Dugin Viewed from the Right

 

Political Platonism: The Philosophy of Politics
Alexander Dugin
Arktos, 2019.

Ethnosociology: The Foundations
Alexander Dugin
Arktos, 2019.

Until a few months ago, I knew very little about Alexander Dugin despite coming across references to him with increasing frequency. This ignorance was partly the result of the nature of those very references, which have been ambiguous to say the least. “National Bolshevik,” “NazBol,” and “Eurasianist,” were just three of the terms I’d heard in relation to Dugin, each rather arcane yet retaining the definite air of an epithet. I’ll be quite honest that I didn’t really know what a “Eurasianist” was apart from the fact I was somehow pretty sure I didn’t want to be one. In May, however, prompted by the publication by Arktos of two of his latest books, I decided to investigate Dugin and come to my own conclusions. The following essay is not intended as a comprehensive analysis of Dugin and the entirety of his thought (impossible given the duration of my study to date), but rather as a review of these two books and an honest “View from the Right” on the thought contained therein.

I don’t consider myself an overtly political thinker. I have an interest in politics, I have studied political history, and I understand the vast majority of the concepts and ideas involved. But I have very rarely occupied myself with the philosophy of politics, or with conceptualisations of what might constitute the “ideal” political situation. If anything, I have long considered myself a “political anti-Semite” in the same trajectory as the organised anti-Semitic leagues of late nineteenth-century Europe. In the belief of these organizations, politics remains fundamentally distorted and inorganic as long as certain social, cultural, and economic conditions, proceeding from wealthy Jewish lobbies and associated cultural activities, are permitted to prevail. Political anti-Semitism is thus concerned less with the philosophy and mechanics of politics, than with social criticism, the promotion of national-ethnic unity, and the achievement of a small number of very broad political objectives based on ethnocentric principles.

Dugin is a different thinker entirely. Although touching on social criticism, he is deeply fascinated, if not infatuated, with the minutiae, etymology, and genealogy of ‘the Political’ as both methodology and ideology. In Political Platonism, the more interesting of the two 2019 books by a considerable margin, Dugin offers a panegyric to the political philosophy of Plato and posits political Platonism as a panacea to the multifarious ills of modernity. What is political Platonism? Those familiar with Guillaume Durocher’s excellent TOO writings on the ancients will already have some idea. Whereas Durocher has usefully summarised Platonism as “practical inegalitarianism,” Dugin goes further semantically, offering political Platonism as a proxy descriptor for Fascism, or right-wing authoritarianism in general:

All opponents of democracy are instantly enlisted in the class of persons professing an ideology the very name of which has long since become a curse-word and an insult, and unscrupulous hypnotists use this technique more and more. Instead of this word, grown hateful and made senseless, which I do not even wish to pronounce in this essay, it is better to call us “Platonists.” Yes, we are bearers of political Platonism. (PP, 20)

The volume is a diverse and intriguing collection of essays, lectures, and interviews that amount to Dugin’s exposition of political Platonism. Each brief chapter therefore differs in tone and approach, meaning that while Dugin’s writing style can sometimes tend towards the technical, the volume is a relatively rapid and easy read. I managed to read it over the course of two days, including the taking of notes and some background research. Did I enjoy the text and learn anything from it? Yes. Did I come away a convinced ‘political Platonist’? No, and I’ll explain why as we progress.

The first chapter, “The Philosophy of Politics,” is a transcript from a lecture of a course that Dugin gave at Moscow State University in 2014. This brief section of the book offers a good introduction to Dugin’s writing style (the lecture reads so well that one doubts it was ad-libbed), as well as to Dugin’s high praise of Plato (“Plato is the prince of philosophy”) and Carl Schmitt (“Schmitt is the political philosopher par excellence”). The basic theme of the chapter is that while true politics is always guided by a philosophy, modernity has introduced swathes of politicians who lack a philosophical dimension:

People who do not have the philosophy of politics, who do not have philosophy, they are as much politicians as computer programmers are. In fact, a person who does not know philosophy cannot engage in politics; he’s not a politician. He is a hired government worker who is simply in front of a wall. Someone has told him: go there, do that. What to do, where to go … He might be an excellent user, but in reality politicians who lack a philosophical dimension are merely on a construction site, some foreign construction site. (PP, 4)

Following the first chapter is an essay offering a political Platonist “Deconstruction of Democracy.” I enjoyed the essay, and some of Dugin’s observations are magnificent and presented with flair. Democracy, he argues, is hardly a neutral concept. He sees democracy as

a form of secular cult or a tool of political dogmatics, thus, to be fully accepted into the West, it is necessary by default to be “for” democracy … 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. (PP, 11)

