The Fourth Political Theory

beyond left and right but against the center

Democracy today cannot be discussed objectively. It is not a neutral concept: behind “democracy,” as a political regime and corresponding value system, stands the West, Europe and the USA. For them “democracy” is a form of secular cult or a tool of political dogmatics, thus, to be fully accepted into society in the West, it is necessary by default to be “for” democracy. One who calls it into question falls out of the field of political correctness. Marginal opposition is tolerated; but if it is more than marginal, democracy sets its machines of oppression against its alternatives like any regime, any ideology, and any dominant religion. It is not possible to talk about “democracy” impartially. That is why in discussions about democracy we must say at once whether we are completely for or completely against it. I’ll respond with extreme candor: I’m against it, but I’m against it only because the West is for it. I’m not prepared to accept anything thoughtlessly and uncritically on faith, even if everyone believes it, and all the more so if this is accompanied by a concealed (or clear) threat. You suggest that I rely on my own reason, no? I’ll begin with the fact that reason advises me to reject all suggestions [predlozheniy, offers, proposals]. No one can give us freedom. It either is or it is not [we either have it or we don’t]. A slave will convert even freedom into slavery, or at least into swinishness, and a free person will never be a slave even in fetters. From his time enslaved Plato did not become either less Plato or less free, while we still pronounce the name of the tyrant Dionysus with contempt, so which of them is a slave? At any rate, as a popular textbook on technical analysis says, “the majority is always wrong.”

Where is thought? On a different plane. Thought is born and comes into being in a completely different dimension. Compared to what we are doing when (it seems to us that) we are “thinking”, it is something radically other. The experience of thought means the collapse of everything we usually take such to mean. Thought can begin only when what we make thought out to be is finished. Both everyday delirium and intellectual “scholarly citations” are barriers to the birth of thought. They should be abolished. Thought is born out of the moment of madness or nonsense, when the rotation of the gears of both everyday and scientific consciousness is suddenly stopped. In the face of death, this feels good. But not for everyone. Pseudo-thinking reliably protects us from death by barricading against the very possibility of experiencing it with countless instances, fears, calculations, plans, and hopes (for doctors, miracles, police, common sense, science, and the “light at the end of the tunnel”). Everything is subject to death, but death is the lot of the chosen. Death is intimately connected to thought. Thought is born only in the face of death. That which is born freely and horribly in the face of death, when everything else that we have held “thought” to be has been destroyed – that is real thought. Only at this moment does subjectivity make itself known, having been in all other cases dissolved amidst the alienated fields of unfocused consciousness.

Alexander Dugin’s Political Platonism offers a seminal analysis of the contemporary philosophical crisis from one of the best-known writers and political commentators in post-Soviet Russia. Through a series of essays, course transcripts, and a single long interview—each remarkable for the depth of its learning and the boldness of its vision—Dugin exposes the profoundest roots of the Western philosophical tradition, offering his view of why it has reached its final terminus, and his indication of where a new beginning must be sought.

The works collected in this volume present Dugin’s theory of Political Platonism as a fundamental philosophical and political orientation, capable at once of reviving higher political and social forms and furnishing solid ground for resistance to the collapse of the contemporary world. His multi-perspective thesis offers a thorough and thought-provoking critique of modernity and a masterful survey of Western philosophy, reaching from before Heraclitus to beyond Heidegger. In its provocative, clear-sighted analyses and its visionary flights, this book provides an invaluable reference for those already familiar with Dugin, and an intriguing introduction for those coming to him for the first time.

From the point of view of Orthodox esotericism, Judaism and Kabbalah are undoubtedly counter-initiatic.[4] From the Zohar’s point of view, the esotericism of the Goyim, especially the “descendants of Ishmael and Esau” (Muslims and Christians), is “the false teaching of the demon Samael” who “leaps on the serpent Lilith.” From the point of view of Hindu esotericism, Iranian dualism is rooted in the fact that Zoroastrians worship demons, the Asura, (Iranian Ahura), whom they (Hindus) call “gods.” Buddhist esotericists, meanwhile, are convinced that the initiatic doctrines of Hinduism are the ultimate evil, insofar as they only increase the attachment of beings to Samsara – after all, the higher divine worlds are distinguished in the Buddhist perspective by an even greater illusory quality than the worlds of humans, as the absence of suffering only alienates the prospect of achieving Nirvana. In Islamic civilization, the most radical representatives of manifestationist esotericism – such as al-Hallaj, Suhrawardi, etc. – were executed as malicious heretics.

