Tucker Carlson interviews & ideologies

[luc]

Again, it seems to me like you're projecting your own reasoning onto what Dugin is saying.

I tried to steelman this kind of post-liberal thinking and summarize what I perceive to be the overall thrust here.

Religion, state, ethnicity hasn't been doing us much good. The problem is that the vast majority of people have nothing of worth to replace those things with at an individual level, so they flail in the wind and end up being swept up by whatever new identity presents itself.

But this is kind of the point of the critics of liberalism: people have nothing to replace religion, nation etc. with. Where you disagree (it seems) is that there can be something better to replace those things with, whereas the critics of liberalism think this will always end badly.

At the end of the day, I think a lot of this discourse is bloated by word games and abstract definitions, and there are people on both sides who are making good points and those who distort things. There are also cultural differences, where Americans are super attached to liberal ideas and react strongly to any criticism, and others like Russians and Europeans who have more collectivist priors. Sometimes it turns out that both are actually not far from each other once they get over those words and definitions and intellectual traditions if they cut through the abstractionism.

BTW I had some thoughts I wrote down about that here:

Classical Liberalism or Post-Liberalism?

Both are wrong, dialectic is a bitch, and it's the Reformation, stupid

luctalks.substack.com

 

[gottathink]

What if, who the Deep State enemies are—is dependent on a particular timeline?
Or rather our programmed perception That would cause all sorts of confusion unless we can get past the program.

 

[fifty_five]

They gave us their minds. And it is very interesting to observe this American election campaign (characterized by the zionist revealing of every presidential candidate) from the outside. To stay on topic, I think Putin's controlled madness was much smarter than Dugin's in avoiding Carlson's traps

 

[SOTTREADER]

I think Dugin's argument goes something like this: liberalism has this inherent drive to liberate individuals from everything: religion, then state, ethnicity, family, even sex, finally humanity. This leaves the individual in a total vacuum, because all of these "collective" things are actually meaningful and rooted in reality/truth. In that vacuum, the individial is unhinged, and ever more crazy and fictious new collective identities can seep in - until there isn't even a fake identity left, but just a mindless drone plugged into a collective slavemaster. Eventually, the indivodual becomes a literal robot, liberated even from "being human", where it's just straightforward mindcontrol by evil.

Below are some silly thoughts from me but I'm hoping to learn something by expressing them.

I'd argue that the above is not universally true. I'd say a huge thing with why the dominant western culture has lost its rooting to reality, especially with regards stuff like gender and sexual identity has something to do with technology, food and medicine. Overmedication, horrendous diets and environmental toxins in my view are a key driver to why a lot of people are going absolutely bonkers. Technology and the belief in it as the new God gives people a tool to then make real their lunacy e.g. change gender etc.

For me I think the push for individualism was only a natural reaction to the prison that was collectivism whereby you as an individual had no freedom (unless you were part of the elite of course).

Ultimately I think it's about balance. I think there's something of value in some principles held by the left and also the right, being an individual but also respecting reality, community etc.

Why do things have to be so extreme to one side or the other?

 

[Asa]

I think Dugin's argument goes something like this: liberalism has this inherent drive to liberate individuals from everything: religion, then state, ethnicity, family, even sex, finally humanity. This leaves the individual in a total vacuum, because all of these "collective" things are actually meaningful and rooted in reality/truth. In that vacuum, the individial is unhinged, and ever more crazy and fictious new collective identities can seep in - until there isn't even a fake identity left, but just a mindless drone plugged into a collective slavemaster. Eventually, the indivodual becomes a literal robot, liberated even from "being human", where it's just straightforward mindcontrol by evil.

I could follow the logic of Dugin's ideas, but where I get stuck is the proposition that the developments are somehow inherent to the system. I find this to be similar to the idea that there is inherency to capital markets - i.e, they are not really inherent, but shaped (imo).

I had the same difficulty with some aspects of Gurdjieffs mechanical humanity hypothesis'.

 

[SOTTREADER]

Another thought I have is that "ideology" is sometimes given too much power as the thing that's shaping reality. For example, I wouldn't say that me feeling as a male is driven by a strong male ideology - it's just how I feel. I didn't "will" to feel this way, it's just how I feel.

