Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Dugin's Conclusion

Endnotes. 
Against Post-Modern World

I would like, at the conclusion of this debate with Mr. Carvalho, to sum up the most important points:

Now I see that he was rather right in the beginning stressing that the asymmetry in our respective positions would eventually damage the whole task. So it was. I don’t see any use in continuing the mutual critics because it doesn’t help understand anything at all (for us and for the readers). I can now sincerely confess that I find the position of Mr. Carvalho too personal, idiosyncratic and irrelevant. So I would like to concentrate myself on other theoretical points that seem to me of real importance for the cause of the Tradition, of anti-imperialist and antimodern struggle that is my first and only concern.

First of all I insist that the current world is unipolar with the global West in its centre and with the United States as its core. The opposite arguments of Mr. Carvalho didn’t convince me at all.

This kind of the unipolarity has geopolitical and ideological sides. Geopolitically is the strategic dominance of the earth by North-American hyperpower and the effort of Washington to organize the balance of forces on the planet in such a manner to be able to rule the whole world in accordance with its own national (imperialistic) interests. It is bad because it deprives other states and nations of their real sovereignty.

When there is only one instance to decide who is right and who is wrong and who should be punished we have a kind of the global dictatorship. I am convinced that is not acceptable. So we should fight against it. If someone deprives us from our freedom we have to react. And we will. The American Empire should be destroyed. And at one point it will be.

Ideologically the unipolarity is based on the Modernist and Post-Modernist values that are openly anti-traditional ones. I share the vision of Rene Guenon and Julius Evola who considered the Modernity and its ideological basis (the individualism, the liberal democracy, the capitalism, the comfortism and so on) to be the cause of the future catastrophe of the humanity and global domination of the Western attitudes as the reason of final degradation of the earth. The West is approaching to its end and we should not let it push all the rest  with it into the abyss.

Spiritually the globalization is the creation of the Grand Parody, the kingdom of the Antichrist. And the United States is in centre of its expansion. The American values pretend to be “universal” ones. That it is new form of ideological aggression against the multiplicity of the cultures and the traditions still existing in the other parts of the world. I am resolutely against the Western values that are essential Modernist and Post-Modernist ones and promulgated by the United States by force or by the obtrusion (Afghanistan, Iraq, now Libya, tomorrow Syria and Iran) .

So, all traditionalists should be against the West and the globalization as well as against the imperialist politics of United States. It is the only logical and consequent position. So the traditionalists and the partisans of the traditional principles and values should oppose the West and defend the Rest (if the Rest shows the signs of the conservation of the Tradition – partly or entirely).

There can be and there are really men in the West and in the United States of America who don’t agree with the present state of things and don’t approve the Modernity and Post-Modernity being the defenders of the spiritual tradition of the Pre-Modern West. They should be with us in our common struggle. They should take part in our revolt against Modern World and Post-Modern world. And we would fight together against a common enemy. Unfortunately that is not the case of Mr. Carvalho. He shows himself partly critical of the modern Western civilization, but partly agrees with it and attacks its enemies. It is a kind of “semi-conformism” so to say. It is frankly irrelevant and of no interest to me. There are friends and there are foes. Only that matters. All the rest is without any importance. Mr. Carvalho is neither. It is his choice. His anti-soviet and anti-Russian pejorative myths, stupid conspiracy theories, implicit cultural Western racism, the ressentiment to his own native country are not  even worth of critics. No comments.

The other question is the structure of the possible anti-globalist and anti-imperialist front and its participants. I think that we should include in it all forces that struggle against the West, the United States, against the liberal democracy, against Modernity and Post-Modernity. The common enemy is the necessary instance for all kinds of political alliances. The Muslims, the Christians, the Russians and the Chinese, the leftists or the rightists, the Hindus or the Jews who challenge the present state of things, the globalization and the American imperialism are virtually friends ands allies. Let our ideals be different but we have in common one very strong thing: the present reality that we hate. Our ideals that differ are potential (in potentia). But the challenge we are dealing with is actual (in actu). So that is the basis for new alliance.  All who share negative analysis of the globalization, westernization and post-modernization should coordinate their effort in creation of new strategy of the resistance to the omnipresent evil. And we can find the «ours» in the United States also – among those who choose the Tradition against the present decadence. Mr Carvalho doesn't belong to such kind of persons. He has convincingly explained that during the debate.

