The Fourth Political Theory

beyond left and right but against the center

From the very beginning of his rule, Putin began to withdraw Russia from the influence of the West and its globalist structures. With each step, Russia became more and more independent and sovereign. It not only stopped the disintegration that began under Gorbachev and continued under Yeltsin, but began to expand its territory (this is clearly seen in the reunification with Crimea, and in many other things). And as the course of Russia became more and more independent, the pressure on it from the West grew. At the same time, Putin himself and the forces loyal to him in Russia were subjected to systematic demonization and criminalization. In the eyes of the liberals, relations with Russia acquired an increasingly pronounced ideological character.

After Azerbaijan regained control over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, analysts increasingly began to notice an increase in Turkish activity both in the Caucasus region and, more broadly, in Central Asia. Erdogan again began to strengthen his presence in the Turkic states, began to promote Turkish interests in Georgia, set his sights on Afghanistan, where a significant part of the population also has Turkic roots (Afghan Uzbeks).

The seizure of all power by the Taliban in Afghanistan and the shameful flight of the Americans and their allies require a broader survey of fundamental changes in world geopolitics. Afghanistan has been an indicator of these changes over the past 50 years. It was with him that the fractures in the global architecture of the world were associated. Of course, this was not the cause of geostrategic transformations, but rather a  screen on which, more clearly than anywhere else, the fundamental changes in the world order were reflected. 

When we trying to analyze the evils of the African continent, it is essential not to forget to address the ideologies with which Africa has aligned itself in order to emerge in the geopolitical chessboard. In the 1960s, African nations gained independence, but not de facto. Being independent does not only mean having control over one's own territorial primacy. We must be able to apply a unique paradigm from the perspective of geopolitical pluriversalism. It was Africa's fundamental problem, of having rooted itself in exogenous ideologies conceived by others, for others, and therefore which are not in line with the realities of the African continent. After colonization, several African nations adopted modern ideologies derived from the Age of Enlightenment: liberalism (both socially and economically), communism, micro-nationalism, liberal democracy, social democracy, capitalism, etc.

Agamben has long been dealing with the problem of “bare life”, when the pressure of the political system reaches the very biology of man, penetrates his body, and seeks to control it at the biochemical level. A person in the ultimate dictatorship turns precisely into a biological object, determined by a set of sanitary indicators. Real totalitarianism seeks to control not the mind, but the body. This is “naked life” when a person is equated with a set of biological indices. This, according to Agamben, is the end of man and the triumph of the most disgusting political systems imaginable. In his writings, Agamben stressed in every possible way that the most avant-garde and perfect example of “naked life” was the situation of prisoners of Nazi concentration camps. The prisoners in them were not considered human at all.

During the pandemic, we began to lose famous people not one by one, as usual, but in whole blocks. Which is very sad. We do not have time to recover from one loss, as immediately the next. July was particularly troubling. I knew many of those who had passed away personally and watched others with interest and attention for many years.
Today I would like to remember Peter Mamonov, who died from the coronavirus (and why else is everyone dying today from…).

It is quite natural that Russia, which seeks to strengthen its sovereignty and is generally oriented towards a multipolar world, interprets many processes proceeding from its interests and from its values, which sometimes do not coincide at all with the interests and values ​​of the United States, NATO countries and globalist circles. But this gives no reason at all to call Russian media policy in the international context either “disinformation” or “propaganda.” However, in the eyes of the State Department and the entire Western propaganda machine, everything that does not coincide with the views of the globalists and the United States, contradicts them, gives an alternative point of view, opposes their strategies and approaches, is perceived as an “enemy attack.” 

