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The significance we can draw from what the German says for the problem of evil is that the problem of evil is not a problem. The world is so constituted that order depends on chaos and chaos depends on order—and we could say these are synonymous with “good” and “evil”. Since the world is constituted in this way, the wise man identifies with neither good nor evil but just says “it is so” (*).
That is what it means to stand outside—we look at the symbol, we wise ones, but we do not identify with either the good or the evil. If you identify with either side, you merely increase the opposite.
This is why conservatives fail in politics: if you oppose a tendency you strengthen it. The wise course is to accept it, because it is only when you accept it that it turns into its opposite.
It is foolish to judge the situation, you should just accept the situation—if you place a judgement on it, you cause it to continue in the same direction with greater force.
This is why Evola says that the spiritual position is about an attitude to life—it is not about being a “good” person, a “good” person increases the evil in the world because they resist evil with vociferous force. The spiritual person, the wise person, accepts the situation as it is.
To accept both good and evil is to assume the integral position—it is to have integrity, it means to recognise that there is an interplay between the two within you, that is how anything happens, but you have separated your-self above the duality and are merely the observer who watches the interplay.
The faster you accept a situation, the sooner it will turn into its opposite—that is a magical principle. This is the esoteric meaning of the statement “resist not evil”—resist not nothing, I should say. We can trace a similar dynamic in other life situations too.
Military strategy: the army retreats into the hinterland, forces its enemy to over-extend his supply lines and then encircles him and cuts off his army completely (as the Russians did with Napoleon and with the Germans).
Romance: the man pursues the woman, he is the hunter—yet when she submits and becomes pregnant she overcomes him, for now he must work to sustain her and his children (for whom he has a special attachment). Hence the weak overcomes the strong.
This is the paradoxical reversal of opposites, enantiodromia, so identified by Jung and present in the tale of Till Eulenspiegel. It tends to find its strongest expression in meta activities—activities about activities tend to be paradoxical, as strategy is paradoxical.
It is so simple, yet so hard to grasp.
Attempts to “be” something will fail—the priest attempts to be a “good” priest, but he becomes a rigid parody who provides no succour to anybody (he becomes a pious mask); the doctor attempts to be a “good” doctor, but he becomes a cold robotic imitation; the teacher tries to be a “good” teacher, to build rapport with the kids, but is ridiculed.
The more the lover proposes, the further his beloved shrinks from him; the more offerings brought by the son, the more the father withdraws; the harder you try to teach the pupil, the more he resists you.
Love turns to hate, hate turns to love—yesterday’s friend is tomorrow’s enemy, the person you loved is now the person you hate, yesterday’s good deed is tomorrow’s wicked indulgence. Trust is repaid by betrayal, and the suspicious man is courted by all.
It is only that which is done for its own sake, without condition, which is effective in the true sense—only that which is created with pure love (agape), which means to stand outside the process and observe it without judgement. Hence effective action occurs when you do not think about the result—never try.
To ask “why is there evil?” means that you do not yet understand—you think it can be destroyed, but it can only be reduced to a minute particle; and, at its most diminished point, it will turn round and dominate the situation—as good does once it is all but diminished to a mote of dust. But there must always be some evil in the good and some good in the evil for the process to unfold—if it were not so there would be no process, no life.
It is only flawed because it is perfect, and it is only perfect because it is flawed.
**
The Riemann hypothesis formalises an observation made by Dante, his third of four ways to read a text—the allegoric. The allegory is “a beautiful lie that must be true because it is beautiful.” Per the video above, it is true because it is false and it is false because it is true. That is allegory.
It is the same observation as Hassan-i Sabbah, “Nothing is true, everything is permitted.” It is the memo written above the invisible tavern in Tehran where Rumi still drinks, “Everything I say is false, that is why it must be true.”