A Theory of Europe by Daria Dugina

 

Commonality. Your reviewer has discovered that just like England and America, Russia has its fair share of Francophiles. Setting aside warfare, economic and political differences, and religious doctrinal minutiae, there is a great shared history among the many European peoples, divergent, of course, though still linked together by a great overarching predominance that transcends language, local culture, and assorted ethnic heritages. Western Europe, France included, has fallen into disarray. Eastern Europe, while in turmoil, still stands, particularly where it stands under the Russian aegis, as a coherent civilizational state. In a book that examines the questions of Europae Restitutio, one particular Russian looks hopefully, through a unique Russian lens, albeit one curated by classical Greek-derived philosophy and copious cross-cultural experience, primarily to France and the emerging, evolving legacy of the Nouvelle Droite. It is an academic’s approach. It is, as the title suggests, a theory, or an amalgam of theories. However, it is also an optimistic lure of promise and potential and a fascinating, thought-provoking disquisition.

*Dugina, Daria Platonova, A Theory of Europe: A View of the New Right, London: Arktos, 2024 (Kindle edition)

Daria Platonova Dugina was the rising star of Russian intellectual thought, a powerful philosopher and gifted writer, artistically talented, who loved life and honored God. She was the daughter of Alexander Dugin and Natalya Melentyeva. On August 20, 2022, she was murdered by Western-backed Ukrainian Nazi terrorists. This is my third Dugina book review, following Eschatological Optimism (review) and For A Radical Life (review). A Theory of Europe is a masterfully-compilled set of lectures, essays, discussions, and interviews that move forward as one well-threaded narrative. For readers familiar with Daria Dugina, postmodern European political thought, and views that surpass mere “left” or “right”, it will serve as a wonderful summary of approximately half a century of studied rebellion against the prevailing rot. As with any work bearing the standard of Dasha Platonova, it contains new surprises and revelations to interest any mind. And as with Miss Dugina’s previous works, as posthumously translated into English, I heartily, even sternly recommend A Theory of Europe. Please obtain a copy from Arktos or Amazon. Herein, I examine just a few higher points for the reader’s edification.

The tone of the book is set in the Forward by Professor Dugin, who wrote of his daughter, on page 10, “Dasha believed in the New Right and was inspired by their views on the need for a great restoration of primordially European values—classical, ancient, and medieval.” Most or much of my usual audience is either European, European descended, European adjacent, or otherwise at least tangentially interested in Europe. Those in Europe and of European descent now face an epochal change, a choice between enduring or, by postmodern default, diminishing or even disappearing. One hopes Dugina’s take on the restoration of European values inspires them as well. 

She gets right to the heart of the matter on page 16: “…the French Nouvelle Droite represents a Traditionalist, cultural, conservative revolution. The New Right might be called the new encyclopaedists or the new European “Enlightenment”—Enlightenment 2.0—but in the reverse.” The original Enlightenment, one of the most persuasive con jobs in history, broke the traditions of Europe and Western European Civilization by insidious design. It represented the end of the traditional monarchies, the end of meaningful Western European Christianity, a recalculation of the Greco-Roman legal and philosophical legacy, and the alteration of the organization of European nation-states and polities. Going in reverse means ending the charade and lies of the past five hundred years and reestablishing the old order of Christendom.  

Reestablishing the lost order might require a coalition of what could be labeled strange bedfellows. In order to affect both politics and culture, those on the right need to consider at least tactical alliances with some groups on the left, including labor, the ecology-minded, and more—groups not frequently thought of as conservative allies. “For [Carl] Schmitt, politics is always a confrontation between different political units (groups and collectives of various scales) and presupposes a permanent multiplicity, which Schmitt calls the “pluriversum””. A Theory of Europe, page 24. Such a multiplicity counters the artificial universal hegemony imposed by liberal globalism. “[T]he modern West masks the pursuit of its agenda under the aegis of “establishing democracy” and “defending human rights”, Id., 25, while destroying both. By pursuing or pushing individuality as its primary subject, “Liberalism denies collective identity and proclaims abstract human rights, which leads to focusing only on the isolated individual.” Id., 43-44. So liberated from his traditions and culture, the individual finds himself in a vacuous state of self-destruction.

