The Fourth Political Theory

beyond left and right but against the center

Russia has been hit by the pandemic in a relatively mild form. I can not say that the measures the government has undertaken were (or are) exceptionally good but the situation is nevertheless not as dramatic as elsewhere. From the end of March, Russia began to close its borders with the countries most affected by coronavirus. Putin then mildly suggested citizens stay home for one week in the end of March without explaining what the legal status of this voluntary measure actually was. A full lockdown followed in the region most affected by pandemic. At the first glance the measures of the government looked a bit confused: it seemed that Putin and others were not totally aware of the real danger of the coronavirus, perhaps suspecting that Western countries had some hidden agenda (political or economic). Nonetheless, reluctantly, the government has accepted the challenge and now most regions are in total lockdown.

In the beginning we will talk about the ontology of the theater. Ontology is the study of being. So, in the ontology of the theater, we will consider how the theater relates to such a major philosophical category as being. That is, if Martin Heidegger’s main work is “Sein und Zeit”: Sein – being and Zeit – time, “Being and time”. This is the main philosophical work of the XX century and perhaps one of the most important in the whole history of philosophy. Our course is dedicated to “Sein und Theater”, that is “Being and Theater”. So, theater will be for us the same problematical category as "being" for Heidegger.

The plague gods teach us humility. God sends plague in monotheistic cultures so that a person remembers how insignificant and weak he is. And if we fight the plague by means of a state of emergency, a new number of masks, ventilators, only relying on doctors – then we, as Ereshkigal, say that we are not convinced – we will defeat the plague ourselves, we will not change our way of life, we will make fun and live as before, we will restore the capitalist economy, our secular values, our entertainments, our path of autonomous humanity, our research in the field of high technologies and AI, we will continue to modernize and digitalize our society, we will implant everyone during the epidemic and the quarantine with microchips, and thus overcome the plague ourselves.

A brave slave who sacrifices himself, having his own dignity, is no longer a slave, he is a master. And a cowardly master thinks that his bureaucratic merits, his belly, his stealage and meanness will protect him from imminent death is not a master any more. Today, coronavirus shows us that it knows no boundaries, that it destroys artificial social models, that it comes to ordinary and unordinary people with the same clarity. And everyone should give an answer to this.

If a person belonging to today's elite escapes from the coronavirus, it becomes a slave. And if a simple person looks coronavirus in the eye, it becomes master. Thus a new assertion of the elites takes place, and any emergency creates a new class of masters and a new class of slaves. This is the second reflection on the existential metaphysical mission of the plague.

We ended the era of peremptory existence in an open global world, we were forced to find ourselves in a closed commercial state, and I propose to seriously think over this perspective. We can return, I do not exclude this possibility that we can return to globalization, it will be, however, a different globalization, we will not return there soon, but there are very great reasons that we will never return to this globalization, and will exist for a very long time in a closed commercial state. In order to prepare for this second scenario, which we are already doomed to, and we don’t know how much time it will last: the coming months, maybe years, maybe even longer. That is why I propose to make this mental experiment and, in fact, to make a choice. Without this choice, we cannot move on. The situation is very serious, and Russia will have to make this choice, but all other countries will also have to make this choice. So, either we temporarily take a step back from globalization, to which we will return after the end of the coronavirus, as Bill Gates, Gordon Brown (speaking about world government) and George Soros say (in fact, he keep silence now, because now to advocate for globalism is like to make a coming-out, that is, if you say “I'm a liberal,” you can be hospitalized for this, so only people with a bunker or some kind of reliable shelter such as Bill Gates or Gordon Brown can afford it. In principle, today, of course, everyone understands that only closeness is saving, but nonetheless, voices even from these dungeons, from secret shelters are heard that propose however to make a world government. But, of course, today no one is listening.

What is happening now is a global breakdown of the world order. It does not matter at all whether the nature of the coronavirus is artificial or not, nor is it even of principal importance whether, if it is artificial, it was deliberately released by the “world government” or not. The epidemic has begun - it is a fact. Now the main thing is to trace how the "world government" has reacted to it.

To clarify, the "world government" is the totality of global political and economic elites and the intellectuals and media (mediacrats) that serve them. Such a "world government" necessarily exists, because on a global scale there are strictly-defined, fundamental norms that determine the basic parameters of politics, economics and ideology.

