4pt

THE REALM OF THE FOURTH POLITICAL THEORY: CONTRIBUTIONS

According to Ultra-modernity, everything that is said now will be claimed wrong within, say, twenty years. Remember, though, that you will be a grandparent yourself. So, are you ready to be thrown in the trash can in your days of old? Or will you simply refuse to grow old, considering aging a disease and trying to stop it? Because these are the days we are living: we will have to work hard for the right of being both right and old.

There is a very simple test that you can make, even if you do not know much about Geopolitics or Political Philosophy, to see on what side you are. It goes like this: if your people/territory/identity accepts most tenets of the Western culture, will the best ways of your grandparents fade or will they blossom?

The Rise of the Fourth Political Theory

The sequel to the bestseller The Fourth Political Theory, expanding further on the fourth political theory. All the political systems of the modern age have been the products of three distinct ideologies: the first, and oldest, is liberal democracy; the second is Marxism; and the third is fascism. The latter two have long since failed and passed out of the pages of history, and the first no longer operates as an ideology, but rather as something taken for granted. The world today finds itself on the brink of a post-political reality — one in which the values of liberalism are so deeply embedded that the average person is not aware that there is an ideology at work around him. As a result, liberalism is threatening to monopolise political discourse and drown the world in a universal sameness, destroying everything that makes the various cultures and peoples unique. According to Alexander Dugin, what is needed to break through this morass is a fourth ideology — one that will sift through the debris of the first three to look for elements that might be useful, but that remains innovative and unique in itself.

"POST-TRUTH” AND THE TRUTH OF THE POLITICAL: FREEDLAND VS. DUGIN

Unlike Dugin, for Freedland there is only one truth in the world, which cannot be questioned at all. The British journalist completely ignores the so-called autonomy of the political, such as the fact that politics is not based on rationality, but on irrationality. As we learn from the German jurist Carl Schmitt, politics means acting to defend or impose a particular type of collective existence, beyond what is morally right or wrong and what is objectively true or false. Freedland is very surprised by the actual trend towards a «deeper and more bitter partisanship», but this fact only means that what is happening in countries like his own it’s simply the return of politics in contexts from which it was almost gone. Politics divides people into different groups, which are aggregated around a particular “speech”, or a particular “narration”, or, as Dugin teaches us, around a particular “truth”. To Trump’s supporters (like those of any other political leader) doesn’t matter if what their leader says is true or false; they only identify themselves in him and in his political view. So politicians like Trump are neither “engaging in post-truth politics” nor lying, but they are only making politics. Furthermore, Freedland should understand that in  politics there are indeed no  referees, but only players.  In fact, there are referees only when there is someone who commands on all the others and who has the monopoly of the truth.

Horizon of the Ideal Empire

It will be a huge Empire. The richness of the landscape and the diversity of the polities will be intrinsic to the state. The Empire principle must be rehabilitated. Besides the trifunctional system (philosophers, warriors, and farmers), the Empire can include enclaves of a variety of creatures from Amazons to two-headed, bird-legged, and headless beings, gypsies, Evenki, etc. There could even be a mermaid republic or Veche forest gatherings governed by an assembly of Domoviye and Leshie. We can also imagine a congress of Angels or Tatar Kurultai.

A plurality of types of political and anthropological creativity should be encouraged.

TV and the press will be cancelled, as they are always spouting some kind of meaningless nonsense.

Clothing will have its own meaning. The body is the wrapper of the eidos, and the clothes are the wrapping of the body. Everyone will have different clothes, but all colorful and astonishingly beautiful, so that people pay attention to them. People will notice clothes and judge by clothes. There will be an absolute cult of clothing. People will spend most of their time getting dressed and changing.

Food will be the most ecologically pure, and distributed freely, as a gift. There will be an exceptional lot of sausage, cheese, and hazelnuts in the Empire.

THE FOURTH POLITICAL THEORY AND THE PROBLEM OF THE DEVIL

The most important point is that 4PT is based on the fact that the choice of paradigm is not within the three political ideologies (the Logos of the Great Mother), but within the three Logoi of the political philosophies of the Father (Platonism), the Son (Aristotelianism), and the Mother (materialism). This is a free choice in which modernity is nothing more than one option, and far from all.

The political philosophies of the Father and the Son (or their alliance) are objects of free choice. This is a task, not a given. It appears that we ended up in modernity because we forgot that the political philosophy of the Father and the political philosophy of the Son need to be constantly affirmed anew with each new generation and new person. We took them for something guaranteed, something taken for granted.

