The Crisis of the Modern World
The Crisis Of The Modern World er en bok skrevet av den franske forfatteren og metafysikeren René Guénon, som av mange regnes som "grunnleggeren" av tradisjonalismen. Boken som kom ut første gang på fransk i 1927, og kom i sin nåværende utgave på engelsk for første gang ut i 2001 på forlaget Sophia Perennis. Boken er kanskje Guénon's mest kjente bok, og er nok også hans mest leste.
Selve boken er en gjennomgang av metafysikken bak det Guénon anser som den moderne verdens' forfall. Boken er delt inn i ni kapitler, der hver av disse er på rundt ti sider. Boken har for mange fungert som en første introduksjon til tradisjonalismen, og regnes som en av klassikerne innen samfunnskritikk og metafysikk. Guénon tar blant annet opp den skismaet som har oppstått mellom "Vesten" og "Østen", og tar opp hvorfor han anser dette skillet for å være kunstig og lite gunstig.
Fra bokens bakside
"René Guénon (1886–1951) was one of the great luminaries of the twentieth century, whose critique of the modern world has stood fast against the shifting sands of intellectual fashion. His extensive writings, now finally available in English, are a providential treasure-trove for the modern seeker: while pointing ceaselessly to the perennial wisdom found in past cultures ranging from the Shamanistic to the Indian and Chinese, the Hellenic and Judaic, the Christian and Islamic, and including also Alchemy, Hermeticism, and other esoteric currents, they direct the reader also to the deepest level of religious praxis, emphasizing the need for affiliation with a revealed tradition even while acknowledging the final identity of all spiritual paths as they approach the summit of spiritual realization
It is no longer news that the Western world is in a crisis, a crisis that has spread far beyond its point of origin and become global in nature. In 1927, René Guénon responded to this crisis with the closest thing he ever wrote to a manifesto and ‘call-to-action’. The Crisis of the Modern World was his most direct and complete application of traditional metaphysical principles—particularly that of the ‘age of darkness’ preceding the end of the present world—to social criticism, surpassed only by The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, his magnum opus. In the present work Guénon ruthlessly exposes the ‘Western deviation’: its loss of tradition, its exaltation of action over knowledge, its rampant individualism and general social chaos. His response to these conditions was not ‘activist’, however, but purely intellectual, envisioning the coming together of Western intellectual leaders capable under favorable circumstances of returning the West to its traditional roots, most likely via the Catholic Church, or, under less favorable ones, of at least preserving the ‘seeds’ of Tradition for the time to come"
The Collected Works of René Guénon brings together the writings of one of the greatest prophets of our time, whose voice is even more important today than when he was alive.
Huston Smith, author of The World's Religions"
Innholdsfortegnelse
- Editorial Note • XI
- Preface • 1
- 1 The Dark Age • 7
- 2 The Opposition Between East and West • 21
- 3 Knowledge and Action • 33
- 4 Sacred and Profane Science • 42
- 5 Individualism • 55
- 6 The Social Chaos • 69
- 7 A Material Civilization • 81
- 8 Western Encroachment • 97
- 9 Some Conclusions • 107
- Index • 119
