In this episode, Professor Nick Land and Alexander Dugan join me to discuss the concept of Liberalism and how it relates to accelerationism and the Anglo-American way of being. This is by no means a formal debate or formal argument, but rather an exploration of the idea of what it means to be a liberal in the 21st century.
00:11:28.820Recently, recently, because continental French-German tradition fought against this until recently.
00:11:37.460So, now it is a kind of universal global norm.
00:11:44.740So, if the man is individual, and that is out of the discussion.
00:11:51.460And when this Anglo-Saxon philosophical concept became universal one, there will be
00:12:01.220all the contradictions included in it became open as well.
00:12:07.220So, now, if we compare the old English high style, very ethnically limited understanding,
00:12:20.260exclusive aristocratic understanding of liberalism, if we compare that with this globalist, very vulgar,
00:12:31.780of the mass version of liberalism, we could have a shock.
00:12:38.260Because comparing this paradigm that was ethnically marked with this, the process of globalization,
00:12:47.620of massification, first of all in the United States, it gives the very, very, very special image of all that.
00:12:57.140So, that is the kind of terminal station.
00:12:59.940So, you started with something more or less noble, more or less interesting, stylish, I would say,
00:13:07.220and you have arrived to some parody, to something that is totally abhorrent.
00:13:16.100So, in that sense, I could agree with Mr. Lance's concept that there are different phases.
00:13:24.500If we compare them, so we see the huge difference, the abyss between them, because a gentleman,
00:13:33.140British gentleman, proposing himself as individual in something totally independent is one thing.
00:13:41.300You can find very, very literary good examples of how it works.
00:13:47.540So, that is something very, very high and stylish.
00:13:54.820So, you could bear your identity as English man did in the history and the culture.
00:14:03.380And now, when we distribute that among all the population, that is a parody.
00:14:08.580That is something extremely, extremely awkward, that's horrible.
00:14:15.460That is the kind of, that inspires the kind of,
00:14:23.140kind of the sense of, we deal with something shameful, with something completely
00:14:34.020opposite to the beauty, to the dignity. So, we should not distribute that among everybody else.
00:14:42.420And being localized, this individualistic attitude, being put in the normal, normal limits,
00:14:52.900it could be very sympathetic and attractive, but projected on the global level, it seems horrible.
00:15:00.340For sure, I think maybe we, I think we'll get onto the whole globalized side of it for sure.
00:15:10.980And it's where everyone here is beginning in terms of the problems that they're facing and
00:15:18.420contemporary politics. I mean, there's, there's two immediate responses that I would make to what
00:15:25.620you've just said. One, very quick, which is just to say, at the anthropological level, I think one of the most
00:15:35.460most fascinating and persuasive basis for this, like ever seen is the work of Immanuel Todd on family structure,
00:15:46.980where he has different family categories and says that the basic ideological tendencies of different people
00:15:56.660are very explicable on the basis of their kind of normal family type. And one of his family types is what
00:16:06.900he calls the absolute nuclear family. And it's very restricted. It's basically English and Dutch.
00:16:15.540And he says that this is associated culturally with tendencies to liberalism in what we would now call
00:16:24.740this libertarian variety. So I think, you know, I'm saying this just to say, I think people are different. And,
00:16:34.420and, and, you know, just underscoring this thing that this is, I think, an English problem initially,
00:16:40.980and it becomes a completely other type of problem when it becomes globalized and generalized
00:16:47.940as a pattern for all human societies. Just to stick to the, I'm not saying Immanuel Todd is the
00:16:55.780alpha and omega of this question, but, but he brings out the absurdity of that globalistic project
00:17:03.460of that it's implicitly saying all the peoples of the world should pattern their social existence as if
00:17:11.380they had an Anglo-Dutch family structure. I mean, it's a, it's ultimately a nonsensical and unsustainable,
00:17:21.540an absurd assumption and an assertion that, you know, seen in those terms of cause cannot lead anywhere good.
