Alexander Dugin sits under a portrait of Russian Federation Communist Party General Secretary Gennady Zyuganov.
This article by Arkady Mahler was written a long time ago, but, in our opinion, its relevance has not yet decreased at all. Political circumstances could have changed, but Alexander Dugin's ideology remained the same. In any case, he has not publicly renounced any of the previously expressed views and opinions. Therefore, we post this article on our website.
Editorial office.
When two years ago one Orthodox radio asked me to defend the dean of the Faculty of Sociology of Moscow State University Vladimir Dobrenkov from some liberal activists dissatisfied with the Orthodox ideology of his faculty, I decided to keep silent, which in itself was very unpleasant for me. The Orthodox community in modern Russia, which has long become an objective reality, and not a media stamp, largely relies on the internal mutual support of its participants, which in itself is completely normal and only so it should be. But the ultimate meaning of this support is not to preserve some kind of religious and community ghetto for the sake of this ghetto itself, but still to churchize the modern society around us, preaching to people, first of all, Christ Himself, and not something else, and doing it as convincingly and adequately as possible, and not scaring away from the threshold with senseless outrage and sectarian misanthropy. Therefore, if someone marks himself as an "Orthodox identity" today, it does not mean that he should be written down as allies - the quality of this identity is important. Now it's not the beginning of the 90s and Orthodoxy alone will not surprise anyone - "Orthodox identity" is not yet a guarantee of quality and the Orthodox community itself from the state of children's dreaminess enters, perhaps, the most difficult period of its development - the period of growing up, and therefore, tough and cruel sobrienty.
I will not judge Vladimir Dobrenkov as a scientist and teacher - random people do not become a dean at Moscow State University and I am quite ready to admit that he is a great and brilliant sociologist of our time. Observing the situation with his faculty from the outside, I really don't understand why he doesn't have solid support from other sociological centers and authorities. All my attempts to find him support among other sociologists ended in nothing. I don't really understand what "Orthodox sociology" is, because Orthodoxy does not put forward any special sociological methods and is not called to do it at all, just as Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism, etc. do not put forward them. At the same time, although the reaction of conscious atheists and non-believers to the desire to church their space is quite understandable, this very desire on the part of an Orthodox person is also understandable - another question is how it is done. The missionary strategy should be thought out in detail so as not to break down at the first step. And if we may not know the subtleties of the internal policy of the Faculty of Sociology of Moscow State University, one fact is still very well known - this is the strict position of Dean Dobrenkov on the issue of the death penalty, which became an essential part of his image as soon as he became declaratively Orthodox. I know what terrible, tragic events moved him to this position - and therefore psychologically it is very understandable, he suffered this position. But I don't like the fact that when a modern person comes to Orthodoxy, for some reason he immediately comes to a number of categorical positions that do not in any way follow from the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in particular the apologies of the death penalty. No, I don't want to say that a Christian should be a pacifist and an opponent of the death penalty, but this is still a controversial issue within the Christian doctrine. However, when the declarative acceptance of Christ is combined with no less declarative acceptance of the death penalty, it looks rather repulsive in the mind of an outside observer. To make the recognition of the death penalty a categorical postulate of a public program based on Christianity means to distort the idea of Christianity itself in the perception of those who have not even discovered the Gospel yet. In general, I did not have much inspiration to associate with Dean Dobrenkov, although I really hoped to reconsider my conclusions. But when I learned that in September 2008 the so-called "Center for Conservative Studies" (CRC) of Alexander Dugin was organized at the Social Faculty of Moscow State University, all my doubts about Dean Dobrenkov were finally dispelled.
Of course, the phenomenon of this "CCI" itself is too insignificant to endanger anyone in the academic or political world. Although only the fact that this "center" is listed at Moscow State University can confuse and mislead someone about its real capabilities. If we talk about a purely administrative component, the format of existence at an academic institution can be quite different - there is a direct inclusion in the structure of the institution with budget payment and mandatory premises, and there is a voluntary existence "on a voluntary basis". But whatever the administrative format (and, accordingly, the administrative resource) of any project, everything ultimately depends on the intellectual and organizational abilities of its initiators. Almost every Moscow university has a dozen "centers", "clubs" and "seminars", about which no one will ever know, no matter what official status they have. It all depends on the person and his ideas, nothing else. And this is the question that matters in this case. As a person who has gone through a serious passion for Dugin's ideas and has a good idea of his organizational capabilities, I can immediately say that the whole project of the Center for Conservative Studies will end as well as all his other projects from the National Bolshevik Party 1994-97 to the Eurasian Youth Union 2005-08. Why? To answer this question, you need to have a very accurate idea of what this person really wants. In our superficial journalism, it is customary to criticize A.G. Dugin's activities with an undisguised game of demotion - he is exposed as a passerby and undereducated, dreaming only of fame and personal power, and sometimes also of great profit. I believe that playing for a relegation in the criticism of an unpleasant opponent is not only dishonest, but also ineffective. After all, if a person wants to become famous, get more power and a lot of money, then there are a million other ways than to write a dozen books that not every one of your adept will be able to read to the end. Therefore, I will proceed from the fact that Dugin is like a philosopher, as if Orthodox and as if conservative, and evaluate him from these positions. And it is at this level that I have fundamental questions that receive very unpleasant answers.
Not a philosopher.
Dugin doesn't have any full-fledged "philosophy". Philosophy is a holistic and internally more or less connected worldview, having clear positions in issues of ontology, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, etc. Dugin does not have any of this - there is a synthesis of very different philosophical and ideological attitudes, which are very difficult to combine with each other and often enter into a clear contradiction. As a person who has read all of Dugin's books and once tried to systematize his "philosophical heritage", I could say that the common basis of all his attitudes is explicitly the teaching of the so-called "integral traditionalism" of the French philosopher René Genon, also known as Sheikh Abdul Wahid Yahya, since this very traditionalism brought him to Sufi Islam. In the format of this article, it is not entirely appropriate to present philosophical theories in detail, but I will only say that Genon's doctrine is something between Advaita Vedanta and Neoplatonism, deducing all existing reality from the pre-eternal impersonal Absolute in a strict subject-object hierarchy of forms, and in this sense it is quite consistent and holistic. But Dugin does not stop at this doctrine - he adds to it the yogic mysticism of the Italian "pagan imperialist" Julius Evola, the "ariosophy" of the German runologist Hermann Wirt, the national-revolutionary ideas of German ideologues of the 20-30s, as well as Russian Eurasianism and National Bolshevism, including the ideas of the European "new right" and "new left". As a result, there is a rather motley and aggressive mosaic of slogans and paradoxical turns of thought, which can make a rather strong impression on a romantic teenager or a person deprived of humanitarian education during a period of mental crisis, but who internally cannot turn into a single system, and most indicatively - does not want to do it at all under the leadership of Dugin himself. This postmodern chaos of ideas and terms is very convenient for jumping from one position to another all the time and never being responsible for your words. Therefore, when Dugin needs it, he is "right", and when it is not necessary - "left"; when necessary - conservative, and when necessary - revolutionary; when necessary - strict orthodox, and when not necessary - free visionary; when necessary - nationalist, and when not necessary - Eurasian, etc., the list of these oppositions is endless.
