Radio 3Fourteen - Dostoevsky and Strategies of Subversion

00:00:00.000 Thank you for listening.

00:00:30.000 This is Radio 314 on the Red Ice Radio Network.

00:01:00.000 He is an independent foreign policy analyst.

00:01:02.740 He earned a B.A. in Russian language from Georgetown University and an M.A. in Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian studies from Stanford University.

00:01:11.300 He studies the intersection of political culture, religion, and strategic issues, which he approaches from a traditionalist conservative position.

00:01:19.580 Mark Hackard's online project, souloftheeast.org, is to ensure the valuable aspects of Russian political and religious thought are made available to English speakers.

00:01:28.940 While Russia has an extraordinary treasury of statesmen, philosophers, theologians, and other authors, many of their writings have never been translated.

00:01:37.520 Mark thinks there are numerous historical, religious, philosophical, and geopolitical texts in Russian that would be of great service to readers in the West.

00:01:46.240 So Soul of the East seeks to highlight important themes in these works, though they might be a light from the East.

00:01:51.700 I know our Christian listeners will enjoy this conversation since Mark comes from an Orthodox Christian perspective.

00:01:57.860 Hi, Mark. Welcome, and thanks for being here.

00:02:00.100 Thank you, Juana.

00:02:01.000 Yeah, it's great to talk with you.

00:02:03.140 Well, before we leap into this conversation, tell us why you started the website called The Soul of the East.

00:02:08.460 Well, The Soul of the East, I began in January, like right around New Year's, 2014, and I wanted to – I like – I enjoy writing, and I've written for alternative media for the past several years, mostly on issues relating to Russia and geopolitics and culture.

00:02:34.400 And I had also done some translations of various writers, so I really wanted to build that up and kind of offer to people new translations of Russian thinkers, usually in the Orthodox, traditionalist, conservative vein, that hadn't been accessible to the West prior.

00:03:02.600 So that's kind of the mission of Soul of the East, along with providing analysis on various subjects.

00:03:14.140 And I write as well as a group of my friends who I have writing alongside me there.

00:03:20.980 So that's really the main mission, is making Russian political, philosophical, religious thought more available and accessible to people who are looking for a new perspective.

00:03:39.480 Great. I just stumbled across it, and I'm enjoying what I've read so far.

00:03:42.940 And you have an excellent vocabulary. I can tell you read lots of novels, right?

00:03:46.140 Yeah, I do read lots of novels. My favorite author is Dostoevsky, so that's – yeah, that's – but yeah, I enjoy reading a lot.

00:04:01.360 And nowadays it's mostly in Russian, or it's mostly translating, but the writers that I have read in the past, people like Father Seraphim Rose and Donoso Cortez and Joseph de Maestra, that's just nonfiction stuff.

00:04:23.720 But they, you know, they have kind of this elevated vocabulary. So some of the – I try not to sound stilted, but I enjoy, you know, the kind of the classical use of the language.

00:04:36.000 I like reading books where I have to have a dictionary on the side so I can look it up and learn new words.

00:04:41.280 Yeah, now and then. That's kind of cool, you know. Yeah.

00:04:44.280 Well, you've prepared a very interesting talk, but before I set you loose to talk about the Russian author Dostoevsky, can you remind the listeners what novels he wrote?

00:04:52.200 Yes. Yes. Dostoevsky, his main novels you would have heard about would be Brothers – his main and last one was Brothers Karamazov.

00:05:06.620 It was funny. The other day I was at the gym, and there was this hipster guy wearing a T-shirt, and it said Brothers Karamazov.

00:05:18.320 Huh. And it, I don't know, it had some – it said like Moscow or something like that. It was just some goofy T-shirt.

00:05:25.560 But I said, you know, I said to the guy, oh, hey, Brothers Karamazov, that's my favorite book.

00:05:29.940 And he looked at me like I was from planet Mars, you know, like, what are you talking about?

00:05:35.600 Like, you know, the book, Brothers Karamazov, have you read it?

00:05:39.080 He's like, oh, no. I'm like, well, check it out sometime.

00:05:44.400 That's the age we live in when Brothers Karamazov is a T-shirt, and no one has any idea what it means.

00:05:50.620 And you know he's probably a commie wearing it, and if he knew what it was about, he would hate the shirt.

00:05:54.840 Yeah, you bet. Yeah, so goofy. But yeah, Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, Crime and Punishment, A Raw Youth, also called an – I guess the literal translation would be The Adolescent. 0.90

00:06:11.300 White Nights, House of the Dead, Demons, that's kind of the – mostly what I guess, you know, dealing with subversion that I'll be talking about today.

00:06:26.860 Great.

00:06:28.140 I think that covers the main –

00:06:32.860 Okay. Well, tell us about Dostoevsky and his experience with Western ideas of liberalism, socialism, and revolution.

00:06:40.200 Sure. Now, Dostoevsky had been – when he was a young man, he had been trained at the Academy in St. Petersburg as a military engineer.

00:06:53.540 And then from there on, he went on to try his hand as a writer, and he was successful.

00:07:00.800 He was popular, you know, enjoyed a level of popularity in Petersburg's intellectual and literary circles.

00:07:13.060 And as part of this, the ideas, the spirit of the time in Russia, the ideas flowing through were coming from the West, and those ideas were of, of course, liberalism being the main current.

00:07:31.340 But then you have like Fourier, socialism, and various revolutionary projects that would later include anarchism and nihilism.

00:07:50.400 And Dostoevsky, in his literary discussions, was getting involved with politics in this manner and really had this affinity as a young man for all these liberal ideas or liberal ideals.

00:08:11.240 And he was supported in this by mentors like Bilinski and other literary figures.

00:08:19.520 So he ended up in a group of like-minded men called the Petrashevsky Circle.

00:08:34.180 And Petrashevsky was a foreign – he was an official in the foreign ministry in St. Petersburg at the time.

00:08:44.240 This is the late 1840s.

00:08:45.800 And they were basically plotting to spread socialist, liberal socialist propaganda and ultimately overthrow the czar.

00:08:59.780 And if you want to – there's a great account of this that I translated actually, and it's called – it's at souloftheeast.org, and it's called Dostoevsky's Secret War.

00:09:10.480 But it tells the story of Dostoevsky's involvement in the Petrashevsky Circle and also his arrest and then his kind of dialogues with the officer of the third section, which was what the secret police was called at that time, who was running the case.

00:09:35.920 A guy by the name of Dostoevsky, D-U-B-E-L-T.

00:09:40.720 And Dostoevsky kind of made Dostoevsky rethink things to – he showed him the value of the Russian people as an organic entity.

00:09:58.680 And also kind of pointed him – at least indicated to him that the czar wasn't as bad as these ideologies made him out to be, and that in reality that Russia and the czar and orthodoxy and the people, those were all part of the same fabric.

00:10:19.840 And Dostoevsky would later remember that, but really he had a pivotal moment when he faced execution.

00:10:32.000 After being found guilty of attempting to spread revolutionary propaganda, he faced execution.

00:10:41.140 The czar commuted the sentence, but he and several others – Dostoevsky and several other of his colleagues – were made to face a mock firing squad.

00:10:53.040 And that was really a key moment in his life, and he said – he later said that he had never been as happy as on that day after he learned that he wasn't going to die.

00:11:06.420 But from then, he went into exile and hard labor in Siberia, and then he was stationed – he was in the army again as a private in Siberia, or kind of a Kazakh-type outpost.

00:11:26.540 I think it was a place called Orenburg, kind of by the border with Kazakhstan today in the east.

00:11:34.120 And then he came back, but his views had changed dramatically from where he was as kind of this young, naive – even though he was still a brilliant guy and he was always a masterful psychologist.

00:11:51.360 But his views on human nature and on faith and on the identity of the Russian identity and things like that, those had all deepened dramatically.

00:12:03.800 And he returned to St. Petersburg a changed man, and he saw the destructive nature of revolutionary ideologies, whether it be liberalism or socialism or anarchism or what we would later know as communism and so on.

00:12:29.560 And even though he remained committed to a notion of social justice for the people and helping the downtrodden and all that was tremendously important to him.

00:12:46.460 But he rejected wholesale the kind of the atheistic abstractions of socialism and kind of this trying to – you know, the blank slate theory of fitting man into these various ideological boxes and thinking that you could engineer a new man.

00:13:14.880 And that people were blank slate and so on, he broke with that definitively.

