Alexander Dugin

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Kishkumen
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Alexander Dugin

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Some time ago I came across this Russian political philosopher who is pushing a “Fourth Political Theory” intended to combat liberalism, after communism and Nazism failed to defeat it. He argues that the state is outmoded, and that civilizations will be their successor. Russia and China are fundamentally different from the West as Eurasian civilizations, and they should cooperate to counter the West, taking their rightful place as equals. He is an interesting fellow. Evidently Putin has given him a listening ear. Still, I think he is fundamentally incorrect in numerous ways, and that his philosophy is being used to rationalize the invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine, in his view, is part of Russian civilization, and therefore not truly an independent sovereign state. Ukraine’s turn to the West is seen as an existential threat to Russian civilization.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Re: Alexander Dugin

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Kishkumen wrote:
Sun Mar 27, 2022 1:04 am
Some time ago I came across this Russian political philosopher who is pushing a “Fourth Political Theory” intended to combat liberalism, after communism and Nazism failed to defeat it. He argues that the state is outmoded, and that civilizations will be their successor. Russia and China are fundamentally different from the West as Eurasian civilizations, and they should cooperate to counter the West, taking their rightful place as equals. He is an interesting fellow. Evidently Putin has given him a listening ear. Still, I think he is fundamentally incorrect in numerous ways, and that his philosophy is being used to rationalize the invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine, in his view, is part of Russian civilization, and therefore not truly an independent sovereign state. Ukraine’s turn to the West is seen as an existential threat to Russian civilization.
And as Sergey Lavrov said, Russia will only use nuclear weapons if it faces an existential threat.

I wouldn't look for too many parallels here as I can't remember the story very well, but when I was in grade school, we still had filmstrips and there were only so many movies, and so I saw all the school movies many times. My favorite was Riki Tikki Tavi, which was about a mongoose that goes up against cobras that are harassing the kids of this family. Near the beginning, a cobra rises from a sandbox where brother and sister are at play and says, "If you move, I'll strike; If you don't move, I'll strike".

I probably hadn't thought of that scene in many years but it comes to mind constantly lately. There's no option but to pull the plug on Russia and grind it down. Hopefully ole Vlad is subject to the same psychological pressures as the rest of us and gradually lowers expectations to where he's less dangerous. But we really screwed up as all this was on the table in 2014 -- expanding an empire by the threat of nuclear war -- and we didn't take it seriously.
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Re: Alexander Dugin

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Here is an interesting video of Dugin being interviewed for an English-speaking Chinese news program:

https://youtu.be/FcfztT-0N0I
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Re: Alexander Dugin

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Gadianton wrote:
Sun Mar 27, 2022 2:17 am
I probably hadn't thought of that scene in many years but it comes to mind constantly lately. There's no option but to pull the plug on Russia and grind it down. Hopefully ole Vlad is subject to the same psychological pressures as the rest of us and gradually lowers expectations to where he's less dangerous. But we really screwed up as all this was on the table in 2014 -- expanding an empire by the threat of nuclear war -- and we didn't take it seriously.
Agreed on us screwing up in 2014. Yes, Putin needs to be starved of his strength to wage war for empire. I doubt he will be overthrown at home, but he could be.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Re: Alexander Dugin

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Kishkumen wrote:
Sun Mar 27, 2022 3:13 pm
Here is an interesting video of Dugin being interviewed for an English-speaking Chinese news program:

https://youtu.be/FcfztT-0N0I
I've now watched part of it. Basically Dugin is a postmodernist. lol.

Somebody ought to introduce DCP to this guy, I'm loving the argument (for ironic reasons) that Dugin is (being interpreted as) saying that the West is guilty of scientism, and Russia is a properly religious. He's defending Russia by pretty much the same arguments that DCP uses against Gemli. However, China is doing to Africa what the West is allegedly guilty of doing to the world (Russia), and Mormonism is flooding the earth with the Book of Mormon: the boundaries are one-way boundaries. "Let us be in peace to have our own unique identity...and to take over as much of the world as possible under this cover."

If you divide the world up by cultural identity, then Ukraine is automatically Russia's business, and Trump (per Dugin) did right by turning inward to focus on itself rather than the rest of the world.

