Genealogy of metapolitics

Introduction

The term “metapolitics” (German: metapolitik, French: métapolitique, Italian: metapolitica, Spanish: metapolítica), from the Greek “tà metà tà politikà“, literally means “that which is beyond politics”. Born by budding from the pre-existing and more famous and renowned word “metaphysics”, it was, to our knowledge, first used in Christian circles by the Cistercian monk Juan Caramuel Lobkowitz in 1650¹. Later, when the term was used in secular, non-religious and Enlightenment circles, it came to designate either a particular conception and theory of politics, or the common foundation on which all political theories could and should be based.

In reality, the word hasn’t had much luck, and its rare usage explains the different characterizations and variety of meanings that have been attributed to it over time. We have identified nine main areas of application: 1) theological-jurisprudential; 2) philosophical-jurisprudential; 3) philosophical-political; 4) philosophical in the strict sense; 5) messianic-utopian; 6) spiritual or mystical-political; 7) sociological-political or political-sociological; 8) metaphysical-political; 9) eschatological-prophetic. It’s understood that for each identified domain, there may be other subdivisions and branches of meaning, with different nuances and emphases. Here are a few examples.

The theological-jurisprudential field.

The scholar who represented this point of view is the Spanish-born monk Caramuel Lobkowitz in his work written in Latin Metapolitica hoc est Tractatus de Repubblica Philosophice Considerata (1650). In it, the monk calls the civitas “a magno mystic man” and the man “a pólisma, i.e. a small mystic civitas“. At least three concepts of city intersect here: the Greek concept of pólis, the Roman-Latin concept of civitas and the Roman-Christian concept of Ecclesiam. Pólis, then, not only as a physical place bounded by walls, but as a living community of polítes, i.e. citizens; civitas as the legal status of citizenship²; Ecclesiam not only as a “community of the faithful who profess their faith in Jesus Christ”, but also as a “societas perfecta“, a reflection on earth of the Augustinian civitas dei and the apocalyptic heavenly Jerusalem.

Metapolitics then becomes a kind of “theodicy of law”, an “iurisprudentia universalis” whose subjects of law are people animated and governed by the divine spirit.

We must not forget that all this discourse was aimed, at least in its noble intentions, at defending the ecclesiastical institution and papal authority against the increasingly violent attacks of the Protestant reformers he called “the rebels of the North”. Thus, we can say that metapolitics, in its early days, was not born as a new theological discipline, but as a voice added to the lexicon of canon law and as part of a “theological reaction” to the transformations taking place in society and in the Church. And it’s certainly no coincidence that, at the same time, the happier word “secularization”³ was coined to represent the increasingly clear-cut separation between religious and political institutions, leading to the decline of religious beliefs and practices and the definitive confinement of faith to the private sphere.

Philosophy and jurisprudence.

We are in the advanced XVIII^e century, and almost a century has passed since the word first appeared. It was used by a handful of jurists and jurists of academic origin who went by the names of Juan Luis de Lolme (1740-1806), Amadeo Hufeland (1762-1836), Augusto Luis de Schlözer (1735-1809) and Karl von Rotteck (1775-1840). Indeed, in the works of these authors, the term “Metapolitics” does not assume any particular importance, and the only one to use it to delimit a precise disciplinary field is von Rotteck. He gave it the meaning of “theoretical science of the state” to distinguish it from “practical science of the state”, which for him was politics in the strict sense. We don’t know how the term was transferred from Spain or Italy (Caramuel Lobkowitz’s treatise on metapolitics doesn’t seem to have crossed the border of these two countries) to Germany, but it’s certainly no coincidence that we find it in the field of legal studies. It could be a coincidence or a phenomenon of semantic resonance, so to speak, but a passing of the baton cannot be ruled out either. 

Philosophico-political domain.

We owe the word’s entry into the philosophico-political realm to the Prussian politician Freiherr von Stein (1770-1840), but above all to the French philosopher Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821).

