The Fourth Political Theory

beyond left and right but against the center

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.

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. 

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Present World is not something given. The world is something that is created in the process of human existence. We don't exist in the World as something taken for granted. Existing, we constitute the world by the very fact of existing. Modernity insists on the objectivity of the world. But the objective world can really be present – because in order to be present it needs to have being, it to has to be, to participate in the Being Essence. But the question of being demands a witness who must be a thinking, judging entity. Only the intellectual moment defines whether or not the world is present and by judging the presence it automatically constitutes the world as something present. So the world in order to be should be present and has to be installed as such.

For the second part of my review of Alexander Dugin’s "The Fourth Political Theory," I will focus on the more esoteric and abstract aspects, and attempt to relate it to real political concerns and issues. Although such ideas may seem irrelevant to a lot of people, they do have significance in the sense that they allow us to trace the trajectory of Dugin’s ideas, as well as their implications on the political sphere. In other words, they can tell us where Dugin is “coming from.”