In a sense, I think a lot of the people who have issues with their gender or even sexual identity might not necessarily be having these issues due to ideology but rather it's simply how they feel. My question would then be, why do they feel that way? My answer is, rather than ideology, I think you need to look at what's happening in their bodies, it's almost like they've become unrooted to reality. I'd argue that nature grounds us within a certain gender and in the most part, gives us healthy sexual identity and drives. The over medication, environmental toxins, vaccines, poor diets etc I believe are the key drivers here and we're now a couple of generations removed from when things weren't this bad - you have kids being born to parents who they themselves were pumped full of drugs, vaccines, ate bad food, were exposed to endless environmental / industrial toxins through no fault of their own etc. All these has to result in something?

I'd say ideology in certain situations is the easy target to pin everything on rather than the fundamentals of what's changed in the nuts and bolts reality we biologically live in.

Imagine we now have a whole bunch of people in messed up bodies who aren't rooted to a gender or have all sorts of messed up sexual identities and these people find themselves living in the world. What will they try and do? Of course they will try and shape the world so that who they are isn't something odd or anomalous and so they'll start injecting theories and all sorts into the culture to justify their existence and "right to be".

Personally I think it's a bit messed up and I don't think the culture wars will rescue the situation as these wars don't act on a level to change the situation that has resulted in messed up biologies. The way back to recovery is probably multi generational and involves a whole bunch of respecting the biological reality in which we inhabit.

It's easy to say just land a comet on the planet and call it quits or start from a clean slate, but that's almost cheating. As a "human" collective, there's certainly a lesson to be learnt about how to develop ourselves at an advanced civilization level without forgetting the basic facts of the underlying biological reality we live in.

 

[Scottie]

I think Dugin's argument goes something like this: liberalism has this inherent drive to liberate individuals from everything: religion, then state, ethnicity, family, even sex, finally humanity. This leaves the individual in a total vacuum, because all of these "collective" things are actually meaningful and rooted in reality/truth. In that vacuum, the individual is unhinged, and ever more crazy and fictious new collective identities can seep in - until there isn't even a fake identity left, but just a mindless drone plugged into a collective slavemaster. Eventually, the individual becomes a literal robot, liberated even from "being human", where it's just straightforward mindcontrol by evil.

That was my understanding of what he was saying, as well.

This is why I don't understand people like Rogan who push the "transhumanism" thing.

First, I was born. Then, I grew up. My beliefs in many things changed over the years, but always obvious to me was the idea that this reality is not all there is. It even seems logical to me that we're "higher" than dogs, for example, so probably there's something "higher" than us! I file that one in the, "Well, DUH!" category. God, 4D, aliens, whatever.

On the other hand, you have transhumanism, which is basically a bunch of people saying yeah, we're gonna turn ourselves into cyborgs and maybe even exist in some computerized reality! To which I reply: Wait, so you incarnate here on 3d Earth, and you know there is some purpose to it all because most of you used to be religious in one way or another. So deep down, you know there's something higher/greater than you. But instead of exploring that, you're gonna run away - deny your own physicality-for-a-purpose, and maybe even deny your own being.

IOW, first you must 'liberate" yourself from absolutely everything, only to then submit yourself to some techno-transhumanistic control system! Of course it's controlled - every single major popular technology we possess is tightly controlled/manipulated.

It's like deciding that you're not going to play a video game (this life) anymore, and the way you're going to do it is to play a different video game inside the first video game. Instead of liberating yourself from this life/game as intended, you've just mathematically squared your entrapment in the illusion.

But then, I suppose that makes perfect sense from an STS point of view, because STS wants power/dominion over others, over reality itself, over everything! At no point do they stop and think, "Wait, I have all this control, and I have underlings, so it's a hierarchy... but if this is a hierarchy, then who's controlling me?! Uh-oh..." Wishful thinking and all that.

Ultimately I think it's about balance. I think there's something of value in some principles held by the left and also the right, being an individual but also respecting reality, community etc.

