Political Platonism- the Philosophy of Politics

by Alexander Dugin

  It is important that Heidegger strictly distinguishes “I” (ich) and Selbst. Selbst is the common root of the human and society (narod).

  Heidegger says:

  Selbst is not exclusively a determination of the ego, ‘I’ (ich). That is the fundamental error of modernity. Selbst is not determined from the ego, ‘I’ (ich). On the contrary, the Selbst-character is also inherent in ‘you [singular],’ ‘we,’ and ‘you [plural].’ Selbst is mysterious in some new sense. The Selbst-character does not belong exclusively only to ‘you,’ ‘me,’ ‘us,’ but to all equally in a primordial way.6

  Selbst thus precedes both the singular and the collective, being a common basis for both. So we can very well set ourselves the task of studying the Selbst of society. That entails an entirely peculiar approach to it.

  Such a society will be an existential society, and Heidegger uses a special word precisely for society understood in that way: Volk.

  Volk is the same as Dasein, but in his philosophy Heidegger is primarily occupied with the delineation of Dasein in the human, philosophy, thought, and culture, and since the problem of the individual as such does not interest him, he constantly moves from the human to his existential basis, Dasein, most often without specifying the very structure of this transition. That is why the word Mensch (human), though used infrequently, is implied in most cases. Each time it is Mensch als Dasein.

  It is entirely legitimate, however, to propose another trajectory to Dasein: through society. We sometimes see this path in Heidegger, outlined only very approximately. In these cases he always uses the word Volk. Volk als Dasein.

  The Existential Structure of the Volk

  Describing the structure of the narod (Volk), Heidegger speaks directly of a homology with the human.7 Traditional metaphysics distinguishes three principles in the human: body, soul, and spirit. We usually do the same with the narod.

  The body of the narod is the space it occupies, and also population, quantity, demography, production, economy, its wars and peace agreements, and trade and handicrafts.

  The soul of the narod is tradition, religion, culture, customs, mores, ethics.

  Finally, the spirit of the narod is personified in philosophers, historians, and rulers who are responsible directly for the fate of the narod and the state [gosudarstvo].

  Heidegger discards this classical stratification just as he does the trichotomous analysis of the human individual. This taxonomy is a consequence of metaphysics — of Platonic metaphysics, specifically, but Heidegger calls precisely that metaphysics into question and strives to break through to the primordial element of thinking. Thus, he brackets the trichotomous human structure in order, starting the most original of all possible paths, to raise again the question of how we relate to Selbst, of who we are, how we are, and why we are.

  The existential analytic, destruction,8 and transposition into Dasein serve precisely this aim.

  As with the individual, the understanding of the narod (Volk) should also not stop at the isolation of three levels — body, spirit, and soul — but should be attained in a new perspective through correlation of the narod with its Selbst, through bringing the narod to Dasein.

  In this case, the narod’s reliable characteristics will only be its existentials. First of all, these are Sorge (care) and being-toward-death (Sein-zum-Tode).

  What we call “the body of the narod” or the economy (Wirtschaft) and production, ceases in this case to be a separate domain, defined by the material factor. Henceforth it is the domain of care [or concern] (Sorge). The narod cares [or is concerned], not because objective circumstances demand it, but in itself, for such is its essence, its Selbst. If we place the narod in the most advantageous circumstances, it will find something to be concerned about. In Heidegger, care is analogous to Husserl’s intentional act. Accordingly, a narod’s economy, its “body,” is nothing but the structure of its intentionality. The economy is intentional, and that is a fundamental conclusion of Heideggerian sociology: it is no accident that the human is involved with labor and production. The production of things with the help of technique is the most vivid form of intentionality. If artificiality of constitution is not apparent when observing natural objects (for those not engaged in philosophy), in the economic sphere it is explicit. Everything created by man is an intentional object.

  To wish that the narod would not create anything artificially, that it would not involve itself in the element of τέχνη (techne), is the same as depriving it of intentionality (Sorge), but that is just what Dasein is, which cannot but be concerned.

  If this is the “body of the narod” in the existential analytic, then its “soul” and “spirit,” that is, culture and philosophy, will not be superstructures on the material basis but will be disclosed as other aspects of that same care, Sorge. After all, the creation of a work of art or philosophical system is nothing other than the result of concern, an intentional act. It is difficult to say where this intentional act is more pure and primordial: on the one hand, among simple people (laborers), the element of care is expressed more immediately and deeply, while poets and thinkers operate with secondary, derivative notions, but on the other hand precisely poets and thinkers stand closer to the risky essence of the creative act. The worker is more existential; Sorge is more vivid and immediate in him. The poet or thinker are inferior to him in this respect, but they relate to the element of death, to nothing, since their creative act is openly dangerous. They are immediately correlated to death. That is what Hegel had in mind in the well-known section on Master and Slave in The Phenomenology of Spirit.9

  Thus, an existential approach requires another — in its turn, existential — structuring of the narod. According to Heidegger, this leads us to distinguish a double horizon. On the whole, the Volk is Dasein, but in a narrow sense, the Volk is Dasein that is given more immediately. Existentials operate in it in full measure and with full power. What is more, the power here is dual: it reflects care (Sorge) more purely — for precisely that reason the majority of people in a given society and culture work, labor, and produce — and at the same time it covers the gape of death with its powerful torrent. Consequently, the narod (Volk) in the narrow sense, is flight from death. That is why in its usual state the narod is apprehensive (Furcht), but at the same time does not know anxiety [yzhas] (Angst).