The West, in Dugin’s worldview, is a hypocritical, corrupt, and declining giant. Its pretensions to extend freedom to the Middle East and beyond are laughably cynical: “No one can give us freedom. It either is or it is not. 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.” (PP, 12) Further, “democracy is not a self-evident concept. Democracy can be accepted or rejected, established or demolished. There were splendid societies without democracy and detestable ones with democracy, but there was also the opposite. Democracy is a human project, a construction, a plan, not fate.” (PP, 12) The chapter closes with a detailed analysis of the attitudes of Aristotle to democracy, before Plato is invoked as the exemplary enemy of democracy:

Plato burned the books of Democritus. Democrats, and in particular, Soros’s spiritual guru Popper, in his catechism The Open Society and its Enemies, call to burn the books of Plato … For us, Platonists, democracy is a false doctrine, it is built on a world that doesn’t exist and a society that cannot exist. (PP, 20-1)

In the third essay, “Political Platonism and Its Ontological Bases,” Dugin digs deeper into the meaning of political Platonism, briefly summarizing its attitude to the cosmos, power, politics, and truth. Dugin defines it as “entirely contrary to the spirit of modernity and post-modernity.”

By far the best essay of the volume is to be found in chapter four, “Traditionalism Against Devilopolis.” The essay contains Dugin’s reflections on the First Russian Congress of Traditionalists. It’s an excellent piece of social criticism as well as a celebration of the tremendous growth of Traditionalism within Russian academia, politics, and wider society. He first sets the scene:

A hundred years ago a majority of people looked into the future with optimism, awaiting a transition to something better, in some sense guaranteed by the very logic of history. Today an entirely different mood prevails in societies: if it isn’t directly apocalyptic, it is at least skeptical regarding the “unrestrained burst of humanity forward into progress and enlightenment.” Although technical development continues at full speed, mechanisms are perfected, machines become “smarter,” and means of communication improve their possibilities, this does not affect human happiness directly at all, does not guarantee any moral or spiritual heights, and does not increase justice in the social order. (PP, 32)

Rising from the ruins of stagnant modernity is a resurgent Traditionalism: “a philosophy, worldview, ideology, style.” (PP, 33) Traditionalism arrived in Russia in the 1990s, when the first translations of René Guénon, Julius Evola, Marcea Eliade, and Titus Burckhardt were published. It was a further 20 years before the first representative conference of traditionalists was held in October 2011. Dugin relates that the conference was not only successful, “but represents an original, living, and to a significant extent, reactive orientation, absorbing into its ranks many intellectual youths, students, graduate students, and scholars.” (PP, 33) Following a brief summary of the conference and its importance, Dugin goes on to situate the ideas of Guénon and Evola in his political Platonist critique of decadent modernity — the “Devilopolis” of the essay’s title.

Dugin asserts that “Tradition is integrity. Modernity is entropy, dispersion, and dissipation elevated into the rank of a value and actively spread everywhere.” (PP, 36) As modernity sinks ever deeper into depravity, Traditionalism rises in relevance. “The crisis of modern civilization, the inner contradiction of Western ideology, clearly obvious dual standards of international politics, and the moral crisis of technological society are evident.” (PP, 40) Adding to the extant contradictions, there exists no current mode of critique:

Formerly this function was served in part by Marxists criticism, which strictly criticised liberal capitalism, concealing even more painful contradictions, but in our time the ideational potential of Marxism  as a critical theory has been exhausted. It lacks the correct means to describe the processes unfolding in the modern world, and it received a very difficult, or even fatal, blow in the collapse of the socialist system. As a result, critique from the left is becoming unpopular. The time of critique from the right is arriving. (PP, 40)

Dugin wants Russia to be at the forefront of this critique, and asserts that if Russia “wants to survive spiritually,” it must “stand under a different banner, under the banner of Tradition, radical conservatism, Orthodox faith in union with other traditional confessions, and, if you like, under the banner of Revolution against the post-modern world.” (PP, 46) Opposed to Russia is a Western Devilopolis, whose main features are “parody, simulacrum, and counterfeit.” It is a Devilopolis that indulges in “the reduction of things to money, and money to collections of numbers or to a barcode … Our civilisation is built wholly and completely on money. It is the civilization of Mammon.” (PP, 45) Particularly honest is Dugin’s observation that Russia’s current rejection of some of the more flamboyant expressions of the Western Devilopolis (public celebration of sodomy and transgenderism) isn’t due to some unique Russian prescience but rather that

we are on the periphery of Devilopolis, not an alternative to it, but one of its remote provinces preserving, by inertia, some times with traditional society, not through our own will, resolve, or choice, but because the tendencies and directives from the “center” reach us with difficulty and haphazardly. (PP, 45)

