"Why Traditionalism Matters: An Interview with Wrath of Gnon"

Anyone mildly interested in traditionalism—be it beautiful old architecture, the preservation of fading cultures, magnificent literature, or simply an instinctive aversion to the ugliness of modernity—has probably heard of the “Wrath of Gnon,” a mysterious Twitter user who seems to spend a lot of time unleashing beauty onto social media. He—I know he is a he because in an email exchange, he referred to a promise he made to “Mrs. Wrath” to remain anonymous—combines beautiful artwork with thought-provoking quotes, all designed to make the viewer consider his worldview: His Twitter bio simply reads “Traditionalist.”

The Wrath of Gnon—“Gnon” means “Nature’s God”—has attracted a lot of attention in traditionalist circles. In addition to his “memes”—the word seems too trivial and modern to be applied to the images he produces—he also tweets out pages from authors such as British philosopher Sir Roger Scruton (one of the only philosophers he enjoys reading) and architectural historians, as well as juxtapositions of modern buildings of glass and steel up against winding cobblestone pathways to little cottages, soaring castles, and ancient city centres. His more than 20,000 followers include the National Review’s Michael Dougherty and Ian Tuttle, the Catholic Herald’s Dan Hitchens (son of Peter Hitchens), the Wall Street Journal’s Micah Meadowcroft, evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller, the Daily Beast’s Rick Wilson, the BBC’s David Silito, and Jason Kenney, the head of Alberta’s United Conservative Party.

Wrath (as he signed off in his emails to me) was kind enough, last year, to agree to an interview via email with me. He noted that he does not speak English regularly in his daily life, but it was hard to tell from our exchange. He is an avowed monarchist, and a traditionalist who is so traditional many North American readers may find his ideas jarring—although, as he points out consistently, these ideas were boringly normal a generation or two ago. His eloquence reminds me of the writing of Anthony Esolen, who somehow has the ability to make even a Facebook post read like the observation of a literature-steeped sage. His insights were fascinating, and I’m grateful he took the time to answer my questions.

Traditionalism, while attracting more attention, is still promoted by a relative few. What was your intellectual journey like?

Since childhood I have had an interest in the folksy, the vernacular, the local, but my intellect was stymied by the usual nonsense they teach in high schools and grad schools all over the world. Not only had they managed to cut whole generations from their roots, turned us into vast semi-nomadic herds of idle consumers, but they bathed our minds with sweet-smelling false ideologies and dogmas, where obviously destructive ideas like…the blank slate theory, multiculturalism, and feminism, destroyed not only individual lives but threatened the whole of civilization. In school we treated Rembrandt with the same respect as Duchamp, and I rebelled against that because it was so obviously a ridiculous comparison. I painted in oil myself, and when I got home from art class and wrestled with the same materials as those of the old masters I knew that all of “modern art” was outrageously false.

Likewise in architecture, the house I lived in had parts built in the 13th century, and those were the best parts of the house. I simply could not believe our lying teachers who claimed that our advanced culture and advance architecture was better for the sole reason that it was the most modern. As if last Thursday was better than last Tuesday just because it is more recent. The same thing happened in sports: our female fencing teachers forbade us to fence with sabers, because they were too painful, even though the epees we were given could be plenty painful as well! And at the stables, the few boys who signed up for horse-riding classes quickly grew tired of the female instructor’s constant fear of fun (as we saw it: galloping, racing, jumping, etc.)

As a student I read the usual, Aristotle, Plato, etc. but also the romantics: Schiller, Goethe, Tolstoy. We could not opt out of modernist “lit” and postmodern philosophy though, which put me off books for a long time. For years after graduating I only read technical manuals and it was not until recently that I discovered [men like] G.K. Chesterton. Philosophy was made so distasteful to me that I still struggle to read Sir Roger Scruton, and he is one of the finest philosophers of the anglophone world, with several (what ought to be canonical) defenses of conservatism and beauty.

The decay—if not collapse—of the West is the topic of many books over the past several years. This year, Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option and Anthony Esolen’s Out of the Ashes examined how to respond to the receding Sea of Faith and create wholesome communities once again. What do you believe the way forward is?

The topic is immortal. Our civilization, born as it is out of the decaying societies of the ancient Greece and the collapse of the Roman world, has always had these terrifying examples firmly within the periphery of vision. A major theme in medieval and renaissance art and literature, when death was nearer to us than in today’s sanitized world, was the memento mori, the De Tribus Regibus Mortuis, the Decamarone (which in itself is one of the great works of art on the Exit), etc. A counterpoint to the morbidity of civilization was the joyful rebirth, the spring. As the Renaissance showed, it was possible for man by the sheer strength of will to rejuvenate himself as well as his community. This optimism dominated until the Great War, when three empires were destroyed over a handful of years, and the remaining two were dismantled just a generation later. The great master of the genre is of course Spengler, whose predictions have been remarkably true, even to this day. There are even progressive versions of the theme (The Decay of the West), like the Club of Rome, although they are usually completely and cynically materialistic.

The idea of an exit (like Dreher’s Benedict Option illustrates—the title itself unfortunately being too powerful for the idea it wants to present) is nothing new. St. Jerome in the 4th century A.D. called for a retreat from the wicked and ultimately dying cities, and the chaos of the wars in the 6th century led to a surge of men who found their exit in the refuge of the monastic orders (the original Little Platoons, way before Burke), like St Benedict, followed by many charismatic holy men and women from then on. The monasteries, calling as they did the most devoted, were also a blessing for the embattled lay communities of Europe. They served as safe havens, complete with walls and provisions, and they provided unquestioning charity for all Christians, beacons of light and bastions of learning.

These early monastics are not bad role models: they contain all the seeds of civilization: Order, Hierarchy, Faith. They offer Charity, Love, Safety, Learning, Beauty, Culture, and they do so being self-sustainable, a concept presently in vogue that is seldom understood: to be self-sustainable is not about growing your own potatoes and generating your own electricity, it is to provide a shared framework for belief and beauty: “Make your communities and towns lovely and lovable, for without love, who will they inspire to fight for them?” Unless you have that shared goal, not all the solar panels in the world will save you.

I believe that we are heading for a collapse, and I also believe that the survivors of this collapse will be the most homogenous communities, the strictest, the most pious. The first casualty of the collapse will be individualism. There is safety in numbers, and history provides us with many examples of survivors, groups and societies that wintered the collapse. Salvation is communal: “Remember the old saying, ‘The only thing we can do alone is go to hell.’” If we only have the sense to lay down deep roots, to seek safety in each other, then we have a fighting chance, and in this, faith is key.