This may be of interest to some here. It's an extract from a longer work, so some prior understanding is assumed. Unfortunately, it may not be understandable without having read what went before, unless one is familiar with the philosophical context of what he is talking about.
In this short excerpt, Alexander Dugin provides an summary of view of Hegel's project and how it fits into subsequent history and remains significant today, from his own point of view, of course, although in my view he gets the thrust of Hegel right. Dugin warns that Hegel's thought is complex, so any brief summary will necessarily be wanting. Nevertheless, Dugin offers an interesting way to view Hegel's project as Absolute Idealism.
So what? Hegel was enormously influence in his day but he is now largely forgotten. However, his influence persists in the influence he exerted on some major figures in subsequent history, both as Hegelians and also as anti-Hegelians. Much of Dugin's philosophical work is exploring this dialectic between traditionalists and conservatives that hold worldviews characterized by the Great Chain of Being and those holding liberal, materialist and positivist world views characterized by the scientific-humanistic worldview.
The contemporary world is still struggle to reconcile these apparently opposing worldviews as globalization rolls on. These worldviews are not only opposing but also in conflict, and this conflict will apparently continue until there is a victor or a synthesis is achieved. Dugin gets this, and this synthesis is what his The Fourth Political Theory (summary) is about. (An English translation of The Fourth Political Theory is available for download at Archive.org.)
One way to summarize the issue as its is in the opposition of liberalism and conservatism. Liberalism is about individual freedom. Conservatism is about personal responsibility. The synthesis of these opposing forces is freedom and responsibility. Conservatives condemn liberals for thinking that freedom implies license. Liberals criticize conservatives for conflating responsibility with following authority blindly.
However, the issue of traditionalism and modernism and its extension to postmodernism is much more oppositional since more foundational issues are involved, being grounded in world views that seem impossible to reconcile — the Great Chain of Being and scientism. How this will be dealt with historically is still in the process of unfolding, and there is no end of history.
Incidentally, Alexander Dugin is a controversial character, and yes, he is a character. Be warned that most of what appears in the West as supposedly objective criticism of him, his work and the part he plays in Russia is ill-informed and highly biased.
I am not saying that one needs to agree with him, but his point of view is worth taking into account. He is likely to be remembered as a major thinker of his time. While one may not agree, Dugin does illumine the issues and inform the debate from a well-worked out stance.
CSSI- Eurasianist Archive
Hegel and the Platonic Leap Down
Hegel and the Platonic Leap Down
Alexander Dugan
Translated by Jafe Arnold
2 comments:
Interesting. But it seems to me Dugan is focusing on superfluous and intermediate term phenomenon (over the past few centuries) and thereby bypassing the civilization and even species spanning broader picture. (At least based on a quick reading of his summary.)
This is from his summary:
"Tradition (religion, hierarchy, the family) and its values were overthrown with the dawn of modernity. Strictly speaking, all three political theories were thought of as the artificial ideological constructs of people, reflecting (in different ways) on “the death of God” (Nietzsche), “the demystification of the world” (Weber), and “the end of the sacred”. The heart of the modernity consisted in this: in the place of God came man; in the place of religion: philosophy and science; in the place of Revelation: rational, volitional, and technological constructs."
He seems to be arguing that what is central in human society is our conception of god and how it's incorporated into our 'Political Theories". I think this is not only unhelpful, it completely misses the central problematic that has dominated the social existence of mankind for the past 10,000 years -- the fact that we, the vast majority, have unceasingly been subjected to the rule of a tiny minority. We are subservient. The roles of religion and family have varied widely in this period, but "hierarchy", the subordination of the many to the few, is as strong as ever. Liberalism has not touched the reality of power; and in fact is far better seen as a clever ideology of traditional power than a new Political Theory. It disguises unchanging concentrated material domination behind the outer garments of superficial freedoms.
If I were to classify Political Theories, it could go like this: the 1st Political Theory was majoritarian egalitarianism and it was practiced for 2 million years up until about 10,000 years ago. It's still practiced today by many hunter-gatherer societies. This was followed 10,000 years ago by the 2nd Political Theory which was the domination of man by a tiny few and this, with its many permutations, continues to this day. The 3rd Political Theory could be assigned to Soviet and Chinese Communism which revolted against the second Theory but, having no cultural roots in democracy, predictably transitioned to the traditional minority inegalitarian rule of the 1st Political Theory. Fascism is just another permutation of the 2nd Political Theory.
I don't at all think we need a 4th Political Theory as our ancestors had it basically right for 2 million years. What we need is real democracy. Liberalism is failing because it's an ideology of minority rule that operates against the interests of the majority. God and Weber's sense of the sacred have nothing to do with it.
Correction: in the second to last sentence of the second to last paragraph, I meant to say:
Soviet and Chinese Communism which revolted against the second Theory but, having no cultural roots in democracy, predictably transitioned to the traditional minority inegalitarian rule of the 2nd Political Theory.
Sorry...
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