittedly pretty good, metaphor:
  
  "The system of science resembles a net that draws ever tighter around something that, in itself, remains incomprehensible, with the sole intention of subduing it for practical ends."
  
  At least the truth that science produces is *useful* unlike the author's philosophizing which I suspect might be a complicated, abstract construct made from bullshit. At least science approaches something true.
• 
  Matt

  Ride the Tiger is a fascinating book. It is not an easy read by any means but it is a useful and important book. The first 3 sections of the book can become slightly tedious as they are a very dense, heady deconstruction of Heidegger, Sartre, and Nietzsche. However section four is where Evola jumps in to the more ‘real world’ application of the attributes of what he calls the “differentiated man.” While I did not find myself agreeing with Evola on a number of things I still find Ride the Tiger to be one of the most vital philosophical works produced in the 20th century.
• 
  cool breeze

  I thought Julius Evola’s Revolt Against the Modern World (1934) was a huge disappointment and utterly irrelevant. But some say that it was simply overtaken by events and that Evola himself conceded this and updated his philosophy to have more relevance in Ride the Tiger (1961).
  
  So, I decided to give him one more try. Ride the Tiger showed some flashes of promise in the second chapter and I got roped in (again). Alas, the truest words in the book are:
  

  "The common reader probably finds these ideas tedious, and lacking in personal points of reference to give him bearings."

  You nailed it, Julius! Mic drop! Oh, and thanks for the gratuitous insult to the readers in the same sentence.
  
  Elsewhere in the book, Evola deplores philosophers who "use an arbitrary terminology that they have specially invented, and which, especially in Heidegger, is of an inconceivable abstruseness, both superfluous and intolerable". This displays a staggering lack of self-awareness from someone who casually and regularly tosses around terms like "a political theology of high Ghibellinism". Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
  
  The best parts of the book turn out to be Evola quoting others, like Nietzsche or even Lukács: "In recent times art has become a luxury item for idle parasites; artistic activity, in its turn, has become a separate profession with the task of satisfying those luxury needs."
  
  Evola himself is an anachronism who hasn’t had any meaningful relevance for decades, if ever. Even traditionalists and conservatives, his intended audience, would be well advised to look elsewhere. These are basically the esoteric ravings of a monarchist lunatic. 1.5 stars, rounded up to two stars only to distinguish it from the execrable Revolt Against the Modern World.
• 
  Lucas

  The thesis itself was very sound, Evola's take on the dissolution of society being as lucid as ever. In my opinion, many of his complaints regarding society-at-large being rather premature for his time, writing in the early 60's I found it amusing that almost all of Evola's criticisms at the time were discussing sociological issues that weren't even in full bloom yet; the Hippie movement hadn't even begun by this time, Evola seems to have found the seed of that period of decadence before it even started.
  Another prophetic aspect of this book I found interesting was his vision of the future of technology, which served as a proto-Kaczynskian warning for the future that went unheeded into current day. I would say he even predicted the rise of social media and its dangers decades before personal computers found their way into the homes of the masses.
  However, I was disappointed to find that he never really gave much solution to the "differentiated man" in this current age of dissolution, he spent more time identifying the Tiger than he did in suggesting ways on how to "ride" it. The problem may be that he wrote this book too early in time at a late stage in his life, so his disconnect with the youth and the true direction of the future was evident. I think he provided enough material for the reader to use as a starting point, if they so choose.
  A lot of material in 'Ride the Tiger' is rehashed and restated from his earlier books, especially "Revolution Against the Modern World", the latter being far superior in many ways. His chapters regarding existentialism and philosophy were pretty difficult to sit through, much of it seemed outdated to modern readers (admittedly I have zero background or interest in this topic). I would only recommend this book to those who have taken interest in Evola's previous material and wouldn't suggest this to newcomers of his works.
• 
  Jonathan Hockey

  I think a lot of the analyses and criticisms of the dead end that western civilisation in its materialist form is heading to, are well described and prognosticated in this book. From the collapse of family values to social relations, sexual relations and a general climate of moral nihilism, the pattern is the same. For those who like some of Schopenhauer's or Nietzsche's harsh critiques of various things in Western society or the critiques in the Frankfurt school, such as in Adorno's Minima Moralia, this is a good book in that tradition updated to more recent times. The downside, and why I could not give it five stars despite so many accurate, scathing critiques of our lost materialist society, is that he is very unclear about the alternative. He seems to hedge his bets a lot and not say much committal in this area, for fear of being criticised in the same way that he has criticised others. He is concerned to avoid seeming like new age spirituality in any way, seeing this movement as perhaps accelerating the demise of Western society if anything. With its reliance on generic advice addressed to noone in particular, that does not appreciate context. And this may be correct, however he offers little positive himself besides some vague notion of somehow staying in touch with tradition and trying to be in touch with a higher dimension to existence, above this material plane. If the author was more willing to give other authors some credit, he could perhaps see cross overs between his ideas and some others, without merely belittling them and leaving little room for a positive and constructive message for people to take heed of and act upon.
• 
  Minäpäminä

  Oh the hype, why must I always fall for the hype! This one didn't live up to it, but what does? (Love, maybe.) I don't know what I expected. Something more dangerous, I think, from "the world's most right wing thinker" (Jonathan Bowden's words). Everything Evola says hinges on your belief in something transcendent. He's basically a theocrat.
  
