Riding the Tiger: Man vs. Modernity

On the Nature-is-Fucking-Lit subreddit, I came across this video of a little octopus riding an eel to avoid being eaten:

It immediately reminded me of Julius Evola’s East Asian parable of the man riding the tiger. As he writes in his book of the same name:

When a cycle of civilization is reaching its end, it is difficult to achieve anything by resisting it and by directly opposing the forces in motion. The current is too strong; one would be overwhelmed. The essential thing is not to let oneself be impressed by the omnipotence and apparent triumph of the forces of the epoch

Instead, one must climb on the tiger’s back and hang on as it exhausts itself (a little like the Accelerationist approach):

Unable to outrun the tiger and lacking any means to attack it head-on, he instead leaps on the beast’s back to ride it. This ride may last a lifetime and may require the rider to watch in silence as the tiger dismembers others in its path, but at least he will avoid its bites. And when age takes its toll and the tiger begins to weary, then the rider may move to strangle it and thereby find freedom. Evola declared that modernity, like the tiger, cannot be fought directly. Cries against its order will at best sound like white noise to those around. More likely, vocal opponents of modern liberalism will be devoured by state-sponsored repressive measures or devastating social censure. The survival strategy for such opponents is similar to that of the individual confronting the tiger: withdraw and wait (Benjamin R. Teitelbaum)