Russia must choose its path quickly, because “ahead are a crisis and the quick end of the known order.” And, in the next essay, “Plato’s Relevance for Russia and the Platonic Minimum,” Dugin proposes mass education in the political philosophy of Plato. Those in power who are unfamiliar with his works “should be promptly removed from the state. Even traffic police must know Plato.” (PP, 48) The bulk of this brief essay can be condensed in its final sentence: “The project of a New Russia must begin with the Platonic announcement.” (PP, 51)

The two subsequent essays consist of bullet point theses. The first of these concern “Christianity and Neo-Platonism.” In this essay, Dugin argues that Platonism and Christianity and entirely compatible and complementary, since Platonism is “precisely the foundation of the conceptual apparatus of the entire Nicene dogmatics.” (PP, 53) The second of these “theses” essays concerns “Heraclitus and Contemporary Russia” or “Theses Towards the Modernization of Russian Society.” By “modernization,” Dugin does not mean technological progress, but rather an updating of the nation’s philosophical armoury. Dugin asserts that Western philosophy thrives on the concept of logos, whereas Russia has been philosophically mired in chaos. I have to confess that this particular essay lost me a bit due to the employment of some quasi-esoteric concepts and an increasingly abstract writing style. One senses that Dugin is taking his argument into some fascinating areas – one only wishes he did a better job of taking the reader along for the ride. As an example:

We must not go down the path of Icarus; we must return to the lowlands, along the path of Orpheus (it is possible that we must turn and look at what they did with Eurydice …); return, but illuminated by light, pierced by fire, consumed by lightning. Only then will we be able to understand the secret dimension of Heraclitus the Dark: all is one – logos is chaos. Darkness is light. THERE is here. (PP, 61)

Right.

It is only in chapter 8, an interview on his book Noomachy (Wars of the Intellect), that we see the text’s first mention of Eurasianism, and it is here that my problems with Dugin really began, only for them to be clarified and compounded further by my subsequent reading of Ethnosociology: The Foundations. The heart of the issue lies in Dugin’s anti-Westernism, which is in some ways his great strength and yet which has undergone some rather dangerous mutations. Dugin is scathing of historical Western claims to primacy or supremacy, believing that Western culture is no better than any other. In fact, he asserts that “the basic idea of Eurasianism” is “the plurality of civilizations and the baselessness of the Western pretension to universalism.” (PP, 63) This form of hostility towards the West has led Dugin to adopt reprehensible allies and very sinister intellectual idols. He sees “the plural anthropology of Boas and Levi-Strauss” as being in the same trajectory as Eurasianism (PP, 63), and describes Boas as “the outstanding ethnographer, philosopher, and anthropologist.” (E:TF, 153)

In Ethnosociology: The Foundations, a highly technical book very different in tone and style from Political Platonism, Dugin attempts to divorce the concept of ethnicity from racial considerations, presumably as part of a broader scheme to overcome racial differences and create a new Eurasianist ethnicity (and thus, power bloc) spanning much of Eastern Europe and encompassing also some North Caucasian Turkic peoples and Balkars. In pursuit of this grand ambition, he has produced a text that is actually one of the most scathing attacks on racial thinking I’ve read in recent years.

The book starts with an overview of the development of Russian ethnosociology and an attempt to define ethnicity. It takes just thirteen short pages for Dugin to grapple with the position of race in such a definition. He asserts very quickly that “ethnosociology does not ascribe any substantial or semantic indication to physical resemblance,” and remarks that even someone “altogether uncharacteristic for the main population of Eastern Slavic-Great Russians” should “undoubtedly” be considered “a member of the Russian ethnos” as long as he “considers himself Russian, speaks Russian, thinks in Russian, and is a co-participant in Russian culture.” (E:TF, 14) As regards arguments that race should be considered the foundation of all studies of ethnicity, Dugin retorts:

The physiological, biological, zoological and anthropometric components of this society are not only not the cornerstone; they are not studied at all, since there are no reliable studies (besides racist nonsense) about their credible connection with social peculiarities. (E:TF, 15)

Related to the denial of race is condemnation of the idea that some civilizations are more developed than others. Dugin describes such approaches as “racist,” “absolutely unscientific,” and “inadmissible.” (E:TF, 28) Citing Boas, Dugin asserts “the sole correct form of the classification of ethnoses is their placement on the scale “simple — complex,” with the admonition that “the concepts of simplicity and complexity should not carry anything at all positive or negative; these are two neutral constants, founded on the description of a phenomenon. There are simple societies and complex societies. Neither one is better or worse than the other. They are simply different.” (E:TF, 28)

“There are simple societies and complex societies. Neither one is better or worse than the other. They are simply different.”

