WESTERN ENCROACHMENT
The modern confusion had its origin in the West, as we have already said, and until the last few years remained in the West. But now a process is taking place, the gravity of which should not be overlooked: the confusion is spreading everywhere, and even the East seems to be succumbing to it. It is true that the encroachments of the West are nothing new, but hitherto they have been confined to a more or less brutal domination over other peoples, whose effects went no deeper than the domain of politics and economics: despite all the efforts of a propaganda that worked under many different guises, the Eastern attitude of mind remained unaffected by all deviations, and the ancient traditional civilizations survived intact. Today, on the contrary, there are Easterners who are more or less completely 'Westernized', who have forsaken their tradition and adopted all the aberrations of the modern outlook, and these denatured elements-led astray by the teachings of European and American universities-have become a cause of trouble and agitation in their own countries. At the same time, their importance, at least for the moment, should not be exaggerated: Westerners are apt to imagine that these noisy but not very numerous individuals represent the East of today, whereas actually their influence is neither very widespread nor very deep. This mistake is easily explained, since the real Easterners make no effort at all to become known, and are therefore ignored by the West, while the modernists, if one may so call them, are the only ones who thrust themselves forward, make speeches, write, and indulge in all manner of outward activity. It is nonetheless true that this anti-traditional movement may gain ground, and all eventualities, even the most unfavorable, must be considered.
The traditional spirit is already tending as it were to withdraw into itself, and the centers where it is preserved in its entirety are becoming more and more closed and difficult of access; this generalization of confusion corresponds exactly to what must occur in the final phase of the Kali-Yuga.
Let it be stated quite clearly: the modern outlook is purely Western, and those who are affected by it should be classed as Westerners mentally, even though they may be Easterners by birth; all Eastern ideas are completely alien to them, and their ignorance of the traditional doctrines is the only excuse for their hostility toward them. What may seem remarkable, and even contradictory, is that these same individuals who become the auxiliaries of 'Westernism' from an intellectual point of view-or, more exactly, in opposition to all real intellectuality-sometimes come to the fore as the opponents of the West in the field of politics. But there is nothing surprising in this, for it is they who strive to introduce the idea of 'nation' in the East, and all nationalism is essentially opposed to the traditional outlook; they may wish to resist foreign domination, but in order to do so they make use of Western methods, such as are used by the various Western peoples when fighting among themselves; and it may be that in this fact lies the justification for their existence. Indeed, if things have reached a point where the employment of such methods is inevitable, the sort of work involved can only be carried out by those elements of the community that have severed all connection with tradition. It is possible therefore that these elements may be temporarily utilized to this end and then eliminated, like the Westerners themselves. Moreover, it would be quite logical for the ideas spread by Westerners to turn against them, since they are of a kind that can never beget anything but division and ruin. It is through these ideas that the modern world will perish in one way or another; it is of small importance whether this be by way of quarrels among Westerners themselves, quarrels between nations, between social classes, or, as some people assert, through the attacks of 'Westernized' Easterners-or, another possibility, as the result of a cataclysm brought about by the 'progress of science'; in any case, the dangers facing the Western world are entirely of its own making and proceed from itself.
The only question to arise is this: will the East, as a result of modern influence, have to undergo a merely transitory and superficial crisis, or will the West involve the whole of mankind in its own downfall? It would be difficult at present to give any answer based on undeniable evidence; both contrary outlooks are now to be found in the East, but the spiritual power inherent in tradition, of which its adversaries know nothing, may triumph over the material power when this has played its part, and disperse it as light disperses the shadows; we may even say that it must triumph sooner or later, but it is possible that there will be a period of complete darkness before this happens. The traditional spirit cannot die, being in its essence above death and change; but it can withdraw completely from the outward world, and then there would really be the 'end of a world'. From all that has been said, one may conclude that such an eventuality in the not far distant future is by no means unlikely; and, in the confusion that has arisen in the West and that is at present over-flowing into the East, we may see the 'beginning of the end', the preliminary sign of the moment when, according to the Hindu tradition, the whole of the sacred doctrine is to be shut in a conch-shell, from which it will once more come forth intact at the dawn of the new world.