And yet that's exactly what we DO NOT see in most people today. If you voted for Trump, you want insurrection. If you voted for Biden, you're already "transitioning" your children, etc.

Any real understanding of where another person is coming from - as well as compassion for their position - is being totally crushed.

 

[mkrnhr]

I think the problem is the use of labels and "isms". It's always a question of scale and precision. Is the earth round or plane? Depends on the scale: it's more or less plane from here to the shop next doors, more or less round considering distances involving oceans and continents. Same with liberalism and collectivism. When a liberal hears collectivism, what comes to mind is collectivism. When someone like Dugin hears collectivism, he hears something different. When we speak of individualism, are we assuming individualism or individuality? etc.
The point of Dugin is that history has a trajectory, and that what we see today as atomization of the individual didn't appear at a certain date due to a certain decree, it's been a process in the making. It could have started during the industrial revolution, the renaissance, the reformations's nominalism as he argues, the invention of the empire-sponsored religion, the invention of the city-state, or the invention of agriculture, or maybe before. That's a matter of debate I think. Individualism and collectivism (in the sense of collectivization) lead in the long run to the atomization of the individual. It could be argued that any system will lead in the end to atomization, search for artificial belonging, and depersonalization (whether through artificial means as in transhumanism, or other means like identifying as a cat). The problem maybe is which system it is, since theses systems or "isms" are but superficial variations of each other, but submission to a/the system, a creation of the left hemisphere that takes on dynamic on its own, becoming its own entity that ends up eating its children. OSIT

 

[Asa]

A lesson I took from Dugin's interview was that, to a certain extent, my cherished individualism is a bug, not a feature. I definitely struggle to embrace group identities, and for some reason this short piece on Tucker's channel really drove that home.

 

[Possibility of Being]

I'd argue that the above is not universally true. I'd say a huge thing with why the dominant western culture has lost its rooting to reality, especially with regards stuff like gender and sexual identity has something to do with technology, food and medicine. Overmedication, horrendous diets and environmental toxins in my view are a key driver to why a lot of people are going absolutely bonkers. Technology and the belief in it as the new God gives people a tool to then make real their lunacy e.g. change gender etc.

To me, it looks like you're zooming in, looking through a microscope, while Dugin zoomed out and noticed a history long trend. Focusing on trees and small paths vs. looking at the forest in its entirety. There were multiple factors contributing to the decay, for the lack of a better word, and each description has some merit. Based on one's cultural and personal background, and purpose, focus points will be different. Dugin is trying to save Russia from - what he perceives as - destructive Western influences. Destructive for Russia, because Russia is very different from the US. As are Russians.

That's why I was not surprised reading Darren Beattie's criticism, but I'd not call it constructive other than in one way: pushing the West and the East farther away from each other and helping Americans reject Dugin's thought just as the elites wish. To me, he missed the point, deliberately, or not. But it's just my opinion.

This image says a lot - Amazon.com results of searching for Dugin. A whole bunch of books bashing him (and Heidegger) and not even one written by him (banned) so that Americans get everything already pre-digested for them with no access to the original 'food'.

It's important to remember that Russian philosophy suffered from some 80 years long break when only Marxism was allowed and it's like 2 generations! Here goes a translated excerpt from a short summary found here:

The philosophy of modern Russia dates back to the nineties of the last century, with the collapse of the Soviet state system, which marked the rejection of Marxist philosophy as the state ideology. The philosophy of the new society began to be built on pluralistic grounds, combining the principles of dialectical materialism, the ideas of pre-revolutionary philosophy, and the developments of foreign philosophers, which for a long time had been inaccessible to domestic philosophical thought.

At the same time, one cannot fail to note the significant interest specifically in Russia's own philosophical heritage of the pre-revolutionary period and emigration, and the significant revival of those interests and traits in contemporary Russian philosophy. (...)

The ideal of wholeness finds its expression, on the one hand, in the desire to unite and fuse in a single cauldron all the achievements of Russian philosophical thought in the form of a single and comprehensive concept, and on the other hand, in the combination in a single view of the sensual and rational, scientific and religious, being and spiritual, the idea of the world as a positive unity, in the definition of which the leading role is played by the moral guidelines of absolute good and faith.

The ontological character of Russian philosophy is expressed in the quality that the question of being has always been and remains central, while the questions of cognition of this being turn out to be largely superfluous. Russian philosophy is characterised by an intuitive, holistic, contemplative and mystical cognition of reality, which does not presuppose any subjectivism or the expression of the philosopher's private opinion. Being is reflected in the works as a given, as a religious revelation, which deprives them of the subjectivist polemics characteristic of foreign works.

Finally, sobornost is another universal quality that characterises not only philosophy, but permeates the very history of Russian culture and ethnos, mentality. Sobornost is a free unity of philosophical concepts and doctrines on the path to truth, the path to spiritual development and building the future of not only Russian, but also world society, the path of deeply moral and spiritual.

At the same time, taking advantage of the absolute freedom of thought in modern society, Russian philosophy, while preserving its identity, takes a variety of forms. (...)

I think Dugin and his philosophy is very specific and in parts controversial, and if not for some Western 'officials' demonizing him, barely anyone would have heard about him. He would remain what he was - a niche philosopher. As far as I know, he had made an effort to bring his work to the Western world, partly for financial reasons, so that he could afford his further work, but it was mostly only after he was demonized, that the 'anti-system' Westerners reached for his books.

 

[gottathink]

That's a matter of debate I think. Individualism and collectivism (in the sense of collectivization) lead in the long run to the atomization of the individual. It could be argued that any system will lead in the end to atomization, search for artificial belonging, and depersonalization

I also think a contributing independent variable is the higher dimensional factor of STO/STS. Individuation driven by this factor leads to different outcomes in society.

Where as some individuals would succeed in positive expression of their self leading to a sustained unique identity that contributes to society. Whilst others express only something that feeds off society. They become a vortex sucking in people and energy around them and in doing so end up back in a collective melting pot with all the other people trying to feed off society. People are kept from seeing the truth by the pendulum swinging from STS collectivism to STS liberalism. The way out is through becoming an individual that contributes to society and one’s community I.e. the lives of others.

 

[luc]

That's why I was not surprised reading Darren Beattie's criticism, but I'd not call it constructive other than in one way: pushing the West and the East farther away from each other and helping Americans reject Dugin's thought just as the elites wish. To me, he missed the point, deliberately, or not. But it's just my opinion.

I agree, Beattie's post seemed rather nitpicky to me, and the way he told the philsophical "deep level" story isnt't the only way of telling it to say the least. A fundamental critique of liberalism and individualism simply doesn't compute for most Westerners, especially Americans. Their "sacred priors" are individualism good, muh collectivism. It's literally their origin myth.

This doesn't mean Dugin is right, because these sweeping narratives about intellectual history are seldom true or false, but rather more or less illuminating. It would be a mistake to instinctively reject and analyze to death either the liberal or the anti-liberal story (you can kill all those stories by over-analyzing them), rather we should try to understand the overall thrust of the argument and learn from the aspects it shines a light on, without identifying too much with one of them.

In my forays into the history of thought I have seen time and again that this is the more fruitful approach, and often you can't just sort thinkers into good guys and bad guys and construct a grand narrative as "the absolute truth". It's more about understanding certain trajectories emerging from the context, why people thought and felt a certain way, how it played out etc. Some of these developments will strike us as pathological or wrongheaded, but often you have "good guys" and "bad guys" on each side, in each camp, of certain philosophical debates past and present.

 

[Beau]

But this is kind of the point of the critics of liberalism: people have nothing to replace religion, nation etc. with. Where you disagree (it seems) is that there can be something better to replace those things with, whereas the critics of liberalism think this will always end badly.

I read a book by an American author a few years ago which made very similar arguments that Dugin is making now. It is called Primal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics by Mary Eberstatd. It should surprise no one that she is a conservative with religious leanings, but I thought it was an excellent book that focused on the decline of Western values and its relation to people in the West losing the things that were once a big part of their identity: religion, family, and community. Without those connecting factors, suddenly other things became their identity - sexual orientation, political bias, etc. And what we have now is the result of that. Seems to me that the guy responding to Dugin's article is completely missing that point.