At this point we could raise a really important question: what kind of ideology should we use in our opposition to the globalization and its liberal democratic capitalist and Modernist (Post-Modernist) principles? I think that all anti-liberal ideologies (the communism, socialism as well as fascism) are not anymore relevant. They tried to fight the liberal-capitalism and they failed. Partly because in the end of time it is evil that prevails; partly because of their inner contradictions and limitations. So it is time to make the accomplish deep revision of the antiliberal ideologies of the past. What is their positive side? - The very fact that they were anti-capitalist and anti-liberal, as well as also anti-cosmopolite and anti-individualist. So these features should be accepted and integrated in the future ideology. But the communism doctrine is Modern, atheist, materialist and cosmopolite. That should be thrown out. On the contrary, the social solidarity, social justice, the socialism and general holistic attitude to the society are good in themselves. So we need to separate the materialist and Modernist aspect and reject them.

On the other hand in the theories of Third way (dear up to certain point to some traditionalists as Julius Evola) there were some unacceptable elements – first of all racism, xenophobia and chauvinism. That is not only moral failures but also theoretically and anthropologically inconsistent attitudes. The difference between the ethnos doesn't mean superiority or inferiority. The difference should be accepted and affirmed without any racist appreciation. There is not common measure dealing with the different ethnic groups. When one society tries to judge the other it applies its own criteria and so commits the intellectual violence. The same attitude is precisely the crime of the globalization and Westernization, as well as the American imperialism.

If we free the socialism from its materialist, atheist and Modernist features and if we reject the racist and narrow nationalist aspects of the Third way doctrines we arrive at a completely new kind of the political ideology. We call it Fourth Political Theory (first being the liberalism, that we essentially challenge, the second the classical form of communism, the third the national-socialism and the fascism). Its elaboration starts from the point of intersection between different antiliberal political theories of the past (the communism and the Third way theories). So we arrive to the national-bolshevism that represents the socialism without materialism, atheism, progressism and Modernism and the Third way theories without racism and nationalism. But that is only first step. The mechanical addition of deeply revised versions of the antiliberal ideologies of the past doesn’t give us the final result. It is only first approximation, preliminary approach. We should go further and make appeal to the Tradition and to Pre-Modern sources of inspiration. There we have Platonic ideal State, the medieval hierarchic society and theological vision of the normative social and political system (Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, Jewish or Hindu) . This Pre-Modern source is very important development of the national-bolshevism synthesis. So we need to find a new name for this kind of ideology and “Fourth Political Theory” is quite appropriate for this. It doesn't tell us what  this Theory is, but rather what it isn't. So it is a kind of invitation and appeal rather than the dogma.

Politically we have here the interesting basis for conscious cooperation of the left-wingers and the right-wingers as well as with the religious or other anti-modern movements (the ecologists for example). The only thing that we insist on in creating such cooperation is to put aside anti-communist as well as antifascist prejudices. These prejudices are the instruments in the hands of liberals and globalists with which they keep their enemies divided. So we should strongly reject anticommunism as well as antifascism. Both of them are counter-revolutionary tools in the hands of the global liberal elite. At the same time we should strongly oppose any kind of the confrontation between the religions – Muslims against Christians, the Jews against Muslims, the Muslims against the Hindus and so on. The interconfessional wars and hatred work for the cause of the kingdom of Antichrist who tries to divide all the traditional religions in order to impose its own pseudo-religion, the eschatological parody. Mr. Carvalho works here as proponent of such division of the religions. That is very logical for his position.

So we need to unite the right, the left and the religions in the common struggle against common enemy. The social justice, the national sovereignty and the Traditional values are three principles of such ideology. It is not easy to put all this together. But we should try if we want to overcome the foe.

In French there is a slogan: “la droite des valeurs et la gauche du travail” (Alain Soral). In italian it goes: “La Destra sociale e la Sinistra identitaria”. How exactly it should sound in English we will see later.