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”.

Fourth Political theory with the fall communism in Russia, which marked a significant ideological crisis around the globe. For Dugin, all three ideologies either Liberalism, fascism or Communism was the product of European Modernity, which is under severe decline. Moreover, what Dugin emphasizes is the Post-modern critic on the degenerated European modernity that has given materialism an upper hand above the social and traditional domain.

The state of emergency, Ernstfall, it is very very serious and one who is in power in such a situation, is not likely to give it up voluntarily to anyone. This is, let's say, the positive side of the epidemic in which we now live. Of course, it’s important to deal with it, it’s important to survive, but you can’t reduce everything to solution of purely technical issues, it is essential to think about the future. And at the exit from this pandemic we will come across a completely new post-global reality.

Negarestani's sinister angelology: OOO (Object Oriented Philosophy) is a metaphysical theory that expresses the supremacy of objects over the subject, it is the expression of Dasein's death in a world dominated by technique. Negarestani takes this metaphysical project and mixes it with an inverted form of Zoroastrianism, where rationality becomes an instantiator of new gods. The diabolical animism of this philosophy serves as a justification not only for the distancing from Dasein, but its elimination through the image of the Post-human. The “death of God” is for him the opportunity for the birth of new gods, who will destroy all categories of wholeness, thus structuring a sinister angelology. The destruction of the categories of totality (such as People, History, Subject) means the establishment of a completely flat reality, where there is no existential center, no foundation, no primacy of a foundation. This metaphysical desert is Ahriman's reign.

I think that this is perhaps the most important: we must think not just how to save ourselves from the coronavirus, but why and most importantly for what it came to us, whoever stood behind its appearance and whatever the nature of this pandemic - man-made / not man-made, natural or artificial is, it’s not important, it is the sense of it that really matters. And here when it comes to telos, the purpose of something, the meaning of something, then we must turn to the figure of Apollo, who is the interpreter and the true originator, that is, the metaphysical source of the pandemic that happens to people, and it is a healing, albeit rigid, shaping, it is a hand outstretched to us and aid from light metaphysics so that we return to ourselves, that we close our borders, that we close our homes, that we close our eyes and draw them inside ourselves .

Globalization collapses definitively, rapidly and irrevocably. It has long been showing signs of crisis, but the epidemic has annihilated all of the major axioms: the openness of borders, the solidarity of societies, the effectiveness of existing economic institutions and the competence of ruling elites. Globalization has fallen ideologically (liberalism), economically (global networks) and politically (leadership of Western elites).

The outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic has been a decisive moment in the destruction of the unipolar world and the collapse of globalization. The crisis of unipolarity and the slippage of globalization has been noticeable since the very beginning of the 2000s - the 9/11 catastrophe, the sharp growth of China's economy, the return to global politics of Putin's Russia as an increasingly sovereign entity, the sharp activation of the Islamic factor, the growing crisis of migrants and the rise of populism in Europe and even the United States that resulted in the election of Trump and many other parallel phenomena have made it clear that the world formed in the 90s around the dominance of the West, the US and global capitalism has entered a crisis phase. The multipolar world order is beginning to form with new central actors, civilizations, as anticipated by Samuel Huntington. While there were signs of emerging multipolarity, a trend is one thing, and objective reality another. It is like cracked ice in spring - it is clear that it will not last long, but at the same time, it is undeniably here - you can even move across it, albeit with risk. No one can be certain when the cracked ice will actually give way. 

I am beginning to understand why in some societies the plague gods were revered and worshipped. The coming of the plague allows for a complete renewal of societies. The epidemic has no logic and spares neither the noble nor the rich, nor the powerful. It destroys everyone indiscriminately, and brings people back to the simple fact of being. The plague gods are the fairest. Antonin Artaud wrote about this, comparing theater to the plague. The purpose of the theater, according to Artaud, is, with all possible cruelty, to return man to the fact that he is, that he is here and now, a fact which he persistently and consistently seeks to forget. The plague is an existential phenomenon. The Greeks called Apollo Smintheus "the Mouse god" and attributed to his arrows the power to bring plague. This is where the Iliad begins, as everyone knows.