As soon as even a vertically-oriented political system becomes inertia or something ready-made and given, then it begins to fall, to collapse. If instead of as a free establishment we take the monarchical, imperial, traditional, and caste vertical to be a fact, something given, and once we no longer re-affirm such at each stage, then sooner or later we will fall into the dustbin of modernity and its last logical accord - the political philosophy of the Mother.

POST-ANTHROPOLOGY

A concrete (phenomenal) society always consists of two parts - the aboveground and underground. The aboveground part is what we normally term “society", meaning a sphere of rational activity where logos (λόγος) prevails. This is the domain of the “diurnal". The underground part is the dark, underwater island of the collective unconscious, the region of the social night (the “nocturne”), where myth (μύθος) rules.

For some time, progressivist science believed that these two parts were situated in diachronic order. In ancient times (and among “primitive” peoples, the unfortunate “residue” of ancient times), myth was predominant. But the progress of civilization gradually supplanted the mythological order and replaced it with an order based on logos. The community, or Gemeinschaft, is superseded by society, or Gesellschaft (F. Tönnies). But this optimistic exaltation did not last long. Whereas blind faith in purported progress reigned almost unquestionably in 18th-19th century Western Europe, the subconscious, where the eternal and unchanging laws of myth predominate, was discovered by the beginning of the 20th century.

Encounter with Heidegger: An Invitation to Journey

Heidegger is universally recognized as a great philosopher of world history.  No one seriously contests this, but someone calmly passes by, relying on other trends in philosophy, while someone responds keenly to his message, using his terms ("Dasein", "existential", "Angst", etc.) and allowing himself to be carried away by his thoughts.

            A different, special, exclusive place in the history of philosophy that can be set aside for Heidegger should be recognized in the case that we fully trust Heidegger, immerse ourselves in his thinking, and make him our highest authority.  In other words, Heidegger in the space of Heideggerianism will differ essentially from Heidegger in the average and conventional history of philosophy.  In this case, Heidegger will be revealed not only as a great philosopher, on par with the other greats, but as the greatest of them all, occupying the place of the last prophet, concluding the development of the first stage of philosophy (from Anaximander to Nietzsche) and serving as the transition, the bridge to a new philosophy, which he only anticipates in his works.  In that case, Heidegger is revealed as an eschatological figure, as the final interpreter and clarifier of the deepest and most enigmatic themes of world philosophy and the creator of a radically new thinking.  In this case he can be viewed as a figure of the religious pantheon, as an "envoy of being itself", a prophesier and preparer of the greatest event, in which the old history of the European world will end and a new one, which has never been hitherto, will begin.

            It seems to me that the second approach is more productive for a true understanding of Heidegger (even if at some time, in the distant future, it will be revised).  It allows for full and complete immersion into Heidegger's thinking, without hurried attempts at interpreting him through appeals to other authorities (and to their separate traces in our consciousness) and allows Heidegger to communicate to us without hindrance what he intended to communicate.  And only after accepting this message in its main features and believing in its significance and inevitability can one, if need be, take a certain distance in regards to it.

Fourth Political Theory: shortest presentation

The problem is where can we find the fulcrum? The Modernity and Post-Modernity - precisely by means of Third Totalitarianism (this time liberal one) - have destroyed already the humanity and replaced it by the assembly of individuals (human rights doctrine). Refusing normative subject of all-pervading liberalism (individual and - in the near future - post-human species) we are in the void because liberalism doesn’t accept institutionally (!) any form of non-individual onthology and anthropology. And the pre-modern version of subject, of human nature are considered to be obsolete and miserable – in the extreme case criminal. If we insist nevertheless they will qualify as the residui and treat us in the same manner as in the first stage of Enlightenment - simply killing us as Jacobins and bolsheviks killed the Christians priests and princes. May be it is an option for certain men and women. The way of martyrdom is great path.
But there is other solution. Not being able to certify our own existence in the conceptual field of totalitarian liberalism we can make appeal to Heideger's concept of Dasein. When the concept of human being is obligatory fake and the liberal totalitarian culture splits the human figure more and more depriving it of any order or unity as well as of any collective identity (more than that --depriving it of any identity at all) Dasein nevertheless is here - it is always here or rather t/here. It is here - existing in authentic or inauthentic way, but it is here! So 4PT invites to take Dasein as the axial fulcrum when everything else is missing. The return to the Tradition and to the Eternity can be accomplished neither by individual nor by class or nation. Dasein is the ontological root of the human being, the nucleus of Being. Dasein can be put in the wrong way of functioning but still it is present. So it is our final argument and the main feature of 4PT. Fourth Political theory is existential. And starting from Dasein we can make the eschatological leap to the Tradition. Else we would lack the foothold. Traditionalism is to be existential otherwise it will be but one simulacrum more.

