Brief Draft of a Methodology for the Fourth Political Theory

The Fourth Political Theory is, also, necessarily a praxis, otherwise it would be an empty and abstract formula. To talk about a Fourth Political Theory is, immediately, to talk about a Fourth Political Praxis. We saw, for example, some notes on the Fourth Political Praxis in a chapter and in one of the appendixes from the book “The Fourth Political Theory” of Professor Alexander Dugin, which gave us indications about a differentiated relationship between “theory” and “praxis” in the Fourth Political Theory in relation to other dualities of the same nature. That differentiated relationship would imply the presence of a “practical” character in the “theory” of the Fourth Political Theory and of a “theorical” aspect in the “praxis” of the Fourth Political Theory.

Having said this, we consider that the reading of the aforementioned work reveals, in between the lines, a specific methodology, so to speak, a way of universal action to be adopted apt to allow the construction of positions informed by the Fourth Political Theory on the most diverse topics and in the most diverse areas of knowledge. In this sense, regarding the methodology, we are talking about something which belongs to the “praxis”, but in the measure in which this methodology depends on the comprehension of the Fourth Political Theory in order to be unveiled and, simultaneously, points towards the work of permanent construction of the same, this also belongs to the “theory”.

Here, “theory” and “praxis” are united.

The comprehension of a methodology of the Fourth Political Theory is something which surges and is unveiled from the reading and re-reading of the homonymous work, so that its surroundings start becoming gradually clearer the more we study them. What is revealed is a gradual construction whose stepping stone is seated inside of the man, inside of the “philosopher”, and which culminates in a determined understanding about an issue, now situated in the framework of a Fourth Political Theory. In this sense, this methodology is a gradual process, which can be divided in phases.

This methodology must allow to think the following: “Under the light of the Fourth Political Theory, what to think about X?” Or then: “Which would be a position, from the Fourth Political Theory, about Y?”. Are questions present today and for which there are no current answers by the impossibility that only one man could give answers for each one of the theoretical questions already brought up historically in Law, in Sociology, in Anthropology, in Philosophy, in History, in Economics, in Psychology, etc.

I. Estrangement.

The Fourth Political Theory, evidently, does not possess the character of “hidden knowledge” and it undoubtedly must be embraced and used by all the peoples all over the world. However, not every man who can, effectively, think from the Fourth Political Theory in a plain manner.

Which ones are the conditions that allow a man to think about the Fourth Political Theory and from the Fourth Political Theory? Fundamentally, a detachment, an estrangement, a withdrawal in relation to the defeated political theories of modernity. Man must feel that he does not find himself in them, that they are not enough. He can develop sympathies or antipathies for elements from them, for determined characters, for determined historical events linked to them or for symbols, but he cannot continue to have Pavlovian emotional relations in front of the defeated political theories of modernity. It is necessary to feel, inside of himself, the exhaustion of these political theories. He who does not feel it, runs the risk of being guided by dead symbols and turning into a zombie.

His heart must be closed for them. He must be indifferent, cold, distant to the theories themselves. When he puts himself in the position of thinking about them, he must have a felling that he watches them from above. Or then, that he watches them from afar, just as usually nourish them today in relation to historical events and characters of the distant past of distant peoples, belonging to other civilizations.

It is not contempt, because contempt is born out of pride, and this pride can come from an arrogance which “dwarves” these defeated political theories by the mere fact that they belong to the past, such as when the modernists think of the Middle Ages and the Ancient World.

It is, as it has been said already, indifference. This indifference, fundamentally emotional, by the defeated theories of modernity as a whole is necessary in order to allow the second step. Any student, thinker, adept or militant of the Fourth Political Theory came from a certain place, where originally lied his heart. But the heart must be turned to stone in front of our endeavor.

II. Separation.

With the heart turned to stone, with the comrade assuming a position seated in the highest mountains, being distant, indifferent, not feeling more contemplated, “at home” between the old modern political theories, the next step can be taken.