  Evola just decries modernity over and over again, from all conceivable angles, though he does score a few good hits while at it. And it's a novel perspective he takes: the "Aristocrat of the Soul" must think of this "age of dissolution" as a trial, something his "superindividual being" (contra his individual persona) has chosen to suffer in order to form and "become what it is".
  
  I enjoyed the first half of the book, chapters 1-3, where he sets things up and examines "European nihilism" and existentialism. The rest of the book was the usual conservative culture critique, though extreme. It would probably be of more interest to Evola's "differentiated man". I don't think I am one.
  
  The writing is heavy and abstract. But the thinking is fascinating, so very strange in this day and age. I'm sure Evola would be delighted by that evaluation.
• 
  Mohammad

  ژولیوس ایوولا مردی که تفکرش در اذهان امروزی به طور پیش فرض خطرناک و منفور دانسته میشود. اما کسانی که این پیش فرض ها را بی معنی میپندارند از خوانش هیچ اثر مهمی ترس نخواهند داشت.
  او تذکره ای تمثیلی از خودش به یادگار گذاشته که خواندنش به طور حتم برای کسانی که وجودشان را متعلق به دنیای افسارگسیخته امروزی نمی دانند توصیه میشود. او متفکر متفاوتی است که حتما باید او را خواند. به نظرم این اثر مشخصا وصیت نامه ی ایوولا است.
  
  در اسطوره های کهن خاور دور
  افسانه، حکایت و مثلی وجود دارد
  باور این مردمان روزگاری بر این بود که هر کرانه از جغرافیا به اراده حیوانی اداره می شود.
  ببر فرمانروای غرب بود. هیبت ، درندگی، زیبایی، اضداد، رخسار و الوان او سرشار از زندگی است. او روحی قائم و انگیزه ای راسخ بود که دستیابی و پیشرفت را تجسم می بخشید.
  هرگونه ستیز انسان با ببر حتی از روی اجبار و دفاع از خود، به تحمل عذاب و کابوسی همیشگی منجر میشد. او از سکونتگاه خود برای همیشه رانده میشد. و تصورش بر این بود که طبیعت نیز او را از خود طرد کرده است، تلقینی باطنی و زجری خودخواسته که میراث اعتقادات کهن این مردمان در قبال طبیعت بود.
  این تا زمانی ادامه یافت که سرمایی طاقت فرسا در گردش طبیعت حاکم شد. سرانجام ببر از دامنه ی کوه بادگیر به سوی جنگل های کوهپایه در جوار زیستگاه انسان ها آمد. اعتقاد بر این بود که او مردان بد را طعمه خود قرار میدهد. اما واقعیت طبیعت این بود که ببر خشمگین و گرسنه است، قدرت غالب او ممکن است به طور نامشخصی هر چیزی را که با او روبرو می شود نابود کند. از طرفی شکار و کشتن او نیز برای آنها مصیبت و بدبختی به بار می آورد. این تدبیر تا هنگام دگرگونی های جغرافیایی که ضرباهنگ طبیعت را دستخوش تحول میکرد باقی ماند و چیزی جز آوارگی، گریز ، عقب نشینی و هلاک شدن کودکان نصیب انسان ها نمی‌کرد.
  اما طولی نکشید که تطور در نگاه آنها رخ داد. آنها طریقت خود را در نهفتن و فرار ندیدند اما به سوی کشتن و ستیز با ببر هم نرفتند و همچنان بر روی موضع و اعتقادشان مبنی بر مصیبت بار بودن کشتن ببر ایستادگی کردند.
  آنها تصمیم گرفتند که بر ببر سوار شوند.
  این همان اصطلاح و ضرب المثلی است که از آنها برای ما به جا مانده است. سواری به معنای ایجاد یک رابطه ی پایدار در جهت تسلط بر ببر
  اگر انسان موفق به سوار شدن و تسلط بر روی ببر شود هم از پریدن او بر روی انسان دیگری پیشگیری میکند و هم خودش یک سوار مجرب و حاذق خواهد شد.
  
