The Cinema of Conservative Collapse

Askr Svarte Reviews "Kineuropa"

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The book KINEUROPA: Cinema as a Reflection of European Identity, recently released by Arktos, serves as the impetus for our critical essay. The authors of this collection of essays pursue the traces, reflections, and embodiments of myth, the sacred, high art, and “Old Europe” in cinema. Such a framing of the issues strikes us as a fundamentally flawed line of thought, one that is unmistakably dead-end. But we will take the liberty of setting aside reviews of specific authorial texts and theses, and instead examine this phenomenon as a whole, putting forward a series of imperative counter-theses.

To stay on topic, let us briefly state that we speak from the standpoint of consistent Traditionalism and ontological, rather than historical-political, conservatism. Our position regarding myth, tradition, and politics is most fully articulated in the books Gods in the Abyss: Essays on Heidegger, the Germanic Logos and the Germanic Myth (Arktos, 2020) and Tradition and Future Shock: Visions of a Future that Isn’t Ours (PRAV Publishing, 2023).

In these works, the interested reader will find a comprehensive historical exposition, a full-scale critique of technology rooted in European philosophy (Oswald Spengler, Ernst Jünger, Julius Evola, Martin Heidegger, Pentti Linkola; as well as Theodore Kaczyński, James Scott, and others), and numerous concrete critical examples from life and culture.

In this regard, our position remains unchanged, and taking it as our starting point, we shall raise the following objections to the idea presented in Kineuropa.

First. The defense of myth and the sacred is an entirely proper endeavor; as stated here, the idea is entirely correct. But one must strictly keep in mind the very essence of mythos—it is the sacred tale of being itself, one of the earliest forms of its revelation as a mode of Dasein, as Heidegger wrote.¹ The Greek word μῦθος literally means oral narration, a tale, a story; the analogous and later term “folklore” refers to the oral tradition of a people, “oral lore.” In this vocal mode, the essence of language—which provides the space for the creation of the world—is revealed. This is discussed in the Upanishads, the Eddic myths about the sacrifice of Odin and Mjöd of Poetry, ancient conceptions of the connection between the noumenal and the name (“The Deity is the one who gives names”), and so on. Martin Heidegger also held largely similar views on the ontology of language. We have examined this topic in great detail in our book Towards Another Myth: A Tale of Heidegger and Traditionalism (PRAV Publishing, 2024).

So, the only truly authentic and sacred way to touch a myth is through singing it and listening to it. There is the live performance of a rhapsodist, set to the rhythm of the Aegean Sea’s waves; the alliterative rhythm of the heroic epic, sounding from the skald’s lips to the strings of the tagelharp; the paired singing of Finnish runic songs, as taught by Väinämöinen, and much more. This also includes the mystical reenactment and embodiment of myth in folk theatrical productions of the agrarian and Dionysian cycles, from which ancient theater takes its roots. This is the ritual imitatio Dei, imitatio mythoi.

Therefore, even reading a myth is already a secondary form of encountering it, not to mention the loss of the most complex linguistic games and metaphors, which are lost in translations of myths into other languages or when an author creates a prose collection of mythological stories. In general, book printing—or the negative “Gutenberg effect”—is another issue that conservatives and Traditionalists rarely address, although the contribution of industrial and mass book publishing to the Enlightenment and Modernity cannot be overstated.

So, historically, text has replaced oral storytelling, and the “sacred” status of books in Judeo-Christian-Islamic culture only exacerbates this situation, creating a dogmatic canon of “what is written in the book.”

And just as text replaces oral mythos, so too does cinema replace both text as a secondary form of narrative and theater as the mystery of narrative. Contemporary TV series are nothing other than the replacement of classic Modernist novels in a new form of synthetic art with rapid delivery to the consumer.

As a form of extremely modern art—less than 150 years old—cinema embodies the principle of dromocracy and the alienation of Modernism: quickly usurping the position of “storyteller,” pushing authentic and more complex, intellectual, and, in a certain sense, elitist forms of knowledge and creativity to the periphery. After all, a myth is not merely an entertaining story; a myth is a tradition of transmitting the sacred and meaning (Hans-Georg Gadamer), which not only “simply explains the world,” but creates its fabric and pattern, thereby giving rise to unique folk cultures and styles of metaphysics and thought. Cinematography is rapidly seizing precisely this sphere of the dictatorship of meanings, as will be discussed further below.

