New Gods, Old Fears

Is Emil Cioran an author to be feared? Is his writing dangerous in some way that should, for example, prevent me from including his aphorisms at the end of group emails? Is this kind of question ridiculous to even ask nowadays, when the more appropriate question would be whether it is possible to take Cioran, or any writer for that matter, seriously enough to feel their threat? I would have thought not, had a classmate not raised this very issue when I suggested that we read The New Gods in our reading group.  What about Cioran’s early admiration of Hitler, they objected? And his enthusiasm for the Iron Guard, a fascist political movement from Cioran’s native Romania? This is not to reduce the writer to their politics or biography, they assured the group with the obligatory reference to Heidegger, but just to raise a note of caution to make sure that we knew what we would be getting into.