  اما تکه هایی از کتاب
  این محدودیت را باید در نظر گرفت. آنچه می خواهم بگویم متاسفانه به انسان معمولی امروزی ما مربوط نمی شود. برعکس، مردی که من در ذهن دارم خودش را شدیدا درگیر دنیای امروزی می‌بیند، حتی در مشکل‌ آمیزترین نقاط آن، با این حال او نه در باطن به چنین دنیایی تعلق دارد و نه تسلیم آن خواهد شد. او در اصل خود را متعلق به عالم و نژادی متفاوت از اکثریت قریب به اتفاق هم عصران خودش احساس می کند. مکان طبیعی چنین مردی، سرزمینی که او در آن غریبه نباشد، دنیای سنت است.
  هر آنچه که در دنیای مدرن امروز غالب شده است دقیقاً نقطه متضادی در مقابل دنیای سنت است. البته شرایط امروز این احتمال را به طور فزاینده‌ای بعید می‌سازد که کسی، با شروع خوانش از ارزش‌های سنتی (حتی با فرض اینکه هنوز می‌توان آن‌ها را شناسایی و اتخاذ کرد)، بتواند اقدامات یا واکنش‌هایی با کارایی خاصی انجام دهد که با آن هر گونه تغییر واقعی را در وضعیت فعلی ایجاد کند. پس به نظر بعد از آخرین تحولات جهانی، هیچ نقطه شروعی برای ملت‌ها و اکثریت قریب به اتفاق افراد وجود ندارد - هیچ چیز نه در نهادها و نه وضعیت عمومی و جامعه، و نه در ایده‌ها و نه در منافع و انرژی‌های غالب این عصر
  با این وجود، هنوز مردانی وجود دارند که به اصطلاح، هنوز در میان ویرانه‌ها و فروپاشی‌ ها روی پای خود ایستاده اند و کم و بیش آگاهانه به آن دنیای دیگر تعلق دارند. به نظر می رسد که هنوز حاضر به جنگیدن هستند، حتی در موقعیت های از دست رفته. . . اما این مشکل عملی و شخصی را حل نمی کند - این صحبت ها مستقل از مردی است که فرصت انزوای مادی دارد -  بلکه مربوط به کسانی است که نمی توانند یا نمی خواهند پل ارتباطی خود را با زندگی و زیست پر حادثه ی جهان فعلی قطع کنند و بنابراین باید تصمیم بگیرند که چگونه کنش خود را حتی در سطح ابتدایی ترین واکنش ها و روابط انسانی انجام دهند.
  او باید این خطر را بپذیرد و بداند که در حقیقت هیچ حمایت بیرونی پیدا نمی کند. دیگر هیچ سازمان‌ و نهادی برای او وجود ندارد.
  این نهادها تنها در جوامع سنتی تجلی داشتند و  به او اجازه می‌دادند تا خود را به طور کامل بشناسد، وجود خود را به شیوه‌ای روشن و بدون ابهام مورد شناسایی قرار دهد، و در محیط خود خلاقانه از ارزشها دفاع کند ارزش هایی که از _در درون خود آنها را میشناخت.
  اما امروز او باید فرآیندهای مخرب را به رهایی درونی تبدیل کند. ما ابرمردها نمی توانیم امیدوار باشیم که این زوال را معکوس کنیم. تنها کارکرد ما این است که از این انحطاط پاک بمانیم، از سیاست دور بمانیم، و از طریق اعمال مان به عنوان یک الگو برای زمانی که چرخه بعدی تاریخ به نوادگان ما برسد باقی بمانیم.
  به مثابه مردمان شرق در خاور دور باید بر این هیولای وحشی و خشن ( مدرنیته) سوار شویم، نباید از او فرار کنیم، نباید او را پس بزنیم.
  
  مقدمه ی سوار بر ببر به قلم ژولیوس ایوولا 1960
• 
  Katelis Viglas

  Δεν είμαι οπαδός του συγγραφέα, από ιδεολογική άποψη, αλλά καλό είναι να γνωρίζεις όλες τις απόψεις, για να σχηματίσεις τη δική σου. Έτσι διάβασα και αυτό το βιβλίο του ακραίου Ιταλού νεοφιλοσόφου Ιούλιου Έβολα, το οποίο είναι μόνο εν μέρει της αρεσκείας μου, και φυσικά δεν συμφωνώ με όλες τις διανοητικές θέσεις-στάσεις του. Χρειάζεται πάντως να λάβουμε υπόψη και το έργο του, διότι έχει κάποια απήχηση. Το συνιστώ μόνο με επιφυλάξεις, σε όσους τολμούν να σκέφτονται ελεύθερα, χωρίς προκαταλήψεις. Η μετάφραση είναι πολύ καλή στα ελληνικά, και προβαίνω σε αυτή την παρατήρηση, διότι έχω δει άλλες κάκιστες μεταφράσεις έργων του ίδιου συγγραφέα στη γλώσσα μας.
• 
  Frawjon

  Excellent and timely polemical take on modern philosophy and counterculture.