00:13:24.760 So what were his experiences while he was imprisoned?

00:13:29.600 Well, he saw the best and the worst of humanity in hard labor when he was in Siberia.

00:13:37.940 He, Dostoevsky, witnessed just utter savagery by prisoners and he saw that Russian peasants could be just completely brutal to each other and just treat each other like animals. 0.79

00:14:03.000 But he also saw that they could be incredibly kind and even – you know, he witnessed moments of kindness from hardened criminals and also moments of kind of religious illumination.

00:14:24.940 And he saw as well the mercy that the Russian people had for criminals, even for convicted murderers and so on, that they looked – that the normal Russian peasantry or just the simple people looked upon such cases, 0.84

00:14:50.720 looked upon such individuals not as completely doomed or completely condemned but as unfortunates and as sinners who had, you know, done – who had done terrible things but nonetheless were deserving of some measure of sympathy or mercy.

00:15:18.100 There's a phrase that sometimes you hear as an expression of sympathy, but there but for the grace of God go I, meaning that we – when we're in a position of judging another,

00:15:42.700 we should really be careful, we should really be careful because even if a person has done just crazy, insane, horrible things, that potential for evil is there in all of us.

00:15:57.440 That cuts across every human heart.

00:15:59.900 So I think that's what Dostoevsky really, really came across in the prison camps was seeing that struggle within every human being, that there's evil, there's potential for good or evil.

00:16:16.700 And, you know, he said the battlefield between God and the devil is in man's heart and it's there that they fight.

00:16:24.060 So then what happened after he left this prison camp?

00:16:28.580 He went into the army and he served – I think he served like three or four years.

00:16:34.920 I'd have to – I can't recall exactly, but he was a private in the army.

00:16:41.120 Again, he had originally been an officer, but he was, of course, you know, demoted.

00:16:45.160 And he served as a private, served his way up, and, you know, was successful.

00:16:50.360 And then after that, he went back to – he was allowed back to Petersburg.

00:16:56.760 Now, at this time, did he also come to Russian Orthodoxy or how did that happen?

00:17:01.160 Yeah, he came more to Russian – he had been, of course, he had been baptized Orthodox.

00:17:07.560 He had – when he was a child, he had absorbed Orthodoxy, and he had – you know, he would sit with his family, and he would read the Bible.

00:17:23.200 They had an engraved Bible with illustrations, and also listened to Karamazin's Russian history.

00:17:34.620 So he was – he was imbued with Orthodoxy.

00:17:39.600 It was an organic element of him, even though, you know, in his youth per se, like, you know, when he was a young man, when he was at the academy, and when he was, you know, this up-and-coming literary star, he had distanced himself from it.

00:18:01.440 He had kind of fallen away, but it was never total, even when he was, you know, engaging in these debates with other writers, like with his mentor, Belinsky.

00:18:13.340 You know, these other guys would – they would attack Russian Orthodoxy, or they would attack Christ, and they would say various things, you know, calling for the overthrow of the church or statements of that nature.

00:18:31.760 And Dostoevsky would defend Christ, and interestingly enough, that was always his deepest attachment, his deepest love, even when he was in that liberal period of his life.

00:18:49.400 He never quite let go of that, and so it returned to him in full force later on.

00:18:56.200 But he did have a problem with the Roman Catholic Church in the Vatican, though, right?

00:18:59.840 Oh, yeah, yeah, he – and that, of course, came out his – what, you know, just about everyone considers his greatest creative endeavor, the Grand Inquisitor, the poem of the Grand Inquisitor, or the legend of the Grand Inquisitor.

00:19:22.500 In Brothers Karamazov, he kind of – he kind of – he really comes down hard on the Roman Catholic Church.

00:19:33.600 And the Grand Inquisitor is a Spanish cardinal in 16th century Seville, and the story is that Christ comes back to, you know, just kind of visit his people.

00:19:51.340 And the Grand Inquisitor, and the Grand Inquisitor throws him in jail, and, you know, has this great – it's a dialogue, but it's – Christ says nothing to him back.

00:20:05.500 But so it's essentially the Inquisitor's monologue, but why, you know, why did you come here?

00:20:12.080 And we were setting up everything just fine without you, you know, leave us alone, kind of pointing to Dostoevsky's criticism of the Roman Catholic Church was that it had basically elevated legalism and rationalism and distorted Christ,

00:20:38.280 and was teaching a distorted Christ to the people as a means to earthly power.

00:20:45.160 And again, you know, that's his – you know, that was his view, and it even goes deeper and beyond that, beyond just, you know, Roman Catholicism,

00:20:55.160 you can really apply this to modern ideology as a whole.

00:21:02.100 But Dostoevsky also saw that there were many – there are still many, you know, good Christians in the West and many, many good Roman Catholics.

00:21:18.380 And so I don't want to make that just – you know, I mean, I'm Orthodox, but I actually grew up Roman Catholic.

00:21:24.340 Yeah, and nonetheless, you know, I mean, there – yes, there are – you know, the West has come to the present point.

00:21:35.880 It's not – it didn't, you know, just – it didn't start certainly – I mean, like, you know, mainstream conservatives would blame it all on the hippies, you know, in the 60s or whatever.

00:21:45.740 And, you know, a lot of deeper thinking people would say, you know, the Enlightenment is, you know, the culprit.

00:21:53.780 And if you go deeper, though, you know, you could say, well, the scholastics and so on, you know, kind of brought on this rationalism and empiricism.

00:22:03.360 If you go even further, you could say, look, there was a fundamental split between East and West.

00:22:09.740 And while the East kept the tradition and also kept in – kind of as a contingent result, maybe, kept an organic society, the West developed in a different manner.

00:22:30.000 And the West kept changing from, you know, Catholicism to Protestantism to the Enlightenment to modernism and so on.

00:22:42.060 And so there's – it's kind of this chain of – chain reaction that you could trace.

00:22:50.700 That's what Dostoevsky would say.

00:22:52.720 That's what most Orthodox – traditional Orthodox thinkers would point to as kind of the fall of the West.

00:23:08.360 People like Justin Popovich, he was a Serbian monk who actually wrote a great book on Dostoevsky.

00:23:14.300 I'm hoping to translate some of it in the future.

00:23:17.540 Well, let's talk about the book Demons, Dostoevsky's great counter-revolutionary novel, as you say.

00:23:24.960 Yeah, that's the way I like to put it.

00:23:27.740 His Demons really – it's – I would say, you know, Brothers Karamazov probably in its philosophical depth is probably the greatest.

00:23:38.180 But Demons is really close.

00:23:40.760 It's right up there.

00:23:41.640 It's a great work.

00:23:43.280 Like, it's – and it was written in the 1870s, and it kind of shows how – shows the effect of revolutionary ideologies and ideas.

00:24:00.420 And it's called Demons, not because the revolutionaries themselves were demons, but rather –

00:24:08.480 The ideas.

00:24:09.780 Yeah, the ideas, the ideologies were demonic.

00:24:12.680 And there's a lot of – there's actually kind of a profound, profound Orthodox teaching on this.

00:24:23.960 If you go into the notion of the passions, and I don't mean the – when we think of – you know, in modern language, when we think of passions, we think of –

00:24:38.680 You know, I have a passion for baseball or whatever.

00:24:44.520 You know, like, I love baseball.

00:24:45.900 Well, it's not really – or I have a passion for my family or something like that.

00:24:50.260 That's not really what the passions are in the classical terminology.

00:24:55.520 Rather, the passions are that which cause suffering, literally the Latin passio.

00:25:02.500 And so the passions are those elements that lead us – elements in life that lead us to sin.

00:25:11.320 You know, so the – you can think of the seven deadly sins, you know, pride, envy, so on, as, you know, those are passions.

00:25:22.480 You know, those are the chief passions.

00:25:23.840 So the passions are a vehicle for demonic influence, basically.

00:25:34.560 And these passions are what revolutionary ideologies are built around, whether it be liberalism, which is essentially this egoism.

00:25:46.020 Or, say, of course, socialism, which is fundamentally built on envy, as Berdyaev, another Russian philosopher, pointed out.

00:26:03.640 So, yeah, the ideologies are used to kind of fulfill these deviant human desires, you know, of fallen human nature.

00:26:23.780 And in orthodox understanding, the passions are the way, the leverage that demons, that demonic forces, fallen angels, use.

00:26:40.300 They're the leverage that demons use in order to take control or possess people in whatever degree.

00:26:49.160 I mean, that's kind of a separate subject.

