Influence and Influencers

I tend to be influenced by people, or their writing, and the most significant influencers are in the past, dead parents, dead friends, writers and philosophers long gone. Among the living, my mentors are my wife and our son. But what are those influences? In what way do they shape my way of seeing the world, people, events? Is the question really about influence? Or, rather, getting ideas and views, perhaps a sharper understanding?

Let’s eliminate, first of all what does not affect me at all. Here I will use broad categories, since, in fact, I am not really affected by events. Although this is not absolutely true: the presence of evil, as Ilyin so well explained, tends to push me to resistance, by force if necessary. It is probably the only thing that pulls me away from my preferred stance of indifference. I will skip recent examples that are, sadly, abundant.

On Politics

Number one I despise politics and politicians. I respect historians, but not all of them, and certainly not the revisionist types, who attempt reinvent WWI for II, for example. Or the “end of history” cretins of the 90’s. I merely watch the box only for concerts and the occasional (historical) series, for example (lately) Wolf Hall, or Versailles. But, for the latter, if I am influenced by Louis XIV time, it is through Alexandre Dumas (Le Vicomte de Bragelonne) rather than the BBC. I admit to be influenced by history, particularly that of WWI, which I sense, determined much of the following seventy years, possibly more. Among the real influencers, are Ernst Jünger and Charles De Gaulle (as per Dominique Venner). I despise en masse all the pseudo politicians after 1971, wherever they came from. I struggle with fiction, still trying to read Proust’s “A La Recherche”, but respect Camus, keeping mostly reservations about Sartre, forever puzzled by Orwell, whose talent in prediction still amazes me. 

The Past

Still staying with the past, that is with the dead, I have kept communication with my dad, my mother who survived him only a few years, and a small number of family members who I consider as genuine influences: my mother’s father, and people I knew as a child. In what way do I know of their influences? I think mainly because of how I see people, how I judge their actions, and in the lessons I draw from those. Should I speak about social media? I claim to be immune to advertising and propaganda, a claim disputed by my wife. How to know for sure?

Well, I look at the background, at the reasoning, if any, and the logic, where it can be found. Saying this, it is necessary to admit some certainties: that the western education system, as it existed for centuries, and its values, were systematically destroyed between the late 50’s and the 80’s. I won’t drift into by whom and why, what matters is the end result: the disappearance of a spirit that animated Europe between, say, the peace of Westphalia (1548) and Hiroshima (1945). I take the five or six decades since the end of WWII as a clear demonstration of the renewed power of evil, and reject most of the public statements opposed to that view. Perhaps the best representation of the resulting chaos, for me, is to be found in Edgar Poe, Usher, the Mask of the Red Death, and more.

At a personal level, I can say that I ignore most of what has been written or said since, approximately, 1971. Whether  I am in some way still influenced by what I read or hear now, I leave to my living influencers to judge. Going back to social media and the alternative to the mainstream, I respect Musk, but I am not on X, having an occasional look at Mastodon (I can’t see any real influence there), and read a small selection of writers on Substack, now the host for a multitude.

Season’s Greetings

I will finish here, and may elaborate further in another post. I wish my readers a peaceful end of year, and happy celebrations in your faith. To my Christian brothers and sisters I wish the peace of our Lord, Jesus Christ.