00:17:30.820And the second thing I'll say is in individualism, I think for sure is crucial and, but it has
00:17:41.140different aspects to it. And I think that aspect that is truly crucial and which ties up with the
00:17:49.460theological structure of paleoliberalism, which I 100% agree is Protestant. You know, I, I talk
00:17:57.460consistently about the Anglo-Protestant weak tradition, an ethnicity, a religion, and an ideology. And they,
00:18:08.340all three of those are the same thing seen from different positions. And the, a way into this,
00:18:18.100because I think that, um, there's been this bizarre amount of Satanism discussion recently. And so I
00:18:27.220thought, I, I know this is a text that is very important to Professor Dugan and, uh, which is in
00:18:35.540Faust, part one, I think the Faustian spirit is very much part of this discussion, where, uh, Faust
00:18:42.820Faust summons, uh, Mephistopheles and asks him, who are you? And Mephistopheles says,
00:18:52.660A portion of that power, which always works for evil and affects the good, which evil, that's
00:19:06.580sorry, this is the translation, I don't think it's good, which always wants evil, which always works
00:19:11.460for evil and always creates the good. So that's Goethe's, if you say, well, what is Satanism? And
00:19:19.540that's Goethe's answer to that. I think it's very interesting. Mandeville's, the, the, the consolidation
00:19:29.060of paleoliberalism in England really takes place in the Scottish Empire. You know, perhaps the single
00:19:37.620most perfect distillation of it is found in Mandeville's The Fable of the Bees, um, which I
00:19:46.340don't think I can summarize very easily with a quote. I think it's just to say he goes on to
00:19:53.780influence Adam Smith. And if I could just a very quick, uh, citation from The Wealth of Nations,
00:20:02.420where, uh, Smith says he generally, and he, he means the individual. It's actually said before,
00:20:09.700every individual. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows
00:20:16.580how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic than a foreign industry,
00:20:22.420he intends only his own security. And by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may
00:20:27.140be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain. And he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an
00:20:35.140invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. And that, to me, is the essential
00:20:45.620ideological aspect of individualism as it relates to paleoliberalism. That's to say, the fundamental
00:20:56.260assumption is that there is an empty position, what I call the empty summit, which would be an
00:21:07.140instantiated public morality. And instead, that function is delegated to the invisible hands. I will
00:21:19.140insist on pluralizing it. Um, the invisible hands are the, the key theological and economic
00:21:31.860and, you know, maybe, in a sense, even ethnic access on which paleoliberalism determines itself.
00:21:40.580And there are huge consequences to that. It is, I mean, I'm, maybe you should just at this point just
00:21:48.660stop there to say, you know, that Mephistopheles' speech and Adam Smith's statement on the invisible
00:21:56.820hand are almost identical. They're both saying that the common good is not a deliberate intention at the
00:22:08.580level of the individual. Um, and it creates the good because of a higher power, because of the fact
00:22:16.820that it's guided by this religious axis, the empty summit, the fact that there is to some degree at least
00:22:25.460massive constriction and delimitation of what would be an authoritative public moral authority. Um, so that,
00:22:34.420to me, that's what paleoliberalism is. That, that is not at all what I think we're seeing now among
00:22:41.060people who call themselves liberals. Um, yeah. Okay. I, I should pause.
00:22:52.100Right. Right. Very interesting. Very, very pertinent point. So if we, if we prolong a bit this comparison
00:23:01.220between Faust and Mephistopheles and Adam Smith, we see a kind of Ophitic understanding as all Gnostic
00:23:11.860Gnostic Ophites who, uh, who have revised the kind of the role of the evil in the history. So the history,
00:23:22.740uh, the role of the history in the evil was misinterpreted, uh, according to Gnostics. So, uh, it, uh, it, uh,
00:23:32.660it was always, uh, always wanted, uh, it, uh, has always wanted to, to, to, to make, uh, an evil or indifference
00:23:42.180toward the good. And at the same time, this, that was the kind of, um, kind of introduction of,
00:23:50.580or, uh, of secret way to, to the good. So, uh, in that sense, I, I totally agree with that. So, uh,
00:23:58.820that this comparison is absolutely genius, I think, because the capitalism in that Scotland,
00:24:07.940law church, colonists, uh, part of Protestantism was something like, um, evil, uh, regarding the
00:24:19.300common God of community. So that was a kind of nihilist, nihilistic attitude that finally, when it
00:24:31.700was a kind of, uh, enlarged, that was enlarged and projected, uh, on a global level, that has prepared
00:24:43.700the way to something, uh, something, uh, the kind of alternative results. So the expansion of the evil,
00:24:52.500of individualism, egoism, narcissism, nihilism, has led to some contrary, contrary, uh, conclusion.