Baron von Stein incorporated the term metapolitics into his lexicon, certainly after de Maistre, who also preceded him in terms of age. For him, metapolitics is a politics elaborated from philosophical and religious systems, i.e. a metaphysical counterpart to theories of government. The meaning is not exactly positive, as he sees this mixing and hybridization of different spheres as a danger to the state, which needs to be closely monitored.

For Joseph de Maistre, a devout Catholic, metapolitics as a neo-discipline and “metaphysics of politics” deserves all possible attention and interest.⁴

Two almost opposite visions of metapolitics emerge here: the first, represented by von Stein, in the continuity of the German philosophers of right with whom he shares the idea of the “state of nature”, is critical and negative in favor of a Machiavellian realpolitik; the second, represented by De Maistre, is constructive and positive, for it is through its legitimization as a science and as an absolute science that it contributes to the cultural revitalization of Christendom.

The fact is that from these two authors onwards, the term tends to be increasingly characterized in an ideological sense.

From Peter Viereck (1916-2006) – conservative American historian⁵ – Raymond Abellio (1907-1986) – pseudonym of Georges Soulès, originally a Communist, but now a right-winger⁶ – from Alain de Benoist (1943), founder of the neo-pagan cultural movement Nouvelle Droite, to Marco Tarchi (1952), considered in Benoist’s wake to be the ideologist of the Italian New Right, but in a Catholic version – an experiment which came to an end in 1994; from Marxist Alain Badiou (1937), founder in the 1960s of the Maoist-inspired UCF party (Union des communistes de France marxiste-léniniste) and defender of communist ideology and regimes past and present⁷ to César Cansino (1963), a Mexican political scientist with a liberal education in the wake of the teachings of philosopher Hannah Arendt⁸, the word “metapolitics” will be declined in every possible way and associated with any type of program, ideal or political idea. However, it prevails over all the reactionary and conservative thought that has appropriated it in the 20^th century, automatically assuming it as part of its linguistic repertoire and without any consideration for its history or genealogy. Hence, most likely, its bad reputation and bumpy linguistic path.

Philosophy in the strict sense.

In the philosophical sphere, the term “metapolitics” rarely appears, but in recent times it has become increasingly common. We owe its entry into philosophical thought to Benedetto Croce, who in the 1930s began using it in his speeches and writings as a synonym for “liberal philosophy”⁹. The meaning is clear: insofar as freedom transcends political divisions, it is essentially “metapolitical”.

In addition to Croce, Martin Heidegger also took up the term at the same time, intercepting it from von Stein’s work, but without enthusiasm and reducing it to a “title” with a technical meaning devoid of content.¹⁰

In the work of Spanish philosopher and poet Miguel de Unamuno, the term also appears in the 1930s, and we find traces of it in the Epistolario inédito (Espasa Calpe, Madrid 1991), which collects some of his correspondence from 1932 onwards. As we know, from 1931 to 1933 Unamuno was a member of the Congress of Deputies, Spain’s lower house, in the Salamanca constituency, and thus also acquired a certain familiarity with political practice. For him, politics without metapolitics – that is, politics without the reason and law that underpin and transcend it – would lack something absolutely essential.

At least three contemporary philosophers can be mentioned: Manfred Riedel, Attilio Meliadò and Alain Badiou.

Ridel is the author of a text entitled Metafisica e metapolitica. Studi su Aristotele e sul linguaggio politico della filosofia moderna (Metaphysics and metapolitics. Studies on Aristotle and the political language of modern philosophy), Il Mulino, Bologna 1990. For this researcher, the word “metapolitics” indicates the implicit presence of metaphysical assumptions in political thought. This presence is revealed in the works of ancient and modern authors, from Aristotle’s Politics to Hobbes’ Leviathan and Hegel’s Philosophy of History. The concept of “metapolitics” can therefore refer to the speculative foundation of political theories. 