A huge problem for Dugin is that Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Joseph Smith are all example of "religious" leaders who beat the best of the westerners at their own game in terms of their western doctrines of material consumption. Ukrainians and Russians are forced by theory to "be spoken by" the structure of their ethnicity, and must serve the structure, but Putin gets all the benefits of western individuality and consume for the sake of himself at unrivaled scales. If communist countries were actually communist in the way theorists like Dugin fantasize, then it might be interesting to see what a counterbalance that would be to the Western world rather than the pretense of communism that's just another unhinged dictatorship.
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Re: Alexander Dugin

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Kishkumen wrote:
Sun Mar 27, 2022 1:04 am
Some time ago I came across this Russian political philosopher who is pushing a “Fourth Political Theory” intended to combat liberalism, after communism and Nazism failed to defeat it. He argues that the state is outmoded, and that civilizations will be their successor. Russia and China are fundamentally different from the West as Eurasian civilizations, and they should cooperate to counter the West, taking their rightful place as equals. He is an interesting fellow. Evidently Putin has given him a listening ear. Still, I think he is fundamentally incorrect in numerous ways, and that his philosophy is being used to rationalize the invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine, in his view, is part of Russian civilization, and therefore not truly an independent sovereign state. Ukraine’s turn to the West is seen as an existential threat to Russian civilization.
This is interesting that you'd post this, Kish, because it's just been in the last month, since the beginning of this latest phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War, that I've even heard of Dugin. Now it seems one can't read any analysis of Putin and his obsession with Ukraine without seeing Dugin's name.

From what I gather, Dugin seems to think that Russia and Germany should be the powers in Europe, that Russia should ally with China, then after Russia has achieved its ends, slowly break up and neutralize that country. Alliances with Tehran in the Middle East, and Japan in the Far East, would help Russia to exercise control over those parts of the world. Britain, as the last bit of a decaying empire, would be gelded and the US would keep to itself in the Americas.

Apparently, Dugin has built a whole philosophical construct to justify all of this. I had hoped that Michael Millerman's book, Beginning with Heidegger: Strauss, Rorty, Derrida, Dugin and the Philosophical Constitution of the Political, would help me understand it, but, so far, the book's either too abstract or (more likely) I'm too dense. I'll keep working on it.

There is an almost Steve Bannon-ish tone to Alexander Dugin's clash-of-civilizations philosophy--only, instead of conservative Catholicism, it's Russian Orthodoxy that is going to guard the values and traditions that matter. Russia is the conservator of the spirit of ancient Greece and the Eastern Orthodox tradition of Christianity. All other cultural traditions are inherently inferior. In Dugin's view, Russia has a kind of manifest destiny in that part of the world that's almost inevitable.
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Re: Alexander Dugin

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Cool, Morley!

I first encountered Dugin in the course of my study of the Orthodox faith, and for the second time when Trump first ran for president. I read a short book on Traditionalism and its beef with the Modern world. I find Traditionalism to be intriguing in its critiques of modernity but am uncomfortable with its tendency to lead to fascism. Here I am especially thinking of Julius Evola.

I confess to being uncomfortable even buying this literature, mostly because it is so heavily identified with fascism by those who do not know it. But I have so many questions about this line of thought. Is Dugin’s concept of Eurasian civilization a kind of neo-Romantic version of the spirit of the Volk? What makes Russians particularly Eurasian in his mind? Where is the natural simpatico with Chinese civilization coming from? That part seems bonkers to me.

How can Russia be the Third Rome and the true successor to Greece while being Eurasian and more akin to Chinese civilization? On the face of it this sounds completely incoherent.

I am sympathetic to critiques of modernity, but they usually go too far and lead to dark places.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Re: Alexander Dugin

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Dark indeed.

I think that Alexandr Dugin's take on Traditionalism substitutes a kind of "sacred geography" for religion (or white ethnicity) in that he thinks every ancient civilization has its own sacred geography. Coincidentally, the "North" (read Russian Eurasia) is more sacred than other sacred geographies.

I get the idea that the real expert on Eurasianism is Marlene Laruelle, but her Russian Eurasianism: An Ideology of Empire is only available in paper. For a host of reasons, we try to restrict our bound book purchases to art, poetry, cookbooks, and Persian literature. I'd have to carve out a special exception to break that household rule.
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Re: Alexander Dugin

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My question would be: How do we get from here to there? If the State structure is outmoded, what does the transition look like between autonomous nation-states and 'Civilization Spheres'? When do nation states begin to give up their autonomy on the way to Dugin's future?
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Re: Alexander Dugin

Post by Morley »

MeDotOrg wrote:
Mon Mar 28, 2022 5:32 am
My question would be: How do we get from here to there? If the State structure is outmoded, what does the transition look like between autonomous nation-states and 'Civilization Spheres'? When do nation states begin to give up their autonomy on the way to Dugin's future?
See, for example, Putin's view of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. Don't you think?
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