So it's impossible to talk about a single basis here, although you can try for the sake of truth - isn't it all based on something? And here the answer is simple. Every responsible philosopher, unlike a home-grown philosophizing graphomaniac, always thinks about the epistemological, methodological basis of his philosophy - what he considers the source of knowledge, what is the logic of the formation of his knowledge and reasoning, etc. Dugin has nothing like that and can't be, because it would make him significantly reconsider his entire worldview and narrow the corridor of his rhetorical possibilities. Thus, the "epistemological basis" of his "philosophy" can be considered absolutely anarchic - irrationalism. Of course, when he needs to, he resorts to logic, schemes, and systems, so everything else suddenly seems just as well-checked. But it is enough to ask each of his followers to set out "Dugin's philosophy" in all its integrity, and we will immediately face a fantastic different reading, which can only be in such a situation. Therefore, Dugin's "philosophy" is not philosophy, but ideology and all its motivations are purely ideological, which immediately explains a lot. And that's exactly as an ideology, his doctrine really has a rather specific substantive basis, one might say, a kind of reference point for all his calculations, but again the trouble is that this basis is not affirmative, but negative, the whole ideology of Dugin is built not on the affirmation of any one or more values, but on denial, and for the sake of this denial all the chaos of his compilations is piled up.
This is a denial of the three principles that Dugin tries to present in his ideology as interrelated - firstly, the Abrahamic religion, secondly, Western civilization, thirdly, the historical project Modern. Why Dugin does not like these beginnings of world history - figure it out yourself, if you want, but I can say right away that you will not find any positive logical connection there. Everything that can oppose Abrahamism, the West and Modernism is accepted by Dugin as allies and he tries to unite all this into a single front, which immediately disintegrates for completely natural reasons. If among the adherents of "duginism" there were people who are ready to admit that destroying Abrahamism, the West and Modern is the most important thing for them, and everything else is not important, then their commitment to Dugin could be understood. But since each such adept has his own, albeit very vaguely formulated positive value, then no "Dugin school" in principle does not add up. About the same, in which cities and universities, and how Dugin, who did not graduate from any institute, was able to defend his candidate's thesis in philosophy and doctoral thesis in political science, we will leave to other researchers of his "creative heritage". Although how he suddenly became a "professor of Moscow State University", now it is not difficult to guess.
Not Orthodox.
Being not a philosopher, but an ideologist, Dugin marks himself as an Orthodox and conservative, which is why the very name "Center for Conservative Studies" is possible. Since Dugin is a member of the Russian Orthodox Church, or rather, monotheistic consent (symo-relievers are Old Believers recognized by the Moscow Patriarchate), he can be formally called an Orthodox man. From a Christian point of view, if a person is baptized, but has lived all his life as an atheist and anyone, he still responds to the Last Judgment as a Christian. In this sense, we really have a lot of Orthodox Christians. But it is as an ideologist and pseudo-philosopher that Dugin is not Orthodox. In order to make sure of this, it is enough to read any of his metaphysical books, including the most important one on the Orthodox topic - "Metaphysics of the Good News. Orthodox esotericism" (1996), to which the followers of Duginism are treated as the scriptures of all the Holy Fathers taken together. This happens for a very simple reason - because these people first discover Dugin, and only then Orthodoxy itself, if they discover it at all. Therefore, his supporters do not think about the compliance of the Dugin "theology" with Christian dogmas, since it is not Dugin who is checked by them by dogmas, but the dogmas themselves by Dugin. And if some facts indicate the incompatibility of dogmatic Christianity and "duginism", then "the worse" for these facts. Any attempt to responsibly analyze his ideas from dogmatic positions, they immediately call "studding" and "inquisition" - in general, the behavior of a classical sect.
Meanwhile, not every priest and theologian considers it necessary to pay serious attention to the Dugin books at all, which is humanly very understandable, but for missionary reasons it is very reprehensible. Our dogmatists often prefer to dig into heresies that have almost disappeared in history, such as "aftartodoketism" and "psylantropism", without looking around - what frankly anti-Christian heresies capture many people who are looking for today, especially young people. But there are also exceptions to the rule. In particular, such authorities with theological education as Fr. Daniil Sysoev, Fr. Maxim Kozlov, V. Maximov, A. Lyulka, etc. said that Dugin's doctrine is heresy. Only deacon Andrei Kuraev alone in his book "The Church in the World of People" (M., 2007) wrote about Dugin: "This enemy is more dangerous than any Blavatskaya (because he is smarter and more educated). Like Blavatskaya, this is an attempt to digest Orthodoxy into Kabbalism. It is enough to recall his article "Messianism of Kabbalah". The undisguised apology of terror, the thirst to turn Orthodoxy into a revolutionary-terrorist ideology also does not cause the desire to get closer to this person" (p.142), "In general, the usual "esotericism": continuous "tactical tricks" to carry out their work to mutate Christianity into something corresponding to Kabbalistic-Masonic standards." (p.144). Finally, Dugin's teaching is understood as heretical in a special reference book of the Missionary Department of the Moscow Patriarchate "New Religious Associations of Russia of a Destructive and Occult Nature" (2002).
Why are Orthodox dogmatics so unanimous in their assessment of the Duginsky doctrine? Again, there is no way to analyze the theological views of our author in detail, any Orthodox person can discover the same "Metaphysics of the Good News" (M., 1996) and read any fragment like: "In the beginning, Adam is androgynous. <...> It does not have a separate body, but is a synthesis of all individual bodies and physical objects" (p.45-46) and draw appropriate conclusions. But one connecting reason must be said - if there is any affirmative constant in the Dugin doctrine, it is the apology of the so-called "manifestationism", that is, the idea of the emergence of the world from the divine principle in contrast to Abrahamic "creationism", that is, the idea of creating the world from nothing.
"Manifestationism" can indeed be called a common metaphysical denominator of all non-Abrahamic (compiled: pagan) religions and in this regard can serve as an ideal conceptual basis for an anti-Abrahamic, anti-biblical front. Needless to say, the idea of creating the world by the free Divine will from nothing is the principle of the entire world of Christianity, about which there are no contradictions in any of the Christian denominations. Even in two other Abrahamic religions - Judaism and Islam, there is no absolute consensus on this issue, but there is in Christianity. However, A. Dugin does not participate in this consensus - the main leitmotif of all his metaphysical texts is the constant discrediting of Abrahamic creationism and the apology of non-Abrahamist manifestonism, and this opposition extends to the Christian religion itself. It can be said that for Dugin, the Orthodox religion is remarkable to the extent that it corresponds to manifestationism and denies Old Testament, "Jewish" creationism (hence the interest in Kabbalah as a precedent of Jewish manifestationism). From this opposition follows quite a lot of serious conclusions that allow us to accuse Dugin of real Gnosticism, and a very radical, Marcionite nature, denying the Old Testament and understanding Christianity as a revolutionary antithesis to ancient Judaism. At the same time, if Christianity as a whole is understood as the antithesis of Abrahamism, then Orthodoxy is understood as an allegedly manifestoist pole within Christianity itself in contrast to Western Catholicism, which turns out to be the main enemy in Dugin theology. As he writes in one of his articles about Orthodoxy and Catholicism, these are generally "two different religions", while from a dogmatic point of view, Catholicism is the doctrine closest to Orthodoxy.