But let us cease anticipating and turn to present events: the West is undeniably encroaching everywhere; its influence first made itself felt in the material domain, since this comes most directly within its reach, working through conquest by violence or through commerce, and by securing control over the resources of other countries; but now things are going still further. Westerners, always animated by that need for proselytism which is so exclusively theirs, have succeeded to a certain extent in introducing their own antitraditional and materialistic outlook among other peoples; and whereas the first form of invasion only affected men's bodies, this newer form poisons their minds and kills all spirituality. In point of fact, it was the first kind of invasion that made the second one possible, so that it is ultimately only by brute force that the West has succeeded in imposing itself upon the rest of the world, as, indeed, must necessarily be the case, since in this sphere alone lies the superiority of its civilization, so inferior from every other point of view.
The Western encroachment is the encroachment of materialism under all its guises and cannot be other than this; none of the more or less hypocritical veils, none of the moralistic pretexts, none of the humanitarian declamations, none of the wiles of a propaganda that knows how to be insinuating the better to achieve its destructive ends, none of these things can gainsay that Western encroachment is the encroachment of materialism; this could be disputed only by the gullible, or by those who have an interest in aiding a process that is truly 'satanic' in the strictest sense of the word. [1]
It is extraordinary that the very moment that Western encroachment is penetrating everywhere is the moment chosen by some people to raise a cry against the peril, dreadful for them, of a supposed infiltration of Eastern ideas into the West; what new aberration can this be? Despite the wish to confine ourselves to considerations of a general order, we cannot avoid saying here a few words about a recently-published book by Henri Massis entitled Défense de l'Occident, which is one of the most characteristic manifestations of this frame of mind. [2] It is a book full of confusion and contradiction, and shows once more to what extent most of those who seek to react against the modern disorder are incapable of doing so in a really effective way, since they are not even very clear as to what they are fighting against. The author at times disclaims the intention of attacking the real East; and if he had in fact confined himself to a criticism of 'pseudo-oriental' fantasies, that is to say of purely Western theories that are being spread abroad under deceptive names and that are merely one of the many products of the present disequilibrium, this could only meet with our full approval, especially since we ourself have drawn attention to the real danger of this sort of thing, as well as to its inanity from an intellectual point of view. Unfortunately however, he does not stop there, but feels the need to
attribute to the East conceptions scarcely better than these and, to do so, relies upon quotations taken from certain more or less 'official' orientalists, in which the Eastern doctrines are-as usually happens-deformed to the point of caricature. What would he say if somebody were to adopt the same method in dealing with Christianity, and claim to judge it on the basis of the works of the university 'hypercritics'? This is exactly what he does with the doctrines of India and China, with the aggravating circumstance that the Westerners whose testimony he produces have not the slightest direct knowledge of these doctrines, whereas their fellow critics who occupy themselves with Christianity must at least be familiar with it to a certain extent, even if their hostility toward all that has to do with religion prevents them from really understanding it. Moreover, we must add in this connection that we have sometimes found it hard to convince Easterners that the studies of some orientalist or other were the outcome of incomprehension pure and simple, and not of a conscious and deliberate bias, so imbued are these writings with that same hostility that is inherent in the anti-traditional outlook; and we might well ask Massis whether he really considers it advisable to attack tradition abroad while striving to restore it at home. We say 'advisable', because the whole discussion is, for him, really placed within the realm of politics; since we take a different point of view, that of pure intellectuality, the only question that matters to us is that of truth; but such a point of view is doubtless too high and too serene for polemicists to find any satisfaction in it, and it is even doubtful whether, in their capacity as controversialists, the truth can concern them very much. [3]
Massis attacks what he calls 'Eastern propagandists', an expression which is itself a contradiction in terms, since, as we have said often enough, the mania for propaganda is a purely Western thing;