00:25:01.700Uh, so that, that is very interesting. So that, it partly, partly, was the, uh, the thought of
00:25:08.740Karl Marx, that more capitalism will prevail, the more conditions for revolutions, uh, revolution,
00:25:18.980proletarian revolution, socialism, will be, will be prepared. And the Marxists, Trotskyists above all,
00:25:28.420they criticized the kind of Soviet or Chinese will to stop this, to say, we have enough of the evil,
00:25:39.460now we are going to, to, to establish, uh, some common goods, uh, with this prepared terrain of the, uh,
00:25:50.340capitalist, uh, Mephistophelian, um, demonic, demonic expansion. So let's stop here. And now we are coming
00:25:59.220to create something really, really good. And that, that failed in the, in the, in the case of the
00:26:04.980Soviet Union, uh, because, uh, we, we tried to say enough with capitalism, but we had not, we had not
00:26:12.660enough of capitalism, of capitalism. So we were much more traditional society. So, and that
00:26:20.180was the, the, the, the, the maybe, maybe the reason why we have failed with socialist experience. But what
00:26:28.580is interesting, so in Chinese, in Chinese case, uh, capitalism, uh, it considered to be evil that could
00:26:40.180be turned into the good. And because of cultural, I think, identity. So Chinese society has, has, uh,
00:26:48.420has succeeded in that. So using, using Mephistopheles, uh, as the, as the kind of horse to, to, to bring
00:26:59.620to the goodness. So, and the prosperity. So I, I think that, but nevertheless, the main idea that
00:27:05.380capitalism is evil and that could bring the good is very, very important, I think. So we could interpret
00:27:14.580that with the Marxists or outside of Marxists. We are not obliged to follow them. We could just,
00:27:21.060just point out that there is a logic very, very close, I think, uh, near to that. And, uh, but idea to,
00:27:31.620to reduce the liberalism to paleoliberalism and to unite it with ethnical Anglo-Saxon ambience,
00:27:41.620I think that, that will, that will, uh, inscribe where, inscribe very well in a multipolar
00:27:50.100process. If English people, English men prefer to be such, that, that is, it is your decision,
00:27:57.540it is your destiny. It is your, your free will to, to, to, to, to build your society on the principles
00:28:04.740you share. So that is absolutely, absolutely legitimate case, I think. The other thing,
00:28:10.980if you oblige the other to follow the same example against will, that is something completely different,
00:28:18.020I think. Uh, and, uh, so, uh, uh, maybe, maybe this idea to, to, to reduce the liberalism to its paleo
00:28:30.660origins, the paleo, uh, paleo liberal form, it could be very, very, very, very, very good acceptance
00:28:39.860in the world. But more exclusivist liberalism is, the better for the humanity, I think, and the better
00:28:47.540for, for Anglo-Saxons, uh, British people as well. It's your destiny, it's your culture, it's your
00:28:57.700particular response to the, uh, to the answer or challenge or history. And you could, you could
00:29:09.380defend it, you could insist on that, but it, when it comes outside some normal, normal organic,
00:29:19.380natural limits, it became something different. That is my point.
00:29:24.180Sure. Sure. I mean, as a side note on this, I think the Chinese case is very interesting,
00:29:34.660because they also have an indigenous cultural matrix that is very comparable. You know, it's, I mean,
00:29:44.980the empty summit in Chinese culture is nothing like as, uh, clearly vividly asserted as it is
00:29:56.100among Anglo-Saxons, but, uh, the, the Dao legalist tradition has a very strong vein of this. You know,
00:30:07.700that the, the best emperor is invisible to society, um, is a very strong notion and the, the Cantonese and
00:30:18.180the, and the coastal sort of mercantile populations very much have this notion, the mountains are high
00:30:26.820and the emperor is far away. I mean, it's, so it's this notion that you, you have a sort of nominal
00:30:34.260deference to central authority on a massive scale, but it's precisely its virtue is found in its, at the
00:30:45.380the limit in visibility in its, in its recession from the, the realm of actual micro social interaction.
