It’s Not About Dugin

It’s Not About Dugin

Over at The Occidental Observer, Domitius Corbulo warns us that “Alexander Dugin’s 4th Political Theory is for the Russian Empire, not for European Ethno-Nationalists.” Narrowly, Corbulo’s thesis is true. Professor Dugin is a staunch Russian patriot with a proudly weaponized ideology. The framework he presents in 4PT is a political effort to draw myriad philosophies and factions at odds with NATO into a broad coalition. As a man who also struggles to walk that fine line between objective theorist and political activist, I’m intimately familiar with the tightrope gymnastics involved.

Dugin’s professorial global theoretician avatar cannot be trusted, a truism which has already been driven into the ground by numerous New Right thinkers. Dugin can only be trusted to fight for his patriotic Russian vision. I say that lovingly, as a man who dedicates his life to the advancement of his people is at least as noble as an objective scholar. Besides, the myth of global objectivity is itself a pernicious Western liberal machination of the Zionist neo-Nazi running dog lackeys!

Sorry. Sorry. I couldn’t resist.

Whatever you think of Dugin, he’s largely beside the point. What’s happening is far greater than Dugin, and it’s far too great for any one man, even a man as ambitious and capable as Dugin, to master. Much the same way that Thomas Edison deserves credit for inventing the light bulb after having laboriously tested hundreds of filaments on his way to the right material, Alexander Dugin deserves credit for inventing the phenomenon of Tradition as a global ideology in opposition to the Western elites. He clouds his works up with hundreds upon hundreds of other ideas, many of which are useless or irrelevant for ourselves, but this one idea of his is the defining idea which will define the geopolitics of the coming century.

Back in March, Obama assured America’s mainstream news outlets that Russia cannot prevail in the Ukraine or anywhere else precisely because “unlike the Soviet Union, Russia leads no bloc of nations, no global ideology.” Perhaps Obama is ignorant of the RadTrad framework which is being gradually adopted and adapted by the Kremlin. Perhaps he fails to realize its potential as a far more coherent and unifying force against Obama and his gaggle of oligarchs than Marxism could have ever hoped to be. Whatever the case, Russia is definitely incubating a global ideology, gathering a bloc of allied nations, and cultivating an effective challenge to the hegemonic Western liberal world order.

Trusting Dugin isn’t necessary, because this isn’t about Dugin, or even Russia, or even Eurasia. It’s about Russia slipping inexorably into the Hegelian antithesis of American decadence. Even if Dugin or the Russian Deep State would like to steer this development in a different direction, they can’t. Time and time again, they’re learning through trial and error that promoting identitarian and traditionalist messages captivates global audiences and entices allies, while variances from that message (like accusing opponents of being “Nazis”, dabbling in neo-Marxist racial and gender theory, and trying to imagine that these universal abstract principles are specific to the Eurasian sphere) fall flat.

If, through an obstinate refusal to accept the gift laid squarely in their lap, the Russian state fails to take up this mantle, the idea and the opportunity is already out there. It would be an excellent vehicle for China, as the Middle Kingdom awakens from its geopolitical coma in the coming decades. Any global elite which wishes to effectively challenge the Western liberal elites with an opposing global ideology must necessarily promote the faith and folk worldview which is under assault from this secular and consumerist anti-cultural global ideology.

Obama insisted in his speech that “Russia stands alone”. He’s right. At this point, Russia stands alone as the only global elite effectively positioned to benefit geopolitically from the death of liberal Modernity in the hearts and minds of Eurasians, the Global South, and even us Americans right here in the global elites’ backyard. This is largely owing to Dugin’s genius, and he is definitely, and rightfully so, “the most prominent New Right thinker in the world.”

http://www.tradyouth.org/2014/05/its-not-about-dugin/