“Man must sacrifice his life” – interview with Dominique Venner

On May 21, 2013 Dominique Venner , a French historian, shot himself in the Notre Dame Cathedral of Paris to protest against the introduction of gay marriage in France. Only a week before that, Secession magazine interviewed Venner scheduled for the August issue. The occasion was Venner's new book: Le Choc de l'Histoire - The shock of the History. During the conversation Venner suggested that our time was ripe for symbolic actions and personal sacrifice. Questions by Benedict Kaiser.

SECESSION: Le Choc de l'Histoire treats questions that you have investigated for a long time. So what is the purpose of your new book?

VENNER: This book presents a synthesis in the dynamic form of interviews. The perception of historical upheaval has long been the focus of my work and ideas as a historian. It covers the relationship between religion and identity, continuity and renaissance of cultures, which are interpreted as an expression of the identity of the people over a long period of time. So Europe in its very long history found many answers that have their source in the Homeric poems, which are an expression of its several thousand year old Indo-European heritage.

SECESSION: Why did you choose the title “Shock of the History” - and what should it mean?

VENNER: We are experiencing a shock of the history without realizing it. It has always been so. Only with the passage of time one can apprehend the range of the changes. Many eras before us have experienced historical shocks and struggled with immense challenges: the Persian Wars to the ancient Greeks, the decline of the Roman Republic before Augustus. In the course of the "modern times" and contemporary centuries historical shocks have caused ideological changes. Machiavelli, for example, is the result of the turmoil of Florence and Italy in the late 15th Century, Montaigne is the result of the religious wars in France, Hobbes, the first English Revolution, Martin Heidegger, the perception of the influence of technology, Carl Schmitt, the German catastrophe in the wake of the Versailles Treaty, Samuel Huntington, the new world after the Cold War - where Huntington, did not see things as the Europeans would, but rather as the Americans see them.

SECESSION Where is here the precise difference between American and European point of view?

VENNER: The 20th Century was for the United States in an era of continuous advancement towards dominance and control of the world - including the cultural space. The same period - especially after 1945 - was that of collapse, the submission and the unprecedented demoralization in Europe.

VENNER: With the beginning of the 21st Century, we have entered a new historical era that will liberate the Europeans from the consequences of the year 1945. From the two major forces that divided Europe in 1945 in Yalta, one already vanished, which is something that no one could have imagined. Communism (the future of the world!) Imploded, and a new Russia has risen from the rubble. And this national Russia will become a continental partner of Europe vis-a-vis the United States. As for the United States, they must reckon with China, Islam, South America and a fluid world even now. The heroes of yesterday will become the accursed of tomorrow ...

SECESSION: If you are talking about Europe as the partner of a new Russia, you are unlikely to think within the structures of the European Union in its current form.

VENNER: I think not of any current political structure, but of our millennial culture, our identity, of our certain "European" way to think, to feel, to live, which has stood the test of time.

SECESSION: You write that the great cultures do not represent different regions on a planet, but are themselves different "planets". What do you mean?

VENNER: The people only exist thanks to what distinguishes them: clan, tribe, city, nation, culture, civilization, and not by what they have in common and is purely animalistic: sexuality or the need for food. Their human quality is rooted in traditions and spiritual values that endure over time. For example, while the simple sexuality is an universal action, such as the action to consume food, but love is different in each culture, as different as the perception of femininity, the perception of the body, the culinary art or the music. These traits are the reflections of a certain morphology of the soul, which was transmitted through atavism, as well as through experience. You know that the influence of new religions can change the ideas and behavior. But the traditions of a people also converts the imported, forced from outside religions. In Japan, Buddhism has received a certain martial character, which is not known in China. You could say that every nation has its own gods, who come by themselves, and continue to exist even when they seem to have been forgotten.

SECESSION: You write and speak of a "morphology of the soul, which was transmitted by atavism, as well as by experience." This applies, in our context, also for European-born Americans, does it not? How do you explain that Americans of a genuinely European origin have broken with the European tradition in order to establish a new tradition that is opposite to their old European one?

VENNER: I would refer to an observation by Austrian geopolitician Baron Jordis von Lohausen. He noted that the Germans who resettled to stay somewhere else in Europe, for example in Russia, always remained German, even several centuries after they had emigrated. On the other hand, a single generation is already enough for Germans who emigrated to the United States to stop being German and instead feel Americans, the same as any the other. This raises a serious question. It also includes the observation that not everything is based on the "race", as was once supposed. The Americans had come from Europe and have retained the "animal" qualities of their origins: energy, combative and enterprising vigor, ingenuity ... But their "ideas" (their worldview) have been transformed by their relocation to the New World. It is the result of the biblical utopia of the "Promised Land," the dream of a new world away from Europe. The founder's beliefs contributed to embody the new "chosen people", which was chosen to bring the world the "spirit of capitalism" if we were to pick a formulation of Max Weber. Let us not forget that the daily portion of the Bible is prescribed as mandatory in the American schools as the oath to the Stars and Stripes. The messianic "message" of the founders has become he mission also of the majority of the immigrants. And this political religion implied a break with the whole tragic and aristocratic European tradition.

SECESSION: This applies to Europe and the United States. But the world is home to undoubtedly more cultures.

VENNER: Yes, and elsewhere, things are perceived in ways that can be thought of neither by the Americans nor by the Europeans. To capture this fact, I bring in my book conclusions drawn from the French experience. For example, I speak of that example of Dalil Boubakeur, the head of the Paris Mosque. Islam, he says, is "both a religion, a community, a law and a culture. [...] Muslims are not only those who practice the five pillars of Islam, but those who belong to this community as identity. " The operative word here is "identity". Islam is therefore not just a religion. It goes beyond religion and is "a community, a law, a culture."

If someone is influenced by the Christian culture, universalistic and individualistic, that is surprising to him. But many other religions, including not only Islam or Judaism, but also Hinduism, Shintoism or Confucianism, are not only religions in the Christian or secular sense of the word , that is a kind of personal relationship with God, but they form identities, laws, communities.

SECESSION: Could a new perception of identity help the Europeans to rediscover themselves, to create new?

VENNER: I certainly think that it can help Europeans find their own authenticity - beyond a personal religion or its absence.

VENNER: First, as an awakening to the memory of identity. A memory that is capable of rearming the Europeans morally, so that they could resist their disappearance into the abyss of great world-wide miscegenation and globalization. As well as others recognize themselves as sons of Shiva, Mohammed, Abraham or Buddha, it is not wrong to know ourselves as sons and daughters of Homer, Odysseus and Penelope.

SECESSION: In an editorial of the Nouvelle Revue d'Histoire you converted the famous formula "politics first" and stressed that one would say today: "Mysticism first, politics later." What you wanted to say to the reader with this unconventional slogan?

VENNER: Our age no longer demands a "taking power," as was often said earlier. It grants no more room to the dream of the "Day of Change". Politics is no longer the ligature that gives meaning to life. Notwithstanding the strengths of political action, it is not the politics that will give back to the Europeans the consciousness of what they are, and likewise politics cannot provide guidance to their lives. This belief can only come through a strong perception of identity. In other words, any political action of a high level is unthinkable without the precondition of an identitarian memory, which is alone capable of directing it. But mere words are not enough. You must be able to affirm words by deeds, you must use the life, and this must go as far as to the willingness to sacrifice life, if it seems necessary.

"Being an Agnostic would not preclude having faith in something"

Yes, exactly. Agnosticism is a superstition, in other words.

That statement strikes me as nonsensical. I try to honestly understand your position, I wish you would reciprocate.

Superstition is faith not based on reason.

