Life is often stranger than fiction. The odd trajectory of history has led leaders of three major global powers, Russia, the United States, and Brazil to be under the influence of three men who long for a world where hierarchies are affirmed and the leveling of our democratic age is rejected. They combine these esoteric spiritual interests with some complementary and conflicting views of geopolitics.
Alexander Dugin has argued that the United States and the forces of globalization it represents need to be resisted by traditional societies around the globe. Pushing back against globalization and affirming the inherent right of cultures to exist without being homogenized into a single global market is at the center of Dugin's vision. His efforts to support nationalistic factions throughout the European Union, thereby weakening that Union, has been a useful part of a strategy to enhance the power of the Russian state. The supernatural grounds of Dugin's strategy remain in the background as his goals of a Eurasia of different spiritually grounded cultures plays itself out in Vladimir Putin's pragmatic vision of a greater Russia.
The inspiration for Dugin's crusade comes from diverse, marginal esoteric thinkers, known as traditionalists who view the modern world and its progress as the darkest of times in a repeating cycle of history. Rene Guenon, Fritjof Schuon, and Julius Evola are some of the thinkers advocating the possibility of bringing this darkest age to the end so that human beings can return to a world where priests and soldiers are valued more than merchants and slaves.
Oddly enough, Trump's political advisor, Steve Bannon shared these esoteric interests with Dugin. Even odder, apparently these two men met and entered into a dialogue built upon their shared interests. Apparently Bannon attempted to persuade Dugin that it would be more in a traditionalist line of thinking for Russia to side with the Christian West in containing the epitome of modernization, the People's Republic of China. Challenging Dugin's narrative that places the United States at the center of the world's disorder and Asian states as being nearer to tradition was a bold move. Bannon's vision of traditionalism found the American people, not their elites, to best embody the virtues of priests and soldiers. The election of Donald Trump was a way to wipe away all the progressive reforms that are viewed by the traditionalist school as the clearest sign of decay i.e. gay rights, challenging gender roles, gross materialism, etc.
If this story did capture your interest yet, it gets even better. Olavo de Carvahlo, a Brazilian high brow Rush Limbaugh inspired by the traditionalist school of thought, advocated for Brazil to join the Judaeo Christian West, particularly the United States, to resist growing Chinese influence in his country. We have another traditionalist clashing with the tale told by Dugin of the Eurasian alliance against the modern world.
If we weave into this story white nationalists in the United States and white nationalists who also are inspired by traditionalism's contempt for the modern world and take a few segues into some efforts to destabilize the Iranian regime through developing a theory of Iran's deep connection to the other Indo European states through its traditional, Zoroastrian faith, we have a network of plots and dreams that may very well rival anything Robert Ludlum could write. And we should not forget rival Chinese factions financing Bannon and Dugin if the plot was not thick enough.
Needless to say, Benjamin Teitelbaum did a marvelous job of weaving the readings and inspirations of political figures of great significance into a tale that should make us wonder about how ambition can play with people's imaginations and lead to some very odd conflicts that have little to do with the welfare of we the people.
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