Purely political disagreements with the Catholic West for Dugin are incomparably more fundamental than ideological disagreements with the pagan or Muslim East. Within the Orthodox world itself, Dugin constantly opposes Russian Orthodoxy with Greek, and within Russian Orthodoxy, he chooses the position of "Old Believer" in contrast to almost heretical, from his point of view, "niconianism". So the universal truth of Christianity narrows down to the limits of the Old Believer, in the justification of the objective rightness of which he does not particularly strain - after all, it should be clear to an emotionally minded Russian patriot that everything is the autochthonous is best of all that came, although if you follow this logic to the end, you should immediately return to pre-Russian paganism, and not dig into Christianity that came from distant Palestine? Of course, this hard-to-hide marconism successfully lies on the national-pagan moods of many radicals, allowing them to call themselves "Orthodox", but at the same time to profess their personal author's "Orthodoxy", which has nothing to do with the confession of the Russian Orthodox Church. I have one simple question for such radicals: if the whole point of the coming of Christ was to overcome the "Abrahamic", "creationist paradigm", then why should they accept this Christianity if they already have their own manifestorative paganism? For example, is there the same advaita-vedanta that enjoys the greatest respect among "integral traditionalists"? Why practice the Orthodox religion at all, if other religions also inherit the "integral Tradition", and without the "bad" Abrahamic heritage, without principled creationism? There are no answers to these questions and it is difficult to even imagine a person in Dugin's entourage who could answer them clearly, and not personally from himself, but from the very Dugin doctrine as such. At the same time, I have not yet found a single priest who would be ready to responsibly admit that the metaphysical doctrine of A.G. Dugin does not contradict Christian orthodoxy, although for an "Orthodox philosopher" and the politician of such a priest would have made sense to find long. In particular, is the priest Kirill Sakharov from the Church of St. Nicholas in Berseny, committed to the old rite, a responsible analysis of the Dugin doctrine, which is often found at the Dugin events? I don't ask about the clergy of the monotheistic center in Mikhailovskaya Sloboda, whose parishioner is Dugin. The decision of Dean Dobrenkov to organize this center on the territory of his faculty together with Dugin is all the more incomprehensible, and it is very strange that he did not at least consult on this issue with the rector of the Church of St. Tatiana at Moscow State University, Father Maxim Kozlov, who is known for his extremely negative attitude to the Dugin doctrine. It turns out that the "most Orthodox" faculty of Moscow State University and the Orthodox Church of Moscow State University have nothing to do with each other?
Not a conservative.
Not being an Orthodox ideologist, Dugin is also not a conservative if the very concept of conservatism has at least some clear boundaries for us. As I have already noted, the cornerstone of his doctrine is not so much the affirmation of any values, but the denial of the three principles - Abrahamism, the West and Modern, which in his mind fit into a single "paradigm". Pagan manifestationism, which opposes Abrahamic creationism, appears to him as a common denominator of such a mysterious concept as "Tradition". What is this Tradition, it is impossible to find an unambiguous answer in its texts, since it can be both about some kind of primordial knowledge of superhuman origin, and about the tradition of Old Believer rituals. Since each religious tradition retains elements of a single "Integral Tradition", all religions turn out to be aspects of a single truth and therefore all this integral traditionalism actually turns out to be nothing more than structural and comparative religious studies turned into a religion. Hence the potential hyper-ecumenism "on the right", when interest in completely distant religions is combined with hatred of the closest confessions. Historically, the Dugin Tradition lost - the Modern that emerged in the West defeated it, hence the call for a global "conservative revolution". This revolution can be carried out in two parallel ways. First, to unite the entire non-Western world against the West, hence the brand of "Eurasianism". Secondly, to use the chaotic processes of the modern world against itself - since Postmodernism is already a denial of the classical Modern, it is possible to "saddle" the situation of the Postmodern and with its help to return the "Tradition": hence flirting with any ideas and discourses, as long as they help to destroy the "modern world". Imagine what a wide program of ideological maneuvers and moral self-justification such a strategy provides!
It is difficult to imagine any political force that Dugin would refuse to take as allies in order to destroy the enemy - the list of possible allies here is not limited to Satanism - to the question of his "Orthodoxy". Since 1996, he has been turning genuine to the doctrine of "telemism" by Alistair Crowley, which, according to Dugin, is justified at least by the fact that his Satanism was a reaction to Protestant education. It turns out that any destruction in the West is good only because it undermines the paradigm of Western Abrahamism, and therefore the Satanist is better than the Protestant. But Dugin is not only guided by purely strategic considerations when referring to this transcendental extreme - he also has purely meaningful, conceptual grounds for the justification of Satanism. In 1998, in his "esoteric" almanac "Sweet Angel" №3, in addition to the usual publications of Genon, Evola, Virt and other "esotericists", he publishes Alistair Crowley's manifesto "The Book of Laws", which has become a kind of "bible" for modern Satanists. The publication of this text is preceded by two theological reasonings of Dugin himself - "The Burden of Angels" and "The Teachings of the Beast". It is enough to analyze only these two texts to understand how far his doctrine is not only from Christianity, but also essentially anti-Christian in general. In particular, in the last article, he writes that if creationists accept angels faithful to God, then "manifestationists believe that those angels who refused to recognize the supremacy of the Creator and their creature nature are right" (p.360), that is, the fallen angels are demons. Since any dugunist will always prefer manifestationism to creationism, it already follows that fallen angels are better for him than the faithful. But since the Orthodox doctrine in principle will not agree with such manifestationism, Dugin writes that "Orthodox Christians believe that neither of them were right until the end" (ibid.). Thus, according to Dugin, an Orthodox Christian in the battle of the angels of light and the angels of darkness cannot fully decide on his preferences - and this is written by a person who today someone else considers an "Orthodox" figure. It is clear that with such a "philosophy" it is not that it is impossible to talk about Orthodox conservatism, but about any conservatism.
Conservatism has never been the platform of Dugin's policy simply because its declarative goal is not to preserve existing political forms at all, but to "conservative revolution" - the restoration of so-called traditional values in a revolutionary way. And Dugin's political evolution itself in the 90s was a consistent movement towards increasing revolutionary, to open recognition of the ideas of National Bolshevism, communism and the "new left". These ideas were reflected in a concentrated form in his manifesto "Goals and Objectives of Our Revolution" (1995), not just a non-conservative, but an absolutely anti-conservative text. But since Putin's regime has returned its own meaning to political ideologies, it was already pointless to continue calling for a revolution and therefore since the early 2000s Dugin, without changing the revolutionary-Gnostic meaning of his ideology at all, calls himself a "conservative", because it is this brand that today allows any extremists of the "right" and "right-left" sense to pretend to be respectable politicians. In this regard, one very illustrative example of such mimicry can be given. The author of these lines a few years ago introduced the term "Russian neocons" into journalistic use, proposing it to denote a new possible political movement in Russia, typologically similar to its American analogue with the necessary confessional and geopolitical distinction. Due to natural anti-Americanism among Russian right-wing patriots, this term was not successful for a long time, but when the probability of such a movement increased, it was Dugin who began to use it, regardless of the reaction of his own associates. In the article "The Golden Calf Crisis", published in the magazine "Profil" №42 for 2008, he describes a whole program of "Russian neocons", which one hundred percent only repeats his old Eurasian positions. The first point of the program is "the collapse of democracy (even facade) and the transition to a mobilization model of society on a corporate basis". The second is "the establishment of a "commissioner's dictatorship", the concentration of power in the hands of a patriotic group of high-ranking officials"... One wonders, what about "neoconservatism" here? But an even more obvious question arises - what does any "conservatism" have to do with it at all? Either - a commissioner dictatorship, or - conservative transformations, the third is not given.
