Rene Guenon sees world history as a cyclical procession of ages that bottom out with the Kali Yuga, a view he borrows from Vedic philosophy. He identifies the current age as the Kali Yuga, the reason for this being that we have moved away from "pure-intellect", or a higher, spiritual view of the world and toward a material understanding of the world nearly as much as possible. Fixed principles, informed by an "unmoved mover" or unifying, top-down understanding of the world, inform thought and intellect, which then make action possible. Guenon's view of the relationship between thought and action clash with the fascist view, since fascists see thought and action as equally important. Action allows for future thought, and thought allows for action to be worthwhile.
Guenon moves on to delineate between the East, societies of Tradition, and the West, societies of "progress". The East is made up by societies that are in tune with Tradition, which is again informed by the fixed principles of the universe. The West are societies that, influenced by the enlightenment, have forsaken Tradition in favour of materialism and individualism. Eastern societies have preserved the "sacred" sciences, sciences that are guided by traditional, wholistic principles, in some form; western societies value only the "profane" sciences, which observe only the material with no concern for its connection with the spiritual. He says that, although there is some value in the modern sciences, they've com