A number of various, altogether interesting conclusions can be extracted from Sedgwick’s analysis.[4] Here we will fixate on merely one point, that of the conceptual unity of 20th century Traditionalism (Guénon, Evola, etc.) and Renaissance Platonism (Plethon, Ficino, Steuco, etc.). Both of these philosophical currents can be generalized with the notion of “Perennialism.” If we can historically trace Guénon’s philosophical inspirations back to the Renaissance, which Guénon himself harshly criticized for misunderstanding the sacred civilization of the Middle Ages, and if we can find there the first formulations of Sophia Perennis or the Prisca theologia which compose the foundation of Traditionalist philosophy, then in it becomes completely obvious that these currents came to Western Europe in the Renaissance from the much deeper past and, to a certain extent, from a different cultural context (more specifically, the Byzantine-Greek). Of course, Platonism was well known in Medieval European Scholasticism, but it had long since yielded to Averroism and Aristotelianism enshrined virtually dogmatically in the realism of Thomas Aquinas. Hermeticism had existed in the form of alchemical currents and esoteric fraternities, but in the Renaissance these tendencies surfaced in rather vivid and magistral form, such as in the forms of open Neoplatonism and philosophically-formulated Hermeticism (with numerous direct or indirect polytheistic elements), which claimed to be not merely a secret tradition parallel to the dominant Scholasticism, but a foundational, universal worldview. Renaissance Platonism and Hermeticism directly opposed Catholic Tomism and formulated the agenda of Renaissance Humanism. This humanism was magical and sacred: man was understood to be the “perfect man”, the Platonic philosopher, the Angel-Initiator.

The spirit of of old Europe is alive in Heidegger’s work, just as much as in Evola’s work. Both represent the spirit of an age that knew – intimately, perhaps – the Nietzschean drive to its deep modernistic roots and its essence, and perhaps could be depicted in a certain sense as representing the age of the (aspiring) Overman, the active nihilist, and of the regimes that sought a new model of man – many of them Fascist, Communist or even Liberal – as opposed to the current age of the Last Man, a man who has lost the Faustian drive almost entirely and therefore succumbed to passive nihilism, and to the spirit of an age that has fully transitioned from Modernity to Post-Modernity. An age that now consequently, in our current epoch, faces complete dissolution. Evola addresses this age of dissolution just as intensively and concisely as Heidegger deconstructs the essence of Western logos and of its Metaphysics focused on unreal abstract presences, on reified essences, and on the thinking subject.

Kemi Seba is a man of his time. Speaking loudly, echoing the indignation of the proletarian layers of Africa and its diaspora. His speeches are the soundtrack of a people who can no longer be anesthetized, their resistance is like that of a young woman who has been so struck so many times that she no longer feels the blows landed on her. In the space of the former French colonies, since the death of Lumumba and Sankara, we have not seen in Africa young Africans arousing the enthusiasm of the masses and expressing the desire for total sovereignty of the people as Seba does in part in their struggle for self-determination populations of Francophone Africa.

Paganism envisions for the end times not a return to a unity lost in manifestation, but a return to primordial duality. It is no accident that Zoroastrian cyclology calls the final stage of sacred history vicharishn, literally “separation.” Only at the moment of contact between being and non-being is the pagan revealed the whole depth of his doctrine, with all the paradoxical implications. This border realized at the final point of manifestation is the point of departure for the questioning of the subject, who here can only view both metaphysical realities (both exhaustive being and incumbent non-being) as something that does not principally satisfy him, hence his turn to the source which might be beyond both being and non-being. On the pragmatic level, eschatologism is an essential feature of metaphysically fully-fledged paganism, since the true immanentism of authentic tradition cannot and should not be a doctrine of absoluteness and the non-transcendence of “this world”, which would render it an anti-tradition and anti-nomist materialism. For the subject of pagan immanentism, being is not the final sought-after shore or “paradise.” Rather, it is a symbol of the fact that non-being itself is not this “paradise.”