00:30:56.100And, and I think that that's why the Anglos and the Chinese have actually practically always
00:31:03.060got on with each other very well on this level. I mean, they've always, they've probably both
00:31:08.020misunderstood each other. And in terms of thinking that they were actually sharing the same cultural
00:31:14.260matrix. That's not at all something I'm suggesting, but it has enough, uh, analogies that it's allowed
00:31:21.540very productive commercial interaction across history and, and certainly compared to others where
00:31:30.420obviously the, the, uh, transportation of Anglo style individualist capitalism has just met vastly more,
00:31:40.420more, uh, friction and resistance understandably from cultures where it is entirely an alien in position.
00:31:50.020I totally agree with, uh, your analysis about Chinese culture, uh, and what you have said
00:31:55.620about the empty summit, it's very important concept. I think that we need to understand that empire,
00:32:02.580uh, classical empire, sacred empire was precisely defined by transcendental nature of the summit.
00:32:11.540So the summit is not, um, filled with some positive meaning. It is open. The summit is open. That is the
00:32:19.860very, very, very, very natural sacredness. The same with empire, who is high, who is hidden, who is
00:32:26.580outside. So the same for the classical, traditional, philosophical empire. Empire is ruled by empty space,
00:32:36.420empty summit. Empty summit is apophatical political concept. That, that is, uh, that is very, you, you're
00:32:45.620absolutely right about that. So it should be, it should be held open, open to the, uh, to the spiritual influence,
00:32:55.060to be open, to be, uh, to be filled by some extra human presence. And that is very functional element.
00:33:05.780So, and in my opinion, I have made my suggestions in my XCOM account concerning the, your concept of
00:33:14.900cathedral, your, uh, concept of Curtis Yermin. So I think that there may be, maybe the much, uh, more correct
00:33:24.820concept would be for cathedral republic. A republic, it's something close on the summit. The summit is
00:33:33.620totally closed. So it is purely profane, nothing sacred, nothing, no openness to, to the high, and only
00:33:42.660self-reliance on the same imminent rational organization. So everything great comes from empire, from the,
00:33:52.740the, the, the, the, the, the, the political concept, social, philosophical, uh, uh, concept with empty summit. That is the, the, the, the, the, the key element.
00:34:03.940Empty summit, apophatical, uh, apophatical top, apophatical faith of the political organization, uh, makes the society to, to, to make society open to the presence of transcendent influence.
00:34:21.700That is sacredness. And republic is always profane. So, uh, kingdom, monarchy, empire could be sacred.
00:34:31.060And, uh, when you are, uh, you, you, you choose the republic, you are closed on the, on the top. So you, you put something, you, you put the mirror on the top.
00:34:42.100So mirror that should mirror some, uh, these, uh, mainstream, uh, uh, desires, all, all this, all, atomistic, uh, atomistic creatures.
00:34:55.700So that is, uh, a kind of, uh, what you have called the other very, very, very, very, very genius, uh, concept, uh, uh, degenerative wretched.
00:35:07.700So degenerative wretched, it is precisely republic.
00:35:11.700So because republic is self-centered, it is closed on the, on the top.
00:35:17.700So that is important. So when we, when, when we try to, to save the state, the politics, we, we, we should open that.
00:35:28.420So we should work through dictatorship come to the empire before, uh, before republic there is kingdom, uh, in the, the Roman case.
00:35:38.260After the republic comes dictatorship, dictatorship, and after that, the empire.
00:35:43.380So empire is something open as, as in Virgil, Virgil has described it.
00:35:49.780So that is return to Apollo, the return of the vertical line that should, uh, and the place for that,
00:40:40.260But it's also that your work is structured very similar to Heidegger's in the sense that actually
00:40:49.620it's question, you know, the, the structure of the book is a question and, and the substantive
00:40:56.580work that Heidegger's doing in terms of eliminating metaphysical ontologies, idols of being, and in terms
00:41:06.820that are more, most interesting to you, idols of the human, um, you two are spending, you know, the, the, the
00:41:17.620substance of the book is clearing away these idols of the, the position that would be the fourth
00:41:26.740political theory. And the, and the, and to understood correctly, the fourth political theory,
00:41:33.540like the question of being for Heidegger is actually a question being posed articulately
00:41:40.420by your book, not something that can be just understood as another object level claim that you're,
00:41:49.540you're proposing some model of politics as a substitute for these,
00:41:56.500these idols that you're wanting to demolish. And so, I mean, I guess I'm saying on that, do you think that
00:42:03.700that is a sound approach to, to, to what you're doing in that work and on that line of inquiry?
