“The quantitative degeneration of all things is closely linked to that of money, as is shown by the fact that nowadays the ‘worth’ of an object is ordinarily ‘estimated’ only in terms of its price, considered simply as a ‘figure’, a ‘sum’, or a numerical quantity of money; in fact, with most of our contemporaries, every judgment brought to bear on an object is nearly always based exclusively on what it costs. The word ‘estimate’ has been emphasized because it has in itself a double meaning, qualitative and quantitative; today the first meaning has been lost to sight, or what amounts to the same thing, means have been found to equate it to the second, and thus it comes about that not only is the ‘worth’ of an object ‘estimated’ according to its price, but the ‘worth’ of a man is ‘estimated’ according to his wealth.”
― René Guénon
A Traditionalist an Perennialist
For many years, maybe 44 years to date, I have been aware of Rene, Jean, Marie, Joseph Guenon, also later known as Abd al –Wahid Yahya (al-Maliki, al-Hamidi ash-Shadhili ) a French author and intellectual who remains an influential figure in the domain of metaphysics, having written on topics ranging from metaphysics, “sacred science” and traditional studies to symbolism and initiation.
In 1921, Guénon published an Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines. His goal, as he writes it, is an attempt at presenting to westerners eastern metaphysics and spirituality as they are understood and thought by easterners themselves, while pointing at what René Guénon describes as all the erroneous interpretations and misunderstandings of western orientalism and “neospiritualism” (for the latter, notably the proponents of Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophism). Right from that time, he presents a rigorous understanding, not only of Hindu doctrines, but also of eastern metaphysics in general. He managed to expose these doctrines to a western public viewed by him as quite unprepared and unreceptive as a whole. He departed from standard scholarship (orientalist) terminology and methods and preferred to expose the doctrines as a simple “easterner”, devoid of what he called “western prejudices”. For one of the most famous aspects of René Guénon’s work is the irreducible difference he describes between the East and the West. René Guénon defines eastern metaphysics and intellectualism as of “universal nature”, that “opens possibilities of conception which are truly beyond any limitation”.
His work comprises:
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An exposition of fundamental metaphysical principles: Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines which contains the general definition of the term “tradition” as Guénon defines it, Man and His Becoming according to the Vedânta, The Symbolism of the Cross, The Multiple States of Being,The Metaphysical Principles of the Infinitesimal Calculus, Oriental Metaphysics.
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Studies in symbolism (comprising many articles he wrote for the journal Le Voile d’Isis which became later known under the name Etudes Traditionnelles). These studies in symbolism were later compiled by Michel Valsan in the posthumous book Symbols of Sacred Science. The studies The Great Triad,Traditional Forms & Cosmic Cycles, Insights into Islamic Esoterism & Taoism and The King of the World (alternately translated as Lord of the World) are also mostly about symbolism.
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Fundamental studies related to Initiation, a subject completely re-exposited by Guénon from the traditional perspective: Perspectives on Initiation, Initiation and Spiritual Realization, The Esoterism of Dante.
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Criticism of the modern world and of “neospiritualism”: East and West, The Crisis of the Modern World, Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power, Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion, The Spiritist Fallacy and The Reign of Quantity & the Signs of the Times, the latter book being often considered as his masterpiece as an explanation of the modern world from the traditional perspective.
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Various studies in esoterism: Saint Bernard, Insights into Christian Esoterism, Studies in Freemasonry and Compagnonnage, Studies in Hinduism, &c.
My Surprise
Imagine my surprise of the likes of Alexander Dugin, the so named Putin’s Rasputin claiming ideas derived from Rene Guenon!
In all honesty I had read some time ago a little about Dugin, mainly on the Western media, not an unbiased source for news, and filtered through the lens of what it’s considered a politically, Liberal, and correct attitude, then the shock of recently reading a extract from his Fourth Political Theory book, and when he claims allegiance to the Traditionalist.
Dugin’s Fourth Political Power:
“Modernity and its ideological basis (individualism, liberal democracy, capitalism, consumerism, and so on) are the cause of the future catastrophe of humanity, and the global domination of the Western lifestyle is the reason for the final degradation of the Earth. The West is approaching its terminus, and we should not let it drag the rest of us down into the abyss with it.
