Different Views of Political Culture

For John, BLUF:  Not everything looks like it does from Belvidere Village.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Wikipedia view of Mr Alexander Gelyevich Dugin. From World Affairs we have an article by Andrey Tolstoy and Edmund McCaffray, "Mind Games: Alexander Dugin and Russia’s War of Ideas"

Although Dugin has stated, “I support Putin because he declares and fulfills the goals and ideals that are essentially mine,” it is, in fact, Putin who supports Dugin because of the pathways he creates in national and foreign policy.

At home, Dugin energizes a conservative intellectual and voter base, while abroad he reinforces political networks that are disruptive to Putin’s adversaries.  Finally, synthesizing national and foreign policy, Dugin provides Putin with a Eurasian master narrative of Russia’s history—encircled and subordinated by Western liberalism—that provides a rationale and an imperative for expanding territorially at the expense of his neighbors.

Yes, the view from Moscow is different from the view from Lowell.

What we are seeing is a different view of how the world should be organized:

According to Dugin, while modern-day Atlanticists, led by the United States, have consolidated their position via international organizations and political hierarchies, their Eurasian opposition is disorganized and largely defenseless.  This is because Atlanticism, by prioritizing individual liberties above all else, dissolves social bonds and obligations and devalues cultural legacy, thus destroying the very fabric that allows traditional societies to exist.  Its hegemony is pursued by construing any opposition to its political or economic interests as an affront to freedom.

Dugin’s solution is for Eurasia to consciously become a Grossraum (“great space” in German), analogous in scope to the Atlanticist world.  Within this Grossraum, Dugin proposes a complex distribution of power between a “strategic center” and various subdivisions, based on culture and history, known as “autonomies.”  This center is responsible for basic economic and military coordination between the autonomies, which are otherwise left to organize their internal affairs in accordance with their own unique traditions.  Thus there is room for a range of different political, economic, and social systems, though it seems clear that Dugin imagines most will adopt a basically conservative and corporatist structure.

While Iran, and Daesh, are commanding our attention, there are other things going on in the world, things bigger than just the Ukraine.  China is trying to reorganize how the Western Pacific is organized and Russia would like to change how Europe is organized.  And, there are people who are thinking and writing about these various ideas.

Regards  —  Cliff