00:42:12.420You, uh, you, you, you have, uh, you have grasped the very, very, very, very core intention of fourth
00:42:24.500political theory. It is exactly as you have said, it is just the question. It is not the answer. It is
00:42:31.540clearing, uh, preparing the terrain for something to come. It is open summit concept. So, absolutely, it is,
00:42:40.500uh, uh, it is liquidation of idols of the modernity of political modernity with, uh, this limited liberalism,
00:42:51.940communism, or nationalism, and a kind, uh, kind of invitation to put the question of the politics
00:42:59.700in the open. So, it is questioning. It is not the model. So, uh, and, uh, when, for example,
00:43:07.300when, for example, I have spoken with my friends, a very interesting philosopher and thinker, Alain de
00:43:12.820Vinoa, in Moscow, 20 years ago, maybe, maybe a little less, 20, something, something like that,
00:43:20.180we have spoken about, uh, what could replace the main figures of the classical political theories,
00:43:29.860class in Marxism, individual in liberalism, and nation or race in the third, third political theory.
00:43:40.900They are, in our opinion, idols, idols. So, they are just something that is accepted uncritically.
00:43:50.580That is, uh, uh, closed, uh, closed, uh, closed summit concept. So, you should do that because of class.
00:44:00.020You should do that because of individual. You should do that because of nation or race.
00:44:05.540And what could replace them? And we have simultaneously came the conclusion that we should, uh, uh, let this,
00:44:17.700this subject to be something indefinite. So, something open. And we agreed with Alain de Vinoa, uh, about the
00:44:26.500concept of Dasein, Heidegger and Anser. So, the, the main, main figure, the subject of the fourth political
00:44:34.420theory should be Dasein. And that creates a new, new geometry, the new, uh, uh, approach, man,
00:44:46.580to the field of the politics. So, we should construct the institutions, uh, economies, social relations,
00:44:55.060basing on existence, existence before it is, uh, it is, uh, shaped as, for example, class or this kind of
00:45:06.740subjectivity or other class, uh, type of subject. So, it is, uh, but this absence of the concrete project
00:45:16.820is not, uh, just defaults and not just something we miss or lack. That is a kind of richness. So,
00:45:26.660the fourth political theory is open-end theory. So, it is, uh, the concept with, uh, open source theory. So,
00:45:36.660you could, uh, you could, uh, follow all, all the elements, rich, rationally, rationally,
00:45:43.300because it is based on the philosophy, on political philosophy, on the history. And you
00:45:48.340could combine or try to transcend that, that you can, uh, uh, you can answer this open question as you
00:45:58.420wish. So, when I have spoken very interesting elements with a disciple of Heidegger, Professor
00:46:07.300Hermann in Germany in Freiburg, he was his last pupil and follower. And he was the head of the
00:46:15.620cathedral of the, uh, uh, uh, ethnonology in the Freiburg university. And I have said to him,
00:46:25.700to, to, to, uh, he was very close to Heidegger, uh, to Hermann, that I think that there are
00:46:33.060multiplicity of designs. There is not only one design, human design, but there are so many designs
00:46:40.500as the civilizations, as culture, he started to think, and he said Heidegger would deny that.
00:46:51.000So for him, the design was unique, and that was the relation to the death.
00:46:55.520And I have found an argument, but if you consider how the death is perceived in Japan, in Russia, in China, in the Western world, in the Islamic world, in India,
00:47:12.740there are so many different relations to the death.
00:47:16.540That is not one universal relation of being to the non-being.
00:47:26.160And he would say, you should discuss that with Heidegger, but it is impossible.
00:47:33.440So multiplicity of designs, that is the principle that we should not have only one fourth political theory,
00:47:43.140but so many fourth political theories as we have civilization.
00:47:48.360So I think that this plurality is embedded in the concept.
00:47:54.280And open source, that doesn't mean that I, as Russian, I know what should be placed on the empty summit.
00:48:04.120No, but our understanding of absence of something on this empty summit is as well Russian.