Dugin celebrates the fact

Boas achieved a real revolution in American Anthropology, wherein, prior to his arrival, evolutionary and Social Darwinist approaches dominated, and racial theories, which explained sociological particularities by innate, inherited markers and racial belonging, were popular, and an inflexible conviction in the absolute superiority of modern Western (European and American) society, its technology and values over the rest of the world, reigned. Boas built his scientific program on the denial of all three forms of racism: evolutionary, biological, and Eurocentric.” (E:TF, 154)

Dugin draws intellectual nourishment from the efforts of Boas, and has much praise for the “resplendent constellation of his students, among whom are gathered almost all the stars of American Ethnology, Anthropology, Linguistics and Psychology.” (E:TF, 156) He then offers glowing individual profiles on many of them, the majority being anti-White, anti-Western Jews.

Despite possessing such a corrupted ideological core, I persisted with, and finished reading, Ethnosociology: The Foundations. The lingering feeling I had afterwards was that of great disappointment and frustration, because there is much to praise elsewhere in the book, not least its condemnation of a modern Western culture that has eliminated even the most sanitized ethnic considerations from the realm of acceptable discourse. His observation that contemporary civil society “presupposes the absence of the ethnos” is entirely accurate, and his section on “Global Society as the Apotheosis of Civil Society” is nothing short of brilliant. There is, somewhere in this flawed text, a good book, but one that cannot escape the magnitude of its errors. If these are Dugin’s foundations of ethnosociology, then ethnosociology is doomed to collapse. The foundations are rotten.

Having read these two offerings from Dugin, I see his thought as a warning to all who might become overly focussed on philosophical issues, grand geopolitical schemes, and inter-European historical enmities. As I said at the outset, I don’t consider myself an overtly political thinker, nor am I a philosopher. My political objectives are simple, and their simplicity permits me to see dangerous diversions and distortions when they arise. One of the best sentences from Ethnosociology: The Foundations is “Society is capable of itself re-establishing its own integrity with reliance on itself and on the basis of its inner resources.” (E:TF, 19) Unintentionally, Dugin has enunciated a foundational premise of political anti-Semitism – the idea that once distorting outside influences are removed from the body politic, politics and society will organically re-establish its own integrity. One wishes that Dugin would remove outside influences from his own work and thought, and re-establish his own integrity. That being said, both texts are recommended to those seeking novel and challenging reads, and who are equipped to separate the wheat from the chaff.

32 replies
  1. Phillip Jones
    Phillip Jones says:

    Great review. Do you think it is a coincidence that he sites boaz or is it something more sinister?

    • Paul Krugman
      Paul Krugman says:

      Have you noticed how similar (((Dugin))) looks like me?

      If we both had long beards, we would be thought of as twins.

      Truly we Jews are so much alike, you gullible goyim.

  2. Rob Bottom
    Rob Bottom says:

    A Russian Boomer who promotes Judeo-Christian values and Boasian race denialism. A real clever one, this Dugin. Pass.

  3. Sophie Johnson
    Sophie Johnson says:

    What a very, very engaging read, Dr Joyce! I immediately filched ‘political Antisemitism’ as the spot-on descriptor of my main political hue.

    I began to read your piece very curiously, but was unable to the end to see where you are driving. That at first you appeared ready to concede a sizeable virtue to political Platonism had me a little worried. But I read on, attributing my reservations to having grown up as a philosophy student for whom Platonism was mostly Plato misread, or even a stumbling into Plotinus’ 3rd century Neoplatonism. Then this:

    ‘Dugin draws intellectual nourishment from the efforts of Boas, and has much praise for the resplendent constellation of his students … then offers glowing individual profiles on many of them, the majority being anti-White, anti-Western Jews.’

    My so-much-for-Dugin, and why-did-Dr-Joyce-bother, settled, pall-like. Then came your totally unexpected, delight-inducing, grin-spreading, brilliant coup:

    ‘One of the best sentences from Ethnosociology: The Foundations is “Society is capable of itself re-establishing its own integrity with reliance on itself and on the basis of its inner resources.” (E:TF, 19) Unintentionally, Dugin has enunciated a foundational premise of political anti-Semitism – the idea that once distorting outside influences are removed from the body politic, politics and society will organically re-establish its own integrity.’

    I shall not read Dugin. Instead, I shall quote the above to anyone who might commend him to me. Thank you, Dr Joyce!

  4. joe webb
    joe webb says:

    Dugin is not worth reading. Anyone who starts with Plato, ends with anti-Darwinian positions.