Politically correct rebranding
However, I would not like to explain Dugin's constant juggling of ideological brands solely by the desire to please the political establishment - as I have already said, it is absolutely not necessary to plant a garden of metaphysics and angelology for the sake of purely career goals. And how many people in power are able to understand the subtleties of philosophy and theology at all? The reason for such mimicry from one brand to another is the search for the most perfect political ideology, which could be contrasted with the paradigm of Abrahamism, the West and Modern as a more or less positive program. After all, even the most sincere fanatics of Dugin (how many of them can be at all) are unlikely to recognize that the meaning of their lives boils down to the destruction of America and the creationist contagion". But since in reality the whole ideology of Dukinism is built precisely on denial, it is completely impossible to artificially create a positive program from the back. That is why Dugin cannot limit his position to such areas as political Orthodoxy, on the one hand, or Russian nationalism, on the other hand, because with all the conflicting nature of these positions, they are still initially based on the affirmation of specific values, and not on the denial of others. An Orthodox politician can hate America, or he can love it; a Russian nationalist can consider America his main enemy, or maybe his main ally - the very question of attitude to the West, the United States, liberalism, etc. in political Orthodoxy and Russian nationalism is obviously secondary and not mandatory at all. As a result, Dugin had to find a brand that could unite the widest possible range of possible opponents of Western liberalism and at the same time rely on at least some ground around which an anti-Western, anti-American, anti-liberal empire could be built. And this brand was found - it's "Eurasianism". A lot of articles have already been written about how specific the Dugin "Eurasianism" is and far from the classics of this trend of the 20-30s, but the task of cleaning this brand from Dugin distortions is a headache for the Eurasians themselves. It cannot be said that this current itself could not come to those logical dead ends to which Dugin led him, not at all. Dugin really only brought to the end those ideas that were expressed by the early Eurasians, and who later renounced them (N. Trubetskaya, G. Florovsky, L. Karsavin, etc.) when they saw where they were going. For Dugin, the opening of the Eurasian brand is very successful, as it is the most politically correct concept of all possible that could express his "positive" program. In the 90s, such concepts for him were "conservative revolution" and "national Bolshevism", but today you can't move with them, so nothing more convenient for him to be "Eurasianism" really can find. Eurasianism allows a person to pretend to be both a Great Russian patriot worried about national identity, and a broad internationalist in love with the "blooming complexity" of the universe; and an Orthodox fundamentalist who defends the purity of the antediluve rite, and a tolerant ecumenist who calls for a "dialogue of cultures"; and a white monarchist, and a red revolutionary, etc., etc. It is this vagueness and amorphousness of Eurasian ideology, which under Dugin's editorship has generally reached the ultimate valence, that can be very successfully used for personal political positioning, but at the same time absolutely does not allow the creation of any single movement that can clearly distinguish between "friends" and "enemies" at a long distance. When the mythologem of Eurasia is both the "union of the forest and the steppe"; and something third between Europe and Asia; and Europe and Asia together; and the Moscow Kingdom; and the whole world except America - it is possible to juggle it in any way, but it is completely impossible to explain the ultimate meaning of Eurasianism. And just as it is not very clear why to call yourself a "Christian" if all the best in Christianity is paganism, it is also not very clear why call yourself a "Eurasian" if all the best that is in Eurasia is Asia? If in the clash of manifestationism and creationism, East and West, Asia and Europe, the first side is always right, and the second is always wrong, then why look for some "third way"? There is no answer to this question. It is quite natural that an Orthodox conservative may not like the secular-liberal West, but it does not follow that he should throw himself into the arms of the totalitarian-pagan East. What is the "third way" then?
Interest in reading.
In fact, Dugin could well become both an Orthodox author and a conservative. But for this he would have to take one, outwardly very simple, but psychologically very difficult step, especially for such a person - to renounce his previous ideas. There would be nothing wrong with that. People are not born with the right beliefs or wrong ones, they come to them. In their evolution, many thinkers went through very different stages, not only renouncing their previous positions, but also declaring a serious intellectual war on them. As long as this is not explained by the political situation, but by a personal sincere choice. Dugin has all his ideas and texts continuing with each other, and his students from ESM can openly confess any of them. Proof of this is the fact that almost all Dugin articles and books, from the early 90s to the present day, are posted on the websites Arcto.ru, Evrazia.org and Rossia3.ru. Not to mention the fact that he republes many of his texts in separate collections. It follows that he not only does not condemn them, but also sees some dignity in them. But I always had one simple question about these texts - how interesting they are for those who consider him a "philosopher", "Orthodox", "conservative" and generally an authoritative author, whether it's a young fanatic, a television journalist or an elderly professor?
Dugin instructed two youth organizations, the NBP and the ESM, gave lectures at the so-called "New University", did a lot of propaganda among young people - where then is at least some semblance of "Dugin's school"? Where are those young or old authors who would systematically continue his ideas? But if there are no successors, then where are those commissioners who could spread his ideas around the world? There is no answer to this question, which means it is not very clear what the meaning of all his youth educational projects is. Spreading ideas means convincing other people, not arranging outrageous performances for them.
Dugin managed to get the favor of a few, but very respectable journalists who began to PR him, and I was always amazed how far their own words and positions are from Dukin's. For example, which of them really promotes at least only the brand of "Eurasianism"? But if there is an "International Eurasian Movement" and so much effort has been spent on popularizing this brand, then why doesn't anyone reproduce it except Dugin from well-known journalists? There is no answer to this question. One of the most devoted journalists to him led a series of programs on geopolitics on Channel One, specifically on the confrontation between England and Russia, but it was impossible to guess the influence of Dugin, his ideas and terms in these programs. Rather, one could think of the influence of publicist Dmitry Galkovsky, who either seriously or jokingly considers England the main external culprit of all Russian troubles.
But what to say about fanatical brave men and television journalists, if even the dean of the Faculty of Humanities of Moscow State University, who attached the Duginsky center, did not read his books? Or I still read - at least a thin brochure "Goals and Objectives of our Revolution", where in chapter №2 "New Religion" it is written: "If we are "redeemed" by Christ, then there is no sin in principle on us, and we must boldly go to the light of deitment, and not scrupulously count our imperfections". And if you have read it, does he agree with his theses?
Likewore itself, the "Center for Conservative Studies" at the Faculty of Sociology of Moscow State University was decisively created by a man very far from "duginism" - journalist Mikhail Tyurenkov, who is connected with Dugin by his commitment to the monotheistic consent of the Russian Old Believers. But if "Duginism" was exhausted by single faith, this initiative would be logical, but along with monotheism in this center all other ideas of Dugin triumph. Indeed, you begin to agree with those Orthodox who reproach the Old Believers for inattention to the dogmatic content of the Christian faith. And even more so you doubt the consciousness of his seemingly Orthodox allies, when this "Center for Conservative Studies" shortly after its opening, already on November 24 arranges the first meeting not with some Christian figure, but with the French ideologist of neo-paganism - Alain de Benois, who can be invited to the Russian Orthodox Assembly exclusively as an opponent. This is the real essence of this "center" - it's just another Duginsky club, only now on the territory of one of the faculties of Moscow State University, the dean of which saw the "Orthodox conservative" in the amateur of Evola and Crowley.
What could be the future fate of Dugy Eurasianism in Russia? Based on the fact that there is no Eurasian school, journalists who sympathize with Eurasianism spread this brand the least, and professors who are favorable to it are not familiar with the work of its main ideologist of our time - the future of this doctrine is very vague. His ideas cannot be reduced to a clear code, his contradictions make themselves felt at every step, his methods are indistinct, his followers cannot form a large-scale party. Its essence is absolutely extremist - it is enough to quote what Dugin writes in a recent article against liberalism: "It is possible to defeat this evil only by uprooting it, and I do not exclude that this will require erasing from the face of the earth those spiritual and physical lands that gave life to this world heresy - heresy, insisting that "man is the measure of things"" ("Profile" № 12 for 2008). Let me remind you that no matter how you treat this "world heresy", Europe gave it life - starting with Greece, where the sophist Protagoras gave this formula. Does this mean that Russia should drop a bomb on the now Orthodox Greece? Or will we only do with the United States with all its parishes of the ROCOR and other Orthodox Churches? Old liberal Alexander Yanov once said that Dugin differs from other totalitarian ideologists in that he brings all ideas to the end, but personally I just do not see this sequence. For example, it follows from the quote given that only for the sake of eradicating liberalism it is necessary to "erase from the face of the earth" Europe and America - isn't it? But will Dugin himself agree to openly admit this, as well as other co-organizers of the CKI from Dean Dobrenkov to Old Believer Tyurenkov, or not? Instead of this commendable ability to bring ideas to the end, I see a pile of ideas and words soldered only by one passion - hatred of normal human civilization, nothing else.
Arkady Mahler
04.06.09
Source: https://iriney.ru/okkultnyie/okkultnyie-vozzreniya-dugina/novosti-ob-okkultnyix-vozzreniyax-dugina/ne-konservativnaya,-ne-pravoslavnaya,-ne-filosofiya.html
Alexander Dugin sits under a portrait of Russian Federation Communist Party General Secretary Gennady Zyuganov.