00:26:51.320 But that's why the novel was also called – in English, it's called The Possessed as well.

00:26:58.220 Yeah.

00:26:59.020 Wasn't there a movie called Possessed?

00:27:01.100 I think so.

00:27:02.480 There might be.

00:27:04.220 I'm not sure.

00:27:05.140 Yeah, I got to – I'm not – I got to strengthen my movie.

00:27:11.680 Well, I'm always shocked there's all these excellent Russian novels, but they never get turned into movies, and I think I know why. 1.00

00:27:18.080 Yeah.

00:27:19.160 Yeah, no, I know.

00:27:20.360 They're too deep.

00:27:21.020 They'd wake people up.

00:27:22.260 Yeah, exactly.

00:27:23.760 Yeah, they're not politically correct for sure, yeah.

00:27:27.220 Well, I know you wanted to discuss dialectics and strategy of tension, so where's a good place to begin?

00:27:33.020 Oh, well, yeah.

00:27:34.120 Yeah, that's what's interesting is Western man really is – we can go back to the novel Demons, but he's bedeviled by dialectics.

00:27:54.320 And meaning dialectics, of course, it sounds like a – for those who aren't into philosophy, and I'm not super into philosophy either, but I – I mean, I was a Russian major, so later on I became acquainted with Russian philosophy and went deeper from there.

00:28:18.020 But dialectics are these polarities, these either-or constructions that we fall into.

00:28:28.920 And they're basically traps, and they're used by oligarchical elites to drive society in a certain way.

00:28:43.380 The most famous being, of course, which most people I think would know about is the Hegelian dialectic problem-reaction solution that's been popularized pretty much.

00:28:56.160 But we have in Demons specifically, we have – the revolutionaries are plotting, you know, how to take over society, and then once they've taken over, how to control it.

00:29:15.740 And their main theoretician is a guy called Shigalyev, and Shigalyev has – he came up with what he says, you know, the perfect formula.

00:29:29.420 And like all revolutionaries, he says, you know, I started – my initial premise was I proceeded from unlimited freedom because this is the goal.

00:29:43.900 This is the goal that all utopian ideologies offer, you know, classical liberalism included, and we can talk about that later.

00:29:54.240 It ultimately leads to tyranny, but he starts from unlimited freedom, and he ends in unlimited despotism.

00:30:03.380 So, you know, it starts in tyranny, or it starts in freedom, or it starts in liberty, and it ends in tyranny.

00:30:12.280 And this really encapsulates how modern ideologies work, whether it be liberalism or socialism, communism, and so on.

00:30:29.620 And they proclaim, of course, the rights of man, you know, liberty, equality, fraternity, but then, you know, they don't – they leave off that caveat of oul é mort, you know, or death.

00:30:46.680 That tends to be the way it works.

00:30:49.180 So, yeah, Shigolyov really, really – and Demons, I very much encourage people to read the novel, but he showed kind of the – how in the realm of ideas that the police state would work.

00:31:07.240 And this was also – this was elaborated on by the revolutionary leader in the novel, Verklavinsky.

00:31:16.500 He had – you know, he kind of articulated this plan for total control and genocide.

00:31:23.260 And, you know, again, Dostoevsky was very prophetic.

00:31:27.060 He even said in the book, you know, said through his characters, you know, if it – you know, it'll take – it will take, you know, 100 million dead.

00:31:36.500 You know, like he said, basically 100 million skulls.

00:31:39.380 And that was – that was about the figure that – that – that was the toll that communism took in the 20th century.

00:31:46.380 Yeah, at least, at least.

00:31:47.840 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:31:49.820 And, yeah, and so – but Verklavinsky, he was – he has – there's this great scene.

00:32:00.700 Let's see, I have the book here.

00:32:02.120 I have it in Russian, so I'm – you know, I'm – but it's around page 380.

00:32:07.520 But he talks about setting up – and it's just that the modern parallels are just very striking.

00:32:15.580 He talks about setting up a total surveillance control grid, encouraging moral depravity, like deviance of all forms, basically psychological warfare, intentionally dumbing people down.

00:32:36.040 Sounds familiar.

00:32:37.600 Yeah, yeah, and really, I mean, perverting the education system.

00:32:40.660 And all of this – and he goes back to it again and again.

00:32:45.760 All of this is going to be – the main thing is equality, you know, to pursue equality.

00:32:50.340 But another dialectic again there is that the proclaimed aim is equality, so that – but what comes from that is this small elite rules basically as gods over the – over these benighted masses.

00:33:11.220 So, yeah, I find that interesting.

00:33:14.100 I don't know, it's very – dialectics are tricky, and if – I would recommend – if anyone wants to read more about them or hear more about them, my friend Jay Dyer has a great site called Jay's Analysis.

00:33:31.160 But he's done some recent work on that, really outlining the pitfalls of Western dialectics and how we really get trapped in these.

00:33:44.580 But what Dostoevsky, I think, was getting at is that the preeminence of – the primacy of spirit over matter.

00:34:02.980 And whereas all these modern political ideologies that were coming from the West that would seize power in Russia ultimately and, of course, in Bolshevism in the 20th century.

00:34:15.840 But they all proclaimed matter over spirit and that – or the complete absence of spirit.

00:34:30.340 So when you have negation like that in the realm of the soul and the spirit, you're bound – you're on the road to chaos and tyranny already.

00:34:45.840 Yeah, well, you were mentioning there, liberalism is kind of a prelude to tyranny.

00:34:51.260 So get into that a little more.

00:34:53.180 Yeah, it's very interesting.

00:34:57.360 You can look back all the way to Plato who noticed it.

00:35:01.220 And so we don't have to agree with exactly everything that Plato says, but his general metaphysics are sound.

00:35:16.100 But Plato talked about in the Republic that democracy was the next stage to tyranny, that democracy led to tyranny, that this excess of liberty would lead to the most vicious tyranny.

00:35:34.580 And we see that in our own day, unfortunately.

00:35:40.200 If you look at – it's just amazing every election time or whenever we're told how free we are and how happy and how much we should love our freedom and so on.

00:35:55.140 Yet we're also – at the same time, this is an effect of the double mine.

00:36:00.620 But we also know now that we're under a total surveillance regime from the NSA and that the markets are manipulated.

00:36:12.400 And we have these insane foreign wars that we send our soldiers to go die in for no reason beyond the profit of some kind of predatory elite.

00:36:29.740 Or it just goes on and on.

00:36:31.620 So, you know, I think it points to – I mean, if you want to get into the deep spiritual reasons, it's – Dostoyevsky would say it – the reason for that is Western man's apostasy, that he has lost Christ and that – and that therefore he's just kind of careening towards annihilation.

00:36:58.220 And he called – he called – and this is – I mean, this is such an evocative image, but he said that, you know, Europe, which he termed, you know, the land of – he called the land of miracles.

00:37:10.800 You know, it's, you know, such a, you know, beautiful place and – or not just a place, but, you know, culture and everything and so many forms and meanings.

00:37:22.460 He said it's like a – spiritually it's a cemetery, you know, when he would visit there.

00:37:28.980 And he spent some, you know, a good amount of time throughout the continent, but he said it's a cemetery.

00:37:34.280 And if we take on that, but he said he still valued, you know, every rock in that cemetery, every stone he, you know, he weeped, he wept over and he valued tremendously.

00:37:50.980 So the heritage is still there, but from there, what's interesting is that a modern Orthodox monk who died in 1982, another – this guy was an American, and he was a brilliant guy.

00:38:08.380 But his name was Seraphim Rose, Father Seraphim Rose, and I'd highly encourage listeners to check out his work.

00:38:15.520 His main book is called Nihilism, and it's online.

00:38:18.240 But Seraphim Rose compared modern America to Disneyland in the sense that everything was based on fakery.

00:38:32.000 And actually, Baudrillard did as well.

00:38:35.940 He said that it's, you know, our society is kind of like a simulacrum in many ways.

00:38:42.760 And it's all – everything's kind of phony.

00:38:48.320 It's like a copy without an original.

00:38:50.740 I mean, you can think of all the Disneyland attractions that way.

00:38:54.200 There's nothing like it in real life.

00:38:55.960 And so just imagine then kind of building Disneyland on the cemetery of Europe.

00:39:07.220 But ultimately, the forces that liberalism unleashes are the forces, just as we talked about in Demons, and kind of these covers for ideologies, are the passions.