    I just re-read some of Yockey , ENEMY OF EUROPE, AND REVILO OLIVER. WHO HELD MY INTEREST AT LEAST;.

    THE PROBLEM WITH YOCKEY IS HIS APPARENTLY WARMED-OVER SPENGLER WHICH POSITS A KIND OF WAR OF ALL AGAINST ALL. FOR ALL TIME. NO WONDER NATIONS COME AND GO/FALL..

    I DO NOT ARGUE FOR AN END T0 HISTORY. HOWEVER, IN A TECHNOLOGICAL AGE, AT LEAST AMONG SMART RACES,. A KIND OF PRAGMATIISM THAT LIMITS WAR CAN ESTABLISH A LIMITED PEACE, AT LEAST A PEACE THAT CAN BE NEGOTIATED AND UNDERSTOOD AS NECESSARY FOR MUTUAL SURVIVAL.

    THAT SEEMS TO BE WHAT HAS BEEN GOING ON NOW FOR SEVERAL GENERATIONS.

    ALSO, WAR IS PROHIBITIVELY EXPENSIVE THESE DAYS. I RECALL A FEW YEARS AGO A NUMBER OF HOW MANY DOLLARS IT TOOK TO PRODUCE ONE CASUALTY THESE DAYS….HUGE…TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS US.

    IN THE G00D OLD DAYS, A BULLET ONLY COST A FEW PENNIES, ETC.

    A DARWINIAN BASED WISDOM OF SHARING THE WEALTH…A SOCIAL DEMOCRACY FOR WHITES INTERNATIONALLY IS POSSIBLE. CHINA MERELY NEEDS A CLOSE WATCH.

    MOST WHITE FOLKS ACCEPT INEQUALITY, AND ARE WILLING TO GET IN LINE. THE COLOREDS ARE ANOTHER STORY. WE MAY NEED TO KEEP A WHITE SOCIAL CONTRACT APART FROM THE COLOREDS. BUT THEY TOO UNDERSTAND WHAT A BULLET IS, NO MATTER THE COST.

    Joe Webb

  5. milan
    milan says:

    Reading this I’m reminded of a quote by none other than Plato:

    O’ ye God’s, grant us what is good whether we pray for it or not, but keep evil from us even though we pray for it.”

    I’m afraid Dugin may be praying for it, an angel of darkness masquerading as an angel of light yes?

    Ah, the words of Chrst…

    DO NOT BE DECIEVED

  6. Tom
    Tom says:

    Those who deny or disparage the objectivity of human breeds usually do so out of a self-imposed sense of inferiority to those that they suppose actually do possess an innate superiority over them. It’s a paranoid self-defense mechanism on the part of those who possess a self-image of inferiority. More often than not the supposed “superior” ones don’t even classify humans in a superior-inferior dichotomy but those with an inferiority complex imagine that their “superiors” really do feel superior to them.
    It’s possible that Dugin is engaging in a bit of self-defense since I’m sure he knows that “Eurasian” civilization hasn’t quite been the equal of western civilization in certain important contexts. His adoption of an “anti-racist” stance might be due simply to a mild paranoia – suggesting that races don’t exist because he doesn’t want his race to take second place to other races. The overwhelming majority of “anti-racism” these days is nothing more than a gigantic collective sense of inferiority.

  7. JRM
    JRM says:

    “Only then will we be able to understand the secret dimension of Heraclitus the Dark: all is one – logos is chaos. Darkness is light. THERE is here. (PP, 61)”.

    Here we see the frustrating tendency of intellectuals, who live so much of their lives in an abstract world of constant thought and analysis, to embrace contradiction. Contradiction is apparently its own reward among a certain class of thinkers. I’m beginning to think that indulging in contradiction is simply a guilty pleasure amongst the intelligentsia. And in a poetic sense, it’s quite appealing. It does seem to *almost* get at some deeper truth…the process of inhabiting the contradiction perhaps allowing a psychological catharsis. “Samsara is Nirvana”. Resentments, some dating back practically to the womb seem to be a nourishing sustainer of a love of contradiction. Again, perhaps catharsis (and a deep wound) are the answers…

    But there is a problem: logos is not chaos. Logos is practically and sensibly the opposite of chaos. These kinds of formulations are also indicative of ideational Romanticism. And Romanticism is emotionalism raised to a principle. In fact, that entire quote cited above is more in line with Post-Modernism than it is with Plato.

    Another quibble: I always suspect envy to be at the base of sentiments such as these:

    “There are simple societies and complex societies. Neither one is better or worse than the other. They are simply different.”

