Some Suggestions Regarding the Prospects for the Fourth Political Theory in Europe

But there is one interesting fact: the 4PT diverges from the modern versions of anti-liberalism (namely, socialism and fascism) by proposing not a critique of the individual as viewed from the outside, but rather his implosion. This means not to take a step back into pre-liberal forms of society, or one step sideways into the illiberal types of modernity, but rather one step inside the nihilistic nature of the individual as constructed by liberalism. Therefore, the liberal discovers his way to the 4PT when he takes one step further and achieves self-affirmation as the unique and ultimate instance of being.  This is the final consequence of the most radical solipsism, and can lead to an implosion of the ego and the appearance of the real Self (which is also the goal of the practices associated with Advaita Vedanta).

Nietzsche called his Übermensch “the winner of God and nothing.” By this he meant the overcoming of the old values of Tradition, but also the nothingness that comes in their place. Liberalism has accomplished the overcoming of God and the victory of pure nothingness. But this is the midnight before the breaking of dawn. So taking one step further into the midnight of European nihilism is how a liberal who wishes to leave this identity, which is more consistent with a peculiarly Western destiny of decline (because the Occident itself is nothing but decline at present – more on this later) behind, arrives at the horizon of the 4PT.

The Crimean Way

One can highlight four main streams of events that happened in the last week in the Ukrainian drama:

- The start of the presidential campaign and the attempt of Kiev to present “the beginning of the election cycle,” which was marked by a clash of the Poroshenko’s group against the group of Timoshenko;
- The attempt of the illegitimate pro-American grouping, which controls power in Kiev, to find a solution of the issue with neo-Nazi formations (“Right sector”, the trial of Goran);
- Diplomatic battle of Russia on international arena concerning the defense of its position in the Crimea and the idea of federalization;
- Revolutionary events on the South East which happened this weekend and preceding it uncertain repression of the civil society activists from South East who obey the illegitimate “power” in Kiev.

Thoughts on the Creation of Intellectual Eurasianism

Geographically speaking, Eurasia means the continental unity of Europe and Asia, which stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific. As a cultural notion, Eurasianism was a concept conceived by Russian emigrants in the early 20th century. It proved to be a fertile framework, since it has been reinterpreted several times and will surely continue to be so in the future as well. Nicolai Sergeyevich Trubetskoy is widely considered as the founder of Eurasianism, while Alexandr Dugin is referred to as the key ideologist of the concept. Trubetskoy was one of the greatest thinkers of the Russian emigration in the early 20th century, who attempted to redefine Russia’s role in the turbulent post-World War I times, looking for new goals, perspectives, and meanings. On the one hand, he rejected Pan-Slavism and replaced the Slavophile ideology with a kind of “Turanophile” one, as Lajos Pálfalvi put it in an essay. He tore Russian thinking out of the Eastern Slavic framework and found Genghis Khan as a powerful antetype, the founder of a Eurasian state. Trubetskoy says that it was the Khan’s framework left behind that Moscow’s Tsars filled with a new Orthodox sense of mission after the Mongol occupation. In his view, the European and Western orientation of Peter the Great is a negative disruption of this process, a cultural disaster, while the desirable goal for Russia is to awaken as a part of Eurasia.

American, not European: the call for a cultural reformation in the American hemisphere

There are some people who like to play up the notion of an intimate bond between the United States and the former British Empire.  This should not be so.  Think of the rhetoric surrounding World War II — “We had to intervene and stop Nazi Germany from taking over the world and committing genocide.”  The truth to these statements is irrefutable.  Hitler was an evil maniac who enslaved an entire continent and needed to be stopped.  However, when it comes to genocide and imperial ambition, the British beat the Nazis to it. The Union Jack is stained with blood: the blood of genocide, that is — the genocide of Irishmen, Scotsmen, Boers, Indians, Australians, and Native Canadians.

Ukraine, Russia and “Westernia”

Western Ukrainians are a sub-ethnos, which historically separated itself from the Western Russian population, formed in Volhynia and Galicia, having experienced significant Polonization and the influence of Catholicism (in the form of the Uniate—Eastern Catholic—Church). Western Ukrainians consider themselves an autonomous group, opposing themselves to other Eastern Slavs (first and foremost, these areVelikorossy, “moskali” (a derogatory term that means “Russians”)), Orthodox peoples, but also Poles and Austrians. Therefore, they have never had (and will never have) statehood, since it is impossible to build a State on the basis of hatred toward all surrounding peoples.