and this alone shows that there is some misunderstanding. In fact, among the propagandists he has in mind, we can distinguish two groups, and the first of them is exclusively composed of Westerners; to see Germans and Russians included among the representatives of the Eastern outlook would be truly ludicrous, if it were not a sign of the most deplorable ignorance of all that concerns the East; some of the observations made by the author concerning this group are very appropriate, but why does he not openly show them up for what they are? To this first group should also be added the Anglo-Saxon 'Theosophists' and the inventors of all other sects of the same kind, whose oriental terminology is no more than a mask serving to impose upon the gullible and ill-informed, and to conceal ideas no less foreign to the East than they are dear to the modern West. People of this sort are more dangerous than mere philosophers, owing to their pretensions to an esoterism they do not possess any more than do the philosophers, but which they simulate fraudulently in order to attract people who are in search of something better than 'profane' speculations and who, in the midst of the present chaos, do not know where to turn; we are surprised that Massis scarcely mentions them. As to the second group we find in it several of the Westernized Easterners to whom we referred above; such people are as ignorant of real Eastern ideas as are the first group, and they would therefore be quite incapable of spreading them in the West even should they wish to do so. As a matter of fact, the aim they really set themselves is just the opposite of this, since they wish to destroy these very ideas in the East and, at the same time, to exhibit to the West their modernized East, which has been made to conform to the theories that have been instilled in them in Europe and America. Avowed agents, as they are, of the most baneful of all forms of Western propaganda-bearing as it does directly on the intelligence-they are a danger only to the East, and not to the West, of which they are a mere reflection. Of real Easterners, Massis does not mention a single one, and he would have found it very hard to do so, for he certainly does not know any; his total inability to cite the name of any Easterner who was not Westernized should have given him cause for thought, and made him understand that 'Eastern propagandists' do not in fact exist.
Furthermore, although this compels us to speak personally, which we are not in the habit of doing, the following formal declaration is necessary: as far as we are aware, there is no one else who has expounded authentic Eastern ideas in the West; and we have always done so exactly as any Easterner would have done in the same circumstances, that is to say without the slightest intention of propaganda or popularization, and exclusively for the sake of those who are capable of understanding the doctrines as they are, without having recourse to any distortion in order to bring them within their reach; and we may add that, despite the decline of intellectuality in the West, those who understand, though obviously only a small minority, are nevertheless not so few as might have been expected. What Massis has in view are completely different under-takings-let us not say out of zeal for his cause, though the political tone of his book would justify these words; instead, in order to be as kind as possible, let us say that his mind is disturbed by a fear that Western civilization is near its end, and that this has caused him to believe in the existence of 'Eastern propaganda'. At the same time, we may regret that he has been unable to discern the real causes that may indeed bring about this collapse, even though he does at times show a just severity toward certain aspects of the modern world. This is what causes the continual fluctuation in his thesis: on the one hand he is not quite sure who are the adversaries he has to fight against, and on the other his 'traditionalism' leaves him very ignorant of all that constitutes the very essence of tradition, which he obviously confuses with a sort of politico-religious conservatism of the most outward kind.
The best proof that Massis's mind is disturbed by fear is the extraordinary and completely incredible attitude he ascribes to these so-called 'Eastern propagandists'. He would have us believe that they are animated by a savage hatred of the West, and that it is only to injure the West that they are striving to impart their own doctrines to her, that is to say to bestow on her the most precious thing they possess, which constitutes, in a way, the very essence of their spirit! One is reduced to a state of bewilderment by the sheer contradictoriness of such a hypothesis: the whole laboriously erected argument crumbles in a moment, yet it would seem that the
author has not even perceived this, for we are loath to suppose that he can have been aware of all the improbability of such a theory, and simply counted on his readers' lack of insight to cause them to believe it. A little elementary reflection should be enough to make it plain that the first thing for Easterners to do, if they hated the West so violently, would be to guard their doctrines jealously for their own exclusive use, and that all their efforts would be toward denying Westerners access to them; indeed, this is a reproach that has sometimes been leveled against Easterners, and with more appearance of justification. The truth, however, is rather different: the authentic representatives of the Eastern doctrines feel hatred for nobody, and there is only one reason for their reserve: it is that they consider it utterly useless to display certain truths before those who are incapable of understanding them; but they have never refused to make them known to those who possess the necessary 