This step is simple. We need to think, regarding a subject, regarding a question or an area or sub-area of knowledge, how each one of the three modern political theories positions itself. In front of an object X, on which we want to build a perspective informed by the Fourth Political Theory, we must ask: “What does the First Political Theory thinks about X?”, then “What does the Second Political Theory thinks about X?” and finally “What does the Third Political Theory thinks about X?”

These three questionings, in order to be solved, possibly will demand a great deal of investigation, reading and reflection. The comrade must look for knowing which thinkers, of the three modern political theories, thought on the question to be examined. Then he must gather the necessary literature on the topic. Next, he must deepen in its reading. And finally, from there he must emerge with a basic understanding of the perspectives of the three modern political theories about the issue which he wants to investigate.

If the determined theme, topic, area or sub-area is not divided in theorical lines in those terms, we need to make the creative effort ourselves of reorganizing the positions of those authors and thinkers following the theorical lines of the three modern political theories. This separation is independent to the conscious political opinions of authors, thinkers, writers.

That task of separating and classifying is fundamental so that we can continue with our methodological effort.

III. Decomposition.

The fanatical adepts and pseudo-religious cultists of the older modern political theories want us to think that the theories which are object of their cults are monolithic units, indivisible substances. Nothing much further from the truth.

In reality, the modern political theories are systems. As systems, they are entities composed by many parts. None of the political theories of modernity is pure. All of them were born from a myriad of influences, of contributions, of revisions, of critiques and of self-criticism. In the case of the Second Political Theory there are, clearly, influences of the First Political Theory. And in the case of the Third Political Theory there are, clearly, influences from the Second Political Theory. The post-war also allowed for the penetration of influences of the Third Political Theory into the Second Political Theory and, eventually, the strengthening of the elements of the elements of the First Political Theory in the remains of the Second and Third Political Theories.

This multi-faced reality, composed, disposed in packs, of the political theories mean that we can start with their decomposition. We can break their theoretical unity, split them in parts, comprehend how these parts are interrelated, the origins of each one of these parts, which ones are the internal contradictions and tensions of the theoretical unitary building.

IV. Judgement.

Deconstructed, the theorical units of the modern political theories, with those theorical units decomposed in their fundamental parts, it is necessary for the comrade to use his philosophical hammer and, with it, to exert his judgement.

With a cold heart, formed by the Fourth Political Theory and, as it, equipped with a table of traditional values, he must distinguish between straw and wheat in the parts of the modern political theories.

What is wicked must be pushed alongside with its theorical building in the direction of the abyss of oblivion, what is good must be collected and kept separate for the next phases of our methodological operation.

V. Synthesis.

Having reached up to this point, in the sense that we have taken the positive aspects and elements of the three modern political theories, the next step must be an exercise of theorical synthesis.

Starting from the positive elements and aspects of those theories, we should build a new theorical building.

In a more localized level, this would mean to position yourself in front of a topic, of an issue, of a question in order to offer a propaedeutic scratch of an answer through a synthesis of the positive components of the positionings of the modern political theories regarding the issue over the analysis.

Here an effort must be made for the new synthetic arrangement to make sense, to be internally integrated in the less contradictory way possible, although for the zombies who take part in the decadent cults of these dead political theories, all synthesis is contradictory and unintelligible.

Many comrades would like to stop here, but the theorical synthesis of the modern political theories give a result which is, naturally, still modern. The synthesis between positive elements of the Second Political Theory and the Third Political Theory (with some bit of something, maybe, positive from the First Political Theory) is merely an essay. We can now glimpse the surroundings of our final result, but still in a turbid manner, impure.

The synthesis is clearly insufficient

VI. Purification.

After the end of our synthesis, we face its insufficiency and soon we take consciousness that this influence derivates from the fact that the synthesis is still found inside of the framework of modernity, even though with its intentionality pointing in the opposite direction to that of monotonic progress.

That circumscription of the synthesis inside of modernity reveals us that it is necessary to promote its opening to the high plains, for the dimension of the transcendental. It is necessary to elevate the synthesis, to build a bridge which unites it to tradition, in order to purify it in a way from its last traces of modernity.

