The Authentic Reactionary (Documentation) (Essay)

Nicolas Gomez Davila (1913-1994) was a reclusive Colombian literary figure who, in the last years of his life, began to garner recognition as one of the most penetrating conservative thinkers of the twentieth century. The scion of an upper-class Bogota family, he was educated by private tutors in Paris, where prolonged convalescence after an illness ignited a passion for classical literature. While he never attended university, his personal library would grow to more than 30,000 volumes. His reputation in Colombia was such that after the collapse of the military dictatorship in 1958 he was repeatedly offered significant political appointments, which he always refused. Gomez Davila's mordant critique of modernity was expressed almost entirely in books of aphorisms, which touch on philosophical, theological, political, and aesthetic themes. He sought to limn a "reactionary" perspective distinct from both the conventional Left and the conventional Right. But he made no effort to promote his intellectual work: indeed, his first book was published in a private edition of only 100 copies, which were presented as gifts to friends. His international reputation spread by word of mouth.