Counter-Hegemony in the Theory of the Multipolar World

The classical realists use the term “hegemony” in a relative sense and understand it as the “actual and substantial superiority of the potential power of any state over the potential of another one, often neighboring countries.” Hegemony might be understood as a regional phenomenon, as the determination of whether one or another political entity is considered a “hegemon” depends on scale. Thucydides introduced the term itself when he spoke of Athens and Sparta as the hegemons of the Peloponnesian War, and classical realism employs this term in the same way to this day. Such an understanding of hegemony can be described as “strategic” or “relative.”

In neo-realism, “hegemony” is understood in a global (structural) context. The main difference from classical realism lies in that “hegemony” cannot be regarded as a regional phenomenon. It is always a global one. The neorealism of K. Waltz, for example, insists that the balance of two hegemons (in a bipolar world) is the optimal structure of power balance on a world scale. R. Gilpin believes that hegemony can be combined only with unipolarity, i.e., it is possible for only a single hegemon to exist, this function today being played by the USA.

Modern Populism

The people as a political concept is appearing today in opposition to liberalism. The liberals are hollering about a fascist or communist-fascist threat, and they are incapable of understanding the essence of the populist moment, which they interpret through old clichés. Hence why they are losing. Hence why they are doomed.

And yet both left and right are unanimous in thinking that this is only a moment, a limited period of time, a kind of quantum in historical movement. Probably no one can say whether the People and consequently populism is a system, program, strategy, or merely a temporary correction on the path of liberal globalization. The globalists had their moment in the early ’90’s – the unipolar moment. They ruined everything they could over thirty years, turning globalization and the unipolar world into a hideous caricature. The reformers in Russia in the ’90’s did the same with democracy. Now a different moment is arriving. The people is appearing on the stage of world history. This is a chance, a risk, a responsibility, and a challenge. But it is our moment. Not utilizing it would be a real crime. 

Yes, that’s right, not taking advantage of such a populist moment would be foolish and even criminal. But is there such a crime that we have not yet committed? Alas, everything rests on our shoulders. Nevertheless, this is a wonderful, open opportunity for a true alternative, a Russian alternative.

The first conference was on 4 ª Political Theory

During the last days 24 and 25 of February was held in San Lorenzo de El Escorial the Seminar of metapolitics: "Keys and visions for a metapolitical resistance in Spain."

Half a hundred people from different and distant points of the Spanish geography, came to listen to the papers and participate in the round tables with the speakers who generously and selflessly responded to the invitation of the seminar.

In this way, José Alsina Calvés opened the sessions with the conference "Hispanism and Fourth Political Theory", where he gave a brief introduction on the nature and fundamental points of the 4th Political Theory proposed by the Russian thinker and philosopher Alexander Dugin, and on The idea of ​​Hispanism and Hispanism as possible genuinely Spanish ways of expression for their own counterhegemonic discourse and for the creation of a differentiated geopolitical space.

Alsina explained the philosophical bases that Dugin has used to articulate a metapolitical paradigm that goes beyond liberalism (1st Theory), Marxism (2nd Theory) and Nazi-fascism (3 \ Theory), inspiring to do so among other sources in Eurasianism, The New French Right (without falling into the acerbic accusation of Christianity as the matrix of modernity, case of Alain de Benoist), or the work of the philosopher Martin Heidegger and the consideration of the concept of time.

4TH POLITICAL THEORY AND POST-LIBERALISM

In order to escape this coded field of coded thinking, we need to deconstruct all of modernity. If we transcend the borders of modernity, we see a different society, a different notion of man, a different view of the world, a different notion of politics and the state. First of all, we finish the Cartesian subject and see something else. Let’s search for what there is in this other world. In sociology, this is called the transition from modern society to traditional society. The notions of tradition, religion, and pre-modernity already offer us an undoubtedly broader spectrum of alternatives. If we reject the laws of modernity such as progress, development, equality, justice, freedom, nationalism, and all of this legacy of the three centuries of philosophy and political history, then there is a choice. And it is in fact very broad in the least. This is what I have been saying. This is traditional society.