This article by Arkady Mahler was written a long time ago, but, in our opinion, its relevance has not yet decreased at all. Political circumstances could have changed, but Alexander Dugin's ideology remained the same. In any case, he has not publicly renounced any of the previously expressed views and opinions. Therefore, we post this article on our website.
Editorial office.
When two years ago one Orthodox radio asked me to defend the dean of the Faculty of Sociology of Moscow State University Vladimir Dobrenkov from some liberal activists dissatisfied with the Orthodox ideology of his faculty, I decided to keep silent, which in itself was very unpleasant for me. The Orthodox community in modern Russia, which has long become an objective reality, and not a media stamp, largely relies on the internal mutual support of its participants, which in itself is completely normal and only so it should be. But the ultimate meaning of this support is not to preserve some kind of religious and community ghetto for the sake of this ghetto itself, but still to churchize the modern society around us, preaching to people, first of all, Christ Himself, and not something else, and doing it as convincingly and adequately as possible, and not scaring away from the threshold with senseless outrage and sectarian misanthropy. Therefore, if someone marks himself as an "Orthodox identity" today, it does not mean that he should be written down as allies - the quality of this identity is important. Now it's not the beginning of the 90s and Orthodoxy alone will not surprise anyone - "Orthodox identity" is not yet a guarantee of quality and the Orthodox community itself from the state of children's dreaminess enters, perhaps, the most difficult period of its development - the period of growing up, and therefore, tough and cruel sobrienty.
I will not judge Vladimir Dobrenkov as a scientist and teacher - random people do not become a dean at Moscow State University and I am quite ready to admit that he is a great and brilliant sociologist of our time. Observing the situation with his faculty from the outside, I really don't understand why he doesn't have solid support from other sociological centers and authorities. All my attempts to find him support among other sociologists ended in nothing. I don't really understand what "Orthodox sociology" is, because Orthodoxy does not put forward any special sociological methods and is not called to do it at all, just as Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism, etc. do not put forward them. At the same time, although the reaction of conscious atheists and non-believers to the desire to church their space is quite understandable, this very desire on the part of an Orthodox person is also understandable - another question is how it is done. The missionary strategy should be thought out in detail so as not to break down at the first step. And if we may not know the subtleties of the internal policy of the Faculty of Sociology of Moscow State University, one fact is still very well known - this is the strict position of Dean Dobrenkov on the issue of the death penalty, which became an essential part of his image as soon as he became declaratively Orthodox. I know what terrible, tragic events moved him to this position - and therefore psychologically it is very understandable, he suffered this position. But I don't like the fact that when a modern person comes to Orthodoxy, for some reason he immediately comes to a number of categorical positions that do not in any way follow from the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in particular the apologies of the death penalty. No, I don't want to say that a Christian should be a pacifist and an opponent of the death penalty, but this is still a controversial issue within the Christian doctrine. However, when the declarative acceptance of Christ is combined with no less declarative acceptance of the death penalty, it looks rather repulsive in the mind of an outside observer. To make the recognition of the death penalty a categorical postulate of a public program based on Christianity means to distort the idea of Christianity itself in the perception of those who have not even discovered the Gospel yet. In general, I did not have much inspiration to associate with Dean Dobrenkov, although I really hoped to reconsider my conclusions. But when I learned that in September 2008 the so-called "Center for Conservative Studies" (CRC) of Alexander Dugin was organized at the Social Faculty of Moscow State University, all my doubts about Dean Dobrenkov were finally dispelled.
Of course, the phenomenon of this "CCI" itself is too insignificant to endanger anyone in the academic or political world. Although only the fact that this "center" is listed at Moscow State University can confuse and mislead someone about its real capabilities. If we talk about a purely administrative component, the format of existence at an academic institution can be quite different - there is a direct inclusion in the structure of the institution with budget payment and mandatory premises, and there is a voluntary existence "on a voluntary basis". But whatever the administrative format (and, accordingly, the administrative resource) of any project, everything ultimately depends on the intellectual and organizational abilities of its initiators. Almost every Moscow university has a dozen "centers", "clubs" and "seminars", about which no one will ever know, no matter what official status they have. It all depends on the person and his ideas, nothing else. And this is the question that matters in this case. As a person who has gone through a serious passion for Dugin's ideas and has a good idea of his organizational capabilities, I can immediately say that the whole project of the Center for Conservative Studies will end as well as all his other projects from the National Bolshevik Party 1994-97 to the Eurasian Youth Union 2005-08. Why? To answer this question, you need to have a very accurate idea of what this person really wants. In our superficial journalism, it is customary to criticize A.G. Dugin's activities with an undisguised game of demotion - he is exposed as a passerby and undereducated, dreaming only of fame and personal power, and sometimes also of great profit. I believe that playing for a relegation in the criticism of an unpleasant opponent is not only dishonest, but also ineffective. After all, if a person wants to become famous, get more power and a lot of money, then there are a million other ways than to write a dozen books that not every one of your adept will be able to read to the end. Therefore, I will proceed from the fact that Dugin is like a philosopher, as if Orthodox and as if conservative, and evaluate him from these positions. And it is at this level that I have fundamental questions that receive very unpleasant answers.
Not a philosopher.
Dugin doesn't have any full-fledged "philosophy". Philosophy is a holistic and internally more or less connected worldview, having clear positions in issues of ontology, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, etc. Dugin does not have any of this - there is a synthesis of very different philosophical and ideological attitudes, which are very difficult to combine with each other and often enter into a clear contradiction. As a person who has read all of Dugin's books and once tried to systematize his "philosophical heritage", I could say that the common basis of all his attitudes is explicitly the teaching of the so-called "integral traditionalism" of the French philosopher René Genon, also known as Sheikh Abdul Wahid Yahya, since this very traditionalism brought him to Sufi Islam. In the format of this article, it is not entirely appropriate to present philosophical theories in detail, but I will only say that Genon's doctrine is something between Advaita Vedanta and Neoplatonism, deducing all existing reality from the pre-eternal impersonal Absolute in a strict subject-object hierarchy of forms, and in this sense it is quite consistent and holistic. But Dugin does not stop at this doctrine - he adds to it the yogic mysticism of the Italian "pagan imperialist" Julius Evola, the "ariosophy" of the German runologist Hermann Wirt, the national-revolutionary ideas of German ideologues of the 20-30s, as well as Russian Eurasianism and National Bolshevism, including the ideas of the European "new right" and "new left". As a result, there is a rather motley and aggressive mosaic of slogans and paradoxical turns of thought, which can make a rather strong impression on a romantic teenager or a person deprived of humanitarian education during a period of mental crisis, but who internally cannot turn into a single system, and most indicatively - does not want to do it at all under the leadership of Dugin himself. This postmodern chaos of ideas and terms is very convenient for jumping from one position to another all the time and never being responsible for your words. Therefore, when Dugin needs it, he is "right", and when it is not necessary - "left"; when necessary - conservative, and when necessary - revolutionary; when necessary - strict orthodox, and when not necessary - free visionary; when necessary - nationalist, and when not necessary - Eurasian, etc., the list of these oppositions is endless.