Today one can often hear the opinion that our Church is wrong in something, does something wrong, does something wrong, and there are even worse expressions. However, it should be recalled that in the Orthodox tradition the concept of the Church includes all believers – or, more precisely, all Christians baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church.
This is one of the main differences from Catholicism. Western Christianity understands the church only as an aggregate of the priestly class – deacons, priests and bishops. And ordinary Christians are placed in the outer circle. They are not inside the church, but around it. Hence the theory of the Pope’s infallibility. He is the head of the Catholic Church in the sense that he stands at the top of the entire institution, being the direct ruler and leader of all lower church ranks.

Survival is the most important concept of Spinoza. For him, it is associated with duration and life, as the ability to preserve one’s identity for a certain period. Ability = strength. Further, Deleuze, reflecting on Nietzsche, force = life. Survival is persistence in durability, perseverance. The will to last. Survivalism is a lifestyle aimed at only one thing – survival, which means, life for the sake of life, strength for the sake of strength.

In conditions of unipolarity, liberalism has advanced even further in its individualism and technocracy. A new stage began when gender politics, the critical race theory, feminism, the overdue concern with all kinds of minority, came to the fore, as well as in the horizon of the near future – the transition through deep ecology to posthumanism, the era of robots, cyborgs, mutants, and Artificial Intelligence. American embassies or NATO military bases around the world have become the ideological representations of the global LGBT+ movement. LGBT+ signs are nothing more than a new edition of advanced liberalism.

In the modern world, a multipolar model is clearly taking shape – almost taking shape. It replaced the unipolarity that was marked after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and especially the USSR. And the unipolar world, in turn, replaced the bipolar one, in which the Soviet camp geopolitically and ideologically opposed the capitalist West. These transitions between different types of world order did not take place overnight. Some aspects changed, but some remained the same by inertia.

Modern civilization is rather in a state of deep decline. This is a bitter confession, but it is not the same as despair. If everything went wrong – and everything really went wrong – let’s return to fullness and health, let's restore everything as it was -- in the state that existed before it went bad. Moreover, the rejection of progress by no means prohibits the recognition of the improvement of certain aspects of life. But it just doesn’t make it binding law.

Today it is common wisdom to claim that Russia is returning to the Middle East. Some regard it with hate, the others with suspicion, the third with hope. But before any evaluation according to interests and positions of different players and observers, we need first to clarify how Russia returns? What represents contemporary Russia on the new map of balance of world powers – especially regarding the Middle East? In the last 50 years, Russia has thrice changed radically its geopolitical and ideological status. During the Soviet period in the context of a bipolar world, Russia was undoubtfully a geopolitical superpower, the stronghold of Land Power, and the center of universal communist ideology, seeking to gain the mortal fight with the capitalist system, for the global control on the human societies on a planetary scale. The opposite camp – NATO States – represented geopolitically Sea Power and liberal ideology. Geopolitics and ideology, interests and values were densely intertwined forming two totalities – two blocks, two projects for humanity claiming to evict sooner or later the opponent.

The renewed national security doctrine is much more sharply defined by the imperative of sovereignty. The main priority is declared the freedom and independence of Russia as a great power. The growing pressure from Western hegemony is openly recorded. A strict orientation towards traditional values ​​and the development of their own Russian national idea is being asserted.  If we only follow this patriotic line, the following picture emerges: Russia, as a besieged fortress, is desperately fighting for its sovereignty, turning to mobilization, turning to Tradition, culture and deep historical roots of the Russian people and other Eurasian ethnic groups in solidarity with Russians in their destiny, statehood and history.

1 July 4, 1099 the army of the crusaders captured Jerusalem, snatching it from the hands of the Gentiles. We, of course, know that the Latin chivalry did not fulfill its promises to our Orthodox Emperor, and later even made the ugly capture of Constantinople. But this will only be in the 4th Crusade, at the end of the heroic era.

The emerging Multipolar World is a geopolitical revolution. It doesn’t only mark a paradigm shift from the short unipolar moment established by the United States after 1991, but also the end of Western hegemony. The ongoing process of multipolarity is in favor of the different civilizations and against the Liberalist project of Globalization. Whereas Globalization tries to unify the world under one political system, one ideology and one civilization, multipolarity proclaims the diversity of different political systems, different ideologies and different civilizations.