Tradition (religion, hierarchy, and family) and its values were overthrown at the dawn of modernity. All three political theories were conceived as artificial ideological constructions by people who comprehended, in various ways, ‘the death of God’ (Nietzsche), the ‘disenchantment of the world’ (Weber), and the ‘end of the sacred.’ This was the core of the New Era of modernity: man came to replace God, philosophy and science replaced religion, and the rational, forceful, and technological constructs took the place of revelation.
When we use the term ‘modernization’, we mean progress, linear accumulation, and a certain continuous process. When we speak of ‘modernization’, we presuppose development, growth, and evolution. It is the same semantic system. Thus, when we speak of the ‘unconditionally positive achievements of modernization: we agree with a very important basic paradigm – we agree with the idea that ‘human society is developing, progressing, evolving, growing, and getting better and better: that is to say, we share a particular vision of historical optimism.
This historical optimism pertains to the three classical political ideologies (liberalism, Communism, and fascism). It is rooted in the scientific, societal, political, and social worldview in the humanities and natural sciences of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries, when the ideas of progress, development, and growth were taken as axioms that could not be doubted. In other words, this entire set of axioms, as well as the whole historiography and predictive analytics of the Nineteenth century in the humanities and the natural sciences, were built upon the idea of progress.
The Socialist Herbert Spencer claimed that the development of human society that the development of human society was the next stage of evolution in the animal species, and that there was a connection, and a continuity between the animal world and social development.
And, therefore, all the laws of the animal world leading to the development, improvement, and evolution on the animal world, within Darwin’s framework, can be projected onto society, This is the basis of the famous theory, ‘Social Darwinism’, of which Spencer was a classic representative. If, according to Darwin, the driving force behind the evolution of the animal kingdom its the struggle for survival and natural selection, then the same process must take place in society, argued Spencer. And the more perfect the struggle is for survival (Inter-species, intrs-species, the struggle of the strong against the weak, the competition for resources, pleasure), the more perfect our society becomes, The question is how to aid this process of selection. According to Spencer, this is the theme of the liberal model, and is the meaning of social progress.
Therefore, if we are liberals, in one way or the other we inherited this ‘zoological’ approach to social development based on the struggle against the destruction of the weak by the strong.
Spencer’s theory contains an important point that must be elaborated upon. He argues that there are two phases of social development. The first phase occurs when the struggle for survival is conducted crudely, by force; this is characteristic of the ancient world. The second occurs when the struggle is carried out more subtly through economic means. Once the bourgeois revolution takes place, the struggle for survival doesn’t stop. According to Spencer, it acquires new, more advanced, and more efficient forms; it relocates into the sphere of the market. Here the strongest survive-that is the richest. Instead of the most powerful feudal lord, a hero, a strong person, or a leader, who simply sizes all that there is for grabs around his community, taking away what all that belongs to other nations and races and sharing it with the ruling ethnicity or cast, now come the capitalist, who bring the same aggressive principle to the market, the corporation, or the trading company. The transition from the order of power to the order of money, according to Spencer, does not mean the humanization of the process, but only underscores greater effectiveness. That is to say, the struggle in the market sphere between the strong (meaning the rich) and the weak (meaning the poor) becomes more efficient and leads to higher levels of development until super-rich, super-strong, and super developed countries emerge. Progress, according to Spencer, and, more broadly speaking, according to liberalism is always the growth of economic power, since this continues to refine the struggle for survival of the animal species, the warfare methods of strong nations, and the castes within the framework of pre-capitalistic states.
Thus, an animalistic form of aggression is embedded in the liberal idea of progress, which is regarded as the main trajectory of social development. With more economic freedom, there is greater power for takeovers, attacks, mergers, and acquisitions.
In such a system, the ‘more advanced’ law or the more advanced, ‘more modern’ methods of production do not mean that they are more humane; what it means that they allow more opportunities for the strong to more effectively realize their power, while the weak can only admit defeat, or, if they have any strength left, fight on. In this meaner, the modern idea of economic growth, as we see in liberals such as Alan Greenspan, and Ben Bernake, has its foundations and origins in the idea of the struggle between species, that is, the feral destruction of the weak by the strong, or the validation of the strong at the expense of the weak. Only instead of the conflict between predators and herbivores, we have the golden billion, and in that golden billion, their own ‘kings of beasts’ ( the New York Stock Exchange and the World Bank bankers) who devour all that there is up for grabs and, at the same time, turn the forest of the World into ‘social infrastructures’.
