An interview with Alexander Dugin

This interview was originally published in “De Dissident”, the magazine of the youth movement of Forum for Democracy. You can become a subscriber trough this link.

 It was conducted in early February, before the Ukraine war and before the murder of Dugin’s daughter, Daria.

Dugin is perhaps the most prominent contemporary traditionalist. His knowledge extends from pre-Christian traditions to modernity, from Christianity to Islam. He has written books on European origin myths and on the Great Reset.

Western media try to paint Dugin as a Rasputin-like figure and as a Putin adviser (which he is not) whose ideas are so dangerous that they cannot be described with a pen. Precisely because of that image, the most fuss will arise about this piece: this text itself is not so dangerous.

The Dissident would not be the Dissident if it were to be put off by an image in the media. This interview was conducted on 5 February, before the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine. The geopolitical situation is hardly mentioned, partly because huge geopolitical changes made this interview outdated, but mainly because it is not about politics but about traditionalism. Read the piece, and judge for yourself.

What is your view on the political developments of our time? We are seeing more and more top-down control, politicians talk about “the Great Reset” and transhumanism is increasingly becoming the agenda. Where are we going?

We can only understand the current situation with an in-depth analysis of the historical and philosophical aspects of liberalism. Only then will we be able to see how natural and logical the situation is in which we are now. Our current situation follows from a natural process of evolution that has arisen from the foundations laid in modernity. Everything started with Western modernity. We will have to start with the genealogy of liberalism and political modernity. Modernity itself did not come about naturally. We have to understand that five hundred years ago Western civilization made an irreversible choice by breaking with its Christian, Greco-Roman roots. Modernity is so obvious to us that it is difficult to imagine that we live in a world that is constructed. However, the present world has not naturally arisen, it is a consequence of the choices made by our ancestors.

Only with traditionalism and studying the works of René Guénon, Julius Evola and other traditionalists can we relate to this modernity. Only then can we understand that things could be different.

With the choice of modernity, the world has been turned over from the traditional order that was before it. Both visions are opposites. So when modernity is chosen, tradition is rejected. That is exactly what modernity is. Where tradition says that God exists, modernity says that God does not exist. Where tradition states that there is eternity, modernity says that there is only time, and so on.

Five hundred years ago, the West chose to become modern. She began to blame tradition for all her troubles. This was the beginning of the end. This process began with the rise of capitalism, nationalism, new states and Protestantism. For the present Netherlands, this was very important because the Netherlands broke with the tradition of a Catholic empire.

We see a dichotomy here between nation states and the rich, the Protestant church and the universal Catholic church. After this development, capitalism came into being - a system which at that time was very similar to what we have now. The central idea of capitalism is to destroy the traditional hierarchy: It destroys the priesthood class and the aristocracy to become its own unique entity. This has also destroyed the traditional peasantry. Capitalism has created a small group of people who work outside their class and who do not provide real added value to society: The bourgeoisie. In the tri-functional Indo-European society, as described by Joseph de Maistre, the bourgeois was a figure of degeneration.

So the bourgeoisie is a caricature of what existed before?

It is definitely a perversion of the human archetype. The human archetype in the European/Indo-European/Greek-Roman/Christian/traditional society is divided into three main types: the priesthood class, the warrior class and the peasant class. The peasantry consisted of people who were engaged in physical work. The bourgeoisie, however, does not belong somewhere in between. It is not part of the priesthood class, for this it is too secular. It is not part of the warrior class, because it is pacifist or mercantile; and it does not work physically like the peasant class. The bourgeoisie is a kind of disorder, a kind of disease: to be bourgeois is to be sick. This diseased and marginal figure has been placed in the middle of society since the advent of the nation state. This was the beginning of modern capitalism and the destruction of all traditional culture within society and politics.

It is interesting to see that the bourgeoisie has developed since its takeover of power as an opponent of the traditional empire and the Catholic Church.

The bourgeoisie fought for the nation state and against the Church and the empire. This has broken the old power relations of the Middle Ages. The core of modernity is that man must be “liberated” from any form of collective identity. Capitalism is exactly the idea of man “being liberated” from any relationship he has with the Church. Protestantism was this too. It wanted to free the individual from the collectivity of the Catholic Church. After all these developments, new versions of this “liberalism” came. Today, we are at the end of this “liberation” with the current gender policy. The individual will now be “liberated” from his or her sex.

Would you describe this development as an emancipation of the body?

No, they want to “liberate people” from the social constructs of men and women. They do not necessarily see them as a biological reality, but rather as a social archetype that stems from tradition. “Man” and “Woman” are concepts of tradition. These concepts therefore only fit within a traditional order. So if we do not want these concepts to be modernized, we need to support the whole traditional view of society. This is not about the body itself, but about the social identity “man” and “woman”. Gender politics liberates the individual from this social identity, and thus leads him further away from the traditional, collective identity.