My main goal is that people - both in power and outside of power - learn to think. Not to think exactly as we do or similar but just to think. This thinking may not be the same as ours, and it may be contrary to what and to how we think.  Thinking is following the thought itself. And who knows where it will lead us... We have to follow it – wherever it leads ... Therefore, teaching people to think is a risk. Huge risk. And we have to accept it. Because to be is to be in danger. And to think is highest state of being… Therefore that is highest risk.

Multipolarity could have its own contradictions, conflicts, and oppositions, but they would be of another nature than having one hegemony in the West establishing modern day left-liberalism as a global order with absolute truths. Unipolarity is linked to this new left-liberalism, and everybody who challenges the values of LGBT, BLM, “progress,” “technology,” and “scientific development” is considered to be Nazi, Communist, and so on.

Revaccination – loud calls to be vaccinated again and again and to receive in return various pleasant benefits – such as a QR code or even participation in a raffle of a whole car. That is what is happening actually in Russia. This is already a real epic fail. When they realized that it would not take a long time to hide the fact that the vaccine was a hoax, the idea was born about “new strains” and about the need to do it over and over again. Combined with the false target of herd immunity (let’s infect everyone with bubonic plague, come on !, come on !, of course, come on!) forced revaccination already looks really ominous. 

Today we will talk about those conspiracy theories that are being censored more and more severely in different states. I wrote the book “Conspirology” and, in fact, in the early 90s, introduced this term into the language of Russian political science. This is, in general, an American word. Moreover, in one of my first speeches at the Sorbonne, I proposed to introduce this term into French, because the French used the term “conspirationnisme”, but did not use the English term “conspirology”. And I introduced this version of the term into Russian. I gave a lecture on conspiracy theories at the Sorbonne in 1899 … or rather in 1989  (I am so many years old that I can even confuse centuries). I gave a lecture on conspiracy theories and used this English term “conspirology” in the French manner – “conspirologie “: This word became a neologism for the French language, and a number of professors who were present at my lecture said: ” This is interesting, we need to enrich our French language borrowing this Anglo-Saxon word from a Russian philosopher who made a lecture on “conspirology”.

The liberal West includes levers of pressure on Russia not only when it comes to the fate of the opposition of the “fifth column”, but also about the inviolability of the “sixth”. The only difference is that open oppositionists are discussed openly and loudly, while the political immunity of the liberals in power – Chubais, Nabiullina or Siluanov – is discussed behind closed doors.

The ontological plane of the modern picture of the world

The modern structure of knowledge, whose principles were laid down at the beginning of the Modernity, is focused on a consistent rejection of the hierarchy. This is most clearly seen in nominalism, which overturns the ontological taxonomy that goes back to Aristotle (individual, species, genus –  individuum,  specie,  genus ), in favor of a plane equalization among themselves of all things taken under the modus hicceitas, “thisness” (Duns Scott). From here it is already a stone’s throw to the logical positivism of Bertrand Russell and early Wittgenstein. 

As long as the U.S. remained a peripheral power, closed in on itself, this was acceptable. After all, how various religious sectarians and extravagant fantasists like the Mormons and other still stranger sects want to live, it was their business, their choice.
But then something irreparable happened. A group of British oligarchs - such as the racist and imperialist Cecil Rhodes, responsible for the genocide and brutal exploitation of Africans - saw that the British Empire was heading for the end and decided to prepare a former colony, the United States, to take its place.

On June 29, the world community celebrates the Day of the Partisan or the Insurgent, the Day of Underground. I like this idea. No one can get a guarantee from being in the position of a persecuted minority, forced to exist in the underground and lead a partisan way of life. Russian proverbs says: one not never too sure to avoid accidental poverty or imprisonment. That depends not on our will only. There is something other. The Fate.