¶4 But, in the word ‘crisis’ itself, other meanings are contained, which make it even more apt to express what we wish to say: its etymology, indeed, which is often lost sight of in common usage, but to which it is proper to refer back, as one must always do when one wishes to restore to a term the fullness of its proper sense and its original value — its etymology, we say, makes it partially synonymous with ‘judgment’ and ‘discrimination’.1 The phase that can be truly called ‘critical’, in any order of things, is that which leads immediately to a favourable or unfavourable solution, that in which a decision takes place in one sense or the other; it is then, consequently, that it is possible to pass judgment on the results obtained, to weigh the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’, by operating a sort of classification among these results, some positive, others negative, and thus to see on which side the balance definitively tips.2 Of course, we have no pretension whatsoever of establishing such a discrimination in a complete manner, which would moreover be premature, since the crisis is not yet resolved and it is perhaps not even possible to say exactly when and how it will be resolved, all the more so because it is always preferable to abstain from certain predictions that could not be based on reasons clearly intelligible to everyone, and which, consequently, would risk being misinterpreted and adding to the confusion instead of remedying it.3 All that we can propose for ourselves, therefore, is to contribute, up to a certain point and as far as the means at our disposal permit, to giving to those who are capable of it the awareness of some of the results that already seem well established, and thus to prepare, even if only in a very partial and rather indirect manner, the elements that will subsequently serve for the future ‘judgment’, from which a new period in the history of earthly humanity will open.4
Summary
Guénon explains that the word ‘crisis’ etymologically contains the meanings of ‘judgment’ and ‘discrimination’. The truly critical phase is that which leads to a solution, allowing one to weigh pros and cons and see which way the balance tips. He does not claim to establish this discrimination completely, because the crisis is not yet resolved and predictions would be premature. His aim is more modest: to contribute to making people aware of certain already established results, in order to prepare elements for the future ‘judgment’ that will open a new period in human history.
General notes
- étymologie … jugement … discrimination — Rendered as 'etymology … judgment … discrimination'. Guénon here insists on a fundamental principle of his method: returning to etymology to recover the full meaning of a term, often obscured by common usage. The Greek krisis means both 'crisis' (moment of decision) and 'judgment' (discernment, judicial decision). Crisis is therefore not only a peril or a disorder, but a trial that allows one to distinguish good from bad, truth from falsehood, sound from morbid. This original meaning links the notion of crisis to that of 'discrimination' (choice, separation) and to the 'Last Judgment' in its non-chronological but symbolic sense: a moment when values are weighed and a separation takes place. Guénon places himself here in the perspective of traditional doctrines where cyclical crises are also moments of retribution and purification. ↩︎
- peser le « pour » et le « contre » — Rendered as 'weigh the 'pros' and 'cons''. Guénon here borrows the image of the weighing of souls (psychostasis) present in many traditions (Egyptian, Christian, Islamic, etc.). Crisis as judgment is not only a catastrophe, but a trial in which what is valid is revealed and what is not is eliminated. In the context of the Kali-Yuga, the present crisis has the function of separating those capable of understanding and preserving traditional principles from the incapable mass, which will follow its own path towards absorption or dissolution. This sorting is not arbitrary: it results from the very nature of things and from cyclical law. ↩︎
- prévisions … s'abstenir — Rendered as 'predictions … abstain'. Guénon warns against the prophetic temptation. It is not a question of fixing dates (which would be contrary to traditional principles, because cyclical time is not linearly measurable), but of discerning tendencies and signs. Concrete predictions are dangerous because they are generally misunderstood: they feed the expectation of sensational catastrophes instead of awakening the consciousness of principles. The only legitimate 'prediction' is the affirmation that as long as the causes persist, the effects will worsen, and that at a certain degree of disorder, a reaction (a transformation) will become inevitable. The rest belongs to prudence and discretion. ↩︎
- futur « jugement » … nouvelle période de l'histoire — Rendered as 'future 'judgment' … new period in history'. Guénon evokes here, without entering into details, the traditional idea of cycles and sub-cycles. After each great phase of obscuration (Kali-Yuga), a new age may open, not identical to the previous one, but adapted to new conditions. The present crisis is therefore not the absolute end, but the end of a world (modern Western civilisation) and the threshold of another, of which one cannot yet know whether it will be a spiritual rebirth or an increased degeneration. The responsibility of those who have preserved knowledge is to prepare the elements (doctrinal, symbolic, institutional) so that the 'judgment' (the discrimination between what survives and what dies) may take place under the best possible conditions. ↩︎