The Beginning of a New Geopolitical Era

Not just in the US the mainstream media was broadcasting these fairy tales. In Germany also we “witnessed” a Russian invasion with tanks and lots of war material in Crimea. When I arrived in Simferopol I started searching for the Russian invasion. And I found out it took place but just on our western TV screens. Instead of those depressing “occupation scenes” I saw happy people in “reunification-fever”. Crimeans were looking forward to the referendum day.

One Wild Hunt for Loneliness

I know Kazakhstan very well and I can say with certainty that there never was and never will be any conflict between our two countries. President Noursoultan Nazarbaïev foresaw the situation in which Georgia and Ukraine finally found themselves. He was the first to understand the essential law of the post-soviet space : the territorial integrity of every State on the territory of the ex-USSR depends on its relationship with Russia. If the relationship is acceptable, integrity is guaranteed. No post soviet country has been blackmailed with the “Russian factor” in order to annex territories where ethnic Russians live. Not one time. And no Russian politician has ever contested the right of Kazakhstan to be sovereign. It is Nazarbaïev himself who has engaged the process of integration within the Eurasian space. He said: “I am for integration if my interests are respected.” Belarus President Loukachenko has adopted a similar stance.

Russian Crossing of The Rubicon or the Birth of a New World

The crisis in Ukraine is still far from over, but it is clear that it is the most important central event in the early 21st century to date, much more important than Libya, the invasion of Afghanistan, or the question of the future of Iraq. Even Syria can be measured with it. The crisis is not yet resolved, but some answers are already apparent: Crimea is Russian again. The fate of the South East of Ukraine is now almost certain: it certainly will not be part of a future unitary Ukraine, Ukraine in the European Union and the North Atlantic military alliance. There was during the rebellion a (pro) Russian population, which articulated its requirements for many unexpected “Russian Springs”. Southeast – Novorusija can become part of a future federal or confederal Ukraine, independent states dependent on the Russian Federation – but only as interim solution – and in the future an integral part of Russia.

 

Now We Can Sum Up the First Results

Crimea is now part of Russia. The Kiev protests were rather weak and hesitating. The junta has not even tried to start a war, and therefore their will to fight against Russian occupation was a bluff. At the same time frightened by the determination of Putin, Kiev did not even try to take military action, which could save (at least for the short term) the chaos in Kiev and delay the inevitable collapse of the junta. This battle (not yet a whole war) Russia won brilliantly. The fact that everything went smoothly until the referendum means that the Kiev junta will soon implode. The only verifiable result of Euromaidan was the loss of a huge and important part of territory.

The War on Russia in its Ideological Dimension

The war against Russia is currently the most discussed issue in the West. At this point it is only a suggestion and a possibility, but it can become a reality depending on the decisions taken by all parties involved in the Ukrainian conflict – Moscow, Washington, Kiev, and Brussels.

I don’t want to discuss all the aspects and history of this conflict here. Instead I propose to analyze its deep ideological roots. My conception of the most relevant events is based on the Fourth Political Theory, whose principles I have described in my book under the same name that was published in English by Arktos Media in 2012.

Therefore I will not examine the war of the West on Russia in terms of its risks, dangers, issues, costs or consequences, but rather in an ideological sense as seen from the global perspective. I will therefore meditate on the sense of such a war, and not on the war itself (which may be either real or virtual).

Scenario Russian spring

Across Europe, the de-Americanization process begins. An autonomous European armed force is created independent of NATO on the basis of the German Armed Forces and the French.

A new great Continental Association is formed, as a confederation of Europe and Eurasia, the European Union and the Eurasian Union. Russian, Ukrainians and Europeans are on one side of the barricades, the Americans on the other. American hegemony and dominance of the dollar as well as domination of Atlanticism, liberalism and the financial oligarchy is ended. A new page in world history begins. The Slavs are reunited not against Europe, but with Europe in the framework of a multipolar polycentric world. From Lisbon to Vladivostok.