“Let them call you racists. Let them call you xenophobes. Let them call you nativists”. In other words, Bannon's call for European patriots is not to be intimidated by the pernicious accusations of corporate media. Well, denigration and demonization of the opponents of international mafia like Soros network continues. And this is a sure sign that European populists are on the right track. This shows that Dugin and his followers everywhere are not just right, but also successful. 

 I agree with Brandon W. Hawk in the essence. I love the Middle Ages and I hate Modernity. For me, the Enlightenment is totally wrong, and Modern science and the broader Modern “scientific” world vision is based on a lie. I believe in God, Angels and the Holy Spirit, not in Descartes, F. Bacon, or Einstein. I think Plato and Aristotle were absolutely right and their atomist detractors absolutely wrong. I am sure that the Church Fathers are bearers of absolute truth and that Modern philosophy is the radiation of the mind of the fallen Angel – Satan. I am sure that the Apocalypse is near, and I regard liberalism and globalization as clear signs of the approaching Antichrist and End Times. I am a Traditionalist and follower of the Russian Slavophiles, of Dostoevsky, of Soloviev, of various Russian religious philosophers and monarchists. I appreciate very much the ideas of René Guénon and Julius Evola. I am absolutely in favor of Antiquity and the Middle Ages and absolutely against Modernity in all its forms. So I have an anti-Modern and anti-Western (when the Modernity and the West mean the same) worldview, and I see Modernity as the catastrophe and decline of the West. Philosophically, I agree with Heidegger that Modernity is based on the Oblivion of Being, and I call on thinking people to awaken to the new discovery of Being. I regard Artificial Intelligence as the final personification of das Man (or Gestell) and I consider it to be the Antichrist, or one of his heads.

Bannon’s return should raise concerns. It became clear during his time in the Trump campaign and then the administration that the former head of Breitbart was a key player in the mainstreaming of the alt-right in the United States. But Bannon’s reemergence is tied to the global spread of the far right in the United States and Europe. And Bannon is using a racist version of the history of the Middle Ages to justify and legitimize his vision for nationalist imperialism.

In the post-Soviet period, communism went through several stages in our society. First, after the fall of the USSR, there were Marxist circles that still had inertia, which did not surrender, believing that the catastrophe was temporary. In this passive attitude, an indecisive and conformist nostalgia became a form of suicide and led to their disappearance. There were also radical communists in the 90’s who tried to get together – among them were passionate people who were not significant during the USSR itself, but in the 90’s they turned out to be honest people with integrity – but gradually they also ceased to really be. For a while in Russia, we were without communists.

A Chinese Heartland is an altogether different question. If we recognize China as bearing the status of a Heartland, then we are emphasizing the conservative aspect of China - China as Land Power. But if China declares itself to be a Heartland against Russia, just as Hitler’s Germany declared itself to be Eurasia against Russia, then conflict will immediately arise. But in the case of an apportioned (distributed) Heartland, this acquires a completely different meaning.

Then it is possible to consider such Heartlands as a Russian Heartland, a European Heartland, a Chinese Heartland, and an Islamic Heartland (at least 3-4 empires from Turkey to Pakistan). The concept of an apportioned Heartland can be expanded to India, and projected onto Latin America and Africa as well.

All those who are sanctioned and banned today, all those who are blamed as rogue countries or “Putinists”, all those who are marginalized and criminalized — whites, populists, males, religious, social justice defenders, traditionalists, conservatives and so on — will most likely be the first to come up in the post-liberal period. But that is not sure and there is no plan or strategy for the future. It can be a Pyrrhic victory.