We should stand together with the awakened Iranians, awakened Shiites, awakened muslims and all awakened from other confessions and religions in order to participate on the same side in common struggle against Daddjal, the Lier which we call Antichrist and which is identified in the actual world in globalism, Western hegemony, global capitalism and murderous politics of United States of America with all theirs pawns, puppets and proxies.
The Iranian Revolution ids the revolt against modern World in favor of eternal truth and the coming age of the Restoration, Resurrection and establishing of global Justice. It is our common struggle – we have common enemy and we should feel ourselves as brothers in spirit and arms.

When Bush was in Moscow, at the moment of the invasion of the United States in Iraq, he said: ‘Please be patient, you will have democracy as well, like in Iraq.’ Putin said: ‘Thank you very much, we will find another way to build our society.’
I think the picture you gave is correct, but it has nothing to do with modern Western society, where there is a purely totalitarian way of describing the facts, not in favour of a small group of owners of one mass medium or another, but in favour of a political elite. And they are in that sense a kind of Platonists, taking their truths from their liberal ideology; that is something Platonic as well. And the people are in revolt against that, in different countries but also in the West. I think the wave of populism is precisely the refusal of the European people, not right wing or left wing, but a refusal by normal European citizens of this absolutely abstract agenda of liberal elites. So I think that it is not about the State now, we are speaking about political elites.

So, Russia is in trouble; its Logos, its people, its Dasein, its existential horizon. But 'nothing is lost when there is something that is not lost,’ as Curzio Malaparte has said. So I think that we are in a situation that is structurally close to the situation of Serbian people. We have different scale, different power, different space, different number of population, but the problem is the same. And Russia could not be regarded as the answer or alternative to what is going on. It is only the other place where the Noomahia still continues, with domination of the Cybelian Logos. So we are inside of Cybele. We are not outside of Cybele. That maybe was remarked by Milos Crnjanski in his final result of his book, that Russia is good but that is not the answer for Serbian quest for identity. Milos Crnjanski’s result or summary is a tragic one because Serbs become kind of in exile, in permanent exile, with no motherland left for them. But all the hopes on Russia should be measured with this pessimistic but very open solution of Milos Crnjanski because he loved Russia, and Serbians love Russia. And that is good, but when we have too much incorrect expectations, we could miss the question and unity in fight with something that already accomplished and perfect. So that is very important to Serbs and to all the fighters of identity to know that Russia fights. Russia is not yet defeated formally, because our people is, because it exists. But we have so great problem with Russian Logos, we could not yet start to continue the situation when our effort to create Russian philosophy was cut drastically by Communists. So we are outside of the place where really philosophy begins. We are outside. And this place is not attained, not reached yet. We are fighting to go to this moment. And because of great damage we had during last hundred years, we could not restart the process. In Russia today, there is pure social madness. We could not speak with nobody. As people, we are very good and open and very Christian, but as a kind of bearer of some intellectual ero. With so big people, so few people capable concretely to think, it is unimaginable. That is a kind of deep, dogmatical sleep (not dogmatical in the positive sense, it’s adogmatical), modern, post-modern sleep, conservative sleep of the people. So we are sleeping but that is good thing that we could be awake, lets hope.

Let us concentrate on the Serbian Logos. First of all, it is sure and certain there is such thing as Serbian Dasein or Serbian existential horizon. That is absolutely sure because there is the Serbian people. And having Serbian people, that means that there is such thing as Serbian Dasein and Serbian existential horizon. As long as I know, there is no one who has dedicated to describe fully Serbian Dasein with Heideggerian categories, but it is up to some level, the technical task. If we understand what we have said about noology, about Dasein, about existential horizon, and knowing being and time of Heidegger, we could apply his categories (he called that existentials) special categories to describe Dasein. And it is technical task to apply that to Serbian Dasein.

So we consider the modernity not as the fate 'cause we have it now and we will have it tomorrow, and we are obliged to be modern’ and so on. Traditionalists affirm that to be modern is a decision. You can be modern or you can be not modern. And they have created two concepts - the tradition and the modernity. So modernity is not something actual. That is a kind of society or civilization or world vision or picture of the reality. That is one thing. And there is tradition. That is the picture of reality, the civilization, the culture, and the society that is different. And between them, affirmed the traditionalists, there is antagonism. That is very important because that gives us the possibility to study modernity not as something inevitable but as something that is the product of concrete historical development based on concrete sequence of decisions and choices.

