Ride the Tiger
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Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul (Italian: Cavalcare la Tigre) is a 1961 book by Italian Traditionalist philosopher and racial theorist Julius Evola. The first English translation (translated by Joscelyn Godwin and Constance Fontana) was published by Inner Traditions in 2003 (ISBN 0-89281-125-0). Evola believes that the modern world has become totally corrupt and that the institutions and traditions of the ancient world that once allowed a person to fully realize his being have been lost. Ride the Tiger expands upon the Radical Traditionalist ideas which Evola developed in Revolt Against the Modern World and offers a solution to the problem of living in the modern world different from the reactionary revolution he argued for in Men Among the Ruins. The principle metaphor of the book is its title. Evola argues that in order to survive in the modern world an enlightened or "differentiated man" should "ride the tiger". As a man, by holding onto the tiger's back may survive the confrontation, so too might a man, by letting the world take him on its inexorable path be able to turn the destructive forces around him into a kind of inner liberation. While the traditional world described in Revolt Against the Modern World would allow a man to fully realize his being in a united society, the world Evola describes in Ride the Tiger is much lonelier and even more pessimistic. Ride the Tiger, despite its pessimism, is a testament to Evola's belief that no matter how lost civilization may be, there always exists the ability for the individual person to live his life always looking "above" himself and thus achieving enlightenment.
[edit] Contents
[edit] Part 1: Orientations
- The Modern World and Traditional Man
- The End of a Cycle--"Ride the Tiger"
[edit] Part 2: In the World Where God Is Dead
- 3. European Nihilism--The Dissolution of Morals
- 4. from the Precursors of Nihilism to the "Lost Youth" and the Protest Movement
- 5. Disguises of European Nihilism--The Socioeconomic Myth and the Protest Movement
- 6. Active Nihilism--Nietzsche
- 7. "Being Oneself"
- 8. The Transcendent Dimension--"Life" and "More Than Life"
- 9. Beyond Theism and Atheism
- 10. Invulnerability--Apollo and Dionysus
- 11. Acting without Desire--The Casual Law
[edit] Part 3: The Dead End of Existentialism
- 12. Being and Inauthentic Existence
- 13. Sartre: Prisoner without Walls
- 14. Existence, "A Project Flung into the World'
- 15. Heidegger: "Retreating Forwards" and "Being-for-Death"--Collapse of Existentialism
[edit] Part 4: Dissolution of the Individual
- 16. The Dual Aspect of Anonymity
- 17. Destructions and Liberations in the New Realism
- 18. The "Animal Ideal"--The Sentiment of Nature
[edit] Part 5: Dissolution of Consciousness and Relativism
- 19. The Procedures of Modern Science
- 20. Covering up Nature--Phenomenology
[edit] Part 6:The Realm of Art--From "Physical" Music to the Drug Regime
- 21. The Sickness of European Culture
- 22. Dissolution in Modern Art
- 23. Modern Music and Jazz
- 24. Excursus on Drugs
[edit] Part 7: Dissolution in the Social Realm
- 25. States and Parties--Apoliteia
- 26. Society--The Crisis of Patriotic Feeling
- 27. Marriage and the Family
- 28. Relation between the Sexes
[edit] Part 8: The Spiritual Problem
- 29. The "Second Religiosity"
- 30. Death--The Right over Life
- Notes
- Index
[edit] Quotations
[edit] From the Book
- "This restriction must be kept in mind. What I am about to say does not concern the ordinary man of our day. On the contrary, I have in mind the man who finds himself involved in today's world, even at its most problematic and paroxysimal points; yet he does not belong inwardly to such a world, nor will he give in to it. He feels himself, in essence, as belonging to a different race from that of the overwhelming majority of his contemporaries."