    There are many in the West who not only give voice to this idea, but no doubt truly believe it. It is relativism at its best. And there is truth in it, too, *if* we take a sort of neutral, or at least non-anthropomorphic view of life. From the standpoint of a tree or a cloud, in some ideally non-human imagined point of view, there is no qualitative difference, i.e., one is not better than the other. But as soon as we must put our abstraction back into our human head, cultural differences once again become important. It’s why the multi-culturalism experiment is failing in the West.

    “The physiological, biological, zoological and anthropometric components of this society are not only not the cornerstone; they are not studied at all, since there are no reliable studies (besides racist nonsense) about their credible connection with social peculiarities. (E:TF, 15)”.

    Well, into the wastebin it must go. Denying race has gotten us precisely where we are today. It isn’t even very *deep* thinking to place the qualifier “racist” before the word “nonsense”. Is Dugin really quite sure he can dispense with race so quickly? Or, maybe, it was just very lucky for him, since academia isn’t very keen on belief in inherent racial difference these days. Well, it’s a good thing he won’t be called a racist, since he is already apparently being called a “fascist”. Dodged a bullet, there.

    I think Dr. Joyce does well to place some discriminating distance and healthy skepticism between himself and this Dugin character. In spite of Dugin’s embrace of Plato, I smell decadence and decay here. Too bad really, as the man has potential, doesn’t he? Any one who questions egalitarianism can’t be all bad.

    • TJ
      TJ says:

      Here we see the frustrating tendency of intellectuals, who live so much of their lives in an abstract world of constant thought and analysis, to embrace contradiction.

      My 32″ monitor is elevated 6″ above the desk. Here is what I see on the desk- about 25% of what’s there: Glidden 8 oz fiery orange paint sample [start with window trim tomorrow]- 40 amp manual reset circuit breaker [to protect ’97 t-bird radiator fan on my ’67 Chevy daily driver]- electrical receptacle tester- refrigerator defrost timer-
      15 amp toggle switch- digital caliper- a bag of 1/4 x 20 hex nuts-
      1/4″ heat shrink tubing- window roller assortment [to keep power windows rolling as new]- electrical grounding bus bar- 15 amp electrical outlet- steel tape measure- 1/2 npt close nipple- pvc adapter to npt [national pipe thread]- 1/4′ compressor quick connect fitting- AC pressure cutoff switch [low side]- condenser to block RF [radio frequency] interference in a car.

      Intellectuals by and large don’t know how to connect abstractions to reality. The entire last century was a monument to idealism, which means to platonism. Namely German Idealism. Hegel’s dialectical idealism became Marx’s dialectical materialism. Nat Soc is also based on German idealism. American Pragmatism likewise- this pragmatism is hard core mysticism, teaching that reality itself can be bent. It turns out that the Frankfurt School draws its inspiration from German Idealism! Jew reality-benders would of course like that!

      The Idealisms [Kant and George Berkeley] preceded the political- the orgy of Statism.

      Most intellectuals are low in visuospatial skill, can’t make stuff, and are more or less insane. The word reality has a different meaning
      for them. . .

      Plato- the first commie. The real father of the West is Aristotle- non-contradiction, and so on.

  8. milan
    milan says:

    By the way I would suggest instead of being occupied politically those like Dugin and them that follow in his train should start looking at the energy equation of life because the real problem coming to everyone’s door quite soon is what this essay speaks about:

    “They have never considered a situation where energy products are deeply buried within essentially all goods and services that are made. If there isn’t enough supply, a “smaller batch” of the world economy is made. We think of this as recession, but it can take on other forms as well:
    Depression
    Wars
    Epidemics
    Defaulting debts; falling prices of assets
    Failing governments and intergovernmental organizations
    Collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union in 1991
    UK’s decision to leave the European Union
    Increasing conflict between political parties and between countries
    A reduction in globalization
    Ultimately, the collapse of a civilization
    Economists have not understood the connection between physics and the economy. There is a need for a sufficient quantity of affordable energy products every moment of every day. In fact, we seem to need a vastly increased quantity of inexpensive-to-produce energy supplies right now if we are to fix the world economy’s problems from an energy point of view. The “lower interest rates and more debt” way of hiding problems seems to be reaching an end point. If nothing else, interest rates today are close to as low as they can go.
    Is the economy approaching a singularity?
    In physics and math, a singularity is a point at which a function takes an infinite value. We end up with a situation that seemingly cannot exist. It is like dividing the number 1 by the number 0. No matter how many times that the number 0 is added together, it will never equal 1.
    The economy seems to be reaching an equally strange situation. It is not a situation where we are running out of oil; it is a situation of too much wage disparity, and this wage disparity makes the prices of many commodities too low for producers of these commodities. For example, farmers cannot afford to pay their mortgages. And prices for all fossil fuels and many metals are too low for companies extracting these materials to make an adequate profit for reinvestment and taxes. The problem is not simply low oil prices.

    https://ourfiniteworld.com/2019/08/22/debunking-lower-oil-supply-will-raise-prices/

  9. claudius1889
    claudius1889 says:

    I already had strong reservations about Dugin, after reading Andrew’s analysis these reservations turned into a deep dislike.