  Another pole or horizon of the narod (Volk) is those Heidegger calls “the single ones” (die Einzelne). This is the instance when Dasein ascends to itself, i.e. to an encounter with being (Sein). Heidegger describes the relation between the narod and the single ones in the Black Notebooks:

  The narod: a guarding concealment and primordial manifestation of the legitimation of being. This results from the fertility of thrownness, whose essential con-junction [vossoyedineniye] the narod is, and whose great ones remain single ones. The being (essence) of these single ones should be grasped from and within their con-junction [or re-unification] as a narod.10

  Between the narod and the single one stands the special word Vereinzelung. This word is necessary for Heidegger for pairing the single ones (die Einzelne) and the narod (Volk). The narod is a sort of council [sobor] of “single ones,” where they can and can no longer remain single ones. The Ver-einzelung is the council as con-junction of single ones, but the choice of Vereinzelung instead of Vereinigung, for instance, shows not only that something is being conjoined, but that the conjoined (the unit, the single one) does not cease being single. Moreover, the narod is not the preceding basis for the single ones and their partition: it is already in itself the process of differentiation and integration.

  Anyone in the narod can become a single one, and this is marked in it, but only a certain, distinct [person] becomes a single one — i.e. great — placing the accent of his existence on Selbst in its pure guise. What is more, he does not juxtapose himself to the narod and does not even detach himself from it; after all, the narod is Selbst and precisely it, the narod as Sel
bst, gives the single one his content, his being, and his aim.

  Geworfenheit, thrownness, is a Heideggerian existential analogous to the subject. We can say that the narod is a subject, i.e. a horizon of thrownness, and this thrownness grows in the narod in every direction. The single ones are the extreme height of such growth. This height, however, is at the same time depth and return inside the narod, since precisely the narod is the “manifestation of the legitimation of being.” The single one reaches being only in the narod and through the narod, since the narod is being, here-being, Dasein.

  A Diagram of the Existential Structure of Society

  We see clearly here the unity of the philosophical and sociological conception of Dasein. Heidegger describes the fate of Western Dasein as the gradual cooling-off of the question of being, as the forgetting of being, but the decision (Entscheidung) to remember being (Sein) or to forget it, to think about it or to focus on beings (Seiende), is made always and only by Dasein itself. That is the fundamental thesis of Heideggerian philosophy. That is why Another Beginning of philosophy is possible: Dasein can decide to exist authentically, but it can also decide to exist inauthentically. In the second case rule is given to das Man, who is the “I” or “we” (or “everyone”) of inauthentically existing Dasein. In this case, alienated metaphysics and Machenschaft, technique, are affirmed. The single ones in this case become less and less distinguishable from das Man: they are no longer kings and rulers, but “deputies,” “commissioners,” outspoken “jesters,” and “rope walkers” [circus clowns]. That is how political leaders, philosophers, and cultural actors appear, but they are not the ones responsible for that choice. More precisely, deciding to exist inauthentically, they do not act separately and in isolation from Dasein but rather they act thus together with Dasein. Das Man establishes and constitutes a general will. This is an existential act, in the course of which thrown presence turns away from being, that is, from its own essence, its own Selbst.

  All this is manifest in the clearest way in sociology also. As the philosophy of modernity represents the systematic forgetting of being, so the political and social teachings of modernity express the same process in their sphere. That is why all types of modern social order, like all forms of political ideology (reducible to the three basic ones of liberalism, communism, and fascism)11 represent variations of alienated society, where, in the end, das Man, the central figure of Machenschaft, dominates.

  At the same time society (in the sense of Gesellschaft), understood as modern society, the society of modernity (in contrast to pre-modern Gemeinschaft, i.e. community) lacks a set of strictly autonomous criteria, although it insists on this in its three basic versions (according to the number of main political theories). All proposed criteria are nothing other than the existentials of Dasein, distorted and alienated, reworked by das Man and the element of Machenschaft.

  This begins from the subject itself. In modern philosophy, Descartes announced the subject. In the three modern political theories we are dealing with three narrower interpretations of the subject.

  Liberalism interprets the subject as the individual; communists as the class; fascists as the state [gosudarstvo], nation [natsiya], or race (national-socialism).