'qualifications', whatever may be their place of origin; is it their fault if, among such, there are very few Westerners? And, at the same time, if the mass of Easterners have come at last to be really hostile to the Westerners, after having long regarded them with indifference, whose fault is it? Must one blame the elite, who, given over to intellectual contemplation, hold themselves strictly aloof from all outward agitation, or is it not rather the fault of Westerners themselves, who have done everything to make their presence odious and intolerable? As soon as the question is put thus, as it should be, the answer becomes clear to everybody, and even if one admits that Easterners, who have hitherto given evidence of incredible patience, show at last a desire to be masters in their own home, who can bring himself honestly to blame them? It is true that, when certain passions come into play, the same things can be appreciated in a very different, and even quite contrary, sense according to the circumstances: so, for instance, when a Western people resists a foreign invasion, this is called 'patriotism' and merits the highest praise, but when an Eastern people does so it is called 'fanaticism' or 'xenophobia', and merits hatred and contempt. Moreover, is it not in the name of 'Right', and 'Liberty', of 'Justice' and 'Civilization', that the Europeans claim to impose their dominion over all others, and to forbid anyone to live and think otherwise than they do themselves? It cannot be
denied that moralism is a truly remarkable thing, unless one prefers to conclude, as we do, that, save for exceptions as honorable as they are rare, there remain in the West really only two kinds of people, neither of them very interesting: the gullible, who take these big words at their face value, and believe in their 'civilizing mission', completely unaware of the materialist barbarism in which they are sunk, and the guileful, who exploit this state of mind to gratify their instincts of violence and cupidity. In any case, one thing is certain, and that is that Easterners are a menace to nobody and do not dream of invading the West in any way whatsoever: they have enough to do for the moment in defending themselves against European oppression, which threatens now to assail even their minds; and it is curious, to say the least, to see the aggressors taking up the pose of victims.
This clarification was necessary, for these are things that needed to be said; but we should consider it a waste of time to dwell at greater length on this theme, for the argument of the 'defenders of the West' is too flimsy and inconsistent. Moreover, if we have momentarily abandoned our usual attitude of reserve toward individuals in order to quote Henri Massis, it is mainly because, in the circumstances, he represents a part of the contemporary mentality, a part that must be taken into account in the present study of the state of the modern world. How can this low-grade and to a large extent artificial traditionalism, with its narrow horizons and lack of understanding, offer any real and effective resistance to an outlook, so many of whose prejudices it shares? Both outlooks imply much the same ignorance of true principles: there is the same biased denial of everything that transcends a certain limit, the same inability to understand the existence of different civilizations, and the same superstition of Greco-Latin classicism. This inadequate reaction has no other interest for us than that it shows a certain dissatisfaction with the present state of things among some of our contemporaries. There are moreover other manifestations of the same dissatisfaction, which might prove capable of going further if they were rightly guided, but for the time being all this is very chaotic, and it is still difficult to say what will come of it. Some predictions regarding this point may nevertheless be of use and, as they
bear directly on the destiny of the present world, they can at the same time serve to conclude the present work, insofar as it is possible to draw conclusions without giving 'profane' ignorance an easy opening for attack by imprudently developing considerations that it would be impossible to justify in the ordinary ways. We are not one of those who think that all things can be spoken of indiscriminately, at least when one leaves pure doctrine and goes on to its applications; some reservations are necessary, and there are questions of opportuneness that cannot be overlooked. But this rightful and even indispensable reserve has nothing in common with puerile fears that are but the outcome of ignorance, comparable to the terror of the man in the Hindu proverb who 'mistakes a rope for a snake'. Whether people like it or not, what should be said will be said as circumstances dictate; neither the self-interested efforts of some people, nor the unconscious hostility of others, can prevent this, nor on the other hand will the impatience of those who are caught up by the feverish hurry of the modern world and who would like to know everything at once, cause certain things to be made known before their proper time. But the latter can at least console themselves with the thought that the ever increasing speed of events will doubtless satisfy their desires before long; may they then not come to regret having insufficiently prepared themselves to receive knowledge that they have sought more often with enthusiasm than with true discernment.