At the end of modernity, the individual person will be “liberated” from the collective identity of mankind. We see this with the current shift to posthumanism, transhumanism, total control and the transformation of the body into the matrix. So what we see now with the Great Reset is nothing new. Where modernity was the beginning of the end, this is the end of the end. We go into a state of “singularity”: Man becomes one with the computer. Progressivism itself considers this state of singularity also as the end of the progression of western political modernity.

The most important issue in traditionalism is whether we will accept or reject it. If we accept this, we will consciously sell our soul to the Devil; but if we resist, there will always be the possibility by humanity of being really “free” from the progressive chains. When we offer this resistance, we should not be surprised that “the beast” will be trying to destroy us, to oppress us and to attack us. We must accept that, if we reject the current status quo, the globalist elite will hurt us. It is then war.

In traditionalism, it is said that this battle with the “Devil” is indeed possible. One example of this is Russian resistance to Western sanctions.

The Chinese attitude toward the American global hegemony is also a form of resistance. The Islamic fight against modernity also shows that it is possible to fight. Populist, extreme-left and extreme-right groups are also important in this fight. However, if we really want to fight against modernity, only traditionalism gives us a sufficiently profound basis on both intellectual, philosophical, metaphysical and spiritual levels. Traditionalism is the mythological weapon that operates in the same way as our enemy.

Where will this modern morality, or singularity, end? What happens at the end of the end? Is there anything else, or are we all absorbed into an A.I.-program that destroys our individual consciousness?

This is an open question that nobody knows. Singularity can mark the end of all mankind. The difference between man and machine is not the ability to think, but the ability to make mistakes and doubt them. Therefore, a machine “thinks” quite differently from a human being. The real difference between man and machine can be summed up with the concept ‘Dasein’. ‘Dasein’ is a concept of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. It is the relation of existence to death. Our human soul arises as soon as we relate to death. However, modern man does not know at all what ‘Dasein’ means, and unfortunately does not care about it either. When we are confronted with death, we immediately wonder what life is after death and the original position, the source of which lies before us. However, the enemy wants to destroy our relationship with death. This is why the globalists and technocrats want to give man artificial immortality. They put us in the cloud and servers, and try to make us comfortable with the destruction of our ‘Dasein’. We lose our ‘Dasein’ to the tipping point this process will become irreversible. That is exactly what singularity means. It is the tipping point at which our ‘Dasein’ has been lost forever. But remember: Until we reach this point, we still have our ‘Dasein’. Until that tipping point is reached, we can still make the choice against singularity, against the so-called ‘progression’, against globalism, against what left-liberals see as ‘fate’. We are the heroes fighting against ‘fate’.

Sometimes the hero loses, sometimes the hero wins. As long as the tipping point of singularity is not yet reached, there will be opposition. No one can predict what will happen in the battle that is taking place now. We still have ‘Dasein’ until the moment singularity takes place. Until then, everything is not lost: Nothing is lost until everything is lost. Our relationship with time is therefore essential in our struggle. I suggest that we unite all the traditional attitudes in our collective disgust of modernity, and that we combine this with Heidegger's existentialism to make it more active.

A critic of your view of traditionalism could say that the collapse of tradition to modernity, from spirituality to materialism, is a natural process. Ultimately, it is about power. The modern capitalist system is simply stronger, and therefore it is better to impose its will on man. People go along with this because modernity makes life easier. Can a traditional society resist and reject modernity? Modernity and modern technology make societies physically stronger: It helps them win wars from other countries. How can traditional societies be physically strong enough to take over modern societies?

What I would like to emphasise first of all is that, within modernity, all developments are part of a natural process. However, the transition from tradition to modernity itself is not, of course. It is a result of political choices that have been made. The development of Protestantism, into the Great Recession, into A.I., the Great Reset, gender politics and so on, of course, commenced in a natural way. The choice to betray tradition, the Judas-decision, was not of course. The apostles were loyal to Christ until his death. Judas was the only one who chose to betray Christ. Western civilisation has at some point betrayed its own God, its own tradition and soul. This is the great crime.

Modernity is therefore based on crime, betrayal and deceit. Modernity is the antichrist, Judas and the Devil. A choice for Satan is not natural of course. Nor is a choice for God natural - it is an open choice. Western Europe has chosen Satan at some point. They have chosen to serve Satan. We have the spirit of Satan. The idea that technological power is more important than spiritual purity is only something that can exist in the spirit of Satan. If we accept this logic, we will therefore praise technological inventions and empirical science. If we choose a different path, a path closer to God, the traditional path, we will see things like money, comfort and an easy life as perversions and negative aspects that the modern world has done to us.

For the traditionalist, these perversions are not important. We can't change Satan's thinking to become a traditionalist. Satan has his own logic, his own way of existence. It is the same with modernity and the resulting left-liberalism. These are all satanic thoughts. We must offer an alternative ourselves.

We must also be able to move into the perspective of Satan, in the brain of modernity. We can only do this by projecting the reality of tradition on the world - not the caricature of tradition that Satan has deceived us with. Firstly, traditional societies must be aware of the real principles and ideas they are expressing. They must be a real representative of their sacred anthology, not the umpteenth version of the modern man who chooses a certain exotic position. They must become the real enemy of the modern world and carry it out. We can use certain modernist means, as Russia did at the time, for example, for intrinsic reasons in order to continue to compete with the West. This is what I call defensive modernization. I think we can sometimes use the means of modernity to fight against modernity. However, we must be careful about this, because it is easy to lose our identity when using modern means. After all, technology is not natural; it is poison.