So it's impossible to talk about a single basis here, although you can try for the sake of truth - isn't it all based on something? And here the answer is simple. Every responsible philosopher, unlike a home-grown philosophizing graphomaniac, always thinks about the epistemological, methodological basis of his philosophy - what he considers the source of knowledge, what is the logic of the formation of his knowledge and reasoning, etc. Dugin has nothing like that and can't be, because it would make him significantly reconsider his entire worldview and narrow the corridor of his rhetorical possibilities. Thus, the "epistemological basis" of his "philosophy" can be considered absolutely anarchic - irrationalism. Of course, when he needs to, he resorts to logic, schemes, and systems, so everything else suddenly seems just as well-checked. But it is enough to ask each of his followers to set out "Dugin's philosophy" in all its integrity, and we will immediately face a fantastic different reading, which can only be in such a situation. Therefore, Dugin's "philosophy" is not philosophy, but ideology and all its motivations are purely ideological, which immediately explains a lot. And that's exactly as an ideology, his doctrine really has a rather specific substantive basis, one might say, a kind of reference point for all his calculations, but again the trouble is that this basis is not affirmative, but negative, the whole ideology of Dugin is built not on the affirmation of any one or more values, but on denial, and for the sake of this denial all the chaos of his compilations is piled up.
This is a denial of the three principles that Dugin tries to present in his ideology as interrelated - firstly, the Abrahamic religion, secondly, Western civilization, thirdly, the historical project Modern. Why Dugin does not like these beginnings of world history - figure it out yourself, if you want, but I can say right away that you will not find any positive logical connection there. Everything that can oppose Abrahamism, the West and Modernism is accepted by Dugin as allies and he tries to unite all this into a single front, which immediately disintegrates for completely natural reasons. If among the adherents of "duginism" there were people who are ready to admit that destroying Abrahamism, the West and Modern is the most important thing for them, and everything else is not important, then their commitment to Dugin could be understood. But since each such adept has his own, albeit very vaguely formulated positive value, then no "Dugin school" in principle does not add up. About the same, in which cities and universities, and how Dugin, who did not graduate from any institute, was able to defend his candidate's thesis in philosophy and doctoral thesis in political science, we will leave to other researchers of his "creative heritage". Although how he suddenly became a "professor of Moscow State University", now it is not difficult to guess.
Not Orthodox.
Being not a philosopher, but an ideologist, Dugin marks himself as an Orthodox and conservative, which is why the very name "Center for Conservative Studies" is possible. Since Dugin is a member of the Russian Orthodox Church, or rather, monotheistic consent (symo-relievers are Old Believers recognized by the Moscow Patriarchate), he can be formally called an Orthodox man. From a Christian point of view, if a person is baptized, but has lived all his life as an atheist and anyone, he still responds to the Last Judgment as a Christian. In this sense, we really have a lot of Orthodox Christians. But it is as an ideologist and pseudo-philosopher that Dugin is not Orthodox. In order to make sure of this, it is enough to read any of his metaphysical books, including the most important one on the Orthodox topic - "Metaphysics of the Good News. Orthodox esotericism" (1996), to which the followers of Duginism are treated as the scriptures of all the Holy Fathers taken together. This happens for a very simple reason - because these people first discover Dugin, and only then Orthodoxy itself, if they discover it at all. Therefore, his supporters do not think about the compliance of the Dugin "theology" with Christian dogmas, since it is not Dugin who is checked by them by dogmas, but the dogmas themselves by Dugin. And if some facts indicate the incompatibility of dogmatic Christianity and "duginism", then "the worse" for these facts. Any attempt to responsibly analyze his ideas from dogmatic positions, they immediately call "studding" and "inquisition" - in general, the behavior of a classical sect.
Meanwhile, not every priest and theologian considers it necessary to pay serious attention to the Dugin books at all, which is humanly very understandable, but for missionary reasons it is very reprehensible. Our dogmatists often prefer to dig into heresies that have almost disappeared in history, such as "aftartodoketism" and "psylantropism", without looking around - what frankly anti-Christian heresies capture many people who are looking for today, especially young people. But there are also exceptions to the rule. In particular, such authorities with theological education as Fr. Daniil Sysoev, Fr. Maxim Kozlov, V. Maximov, A. Lyulka, etc. said that Dugin's doctrine is heresy. Only deacon Andrei Kuraev alone in his book "The Church in the World of People" (M., 2007) wrote about Dugin: "This enemy is more dangerous than any Blavatskaya (because he is smarter and more educated). Like Blavatskaya, this is an attempt to digest Orthodoxy into Kabbalism. It is enough to recall his article "Messianism of Kabbalah". The undisguised apology of terror, the thirst to turn Orthodoxy into a revolutionary-terrorist ideology also does not cause the desire to get closer to this person" (p.142), "In general, the usual "esotericism": continuous "tactical tricks" to carry out their work to mutate Christianity into something corresponding to Kabbalistic-Masonic standards." (p.144). Finally, Dugin's teaching is understood as heretical in a special reference book of the Missionary Department of the Moscow Patriarchate "New Religious Associations of Russia of a Destructive and Occult Nature" (2002).
Why are Orthodox dogmatics so unanimous in their assessment of the Duginsky doctrine? Again, there is no way to analyze the theological views of our author in detail, any Orthodox person can discover the same "Metaphysics of the Good News" (M., 1996) and read any fragment like: "In the beginning, Adam is androgynous. <...> It does not have a separate body, but is a synthesis of all individual bodies and physical objects" (p.45-46) and draw appropriate conclusions. But one connecting reason must be said - if there is any affirmative constant in the Dugin doctrine, it is the apology of the so-called "manifestationism", that is, the idea of the emergence of the world from the divine principle in contrast to Abrahamic "creationism", that is, the idea of creating the world from nothing.
"Manifestationism" can indeed be called a common metaphysical denominator of all non-Abrahamic (compiled: pagan) religions and in this regard can serve as an ideal conceptual basis for an anti-Abrahamic, anti-biblical front. Needless to say, the idea of creating the world by the free Divine will from nothing is the principle of the entire world of Christianity, about which there are no contradictions in any of the Christian denominations. Even in two other Abrahamic religions - Judaism and Islam, there is no absolute consensus on this issue, but there is in Christianity. However, A. Dugin does not participate in this consensus - the main leitmotif of all his metaphysical texts is the constant discrediting of Abrahamic creationism and the apology of non-Abrahamist manifestonism, and this opposition extends to the Christian religion itself. It can be said that for Dugin, the Orthodox religion is remarkable to the extent that it corresponds to manifestationism and denies Old Testament, "Jewish" creationism (hence the interest in Kabbalah as a precedent of Jewish manifestationism). From this opposition follows quite a lot of serious conclusions that allow us to accuse Dugin of real Gnosticism, and a very radical, Marcionite nature, denying the Old Testament and understanding Christianity as a revolutionary antithesis to ancient Judaism. At the same time, if Christianity as a whole is understood as the antithesis of Abrahamism, then Orthodoxy is understood as an allegedly manifestoist pole within Christianity itself in contrast to Western Catholicism, which turns out to be the main enemy in Dugin theology. As he writes in one of his articles about Orthodoxy and Catholicism, these are generally "two different religions", while from a dogmatic point of view, Catholicism is the doctrine closest to Orthodoxy.