    This guy has NOTHING to offer to us, white men of the West. He is a traditional Russian, the kind of those who hated Peter the Great who turned a barbarous country into a semi-civilized society. His resentment (or hatred) of the West can only be understood under this light. A methodic survey of Russian history from the XV to the XVIII centuries will show clearly that it was only thanks to the contribution of Western Europeans, tradesmen, teachers, scholars, soldiers and artists, that Russia became an almost civilized nation. There is an excellent book about this: Werner Keller’s “East minus West = Zero” (1962)

    His absurd and dangerously misleading “Fourth Political Theory” pretends to supersede Democracy, Marxism and Fascism offering vague ideas without any real political and cultural value. Democracy as we know it, that is the vile product of the French revolution, has proven to be rotten to the core and let’s not even talk about Marxism. The only solution to these two evils was Fascism or, even better, National Socialism. These two movements PROVED beyond any doubt their worth and had to be destroyed completely because they were living proof of their righteousness and success. So, here we have Dugin’s devious lies clearly exposed.

    Secondly, Dugin denies the existence of the Jewish problem, something that destroys his credibility and moral value. He is just another puppet of international Jewry.

    Thirdly, he denies the existence of the concept of “race” and is a rabid anti-European and anti-white activist.

    Considering all this is unforgivable that any well-educated white nationalist should waste any time reading Dugin’s misleading and poisonous books. He is a Trojan horse who, unfortunately, has been and still is appreciated by many ignorant white nationalists. Here is a very good analysis of Dugin.

    http://www.4pt.su/en/content/alexander-dugins-4-political-theory-russian-empire-not-european-ethno-nationalists

  10. Ludwig
    Ludwig says:

    Interesting, sounds like he’s cooking another scheme for the Jewish agenda but appealing to some of those who are sympathetic to a white European cause.

    Or derailing/neutralising a white European cause with a grotesque maze of misrepresentation and esoteric mumbo-jumbo…

  11. Exile
    Exile says:

    I”ve been curious about Dugin & would like to thank Dr. Joyce for helping prioritize my reading list. He’s now in my second to third tier. I appreciate insightful criticism of the West, which we suffer for lack of, but Dugin’s denial of race reality and repurposing of charlatans like Boas shows he’s more concerned with pushing a synthetic “Pan Anti-Westernism” than philosophical, political or scientific integrity. I have more honest and useful works to finish (including Durocher’s) before I spend time sorting Dugin’s wheat from chaff.

  12. Poupon Marx
    Poupon Marx says:

    I must confess that I find these esoteric, meandering, antediluvian, and fluff pieces of not much use, and a bit starchy-like mashed potatoes and not enough meat. Ugh, here we go again with all the fixed abstract references-a sort of code-for the cognoscenti. In my mind’s eye, I see a balding, pudgy, round, florid man who spends his time weaving words and doodling before drawing a straight line and getting to the point.

    Look, Tribals, we need to get over these folded-in-on-themselves theoretical superheated vapors, and lay a map on the table and do some plotting. Our methods need to be adapted from military campaigns, and long voyages-what it takes in resources, time, risks, and contingent/exigent plans. We need kinesis, not thesis.

    The ZOG NWO moved and acted in the concrete and real over millennia (Why don’t we try something that works). They used a lot of smokescreen theory and abstractions and fooled a lot of people who could not see through the haze (Freud, Boas Constrictor, Einstein, Goffman, Gould, Marx, and on and on and on. When abstract symbols use other abstract symbols as reference and anchors, you have no real reference. I see very little in this Dugan but a poseur.

    Two first steps, from Sun Tsu: (1) Legitimize the the concept and denotation from pejorative to neutral to understandable and acceptable. (2) Encourage Blacks and La Razins to pursue their own republics with ethnic composition of their choosing, and let us do the same. Sun Tsu gives to us what Saul Slinky Stinky did for ZOG and the zombies.

    *All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him. If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.

    To be continued.

    • milan
      milan says:

      @ Poupon Marx

      Look, Tribals, we need to get over these folded-in-on-themselves theoretical superheated vapors, and lay a map on the table and do some plotting. Our methods need to be adapted from military campaigns, and long voyages-what it takes in resources, time, risks, and contingent/exigent plans. We need kinesis, not thesis.Know a kapx by any chance?

      lol I love this

      by the way know a kpax by any chance?