One of the first, simplest movements in the direction of the Fourth Political Theory is the global rehabilitation of Tradition, the sacred, the religious, the caste-related, if you prefer, the hierarchical, and not equality, justice, or freedom. Everything that we reject together with modernity and everything that we completely rework…

Traps and dead ends of the new nationalism

Elite of Fourth Way will collide with demagogues and hysterical "leaders", that a wave of new nationalism inevitably will bring to the front as the foam on the surface of fermenting sea. And the battle begins now. It would be better that neo-nationalist monster would be strangled in the cradle. But it is about to appear.

Therefore, now - after Trump's great succes - is relevant as never before the general plan for fundamental conservatives and traditionalists all over the world - at least of America, Europe, Russia, Iran, Turkey and the rest of Eurasia (and the others who will join us). We need a common front aimed not only at the rest of the Liberals (finish to drain liberal Swamp is technical task now), but as well to prevent and neutralize new nationalism.

We need to return to the Being, to the Logos, to the foundamental- ontology (of Heidegger), to the Sacred, to the New Middle Ages - and thus to the Empire, religion, and the institutions of traditional society (hierarchy, cult, domination of spirit over matter and so on). All content of Modernity - is Satanism and degeneration. Nothing is worth, everything is to be cleansed off. The Modernity is absolutely wrong -- science, values, philosophy, art, society, modes, patterns, "truths", understanding of Being, time and space. All is dead with Modernity. So it should end. We are going to end it.

COUNTER-HEGEMONY IN THE THEORY OF THE MULTIPOLAR WORLD

Although the concept of hegemony in Critical Theory is based on Antonio Gramsci’s theory, it is necessary to distinguish this concept’s position on Gramscianism and neo-Gramscianism from how it is understood in the realist and neo-realist schools of IR.

The classical realists use the term “hegemony” in a relative sense and understand it as the “actual and substantial superiority of the potential power of any state over the potential of another one, often neighboring countries.” Hegemony might be understood as a regional phenomenon, as the determination of whether one or another political entity is considered a “hegemon” depends on scale. Thucydides introduced the term itself when he spoke of Athens and Sparta as the hegemons of the Peloponnesian War, and classical realism employs this term in the same way to this day. Such an understanding of hegemony can be described as “strategic” or “relative.”

In neo-realism, “hegemony” is understood in a global (structural) context. The main difference from classical realism lies in that “hegemony” cannot be regarded as a regional phenomenon. It is always a global one. The neorealism of K. Waltz, for example, insists that the balance of two hegemons (in a bipolar world) is the optimal structure of power balance on a world scale[ii]. R. Gilpin believes that hegemony can be combined only with unipolarity, i.e., it is possible for only a single hegemon to exist, this function today being played by the USA.

In both cases, the realists comprehend hegemony as a means of potential correlation between the potentials of different state powers. 

Gramsci's understanding of hegemony is completely different and finds itself in a completely opposite theoretical field. To avoid the misuse of this term in IR, and especially in the TMW, it is necessary to pay attention to Gramsci’s political theory, the context of which is regarded as a major priority in Critical Theory and TMW. Moreover, such an analysis will allows us to more clearly see the conceptual gap between Critical Theory and TMW.

THE NATION-STATE AND THE MULTIPOLAR WORLD

One of the most important points of the Theory of Multipolarity refers to the nation-state. The sovereignty of this structure has already been challenged during the period of ideological support for the two blocs (the “Cold War”) and, in the period of globalization, the issue acquired a much sharper relevance. We see the theorists of globalization also talk about the complete exhaustion of the “nation-states” and about the necessity of transferring them to the “World Government” (F. Fukuyama, before), or about the belief that nation-states have not yet completed their mission and must continue existing for a longer time with the purpose of better preparing their citizens for integration into the “Global Society” (F. Fukuyama, later).

Russian Easter

The faith in Christ is the Russian faith. It can be objected: Orthodoxy is the universal Church, it is open to all mankind. Identifying it with the Russians means to narrow its value, reduce it to the national religion. There is a notion of the phyletism heresy, religious “love toward a nation.” For the enemies of Orthodoxy, especially for Western Christians, it is the central argument against the Byzantine Empire and against Russia. Unfortunately, in 1872, the patriarch of Constantinople, the head of the Phanar fell for it. But what do they know? They abolished the sacred Julian Calendar, giving up the basics of Orthodoxy for the Uniate... What do they know, my friends?..

