Idea: Ideal, Historic Idealism
Historical idealism, theorised by Hegel, holds that a great Idea is necessarily incarnated in history, though with no advanced knowledge of how it is to be realised.
Hegel’s position has often been misunderstood, especially by Marxists, who have inverted its meaning. When Hegel invoked the ‘appearance of Reason in history’, he didn’t mean that it was some sort of automata of fate, but rather an irruption of an Idea (embodying a will to power) that could just as well become the counter-current to the ‘inevitable’.
Curiously, historical idealism is both fatalistic and anti-fatalistic. It’s fatalistic whenever it expects that certain ideas will be realised, of necessity, by some sort of pre-programmed metaphysics (classless society, Marx’s universalistic Communism, liberalism’s myth of an indefinite Progress).
It’s anti-fatalistic whenever it poses a dissident or apparently unrealisable Idea that might be manifested in history through the power of will: the Spanish Reconquista that took centuries,[1] De Gaulle’s affirmation of German defeat in 1940, Algerian independence, Kohl’s reunification of divided Germany, etc.
Historical idealism is the opposite of that negative historical fatalism distinct to our myopic experts. Today, for example, these experts claim that Islam and non-European aliens are now an established part of Europe. Against such claims, we wilfully affirm and inculcate the idea of reconquest, even if its exact modalities are still unknown.
Similarly, the concept of Eurosiberia stems from a will to be realised in history, even if it’s too early at this point to determine how.
This positive historical idealism opposes the mechanistic view of history, in which everything is foreseen, in which every surprise or wrong turn is dismissed in advance. In contrast, positive idealism presupposes that an Idea — conceived by an unwavering will and transmitted by conscious, capable elites to successive generations — has a chance one day of being realised, despite the claims of fatalists. Nothing is ever totally lost and it’s always been minorities imbued with an idea-force that have reversed the expected course of historical events.
We obviously need to be patient, to adopt a long-term perspective, and stop believing that Rome is to be built in a day. The current acceleration of history and the rising stakes of the new century could divulge divine surprises . . .
(see history; resistance and reconquest)
- ↑ Reconquista is a Spanish word meaning reconquering or recapturing. Historically, it refers to the struggle of the Christian Spaniards against the occupation of Spain by the Muslims during the Middle Ages, lasting for nearly eight centuries from 718 until they were finally driven out completely in 1492.