The early Protestants, and above all, the German mystics (Meister Eckhart, Heinrich Seuse, and at a lesser scale Albertus Magnus) affirmed that there should be inner relation between the heart of the man with the Christ. It should not pass through exterior relations. For us there is no problem because in Orthodox tradition we recognize both. We recognize completely the authority of the Church and completely this direct relationship because we have the other concept of the Church. For us, the problem could not exist because we could not understand that. In our situation, there is no split. There are both. We have both ways - inner and outer. But for Western Christian tradition, there was a problem. And the first pre-Protestant mystics said ‘good, let us accept the outer exterior form but let us proceed in an inner way.’ And they were Platonic because they said that we have the direct relations with God and God could speak inside of us and that is our inner dimension. So they were purely Christian. In our situation they were closer to Orthodox in some ways. There were excesses, as well, of Platonism. For example, Meister Eckhart said that there is something beyond the Trinity, unity beyond the Trinity. That is not too much Orthodox. But nevertheless the main idea was so. This radical subject concept, the concept of the inner self that is living in the heart, and the ‘inner Christ’ as they called it was at the origin of Protestantism (in Wycliffe, Hussites, Czechs, German mystics). So that was legitimate up to some point.

We were very close to it in the Dusan the Strong in your history, with the first and the second Bulgarian Kingdoms in the history of Bulgarians, we were close some time in the Polish Kingdom with Lithuanian and Great Moravia as well with some philosophical tendency. But we have never achieved the final version of this Logos in Eastern Europe, as well in Russia. We didn’t achieve the final version of Logos. Our existential horizon is not finished. It hasn’t received the last form. And that maybe is our historical challenge. And Slavophile thinkers saw that we came to the history later than the other when there was already a huge building of German philosophy, German political history, French philosophy, Roman philosophy, Greek philosophy, and as well political history. We Slavs have arrived to this a little later, not in the history, but to the understanding of history, to Logos of history, and to our philosophy. Our philosophy is a little bit childish and infantile. There is great example, great explosion of intellectual richness of precious thinkers such as Petar II Petrović-Njegoš metaphysical as well, Russian Dostoyevsky but all that is a kind of feeling of coming of our Logos and not the Logos itself. We are living in the anticipation of the Slav Logos. And when we study the past, we see many heroic deeds but we could not say that is our Logos. No. That is something like that. There is Saint Sava in Serbia. That’s anticipation of the Serbian mission, of the history. The creation of Nemanja Dynasty, Russian Ivan the Terrible and the other moments in our Slavic history are anticipation of Logos and not the Logos itself. That’s my personal opinion and it’s more difficult to describe our own Logos than to study the Logos of the other because it demands very deep introspection inside in our culture.

I have already mentioned Edmund Husserl and his concept of intentionality. According to Husserl, intentional act is the act directed towards something that exists outside of our mind but that has no quality in it. So any quality that we are dealing with is inside of mind. Husserl calls that noema. The process of intentional act is noesis and noema is something that is thought of. So we are dealing with the qualities of the objects that are inherent to our process of thought and not exterior to it. So that is phenomenology. Heidegger is a continuation to this phenomenological tradition as are many others. But Gilbert Durand proposes a different way to this phenomenological approach and he speaks about the regimes of imagination. That is very important. Gilbert Durand affirms that our imagination works in three regimes. And that is very very close to the concept of three logos. Now we are going to see how. Regime of imagination is a kind of inner state of the structure of human mind that creates different sequences of basic principle images, symbols and structure. According to Gilbert Durand, there are three regimes. First is diurne, which is the regime of day. That is the regime of light that is based on the concept of strict duality. So there are strict and absolute differences. So when we divide and separate (regime of diurne is to separate, not unite, only separate) everything is clear as in the daylight. And this regime as well is a regime of vertical organization of the space. It is linked, according to Durand, with the postural reflexes of the child. When the child begins to stay in vertical position, it is considered by imagination as a flight. He is a kind of arrow that is going to the heaven. That is the flight.