Christian philosopher Attilio Meliadò, in his book La comunità dell’Irreparabile. Saggio di metapolitica del Terzo (Franco Angeli, Milan 2001), projects metapolitics into the ulterior dimension (the beyond) of ethics, where politics as “organization and government of the irreparable finitude of our existence” finally finds its ubi consistam.¹¹

Last but not least, Alain Badiou, author of Metapolitica (Cronopio, Naples, 2001), a text that has met with some editorial success and been translated into several languages, contributing more than others to spreading the use of the word especially among intellectuals and thinkers of the radical left, defines it as “an activity of collective thought that becomes action”, something that is both ideal and real. As we have seen, his thinking is imbued with many philosophical suggestions, from Hegel to Heidegger, hybridized with Marxian dialectical materialism.

Messianic-utopian domain.

To date, metapolitics as utopia has had only one major exponent, the Polish mathematician Josef Maria Hoene-Wroński (1776-1853). Wroński made major contributions in many fields of knowledge, from mathematics to astronomy and philosophy, and devoted many pages to metapolitics¹², making it almost synonymous with “international politics”. Fascinated by occult and “esoteric” doctrines, of which he was an ardent follower¹³, he came to believe that the problems of his Poland and the whole world could be solved at once by an enlightened political leader chosen by Divine Providence (more precisely, his ideal candidate was Napoleon III), so it seems fair to call his metapolitical theories nationalist utopias or millenarian utopias. Incidentally, Wroński was also the first to associate metapolitics with synarchy¹⁴ by Saint-Yves d’Alveidre.

 Spiritual or mystical-political.

Metapolitics as a spiritual conception, or more precisely as the mysticism of politics, has had several precursors, the most famous of whom are Michel Foucault, Serge Latouche, Raimon Panikkar, Giorgio Agamben and above all the Dominican theologian and nun Antonietta Potente. Not everyone may know that Panikkar had a long-standing relationship with Silvano Panunzio and that, in the last years of his life, he devoted a long essay to metapolitics, which was only published discreetly in Canada in a local journal of religious and anthropological studies. His metapolitics, however, like those of the other researchers mentioned, is a metapolitics with a mystical tone, bringing together ideals of social justice, ecologism, “happy degrowth”, Christian ethics and universal spirituality. Federico Battistutta’s recent book Misticopolitica. Orizzonti della spiritualità post-religiosa (Ed. Effeggi, Arcidosso 2022), where the relationship between spirituality and politics is studied in a transversal manner. In this case, the choice of the word “mysticopolitics” instead of metapolitics is by no means accidental, and responds to the need of its theorists to keep politics separate from religion in all cases, involving only the individual, personal and intimate dimension and not the institutional and doctrinaire dimension of spirituality. This “ideological” and “political” dimension of the term is of no concern to the young and unaware Francesca Ragusa, who entitles one of her easy little books Metapolitica. Philosophy and Meditation for the New People (2012), where the term is associated with planetary consciousness and a holistic conception of the universe. Clearly, we’re right in the middle of New Age “philosophy”.

Sociological-political or political-sociological field.

An important precursor of metapolitics as a sociological and political reflection, or halfway between political sociology, political science and political philosophy, was the American political scientist and historian Anthony James Gregor (1929-2019)¹⁵ and for illustrious living representatives the Italian Carlo Gambescia and the Argentine Alberto Buela Lamas (1946). Gambescia, a sociologist and long-time academic with a solid liberal background, is perhaps one of the few, if not the only, to have given the term “metapolitics” a content meaning that makes possible its future inclusion among the academic sciences. Gambescia’s metapolitics aims to study “political reality in terms of what it is, not what it ought to be”. Consequently, it does not seek “the foundation of the optimal state, (…) but deals with questions of the legitimacy of power (roots and forms) as they arise, without going back to some extraterrestrial first cause”. Methodologically, moreover, it aims to “identify and relativize value judgments”¹⁶

Metapolitics is different for Buela, who sees it more as a “field of reflection” than as a discipline, a philosophical (sometimes hermeneutical, sometimes philosophico-analytical) examination of the categories of the political, whose main aim is both to unmask and demystify the new politico-cultural imperialism of the West, and to valorize and defend the ethnic groups and local cultures that oppose it.¹⁷

Metaphysics-politics.