00:39:20.480 The passions are what really, really run through these ideas about liberty and equality and so on that form the basis of modern ideology.

00:39:37.580 And the passions will create anarchy, and that, again, leads to tyrannical forms of rule.

00:39:51.900 And that is not accidental.

00:39:55.000 And frankly, it's by design.

00:39:57.440 I think, yeah, it really is – it's not only social engineering, it's essentially Kabbalistic processing.

00:40:08.820 If you look at this in the kind of the sphere of – if you look at the spiritual explanations and look at it as kind of occult warfare, you can see it's like Kabbalistic processing.

00:40:21.880 It's the whole alchemical notion of – if you put it into politics, it's divida et impera in Latin, divide and rule.

00:40:33.860 In the esoteric realm, the corollary for divida et impera is solve et coagula, meaning dissolve and coagulate.

00:40:46.380 So, again, it's this notion of ordo ab keo, order from chaos.

00:40:53.400 And this really is the strategy of subversion of the controllers, of the elites.

00:41:02.440 I got to ask you a question here because there's a lot of different opinions flying around here.

00:41:06.140 But do you think that America from the start was an experiment?

00:41:09.680 Because I've had some people write me and say, but the founding fathers were anti-whites.

00:41:14.760 So, what do you think about that?

00:41:17.180 You know, I think it was an experiment.

00:41:19.960 Yes, it was this grand social experiment.

00:41:25.760 And, of course, as we know, the founding fathers, they had a lot of good qualities about them.

00:41:32.920 And there are a lot of positive things about the American Revolution.

00:41:36.660 Among them, you have the fact that they were kind of going against this money power oligarchy that ruled from London.

00:41:49.160 But, you know, by that time, the banksters, the Rothschilds, were really ruling the British crown.

00:41:57.680 I mean, the king was – King George was not – he was more of a figurehead and parliament was controlled by the financial elites.

00:42:08.400 So, they bucked that system.

00:42:10.360 So, that was good.

00:42:11.000 And then, you know, they had issued a sound currency and, you know, they based, you know, a lot of the constitution on common law, which, you know, is generally a good thing.

00:42:29.440 Yet, at the same time, you know, unfortunately, it was – yes, it was a social – it was an enlightenment experiment.

00:42:38.480 And we also – we've got to remember this was a Masonic enlightenment project.

00:42:43.720 And so, you know, just the way – I mean, the course of events being guided by these ideals being implemented, it would lead to some really unfortunate consequences that are – they're playing out in our own day.

00:43:07.120 Among these, you know, we could just look at the notion of religious pluralism, which is essentially, again, a tactic of divide and rule by elites, kind of, you know, an oligarchy that uses these methods to impose its control.

00:43:33.880 Maybe you can explain how religion helps to create that dialectic.

00:43:38.220 Yeah.

00:43:38.980 Religion is very, very susceptible to corruption and distortion, human nature being what it is.

00:43:49.880 And so, whenever there's deviation, you know, all bets are off as far as where that, you know, where that will lead, what kind of negative consequences that's going to carry.

00:44:11.440 The sky is essentially – the sky is essentially the limit, or maybe, you know, the abyss is the limit.

00:44:18.480 It goes deep and dark.

00:44:22.960 Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor was really about that, about that dialectic between materialism and kind of this distorted religion.

00:44:36.920 And that polarity is really evident in the dialogue when the Grand Inquisitor is speaking of how man will try to build this, you know, materialist, atheist anthill, and it'll lead to cannibalism.

00:45:02.220 And, you know.

00:45:03.080 Did he get into the psychology behind that at all?

00:45:05.640 Um, he did to some extent – yeah, I mean, in the dialogue he talks about, you know, that it's really – there's kind of two layers to it.

00:45:21.520 It's all the rebellion against God.

00:45:23.660 But the Inquisitor's rebellion is more refined and even more insidious than just standard – the standard socialist communist rebellion.

00:45:41.660 Because he says, you know, they're going to – he says to Christ, he says, man will – he will build this anthill.

00:45:50.260 He'll, you know, he'll build the, you know, what he thinks – he's going to try and build this utopia.

00:45:56.040 But it won't work out and it'll lead to, you know, to chaos, tyranny, and cannibalism, which interestingly enough is now a recreational activity in the modern West.

00:46:08.720 You know, go figure.

00:46:09.400 But it'll lead to these things, and then he'll come back to us, meaning he'll come back to us, the religious authorities, the Western Church, the Catholic Church.

00:46:22.640 He'll come back to us, and he will subdue humanity through three things offered by the church that can be – that are supposed to be legitimate in themselves, but they're distortions. 0.89

00:46:41.360 And that's miracle, mystery, and authority.

00:46:44.360 And that's where he hopes to build the Tower of Babylon, you know, on this pseudo-religion that, interestingly enough, does have parallels in our own day. 0.87

00:47:04.680 They're – ecumenism is a very strong and well-funded movement, and there are calls for a one-world religion.

00:47:17.720 Seraphim Rose wrote a book about it.

00:47:23.300 It's called The Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future. 0.80

00:47:28.340 It's a good book, but it talks about the ecumenist movement.

00:47:31.640 And so just as you see moves for a one-world government and a one-world economy, you also see the push for a one-world religion.

00:47:45.760 And so that's a very – it's a very creepy thing, and it points to – to me, it's an enormous spiritual counterfeit that modern or postmodern man is susceptible to.

00:48:09.640 Well, another thing is they're really helping to push egalitarianism, which, as we know, is a revolt against nature and God or God's true creation.

00:48:17.660 People try and argue it's found in nature, but it's bull.

00:48:20.580 In my view, it's a way to stop true progress, evolution, and from us becoming more like the gods.

00:48:26.900 No, it's complete bull.

00:48:28.320 And yeah, egalitarianism is an abstraction, is kind of one of these mind-forged abstractions that man imposes on the world around him that really doesn't make sense.

00:48:46.340 And we – again, we run – we clash with reality all the time, yet we're determined to fit square pegs into round holes, right?

00:49:00.240 I think that's how –

00:49:01.540 Yeah, I would also put the melting pot in there as a dialectic because it creates a cultural polarity between the people, which is creating more tension.

00:49:09.700 Yeah, and that's the interesting thing is the melting pot in the modern Western sense is – yeah, it's supposed to be – we see the images of – and we see the commercials of the people from everywhere enjoying the game or eating Doritos or whatever.

00:49:32.400 That's the ideal of the melting pot.

00:49:34.760 But the reality, unfortunately, is much different, and it leads to people trusting each other less, and it's not good for anyone.

00:49:44.480 That's the problem with multiculturalism is that it's not – well-meaning people will buy into it and think, oh, you know, this is a celebration of this and that culture.

00:49:59.100 No, no, it's meant to get rid of every culture. 0.99

00:50:01.960 It's meant to flatten the world, so it's not good for anyone.

00:50:07.340 It's not good for any culture.

00:50:09.640 Yeah, I hear people arguing, oh, just relax.

00:50:12.240 Let's just be one because they want to divide and conquer us.

00:50:15.300 Now they're using these alt terms, and I say, well, we're already divided by nature and geography, by race.

00:50:21.380 Yeah, and none of those things are bad, you know, geography or culture, ethnos, racial, you know, sex.

00:50:32.960 I mean, none of those things are bad.

00:50:34.440 I mean, there is a hierarchy of nature, and I'm not saying that one people is better than another or whatever.

00:50:47.420 We're just different, you know, we're just different.

00:50:49.880 That's okay.

00:50:50.800 Like, that's a good thing, you know, that we have all these divisions that are natural.

00:50:59.020 And that doesn't mean that you can't make a friend of someone else because they're different.

00:51:06.700 That's not what we're saying.

00:51:07.660 It's rather, you know, I've noticed there are, I think there are good people everywhere, and good people within, you know, these different cultures and nations and races and so on.

00:51:24.860 And part of what makes them interesting and part of what makes them who they are is the fact that they have their identity.

00:51:31.660 And that's a great thing, and I think, you know, unfortunately, the way that the modern West has gone, we've embraced these disembodied abstractions.

00:51:49.900 And so we pay for it by losing what's most important to us, you know, our faith, our heritage, you know, our sovereignty and so on.

00:52:06.260 All these things go out the window when we sign on to these subversive projects.

00:52:13.100 Yeah, people fall for the Hegelian dialectic of multiculturalism while accusing people like us of being victim to it.

00:52:19.900 Here's the invented scenario.