The Geopolitics of the European “New Right”

One of the few European geopolitical schools which has preserved an uninterrupted link with the ideas of the pre-war German continentalist geopoliticians is that of the “New Right.” This trend appeared in France in the late ’60’s and is associated with the philosopher and publicist Alain de Benoist, the leading figure of the movement. 

The “New Right” sharply differs on practically all matters from the traditional French right consisting of monarchists, Catholics, Germanophobes, chauvinists, anti-communists, conservatives, etc. The “New Right” includes those who support “organic democracy,” pagans, Germanophiles, socialists, modernists, etc. At the beginning, the “left camp” so conventionally, extremely influential in France considered such to be a “tactical maneuver” by typical rightists, but with time the gravity of this evolution was proven and came to be recognized by all. 

One of the fundamental principles of the “New Right’s” ideology, analogues of which soon appeared in other European countries, is the principal of “continental geopolitics.” In contrast to the “old right” and classical nationalists, de Benoist believed that the principle of the centralized Nation-State has been historically exhausted and that the future belongs only to “Great Spaces.” The basis of such “Large Spaces” are to be not so much associations of various states in a pragmatic political bloc, but the equal-footed conglomeration of ethnic groups of different scales into a “Federal Empire.” Such a “Federal Empire”  is supposed to be strategically unified, yet ethnically differentiated. Moreover, such strategic unity is to be underpinned by the unity of primordial culture.

Philosophy of politics (1)

Although there is a philosophy that free from politics occupies itself with non-political questions, in fact, in one way or another, even such a free, non-political philosophy is connected, in one way or another, with politics, inasmuch as philosophy and politics have a common root. For this reason, if philosophy considers aesthetic questions, historical questions, cultural questions, and says nothing about politics, this nevertheless does not mean that it is a completely separate phenomenon. Any philosophy at all, even the most abstract, has a political dimension, in some cases explicitly. In the case of Solon, as in the case of the ancient Greek Pre-Socratics and Wise Men, and as in the case of Plato and Aristotle, this is an explicit dimension of philosophy. But there is also an implicit political dimension of philosophy, when philosophy says nothing about politics, but the very fact of the presence of a philosophical paradigm of one or another already carries in itself the possibility of a political dimension. In one case it is only explicit, open, and manifest; in the other, it is implicit, contained.

A Review of Dugin's "Last War of the World-Island"

Although Western analysts continue to debate the motivations of Russian President Vladimir Putin for forming his Eurasian Union, what is undeniable is that the most vocal proponent of this union is Aleksandr Dugin. Dugin laid much of the ideological framework for a Eurasian Union when Putin was just beginning to emerge in the upper echelons of the government of the Russian Federation, and Dugin has been as outspoken in his ideological agenda as Putin has been taciturn in revealing his own. In fact, when Dugin’s remarks concerning Russia’s involvement in Ukraine were widely interpreted asadvocating a genocidal campaign against Ukrainians who would oppose Russian occupation of portions of that country, Dugin lost his teaching position at Moscow State University and was eventually placed under sanctions by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. As this reviewer has noted in previous reviews of Dugin’s books — Putin vs. Putin and his Fourth Political Theory — Aleksandr Dugin views the confrontation between the United States and Russia in no less than apocalyptic terms and has sought to frame the contest between the two countries as the latest phase in an ancient war between the "powers of the Sea" and "powers of the Land." One of Dugin’s most recent books to be translated into English is Last War of the World-Island — The Geopolitics of Contemporary Russia, and in this book, the author continues to advance this apocalyptic theme.

Apocalypse as Praxis

The human animal is not that far from the wild, and civilization is a very recent invention in the history of the species. Our extreme civilizational mutation is highly disruptive of our natural life in a way that even the agricultural and industrial revolutions were not, and it creates a new and radical kind of biological political tension between the system and the human itself. The cage has so dominated the human today that it is destroying him. He faces the choice between becoming a new organism that is entirely domesticated, in essence destroying the human, or destroying his cage.

Principles and strategy of coming war

To tell the truth, war has broken out. War has been "broken out". That war, which is most important now, is the confrontation of two civilizations: the Land civilization, represented by Russia, and the Sea ​​civilization, represented by the US. It is a standoff between a trade-based system, and a heroic civilization, between Carthage and Rome, Athens and Sparta. However, at certain moments it reaches a “hot” stage. We are in this moment again. We are at the brink of the war, and also one exists. However, this war can become a major and, perhaps, the sole battle of our lives, at any time. As the major players – the US and Russia – are nuclear powers, the war involves all the nations of the Earth. It has every chance to become the end of humankind. Of course this is not guaranteed, but such a plot twist cannot be excluded.

The spiritual plan of the great conflict is comprehend in special terms and contexts. There, the balance of power is always in favor of the Light, despite the faithful’s position. However, at the strategic level, it may seem a little different. The roles in the war are not symmetrical. Russia is in a weaker position, but trying to get back its status of the global player. It only seeks to restore its potential regional power to exert its influence freely in areas near to its borders. However, it is unacceptable for the United States, which, despite everything, remain the global hegemony and refuse to lose the monopolarity by its own will.

Multipolarity – The Definition and the Differentiation Between its Meanings

From a purely scientific point of view, there still exists no full and complete theory of a multipolar world (TMW) to date, nor can it be found among the classical theories and paradigms of International Relations (IR). We will try to look for it in the latest post-positivist theories in vain. It is not fully developed in its final aspect, the sphere of geopolitical research. Time and time again this theme is openly comprehended, but still left “behind the scenes” or treated in too biased of a fashion within international relations.

Nevertheless, more and more works on foreign affairs, world politics, geopolitics, and actually, international politics, are dedicated to the theme of multipolarity. A growing number of authors try to understand and describe multipolarity as a model, phenomenon, precedent, or possibility.

The topic of multipolarity was in one way or another touched upon in the works of the IR specialist David Kampf (in the article "The emergence of a multipolar world"), historian Paul Kennedy of Yale University (in his book "The Rise and Fall of Great Powers" ), geopolitician Dale Walton (in the book "Geopolitics and the Great Powers in the XXI century: Multipolarity and the Revolution in strategic perspective"), American political scientist Dilip Hiro (in the book "After Empire: Birth of a multipolar world" ), and others. The closest in understanding the sense of multipolarity, in our view, was British IR specialists Fabio Petito, who tried to build a serious and substantiated alternative to the unipolar world on the basis of the legal and philosophical concepts of Carl Schmitt. 

Heideggerian and apocalyptical thinker

Are you an apocalyptic thinker? In what sense?

Yes, I am apocalyptical thinker, because I see time as Revelation and the Endtime as the integrity of the Revelation. The beginning of time is already the end, because it installs finitude and limit in life, with life and as life. So time is apocalyptic in itself. Not only because it flows in the direction of death, but also because the end and Revelation are the real and only nature of time. Time reveals being, hiding it. When time reveals more than it hides, it ends. If it hides more than it reveals, it lasts. Religion is orthodoxy in the sense I have explained before. I am with Heidegger in the truth and in seeking the truth. I am a religious man in definition of the directions that should lead to the truth. Christianity (at least Orthodox Christianity) and Heidegger in my personal existence and thought are fully compatible.

Who is Aleksandr Dugin?

Aleksandr Dugin has come to public attention as “Putin’s Brain,” as Foreign Affairs memorably dubbed him – that is, as the ideological mastermind behind Russia’s moves towards reasserting imperial ambitions, notably with respect to Ukraine. Is this accurate, or is it just media hype? The truth is that it’s extremely difficult to judge with confidence exactly to what extent Vladimir Putin’s more aggressive policies towards, for instance, Ukraine reflect Dugin’s influence (or supposed influence) as an omnipresent publicist and behind-the-curtain advisor to aspiring czars. (The suspicion easily arises that Putin uses Dugin – lets him rant on state TV – without himself buying into the crazy worldview.) But whether Dugin really is influencing Russian policy or is simply the object of excessive hype, either way intellectuals as well as ordinary citizens in the West need to be aware of him, lest they be taken in by his pretensions as a theorist and his claimed interest in civilizational dialogue and pluralism, which functions as a rhetorical cloak. Either way, he’s dangerous.

ALEKSANDR DUGIN: THE FOURTH POLITICAL THEORY

The principal aim of Professor Dugin's work is not simply to deconstruct the previous failed political theories, which he lists as fascism, communism, and liberalism, but to fashion a new fourth theory, utilising what may be learnt from some of the previous models after their deconstruction rather than dismissing them outright on the basis of particulars worthy of rejection. That is not to say that the Fourth Political Theory is simply a synthesis of ideas that in their singular form have seen their day. Dugin is conscious of the necessity to bring something new to the table, with one of the principal of these novel ideas being the rejection of the subjects of the old ideologies, such as class, race, or the individual, in favour of the existential Heideggerian concept of Dasein (roughly Being or being-in-the-world. Literally da – there; sein – being) as the primary actor.

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