Walter Aubrig, a teacher and researcher in the history of ideas, is a trainer and a contributor to the Centre of Studies at the Iliade Institute. He is a speaker for the ‘Our History’ series on the history of European consciousness for Iliade Institute and one of the organisers of Iliade Conference to be held in Paris on April 15th. He kindly agreed to interview with The European Conservative to present his Institute and the theme of its next conference: What Is at Stake in Our Global Anthropological Decline?
Could you briefly introduce the Iliade Institute to the readers of The European Conservative?
Founded in the continuity of polemicist Dominique Venner’s thought and action, the Iliade Institute’s aim is to work for the defence of European civilization—its history, values, and culture. Our most important mission in this struggle is to train new generations who will perpetuate the fight for the awakening of the European conscience. This requires providing reference points to maintain our long civilisational memory, and to overcome adversity in the hope of confronting, together, the dark future that is coming.
You can find a complete presentation of our activities on our website: https://www.institut-iliade.com/
Today, how is your European dimension embodied?
The European dimension of the Iliade Institute is based primarily on human links. Each year, our conference attracts visitors from all over Europe, and although our speakers are mainly francophone, we try to go beyond the strictly national framework, and also reserve a place for competent voices from Italy, Spain, Germany, and Hungary. More concretely, it is expressed in our editorial activity. Our editorial partnerships are developing month after month, and some of our publications will soon be translated into more than eight languages, ranging from English to Norwegian.
These editorial partnerships, which are fundamental to the battle of ideas that we are waging, are leading to the creation of institutes similar to ours, such as recently in Spain, where the Charles V Institute has just been founded in Tarragona, the ancient city of Roman Hispania.
We also want to embody this dimension through our training courses, where we systematically give our trainees the opportunity to conduct their reflection on a civilisational scale, and encourage them to go out and meet the immense diversity of our continent in order to cultivate authentic European friendships.
The theme of this year’s conference is anthropological decline. How would you define it?
What we have chosen to describe as ‘anthropological decline’ is the combination of a number of recent developments that affect the peoples of Europe in their very substance. The crisis of demographic renewal, the decline in cognitive abilities, of which increasingly widespread difficulties in education are only one of the many examples, and the meteoric rise of pathologies that were unknown a century ago are just a few examples that illustrate this collapse.
In addition to these scientifically measurable phenomena, there is a moral crisis, which is no less worrying. The increasingly massive withdrawal into the private sphere, into the family ‘cocoon;’ the strategies of avoidance in the face of risky situations; the disturbance of identity and sexuality; the consecration of provocation as a normative ideal are all symptoms of a general disorientation. Shifting one’s concern from one’s individual existence, devoting oneself to the collective interest by committing oneself to high ideals are attitudes that are increasingly unlikely today—regardless of the generation.
How long has this decline been observable? Is it the object of a slow and continuous process, or can you discern the crises that have precipitated its acceleration?
Like any multifactorial process, it is difficult to place it precisely in time. Perhaps a little too simplistically, we could say that the advent of the consumer society created the essential background. If we want to take a more accurate view, we could say that periods of acceleration have been felt each time new technologies have emerged, and that instead of learning to master them in order to put them at the service of our collective existence, we have used them only to increase our individual and immediate enjoyment and comfort. The serious consequences of the upsurge in digital technology on our way of life are a representative example of this inability to master new tools, while maintaining a culture of demand and effort.
But we must not overlook, behind these very concrete historical developments, the establishment of a new conception of man that is fundamentally problematic, and whose origins are much older. The reduction of any kind of life horizon to individual existence, the cult of well-being, and the blind faith in progress are elements of a worldview that took hold long before the harmful consequences for people became fully apparent. Here we are talking about an evolution that has taken place over several centuries.
Is this a reversible process?
It is almost impossible to give a precise definition to this great anthropological decline, but we wanted to organise our 10th colloquium this year around this theme in order to get a closer look at the great variety of its manifestations and to shed light on its basic trends. But our greater aim is obviously to show that there is a way out of this crisis and that it can only consist of a complete rethink of the model in which we have been living for several decades. We refuse to believe that there is a sense of history that leads us to catastrophe, and against which the action of men and peoples is powerless. This is why we want to give our reflections a positive dimension, with a strong focus on mobilisation. A certain refusal of comfort or the imperative need to transmit what we are, but also the mastery of new techniques or the use of political will are all levers that must be pulled if we want to escape the fate of becoming beasts of burden.
Do you think that some European countries are more affected than others, or conversely, that some are better equipped to counter it?
Here again, everything suggests that things are more complex, and that within a single country, exposure to this decline is very heterogeneous. A natural reflex might lead us to say that it is the most technologically advanced countries, or those most exposed to the effect of deconstructionist ideologies, that also suffer the most from this decline. However, this assumption is far from always being true, when we study birth rates, for example.
However, without going too far, it can be said that the best weapon for dealing with this decline is integration into a community fabric that is solidly rooted and capable of offering an alternative to the artificiality and isolation that are increasingly affecting the lifestyle of younger generations. Where these forms of community exist, the resources are therefore also the most favourable. On the other hand, it is also possible to believe that the most vulnerable societies that have been able, through unprecedented mobilisation, to unite to face and overcome this crisis, will emerge the strongest.
In your opinion, what are the strengths of the traditional European way of life in response to this challenge? How can authentic European conservatism provide the tools to counteract this decline?
Any traditional way of life is the product of a long historical growth. It has in a way been forged by experience over centuries. It is the manner in which men and women have managed to inscribe their collective existence in a complex equilibrium, in a stability that is both protective and productive. But it also explains why, in a world where all reference points have been disrupted, these ways of living have suddenly found themselves in peril. It can therefore be said that a well-understood conservatism cannot simply duplicate what has always been done. On the contrary, it must find answers to the new challenges that history has raised, in order to keep alive the ways of life that have been inherited from the past and that have ensured that Europeans have always been able to surpass themselves. It is certain that this search can only succeed in the cultivation of that ethos of effort and self-sacrifice, which enabled our ancestors to take up new challenges.
10th Conference of the Iliade Institute: “Facing anthropological decline, living as Europeans”
Paris: Saturday 15 April 2023, at the Maison de la Chimie from 10:00 to 18:30
Registration at https://institut-iliade.com/iliade/colloque-iliade-2023/
The European Conservative is a partner for this event and will have a booth to showcase its activities.