00:52:21.380 For instance, problem, racism, reaction, forced integration, solution, there can be no all-white countries. 0.96

00:52:28.400 Or problem, poverty, reaction, mass immigration into white countries. 0.84

00:52:33.700 What's the solution?

00:52:34.920 Global communism, of course. 0.66

00:52:37.400 Yeah, well, yeah, no, that's right.

00:52:40.080 Right, it's interesting because what the goal of, you know, going back to the Tower of Babel and the notion of the melting pot,

00:52:56.820 the goal of all that is literally, if you think of the melting pot, it's literally to melt us all.

00:53:02.480 You know, we're all supposed to be melted into what, you know?

00:53:05.580 Well, I guess into Walmart shoppers.

00:53:07.660 Yeah. 0.73

00:53:07.860 Or it's really absurd and it's incredibly ugly.

00:53:12.880 Who wants to, you know, who wants to live in the movie Idiocracy?

00:53:16.140 Or it's not good for any group of people.

00:53:22.300 Well, here's the other thing.

00:53:23.840 I think America is a good example for what happens when, I mean, this country was formed by Europeans.

00:53:28.480 It was a European melting pot. 0.62

00:53:30.820 So let's get that straight first.

00:53:32.640 But second of all, this is what happens when people are severed from their roots.

00:53:36.700 I mean, we are from Europe.

00:53:38.160 We're not from America.

00:53:39.380 And now that we've been separated from our nation, our people, our geography for so long,

00:53:44.440 you get things like Walmart and all this, like, all these trashy movies and everything else that comes with it.

00:53:50.920 It's emptiness.

00:53:51.860 It's incredibly sad.

00:53:52.620 Yeah, yeah, and, you know, geography, how much does geography really play into that?

00:54:02.080 You know, and the fact of the American founding that, you know, again, one of those negative aspects was the reject,

00:54:09.360 kind of an implicit rejection of European identity that made itself known with every passing generation.

00:54:17.960 But I really, I think that, you know, us being re-engineered into this kind of this formless mass is, yeah, it's a tragedy for everyone, no matter what community.

00:54:39.500 And, you know, as far as playing into divisions, there's nothing wrong with, you know, understanding and loving and valuing your heritage, you know, your family, your faith, your ethnic belonging.

00:55:03.720 I mean, I mean, that's been made out to be bad.

00:55:11.640 It's just, it's really, it's pretty amazing.

00:55:16.240 But that plays into the Tower of Babel and really making humanity into this,

00:55:26.460 what Dostoevsky refers to as a kind of an obedient herd of essentially subhumans because they've lost their, not only their identity, they've lost their freedom and, you know, all the things that make them who they are and their free will as well.

00:55:49.240 And so they've essentially been made into subhumans and they're being ruled over by this elite, small elite overclass that views itself as gods.

00:56:03.040 Yeah. Oh, yeah.

00:56:04.820 Yeah.

00:56:05.260 I know, I hear some people say, well, go back to, you know, Europe.

00:56:08.380 And it's like, well, we would go if Europe would take us and if Europe was strictly for Europeans, but there's no homeland to go to.

00:56:15.440 Yeah, it's amazing that, I know, that's the situation we're in as far as how Europe has rejected its heritage wholesale.

00:56:31.560 And, and again, this, this, this is, you know, you could talk to normal Europeans.

00:56:38.760 And so this is neither, you know, we shouldn't, we shouldn't really, we shouldn't blame the American people or, or, or, you know, different people of European nations.

00:56:49.300 Or, you know, this is not their, their fault, essentially, of course.

00:56:54.240 Sure, there's been an elite class working behind the scenes, orchestrating things.

00:56:58.280 Absolutely.

00:56:58.800 They're the ones that need to be dealt with.

00:57:00.440 Ideologies, ideologies are always the products of elites.

00:57:03.820 And, and these are weaponized ideologies.

00:57:07.760 And so, you know, we're, we're getting, again, we're getting robbed and exploited, you know, by these bankster bailouts and, you know, sent our, you know, our young men are sent to these awful wars for, for no, no good purpose.

00:57:26.400 Or, or, or, or, or for just crazy geopolitical brinksmanship with, you know, Eurasian powers like Russia and China, that, which is completely unnecessary.

00:57:38.620 And, and, yeah, this, this is, this is not, this is not the expression of, of the character of the American or European peoples.

00:57:50.320 But, but unfortunately, they, they, their, their current state is the, their current degraded state, we could say.

00:57:59.500 I mean, all you have to do is, you know, turn on the TV to see the degraded state.

00:58:03.340 But, but that is, that is the result of, of decades, if, if not centuries of, of social engineering.

00:58:14.400 Yeah, definitely.

00:58:15.600 Processing, yeah.

00:58:17.000 Well, I was, I was reading too that Nietzsche once described Dostoevsky as the only person who has ever taught me anything about psychology, which I thought was interesting.

00:58:25.460 And I was wondering if you discovered any parallels between Dostoevsky's idea of Superman related to maybe the Ubermensch.

00:58:33.560 Oh, yeah.

00:58:34.360 Yeah.

00:58:34.920 Um, definitely.

00:58:36.960 That, and, and the fact that Nietzsche said that, uh, is, is very significant.

00:58:42.720 And they, they, they, they were around at the same time and, and, uh, Dostoevsky was read by Nietzsche.

00:58:50.680 I'm not sure.

00:58:51.420 I don't, I don't think that Dostoevsky read, he, he himself read any Nietzsche though, but of Nietzsche's works.

00:58:58.660 Uh, but it, they were, they were thinking and writing about the Superman at the same time, independently of each other.

00:59:05.780 Um, and, and Dostoevsky was, his, his insights into, into human nature, he, he, he was a first class psychologist.

00:59:15.560 Um, and he, he could see, uh, man's, man's, uh, you know, his, his, his primal longings, his, his kind of his place in the cosmos and, and, and, and how he was trying to determine.

00:59:35.780 You know, where he would go, his relation to God, his, his relation to the world.

00:59:41.020 Um, and so that, that, that the, uh, similarity between some of the, uh, observations between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky is, is very pertinent.

00:59:55.380 Um, the idea of Superman and, in the novel Demons, we can go back to that because the idea of Superman does actually tie into,

01:00:05.780 uh, the, kind of the, the oligarchic elite, uh, strategies of subversion, uh, in the sense that they, they really do, in today's present, uh, whoever, you know, Rockefellers, Rothschilds, uh, Bill Gates.

01:00:27.220 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:00:29.120 The various Zionists, whoever, you know, um, if I'm trying to think, you know, like people like Soros and so on, all these different, all these different factions who are, you know, who, who hate normal people, but are also biting at each other. 0.63

01:00:43.620 I mean, yeah, these are miserable people, but, um, they, they think that, I mean, transhumanism is a real, is a real, uh, ideology and it's, it's, it's very well funded.

01:00:57.640 Um, the, the most public figure, the most public face articulating that is, is Ray Kurzweil, but they, the, the, the ideology of the, of the Superman in our present day is, is a reality.

01:01:13.320 And that's, that's, uh, that's come about in the form of transhumanism.

01:01:18.860 And, and despite what people think, there, there are various, um, there are various, uh, the popular initiatives.

01:01:28.440 Like, I think there's, there's one website called like H plus or humanity plus or something where it, it tries to bring together, you know, these trendies who think they're going to be transhumanist.

01:01:41.060 And who think they're going to have access to various, uh, life extending technologies and, uh, you know, enhancements and intelligence and perception.

01:01:53.220 Forget it.

01:01:54.200 This is an, this is, this is, uh, for, for super wealthy, predatory, sociopathic, uh, and worse billionaires. 0.98

01:02:05.820 This is not for you.

01:02:07.620 This is not for, uh, for your, you know, your average trendy or, or your, um, you know, some, some grad student in, in, uh, microbiology thinks he's going to be one of the elite.

01:02:22.360 Sorry.

01:02:22.740 It's not.

01:02:23.280 Well, I kind of feel like some of these elites go ahead, put that chip in your head. 0.93

01:02:26.360 Cause I know it'll give you brain cancer.

01:02:27.740 Oh yeah, no, it's, it's what's, it's also, yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's a means of control, you know, that these, these technologies, I mean, we, we, we can see it even with our, our smartphones or whatever.

01:02:41.380 These are, they all, everything tracks us now.