We could go further and try to define the subject, the actor of the Forth Political Theory. In the case of the communism in the centre there was the class. In the case of the Third way movements in the centre was the race or the nation. In the case of religions – it is the community of the faithful. How the Fourth Political Theory could deal with this diversity and the divergence of subjects? We propose, as a suggestion, that the The subject of the Fourth Political Theory can be found in the Heideggerian concept of Dasein (being-t/here). It is a concrete but extremely profound instance that could be the common denominator for the further ontological development. What is crucial here – that is the authenticity or non-authenticity of the existence of the Dasein. Fourth Political Theory insists on the authenticity of the existence. So it is the antithesis to any kind of alienation – social, economic, national, religious or metaphysical. 

But the Dasein is a concrete instance. Any man and any culture possess their own Dasein. They differ between each other but they are present always. Here I can only mention a topic that needs further explanations (given in my books and articles).

The last point is the place of Brazil and the Latin America as whole in the actual global structure of the world. I see the role of Brazil as something comparable with the role of Russia-Eurasia. That is the very particular country with specific culture where the Western elements are mixed with the indigenous components. It is based on the mixtures of different blocks of values. Exactly as Russian culture is. We call this feature in our country “Eurasianism” stressing that we are dealing with original synthesis of the European and Asiatic patterns and attitudes. The Brazil in some metaphoric way is also «Eurasian»; the West is mixed with non-West in the very roots of the society. The Brazil as well as the other Latin America countries has its own particular identity. But among the other countries that is Brazil that is developing now with the greater speed and is managing to affirm more and more its political and economical independence. Such independence is considered first of all vis-a-vis the USA. So here the affirmation of cultural identity goes hand in hand with the growth of the economical and geopolitical power. We need to interpret the leftist sympathies of the major part of the Brazilian society as a sign of a search for its particular social identity that doesn't fit into individualist and liberal pattern of North-American society. So, Brazilian and wider Latin American socialism has in itself many ethnic and national features. The catholic religious factor and the spiritual synthesis of the popular religious beliefs are very important elements in the present awakening of the new sovereign identity of Brazil. It is in some aspects comparable with the geopolitical, cultural and spiritual renaissance of the modern Russia.

So this affinity on the geopolitical, cultural and social levels makes our situation similar and gives us the ground of the mutual cooperation and geopolitical alliance. The Russia as well as the Latin America or Islamic countries, or China see the future world essentially as multipolar, where the United States and the West in general should be no more than the separate poles among the other. Any claim of imperialism, colonialism or universalism of values should be severely rejected. So we are in the same camp. And we must concentrate on it.

Accepting that we should progress to the elaboration of the common strategy in the process of the creation of the future that should fit to our demands and our visions. So such values as social justice, national sovereignty and traditional spirituality can serve us as the clue.

I sincerely believe that the Fourth Political Theory, the national-bolshevism and eurasianism can be of the great use for our peoples, our countries and our civilizations. The key word is “multipolatity” in all senses – geopolitical, cultural, axiological, economical and so on.

The important vision of Nous (Intellect) of Greek philosopher Plotinus that correspond to our ideal. The Intellect is one and the multiple at the same time, because it has all kinds of the differences in itself – not uniform or mixed, but taken as such with all their particularities. The future world should be noetic in some way – the multiplicity, diversity should be taken as the richness and the treasure and not as the reason of inevitable conflict: many civilizations, many poles, many centres, many sets of values on one planet in one humanity.

But there are some who think otherwise. Who are against such a project? Those who want to impose the uniformity, the unique thought, the one (American) way of life, One World. And they are doing it by force and by persuasion. They are against the multipolarity. So they are against us. Mr. Carvalho is one among those. From now on we know it. The debate is closed but our struggle is in the very beginning.

I hope sincerely there are in Brazil  other kinds of the traditionalists, intellectuals and philosophers who are closer to Eurasian point of view and more consistent and coherent in their rejection of the Modernity and Post-Modernity as well as the globalization, the liberalism and North-American Imperialism and more Brazilian also…

Alexander Dugin