Purely political disagreements with the Catholic West for Dugin are incomparably more fundamental than ideological disagreements with the pagan or Muslim East. Within the Orthodox world itself, Dugin constantly opposes Russian Orthodoxy with Greek, and within Russian Orthodoxy, he chooses the position of "Old Believer" in contrast to almost heretical, from his point of view, "niconianism". So the universal truth of Christianity narrows down to the limits of the Old Believer, in the justification of the objective rightness of which he does not particularly strain - after all, it should be clear to an emotionally minded Russian patriot that everything is the autochthonous is best of all that came, although if you follow this logic to the end, you should immediately return to pre-Russian paganism, and not dig into Christianity that came from distant Palestine? Of course, this hard-to-hide marconism successfully lies on the national-pagan moods of many radicals, allowing them to call themselves "Orthodox", but at the same time to profess their personal author's "Orthodoxy", which has nothing to do with the confession of the Russian Orthodox Church. I have one simple question for such radicals: if the whole point of the coming of Christ was to overcome the "Abrahamic", "creationist paradigm", then why should they accept this Christianity if they already have their own manifestorative paganism? For example, is there the same advaita-vedanta that enjoys the greatest respect among "integral traditionalists"? Why practice the Orthodox religion at all, if other religions also inherit the "integral Tradition", and without the "bad" Abrahamic heritage, without principled creationism? There are no answers to these questions and it is difficult to even imagine a person in Dugin's entourage who could answer them clearly, and not personally from himself, but from the very Dugin doctrine as such. At the same time, I have not yet found a single priest who would be ready to responsibly admit that the metaphysical doctrine of A.G. Dugin does not contradict Christian orthodoxy, although for an "Orthodox philosopher" and the politician of such a priest would have made sense to find long. In particular, is the priest Kirill Sakharov from the Church of St. Nicholas in Berseny, committed to the old rite, a responsible analysis of the Dugin doctrine, which is often found at the Dugin events? I don't ask about the clergy of the monotheistic center in Mikhailovskaya Sloboda, whose parishioner is Dugin. The decision of Dean Dobrenkov to organize this center on the territory of his faculty together with Dugin is all the more incomprehensible, and it is very strange that he did not at least consult on this issue with the rector of the Church of St. Tatiana at Moscow State University, Father Maxim Kozlov, who is known for his extremely negative attitude to the Dugin doctrine. It turns out that the "most Orthodox" faculty of Moscow State University and the Orthodox Church of Moscow State University have nothing to do with each other?
Not a conservative.
Not being an Orthodox ideologist, Dugin is also not a conservative if the very concept of conservatism has at least some clear boundaries for us. As I have already noted, the cornerstone of his doctrine is not so much the affirmation of any values, but the denial of the three principles - Abrahamism, the West and Modern, which in his mind fit into a single "paradigm". Pagan manifestationism, which opposes Abrahamic creationism, appears to him as a common denominator of such a mysterious concept as "Tradition". What is this Tradition, it is impossible to find an unambiguous answer in its texts, since it can be both about some kind of primordial knowledge of superhuman origin, and about the tradition of Old Believer rituals. Since each religious tradition retains elements of a single "Integral Tradition", all religions turn out to be aspects of a single truth and therefore all this integral traditionalism actually turns out to be nothing more than structural and comparative religious studies turned into a religion. Hence the potential hyper-ecumenism "on the right", when interest in completely distant religions is combined with hatred of the closest confessions. Historically, the Dugin Tradition lost - the Modern that emerged in the West defeated it, hence the call for a global "conservative revolution". This revolution can be carried out in two parallel ways. First, to unite the entire non-Western world against the West, hence the brand of "Eurasianism". Secondly, to use the chaotic processes of the modern world against itself - since Postmodernism is already a denial of the classical Modern, it is possible to "saddle" the situation of the Postmodern and with its help to return the "Tradition": hence flirting with any ideas and discourses, as long as they help to destroy the "modern world". Imagine what a wide program of ideological maneuvers and moral self-justification such a strategy provides!
It is difficult to imagine any political force that Dugin would refuse to take as allies in order to destroy the enemy - the list of possible allies here is not limited to Satanism - to the question of his "Orthodoxy". Since 1996, he has been turning genuine to the doctrine of "telemism" by Alistair Crowley, which, according to Dugin, is justified at least by the fact that his Satanism was a reaction to Protestant education. It turns out that any destruction in the West is good only because it undermines the paradigm of Western Abrahamism, and therefore the Satanist is better than the Protestant. But Dugin is not only guided by purely strategic considerations when referring to this transcendental extreme - he also has purely meaningful, conceptual grounds for the justification of Satanism. In 1998, in his "esoteric" almanac "Sweet Angel" №3, in addition to the usual publications of Genon, Evola, Virt and other "esotericists", he publishes Alistair Crowley's manifesto "The Book of Laws", which has become a kind of "bible" for modern Satanists. The publication of this text is preceded by two theological reasonings of Dugin himself - "The Burden of Angels" and "The Teachings of the Beast". It is enough to analyze only these two texts to understand how far his doctrine is not only from Christianity, but also essentially anti-Christian in general. In particular, in the last article, he writes that if creationists accept angels faithful to God, then "manifestationists believe that those angels who refused to recognize the supremacy of the Creator and their creature nature are right" (p.360), that is, the fallen angels are demons. Since any dugunist will always prefer manifestationism to creationism, it already follows that fallen angels are better for him than the faithful. But since the Orthodox doctrine in principle will not agree with such manifestationism, Dugin writes that "Orthodox Christians believe that neither of them were right until the end" (ibid.). Thus, according to Dugin, an Orthodox Christian in the battle of the angels of light and the angels of darkness cannot fully decide on his preferences - and this is written by a person who today someone else considers an "Orthodox" figure. It is clear that with such a "philosophy" it is not that it is impossible to talk about Orthodox conservatism, but about any conservatism.
Conservatism has never been the platform of Dugin's policy simply because its declarative goal is not to preserve existing political forms at all, but to "conservative revolution" - the restoration of so-called traditional values in a revolutionary way. And Dugin's political evolution itself in the 90s was a consistent movement towards increasing revolutionary, to open recognition of the ideas of National Bolshevism, communism and the "new left". These ideas were reflected in a concentrated form in his manifesto "Goals and Objectives of Our Revolution" (1995), not just a non-conservative, but an absolutely anti-conservative text. But since Putin's regime has returned its own meaning to political ideologies, it was already pointless to continue calling for a revolution and therefore since the early 2000s Dugin, without changing the revolutionary-Gnostic meaning of his ideology at all, calls himself a "conservative", because it is this brand that today allows any extremists of the "right" and "right-left" sense to pretend to be respectable politicians. In this regard, one very illustrative example of such mimicry can be given. The author of these lines a few years ago introduced the term "Russian neocons" into journalistic use, proposing it to denote a new possible political movement in Russia, typologically similar to its American analogue with the necessary confessional and geopolitical distinction. Due to natural anti-Americanism among Russian right-wing patriots, this term was not successful for a long time, but when the probability of such a movement increased, it was Dugin who began to use it, regardless of the reaction of his own associates. In the article "The Golden Calf Crisis", published in the magazine "Profil" №42 for 2008, he describes a whole program of "Russian neocons", which one hundred percent only repeats his old Eurasian positions. The first point of the program is "the collapse of democracy (even facade) and the transition to a mobilization model of society on a corporate basis". The second is "the establishment of a "commissioner's dictatorship", the concentration of power in the hands of a patriotic group of high-ranking officials"... One wonders, what about "neoconservatism" here? But an even more obvious question arises - what does any "conservatism" have to do with it at all? Either - a commissioner dictatorship, or - conservative transformations, the third is not given.