01:02:43.700 And, uh, so, so with all the conveniences come, comes control and with, with stuff that would, uh, be implanted in your body, you can, the, the, uh, the degree of control will just, will go up exponentially.

01:03:01.680 But, uh, regarding, regarding Superman and, and Nietzsche and then in, in the novel, we, we know about Nietzsche's, uh, thoughts on Superman and that, you know, for, uh, for, uh, for Superman, I'm trying to, for Superman to live, you know, he must, he must overcome, uh, he must overcome the human, that which is human within him.

01:03:29.220 Uh, of course, now, Dostoevsky never would have directly, you know, in, in writing in the 1870s, wouldn't have directly addressed the, the ideology, the current day ideology of transhumanism per se.

01:03:46.300 Um, but it's all there, all the principles, all the, all the, all the basics are there for, for what we need to know.

01:03:53.160 Uh, he, he, uh, he had a couple of figures in the novel who were,

01:03:59.220 very much, um, kind of, uh, drawn to and driven by, uh, the, the ideal of Superman, what he called the man-god.

01:04:11.940 And, um, the man-god would, would live, you know, uh, you know, and that, that, uh, would live, you know, in place of, of the old man who would have to, who would have to die.

01:04:25.600 Um, and one of them was Kirillov, uh, a guy named Kirillov.

01:04:30.440 He was one of the, uh, members of Virchowinski's, uh, revolutionary cell in the book.

01:04:36.680 But, but Kirillov, um, his, he, I mean, he had a fascinating, uh, he, he's really one of the most fascinating characters in, in, in the, in the, uh, in the work.

01:04:48.760 But he talks about how, uh, he will have to, um, he's going to achieve transfiguration.

01:04:58.700 He's going to become a god through suicide, um, through, through killing, through literally putting a bullet in his head. 0.79

01:05:07.140 But, but through killing his own fear, killing himself, he's going to become, in that moment, in that one moment, he's going to become a god. 0.97

01:05:16.760 And that, that to me really, that, that kind of points to the fact that, that with transhumanism, you have the same, you have the same dynamic going on.

01:05:29.160 Where, uh, you are, you are killing that which is human in you.

01:05:35.320 You are killing humanity in order to, uh, become, become this god.

01:05:41.000 Yeah, it's, it's the opposite of being in touch with earth and nature and your body.

01:05:45.460 Yeah, it's, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the big Faustian bargain.

01:05:48.900 And, um, yeah, and like you said, you're, you're, you're supposed, you're, you're supposed to have contempt, uh, for, for nature, which God created and, and, and, you know, earth and, and all those around you.

01:06:06.740 So, so it's, it's really just rooted in, in the passion of pride, that, that primal, uh, passion that's, that's, uh, kind of the center of all, all of our fallen desires.

01:06:19.580 Um, let's see.

01:06:22.420 I, I noticed now too, just thinking of like Ubermensch, you know, thinking of a higher being or a more evolved person, a Superman.

01:06:29.200 Now, when you see that, people think, oh, Nazis, you know, racists, like it's, it's a threat to the egalitarian system with its false value and morality system.

01:06:39.220 But I feel we do need a re-embodiment of values, virtues, and morality.

01:06:43.580 And I deal that, to strive for that with fresh archetypes that are more suitable for our present day.

01:06:48.560 I think that's why Christianity isn't as popular and you see a rise of paganism and it's people looking for something, something different, you know?

01:06:56.360 Sure, sure.

01:06:57.340 You know, that's, that's right.

01:06:59.240 And, um, and yeah, that, that goes back to, you know, kind of the distortion of religion.

01:07:06.460 And, and, and, you know, of course you, you, you, I think you have a different view on, on Christianity than me, but, but, but to me, you know, the, the traditional, the traditional Christian faith is, is, and, and Dostoevsky would say the same thing.

01:07:21.900 That this is what, this is what, this is what made, this is kind of the crowning, the crowning of, of European man.

01:07:28.800 This is what made him, uh, who he, you know, that, that really fulfilled his identity.

01:07:33.460 Uh, the, the, the degeneration of, of religion.

01:07:38.260 So the, the deviation in the West, what, that's what Rene Gannon, uh, the French metaphysician termed it, termed it, is that, that the West is really the center of this deviation that is spread to the rest of the world.

01:07:51.580 But that, that, that is what has, um, led to falling away from faith and, and from, and also to, to materialism.

01:08:02.780 And then, you know, people go in search of other, you know, of other, of other value or other values because they, they see religion as discarded or discredited.

01:08:11.480 Um, and, you know, the, Dostoevsky also spoke about that when he was in London, uh, that he traveled there in the 1860s.

01:08:26.580 And he was only there like eight days, but, but what he saw was, was very interesting.

01:08:31.760 He saw, uh, you know, as, as, as, uh, dynamic and, um, bustling as London was, he, what he saw in it was that, um, the, the British, the British working classes, the, the normal people who, most of whom had been, you know, part of, uh, who had lived in the countryside before and now are crammed into the, into the cities with the industrial revolution.

01:08:55.760 They had, they had, they had, they had, they were totally exploited and, and deracinated, meaning uprooted.

01:09:02.060 And so they, they had had their identity taken from them already.

01:09:06.320 Uh, and, and this was the result of, you know, manipulation by, by oligarchic ruling elites.

01:09:15.040 And, uh, and he, and he also saw that, that dialectic rising again with, with you had, um, you had the, the response.

01:09:25.760 The response, the response to all, to this injustice and, and, and also this, at the same time, uh, religion was on the one.

01:09:36.240 You had, uh, socialist revolutionary activity or, or, or feeling.

01:09:42.760 And, and, and of course, you know, this is, this is around the time that, that Marx was publishing.

01:09:50.260 I think he, you know, uh, you know, he had written a dust copy tall, I think in the, in the British life, in the British library.

01:09:58.160 Um, but, um, you, so you had, you had socialist revolutionary movements on the one hand, and then you had sectarianism, like religious, various goofy religious movements, like the, the shakers or, uh, Mormonism or whatever on, on the other.

01:10:17.180 So, so, so people were seeking identity, you know, they're, they were, they were, they, it's, it's that natural human urge.

01:10:25.080 Where, where do you go, you know?

01:10:26.800 And, uh, so they were looking for solidarity because they couldn't find it, uh, in this, in this, uh, in the environment.

01:10:37.660 They were, they were plopped down into where they were, they were just being, I mean, for lack of a better, they're, they're totally screwed over, uh, and, and forced into.

01:10:49.140 You were referring to the enclosure movement.

01:10:52.340 Yeah.

01:10:52.780 That's what it was when they rounded them up from the countries and made them go into the cities.

01:10:56.280 Yeah, you, yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's incredibly brutal and, and unjust what, what was done.

01:11:04.360 So, so that gives birth to other types of reactions, like, like, um, enthusiasm for socialism or, or joining these weird, you know, cults or religious movements, uh, in order to find meaning.

01:11:19.760 But, but again, this, this is, uh, as what, what we know about socialism being funded by the bankers and, or, or the various, the various, uh, ties of religious sex to organizations like Freemasonry.

01:11:35.020 It's, it's all, it's all another, it's all another tactic of manipulation and control.

01:11:39.400 Sure.

01:11:40.220 Yeah.

01:11:40.560 I'll have just a few more questions for you before we wrap up.

01:11:43.440 I just want to know, what is your take on suffering?

01:11:45.560 Because Dostoevsky wrote in Crime and Punishment, this is a quote here, pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart.

01:11:54.120 The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.

01:11:58.240 And then in The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, he wrote, on our earth, we can only love with suffering and through suffering.

01:12:04.300 We cannot love otherwise, and we know of no other sort of love.

01:12:08.540 I want suffering in order to love.

01:12:11.080 Yeah.

01:12:11.380 What do you think?

01:12:12.120 Is that something that we, we must go through, or is this something that, you know, a tyrannical power can use against us?

01:12:18.980 Because then we're always in a state of, oh, suffering because it's a virtue.

01:12:23.120 Right.

01:12:23.780 That, that, that's a good point.

01:12:25.560 Um, it can be, it, it certainly can be used that way, you know, in a, you know, kind of a refined, uh, manipulation to, but, but, but, but that nonetheless would be a counterfeit.

01:12:39.620 But suffering as it is, you know, in life is, is, is inevitable.

01:12:44.100 And, uh, the, the, uh, the deep heart and the, the, uh, the, the great intellect do feel it more.

