Rejoinder to NR on Dugin

EDIT:  You can read my post if you want, but this rebuttal is much better (and hilarious).

I’ve always been suspicious of National Review.  But ever since their article telling rural communities to commit suicide on behalf of economic prosperity, I have seen them for what they really are.

I saw this article on Dugin a few years ago and put it in the back of my mind.  But let’s look at it.  We must begin by noting how strange it is that NR is using moral categories.  Remember, moral concepts are immaterial and not reducible to bank accounts, so NR is already out of its depth.

Thus the scribblings of mad philosophers can lead to the deaths of millions.

How many people died in Iraq?  Were the Kristols involved?

Dugin’s Mysticism?

Is Dugin really a gnostic mystic?  It’s hard to say.  Yeah, he traveled in circles that were friendly to occult, but that’s not the same thing as, say, W. Bush’s being inaugurated into Skull & Bones.  I, for one, like to read Dame Frances Yates.  Does that make me a Gnostic?

The core idea of this is that “liberalism” (by which Dugin means the entire Western consensus) represents an assault on the traditional hierarchical organization of the world.

So what?  This is standard conservative (real ones) political theory.

Accordingly he has written books in which he has reconstructed the entire history of the world as a continuous battle between these two factions, from Rome vs. Carthage to Russia vs. the Anglo-Saxon “Atlantic Order” today. If it is to win its fight against the subversive oceanic bearers of such “racist” (because foreign imposed) ideas as human rights, Russia must unite around itself all the continental powers, including Germany, Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet republics, Turkey, Iran, and Korea, into grand Eurasian Union strong enough to defeat the West.

What is wrong with this?  Quite frankly, I think it is a brilliant typology that plays out in history.  Further, we are all morally obligated to pray for the elimination of rogue states like Turkey.  Zubrin hasn’t actually stated the case:  the war is Eternal Rome vs Eternal Carthage.  That’s a bit more precise.

The next paragraph in the article is a shrill rant that could have been taken from Voltaire.  4th Political Theory does borrow from eclectic sources, but Zubrin can’t state it without violating Godwin’s law and worrying about “stopping free thought.”

Z. then quote extensively from Heiser’s book on Dugin, but the passage is filled with generalizations on specialized topics that I really can’t respond in detail.

Finally, Heiser comments on Dugin’s worship of Chaos, and the adoption of the occult symbol of the eight-pointed “Star of Chaos” as the emblem (and, when inscribed in gold on a black background, the flag) of the Eurasianist movement. “For Dugin, logos is replaced by chaos, and the very symbol of chaos magic is the symbol of Eurasia:

This is the only halfway decent criticism.  Chaos magick is something to be worried about, as we have seen the destruction that its practitioners like McCain and Hillary have caused throughout the world. I part ways with Dugin here.

The last part of the essay is a rather hilarious plea for Ukraine (and by extension, the EU).

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