Politically correct rebranding
However, I would not like to explain Dugin's constant juggling of ideological brands solely by the desire to please the political establishment - as I have already said, it is absolutely not necessary to plant a garden of metaphysics and angelology for the sake of purely career goals. And how many people in power are able to understand the subtleties of philosophy and theology at all? The reason for such mimicry from one brand to another is the search for the most perfect political ideology, which could be contrasted with the paradigm of Abrahamism, the West and Modern as a more or less positive program. After all, even the most sincere fanatics of Dugin (how many of them can be at all) are unlikely to recognize that the meaning of their lives boils down to the destruction of America and the creationist contagion". But since in reality the whole ideology of Dukinism is built precisely on denial, it is completely impossible to artificially create a positive program from the back. That is why Dugin cannot limit his position to such areas as political Orthodoxy, on the one hand, or Russian nationalism, on the other hand, because with all the conflicting nature of these positions, they are still initially based on the affirmation of specific values, and not on the denial of others. An Orthodox politician can hate America, or he can love it; a Russian nationalist can consider America his main enemy, or maybe his main ally - the very question of attitude to the West, the United States, liberalism, etc. in political Orthodoxy and Russian nationalism is obviously secondary and not mandatory at all. As a result, Dugin had to find a brand that could unite the widest possible range of possible opponents of Western liberalism and at the same time rely on at least some ground around which an anti-Western, anti-American, anti-liberal empire could be built. And this brand was found - it's "Eurasianism". A lot of articles have already been written about how specific the Dugin "Eurasianism" is and far from the classics of this trend of the 20-30s, but the task of cleaning this brand from Dugin distortions is a headache for the Eurasians themselves. It cannot be said that this current itself could not come to those logical dead ends to which Dugin led him, not at all. Dugin really only brought to the end those ideas that were expressed by the early Eurasians, and who later renounced them (N. Trubetskaya, G. Florovsky, L. Karsavin, etc.) when they saw where they were going. For Dugin, the opening of the Eurasian brand is very successful, as it is the most politically correct concept of all possible that could express his "positive" program. In the 90s, such concepts for him were "conservative revolution" and "national Bolshevism", but today you can't move with them, so nothing more convenient for him to be "Eurasianism" really can find. Eurasianism allows a person to pretend to be both a Great Russian patriot worried about national identity, and a broad internationalist in love with the "blooming complexity" of the universe; and an Orthodox fundamentalist who defends the purity of the antediluve rite, and a tolerant ecumenist who calls for a "dialogue of cultures"; and a white monarchist, and a red revolutionary, etc., etc. It is this vagueness and amorphousness of Eurasian ideology, which under Dugin's editorship has generally reached the ultimate valence, that can be very successfully used for personal political positioning, but at the same time absolutely does not allow the creation of any single movement that can clearly distinguish between "friends" and "enemies" at a long distance. When the mythologem of Eurasia is both the "union of the forest and the steppe"; and something third between Europe and Asia; and Europe and Asia together; and the Moscow Kingdom; and the whole world except America - it is possible to juggle it in any way, but it is completely impossible to explain the ultimate meaning of Eurasianism. And just as it is not very clear why to call yourself a "Christian" if all the best in Christianity is paganism, it is also not very clear why call yourself a "Eurasian" if all the best that is in Eurasia is Asia? If in the clash of manifestationism and creationism, East and West, Asia and Europe, the first side is always right, and the second is always wrong, then why look for some "third way"? There is no answer to this question. It is quite natural that an Orthodox conservative may not like the secular-liberal West, but it does not follow that he should throw himself into the arms of the totalitarian-pagan East. What is the "third way" then?
Interest in reading.
In fact, Dugin could well become both an Orthodox author and a conservative. But for this he would have to take one, outwardly very simple, but psychologically very difficult step, especially for such a person - to renounce his previous ideas. There would be nothing wrong with that. People are not born with the right beliefs or wrong ones, they come to them. In their evolution, many thinkers went through very different stages, not only renouncing their previous positions, but also declaring a serious intellectual war on them. As long as this is not explained by the political situation, but by a personal sincere choice. Dugin has all his ideas and texts continuing with each other, and his students from ESM can openly confess any of them. Proof of this is the fact that almost all Dugin articles and books, from the early 90s to the present day, are posted on the websites Arcto.ru, Evrazia.org and Rossia3.ru. Not to mention the fact that he republes many of his texts in separate collections. It follows that he not only does not condemn them, but also sees some dignity in them. But I always had one simple question about these texts - how interesting they are for those who consider him a "philosopher", "Orthodox", "conservative" and generally an authoritative author, whether it's a young fanatic, a television journalist or an elderly professor?
Dugin instructed two youth organizations, the NBP and the ESM, gave lectures at the so-called "New University", did a lot of propaganda among young people - where then is at least some semblance of "Dugin's school"? Where are those young or old authors who would systematically continue his ideas? But if there are no successors, then where are those commissioners who could spread his ideas around the world? There is no answer to this question, which means it is not very clear what the meaning of all his youth educational projects is. Spreading ideas means convincing other people, not arranging outrageous performances for them.
Dugin managed to get the favor of a few, but very respectable journalists who began to PR him, and I was always amazed how far their own words and positions are from Dukin's. For example, which of them really promotes at least only the brand of "Eurasianism"? But if there is an "International Eurasian Movement" and so much effort has been spent on popularizing this brand, then why doesn't anyone reproduce it except Dugin from well-known journalists? There is no answer to this question. One of the most devoted journalists to him led a series of programs on geopolitics on Channel One, specifically on the confrontation between England and Russia, but it was impossible to guess the influence of Dugin, his ideas and terms in these programs. Rather, one could think of the influence of publicist Dmitry Galkovsky, who either seriously or jokingly considers England the main external culprit of all Russian troubles.
But what to say about fanatical brave men and television journalists, if even the dean of the Faculty of Humanities of Moscow State University, who attached the Duginsky center, did not read his books? Or I still read - at least a thin brochure "Goals and Objectives of our Revolution", where in chapter №2 "New Religion" it is written: "If we are "redeemed" by Christ, then there is no sin in principle on us, and we must boldly go to the light of deitment, and not scrupulously count our imperfections". And if you have read it, does he agree with his theses?
Likewore itself, the "Center for Conservative Studies" at the Faculty of Sociology of Moscow State University was decisively created by a man very far from "duginism" - journalist Mikhail Tyurenkov, who is connected with Dugin by his commitment to the monotheistic consent of the Russian Old Believers. But if "Duginism" was exhausted by single faith, this initiative would be logical, but along with monotheism in this center all other ideas of Dugin triumph. Indeed, you begin to agree with those Orthodox who reproach the Old Believers for inattention to the dogmatic content of the Christian faith. And even more so you doubt the consciousness of his seemingly Orthodox allies, when this "Center for Conservative Studies" shortly after its opening, already on November 24 arranges the first meeting not with some Christian figure, but with the French ideologist of neo-paganism - Alain de Benois, who can be invited to the Russian Orthodox Assembly exclusively as an opponent. This is the real essence of this "center" - it's just another Duginsky club, only now on the territory of one of the faculties of Moscow State University, the dean of which saw the "Orthodox conservative" in the amateur of Evola and Crowley.
What could be the future fate of Dugy Eurasianism in Russia? Based on the fact that there is no Eurasian school, journalists who sympathize with Eurasianism spread this brand the least, and professors who are favorable to it are not familiar with the work of its main ideologist of our time - the future of this doctrine is very vague. His ideas cannot be reduced to a clear code, his contradictions make themselves felt at every step, his methods are indistinct, his followers cannot form a large-scale party. Its essence is absolutely extremist - it is enough to quote what Dugin writes in a recent article against liberalism: "It is possible to defeat this evil only by uprooting it, and I do not exclude that this will require erasing from the face of the earth those spiritual and physical lands that gave life to this world heresy - heresy, insisting that "man is the measure of things"" ("Profile" № 12 for 2008). Let me remind you that no matter how you treat this "world heresy", Europe gave it life - starting with Greece, where the sophist Protagoras gave this formula. Does this mean that Russia should drop a bomb on the now Orthodox Greece? Or will we only do with the United States with all its parishes of the ROCOR and other Orthodox Churches? Old liberal Alexander Yanov once said that Dugin differs from other totalitarian ideologists in that he brings all ideas to the end, but personally I just do not see this sequence. For example, it follows from the quote given that only for the sake of eradicating liberalism it is necessary to "erase from the face of the earth" Europe and America - isn't it? But will Dugin himself agree to openly admit this, as well as other co-organizers of the CKI from Dean Dobrenkov to Old Believer Tyurenkov, or not? Instead of this commendable ability to bring ideas to the end, I see a pile of ideas and words soldered only by one passion - hatred of normal human civilization, nothing else.
Arkady Mahler
04.06.09
Source: https://iriney.ru/okkultnyie/okkultnyie-vozzreniya-dugina/novosti-ob-okkultnyix-vozzreniyax-dugina/ne-konservativnaya,-ne-pravoslavnaya,-ne-filosofiya.html
