There is no way that I can do justice to Charles Upton's Dugin Against Dugin: A Traditionalist Critique of the Fourth Political Theory, the book is just too comprehensive. I would urge you to just have an open mind, and at least give this book a fair read. Whether you are admire Dugin or loathe him, Upton’s work puts substance on the table when it comes to grappling with and critiquing Dugin’s thought. You could totally reject his conclusions while still coming out of it with a richer, better informed, understanding of Dugin, his thought, and of the possible criticism that could be leveled at it.
To date, a lot of criticism aimed at Dugin has been fantastical, emotive and superficial. Of the little serious criticism out there, almost none has come from the perspective of a school of thought Dugin sometimes claims to follow; the Traditionalist or Perennialist school. Upton’s book is the first major attempt to critique Dugin from this perspective.
This is a formidable and substantial work, perhaps Upton’s thickest since his The System of Antichrist. But it is absolutely packed with insights and the startling bits of unearthed lore that Upton’s writings are noted for. It is a well written, well informed, and well-reasoned critique and takedown of Aleksander Dugin's ideology of Eurasianism and Fourth Political Theory. And most interestingly, it's written from a Traditionalist, "Perennialist" perspective. And, moreover, Upton offers solutions, by the way of a kind of Sacred Activism informed by Sufic and Islamic principles. So he doesn’t just assault Dugin, he suggests viable alternatives, ones that involve the kind of personal transformation that is a necessary prerequisite to broader societal change. Or at least that’s my reading.
Upton’s other works articulate a nuanced understanding of the Perennial Philosophy, one closer to that which was articulated by Rene Guenon, than that articulated from Frithjof Schuon, Whose problematic aspects Upton recognizes and implicitly tackles in other works. But Upton’s thought makes a broad intellectual synthesis not only of both thinkers and their students (M. Lings, W. Perry, Lord Northbourne, S.H. Nasr et al), but of wealth of spiritual religious and culture lore, as well as fertile grounds of Mythopoeia, from which he draws some original insights.
In this book, Upton takes this synthesis and uses it as a tool to rigorously examine Dugin and his thought, holding it to the mirror of an orthodox and normative Traditionalist understanding of Metaphysics, Philosophy and Socio-Religious thought and action.
Dugin has a Geopolitical vision, and he has an eschatological vision. The eschatological vision of course is apocalyptic. Dugin’s geopolitical views and aims are informed by his eschatology, and perhaps in a sense serve it. It is a vision rooted in Chaos. In a sense Chaos is his method, as well as his teleology. Dugin aims to use chaos, to arrive at chaos. Chaos is practically his god, his divinity in an effective sense.
Upton’s analysis looks at some of the startling and blatant inherent contradictions in Dugin’s publicly expressed worldview, philosophy and agenda. And Upton discovers many contradictions indeed. He also examines the contradictions between Dugin’s claimed adherence to the Traditionalist school of thought and his actual stated views. He examines Dugins metaphysics, and Upton suggests some amazing conclusions.
When rigorously examined there is an actual Satanic aspect to Duginsim. In many ways it appears to be an inversion of Traditionalist or Perennialist thought. His metaphysics is an inversion of traditional metaphysics. Dugin adopts many of the motifs and wording of Traditionalism, but turns them on their head. In the question of Islam, moreover, Dugin horrifically misreads Islam and its currents. He at times expresses an admiration of, or at least an admiration of the utility of, Salafism for example, while at other times courting Sufism and Sufis, and Shiites, not only ignoring the oppositions between all of these camps, but more dangerously seeming willing to use the most destructive tendencies of Salafism for his own aims.
From Upton’s outline and criticism Dugin’s real aims appear to be more or less immanentizing the eschaton, in a sense. But worse, it is from what really appears to be a Promethean or Titanic perspective. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on your perspective, of course. But a Titanic, Promethean, urge to overthrow all order in place of Chaos, a Chaos that Dugin practically divinizes, is not a good thing in my book. Your mileage, of course, may differ.
Upton's criticisms of Dugins many contradictions and apparent bad faith and hidden motives resonate with me. What I get out of this reading is that Dugin's project would appear to resonate with the motto ORDO AB CHAO, the Masonic maxim who’s Latin translates as 'Order out of Chaos.' But in a certain sense it doesn’t quite. Because Dugin appears to aim at dissolution and dissipation; Chao, not Ordo. Yet, if there is to be any order emerging from his stated aim then it is to be a Eurasianist super-state, whose spiritual and temporal center is Moscow.
Dugin claims that many of the world’s problems lie in the unipolar dominance of the modern American, or Anglo-American, empire. Thus, we need a multi-polar world that preserves much of the ethnic and religious diversity that globalism, and its totalitarian tendencies toward flattening and leveling all qualitative distinctions, threatens. A dominant Eurasia forms the second pole to oppose and keep the Anglo-America sphere in check. However, at the core, Dugin seems to aim at a unipolar world too: one dominated by Eurasia, which in reality will be a greater mother Russia.
In other words, Dugin wants a world empire. Again, he has his reasons. His vision of a tellurocratic Greater Eurasia superstate is a reaction to the aggressive attempts at global dominance by the Anglo-American thalassocratic empire. Dugin fans would see his aims as just, and right. As the necessary defense against the aggressive tendencies of thalassocracy in general, chiefly Americanism and Transatlanticism. Fine, sure. But the real point, I think, is that Dugin aims for only one power to dominate. This exposes a basic contradiction. The man who opposes unipolar world empire implicitly aims at it. Power and dominance, not truth, is what matters then.
In any case those are my surface reflections and reactions to Upton's book. It is the type of work that I will have to read two or three times to fully 'grok', let's say, with apologies to Heinlein... It's a book that, I'm confident, will further unlock aspects of the phenomenon and mystery of Dugin that are still cloudy to me. Whether you totally disagree with with Upton's perspective, or whether you totally disagree my review, I urge you give his book a good fair reading. Even if you reject his conclusions you will come out of it better informed of the kinds of criticism that can fairly be leveled at Dugin's thought.
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