      Hence…
      In prevention from any new ‘Novice Stock’ blunder:
      The ‘Common Seal’…
      … applied around ‘Bleached Cart Blanch’… and no further do on any anti-backstop wishes from some ‘But-hurt Dark Horse’…
      Lol…

      https://thesaker.is/moveable-feast-cafe-2019-08-20/#comment-686364

      • Poupon Marx
        Poupon Marx says:

        I don’t know Kpax, but I do know anthrax and was vaccinated against it. There unfortunately will never be an agent to inure us from stupidity and off topic drivel. I regret reading your latest post, sub-literate and adding nothing. I feel awful for wasting my time on such pishposh. 3rd grade syntax and grammar.

  13. Poupon Marx
    Poupon Marx says:

    All of our initial and primary focus should be on de-coupling WHITE NATIONALISM from the equivalent of terrorism and danger to the commonweal. It needs de-toxification and acceptance, in the cultural mainstream. It is, after all, nationalism for “Whites” (remember: Indo-Europeans).

    Here’s the “narrative”: “OK, we get it. You don’t want us, you want us to be denied the same rights that has come to be known as “special rights”. We have no say or determination of our destiny; we are taxed and regulated without representation. Let’s divorce and split the assists”

    Could we steer some of the considerable brainpower available toward ways and means, resources, tactics and strategy. The first order of business is to take stock of what we have, what we can get, and what we can use to get this process started.

  14. Pierre Simon
    Pierre Simon says:

    Races are certainly different but from a human perspective some are better than others. On the other hand, from a non-human or universal perspective, one cannot say which race is better because we don’t know what the finality of the world is.

  15. Fenria
    Fenria says:

    What an incredible load of boomer, civnat nonsense, this time coming from the east:

    “even someone “altogether uncharacteristic for the main population of Eastern Slavic-Great Russians” should “undoubtedly” be considered “a member of the Russian ethnos” as long as he “considers himself Russian, speaks Russian, thinks in Russian, and is a co-participant in Russian culture.”

    One would think that someone as intellectual as Dugin would know that civic nationalism is the biggest pipe dream on earth, and all events corresponding to non white immigration have proven it to be a complete failure where the preservation of traditional ideals is concerned. This rose tinted glasses notion that some random African or Chinese is going to voluntarily eschew his entire identity and become a Russian in all manner of belief, thought, and behavior is no different from morons who think raising a tiger in their house with their kids will render it a pet upon adulthood.

    I appreciate Dugin’s scathing analysis upon the debased, filthy, mindless Babylon that has become the modern US and many other western nations, but when he starts complimenting the agenda driven jew, Boas, that’s where I close the book with an audible, “nope”.

  16. Edoardo
    Edoardo says:

    “Tradition is integrity. Modernity is entropy, dispersion”.
    ???? Entropy is that process which destroys Tradition and transform it in Modernity. Example: Nazism burned the books of Darwin and promoted the highest Darwinist scholars in German Universities. Because the Fascism (and Communism) are spiritual children of Charles Darwin. Are MODERN worldviews hidden in a ‘reactionary’ cocoon.
    Clear, the basic worldview of A. Dugin is evolutionist, modern, not “traditionalist”.

  17. Gentileman
    Gentileman says:

    How sad that we’re obliged to even consider/discuss writers (I hesitate to a designate him a thinker) such as Dugin. In a sane world, he would be easily be seen for what he is, a raving lunatic, and ultimately, I suppose, ignored… if not institutionalised ; )

    In the name of all decency, Boaz?!
    Is Dugin stupid or simply shamelessly opportunistic? Does he deludedly imagine that he is savaging ‘both sides’, a transcendental lone wolf? Or is he just a grubby hack with a lust for filthy shekels?

    I for one will happily continue to ignore Dugin as he fades into inevitable irrelevance, a footnote to a sick and stupid age.

    Thank you Dr. Joyce for sieving this clown’s muck in order that I am spared the chore!

    • claudius1889
      claudius1889 says:

      I agree with you. Dugin is a lunatic, but there is plenty of money behind him. A few months ago he was here in Argentina (he speaks Spanish very well) lecturing fools who think he has something to offer. The sad thing is that his “Eurasian” project and books are also promoted by several nationalistic websites (like voxnr.com) who should know better. He is an enemy.

  18. JB
    JB says:

    The author of this piece ought to read the essay “Race, ‘Ethnos,’ and the Fourth Political Theory” by one G. Malvicini.

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