Here is a short description of Eberstatd's book from Amazon:

Who am I? The question today haunts every society in the Western world.

Legions of people—especially the young—have become unmoored from a firm sense of self. To compensate, they join the ranks of ideological tribes spawned by identity politics and react with frenzy against any perceived threat to their group.

As identitarians track and expose the ideologically impure, other citizens face the consequences of their rancor: a litany of “isms” run amok across all levels of cultural life, the free marketplace of ideas muted by agendas shouted through megaphones, and a spirit of general goodwill warped into a state of perpetual outrage.

How did we get here? Why have we divided against one another so bitterly? In Primal Screams, acclaimed cultural critic Mary Eberstadt presents the most provocative and original theory to come along in recent years. The rise of identity politics, she argues, is a direct result of the fallout of the sexual revolution, especially the collapse and shrinkage of the family.

As Eberstadt illustrates, humans have forged their identities within the kinship structure from time immemorial. The extended family, in a real sense, is the first tribe and teacher. But with its unprecedented decline across various measures, generations of people have been set adrift and can no longer answer the question Who am I? concerning primordial ties. Desperate for solidarity and connection, they claim membership in politicized groups whose displays of frantic irrationalism amount to primal screams for familial and communal loss.

 

[Seppo Ilmarinen]

I liked Dugin's analogy of how we're now moving towards this last station of "liberating" the human identity itself via transhumanism, and his narrative of what has happened in the name of "liberalism" in the West makes sense. I think people (especially westerners) have tendency of focusing too much on the "isms" which will usually lead to confusion and not seeing the forest from the trees.

For example in case of socialism, depending of the individual's political leanings, one can find different versions of the system to back up his/her idea whether it is a good structure for society or not. Besides the obvious failures, there are also successful socialist type countries that have thrived at some point in recent history, such as Nordic countries post WW2 (and to make the point, you can find endless arguments online whether these countries are actually socialists or not).

But whatever ideological system is said to be behind a nation's prosperity, eventually things will come to an end; strong men and good times are then replaced by weak men and bad times.

Not saying that different ideas are all on the same relitivistic line, but people seem to have this backwards, they give too much merit to the system for the good times, imagining there being a straightforward causal relationship, when in reality times would have been good anyway with number of different political approaches, due to nature of the cycle and the human condition, and same applies to whatever ideology ends up being used to tear it all down.

As we know, the important factor is that there are certain psychological (or rather spiritual) dynamics governing human life and societes, where very small part of population (psychopaths) strive to establish parasitic relationship with a larger segment of ordinary population (via authoritarian types). Whatever political movement or idea may have started with relatively healthy ground and/or good intentions can be at any point be infected and hijacked, so that as time goes by it will take the most vile form while trying maintain the fascade of it's original ideas and themes. (so this last station Dugin talks could have been arrived by several ideological vehicles/routes, whichever people were willing to get onboard, I think).

Outside of this network we still haven't seen too many people connecting the dots of ponerology, not to mention the topic of 4D STS, which truly explains how this trajectory can be maintained beyond several generations, like it has life of it's own. I think this lack of knowledge is probably the main reason why people end up arguing/nitpicking/theorizing over different systems and missing the whole point.

 

[SOTTREADER]

I have a serious question: Is transhumanism ACTUALLY possible? In the sense of integrating your mind with AI or flooding your system with nanobots that do all sorts etc.

My view is transhumanism is limited to stuff like augmenting physical capabilities e.g. via an exoskeleton, replacing limbs for people who have lost them, better monitoring of biomarkers etc but certainly not integrating your mind with AI, transferring consciousness etc.

Also, I don't think the whole nanobot thing would work. Instead I think it'd just result in cancers and other exotic illnesses. Basically, I think "transhumanism" is limited to wearables rather than things that fundamentally integrate themselves into our biology or mind. I think a huge element of transhumanism is religion and the zealots will only create situations where exotic illnesses emerge as they try to integrate themselves or humanity with technology at a fundamental level.