The Hand is Stretching for the Holster...
Heraclitus called "hostility" the "father of things." Everywhere in the world there are opposing poles: executioners and victims, men and women, coercive authority and rebelious subject. War of the elements. War of classes, nations, races, economic formations, material interests, ambitions, ideas. Ever since a certain time, ordinary conscience got used to making a demagogic move: a contradiction in instance does not preclude general harmony; in the end, the opposites concur. The fairy-tale of a good ending, a painless and unproblematic synthesis. Naive belief in the "third" of beings, completely absorbed in a hurricane of fatal struggle of the two.
The real world is built according to the law of duality. Perhaps, this duality, somewhere in infinity, stops being its own self, following an unproved (and not provable) Lobachevsky's law or the theological assertion of Nicholas of Cusa. As long as we are dealing with a concrete world, hostlity remains the common denominator of existence. The problem is not in vulgar Darwinism and "struggle for survival." Any subject, any being, any idea is stretched between two limits - existence and nonexistence, life and death, presence and absence, attraction and repulsion, the likes and the differences, and so forth. The borders are opposite, inimical to each other. Their presence fills reality with an internal dramatism, dynamics, force, and anguish.
That is why aggression - is the founding law of existence.
It is possible to draw a great number of trajectories, by way of which move the discharges of cosmic energy. It is possible to study attraction and repulsion of particles on an atomic level and, in this way, to understand the principle of aggression lying at the basis of nuclear weaponry. It is possible to tackle cosmology and explore the fantastic process of disappearence of matter in gravitational supermasses of black holes. It is possible to compile a typology of violence among animals and draw graphs of outbursts of aggression in the human collective. At last, it is possible to examine in this light the doctrines of class warfare or racial hatred. Aggression - is a significant and complex, fundamental phenomenon of cosmic reality. In its universality, it may surpass everything else...
Whatever the type of aggression we would examine, from the very beginning we encounter definitions of two positions, two poles, two borders, between which ripens and bursts a lightning of violence, scorching fire of war. (By the way, the same Heraclitus believed exactly the fire to be the mystical foundation of cosmos).
For "Elements,"
the definition of our own and alien, friendly and hostile does not present any
difficulties. From the very forst volume, we tirelessly drew a demarcation line
between "ours" and "not ours," following the logic of Schmitt
and Sartre's thesis on the "struggle of consciences." Obviously, nothing
but aggression can exist between "ours" and "not ours."
It is a different matter that this aggression can be actual or potential, expresses
itself in direct death-dealing conflict or latently ripens amid seeming inaction.
The truce may seem protracted. But sooner or later it will burst.
OUR:
"Our," from a spiritual point of view, is Tradition, organic society, inhuman Revelation, total superiority of the spiritual over the physical, hierarchy, qualitative differentiation, assertion of ethics of hero over ethics of dealer.
"Our," from a social point of view, is socialism, material equality, community, domination of the principle of fairness over the principle of profit and effectiveness, collectivism, and nationalism.
"Our," from a geopolitical point of view, is Eurasia, continental alliance, forces of land, giant bloc formed around Russia.
"Our," from the point of view of style, is movement, life, activity, overcoming, Love and Death.
NOT OUR:
"Not our," from a spiritual point of view, is the modern world, western civilization starting with Enlightenment, humanism, cartesianism and kantianism, individualism, materialism, domination of merchant society.
"Not our," from a social point of view, is capitalism, hierarchy based on material wealth, centrality of profit and interest, egoism, individualism, cosmopolitism.
"Not our," from a geopolitical point of view, is America and the West, forces of the sea, Anglo-Saxon world, atlantism and mondialism.
"Not our,"
from the point of view of style, is stagnation, conservatism, conformism, tranquillity,
cowardice, cautiousness, coolness, indifference, and selfish fear of death.
Between these poles of "our" and "not our" springs up inexorable and terrible hatred. One excludes each other. In this case, the "struggle of consciences" is absolute, since all instances of disagreement within each camp are removed when faced with a totally alien, opposite, giant system of values. Anarchists, fascists, communists, left nationalists, nonconformists turn out in the same camp, despite all internal contradictions.
A new map of conflicts and battles, terrorist acts and polemics, attacks and strategic maneuvers is being drawn out. We are entering into a completely unique time of New Aggression, where all former opposites, feuding sides, opponents and enemies are sharply restructuring their ranks. Communists of yesterday are fraternizing with capitalists under the slogans of mondialism, fascists of yesterday are shaking hands with anarchists in diversionary headquarters of the struggle against mondialism.
"New World Order," "open society," world government, planetary market, human values, One World, universalization of the West and its model, liberalism, canonization of the idiot-commoner as a normal, average representative of humanity. This - is from one side, these - are "not ours'."
Eurasian Empire, "enemies of the open society" (look carefully at who is included in this category by Karl Popper in "Open Society and Its Enemies" - thats us), freedom of nations and peoples to maintain their originality, autonomy, spiritual hierarchy, national differentiation, superhuman values, for East and against West, exceptional right to be called human, alloted only to the hero, wiseman, devotee, soldier. These are "ours'."
Two positions which could not be brought together, two all-encompassing superworldviews, two mutually exclusive projects of the future of mankind.
Between them is only enmity, hatred, brutal struggle according to rules and without rules, for extermination, to the last drop of blood. Between them are heaps of corpses, millions of lives, endless centuries of suffering and heroic deeds.
Which of us will sum up History?
What will its end look like?
Who will say the last word?
Who will be the last to laugh?
Who will thrust the last bullet into the flesh of the fallen enemy?
Them or us?
"Ours" or "not ours?"
This will be decided by war. The "father of things."
This editorial by Russian "eurasist" Alexander Dugin appeared in Moscow periodical Elementi Issue No. 7 - translated by Victor Olevich.
SUBJECT
WITHOUT CONFINES *
Overstepping the bound
When the question is
about defining the phenomenon of aggression, people most often appeal to emotional,
psychological and sentimental spheres, failing to take into consideration, as
it is common in the modern world, the most profound, metaphysical aspects of
the phenomenon. In the channel of the humanistic tradition there appeared by
itself the negative attitude to aggression, which is considered as something
subject to full extermination or (what is more realistic) to diminishing. However,
aggression is so closely related with the human nature, that reminds about itself
constantly - both in everyday life, in private life psychology and in political
reality of wars, conflicts, clashes. Let us try to comprehend the aggression,
abstracting ourselves from all usual stereotype views - pacifist, scandalously
apologetic, psychoanalytic or socially deterministic ones.
Aggression as a phenomenon could be fullier defined as "violent overstepping
bounds". Just in this its essential quality consists, this quality is recognized
in conflicts of everyday life, in a criminal occurrence, in a large-scale military
clash. A criminal violently transgresses the bounds of the social ethics, moral,
physic or economic integrity of a human or a community. This is aggression.
An army violently oversteps frontiers of a hostile country or enemy's defensive
lines. It is aggression too. Finally, ideologists, breaking the settled stereotype
ways of thinking, violently overstep the bounds of mental cliches. And this
is aggression too.
Not only social or exclusively human existence is filled with the various types
of bounds, transgressing which gives birth to various types of aggression. The
structure of all reality is built just on various bounds, separating every thing
and every mode of existence from all the rest ones. In some sense, the bound
itself makes of every thing what the latter is by itself, being the embodiment
of the difference, differentiation from the rest objects. In the most general
sense, the aggression can have also a cosmic, universal dimension, showing through
the violent interference of one into another. There is abundant example of aggression
in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, in which the existence of a species or
an individual is often sustained by doing violence to others, that makes the
continuous round of transformations, assimilation and adaptations of Universe's
environment and of beings, inhabiting it.
Consequently, the aggression is something general, universal, and integral to
the basis of the reality itself.
Vae victis
The violent overcoming
of the bound has two aspects: one is relatively negative, the other is relatively
positive.
The subject of aggression, that is the being, which makes an aggressive assault
upon another one (upon the object of aggression), seeks to extend its own limits
by such action, to strengthen, to improve, replenish its own nature. Taking
victim's life, a beast of prey appeases its hunger, sustains its own existence,
obtaining matters, necessary for the organism. The military aggression expands
territories and multiplies the wealth of the victorious party, and even a boozy
fight victor strengthens his self-confidence, faith in himself and gets moral
satisfaction. In short, in the aggression the positive expansion of the subject,
expanding its sphere of potentialities, is realized.
