Thomas Carlyle, Cult of heroes and valor in history

Thomas Carlyle, a scholar to be traced

“Blessed are those who do not need heroes” so said the famous German poet, playwright, theater director and essayist Bertold Brecht Born in Augusta on February 10, 1898, and died in East Berlin on August 14, 1956, in a sentence that highlights the egalitarian and flattered character of communist ideology, in which all individuals are homogenous and the differences between them are impaired. Has been done, in effort. To replace humans with amorphous and unnamed mass.

Thomas Carlyle, Origin

In 1841, a Scottish thinker, historian and mathematician born on 4 December 1795 in the small village of Ecclefechan – located in the Dumfries and Galloway region – died on 5 February 1881 in London. Thomas CarlileComing from a family of humble origins of strict Calvinist supervision, published a work that contradicts Communist ideology and confirms the pessimistic Brekhtian on the role of the hero in the history of the people: it is properly entitled On heroes, Constituted one of the most famous books of heroism and carlyle in hero-worship and history, which can be counted among the most important orthodox European philosophers of the nineteenth century.

In his entire work we can find a critique of the modern world, projected towards a “glorious and progressive destiny”, which is losing the deepest values ​​of life.

We can define it as, very broadly, a “Julius Evola The nineteenth century “, the radical orthodox enemies of the world who emerged victorious by the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, which led to techno-scientific progress but also the aridity in the field of pyrites and the rise of atheistic and materialistic ideologies. Communist Marxism and Liberal-capitalist economism for which man is only producer-consumer and modern phenomena such as globalism and globalization are the last stages of his development.

Here then Thomas Carlyle outlined his concept of a hero, arising from the crowd for the extraordinary gifts given to him by nature, the difficult task of being a prophet, a sovereign, a legislator, a poet, a priest, a man. Tha Akshar., A divinity that has determined and changed history by protecting its people from danger.

In fact, what would have been the history of humanity without such extraordinary personalities as Mohammed, Napoleon Bonaparte and Oliver cromwell, Dante Alghieri and William Shakespeare, Martin Luther, Odin? These are, in fact, the main characters analyzed by Carlyle, to which other names may be added which we know well for a prominent role in the history of the twentieth century such as Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Eosif Stalin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Hideki Tuj, was an important Japanese general and politician who had relevance during World War II. The “doctrine of the great man” to which Carlyle’s name is associated, it is actually the Führer who I fight Written in 1925:

“It is never understood that the strength of a political party lies not in the great and single intelligence of the constituents, but under the intellectual order of the constituents. The one who decides is the direction. If two armies fight, not every component will have the most military culture, but the strongest command and the most obedient and efficient army at the same time ”.

In addition to the presence among the protagonists of the characters who actually lived there, that is also Odin-watton, The chief god of paganism and Nordic myths, and this suggests that mythological and mythological figures also carry the value of spiritual guidance among people such as leaders such as Charlemagne or Napoleon, and that religion and a superior political view are actually The vast masses can muster, willing to sacrifice themselves for their victory and, most importantly, merge with their master.

However, we should not consider Carlyle Reactionary The tout court, of course, as an expression of democracy, liberalism as well as anti-Marxism, relativism and utilitarianism, but reading his biography well, the philosopher shows his sympathy for the less well-off classes, Proposes participation in workers’ profits Companies, a truly innovative solution to the end of the nineteenth century, was an idea later taken up by Mussolini, with the program approved on 23 March 1919 at the Piazza San Cepolo in Milan, by Fasi Italani di Combattimento And was relaunched during a life of six hundred days. Italian Social Republic as a programmatic point Verona Manifesto During the first and only congress of the Fascist Republican Party.

Thomas Carlile can be regarded as an aristocrat of the soul, in the sense of an aristocrat who is derivatively understood as “the government of the best”.

Criticize carlyle

One of the most rigorous criticisms of the construction of the “doctrine of the great man” was that proposed by the Scottish philosopher. Herbert spencer, (1820–1903), the British philosopher of liberal training and theorist of social Darwinism, whose views are well expressed in this statement:

“The whole effort of nature is to get rid of life’s failures, to cleanse the world of their presence, and to make room for the best.”, And who believed that attributing historical events to the decisions of some individuals was a discouraging primitive. Was. Childish situation and unscientific. He believed that Carlyle thought that the “greats” were merely the products of his social environment; In this regard, he wrote Study of sociology Since 1896:
“It must be acknowledged that the origin of the great man depends on the long series of complex influences that produce the breed in which he appears, and the social status in which that race has gradually grown. […] Before he can remake his company, his company must do it ”.

Another criticism of Thomas Carlyle’s theory Friedrich Nietzsche (1 (8-1700), deserves to be treated differently, as it is often led to believe, for laudable reasons, that Carlyle’s philosophy and Superman’s and Nietzsche’s philosophy of archaeological ethics There are similarities of views. However, when read carefully and thoroughly, things may look different. So it is worthwhile to quote some quotes from Nietzsche
In relation to Carlyle, taken from Echo Homo 3 of 1888: “The word ‘Superman’, which, unlike ‘modern’ man, ‘good’ man, Christian and other nihilists, designates a successful type to the highest degree.” […] It was understood almost everywhere, with complete innocence, in the meanings of the same values ​​as opposed to those appearing in the figure of Zarathustra, that is, as an ‘idealistic’ type of a superior species of man, half ‘sacred’, Half ‘talent’ […].

Other scholars have made me suspect Darwinism for this; He also found signs of the “hero cult,” which I had very harshly denied, of that great unintentional and unintentional leader, Carlyle.

“I have read the life of Thomas Carlyle, this unconscious and uncharacteristically dialectical, this heroic-moral interpretation of diaspeptic states. Carlile, a man of vigorous words and mannerisms, a rhetoric out of necessity, is constantly teased by a desire for a strong belief and a sense of his own inability to achieve it (a typical romantic one in this!). The desire for strong faith is not a proof of strong belief, but vice versa. […] Carlyle does little for the men of strong faith in himself with the very fate of his adorable and with his fury against the less simple-minded: he needs noise “

In History 4 it is recommended to read the heroes and the pantheon of heroes, so it is recommended for those who fulfill their duty, give themselves to the community with feelings of honesty, purity and apathy, And usually, whoever feels invested. A special “mission”, overcoming compromise and abolition that the civilization of goodness is growing in its body like a cancer, must be wiped out as soon as possible.

(Of Franco Brogioli)

pay attention:
1. Ar, Padua, 2009 edition. (Anatomic reprint of Valentino Bompiani edition)
Milan, 1941). New translation: Thule Edtris Italia, Rome, 2019.
2. Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library, 2005
3. Adelphi, Milan, 1991.
4. BUR, Milan, 1992. New Edition, Nayak, Oaks Editris, Sesto San Giovanni (MI), 2018