Second. Cinema as an art form, and cinematography as an industry, are phenomena that are extremely technology-dependent. Their existence is possible only and exclusively within the industrial paradigm of Modernity.

Cinema is impossible without the chemical industry, engineering solutions, optics and lighting, distribution, the installation of projectors and movie theaters, the entire technological complex of television and broadcasting, and now the full power of digital achievements and platform-based content distribution to smartphones and home screens.

To put it even more simply: the entire world of cinema, from A to Z, is completely dependent on humble electricity, the discovery of which Pentti Linkola² and Theodore Kaczyński considered one of the greatest failures and catastrophes in human history.

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For Traditionalism and ontological conservatism, this means that cinema is entirely a product of an anti-traditional and anti-conservative cultural paradigm.

The essence of this culture is Prometheanism, or the spirit of Faust, which is the cruelest curse upon the European man and Europe as a whole. This is beautifully and exhaustively discussed in Friedrich-Georg Jünger’s work Greek Myths and in our previously mentioned book Tradition and Future Shock. Prometheus is the Titan who disrupted relations between humans and the Olympians, deceived Zeus, and condemned humanity to the sufferings of the Iron Age. Prometheus is the first bourgeois, who is repulsed by the idea of sacrifice (Georges Bataille), but who takes pleasure in contemplating images on celluloid.

Prometheanism is yet another problem for all European conservatives, who systematically refuse to view themselves and the deep foundations of their own culture as the sole true source of their own misfortunes and degradation under the guise of progress (Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden,” Goethe’s Faust, Guillaume Faye’s Archeofuturism, etc.).

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Another name for this ideological position is “reactionary Modernism,” which we view as a chimera of consciousness, the intoxicating rhetoric of Mephistopheles, and the false dreams of Faust, who has lost the sharpness of his mind and the purity of his spiritual vision; it is the combination of sacred and conservative ideals with the possibilities of scientific and technological progress which we see, not infrequently, in the aesthetics of Futurism (Filippo Tommaso Marinetti) or Retrofuturism.

In his analysis of the impasse of European thought and history, Martin Heidegger succinctly termed this regime of a pro-technological, calculating, and consumerist attitude toward the world Gestell — the Enframing — whose defining feature is the constant calculation and representation of the world as a picture, a world-view. Cinema is de facto the voice and play of shadows for the chained spectators inside the Gestell cave.³ The movie theater is this very cave even in its functional structure, and the image of Plato’s cave is nothing other than a metaphor for human blindness and ignorance regarding the truth.

And for this reason alone, seeking traces of the Divine, the sacred, or “the good old Europe of La Belle Époque” in the works of a culture that springs directly from a system which totally rejects and destroys them is utterly absurd and signals a mental disorder at work. But, unfortunately, a significant portion of conservatives, the European New Right, and political Traditionalists are engaged in precisely this surrogate activity.

Third. Both the publicly stated and the underlying goals of cinema contradict conservatism and Traditionalism as ideologies, philosophies, and sets of life and aesthetic positions.

Cinema achieved its rise, flourishing, and dominant position within the capitalist system. That is, the primary driving force behind cinema in the West is not education, not the realization of the creative potential of screenwriters and directors, and not even the entertainment of consumers—but the profit of producers, investors, and other stakeholders in the market and the industry as a whole (unions, talent agencies, film distribution networks, and streaming platforms). Here, cinema refers us back to the classic debate and critique of capital from the perspectives of Traditionalism and various anti-capitalist conservative and sacrocentric theories.

It is the economy that constitutes the third cornerstone of the coordinated core of the Gestell:

1) The academic department of knowledge production and education;

2) Industrial production, logistics, and digital infrastructure—the body of technology;

3) The economy (both market-based and planned) and speculative capital.

The second most important component of cinema’s function is propaganda in the broadest sense of the word. Not only the desired ideas from state, party, lobbying, or non-profit ideological groups and organizations, but also the specific commercial interests of corporate clients. The latter is also known as the practice of marketing evangelism—the use of direct religious rhetoric, or structural analogues, metaphors, and elements to lobby for and advocate in the public consciousness for technical market innovations, applications, and services that are morally, ethically, or legally ambiguous, as well as for the digitization of sensitive sectors of public and private life and their migration to the platforms of large corporations (platform techno-feudalism).

In this area, cinema provides a wide range of tools, plots, cinematic techniques, and visual effects to simultaneously present the audience with a full spectrum of futuristic ideas and scenarios, as well as positive and negative outcomes, while gauging public interest, reaction, and cultural and commercial impact. Thus, as in previous eras, film culture is a field of forward-thinking, of projection or of stepping one foot into the future that is taking shape, including through the aggregate of various solutions proposed in films and the imagined achievements of technology or socio-political construction. The problem here is that this cultural field is not shaped by thinkers, poets, priests, or visionaries—the normative figures of mythopoetic societies or “classical high Europe”— no, this space is shaped by a tight-knit and often opaque network of self-serving commissioners pursuing their commercial, political, budgetary, financial, propaganda, criminal, and geopolitical agendas.

But beneath this lies cinema’s self-promotion as an industry, as a powerful voice in the arsenal of any interested party with whom one can negotiate on favorable terms. And behind all this lies the immanent propaganda and dissemination of the Gestell itself as a universal foundation or underpinning for any political and geopolitical configuration.

If your culture is tied to the capabilities and power of the Gestell, you have no authentic culture; it is not your culture, even if you trumpet your sovereignty, traditional values, and multipolarity to the whole world.

Returning to the question of profit: conservative circles are also a market and a consumer audience. Here we encounter the impenetrable walls of neoliberal capitalism, the emergence of which in the second half of the 20th century was brilliantly described by journalist Stuart Jeffries in his book Everything, All the Time, Everywhere: How We Became Postmodern, using the example of mass culture. Jeffries vividly demonstrates how the market perfectly tames and handles virtually any form of protest or revolution, transforming them into a product. He repeats the well-known maxim: “the way out of a riot is always through the souvenir shop.”

From this perspective, the difference between conservatives and those they oppose is essentially nonexistent, because all these groups of people are reduced to nothing more than different sectors and consumer groups. A conservative today is one who displays signs of consuming conservative content—strictly according to Jean Baudrillard and his brilliant theory of simulacra and the separation of the sign from the signified. Therefore, the 21st-century Faust simply ensures the circulation of traffic and signs before the “black mirror” or in VR goggles, living out his demonic heroism “against the Modern World” on anonymous imageboards and in closed Telegram channels.

One might object that there is a place in cinema for spiritual and esoteric creativity and symbolism. Early German cinema is often cited as an example, with films such as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) and Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). And more recent works like Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain (1972) or the purely commercial The Witch: A New England Folktale by Robert Eggers (2015) and Midsommar by Ari Aster (2019).

But such a view of affairs is an example of a distorted perspective when it comes to understanding what constitutes the traditional mythopoetic heritage and the path of spirituality. The so-called “spiritual” or “mystical” echoes and plots in cinema are pseudo-sacred ersatz and kitsch, which often exploit deeply derivative and decadent forms of European occultism, Hermeticism, and alchemy, and, in sum, all of this serves as precursors to postmodernist theology and superficial, syncretic spirituality in the spirit of the New Age. Along with the entire accompanying progressive agenda and, in the words of René Guénon, the great parody of Tradition (the neo-pagan Wiccan movement would be the most striking example here, and the films mentioned above have gained the greatest popularity precisely in these circles).⁴ We also place in this same niche the frankly absurd oxymoronic phenomena such as “right-wing conservative” or “pagan” rap music, as well as similar simulacra of the black metal, trad-martial, and similar genres.

In this case, we are dealing with the obvious McDonaldization of any form of authentic tradition, as well as any form of conservatism: you are a conservative or a Traditionalist if you watch films made for them and defend them.

From all that has been succinctly stated above, a definite plot emerges.

It is not hard to notice that, in recent decades, the discourse on the search for and transformation of forms of the sacred, myth, conservatism, and high art has long since shifted from cinema to the realm of computer games and online cultures and subcultures. Not long ago, we witnessed the rapid rise and fall of “new conservatism” in the form of the Alt-Right movement, which was rooted in the fashion and aesthetics of 1970s–1980s America, vaporwave and web-punk styles, and the ubiquitous Pepe the Frog.