Therefore, when we speak of ‘modernization’ into the liberal vein, of necesity we mean the enhancement of the social, political, cultural, spiritual, and informational scenario within which the absolute aggression of the strong against the weak can be implemented.
There is only one way out-to reject the classical political theories, both winners and losers, strain our imaginations, seize the reality of a new world, correctly decipher the challenges of post-modernity, and create something new-something beyond the political battles of Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries. Such an approach is an invitation to the development of the Fourth Political Theory-beyond Communism, Fascism, and Liberalism.”
In Brief
“Dugin charges that Liberalism in the end contributes to decline and does not achieve the progress it claims. “Communism and Fascism have collapsed,” Peter J. Leithart asserts, then he assigns the belief that “liberalism, the final twentieth-century ideology, turned into libertine postmodernism as soon as it triumphed,” to Dugin’s mindset. Dugin believes that “the idea of modernization is based on the idea of progress, which is regarded as the main trajectory of social development. With more economic freedom, there is greater power for takeovers, attacks, mergers, and acquisitions. Liberal discourse, meaning the analysis of the liberal ideologist, is a completely animal discourse.”
Branko Malic’s, Dugin’s questionable Traditionalism
“Alexander Dugin’s influence on Russian foreign policy is an object of speculation, mostly on the level of gossip. In the West he is often times dubbed new Rasputin, probably because mainstream opinion maker’s intelligence doesn’t seem to reach further of pattern recognition (clue: the beard). While it’s hard to believe that esteemed professor sees himself as “Russia’s greatest love machine”, it is impossible to overlook that some of the moves Russian foreign policy makes are fairly concordant to his opinions and affirm much of what he is saying. Diplomatic victory over the West during the first phase of Syria crisis cannot be denied, and it is hard to escape the fact that Reagan’s term “Evil empire” is coming dangerously close to denote the USA itself. However, there is a great danger in idealizing the Eurasian project spearheaded by Russian Federation. Uncritical glorification of the rising might of Russia, although understandable, shouldn’t lead to forgetting the famous saying about “enigma wrapped in secret”. In other words, Westerner must never forget that he doesn’t know and – as is implied in Dugin’s logic – maybe even cannot know, what goes on behind Putin’s stone face. Further, it is questionable how really can one reconcile militant Evolian mysticism with ascetic wisdom of Guenon, which Dugin apparently tries to do. It is a pity that West is more or less ignorant of Guenon’s consequent spiritual descendant, Hungarian Bela Hamvas, man far more experienced in enduring than exercising the violent force, but who nevertheless almost single handed kept the flame of Tradition alive for all Eastern Europe. What he and Guenon were able to do is to point the finger and say: this is Corruption. Nothing more, nothing less. And that in itself made them revolutionaries. Resistance of the sort Alexander Dugin advocates could prove no less immoral than the aggression of the West and in fact can hardly be reconciled with the religious attitude of Traditionalism.
We must conclude that Alexander Dugin is relevant thinker and his work is a point of reference for everybody who sees, or at least hears, something creeping in the bushes near his front door. Dugin says it clearly: in the plastic flowers of Globalization, there is a serpent hiding. But if we observe how he, as well as the European alternative right in general, splices the Traditionalism and realpolitik, the unavoidable question arises: do you really cure the viper’s bite with another batch of poison? No doubt, ever more people are becoming aware that history of 20th century was not what they were told it was. The values of the West more and more prove to be a threat not only to political, economical and biological, but also the very logical foundation of human being as such. Nihilism is all out of masks. However, to align with thinkers like Alexander Dugin solely because they see the shortcomings of the West so clearly is very unreasonable. For although his cards are not marked, don’t be so sure you know what card game he is really playing.”
Branko Malić
Great post, dear Mr. Brigido!
NB: Be careful with Nevzorov. He is anti-traditionalist & too much pro Western. 🙂
Nevzorov, he is not devoted to horses, now days?
Thank you Maria for your comment! 🙂
Ha-ha! He is more famous here for his criticism of the Church. He was good at the 90s. At least more objective. Now he is more famous here as a great antagonist.
Thank you for the update on Nevzorov, however I will be more interested in your views about Dugin? 🙂
Oh well…I’m too far from the politics. I’ve heard too little of him to consider him a serious exponent influencing on what’s going on here. All our political roots come to our foreign friends in Israel & in the USA. Here people say that Dugin deals with profanation. No more. I know a good man, who would be indeed useful if you wish to comprehend more or less true state of affairs. But his site in fully in Russian. Nevertheless I can email you the link.