  Heidegger shows that the subject is a modern construct [construct of modernity] built on the forgotten Dasein buried beneath it. That is why philosophical destruction begins by dismantling the subject and breaking through to Dasein. If today we project that into society (sociology), we will see that all three subjects of the political theories of modernity (liberalism, communism, fascism) ignore the narod (Volk), which is Dasein. Accordingly, destruction in existential sociology should begin by dismantling the individual, class, and nation-state, to discover at their foundation the true existential foundation that has been subjected to alienation, distortion, and forgetting, i.e. the narod (Volk).

  The Project of Authentic Society: The Existential Empire

  Here we transition to the projective side of Heidegger, to his notion of how society should be if Dasein chooses in favor of authentic existence, i.e. itself (Selbst). That is the sociological and even political program — Entwurf — of the Fourth Political Theory.

  First, everything depends on the decision (Entscheidung), a decision made by Dasein in favor of authentic existence, but the decision is not made by some one person or group of persons, even if they are rulers or are influential, nor by a philosophical school, nor by everyone altogether. There are neither rules nor procedures for the decision at issue. It is something greater. In it, Dasein turns to itself, accomplishes a turning (Kehre), decides on itself, and hazards being. Here Dasein turns directly to its own finitude, i.e. it cooperates with the element of death. Dasein in the whole turns to death, but this turn is sustained only by the separate and rare, the single ones (die Einzelne). The decision manifests itself and makes itself known in them. But they themselves do not make the decision. They are able to carry it out, but not to make it. The narod (Volk) makes the decision, though it cannot carry it out by itself, in the narrow, ontic sense.

  Thus, the project of authentic society is adopted synchronously and fully by the narod as Dasein, but it is expressed through the single ones (die Einzelne) who become its bearers. They are the true rulers of the Empire of Another Beginning.

  Heidegger writes:

  The metaphysics of Dasein must be deepened and broadened in its inner structure to the metaphysics of the (concrete) historical narod.12

  That means that the transition from philosophy to sociology (society) and politics is a breakthrough into the sphere of the historical. Dasein’s decision acquires its proper scope in precisely the historical, the historial (das Geschichtliche and even more precisely das Seynsgeschichtliche). The society ruled by das Man is clearly anti-historical, ex-historical [i.e. outside of history]. Even if they speak constantly of “history,” they understand it as an alienated fate, as τέχνη (techne), as the artificial ground and justification of a completely alienated care, occupying the entire space of the momentary. Such “history” is nothing but a counterfeit (anti-phenomenological) ground for the necessity of labor. The narod becomes truly historical (geschichtliche) only when it chooses authentic existence, but then it encounters its finitude, i.e. risk. This encounter has a name: war, the father of things, according to Heraclitus. The elites of all political formations — states — were formed in that way: they are the rank of warriors and masters, entering into personal relations with death. Philosophers are those among them who are so captivated by death and the finitude of existence that they make death the focal point of their existence [nalichiya], striving to penetrate into the depth of being on the very border of nothing. Warriors and philosophers, and also poets, make being historical and fill history with ontological content. In this, the narod becomes full and saturated. Its cares — labors, concerns, inclinations, moods — acquire a basis in being and are brought to the roots. A narod that has acquired a historical dimension becomes a narod of being. It not only exists [sushchestvuyet], it henceforth is [yest’].

  For Heidegger and for the Fourth Political Theory, that is a political and social project.

  Heidegger writes in the Black Notebooks:

  The most important but most remote goal: the historical greatness of the narod in the realization and formation of the power of being.

  The more proximate goal: the establishment of the narod by itself from the loss of roots and excessive partisanship in the state.

  The most proximate goal: the preliminary organization of the narod-community as the Selbst of the narod.13

  These stages are especially important if, as in Heidegger’s own case, transition to the Fourth Political Theory proceeds or is at least reflected on from within the Third political theory. That is precisely why a near aim is overcoming “excessive partisanship in the state.” The state is the name of das Man in the Third political theory (fascism, nationalism). Destruction of the state, as an apparatus, as
Machenschaft, is the first theoretical task of the Fourth Political Theory. Without that, the narod (Volk) as the “subject” of history, as Dasein, won’t be discovered and identified.

  In a broader context of the political systems of modernity, we can paraphrase the Heideggerian sequence in the following general way:

  1. Awakening of the narod as itself (Selbst);

  2. Paving the way through alienated forms of subjectivity imposed by modernity: the individual, class, and state (nation, race), with their parallel (phenomenological) destruction (this depends on the starting point for the realization of the project of the Fourth Political Theory, whether it starts within a liberal, communistic, or nationalistic society);

  3. Transition to the horizon of great history (die geschichtliche Grösse des Volkes); the full manifestation of the ontological historial as the narod’s discovery of its own being.

  The Narod and Its God: The Religion of Selbst

  The final thing to which we should pay attention as we initially approach existential sociology is the question of religion. For many it can seem the most problematic aspect of Heidegger’s philosophy and of the Fourth Political Theory as such.

  Heidegger himself understands the problem of gods or God inextricably from the narod. In the Black Notebooks he cites the words of Shatov from Dostoyevsky’s Demons:

  He who has no narod [people] also has no god!14