Nationalism of understanding

The concept people (le peuple, Volk) is according Alain de Benoist the subject of 4PT. That doesn't deny Dasein as subject, because Haidegger said "Dasein existiert völkisch". Being t/here exists as people, through people. To be is to be German, French, Italian, Hungarian, Serb, Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian and so on. We cannot exist without being some one - individual without content. It is machine, not human being. Machine can't exist (in Heideggerian sense). It is simply at hand. So "to be", "to exist" means to be ethnically, culturally, linguistically. Völkisch. Thus the dialogue among different people (each one of them existing differently) is our main goal. This dialogue between German and French, Russian and Polish or Ukrainian, Hungarian and Romanian, Croatian and Serbian is very very difficult and delicate. But we need to forward it and develop it. On the collective basis - not on the individual level as liberals suggest. So it is not peace, or tolerance, or friendship. It is understanding of other without necessarily identifying with him, preserving in this understanding our own identity. 

Letter to the American People on Ukraine

1. We distinguish between two different things: the American people and the American political elite. We sincerely love the first and we profoundly hate the second.

2. The American people has its own traditions, habits, values, ideals, options and beliefs that are their own. These grant to everybody the right to be different, to choose freely, to be what one wants to be and can be or become. It is wonderful feature. It gives strength and pride, self-esteem and assurance. We Russians admire that.

3. But the American political elite, above all on an international level, are and act quite contrary to these values. They insist on conformity and regard the American way of life as something universal and obligatory. They deny other people the right to difference, they impose on everybody the standards of so called “democracy”, “liberalism”, “human rights” and so on that have in many cases nothing to do with the set of values shared by the non-Western or simply not North-American society. It is an obvious contradiction with inner ideals and standards of America. Nationally the right to difference is assured, internationally it is denied. So we think that something is wrong with the American political elite and their double standards. 

Why fascism was (is) wrong?

Geopolitically speaking Land wins the Sea and only AFTER that its parts decide who is Heartland. If the inner struggle starts BEFORE the victory over first political theory (capitalism and anglo-saxon thalassocratic Empire of money and lie) or even if the communists are declared the enemy number one instead of liberals, the fascism helps the liberals to win and pushes the communists on the side of the MAIN EVIL. So the fascism was absolutely wrong here.
These four points are essential negative moments. There were other less important as the theoretical weight. There were some positive moments: anti-capitalism, anti-materialism and other anti-modern features. That is valid for real historic fascism with all its terrible and fascinating (for some) aspects. 

Mythical America

Historical events we cannot explain only by conscious intention of their protagonists. Also, not even solely with their personal characteristics and traits, although, of course, is not insignificant psychological structure of important historical actors, and their ideological or philosophical disposition.
Apart from factors which are purely quantitative and quantifiable (economic, social, etc..), the events of history have always been influenced by far more subtle, delicate modes of reality, which are no less real in regard to quality, not a quantity, regardless they are out of physical observation. (All this, by the way, fully applies to the many other spheres of human activity, which are more ordinary than is sphere of politics.) Not once, some “abstract” idea, a concept or a myth sealed the fate of entire nations or civilizations (eg the Incas, which in the Spanish conquistadors “recognized” White gods). And the political ideology, after all, belong to quite distinctive reality, which is largely independent of any individual. (Indeed, ideology is often able to fully subjugate in themselves person, able to “absorb” any concrete individual.)

Manifesto of Millennium

The new millennium dawning on the horizon of History suggests us a major paradigmatic upheaval, a reversal of the categories of thought that, at a time of extreme political and ideological confusion, requires a rethink. At the threshold of a new era, a new global disorder stands out: mankind must face the approaching of several cultural universes, pushed towards a collision and a mutual annihilation by the new world-wide perspective. Economy, designed according to bourgeois criteria, demonstrates its finiteness, projecting the future of humanity towards a peak of exploitation and alienation. Peoples, despoiled of any decision-making power and sovereignty, render any authority to minorities who direct world affairs according to their own interest. Cultures and religions die on the altars of postmodern simulacra. The new law is chaos.

"United by Hatred"

Prof. Dugin, the Western mainstream media and established politicians describe the recent situation in Ukraine as a conflict between pro-European, democratic and liberal oppositional alliance on the one side and an authoritarian regime with a dictator as president on the other side. Do you agree?

Dugin: I know those stories and I consider this type of analysis totally wrong. We cannot divide the world today in the Cold War style. There is no “democratic world” which stands against an “antidemocratic world”, as many Western media report.