00:48:14.240So we have some, we have our intuitions, our suggestions, our approximation of something that should be put there.
00:48:23.860And you could have totally different answer, different answer, different to that.
00:48:31.660So that is very, very important to accept in fourth political theory, the plurality of the civilization answers.
00:48:40.840Not to impose a new idol, forced political theory has no name because we try to avoid to create new idol instead of capitalism, socialism, or nationalism.
00:48:55.620So we try to enlarge the field of freedom, I would say.
00:49:01.060I'm wondering whether Orin's got some questions.
00:49:10.120Yeah, let me jump in here and just lower everything by a standard deviation.
00:49:14.080So both of you gentlemen have, I think, said in your own way that there is a version of liberalism that could be bound to its particular ethnos and operate in this paleoliberalism and could ultimately be fruitful.
00:49:33.620I wonder, however, if that is entirely true, because, you know, we've talked about the difference between kind of the modern globalist ideological project as opposed to perhaps a classical empire.
00:49:47.740Rome was brought up several times and in one sense, yes, of course, Rome was a classical empire in that it could not go in and completely change the way of life and ideology and religion of every one of its peoples and therefore had to allow them to operate in their own way.
00:50:03.540But I wonder if that was more of a choice of ability rather than one of ideology.
00:50:09.700You know, famously, they said, you know, Rome created a desert and called it peace.
00:50:14.500So it's not as if the Romans were not familiar with the idea of imposing their will, their overcode upon any given peoples.
00:50:22.600And so the question, I think, ultimately is, was liberalism simply the ideology that was around when scale met this ability to impose itself globally?
00:50:32.680Is it the fact that Anglo liberalism simply was the most successful ideology at the time in which the ability to scale and force a way of life onto the globe happened to be available?
00:50:45.860Is it a technological was it just the the the ideology that was driving the car when the technology to do this arrived?
00:50:54.180Or is there something very inherent to liberalism where it must become the it must become the idol at the top of the summit?
00:51:02.940It has no choice. But if it's going to expand, if it's going to go through its its way of life, must it assume that particular role?
00:51:10.040Or is it just a happy accident of the technology catching up with the state of empires at that time?
00:51:42.460That's to say capitalism, technology, modern science, I think are integral to even paleoliberalism.
00:51:53.380I mean, I think it's in the 17th century, the liberalism came together, modern science was initiated, capitalism.
00:52:03.620I mean, I get you trace capitalism back to Venice, but industrial capitalism, I think, is English and and belongs to the same thing.
00:52:13.360I mean, the motto of the Royal Society, nullius in verba, I think is, again, the empty summit.
00:52:21.740I think it's like basically a liberal social technology that initiated modern science.
00:52:31.880So in that sense, I don't think there's a coincidence about it.
00:52:35.900I think there's a tragic necessity that this liberal formation unleashed enormous power, technical, military, industrial power.
00:52:55.720And that that fueled its globalization and its globalization, as I think we're all agreed, led to its catastrophic demise.
00:53:10.900So, you know, I think that there's these deep forces of necessity.
00:53:15.580And the only other thing very quickly I say is I think that there are strands where it persists and where you should look for it is, again, in social technologies.
00:53:30.780I think, you know, what is what is the paleoliberalism that persists in the modern world?
00:53:36.500I think it's the Internet. I think it's the Internet.
00:53:39.660I think it's cryptocurrencies. I think it's AI on the machine learning model to do with distributed neural nets.
00:53:50.900The model for AI that's, again, been explosively successful.
00:53:55.640I think that those are liberal technologies.
00:53:58.080They require a liberal mindset to do with decentralization, the empty summit.
00:54:03.840And without those things, you know, sort of notoriously, the Internet began because they said, look, in a nuclear exchange, any central command node would be exterminated.
00:54:17.180So we have to build a system out of military necessity that is intrinsically decentralized enough to survive a nuclear attack.
00:54:25.620So, you know, it's exactly programmatically a liberal social and technological project.
00:54:36.980So maybe I'm drifting a little bit off your question with that second part.
00:54:40.180The first part, I would say, yes, there's deep necessity about the way this is all played out.
00:54:45.960So I have some remarks, but if we consider how great the technological achievements were in the alternative ideological ambitions.
00:54:59.820So, for example, some technological breakdown of the Soviet society based on totally different ideological premises.