My view it’s the same, about Dugin, but the media like to make the news, and filter them to achieve their ends, too much it’s post on the ideas, themselves, than in the work necessary to make an idea fruitful, the Gospels are just an example of how great ideas, and words, have little effect in lack of deeds.
Thank you Maria. 🙂
Interesting read – as always.
Thank you for your kindness. 🙂
Social Darwinism was traditionally a view favored by the upper class, not the left or liberals. Kinda like someone We know, the fact that they’re wealthy is the way things were meant to be. However, they make an error in understanding Darwin’s theory. They think evolution leads to improvement. Not so. The fossil record shows mostly extinct animals. No one ever said things are getting better. It is what it is, as they say. And we do our best to try to make things better anyway.
Since Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, almost everybody has try to hitch their wagon to a Natural Selection process, to justify their claim to be who they are, or try to claim their right to be so, there is no surprise that those who differ would argue the opposite, and with good reason,
Natural selection shouldn’t be a reason to be a brute, as Men we posses consciousness, and we are social, and produce norms of acceptable behavior, laws who punish those who don’t, ethics, and morals, to guide our behavior, and used to produce not only our welfare, but those of others as well.
Using natural selection as a excuse to unleash their greed, and selfish behavior. it’s just a lame excuse to justify their lack of Virtue.
Thank you, for your comment. 🙂
Agree. 🙂
Good morning Mr. Brigido, you have written a comment, which I really appreciate! Thank you very much:)
You are welcome Martina! 🙂
Yeah, I don’t know any liberals today who would agree with social Darwinism. Not aware of it in the past. Liberals believe we all are equal in dignity and worth. Don’t see how social Darwinism could fit with that.
When Dugin is talking about about American Liberalism, he is not referring about the left in America, as most Americans, understand the word ‘Liberal.’
A Liberal in America is a broad political philosophy centered on the unalienable rights of the individual. The fundamental liberal ideals of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion for all belief systems, and the separation of church and state, right to due process, and equality under the law are widely accepted as a common foundation across the spectrum of liberal thought.
Modern liberalism in the United States includes issues such as same-sex marriage, voting rights for all adult citizens, civil rights, environmentalism, and government protection of freedom from want. National social services such as: equal education opportunities; access to health care; and transportation infrastructure are intended to meet the responsibility to “promote the general welfare.”
But that is not what Dugin is talking about!
Around the World Liberal Economics means a more radical and laissez-faire capitalist set of ideas. Scholars now tended to associate it with the theories of economists Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and James M. Buchanan, along with politicians and policy-makers such as Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan. and its proponents (the “Chicago Boys”). Once this new meaning was established among Spanish-speaking scholars, it diffused into the English-language study of political economy. According to one study of 148 scholarly articles, neoliberalism is almost never defined but used in several senses to describe ideology, economic theory, development theory, or economic reform policy. It has largely become a term of condemnation employed by critics, and suggests a market fundamentalism closer to the laissez-faire principles of the current global plutocrats, who in the name of this ideology are plucking, everybody’s feathers around the World, with little regard for the benefit of the common people, socially or economically, or the welfare of our Planet as an Ecological being.
And that’s what Dugin is talking about, when he use the term ‘Liberalism.’ 🙂
It was very popular and influential in the past, around the turn of the century, and never left wing or liberal. Now Ayn Rand and that sort of slop is popular among conservative Republicans, Paul Ryan, Rand Paul were nurtured on that stuff.
If you read my response to BroadBlogs above, it clarify the issue, the term ‘Liberalism’ doesn’t refers to what we in America understand as a Liberal.
But a Economical Liberalism, the economical policies, our plutocrats around the World, and specially our homegrown ones, are imposing Globally, with little regard for the people, or the Environment. 😦
Sorry I was responding to Broadblog’s reference to SocialDarwinism. I’ll have to read up on Liberalism. Thanks
You’re frightfully well read 🙂
I sense that future wars will not be won with material wealth but through superior intelligence.
Well, I hope for no future wars, but for Peace, and this will be achieved only when every man would have peace in their heart, not an easy task, by any means.
Thank you for your nice comment! 🙂
Interesting
Thank you! 🙂
Interesting person in a great post.