01:12:54.840 I mean, that, that's just, that tends to be the case with, you know, people who, uh, who are artistically sensitive, who have high intelligence, are more subject to depression.

01:13:08.280 And that's, that's been a kind of a regular news item that, that holds true.

01:13:15.580 I think just, just from experience, um, just, just, or, you know, if you know people around you like that, that really does seem to be the case.

01:13:24.760 Uh, so suffering, we, yeah, we're all going to die.

01:13:29.360 We're, we're all going to suffer.

01:13:30.800 And, and that's, that's inevitable.

01:13:32.400 And, and, and for, for great achievements and not, not just great achievements like the greatness of Napoleon, um, or, but, but, you know, spiritual, spiritually great achievements, you know, loving one another.

01:13:52.220 I mean, that, that inevitably comes with suffering and, and it's all about, you know, it's, it's all about how you respond to the challenge.

01:14:00.900 I think as long as, as long as we don't get in a, in a rut where we're just constantly self-sacrificing ourselves instead of taking charge and actually ending suffering too, right?

01:14:12.380 Sure, sure.

01:14:13.120 And there's, yeah, there's, uh, yeah, and it, it all requires a, a healthy approach that, that's conscious of the reality of suffering and the inevitability.

01:14:26.320 And at the same time, you know, like you said, you can, you can alleviate your neighbor's suffering to some extent and you can, you know, you, you, you, you know, I don't think God wants you to suffer needlessly.

01:14:39.600 That's, that's, that's not, that's not it.

01:14:41.660 It's just, it's that when, when suffering comes, just like when the rain comes or when, uh, you know, ultimately when we, when we meet our death, it's all about how we meet it.

01:14:52.140 You know, our, do we, you know, do we meet it with dignity with, with, uh, and with humility and not, not in the sense of, oh, you know, like, you know, I'm, I'm nothing humility, but humility, uh, more in, uh, we,

01:15:09.460 we fight, we fight our arrogance, we fight our pride, um, uh, sort, sort of a, a discipline of, of what, and a, and a, an honorable stance that, that doesn't, uh, you know, doesn't cater to our own egoism.

01:15:27.440 So.

01:15:27.620 Yeah, I know Dostoevsky, a lot of his characters, they always seem to be tortured by their own deeds the most.

01:15:32.740 So, isn't that the truth?

01:15:34.780 Yeah, yeah.

01:15:35.560 Look at Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, you know, he, he ultimately, he was trying to, and that's, that's when first Dostoevsky really elaborated the idea of, uh, Superman.

01:15:46.160 But, you know, he tried to, um, he tried to become that great man, as, as he said in the book, the, you know, what, what he would later refer to as the, the man-god or Nietzsche's Superman.

01:15:58.560 And, uh, through, through murder, you know, through transgression, that, uh, uh, of, of a, uh, an old lady who was kind of like a loan shark. 1.00

01:16:09.060 Um, and, and his, his conscience wouldn't let him forget it.

01:16:14.480 Was he having, like, panic attacks and stuff?

01:16:16.880 Yeah, yeah, he was, you know, kind of hallucinations and, you know, fever.

01:16:20.960 Uh, it, it, so the spiritual, the spiritual aspect of that, um, in his conscience manifested itself physically.

01:16:31.380 And, and again, that, that points to one of, one of just his primary notions is, you know, dealing with any, any kind of, uh, problem in society or with the person, it, the primacy of the spiritual over the material that, that, that our problems are not, are not going to be solved.

01:16:55.900 You know, are, are, are, are deep problems, are problems of, uh, you know, relating to human nature.

01:17:01.880 There, there, you can't solve them through, through changing, uh, you know, external arrangements or institutions.

01:17:08.860 It's not, it's not, it's not going to do it.

01:17:11.020 You, the, the, the battle is in your own heart.

01:17:13.340 Yeah.

01:17:13.560 Uh, uh, the, uh, you know, Orthodox elder, I can't, I can't remember his name off the top of my head, but, but it's a common phrase in Orthodoxy is, you know, uh, descend into your heart and there do battle with Satan.

01:17:27.640 So.

01:17:28.080 Yep.

01:17:28.960 So if he was alive today, where would he fall on the political spectrum, you think?

01:17:33.720 Uh, that, that's an interesting question.

01:17:36.060 If, if you look at his, his work, um, you know, like, you know, like demons and, and, uh, brothers Karamazov specifically, uh, the passage, the, the, uh, the legend of the grand inquisitor, right?

01:17:50.600 He would be, all, all, all I could say is he'd be, uh, he'd be enormously critical of, um, of the entire regime that, that really, if you think about it was around, was already around at his time.

01:18:07.540 Uh, the, the, the same, the same financial elites that essentially seized power, uh, from the time of, uh, from the late 18th century and the, the age of enlightenment revolution, uh, are still today in power.

01:18:23.900 They're the ones who really control the sovereignty of, of the West or of all the countries in the West.

01:18:30.720 So, uh, you know, I, he and, he and Solzhenitsyn were, um, you know, have a lot in common.

01:18:39.360 So I, I would, I would think he, he would be somewhere around, you know, kind of a, uh, an Orthodox Russian nationalist conservative, you know, who, who, uh, who also would value, um, things like, like social justice.

01:19:00.720 And, uh, you know, organic identity, um, maybe more on the new right side of things.

01:19:10.660 Yeah. Yeah.

01:19:11.820 Towards, towards that, um, you know, I, I, I'd say, I don't know if he'd, you know, I don't, I mean, I don't know what he would think of, uh, Alexander Dugin, for example, but, you know, I mean, Dugin is certainly a very intelligent guy.

01:19:28.080 And I think he, I think he gets sort of, you know, he, he makes some, he makes some, uh, wild statements, although he also gets, uh, he, he can get, uh, mistreated or, um, unfairly, uh, unfairly treated in the Western, yeah.

01:19:46.520 Portrayed in the Western media. Um, but, but yeah, I, I think Dostoevsky would, would be somewhere around, uh, you know, I think, I think he'd find, uh, I think he'd find a kindred, uh, kindred spirit in Solzhenitsyn in general.

01:20:02.300 Yeah. Well, as the left gets more extreme, so must the right. And it's today's conservatism. It's just not capable or strong enough to deal with today's extremism. It's a joke. You know, they're all the same.

01:20:11.880 It's a total joke. Yeah. It's, it's a total joke. It's, it is all the same. Um, it's again, it's all controlled by, um, by an oligarchy that, that, that again, uses dialectics, um, to its advantage.

01:20:26.600 And, you know, he talked about this as well in, in demons about the, about the, just the, the bogus nature of modern conservatism, that the, the, the kind of the conservative character in his book, who's, who the, the only one who has any chance of, or any capability of stopping the revolutionary cell, which is, uh, acting in a kind of a provincial town, but is, is the governor.

01:20:56.600 And the governor, again, holds, he, he is, uh, he, he embraces all the, all the principles of the enlightenment and, and, you know, basically what we would say classical liberalism.

01:21:12.040 And, um, so he's on the same, he's essentially on the same page as the revolutionaries. He, he just, the, and, and that is the, I wrote about that in an essay called, uh, Dostoevsky and modern conservatism, but, but that, that modern conservatism, all it is, is the handmaiden of, of revolutionary nihilism.

01:21:31.940 Because it's, it's, it's only a step behind. And it's, and it's hilarious that, um, they, they literally will embrace yesterday's liberal cause that, you know, that today seems normal and, and, and established.

01:21:49.680 They, they, they immediately go, go and make that their, their conservative, an element of their conservatism. I mean, it's just, so conservatives, modern conservatives, all they're doing is just defending liberalism. I mean, it's, it's, yeah, it's nonsense.

01:22:02.860 So what's your ideal political system? Last question for you.

01:22:07.060 Oh, you know, um, I mean, I don't have any say, uh, or, or, or importance or influence. Um, but from my point of view, I, you know, I really, um, I belong to just another century.

01:22:23.720 I guess, uh, I think that really the, the classic notion of, um, the, the Orthodox notion of symphony between church and state is a good idea.

01:22:36.340 And that, uh, that monarchy, monarchy is not perfect because it's not a perfect institution because human beings are not perfect.

01:22:46.200 But, but, uh, but, uh, that, that monarchy is, is the best, uh, is, is the best form of government for a people who, you know, who have, have their identity straight, meaning spiritually, um.

01:23:04.460 And if they're homogenous, it can work.

