Tradition: The Sole Shaper of Destiny

by Guillaume Faye

Guillaume Faye argues that the power of tradition is essential for an adventurous future for Europe, which must preserve its ancient cultural heritage amidst the challenges of modernity.

This is the twelfth part of Guillaume Faye’s essay ‘The New Ideological Challenges’, published in 1988. Also read parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and eleven.

If one recognises the Faustian capacity for asserting the human ego as the driving force of history, one also understands that superhumanism, in relation to temporality and its apparent determinism, can attain a state of freedom, even liberation. To the Faustian and superhumanist consciousness, the past never appears abolished. According to this view of history, the power of tradition is indestructible. It can resurface at any time, even centuries after its apparent demise.