But all of this is degradation and utter insincerity, the only tangible result of which is acquiescence to the status quo in exchange for a “souvenir shop” and the recognition of oneself as part of the counterculture—and nothing more. That is, if we’re talking about the conservative trend among a younger audience.

As for cinema and conservatives of a more mature or serious bent, the following logical fallacy is often observed here: “if one can find vestiges or reflections of a traditional/conservative ethos, values, or style in this contemporary cultural output, ergo, one must defend this contemporary and fragmented work as traditional and holistic.” This again leads to justifying the status quo, and conservatism here barely manages to fulfill its role as a cultural brake on the general locomotive of progress.

And this is not a problem specific to European, or more broadly Western, conservatives. This logic can be traced everywhere: ‘if Hollywood, Bollywood, Chinese, or any independent, authorial European cinema produces films based on classic plots, places the ‘right’ emphasis, or introduces mythological or historical characters, then they aren’t so hopeless, aren’t so bad; then it’s possible to collaborate with them or even bring them under our interests.’ The naivety and foolishness of such logic and such a stance requires no further comment. When Hollywood switches to AI-generated film production, conservatives will find arguments here too to praise such “cinema”—and thereby only expose their latent, perverse adoration of modernity.

It seems the Alt-Right has even coined a special term for this—cultural cuckoldry. You can’t deny their self-irony.

In conclusion, our arguments and critique are not meant as an invitation to a debate or discussion on how to make cinema “truly conservative.” They are imperatives for the proper attitude toward the entire culture of Modernism and Postmodernism, examined through the example of one specific phenomenon.

Is it even possible to watch movies? Probably, yes, but… although the very phrase “revolting means canceling your Netflix subscription” sounds humiliatingly ridiculous, it does not imply or provide any justification for having it or having subscriptions and other similar forms of leisure. Instead:

• Maintaining absolute inner distance: “if electricity disappears tomorrow, I must not worry for a single moment about lost forms of leisure and layers of culture; they meant nothing against the backdrop of thousands of years of authentic life before and without them”;

• By observing asceticism, in the spirit of practices prescribed by various traditions for dealing with the foul, toxic, and impure. There are specific times, places, ablutions, meditations, and abstinence, up to the complete renunciation of such forms of leisure;

• Clearly understanding and assigning cinema its natural place—a form of unpretentious leisure, an attraction for the spinal cord, etc.

• At most: a complete refusal to consume, to buy merchandise; a refusal to invent, circulate, and display pseudo-symbols. A generalized “walk-out from the souvenir shop,” out of the very situation where the souvenir shop is the only way out.

A Traditionalist and conservative is someone who, among other things, does not have a positive attitude toward, or involvement in, mass, tech-dependent fast-food culture.

Instead, the emphasis should be on profound distance and non-attachment (the Forest Rebel, Waldgänger), the ethic of letting-be (Gelassenheit), and dissimilation.⁵

— Evgeny Nechkasov (a.k.a. Askr Svarte)

Translated by Jafe Arnold

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Check out Kineuropa, brought to you by Arktos

1. See Jafe Arnold, “Heidegger’s Ins and Outs of Plato’s Cave: The Mythical Liberation of Education in Heidegger’s On the Essence of Truth” (PhD dissertation, University of Warsaw, 2024).

2. See Pentti Linkola, Can Life Prevail? (Arktos, 2009).

3. For an extensive understanding of Gestell as the dominant global paradigm of thinking, see Askr Svarte (Evgeny Nechkasov), Tradition and Future Shock: Visions of a Future that Isn’t Ours (PRAV Publishing, 2023).

4. For an in-depth critical analysis of Postmodernist neo-paganism, see Askr Svarte (Evgeny Nechkasov), Polemos: The Dawn of Pagan Traditionalism (PRAV Publishing, 2020) and Polemos II: Pagan Perspectives (PRAV Publishing, 2021).

5. See Tradition and Future Shock. The idea of dissimilation is explored in my forthcoming book, Dissimilation: The Untrodden Path of Traditionalist Politics (forthcoming from Arktos).