It may be that our instinctive rejection of liberalism is quite sane and logical but it is a kind of the reaction against pure evil that becomes too evident. When their rule ends nobody will be prepared for the next step. They have no future. But it may be that we also don’t have one as well.

We are too engaged in the struggle with the draining of the liberal global Swamp which is still huge and powerful, and we can discern nothing beyond that.

Putin is the compromise. If he is gone, there will be no compromise. It is clear that the elite is so resourceful and mean that it will try to adapt to another system, but this does not fundamentally cancel the fact that Putin cannot decisively influence the future. In a sense, he has already influenced it. And this influence is very positive: he showed that the 90s have an alternative, that it lies somewhere in the plane of patriotism (Second Chechen, Munich speech, “Our Crimea”, etc.), and this, in fact, is a grandiose accomplishment. But at the same time, Putin did not give the form and institutionalization of this patriotism, did not change the foundations of the state laid just in the 90s, did not carry out the rotation of the elites, ignored the popular demand for social justice. The established regime in the eyes of the people as a whole is much better than it was in the 90s (hence its legitimacy), but definitely worse than what is required. While Putin is in place, his merits cover the shortcomings. Once he leaves, a delicate and rather unnatural balance will collapse. By the way, Surkov is not right about de Gaulle: his legitimacy, relying on his role in World War II and the Resistance, lasted only until the early 70s, when he remained in power, and collapsed during the events of 1968, which abolished Gollist conservatism and established new socialist paradigm. Later, de Gaulle remained only nostalgia and simulacra.

Ideological unipolarity entails the universalism of Western values and Human Rights ideology with the concept of human vs. citizen. The concept of human in Human Rights theory is against the nation-state and against the concept of citizen. If you say that the human being has the same rights as the citizen, you destroy citizenship. Migration and the defense of migrants are not purely humanitarian, but ideological. It is the idea to destroy the concept of citizenship, nationality, and the state. That is one of the main goals of the so-called human rights movement. It is purely ideological - as much ideological as Marxism or National Socialism. It is pure propaganda, nothing humanitarian. If you share human rights values, you are globalists on one side, sharing an ideology just like racism in National Socialism or communism and the proletarian position in classical Marxism. Human rights is a liberal ideology. It is not neutral. It is not self-evident. It is purely ideology, just as belongingness to the Aryan race or the capitalist or proletarian classes is. If you are in favor of human rights, you are already totally controlled by ideology.

Many aspects of Herman Wirth’s unjustly forgotten works deserve attention in the study of plural anthropology. First of all, his extremely fertile hypothesis of the cultural circle of Thule, which is usually discarded from the outset without any careful analysis of his argumentation, is so rich that it deserves serious attention in itself. If such an hypothesis allows for the resolution of such numerous historical and archaeological problems associated with the history of symbols, signs, myths, rituals, hieroglyphs, the calendar, writing, and the most ancient views of the structure of space and time, then this alone is enough to warrant thorough inquiry. Even though Wirth’s works contain many claims which seem either unequivocally wrong or highly controversial, we can set them aside and try to understand the essence of his theory which, in our opinion, is an extraordinarily constructive version that expands our understanding of the archaic epochs of the ancient history of mankind. The theory of the cultural circle of Thule need not be unconditionally accepted, but an assessment of its interpretive potential is necessary.

Chaos strategy does not suggest creation or a new political system or order instead of the destroyed political systems. It is manipulated, moderated chaos - a new way of strategic thinking. If we carefully read Brzezinski’s book, The Grand Chessboard, it is written that they need a balkanized Eurasia, to transform it into a zone of permanent conflict between different groups - between Muslims, between ethnic groups, between Russians and Ukrainians, for example. This was Brzezinski’s idea. Chaos is already sown in Africa, so they don’t have to bother too much about that, while now the Russians and Chinese are coming here to bring another order, maybe not the best, but not bloody chaos as is the current situation. There are different points - smaller proxies, partly India, partly some pro-Western little states, and Israel for aggravating and make the chaos bigger. Smaller proxies, like Ukraine for example, are not allies in this concept, but just points in order to make chaos bigger. That is more or less how they understand the situation.