01:23:06.180 Yeah, yeah. And, and, and so, so that, that, uh, that really, I, I mean, to me, I, I sympathize with,

01:23:15.960 and again, none of those governments are really around anymore, but I, I, you know, I, I kind of, uh, you know, I see that as like a, a normal ideal of, of government, but, but, you know, no one, no, no one's going to listen to me.

01:23:30.160 So, so who cares? But, uh, I, I have lots of, um, I have quite a bit of translations on that, that I've done at Soul of the East that the people could look at some, some interesting, some interesting stuff by both, uh, 19th century.

01:23:45.960 As, as, as, as well as modern authors on, on, uh, the monarchical rule as, as kind of the, the most spiritually rooted, um, form of rule.

01:23:59.740 And, uh, you know, it, it also, it also bears, it's, it's worth saying that, that it really only, I mean, only, only of, and, and again, this is one of those nice things that the American founders pointed out, but, but that only a virtuous people is, is going to be, uh, capable of, they, they said self-government.

01:24:26.500 And I, I think self-government's a, a contradiction in terms, but, but, but, but of functioning as, as a polity.

01:24:34.540 And, um, you know, I think, I think there are various peoples who have, who incline towards different forms of rule.

01:24:45.880 And that's fine.

01:24:46.460 For example, the Swiss can do democracy relatively well because of their, their setup, you know, their, their cantons and, uh, they're kind of decentralized.

01:24:56.880 And they have different ethnicities and, and religious belonging and so on.

01:25:02.520 And, uh, and so they can do democracy well because it's, it's decentralized.

01:25:06.800 It's based on, in these smaller regions.

01:25:09.640 Uh, but, uh, democracy isn't working out so well in the modern West.

01:25:15.180 And that, that, yeah.

01:25:17.240 And that, uh, that doesn't mean that, you know, that's, tyranny is not the answer.

01:25:22.380 And, and, uh, I say, I say political, political diversity, we should have different systems for different peoples.

01:25:29.540 I mean, I, I'm not trying to force nationalism on anyone.

01:25:32.940 I'm not, I don't want to be part of a nation.

01:25:34.600 A nation is the people.

01:25:35.880 It's not the government.

01:25:36.680 I don't want to be part of a nation with people that hate me.

01:25:39.420 Then you go and do your thing over here and I'll do my thing over here.

01:25:42.480 You know?

01:25:42.820 Yeah.

01:25:43.180 Yeah.

01:25:43.580 No, that, that hatred that I know that we see spring up constantly today is, is, is really tragic.

01:25:49.600 And it's, it's awful.

01:25:51.380 And, uh, that's, that's what happens when you're, you know, when you're, you, you create these artificial ideals and these constructs.

01:25:59.460 And then you try to, try to force people into them.

01:26:02.040 It's, it's, you know, it's, it's not gonna, there's not gonna be pretty results.

01:26:07.260 Um, the, the difference between, that, that is, that really is, that's another interesting point is that in pluralism and we have the modern Western pluralism, but you also have, you know, various empires have, have had to, you know, employ pluralist systems because they are composed of many peoples.

01:26:29.840 Uh, and, and, and they're not always, they're not always, uh, you know, despite empires being what they are, they're not always super exploitative or, or vicious that, um, just, you know, given my reading of Russian history, the, the Russian imperial, uh, system, the system of pluralism did not, did not touch upon, did not, um, abuse or attempt to destroy.

01:26:59.820 Boy, people's ethnic identity and their, and their, and their, their, uh, their organic community.

01:27:06.560 You know, it was, it was never, uh, a subversive program like that, where even in, and interestingly, even in the Soviet era, and believe me, like, no fan of, uh, the Bolsheviks, but Soviet, Soviet nationality, nationality's policy, which was, which was a mixed bag.

01:27:27.120 And, and, and, and again, they, they, uh, they didn't, uh, for one thing, they didn't, uh, they didn't allow for expressions of Russian identity because, even though they spoke Russian, it was kind of this double mind.

01:27:38.600 But because Russia, Russian identity is so tied up in orthodoxy, but Soviet nationality's policy is, as far as other peoples went, I mean, they, they went to the, I mean, they, they built up national languages and cultures to a pretty amazing degree.

01:27:56.200 And, I mean, they even founded, like, literary languages where there had been none.

01:28:00.760 Um, and this was, this was, uh, part of Marxist ideology, interestingly, that they wanted, they wanted them to develop into, you know, the bourgeois phase of, of nationhood.

01:28:14.580 And then they, and then they would be ready, you know, and then they would go into the socialist phase.

01:28:17.860 And so that was, that was part of building a national identity was preparing of people for, for full, you know, socialism and communism.

01:28:25.600 But, but nonetheless, we see that in Russia today that, that, you know, identities in themselves and there's, and there's interethnic problems.

01:28:35.220 There are, that's, you know, that's not to be denied, but nonetheless, that, that people can respect each other, uh, being, you know, being of different, uh, organic ethnic communities and, and no one, no one's trying to, uh, denigrate or, or undermine, uh, the, the other one.

01:28:57.700 And, and whereas, whereas, whereas here, here in the West, you know, unfortunately there's, uh, due to various circumstances and, and designs, um, everything is kind of artificially imposed and there's, you know, organic identities uprooted and, and it's just very unfortunate.

01:29:18.920 Well, Mark, souloftheeast.org is your website.

01:29:21.980 Please give us any other details you'd like to share.

01:29:24.540 Yeah.

01:29:25.220 Um, you know, yeah.

01:29:27.120 Again, my website, souloftheeast.org.

01:29:29.820 Uh, I thank you for listening.

01:29:33.100 I think one, one person who's been really, um, active and, and helping or promoting my site has been my friend, Jay Dyer.

01:29:41.780 So if you want to check him out, it's, uh, jaysanalysis.com.

01:29:46.380 But, uh, and, and otherwise I'll, I'll, I'll, uh, I'll give you one, uh, um, a, a list of, uh, a couple of books or sites.

01:29:56.960 That, you know, you can, you can post along with the interview.

01:29:59.540 So.

01:30:00.060 Well, thank you for your time tonight, Mark.

01:30:02.100 Yeah.

01:30:02.440 Thank you, Juana.

01:30:03.020 Mark mentioned that he and I have a different view on Christianity.

01:30:05.940 I was raised Christian and most of my family remains Christian.

01:30:09.460 And they also would say that the version of Christianity today is not the true ancient form.

01:30:14.100 While they realize that people are looking to the church to find solid ground to stand on, to fight back the forces of liberalism and so-called progressiveness,

01:30:22.440 paganism is rooted in a foundation that is immovable and timeless as laws of nature because the fundamental traditions are based on principles observed in the natural order.

01:30:32.500 Whereas to me, Christianity has become a reaction to nature, working against it as though the flesh and nature are something wicked to fight off. 0.98

01:30:40.580 Yes, our ancestors made blood sacrifices, but Christianity is also comprised of sacrifice.

01:30:46.180 Paganism was not subject to various reformations and revolutions.

01:30:49.700 Remember, Christianity was revolutionary in its day.

01:30:53.800 It too was subversive.

01:30:55.640 Pagans did not crusade demanding convert or die.

01:30:58.700 To me, our pre-Christian ancestors held the rawest, purest, most important forms of traditionalism based in noble virtues such as courage, truth, honor, fidelity, discipline, hospitality, self-reliance, industriousness, and perseverance.

01:31:15.840 These hardly sound savage to me.

01:31:17.820 Remember, this is how your European ancestors lived for thousands of years.

01:31:23.080 The spirit of the gods is always with us.

01:31:25.420 It didn't just appear all of a sudden with Christ, but it has always been there.

01:31:29.780 To be fair, Orthodox Christians didn't participate in crusades as far as I know,

01:31:34.180 and it may be true that Orthodoxy retains the most elements of paganism within its faith.

01:31:39.060 And they do not buy into the God's chosen people doctrine if you catch my drift.

01:31:42.980 Up next, I have Sophia Smallstorm, Frank DeSilva, and Matt Buckley.

01:31:48.120 If you like what we do and you want to help keep us going,

01:31:50.360 please sign up for a Red Ice membership at redicemembers.com to get full access to our archives.

01:31:55.780 We'll talk again soon.

01:31:56.960 piano music plays

01:32:10.120 Thank you.

01:32:40.120 Thank you.

01:33:10.120 Thank you.

01:33:40.120 Thank you.

Radio 3Fourteen - December 03, 2014

Dostoevsky and Strategies of Subversion

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript