Bannon's reading list...from Boston Globe

[chelsea0011]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/02/11/thinker-loved-fascists-like-mussolini-stephen-bannon-reading-list/N9apaC5W69YdyjwnhRHGWL/story.html

ROME — Those trying to divine the roots of Stephen Bannon’s dark and at times apocalyptic worldview have repeatedly combed over a speech that Bannon, President Trump’s ideological guru, made in 2014 to a Vatican conference, where he expounded on Islam, populism, and capitalism.

But for all the examination of those remarks, a passing reference by Bannon to an esoteric Italian philosopher has gone little noticed, except perhaps by scholars and followers of the deeply taboo, Nazi-affiliated thinker, Julius Evola.

Mussolini so liked Evola’s 1941 book, “Synthesis on the Doctrine of Race,” which advocated a form of spiritual, and not merely biological, racism, that he invited Evola to meet him in September of that year.
Evola eventually broke with Mussolini and the Italian Fascists because he considered them overly tame and corrupted by compromise. Instead he preferred the Nazi SS officers, seeing in them something closer to a mythic ideal. They also shared his anti-Semitism.

[underpants]

1. and The Fourth Turning

http://www.businessinsider.com/book-steve-bannon-is-obsessed-with-the-fourth-turning-2017-2

President Trump's adviser, Steve Bannon, is on the cover of this week's Time magazine, and in the piece it is revealed that Bannon deeply believes in a theory about America's future laid out in a book called "The Fourth Turning: What Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny."

This fact should concern every American.

In the book, authors William Strauss and Neil Howe theorize that the history of a people moves in 80-to-100 year cycles called "saecula." The idea goes back to the ancient Greeks, who believed that at a given saeculum's end, there would come "ekpyrosis," a cataclysmic event that destroys the old order and brings in a new one in a trial of fire.

This era of change is known as the Fourth Turning, and Bannon, like Strauss and Howe, believes we are in the midst of one right now.

According to the book, the last two Fourth Turnings that America experienced were the Civil War and the Reconstruction, and then the Great Depression and World War II. Before that, it was the Revolutionary War.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. Bannon seems to miss exactly what Strauss and Howe are talking about.

They don't see the turnings as destroying an old order and bringing a new one in a trial of fire -- that is absolutely overstating what they observe.

All I can say is that The Fourth Turning is an amazing book and I wish more people would read it. Although I think it would be extremely helpful to read their earlier book, Generations, first. It sets the context for The Fourth Turning, and I suspect Bannon didn't read the first book. Plus, he's using it to promote his own awful ideas. This book does NOTHING like that.

I just wish I could get more people to read those books.

[scarletlib]

3. You are right.

I read the Fourth Turning several years ago and found it fascinating. I agree with your assessment. It is a thought provoking book and one way to look at history but definitely not advocating war etc.

The old adage of those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it comes to mind.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. And it may be there should be a corollary to that adage.

Something along the lines of if you don't understand the history you think you know, then you are doomed to screw up the future.

I know, it needs a little work.

[JHB]

5. Those who misunderstand history are doomed to miscreate the future

Needs work too, and I'm the sort who'll point out all of its logical flaws, but it's what came to mind for a more succinct version.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. Much better.

Needs a bit of tweaking, but I think we should figure out just how to express it, and do our best to spread the meme.

We see this at work every time someone refers to generals as fighting the last war. Yes, we definitely need this.