Your country, Russia, is one of the cores of this so called “antidemocratic world” when we believe our mainstream media. And Russia with president Vladimir Putin tries to intervene in Ukrainian domestic politics, we read...

Dugin: That´s completely wrong. Russia is a liberal democracy. Take a look at the Russian constitution: We have a democratic electoral system, a functioning parliament, a free market system. The constitution is based on Western pattern. Our president Vladimir Putin rules the country in a democratic way. We are a not a monarchy, we are not a dictatorship, we are not a soviet communist regime.

The Eurasian Oracle

The Eurasian movement, which seeks to restore Russian power and prestige, is a form of National Bolshevism based on the geopolitical theory that Moscow, Berlin, and Paris form a natural political axis and potential power center. Alexander Dugin, the founder of the Eurasian Party, writes: The new Eurasian empire will be constructed on the basic principle of opposition to the common enemy: Atlanticism and the American New World Order. A multipolar world must replace the current unipolar world currently dominated by the United States.

Much has been written over the past several years about the Russian university professor, Alexander Dugin, who has become a prominent Putin advisor although he has no official government position, nor in fact does he have the academic credentials to head the Sociology Department at Moscow State University. His advisory role as resident intellectual without portfolio appears to be based on his expertise in matters dealing with political philosophies and forms of government. Although the Russian Federation has a Constitution, the Government is quite new and untested in many regards. An intellect like Alexander Dugin could certainly be helpful in advising the President on the fundamental laws and principles that prescribe the nature, function, and limits of both the Russian and foreign governments.

Modernity vs. Tradition The Next Cold War

James Kirchick, writing for Foreign Policy, rather accurately describes how Russia is creeping deeper and deeper into fulfilling Alexander Dugin’s vision for her as the world’s savior from American cosmopolitanism . . . 
The Center for Strategic Communications, a Kremlin-linked think tank, has bestowed a new title on Russian President Vladimir Putin: It’s calling him “World Conservatism’s New Leader.” Putin, according to the report, is the most influential world figure resisting the global onslaught of multiculturalism, radical feminism, and homosexuality, all foisted upon an unsuspecting world by the “ideological populism of the left.” For years, Putin has been working to reestablish the global influence that Russia once enjoyed. But there was one big problem: his regime has been devoid of the ideological raison d’être provided by communism. Whereas the Soviet Union was once able to muster support from people around the globe as the world headquarters of Marxist-Leninism, Putin’s Russia offered little in the way of comparable ideological appeal (other than to revanchist Russians seeking a vague return to their country’s former glory).

“We Are at the End of Something”

Europeans have frequently criticized the United States as a materialist society, but is not every society materialist? Is it not part of human nature to always to want more?

You are right. In that sense I would say that today we are all Americans. And it is true that the desire to have more is part of human nature. The difference is that much of European religion and philosophy are based on values that are more important, on the belief that for moral or religious or philosophical reasons, we must not submit to greed and to the appetite for wealth. This was different in America because of the protestant Calvinist idea of the elect—God shows his approval by giving wealth. You know Max Weber’s theory of the link between Protestantism and the rise of capitalism. I think these things make a big difference.

In Catholic countries money is always suspect—even though everyone wants more of it rather than less. You can see that in the fact that in France it would be impossible for a wealthy man to be elected head of state. No one would vote for a millionaire. The idea would be repulsive. But in America if a candidate is a millionaire it shows he is a success and has ability.

So in Europe people hide what they have. They don’t say how much they earn. In America there is a passion for numbers, and everything is a calculable quantity. Americans know how much they paid for everything. When American tourists go to the Eiffel Tower they ask, “How many steps to the top?” They do not understand the difference between quantity and quality.

Heidegger, Left and Right

Why, then, democratic?  Marchart provides the best answer to this question.  In Democracy and Minimal Politics: The Political Difference and Its Consequences (2011), Marchart argues that democracy, understood as “the meeting point between a political and an ethical logic”, is the regime that relates to the “irresolvable contingency of social affairs” such that “the absence of an ultimate ground of the social…is institutionally accepted, even promoted".  Democratic politics or the politics of democratization is involved in the differential-political-ontological process of founding and instituting itself, on one hand, and constantly subverting itself, “deliberately undermining the very foundation it seeks to institute”.  For Marchart, democratic ethics is as such unpolitical, inasmuch as it recognizes its own groundlessness.  However, the necessity of ongoing re-founding renders it an “antinomy”.  This positive account of democracy’s inherent self-criticism resembles somewhat Derrida’s arguments in favour of “democracy to come”. 