But the object, undergone the aggression, the eaten or beaten victim, the subjugated
nation etc., on the contrary, as a result of bounds' infringement (mutual in
the given process), just loses what it had before, reduces its sphere of potentialities.
It (the object) becomes a pay for other's success, a scapegoat. In some sense,
the fact itself of aggression turns it, in fact, in the object, whereas previously,
before the assault, it could possess the illusion of its own subjective character,
bringing about the aggression toward other beings, objects, nations. This is
the negative aspect of the "violent overcoming bounds".
In the pre-humanistic civilization and in non-humanistic (traditional) civilizations,
which exist even till now, both aspects of the aggression were considered in
the aggregate, as two mutually complementary elements, laid in the primordial
structure of the Universe. The Chinese symbol "Yeng-and-Yang" is a
perfect example of that fatalistic dualism. The white fragment of the circle
presents the subject here; the black one presents the object correspondingly.
In the symbolism of sexes, the first one is identified with the masculine principle
(Yang), the second one is identified with the feminine one (Yeng). Hence follows
the common "legitimization" of the aggression, that was peculiar to
the traditional world, in which it would not come to anyone's mind to artificially
oppose the human to basic forces of the reality. Certainly, the more refined
civilizations shaded by all means the laws of aggression on the social level,
so the difference from the barbarian customs was on hand. However, in all cases
the right on the "violent overstepping bounds" was preserved, even
if the latter was taking a sublimated form, both in the cases of wars and in
the cases of individual repression, bringing about which was the function of
some special traditional organizations - the proto-type of the present-day police.
The exploits of conquerors, subjugators, destroyers were sung in legends and
eposes, which are one and all built on the formula "Vae victis!" ("Woe
to the vanquished").
Legitimation of aggression in Tradition
What is the metaphysical
justification of aggression in traditional civilizations, besides the direct
observation of the nature's structure?
The matter is that tradition considered the fact itself of bounds' existence
as the expression the Universe's incompleteness in relation to the latter's
Cause, conceived as something Absolute, One and being beyond all limits. Consequently,
the aspiration for the expansion of one's existence, for the existential expansion,
for the "transgressing bounds" (in Latin it is transcendere, "transcending")
was considered as a profound impulse of movement to the divine, as the echo
of missing the Absolute, implanted in the world and in the beings of the world.
Certainly, metaphysical and ascetic practices in such case could be called the
pure form of aggression. In those practices the initiated ones strove for transgressing
all bounds, the maximum bringing their own "ego" to the absolute state,
putting to the aggression not just some objects, but all the reality as a whole.
In the way of the direct self-deification the maximum of the aggressive impulse
is concentrated, for the Divine is just the cancel of bounds and limits, constituting
the essence of the non-divine, immanent. By the way, hence follows the Jewish
word "Satan", literally meaning "barrier", "obstacle",
that is "bound", comprehended as something negative. Departing from
this, it is simple to take the next step and explain the mechanism of so called
"demonization of an adversary", examples of which is so abundant in
the traditional legends, epos, religious teachings. What serves as an obstacle
on the way of expansion of a nation, country, religion, more narrow people's
community and, finally, a human; what limits the will of the latter to the totalization,
to the expansion of existence, all this automatically falls under the sign of
"Satan", obtains the quality of the theological evil, and consequently,
the aggression becomes legitimized on the most elevated levels. Due to such
"demonization of an adversary" or a victim their objectivization occurs,
depriving them of their subjective quality, abstracting from the specific, social
or religious solidarity.
Iran against Turan, Acheians against Trojans, Israelites against gois, Moslems
against giaours, Aces against Vans, Gods against Titans, and sometimes even
women (Amazons) against men - the various paradigms of dualism, borne by the
primordial impulse to aggression, are abundant in the most ancient chronicles,
religious codices, poetic legends and so forth. By the justification of their
own camp the people of Tradition justified, in fact, something which is more
- the principle itself of aggression, the primordial will itself to the "violent
transgressing bounds", the aspiration for the totalization of one's own
subjective character (however that may be expressed - either through national
or religious, or tribal affiliation).
Anti-aggression
In the modern world the
break has occurred with the centuries-old traditions, that fully turned over
the mental and social structures of the modern humankind in comparison with
the long milleniums of the past. "Enlightenment", humanism, rationalism
and other "progressist" tendencies put forward the system of estimations
and values, fully contradicting the basic orientations of the traditional society.
This certainly (and maybe in the most expressive way) touched upon the principle
of aggression.
The European Age of Enlightenment implanted in people a one-sided view of the
aggression, a view from the victim's point exclusively.
The light side of that phenomenon, based on the will to the Absolute, to attaining
the total character, to the maximum extension of a subject up to the sphere
of the Divine, discontinued being understandable, concrete and ontologically
rooted, and, consequently, was identified with the "survival", with
atavism, with inertial barbarism, with the temporal and in the main rectifiable
defect of the civilization. Having lost its metaphysical legitimacy, the aggression
became to be perceived as unlawful transgressing the integrity of what was proclaimed
the supreme value in itself - a human individual, society, being etc. Hence
follows all "natural right" tendency, which has been developed starting
from the times of Rousseau. For the existential expansion discontinued being
metaphysically justified, the victim put in its own claims to the "total
security", that is to the artificial and raised to the highest ethical
imperative defense from aggression. The aggression was in fact outlawed. With
this, in particular, the general "democratic" legal statue, which
prohibits the propaganda of war, is connected.
It turned to be possible to change the cultural and social foundations of the
society, whereas it was naturally beyond anyone's powers to change the basic
tendencies of both cosmos and human beings. Therefore the aggression never disappeared
either from history, or from the everyday life, or from the wild nature. It
just began to be perceived as the evil, as one limited being's claim on utilizing
another one, which arises spontaneously from time to time.
For the process of subject's totalization was excluded, the aggression became
to be considered as merely quantitative acquiring, piling external subjects,
as the trivial and vulgar selfishness, as the fatal "life struggle".
Therefore all of the aggression became to gradually be reduced to merely economic
sphere and all its manifestations in other spheres were strictly blamed by "public
opinion". "Total security" and "human rights" were
from then on guaranteed by transference of the aggression into the sphere of
the abstract material standards - money, capital.
Metaphysical genesis of terrorism
As the Western way of
thinking became more and more popular, as the capitalist, liberal system attained
its global character, the systematic discredit of both aggression and its manifestations
was going on. This touched political, cultural, ideological spheres. The civilization,
fully based on defending victim's interests exclusively, aspired to gradually
clear itself from those institutions, structures and models of behaviour, which
as integral parts were preserved in the human community since its traditional
"pre-humanistic" state. With this trend the pacifism, women suffrage,
tendencies towards weakening State machinery, the ideology of "human rights"
and so forth blend - all what makes up the ideological facade of the present-day
liberalism, which became a social and political model, dominating on the planet.
At the very last stage that process brought to the fact, that practically all
forms of aggression - everyday life, political, aesthetic one and so forth -
were "outlawed", and bounds became to be considered as something inviolable
and sacred. Together with that the other phenomenon emerged - the tendency to
the "inviolable overcoming bounds", to the mondialization of the world,
to the "soft" mixing all subjects, people and beings in some common
crucible, in One World. After stating bounds` inviolability the bounds` cancel
was stated, but this time the question was not about expansion and totalization
of the subject, of the aggressor, but about rallying victims in the common merely
objective character cosmos. The perfect form of such an ideology is the model,
known as "soft ideology", in which the matter is about mixing with
each other most various ingredients in the case they are all deprived of a brightly
expressed aggressive principle, of the subjective character. In the historical
aspect, just at the same time, when the first signs of the soft ideology appeared
(that is at the end of 60-ies/at the beginning of 70-ies of our century), the
adjacent phenomenon emerged: the modern terrorism. Certainly, the terrorism
did exist before also, but till some certain moment it remained rather lumpen
phenomenon, in which the most intensive manifestations of political aggression
were concentrated, confronting with the unshakeable wall of System. The modern
terrorism, however, is quite different from the radical political trend of revolutionaries
of the nineteenth/the beginning of twentieth century, for it tends to converting
from being extreme political and rather pragmatical means to a kind of an independent
phenomenon, self-sufficient one and representing a special kind of the ideology.
The representatives of the civilization, based on the soft ideology, gradually
extended the notion "terrorism", having included all those manifestations,
which contrasted with the basic foundations of their own doctrine, in it. In
other words, the terrorism became a synonym for aggression in the latter's most
general metaphysical sense. All the components of present reality, which did
not confine themselves to norms, imposed by "world community of victims",
were gradually brought to the terrorism pole. Political parties, which were
alternative to the liberal system, religious trends, even entire nations went
over to the sector of "terrorism", being driven there by the expanding
Western model.
The terrorism became gradually the last asylum of the subject, craving for the
totalization in the world, where that craving is outlawed. It is then not surprising,
that the independent doctrine of aggression became to gradually turn out, the
doctrine of the pure terror beyond the more narrow interests of a party, nation
or religion.
The first way
The pure terror phenomenon
is the last word in the history of aggression and the liberal struggle against
it. The time of "terrorism in the name of narrow interests of a party"
is up. More and more people realize the pragmatical character of a concrete
party membership in the case of their personal existential choice. Besides,
the classical ideolodies' defenselessness in the face of all-absorbing and all-dissolving
mondialist soft ideology becomes more and more apparent.
The sharp rise of May 1968 brought to the sad and insipid reduced reformism,
to the social-democratic parody. Palestine intifada resulted in the compromise
collusion of Arafat with Tel-Aviv. As a result of the Soviet system breakdown
the decaying remains of the guerilla are forsaken in the Latin America. The
rightist terrorism was managed even before. The doctrinal, ideological defeat
of all "open society enemies" is on hand.
But in spite of all substitutes, proposed by the soft ideology adherents (eccentric
and purely visual aggression in the youth fashion; endless TV hits with blood
and corpses; removal of a ban on the "sado-maso" production etc.),
the special type of people is preserved, from who the aggression is inseparable,
who experience the incessant, poignant craving for the "totalization of
the subject", exceeding the bounds up to the sphere of the transcendent.
It is just them who begin to lay foundations of a new ideology, a universal
ideology beyond the obsolete and outdated cliches.
In 1994 in Italy the book of Enrico Galmozzi was published with the name "Subject
without confines" - "Il soggetto senza limite". Its author is
one of the founders of the extremely leftist terrorist organization "First
way", Prima Linea, which competed with the famous "Red Brigades".
It is extremely significant, that the book of the leftist extremist, anarcho-communist
Galmozzi is dedicated to d'Annunzio, the founder of the fascist party in Italy,
the adherent of the aristocracy and, finally, the man, who was as a rule ascribed
to the extremely rightist political wing. Enrico Galmozzi brilliantly analyses
the d'Annunzio's phenomenon from the existential point of view and draws very
interesting parallels between him and anarchism figures and even between him
and Lenin. What is most important, the matter here is not in interpreting d'Annunzio
from the leftist point of view, but in the search of one universal criterion,
which could unite people of one and the same metaphysical type beyond the ideological
differences. The formula, which was found by Galmozzi for the name of his book,
seems so felicitous that it could serve as a common, universal slogan for all
opponents to the "soft concentration camp" of the modern mondialism.
"Subject without confines" is the purest possible realization of the
metaphysical sense of aggression, it is surprisingly precise slogan, expressing
the inner nature of the Pure Terror.
From now on everything will only depend on the ability of "solitary people"
to take leave of the previous ideological illusions, having recognized the metaphysical
necessity and inevitability of a new systematization of a social sphere - not
according to the scale "the rightist against the leftist", but according
to the scale "friends of aggression" against "enemies of aggression".
And who knows, whether the mondialist integration of people, who are objects,
people, who are victims, into the one planetary liberal community, into One
Absolute Object provokes the emergence of a new and last character of the world
history - the Absolute Subject, Subject without confines, which will commit
the conclusive act of the eschatological drama.
SUBJECT WITHOUT CONFINES is a chapter from Russian "eurasist" Alexander Dugin's book The Knight Templars of the Proletariat - translation by Vladislav Ivanov.