When it comes to metapolitics as the “metaphysics of politics” or the “metaphysics of action”, the author of reference is the Veronese Primo Siena (1927-2022). A friend and, in a certain sense, “pupil” of Silvano Panunzio, Siena, a veteran of the Italian Social Republic and the main representative of the Italian Social Movement until its dissolution in 1995, developed his own idea of metapolitics, different from Panunzio’s in some respects, particularly with regard to its militant, cultural and political implications¹⁸.)). His ideal, heroic and romantic conception of politics also invests the religious dimension to the point of crushing it. It’s no coincidence that Siena liked to call himself a “gibelin” and considered Charles Maurras, Carlos Alberto Disandro, Giovanni Gentile¹⁹ and Julius Evola. In his case, the warrior charisma outweighed the priestly charisma, whereas, as we shall see, the exact opposite is true of Panunzio.

Eschatology and prophecy.

The meaning of metapolitics as “civil eschatology” and “prophecy” belongs to Panunzio alone. So far, no author or researcher has taken up the torch, apart from us. That’s why we feel almost obliged to write about it whenever the opportunity arises. In this case, we’ll try to be a little more analytical than usual, to give the reader a better idea of what we’re talking about.

Silvano Panunzio inherited the word “metapolitics” from his father Sergio, who in turn borrowed it from the German legal philosophers of the 18th century. This combination of the otherworldly and the political, Sergio Panunzio saw it historically realized in the agreements signed between the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See on February 11, 1929, better known as the “Lateran Pacts”, which re-established, albeit inadequately and insufficiently, the relationship between temporal and spiritual power, which, for the good of all, was to be not loosened but strengthened. The term Metapolitics, according to Sergio Panunzio, could not only express this new understanding in the sense of Dante’s equal dignity, but also promote it culturally. Hence the idea of founding a new journal of philosophico-legal studies with this title. Unfortunately, the project failed during the Second World War, but his son Silvano took it up again in the 1970s with a totally different approach: less culturalist and academic, and more spiritual. Indeed, the subtitle “revue d’études universelles” openly revealed its entirely Catholic, ecumenical, sapiential and traditional vocation.

From the very first issue, published on September 29 1976 – the feast day of St. Michael the Archangel, elected by Panunzio as the patron saint of Metapolitics – we endeavored to explain the meaning of the new word – new, of course, to those who had never heard of it – through a series of targeted articles ²⁰ which completed what had already been extensively set out in the formidable and powerful two-volume work (nine hundred pages in all!) Metapolitica, dalla Roma eterna alla nuova Gerusalemme (Metapolitics, from eternal Rome to the new Jerusalem).²¹

Although Panunzio never said so explicitly, and his writings make no mention of it, the author who provided “his” idea of metapolitics with the greatest number of clues is undoubtedly René Guénon. Without Guénon’s integral metaphysics, Panunzio’s metapolitics would be inconceivable, i.e., it would have no solid doctrinal and spiritual foundations and would be reduced to a very fragile ideal construction or, worse still, to a dangerous utopia or a mere “theorem” about power relations. Likewise, a metaphysics without complementary metapolitics can more easily be misunderstood and slide towards a spiritualism detached from human and social reality.

That said, we can now acknowledge, as the academic David Bisson has done in his book René Guénon. Une politique de l’esprit (Pierre-Guillaume de Roux, Paris 2013), that it is by no means true that Guénon’s discourses are devoid of a political and social dimension.

