"Race” becomes a matter of skull measuring, rather than spirit and élan

Because the Right, the custodian of tradition within the epoch of decay, has been infected by the spirit of materialism, there is a focus on secondary symptoms of culture disease, such as in particular immigration, rather than primary symptoms such as the banking system, let alone a recognition of causes. Additionally, “race” becomes a matter of skull measuring, rather than spirit and élan. Hence the character of a civilisation and of a people is discerned via the types of bone and skull found amidst the ruins. History then becomes a matter of statistics. How feeble such attempts remain is demonstrated by the years of controversy surrounding the racial identity of Kennewick Man.
*
122Of the theories that have been considered Evola, writing for the Germans, alludes to the classic work of Comte Arthur de Gobineau, The Inequality of the Human Races, pioneering the doctrine that civilisations collapse through race-mixing. Evola quickly disposes of this by giving a passing nod to the theory, proceeding with a consideration of “a higher order of things” than blood admixture. Evola in reality does more than “expand” de Gobineau’s race-theory with “a few observations”; he disposes of it by pointing out that race-impurity does not explain the unremarkable state of present day Nordic states that have retained their race-purity:

“We can thank the Comte de Gobineau for the best and best-known summary of this problem, and also for a masterly criticism of the main hypotheses about it. His solution on the basis of racial thought and racial purity also has much truth in it, but it needs to be expanded by a few observations concerning a higher order of things. For there have been many cases in which a culture has collapsed even when its race has remained pure, as is especially clear in certain groups that have suffered slow, inexorable extinction despite remaining as racially isolated as if they were islands. An example quite close at hand is the case of the Swedes and the Dutch. These people are in the same racial condition today as they were two centuries ago, but there is little to be found now of the heroic disposition and the racial awareness that they once possessed. Other great cultures seem merely to have remained standing in the condition of mummies: they have long been inwardly dead, so that it takes only the slightest push to knock them down. This was the case, for example, with ancient Peru, that giant solar empire which was annihilated by a few adventurers drawn from the worst rabble of Europe”.*

Kerry Bolton
The Decline and Fall of Civilizations

*Julius Evola

“On the Secret of Degeneration”.