In an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, political philosopher and analyst Aleksandr Dugin argues that the liberalism that dominates the West is destroying traditional values – and even the concept of the family.
– Now it’s not about majority rule, it’s about minority rule. It’s not about individual freedom, it’s about wokeism. It’s not democracy, it’s totalitarianism, he argues.
On August 20, 2022, journalist Daria Dugina was murdered by a car bomb during a traditionalist festival outside Moscow. Experts believe that her father, political philosopher and analyst Aleksandr Dugin, was the real target of the terrorist attack.
Last week, American journalist Tucker Carlson published an interview with Dugin – considered a highly controversial figure in the West. He has been nicknamed “Putin’s gray eminence” and identified as one of the most influential Russian thinkers of recent decades. Dugin has made a name for himself as a critic of the policies of the West in general and the US in particular – he has also expressed support for Russia in its war against Ukraine, arguing that an independent Ukrainian state “should not exist”.
During the conversation, the Russian philosopher argued that the liberal ideology that has dominated the West in recent decades has led to a rootless individualism in which all traditions, natural ties and identities have gradually disappeared.
–Family is [being] destroyed in favor of this individualism, he explained, adding that the development of liberalism will eventually lead to “abandoned human identity“.
– Next phase: New liberalism. Now it is not about the rule of a majority, but it is about the rule of minorities. It is not about individual freedom, but it is about ‘woke-ism’. It is not democracy. It is totalitarianism, Dugin continued.
Ep. 99 Aleksandr Dugin is the most famous political philosopher in Russia. His ideas are considered so dangerous, the Ukrainian government murdered his daughter and Amazon won’t sell his books. We talked to him in Moscow. pic.twitter.com/4LrO0Ufg9P
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) April 29, 2024
“West’s metaphysical hatred”
In Dugin’s view, the West’s increasingly hostile attitude toward Russia is not primarily due to the war in Ukraine, but to a desire to cling to traditional values – that is, the kind of values that the Western establishment has fought against in its own sphere of power.
He argues that, in practice, the West has abandoned “classical liberalism” – which advocated individual freedom, democracy, and popular rule – in favor of a “new liberalism” in which society is ruled by a small aristocracy that forces citizens to adhere to certain “progressive” values that are completely at odds with traditional ideals.
Dugin also points out that many Western powers, which previously supported the Soviet Union under communism, began to distance themselves from Russia and became downright hostile when Vladimir Putin came to power. According to the philosopher, this is because “Putin is a traditional leader” whose worldview is at odds with the agenda of the Western powers and is therefore perceived as a threat.
– When [Putin] came to power, from the very beginning, he started to extract Russia from global influence. He started to contradict the global progressive agenda… tried with success to restore traditional values – sovereignty of the state, Christianity, traditional family.
– This hatred is not something casual… it’s metaphysical. If your main task and main goal is to destroy traditional values – traditional family, traditional state, traditional relations, traditional beliefs – and someone with a nuclear weapon… stands strong defending traditional values you are going to abolish – they have some basis for this Russophobia and hatred for Putin, Dugin continues.
Criticized ideas
Western politicians and media like to describe Dugin as “Putin’s Rasputin”. In practice, however, it is difficult to find concrete evidence that he has actually influenced the policies of Russia and Vladimir Putin, except perhaps indirectly.
It is also worth noting that Dugin has come under heavy criticism not only from liberals and left-wing activists, who often label him a “right-winger” or “fascist,” but also from conservative and nationalist groups and figures who oppose his ideas that nation-states are obsolete and that a “Eurasian” empire should be established instead, with Moscow at its center – as a kind of counterpole to the United States and the West.
Dugin has also attracted attention and criticism for his calls for subversive actions to strengthen divisions in order to sabotage the U.S. in particular.
“It is especially important to introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the US. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics”, he declared, for example, in the 1997 book The Basics of Geopolitics.