This opening to the high plains, instrumentally, is due to the questioning of which would be the perspectives, the positionings, the contributions that the traditional world, through holy books, the exegesis of the wisemen, the mythical narratives, the prophecies, the symbols can offer in order to launch ourselves to the light of transcendency over our synthesis.

If we already question what the philosophers and thinkers of the First Political Theory, of the Second Political Theory and of the Third Political Theory wrote about a particular matter, now we ask ourselves: “What would the saints and prophets would say about X?”, “What do the Scriptures say about X?”, “In which way X appears in the myths?”.

With that, we build a bridge which unites the world of tradition to our synthesis and our role becomes that of allowing the compatible integration between these two elements. Our synthesis, now, assumes an aspect which is gifted with transcendentality, our synthesis opened towards the sacred and received it, healing the philosophical wound of the “Death of God”.

But the new synthesis, united to the high plains, runs the risk of losing itself up in the heights and, with it, of losing its factual, concrete and existential relevance for us and for the peoples who yearned to think about their problems from the Fourth Political Theory.

VII. Rooting.

This means that we need to build a second bridge, this time capable of guaranteeing that our purified synthesis doesn’t lose itself in the heights, doesn’t dissolve itself alongside the celestial clouds. Our purified synthesis must be united to the ground. No. To our soil.

That is, we need to root our purified synthesis in order for it to possess operative value for a determined people. In some measure, that process was already being started in the previous phase, given that the transcendence used as reference in order to purify the modern theorical synthesis was already viable according to the people who would make that operation.

In the passage of the previous phase to the current one we deal with metaphysical pluralism, that pushes us in the direction of the plurality of peoples and civilizations, so that we will now seek to root our purified synthesis in a fundamentally local and specific way.

Here we access to the ethnic and communitarian dimension of the questions or areas of knowledge which we wish to examine, by the way of looking for compatibility for our synthesis with the authentic spirit and soul of the peoples. Here we descend from the heights in order to integrate ourselves existentially to our people, by the way of giving the final touches in our operation, in order to make it operational, usable for our own people.

That depends on the previous acquisition of a fundamental comprehension of the soul of our own people, of its traditions, of its customs, of its origins. This comprehension will allow us to root our purified synthesis, to give it ethnic, communitarian and authentic characteristics. Here we will think, already informed by what remains positive in the modern theories and by tradition, “In which way has my people thought or has thought in relation to X?”, “In which way my people dealt with or is dealing with X?”, “In which way my people must think or must deal with X?”.

The answer to these questions must be integrated in all the work which we would do until then, reaching to the final result of our methodological operation. This final result can, in hypothesis, serve as a perspective about a determined subject or about a particular issue from the Fourth Political Theory. Here, naturally, we must reconcile and adapt our perspectives of the peoples with the aims of the Fourth Political Theory. We must go deep until we find ourselves with the elements which allow this compatibilization.

By the very perspectivist nature of that methodological operation, which starts with estrangement, but ends in participation, there will be a kaleidoscopic multiplicity of answers given by the light of the Fourth Political Theory for each question. There will be, in reality, as many answers for a question as many peoples there are.

VIII. Closing.

A final purified synthesis up above and rooted below is the final result of our methodological operation. This consolidated position stops being a mere “option” and begins to be considered as a “source of light” which shines in order to illuminate a determined question.

The result must be considered as if it was a consolidated, authentically founded perspective, in the middle of a pluriverse of perspectives which the Fourth Political Theory can provide for each one of the peoples, civilizations or ethnicities around the world.

Specifically, this means having one more element at our disposal in the construction of our Weltanschauung, but in the measure in which the Fourth Political Theory, regarding political theory, has “something” to say about each human question, that methodological effort must be started infinite times, in the long process of construction of each one of the many (as many as the numbers of ethnos) Fourth Political Theories.

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This is a draft of a possible methodological formalization of the Fourth Political Theory. A tool of mental and technical discipline which could be used in all the areas of knowledge so that we could start the effort of building positions about all the questions of all the areas of knowledge from the Fourth Political Theory. With that, perhaps we could give our contribution in this collective effort, offering a formal and organized orientation of the steps which we must follow.

Translated by Alejandro Vásquez.