The End of Liberalism and the Arrival of Postliberalism

It turns out that the triumph of liberalism, the first political theory, coincided with its end. This only seems to be a paradox.

Liberalism had been an ideology from the start. It was not as dogmatic as Marxism, but was no less philosophical, graceful, and refined. It ideologically opposed Marxism and Fascism, not only undertaking a technological war for survival, but also defending its right to monopolize its own image of the future. While the other competing ideologies were alive, liberalism continued on and grew stronger precisely as an ideology, i.e. a set of ideas, views, and projects that are typical for a historical subject. Each of the three political theories had its own subject. The subject of communism was class. Fascism’s subject was the state in Italian Fascism under Mussolini, or race in Hitler’s National Socialism. In liberalism, the subject was represented by the individual, freed from all forms of collective identity and any ‘membership’ (l’appartenance). While the ideological struggle had formal opponents, entire nations and societies, at least theoretically, were able to select their subject of choice – that of class, racism/statism, or individiualism.

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The Post-West

In the era of globalization, the West not only becomes global and omnipresent itself (as expressed in the uniformity of world fashions, the general diffusion of computer and information technologies, the ubiquitous establishment of the market economy and liberal democratic political and legal systems), but in its nucleus, in the center of a unipolar world, it also qualitatively changes the “Rich North” from modernity to postmodernity.

Henceforth for the first time in history the appeal to this nuclear West — the West in its highest manifestation – does not carry modernity behind it (of whatever kind, exogenous or endogenous), as the West itself is henceforth synonymous not with modernity but with postmodernity. But postmodernity, with its ironies, pure technologicity, recycling of the old, and spent faith in progress, no longer offers its periphery even the distant prospect of development. “The end of history,” which came, raises absolutely different questions, before the weight and significance of which the pulling up by “the West” to its own level of “the Poor South” looks like an absolutely unnecessary, purposeless, and senseless task: if anything can be found there, the answers to the new problems of the postmodern epoch surely will not be one of those things.

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The content of liberalism changes, switching over from the level of expression to the level of speech. Liberalism becomes not proper liberalism, but sub-audition, silent agreement, consensus. This corresponds to the switch over from the epoch of modernity to postmodernity. In post-modernity, liberalism, preserving and even increasing its influence, ever more rarely projects an intelligent and freely adopted political philosophy; it becomes unconscious, selfunderstood and instinctive. This instinctive liberalism, having pretences to transform itself into the generally non-conscious “matrix” of contemporariness, gradually acquires grotesque characteristics.

From the classical principles of liberalism, which have become unconscious (“the world reserve unconscious” along an analogy with the dollar “world reserve currency”), the grotesque ways of postmodern culture are born. This is already a sui generis post-liberalism, following from the total victory of classical liberalism, but leading it to an extreme conclusions.

Thus there arises the panorama of post-liberal grotesques:

— The measure of things becomes not the individual, but the post-individual, “the dividual”, accidentally playing an ironic combination of parts of people (his organs, his clones, his simulacra – all the way up to cyborgs and mutants);
— Private property is idolized, “transcendentalized”, and transforms from that which a man owns to that which owns the man;
— Equality of opportunity turns into equality of the contemplation of opportunities (the society of the spectacle – Guy Debord)
— Belief in the contractual character of all political and social institutions grows into an equalization of the real and the virtual, the world becomes a technical model;
— All forms of non-individual authorities disappear altogether, and any individual is free to think about the world whatsoever he thinks fit (the crisis of common rationality);
— The principle of the separation of powers changes into the idea of a constant electronic referendum (electronic parliament), where each internet user continually votes on any decision, which leads to the multiplication of power to the number of separate citizens (each is his own branch of government);
— “Civil society” completely displaces government and converts into a global, cosmopolitan melting pot;
— From the thesis “economy is destiny” it takes up the thesis “the numerical code – that is destiny”, so far as work, money, the market, production, consumption – everything becomes virtual.

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The most logical traditionalism - substantial, philosophical, ontological and conceptual – is the one that criticizes not various sides of Modernity or Postmodernity but denies fundamental vector of historical progress, that is per se opposes the time. Traditionalism – is the form of conservatism that affirms: the separate moments that arouse our rejection are not bad, everything that is modern is bad. “The idea of progress is bad, the idea of technical development is bad, the philosophy of subject and object of Descartes is bad, the Newton metaphor of watchmaker is bad, modern positive science, education and pedagogy based on it are bad”. “This episteme, - says the conservator-traditionalist further, - does not do at all. This is a totalitarian, false, negative episteme that we should fight with”. And next, if to continue his thought: “I like only what had been before the beginning of Modernity”. It is possible to go further and subject to criticism those tendencies that made possible the emergence of Modernity in the traditional society. Right up to emerging an idea of linear time.
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Conservatism does not fight for the past, but for the constant, for the fundamental constants of society, of man, of spirit, then we can understand with good reason the conservative view of all three temporal modalities - past, present and future. The past is valuable not in and of itself, but only because there is something permanent in it. So too are the present and the future.

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— Russia is an independent civilization;
— The West and the logic of its becoming is a road to the abyss;
— The claim to the universality of such phenomena as technological progress, democracy, individualism and liberalism conceals racism, cultural superiority and colonial aspirations;
— “Tolerance,” propagandized by the West, is a form of the aggressive imposition of its values on all other cultures and civilizations;
— Russia’s fate consists in the assertion of its independence, following its own way, the defense of its original values (Orthodoxy, morality, justice, sobornost’, holism, and so on), and opposition to the West in all its forms.

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The Post-West

In the era of globalization, the West not only becomes global and omnipresent itself (as expressed in the uniformity of world fashions, the general diffusion of computer and information technologies, the ubiquitous establishment of the market economy and liberal democratic political and legal systems), but in its nucleus, in the center of a unipolar world, it also qualitatively changes the “Rich North” from modernity to postmodernity.

Henceforth for the first time in history the appeal to this nuclear West — the West in its highest manifestation – does not carry modernity behind it (of whatever kind, exogenous or endogenous), as the West itself is henceforth synonymous not with modernity but with postmodernity. But postmodernity, with its ironies, pure technologicity, recycling of the old, and spent faith in progress, no longer offers its periphery even the distant prospect of development. “The end of history,” which came, raises absolutely different questions, before the weight and significance of which the pulling up by “the West” to its own level of “the Poor South” looks like an absolutely unnecessary, purposeless, and senseless task: if anything can be found there, the answers to the new problems of the postmodern epoch surely will not be one of those things.

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The proper term is “Eurasia,” introduced by the Eurasianists and called upon to underscore the organic unity of the “large space” of the Eurasian mainland, corresponding to Russia’s b rders, from ancient Russ to the USSR. Moreover, in contrast to the ideological manner of thinking of the Bolsheviks and leaders of the USSR, who based their theories on Marxism, where nothing is said either of territorial space, tradition, or civilizations, the Eurasianists interpreted the USSR as a historical-spatial, civilizational, and geopolitical organism, and not only as an ideological construction. Precisely their analysis of Soviet history, especially applicable to the Stalinist period, proved most correct and accurate among all other émigrés.

@A.G.Dugin

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The Post-West

In the era of globalization, the West not only becomes global and omnipresent itself (as expressed in the uniformity of world fashions, the general diffusion of computer and information technologies, the ubiquitous establishment of the market economy and liberal democratic political and legal systems), but in its nucleus, in the center of a unipolar world, it also qualitatively changes the “Rich North” from modernity to postmodernity.

Henceforth for the first time in history the appeal to this nuclear West — the West in its highest manifestation – does not carry modernity behind it (of whatever kind, exogenous or endogenous), as the West itself is henceforth synonymous not with modernity but with postmodernity. But postmodernity, with its ironies, pure technologicity, recycling of the old, and spent faith in progress, no longer offers its periphery even the distant prospect of development. “The end of history,” which came, raises absolutely different questions, before the weight and significance of which the pulling up by “the West” to its own level of “the Poor South” looks like an absolutely unnecessary, purposeless, and senseless task: if anything can be found there, the answers to the new problems of the postmodern epoch surely will not be one of those things.

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United Europe has two geopolitical identities: on the one hand, it is the outskirt of the American empire, used as a place for the accommodation of American military bases, and on the other hand, it is the germ of an alternative geopolitical formation with its own system of interests and priorities, which can rather differ (sometimes even essentially) from the American ones.

@A.G.Dugin

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One empire can only be opposed by numerous empires that can collect their potential into an asymmetric structure, in order in the first stage to stop, disrupt, and stave off the construction of a unipolar world, and in the next stage, to finalize among several imperial poles the borders of mutual influence in a multi-polar world.

@A.G.Dugin

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🌕 Moreover, the decision to adopt an imperial project must automatically also involve intensive work with our friends, the member countries of the Eurasian Economic Society (in the first place, Kazakhstan and Belarus), whose peoples and leaders support integration. While opposing our enemies, it is necessary to draw together more tightly with our friends, closing our eyes to the different kinds of rough edges in our relationships.

@A.G.Dugin

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So inasmuch as it is evident today that we cannot rule anymore with the principle of territorial integrity, nor with the principle of the right of nations to self-determination as an abstract category, but must clearly determine in each concrete instance the balance of powers, the interests of world powers, and the fact of military-strategic control over territories.

@A.G.Dugin

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Neo-Eurasianism is the political theory of the construction of Empire, of a “large space,” in the present and the future. Either Neo-Eurasianism will become the fundamental paradigm of the Russian elite, or an occupation awaits us. Let us notice that other potential “large spaces” and other peoples are all without exception interested in an Eurasianist renaissance starting in Russia. Everybody wins from this, since Eurasianists speak up strongly not for universalism, but for “large spaces,” not for imperialism, but for “empire,” not for the “interests of any one people,” but for “the rights of peoples.


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Illustration: Heralds of the Resurrection - Ge, Nikolai Nikolaevich

A living relation to space, as to life, forms the essence of Eurasianism. We interpret space as a form of life. In his time, the founder of geopolitics Friedrich Ratzel wrote a book, The State as the Form of Life [Staat als Lebensform]. Since space is the form of life, it cannot be frozen. It resists artificial borders, since it is not possible once and for all to measure it definitely. We are not the ones who build something where we please that supposedly will remain there. All that is needed is built by itself in the right way in the place where it must appear, just as flowers grow or gigantic thousand-year-old rocks lie for ages. After all, they do not merely grow and lie for no reason; they live here. They know what they are doing; their life is in this concrete place, this concrete point of the predetermined Russian space. This is a philosophy of location, of the “place of development,” as Petr Savitsky used to say. This is the voice of the spirit of the native earth, which speaks through all beings — crawling, stirring, flying, climbing, falling, or lying about drunk. The voice is directed toward itself, affirming a certain great truth of vital, spatial forms.

Space is a wise phenomenon. In it, in the earth, reason is contained. This reason speaks and shouts about itself, and it is necessary to be very attentive in order to hear it. When we speak of space we usually express ourselves in this manner: “This is my space, that is your space; this space belongs to my country; that, to yours.” But we relate to space as to a living organism. Moreover, “mine” is not a sign of possession, but a sign of kinship [rodstvo]. Kindred bonds connect a man with the ground, with the living space. Thus, mother-earth. Country-fatherland.

Illustration: Boris Kustodiev, "On the Volga"

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