Contrary to what modernists believe, technology itself is ideological in nature. It is a difficult question of how traditional societies can defend themselves against modernity, because it is not enough to use the means of modernity against modernity. Remember: If we accept these means, we also accept the virus directly into us from these Satanic things. We need an expulsion of the Satanic spirit within the technology before we can use it. We need experts who can tell how much and how we can use the resources and tools of the modern world. An example of this is the arms industry. If we do not want to fall into the trap of modernity, we may need it. But everything modern is poisonous. So before we use it, we need detoxification.

I spoke to a high-ranking Chinese woman who was part of the intellectual class of the Communist Party. She told me that thousands of the intellectuals of the Chinese Communist Party are concerned with how much Western technology they can accept in Chinese society. There is constant debate about what they should and what they should not use. This is the main problem of modern society: this critical observation is not being considered in modern society. Things like gender politics and A. I. should be given up immediately, but also the Chinese experiment with A. I.. The Communist Party is even trying to subject this concept to the will of the Chinese. That is very difficult to do, but they look at it as an open question.

You speak of China as an example of a traditionally managed society. From our Dutch perspective, however, we can see that China has a very large industry. It is a country that is also at the forefront of the development of A. I. technology. The news media showed us recently that China is busy with an experiment where half a man, half pig is being created. Knowing all of this, how do you see China’s role in a Eurasian traditional future?

I think that the United States and Western Europe are much further in making hybrid human-pigs. You see that every day when you walk on the streets or when you look at some of your parliamentarians. It is not a Chinese invention.

I see the real China as an example of traditional civilization. I am referring to a pagan, occult part of the Chinese Empire, with confucianistic ethics. Solidarity is very much present in their people. However, this view is not visible to the outside world. We see the upper layer as a modern, industrial empire led by western Marxist ideas. However, China's inner layer is totally traditional. China is an example of how a traditional society survives modernity. It accepts certain elements of modernity that they can use in the fight against modernity.

The West is being fooled by the globalist, industrial and postmodern shell of Chinese society. The core of Chinese society is Chinese eternal tradition. It is very different from our tradition. Because it is so different, Europeans have never been able to understand anything about it. However, this is beginning to change slowly. Now we are increasingly seeing divisions between China and the West. This is a battle between the modernity of the West and the Chinese tradition. China is trying to use technology against the West. This is sometimes successful, sometimes not. Because of the improving relations between Russia and China, we realize that we are in the same boat. Although we are using technology in Russia, we are still much more traditional than the West. This alliance between Russia and China creates a new dimension for Eurasianism, as opposed to globalism. China is also gradually discovering that European populism and European or American traditionalism are not part of how they see the West. These forms of traditionalism are a conservative revolutionary power.

The two most famous Western thinkers in China are Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt. At all the universities I visited in China, professors and students see Heidegger and Schmitt as the main figures of European science and philosophy. I spoke to a Chinese professor who wrote two books, each with a thousand pages’s translations of Heidegger in Chinese. We cannot imagine this in the modern West. The real understanding of Western logos is in China and Russia, not in the West.

I think that the West underestimates Russia and China. We underestimate Xi Jinping. He is a genius, great leader and a good, confucianistic traditional leader. China is a powerful Eurasian power and is getting closer to us.

So even with their social-credit system, their links with the World Economic Forum is China presumably from within a traditional society?

Indeed. They use their participation within the global power structure and benefit from it. They are in their deepest fibers what we can call nationalist; they take the benefits and reject the poison. An example of this is that they are anti-liberal but still use the free market to strengthen China. This should be normal if we want to be strong. As the West becomes weaker, the globalists blame China or Russia for their own mistakes. The real West as a civilization has a great identity that stems from the Greek-Roman and medieval west. The postmodern west has nothing to do with that beautiful west.

What books about traditionalism would you recommend to young people like us?

What I would at least recommend to young people is to read more. If we want to be intellectuals, we need to read, discuss and talk about ideas. We should read more about philosophy and think less about TikTok.

The writers I would recommend to young people are especially Evola and Guénon.

Evola is more important than Guénon. Guénon pretends that the fight against modernity is not important. Evola, however, felt that we should resist the modern world until the last minute. Evola writes both about thinking and about acting. Although Guénon is the most comprehensive traditionalist author, we have to put it in everyday reality. This is what Evola has tried. We have to look at Guénon through the eyes of Evola. Guénon writes mainly about the concept in the world, and Evola is more practical. Guénon allows us to understand modernity. In addition, I would recommend Plato and Aristotle. The medieval way of thinking is based on these works. I would also recommend Heidegger, Schmitt, Spengler, Nietzsche and Junger. I also recommend reading books from enemy authors so that you learn to understand how the enemy thinks.