I have faith in the events described in the Gospels being historically true because my reason tells me that the Gospels are a valid testimony of honest witnesses. A Muslim, for example, does not share my faith because he finds it possible that in fact Jesus escaped the crucifixion and lived. Both beliefs are reasonable even though only one can be true.

Nearly everyone believes that a heavier that air object, if dropped, falls down. That, too, is reasonable because we observe it happen again and again and we have a lucid theory why.

Some people believe that if they encounter a black cat they will have bad luck. That belief is not based on anything reasonable. This is a superstition.

A belief that since there is the law of gravity, God could not make man walk on water is something the believer does not know. He only knows such an event would contradict the laws of physics. So that belief is a superstitious belief.

Of course, an agnostic is somewhere in between. He faces some observations and takes them on faith and other observations he does not take on faith. We can say it is a selective superstition.

Athiests believe there is no God...yet can’t prove it. Christians believe there is a God...yet can’t prove it. Agnostics don’t know if there is or there isn’t a God because they can’t prove it. How does that possibly make agnosticism a superstition? We apparently define too many words differently to have a rational discussion. But you’ve already implied that I am not rational...so that must be it.

The North European ethnic core is very important. I couldn’t say if that part of the cultural identity is so important because of 1500 years of Christianity (and again, by the time of the founding of America, northern Europe was more distinctly Protestant) that was completely entwined with any other cultural traits or if there was actually an ethnic component that contributed to identity and unity.

I had not thought of the farming/rural part of the identity. That goes along with the whole idea of individual sovereignty, work ethic, each person/family desires to work hard and be self controlled, to create his own small family kingdom on his own plot of land and to stand or fall on his own efforts. I think that value is displayed in modern American suburbs. For most reasonably prosperous Americans, when given a choice, the majority would still prefer to have a plot of land and space, rather than be crowded into a densely populated area.

Again, I understand the point you are making, but I still cannot laud him as a hero. When society reaches a point that blowing ones’ self away in a public place is an act of heroism, we have turned a very dark corner. I am a realist, but I am also an optimistic person. Life is precious. Regardless of my views on gay marriage, and I could not be more opposed to it, I cannot see a reason to descend into that abyss.

Good discussion, though, and a lot to ponder.

Today, the "diverse peoples together" has become a liberal mantra and lost its attraction because of that.

The root of the West's decline goes all the way back to the beginning of Nominalism, with Ockham. Contrary to popular belief, I see the Scholastic period as the height of civilization. The intellectual seed of our decline was planted with Ockham. The first act in the decline of the West, and the slide toward radical individualism, was the Protestant Revolution. Since the Church was disestablished, we have steadily declined through Unitarianism, Rationalism, Atheism, Modernism, and now Post-Modernism.

Christians believe there is a God...yet can’t prove it

We have proved it. The existence of God is evident. The non-existence of God is an unproven theory. That slogan of yours: "Agnostics don’t know if there is or there isn’t a God" is a superstition: an assertion taken without evidence.

I see the Scholastic period as the height of civilization

Of course it was. I am more inclined to place the root of the decline closer to the actual Protestant Reformation than that (Ockham seems to me, was simply one of the many late scholastics with an incidental relevance to us), but I think you trace the trajectory of the decline correctly.

This is why "diverse peoples together" was meaningful in the Middle Ages and became a dangerous platitude today. It is the Church that is holding peoples together as it makes them one body. Abstract ideas about equality and democracy don't. Paper constitutions don't, even less so. Today, to restore freedom, nations must again become not mechanical conglomerations of peoples but an instrument of Christian conversion, which was their original and only possible purpose. Observe that Islam is a false religion and it has no nations, just sects. Let us not become another false religion.

Thank you for agreeing with me. I would add that it is the framer ethic that allowed America to integrate peoples beyond the nordic core, but it only worked insofar as the minority enclaves were visibly Christian like the rural blacks before the Great Society and, of course, Catholic blue collar ethnics. Once the Christian cornerstone stopped being a symbol of national unity, the American identity suffered.

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