You should be teaching somewhere! Perhaps Dugin would fit in a dystopian novel.. I have learned quite a bit about Russian politics from your post so I thank you for it!
Thank for your comment Christy, well I was surprised to find out I got something in common with Dugin, I wouldn’t call myself a Traditionalist, but I sympathize with their quest, and read them almost all of them through the many years since I knew of them. 🙂
Much food for thought here.
Thank you for commenting, we appreciate it, and we also enjoy reading your interesting and informative blog. 🙂
Fascinating post. I admit to being unfamiliar with Dugin and his work, but the quote you provide is intriguing. It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that liberal capitalism is the end-point of the human social journey, when that is in fact highly unlikely. So what is the next stage? An interesting question to ponder. Leithart’s observation, that liberalism “turned into libertine postmodernism as soon as it triumphed” is likewise fascinating and rings true to me.
So much to learn. Thanks for another thought-provoking post.
For a time after the fall of the Soviet Empire, there was a talk about the end of History Francis Fukuyama wrote a book about it, he was criticized and he wrote:
“The End of History was never linked to a specifically American model of social or political organization. Following Alexandre Kojève, the Russian-French philosopher who inspired my original argument, I believe that the European Union more accurately reflects what the world will look like at the end of history than the contemporary United States. The EU’s attempt to transcend sovereignty and traditional power politics by establishing a transnational rule of law is much more in line with a “post-historical” world than the Americans’ continuing belief in God, national sovereignty, and their military.”
As for the World adopting a specific system of government, not long ago, we witnessed Brexit, and some other countries may follow, however ideally speaking different forms of democracy should rule the World, but as for the Liberal system of economics, I seriously doubt it can continue the way we know it now, if anything for simple ecological reasons, ideally, local, and sustainable economies should proliferate not only in every nation, but in every region of those nations, and an exchange of goods still may be practiced, but not to the point of being dependent, like we do know, as example Oil, and cheap imports from China.
Unlimited growth it’s a fantasy, dynamical downscaling makes more sense, on a finite World with limited resources, and ecological issues.
On any case we do not know, we can only hope things would turn up for the better, but if History can teach us something, is that, it’s not always the case, after the fall of the Roman Empire we had the Dark Ages, that someone argue where not so dark.
Thank you for your comment! 🙂
I will bookmark this for when I can give attentive read.
Thank you Carl, we appreciate it! 🙂
¡Very interesting! 🙂
Thank you David! 🙂
A fascinating introduction to Guenon and Dugin. I have not consumed the media of any kind for quite a while, so I’m pretty ignorant of current geopolitical actors such as Dugin. I had to laugh at the “mainstream opinion makers/pattern recognition” remark. They are really that simplistic.
It will be a surprise to many, or maybe not, but I ceased following the news probably since after the first invasion of Iraq, occasionally if I hear something that may interest me, through friends, or acquaintances, I go look at it online, and make my own research through mainly non establishment media sources.
As I mention on the post, I had a vague idea who Dugin was until his Fourth Political Power statement fall on my hands casually. (a friend handed me a copy of a magazine)
After reading the traditionalist since the early Seventies, like Titus Burckhardt, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Martin Lings, Rene Guenon, William C. Chittick, and others, some in fact I wrote posts on this blog about it, kind of surprised me so much, that make me take a closer look at Dugin, and made me publish this post.
Thank you Julie for your comment. 🙂
Wow! I feel so much more informed reading a paragraph of your posts, nevermind the whole thing! Only recently my Latvian friend was talking about this ‘market fundamentalism’ that strives to keep the rich richer and the poor, poorer. I shall mention Dugin to her – I’m sure she’ll have plenty to say. Thank you. I always come away feeling enlightened from your posts.
Also, thank you kindly for dropping in on my site- it is truly appreciated!
Thank you for you kindness, comment, and your praise, we appreciate it.
Yes, all around the World the effects of this so called free market economics, are felt, specially on those more in need, than on the rich countries, and even when on those ‘Rich’ countries, only the infamous 1% get to enjoy the full benefit from that economy, and the devastating consequences it’s for the poor to pay for the rich, a sad reality for the so called free democracies.
Its is time for a good shake up, the 1%, and equalize the money making game for the 99% 🙂
How’s things?, sometimes I see a 404 server message when I browse this page. Just a heads up, best wishes
Thanks for the heads up, but ironically it’s your page that I can’t reach.
Never play a man at his own game.
Good advice. 🙂