Let’s just say that the metapolitical dimension of Guénon’s message consisted – especially at the beginning of his traditional magisterium – not so much in criticizing (pars destruens) democratism – i.e. the false affirmation of democratic principles – and the modern world with all its distortions, but rather to seek to foster (pars construens) the creation and training of an intellectual elite mediating between East and West, with the aim of restoring what remained in Europe of traditional civilization²². But we must be clear on this point if we are not to fall into misunderstandings and betray the true message of the great Sufi. Indeed, this limpid and irreplaceable spokesman for Tradition never wrote that such a restoration was really possible, still less that it should be pursued politically as in the best counter-revolutionary tradition²³. For him, in fact, it was simply a matter of promoting and encouraging it intellectually, without directly entering the political arena, in order to create a kind of ideal link between two worlds, the “old” which, according to the cyclical laws governing the cosmos, was coming to an end, and the “new” which unmistakable signs announced as imminent²⁴. Indeed, no human “reaction”, no retrospective utopia could ever interrupt the “rhythms of history”. On the contrary, it was necessary to shift the front of the struggle from the outside to the inside of each and every one of us (for Panunzio, the truest and most incisive “metapolitical action” was the inner development of the individual, which necessarily ends up being reflected in the social and political dimension too). No “revolt against the modern world”, then (as proposed by the first Evola, who later moved on to the admittedly more traditional but no less problematic formula of “riding the tiger”), but a “great holy war” against the inner enemies besieging man’s soul and preventing his reintegration into the Absolute. This is the true restorative action or “action of presence” (a metaphysical formula from the Taoist matrix) proposed by Guénon, which coincides with the so-called “revolutionary conservation” (a metapolitical formula from the Sorelian matrix)²⁵, promoted by Silvano Panunzio.

We are therefore not dealing with two opposing and mutually exclusive perspectives, but with a single perspective seen from two different viewpoints in a relationship of mutual involvement and integration. Consequently, I would say that here falls both Panunzio’s criticism of traditional thinkers for the lack of social implications in their theorizations, and that addressed by Tarchi and others to Tradition as an “incapacitating myth”. We would add, among other things, that after the 1980s, Panunzio’s metapolitics, which in the footsteps of his father and on the path of “revolutionary syndicalism” had political and social repercussions and implications, tended to become increasingly spiritualized in consciousness, which gradually became a certainty, that of a conclusive result of historical processes underway that could no longer be influenced.

With the start of the third millennium, in fact, according to Panunzio, metapolitics has entered a new phase, the last one, in which ideal theorizations must give way to concrete realizations. The conflicts and passions of history, apparently governed by men, are destined to be resolved in an apocalyptic scenario. Thus, all contemporary problems, all civil and social issues, and even all individual problems, are bound to find a providential solution and a new synthesis.

But this transition will not be painless, and everyone will have to find the strength within themselves to reverse it. Here, then, the true purpose – if you like, the true utility – of Panunzian metapolitics will be to remind those who accept its message not only where they come from, but above all where they’re going, for what’s at stake is not just individual salvation, religions, civilizations or what’s left of them, but the very destiny of the human species and even that of the earth that welcomes it.

All this needs to be said to highlight the abysmal distance separating Panunzian “metapolitics” from both its current counterfeits and its improbable juxtapositions.

A few years ago, some even tried to turn Panunzio’s Metapolitics into a political proposition by presenting themselves, in view of the election campaign for local government in Puglia, with the coat of arms of the ATMA²⁶. This was avoided at the last moment, but this execrable episode suggests that the precautions taken to save metapolitics in the Panunzian sense from instrumental and distorted use are never enough.

Hence the need and moral obligation for us to draw a clear line between what is compatible with Panunzian metapolitics and what is not and never will be.

The first safe distance to respect, which Panunzio himself insisted on, is that of the so-called “conservative revolution”. In this respect, it’s painful to recall Panunzio’s disappointment at the title of Marcello Veneziani’s book La Rivoluzione conservatrice in Italia (SugarCo Edizioni, Milan 1987), which gave the impression that Italian fascism was inspired by the Weltanschauung of Nazi Germany (whereas, according to Panunzio, exactly the opposite was true). This was obviously untrue, and Veneziani’s book itself, in contradiction to its title, confirmed it in detail. But it was precisely this lack of rigor, even in language, that led to misinterpretations and mocked a historical event already sufficiently outraged²⁷.

If, in addition to Fascism, Panunzio’s Metapolitics had had a parentage with German National Socialism²⁸, it would undoubtedly have been rejected, for, as the Gospel says, “there is no good tree that bears bad fruit, nor a bad tree that bears good fruit” (Lk VI, 43-45). But the truth is that at the origin of the Panunzios’ new conception of Metapolitics was the Italian school and the Latin genius of Dante and Savonarola, Vico and Gioberti, Mazzini and Rosmini, Manzoni and Toniolo, Leo XIII and Sturzo.²⁹

Panunzian metapolitics has also distanced itself from so-called “political theology”, whether old or new, i.e. from C. Schmitt and E.W. Böckenförde, as well as from J.B. Metz, J. Moltmann and E.B. Metz. Böckenförde, as well as J.B. Metz, J. Moltmann and E. Schillebeeckx. Political theology” is in fact a branch of political philosophy and theology, i.e. a “bottom-up” perspective involving a plurality of different, often conflicting angles, whereas metapolitics is a “top-down” perspective. For example, according to Carl Schmitt and Jacob Taubes, politics and its categories descend directly from religion, of which they even constitute a secularized form; on the contrary, according to Jan Assmann, it is religion that is a camouflage for politics. For both positions, the problem of the existence or non-existence of a Providence and an “invisible hierarchy” does not even arise. Panunzian metapolitics, on the other hand, which does take them into account, allows no comparison with such perspectives, whose limits it can, on the contrary, only denounce.

A similar argument can be made for the philosophy and theology of history, although the latter in particular has a certain “family resemblance” with Metapolitics. But the theology of history is still a “conjectural discourse”, even when enlightened by faith and grace, whereas Panunzian Metapolitics has more the characteristics of an “esotericism” and a doctrinal sum, which integrates and makes intelligible a whole body of knowledge drawn from the “Universal Tradition” and a vision of reality that is both ethical and spiritual.

Herein lies the difference between Panunzio’s metapolitics, which draws from East, West and Middle East, and, for example, the “sociology of the supernatural” of a Don Luigi Sturzo, which remains confined to the Christian and Catholic theological dimension³⁰ 

To complete the picture, we cannot fail to mention so-called geopolitics, which some would like to “twin”, in our view dangerously, with Pan-Union metapolitics, proposing rather incorrect and inappropriate parallels with the crypto-political theses of a Jean Parvulescu and an Alexander Dughin³¹. In reality, geopolitics is limited to the study of the relationship between physical geography, human geography and political action, whereas pan-unionist metapolitics has nothing to do with it. At the very least, the latter may have something to do with the “sacred geography” cherished by the ancients, but for which there are no searchable textbooks. Toponymy” or that branch of anthropogeography known as “religious geography”, which studies the relationship between geographical space and religious ideas and beliefs, may be of help³². Of course, it’s then up to the researcher’s intuitive and imaginative faculty to make the right metapolitical reading, as Silvano Panunzio has done with exceptional talent.

Conclusion

After all these due and necessary distinctions, it will seem strange that, at the conclusion of our discourse, we propose readings for an approach to Panunzio’s metapolitics that Panunzio would never have dreamed of suggesting. However, we believe that certain books and authors can provide useful elements, let’s say, for his exposition as well as for the cultural battle that can be waged in his place and on his behalf. For example, a Franz Rosenzweig, a Gershom Scholem, a Sergio Quinzio and above all a Henry Corbin. Four very different authors, but all of them had in common the biblical prophetic perspective, the idea of a qualified time and the possibility – considered absolutely “real” – of an irruption of Eternity into history. On the basis of these ideas, which also belonged to Panunzio, it is perhaps possible that Metapolitics is also accepted in circles that are usually resistant and hostile to esotericism and the “traditional point of view”. We have little illusion about this, but we hope that this perspective will not be forgotten and that, even in the dark and controversial times in which we live, it will find other generous minds ready to extend and continue its discourse. At least until the times set by the Almighty are finally fulfilled.

Footnotes

1. A discovery we owe to Professor Gustavo Bueno Sánchez (1924-2016).[↩]
2. The term for the city as a complex of buildings and walls is urbs.[↩]
3. The expression séculariser (in French in the text) was first used in Münster on May 8, 1646 by the French legate Longueville during the negotiations for the Peace of Westphalia. Cf. Giacomo Marramao’s Potere e secolarizzazione (Power and secularization), 1985.[↩]
4. Saggio sul principio generatore delle costituzioni politiche e delle altre istituzioni umane (Essay on the generating principle of political constitutions and other human institutions), 1814, we read: “But this kind of consideration comes up again and again, especially in that which is most essential and fundamental in politics, that is, in the very constitution of empires. I hear that German philosophers have coined the term Metapolitics to place it, in relation to politics, in the same relationship as that between metaphysics and physics. It seems to me that this new expression is very well found, to express the metaphysics of politics; indeed, there is one, and this science deserves all the attention of observers”. Translated from the Italian by us![↩]
5. In Metapolitics From the Romantics to Hitler in 41 and in Metapolitics: The Roots of the Nazi Mind in 61.[↩]
6. In Ma dernière mémoire (1981, p. 497), Abellio writes: “All metapolitics is rooted at the lowest level in those troubled regions, in those ancestral nights of the unconscious of peoples, where complexes of aggression and guilt gravitate. (…) It is therefore impossible to understand the Second World War without stepping out of banal politics into metapolitics (…) Whatever its immediate motivations, the genocide of 1942-1945 was in itself a veritable operation of black magic, in which the demented Luciferian pride of the Nazis and their need for satanic possession combined their effects.[↩]
7. see Alain Badiou, Metapolitica, Cronopio, Naples 2001.[↩]
8. In 1990, Cansino launched a journal in Mexico entitled Metapolitica that lasted over a decade, the only one to bear this name after that of Silvano Panunzio.[↩]
9. See B. Croce, In qual senso la libertà sia un concetto metapolitico (in Pagine Sparse, II, Bari 1953) and La concezione metapolitica della storia di Benedetto Croce d’Antimo Negri (Sansoni, 1966).[↩]
10. See Concetti fondamentali della metafisica, Il Melangolo, Genoa 1983, pp. 56-57. This is a transcription of the university lectures Heidegger gave in Freiburg in the winter semester of 1929-30.[↩]
11. The Latin locution dā ubi cōnsistam, literally means: “give me a fulcrum. It’s an abbreviation of the motto attributed to Archimedes: “Dā mihi, inquit, ubi cōnsistam, et terram commovēbō” (“Give me a fulcrum and I’ll lift the world”), in reference to the property of leverage (cf. Pappi Alexandrini, Mathematicae collectiones, Liber Octavus, Problema VI, Propositio X, p. 1060; Editor’s note.[↩]
12. Here is the complete list: Epitre au Pape (1827); Le Prodrome du Messianisme (1831); Messianisme, union finale de la philosophie et de la religion constituant la Philosophie absolue (1843); Métapolitique messianique (1839); Le secret politique de Napoléon (1840); Epitre à S.A. le Prince Czartoryski sur la Déstinée de la Pologne et généralement des nations esclaves (1848); Philosophie absolue de l’histoire ou Genèse de l’humanité – Historiosophie (1852); Lettres diverses, dont certaines au futur Napoléon III.[↩]
13. He was admired and praised by the founding father of French occultism Eliphas Lévi and the Christian esotericist Paul Sédir.[↩]
14. The word synarchy – from the Greek συν syn (together) and ἀρχή arché (command) – means “governing together”. The first use of this term, before its appropriation by Saint-Yves d’Alveidre, is attributed to Thomas Stackhouse (1677-1752), a British priest who used it in his publication New History of the Holy Bible from the Beginning of the World to the Establishment of Christianity (published in two volumes in 1737).[↩]
15. Cf. An Introduction to Metapolitics: A Brief Inquiry into the Conceptual Language of Political Science, Free Press, New York 1971. In his case, we speak more precisely of a sociological pre-approach to metapolitics (in terms of social science methodology). This researcher was mainly concerned with the historical vicissitudes of Fascism, and produced numerous monographs on important personalities of the Ventennio, including Sergio Panunzio. On the latter, see the essay Sergio Panunzio: il sindacalismo ed il fondamento razionale del fascismo (Volpe, Rome 1978; new expanded edition, Lulu.com, 2014), which was written in consultation with his son Silvano on several occasions.[↩]
16. Carlo Gambescia, Metapolitica. L’altro sguardo sul potere (Ed. Il Foglio, Piombino 2009), pp. 31-32.[↩]
17. Alberto Buela’s reference text on this subject is Metapolítica y filosofía, Ediciones Teoría, Buenos Aires 2002. [↩]
18. See La spada di Perseo. Itinerari metapolitici (The Sword of Perseus. Metapolitical Itineraries), Solfanelli, Chieti 2013[↩]
19. From Gentile, according to Siena, we can learn love of country, brilliant intuition of the highly patriotic value of anti-Jacobin uprisings and the seriousness of a philosophical path towards the Catholic faith. Siena is convinced that, in the last years of his life, Gentile overcame the neo-idealist error and came closer than ever to a true Christian faith[↩]
20. The collection of these articles was published in 2023 under the title Che cos’è la metapolitica.[↩]
21. First published by Il Babuino in Rome in 1979 and almost immediately out of circulation, the work was finally reprinted in an anastatic edition by the Milanese publisher Iduna in 2021 under the aegis of Aldo La Fata.[↩]
22. Beyond certain decadent and regressive aspects invariably present in all eras, for Guénon, the historical example of the restoration of civilization in traditional terms is the Middle Ages.[↩]
23. There was a moment in history, between the 1980s and 1990s, when deranged personalities absurdly believed that Guénon’s theses could justify so-called Islamist terrorism.[↩]
24. On this point, see the magisterial work Il Regno della quantità e i Segni dei tempi (1945), The Reign of Quantity and the Sign of the Times.[↩]
25. As far as the critique of so-called “progress” is concerned, the author closest to Guénon is the same George Sorel, theorist of “revolutionary syndicalism”, who played such an important role in Sergio Panunzio’s philosophical and political formation and ideations. Sorel’s text, which predates Guénon’s Crise du monde moderne (1927) by twenty years and anticipates certain themes, is Les illusions du progrès (1907).[↩]
26. The Transcendent Alliance Michael Archangel was a kind of monastic and chivalric-inspired “fraternity” created by Primo Siena and Silvano Panunzio in the late 1950s, with rules of conduct of an ethical nature and principles and objectives of a spiritual nature.[↩]
27. Sergio Panunzio was a friend of Benito Mussolini’s in his youth and served for three years as Minister of Communications in his government. Silvano, meanwhile, was a friend and high-school classmate of Mussolini’s second son, Vittorio[↩]
28. It’s true that the word had a good press in the Wagnerian circles that preceded and inspired National Socialism.[↩]
29. The historical relationship between metapolitics and fascism is well explained by Silvano Panunzio in his book La conservazione rivoluzionaria. Dal dramma politico del Novecento alla svolta metapolitica del Duemila (Il Cinabro, Catania 1996), written both as a tribute to his father Sergio, whose ideas are expounded, and as a counterpoint to Veneziani’s book.[↩]
30. See La vera vita. Sociologia del supernaturale of 1943, to which Panunzio dedicated the essay: Per una rettificazione metafisica della sociologia. Lo spiritualismo storico di Luigi Sturzo, Rome 1961.[↩]
31. Of the two “atypical” traditionalists, the most confusing is certainly Dughin, who brings together, without any real understanding or discernment, the theological-political instances of a Schmitt, Russian Panslavism and the metaphysical and traditional doctrines of an Evola and a Guénon.[↩]
32. We refer you to Daniele Perra’s invaluable studies: Geografia sacra. Scienza e magia degli elementi naturali dalla preistoria agli etruschi (“Science and magic of natural elements from prehistory to the Etruscans”), Ed. Effeggi, 2015 and Dalla geografia sacra alla geopolitica (Cinabro Edizioni, Roma 2020) e a quello ancora unico nel suo genere di Jean Richer, Geografia sacra del mondo greco (Rusconi, Milano 1989). As far as “religious geography” is concerned, we refer to the only text still in circulation by Professor Gastone Imbrighi Lineamente di geografia religiosa (Editrice Studium, Rome 1961).[↩]