00:55:14.040So that was a totalitarian state obliging the traditional Russian people that didn't want to get into these technological trends.
00:55:30.240That was very balanced, the society without this special will to dominate, to develop, to discover something new.
00:55:41.740But that was obliged by the totalitarian system.
00:55:49.620For example, the rockets, the space technology that we use now.
00:55:56.640So we have, during this common era, have developed much more than during capitalist three decennies, three decades of the liberalism.
00:56:07.740So that was total destruction in our country.
00:56:10.180Liberalism has brought with itself the total, total devastation of the economy and not the kind of the impulse to create something.
00:56:23.280Everything was created during the during Soviet time.
00:56:27.520And if we compare that with the technological achievements of Nazi Germany, so Soviet Union and West, we will look very, very modest comparing with this huge and very crazy breakdown of German racist Nazi technology.
00:56:54.520So we never confess that, but the impact of their huge expansion during 12 years, 12 years, so they gave much more impulse to the technological development than liberals.
00:57:14.800And the second point, I think that, that modern, paleomodernity, the concept, very interesting, paleomodernity, so there is two ways to interpret the modernity as such.
00:57:33.320So, as maybe I'm wrong, but you, Mr. Land, you have different, different phase in your, your philosophy, I've tried to study your texts and books.
00:57:46.340So, in the first stage, so in the first stage, maybe I'm wrong, so you was a kind of advocate of this new modernity and acceleration of modernity, paleomodernity, until the last, the last results of the passage from the humanity to this hyper, hyper technological order.
00:58:14.280And that was a kind of concentration of the same impulse, but led, or brought to the logical consequence.
00:58:26.280That was very, very consequent and very, very complete and metaphysically, metaphysically beautiful, I would say, very nice vision.
00:58:38.400And in the last phase, maybe I'm wrong, so you advocate much more this kind of moderation and that, so the liberalism, paleomodernity, that was right, I think.
00:58:55.520And new globalist development, this internalization, universalization is something exaggerated, some outside kind of hubris, in Greek hubris, so when you come out of the limits, natural limits.
00:59:17.520So, but there are, in your personal case, we have two forms of the interpretation of the modernity, and I am rather, I agree rather with your first phase when there was a kind of description of the modernity as the project of the complete dehumanization of humanity.
00:59:46.520And the way to come to some outside of the earth, of the humanity, of the history, to some very, very ominous, a bit frightening, frightening perspective of the future, with the total replacement by the humanity, and by life on the earth, by something else.
01:00:13.520And that was very, very, very beautiful explained, I think, I think.
01:00:20.520So, in your early version of your philosophy, there was the kind of line of modernity pointing to total self-destruction and self-overcoming of the life, of the history, of the time.
01:00:43.520And that, in that sense, the paleomodernity served just as the first stage of the same project.
01:00:54.520And that, as traditionalists, I agree, so it seems that you were completely right.
01:01:01.520But there is the other version, and that I think is very close to MAGA, so Make America Great.
01:01:11.520Again, movement tries to separate poli-liberalism, poli-modernity, poli-capitalism from the neo-capitalism, neo-modernity, neo-progressive.
01:01:25.520So, both positions of yours are very pertinent, I would say.
01:01:59.520I'm using exactly the same thing, paleomodernity, in the sense it's the empty summit, it's decentralized systems, it's decentralized social technology.
01:02:11.520And in that sense, I think all the things that now are objects of enthusiasm for accelerationists, techno-accelerations, are the same.
01:02:23.520You know, I mean, AI is accelerating, blockchain technology is accelerating, you know, the internet, I guess, is accelerating only in the sense that it's passing over into those things.
01:02:34.520And that's because it still is essentially on this model of decentralized systems without authoritative over-coding by some higher instance.
01:02:50.520And so, on that level, I have totally not become a kind of advocate of moderation.
01:03:01.520It's only that there's a whole bunch of these other things that we mean by modernity, which I think you predominantly mean when you talk about modernity, to do that I don't think are at all liberal in any sense other than wearing it as a skin suit.
01:03:18.520And the one, to do with the hypertrophy of a state, the hypertrophy of bureaucracy.
01:03:23.520In his final phases, this woke lunacy that's complete, the most culturally ruinous process that's ever happened in our history.
01:03:33.520And, you know, obviously, insofar as that's what one is meaning by modernity, then it's not only a question of slowing it down, but of trying to completely
01:03:47.520get off that train. So, yes, sorry to interrupt.
01:03:56.860No, thank you very much. But it seems that you interpret yourself from the present states.
01:04:03.880So, late Nick Land interprets early Nick Land by the position of late Nick Land.
01:04:12.300Thank you very much for your... So, it's very important, I think, in the first stage and the last stage,
01:04:20.460always you are very pertinent. So, we could start with one point, with the other point, we could
01:04:29.340get back in your thoughts. So, I think that first stage that I have read your book on
01:04:42.300Fendt, Naumena. That was a kind of... I was very, very astonished by that. That was kind of global
01:04:52.860confirmation of traditionalist Gannonian, Evolen, Heideggerian vision of how the world ends. So,
01:05:01.740the technological development, this liberation from the human presence, from the design precisely,
01:05:13.100and this passage to the artificial intelligence, totally technological structures, and liberation of
01:05:22.940the core of the core of the earth, in order to put the end to the life on the earth. That was precisely,
01:05:31.180as we traditionalists, we interpret the will or the very being, very essence of the modernity. Modernity,
01:05:43.980it is Antichrist in our eyes, traditionally. So, and before you was a kind of some very brave...
01:05:56.540You were considered by us, not you were. So, sorry. So, you were considered by us as the most brave,
01:06:04.220most brilliant, most consequent philosopher, the thinker, who is not hesitating, who was not hesitating
01:06:16.060to give the whole picture, what is going on. So, the modernity was a kind of interpreted as the kind of
01:06:27.420the will of the God's ideals of Lovecraft, old ones, a kind of point of special attractor, the strange attractor, that is outside.
01:06:39.820So, outside of the of the conceptual being of humanistic culture. And this attraction,
01:06:48.220it is attracting precisely the humanity to this post-human, post-historical
01:06:55.660Paul. And that description was was fantastic, developed by Rezane Gerestani, and we could read
01:07:03.820something very, very, very, very, very similar in Mayasu, in Kharman. So, that was confirmation of the
01:07:11.500most radical presumptions or the intuitions of the radical traditionalists. But now you
01:07:22.620rather share some moderate, conservative, multipolar attitude to what is going on. So, that as well
01:07:36.780that demands the big respect. So, no problem, that is much closer to our own position. But I could not
01:07:46.300get out of the difference. So, there is early Wittgenstein and later, late Wittgenstein, totally opposite. There
01:08:00.460is Lot Ramon of the Sean de Maldoror, the other late Maldoror of the Poesie. So, we are knowing
01:08:12.140global philosophy and culture. We should be accustomed. So, it is not something new. But there is
01:08:26.300very important and very, very interesting change, in your opinion, that I, with great pleasure and
01:08:33.500interest, I am discovering just now, in the online, online conversation.
01:08:42.620All right, gentlemen. Well, there's a couple other topics that I think
01:08:48.700Nick had laid out there. We've already covered liberalism, ethnic and social differences, I think
01:08:54.700universal humanism. You also discussed the possibility of wanting to get into the nature of time
01:09:00.940or angels. So, both are going to be pretty out there. So, I guess I'll just kind of let you
01:09:06.300tee up. What aspect of either of those would you like to explore, Mr. Land?
01:09:11.980Actually, if I could interject one of the topics that I think is kind of maybe a transitional one.
02:29:31.700So if people don't know what they're doing, it doesn't matter.
02:29:35.780What the flag they are waving is the flag of this occult, hidden tradition that underpinned the modernity we all think we understand, and which is now waving its flags in the streets of England.
02:29:56.100So history is much deeper than people think.
02:30:06.900Well, like I said, we're going to go ahead and wrap it up here, but it's been fantastic to speak with both of you.
02:30:11.380I really appreciate you taking the time, and I hope that everyone will take the time to look into work a little bit more to grasp a better understanding, given, you know, kind of, I guess, the overview they've received to Tucker Carlson there.
02:30:29.380And, of course, if it's your first time on this channel, guys, please make sure to subscribe on YouTube.
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02:30:55.940Thank you, everybody, for watching, and as always, I'll talk to you next time.