            Of course, we might fairly ask whether the isomorphism of the democratic antinomy to the “play” of differential political ontology is a good enough reason to be democratically oriented; but our own thoughts aside, this reasoning does underlie the HL’s democratic politics, at least in some cases. 

Deleuze, Guattari, & the New Right

Although it is common for New Right thinkers to extend the search for examples of anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian thoughts and practices to the Greeks, those still confined to the corridors of State academia tend to begin their search for such odious refutations of truth and justice with reactions to the Enlightenment and French Revolution. It is this latter tendency that has given us an intellectual tradition called the Counter-Enlightenment. While there are serious consequences for choosing to begin with the Enlightenment itself – the most obvious of which are the normalization of the Enlightenment principles of reason, humanity, and equality; and subsequent denial of the ontological power and legitimacy of anti-democratic thought – one may still use Counter-Enlightenment as a valid designation of the vast current in Western thought that overruns the ramparts of the “city upon a hill.”

This current is comprised of an array of concepts – among them aristocracy, warrior-caste, tradition, particularity, reverence, and honor – and thinkers – such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Joseph de Maistre, Johann Herder, Georges Sorel, and Julius Evola.

KNOW YOUR ENEMY: MEDITATION ON THE FOURTH POLITICAL REALITY

According to Professor Dugin, there have been three distinct ideologies since the dawn of the modern age – Liberalism, Marxism, and Fascism – and we are now moving into the era of the Fourth Ideology. Dugin clearly hopes that he can influence how this turns out, but this is a paradoxical belief because underlying Dugin’s ideas is the notion of a kind of natural progression of ideologies.

This deterministic pattern is apparent if we consider the subjects of the three ideologies, which are, in ascending order, the individual, the class, and the nation. Dugin’s hope is that the subject of the Fourth Ideology will be Heidegger’s concept of Dasein, which, in its essence, is almost a kind of animism in that it is a rejection of the hyper-connectivity and hyper-standardization of modernity.

AGAINST THE HOMO EQUALIS AND MODERN CONSERVATISM

Egalitarians, be it modern liberals or the Left, would like everyone to think that the colonisation of White homelands by settlers of colour is irreversible, and that this (according them) now permanent situation is a sign of ‘progress’, resulting from the technological overcoming of geographical barriers, the deprecation of ‘antiquated’ notions of identity, the destruction of traditional hierarchies, and the increasing move towards a fluid world. Yet this is vision is purely ideological: there is nothing intrinsically progressive inegalitarianism or globalisation,the latter of which is an expression of the former; they are merely the expression of an ethics that subjectively declares equality to be an absolute moral good. And herein lies the principal difficulty in the effort to instigate a change of government policy: in our age, the dominant morality in our society is an egalitarian morality, and it is this, rather than any of the contrived pseudo-economic arguments we often hear repeated in the mainstream media and liberal and Left-leaning think tanks, that serves as the ultimate basis for justification—either for continuing the policy or for not reversing it. Most ordinary citizens in the West agree that there are too many ‘immigrants’ (settlers of colour) and would rather their governments stopped them coming and sent most of them back. They dare not say or call for this publicly, however, because they fear that desiring this makes them ‘bad people’ and would cause others to think them so too. This is why no amount of economic data, crime statistics, or racial science has any effect on policy. To see it change we will need to be able to articulate the case for change in moral terms, and I believe this cannot be achieved without attacking egalitarianism in moral terms, because it is its enshrinement of equality as a moral good that lies at the base ofthe modern liberal project.Once the moral standing of egalitarianism is destabilised, and once an ethics of inequality (the moral goodness of difference, or the moral goodness of quality) issuccessfully articulated, then it will become a lot easier to justify a change inimmigration policy throughout the West.Of course, reversing the effects of decades of colonisation is more difficult whereit has been more intensive and where the indigenous have intermarried with thesettlers, but, from the perspective of physically relocating, those who immigratedcan just as easily emigrate: after all, did they not emigrate from their countries oforigin in the first place? It is not the migration that is difficult, even if large numbers are involved—it’s everything else.

Pages