Heidegger and "Putin's Brain"

The Russian political scientist Aleksandr Dugin is known as "Putin's Brain" since his writings and lectures serve as the philosophical and ideological underpinnings to " neo-Eurasianism" and Putin's expansive foreign policy initiatives.  Aleksandr Dugin cites Heidegger as his greatest source of inspiration and considers himself a scholar of the German philosopher.  In 2014 he published Martin Heidegger: The Philosophy of Another Beginning , an inquiry into Heidegger's philosophy.  I have not read that book, but have looked into The Fourth Political Theory where Dugin translates Heidegger's core concepts into a political manifesto.  Both books were published in English by the white supremacist imprint Arktos. 

Heidegger's influence within the philosophy departments of American and European universities has waned considerably since the release two years ago of his Schwarze Hefte (Black Notebooks) which showed clearly that anti-Semitism was a the core of his thinking.  Researchers now see a continuum of profound anti-Semitism from Being and Time (1927) to his embrace of National Socialism (Heidegger remained a Nazi Party member until 1945).  But it is precisely this period of Heidegger's career that attracts Aleksandr Dugin.  It is Heidegger's deep hatred of liberal democracy that forms the foundation of Dugin's Fourth Political Theory.  Heidegger saw liberal democracy as a construct of the “World Jewry” - alien to authentic human Dasein - which had taken hold of America and which America in turn wanted to impose on Europe, destroying European Kultur.  Dugin constructs a hierarchy of world ideologies - with "liberalism" at the very bottom - which must be overcome with a new kind of totalitarianism:

"The Fourth Political Theory … is built on the imperative of overcoming modernity and all three political ideologies in order (the order has tremendous significance): (1) liberalism, (2) communism, (3) nationalism (fascism). The subject of this theory, in its simple version, is the concept “narod,” roughly, “Volk” or “people,” in the sense of “peoplehood” and “peoples,” not “masses.”

In Dugin's theory, then, fascism exists on a much higher plane that liberalism.  In fact, both fascism and communism are components of Dugin's totalitarian Brave New World: communism for its anti-capitalism and collectivism, and fascism/Nazism for its anti-rationalism. The new order - which Dugin calls "Third Rome - Third Reich - Third International" requires:

"putting aside anti-Communist as well as anti-fascist, prejudices. These prejudices are the instruments in the hands of liberals and globalists with which to keep their enemies divided. So we should strongly reject anti-Communism as well as anti-fascism. Both of them are counter-revolutionary tools in the hands of the global liberal elite."

Dugin's vision of a new Eurasia is a confederation of anti-liberal states - each with its own ethic and uniquely national totalitarian governance - united under the protection of Mother Russia:

He (Dugin) sees Russia as uniquely positioned to carry out the “metapolitical” confrontation between East and West that Heidegger called for in order to correct the errors of Western rationalism, though he never followed through on it himself. Russia would embody, then, a “fourth political theory,” repairing the failures of the three theories of the modern West: liberalism, communism, and fascism. In concrete political terms, this means a Russian empire, purportedly respectful of the various ethnic identities of the captive peoples over whom it would rule. That is, it would respect these identities by sparing them from the homogenizing, leveling forces of Atlanticist universalism, but at the cost of placing them in their due rank, subject to Russian hegemony. This Russian empire would ally with other opponents of Western universalism to oppose the plutocratic, materialist, atheistic Atlanticist powers, chiefly the United States and its supposed proxy, the European Union.

Russia, under Putin and with the support of the Russian Orthodox Church, is undergoing a "spiritual renewal", similar to the "geistige Erneuerung" Heidegger saw in National Socialism and which he wrote about in a 1947 letter to Herbert Marcuse: 

"Zu 1933: ich erwartete vom Nationalsozialismus eine geistige Erneuerung des ganzen Lebens, eine Aussöhnung sozialer Gegensätze und eine Rettung des abendländischen Daseins."

But for Dugin, this "spiritual renewal" can only succeed through a global conflagration involving Russia and the proponents of liberal democracy (the United States).  Dugin divides his American adversaries between the "hawks" and the "doves", but they are two sides of the same coin: as advocates of liberal democracy they pose a grave danger to Russia's sovereignty.  Dugin uses the term Enantiodromia to illustrate how American liberal democracy has overreached and will result in military conflict with Russia: 

"Enantiodromia ends where one of the trends clearly begin to dominate. When the Caesarists realize that U.S. hegemony and liberalism as such will inevitably lead to de-sovereignization of Russia, and it does not depend on who prevails in the United States — the hawks or the doves, they (Caesarists) then shift into the zone of ideological non-liberalism (anti-liberalism) and prepare for war; a real military war. Because they know that sooner or later that war will be imposed on them if they will insist on sovereignty."

Fortunately, Putin is a pragmatist and doesn't get his military advice from Aleksandr Dugin.  How much influence does Dugin have in the Kremlin?  We don't know; perhaps he is seen as a court jester who is useful in appeasing the Orthodox Church leaders. On the other hand, there is no question that there are vast numbers of people, within Russia and beyond Russia, who are being influenced by Dugin’s ideology and by his political-theological fantasies. According to Anton Barbashin and Hannah Thoburn, there are no less than 56 branch offices of Dugin’s Eurasian Youth Union: 47 within Russia and nine abroad.  What is also clear is that the writings of Martin Heidegger will continue to inspire the enemies of liberal democracy and the Open Society for decades to come.

Comments

[James]

Stop hating on Russia!

[Zyme]

If Russians are concerned about losing sovereignty to USA, then we Germans have an awful lot of work to make us free :-)

I can't really see what Putin could do to keep US organisations even more at bay. Unfortunately it is a totally different story in Central Europe, though.

Just think of yesterday: A guy gets shot in a US governmental building in Washington before he can do harm. Top news on all German channels. I really wonder why?