Another link the New Right, particularly Alain de Benoist, encourages and seeks to establish is that between Europe and the Third World. While such a proposition might initially sound strange, it makes sense as both populations, albeit in different ways, are victims of global modernity. Opins de Benoist,  “We are united in our common revolt against the hegemony of the West.” Id., 48. Europeans in both Europe and places like America and Canada should carefully consider this option, both out of deference to the aspect of tandem rebellion against the status quo and out of geographic convenience—whereas Europeans may find common ground with those in the Third World, they will also find those from the Third World already living among them. For those in America, perhaps particularly in Dixie, Dugina’s treatment of things like the 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia torch rally, page 117, might be of interest.

Dugina also examines the cooperative nexus of various religious elements. Europe (and America) rose under the auspices of Christianity. Many still consider Europe and America Christian, Christian majority, or Christian sympathetic. To some extent this is correct. However, vast swaths of the various European populations have delved heartily into atheism, cultism, heresy, and nihilism. The lingering Christian remnants, of whatever size, may have to make do with other allies previously unlooked for. To that end, Dugina notes the predominance of paganism in the echelons of the New Right. “There are rather many neo-pagans among the New Right, practically 90% of the movement.” Id., 66. She also hints at the previous East-West divergence in dealing with pre-existing folk (pagan) tradition: incorporation versus elimination. “Orthodox Christianity absorbed a rather large mass of ancient East Slavic beliefs. We have tighter ties with Indo-European tradition than Catholics do. Moreover, Orthodoxy is closer to Hellenic culture as it was preserved in Byzantium up to its latest eras.” Id., 67. Somewhat related to the idea of holistic incorporation of multiple cultural facets, she observes the close links between the New Right, de Benoist, and others, and her father’s Fourth Political Theory. 

She also explores the philosophies of America and how they have come to dominate much of European thought and economic-political discourse. While she labels the American way, “pragmatism,” Id., 84, others, like Dr. Michael Hudson, have bluntly dismissed America (and other post-Westphalian Western nation-states) as being nothing more than an agent for the international financial class (whose concerns, while generally cold and plausibly irrational in strategy, certainly are pragmatic as to the ultimate goals of enslaving mankind and stealing everything). 

Concerning the international rentier leeches, in Dugina’s included interview with de Benoist, after discussing how the system reduces man to a mere consumer, he remarks of (financial) capitalism:

Capitalism is a system of world government, a system that is driven by limitlessness, infinitude, and always needs more—more profit, more markets, more goods. The slogan of this tendency is: more is always needed. This means that in order to turn the planet into a gigantic market, it is necessary to eliminate all political, social, and cultural barriers, which means eliminating all differences. Id., 182

Summarizing the final effects of the Enlightenment, of the philosophy obsessed with “the end of history”, Dugian notes: “To sum up, today the West is dead. European culture has died. French culture has died along with it.” Id., 254. She ends the book by discussing how Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine has thrown a wrench into the machinations of the luciferian globalists. Sadly, her life was stolen not long after the SMO began. Still, her early observations have proven prescient. Russia’s martial retaliation, along with the greater economic and geopolitical war waged by the sovereign world majority against the globalists, has demonstrated various glimpses, for those who can or will see them, of solutions to many of the quandaries scrutinized in A Theory of Europe. Huge parts of the world have already learned great lessons from the late rebellion. It remains to be seen, in full, if Europe and its New Right, along with associated movements elsewhere in the fading Combined West, will follow suit. Russia, China, et al have, at least, given anti-liberal dissidents a little breathing room and bought time if nothing else. Perhaps the gentle reader of Dugina’s fine treatise might make a positive difference in that regard. If nothing else, it will set the gears and wheels of the brain in motion. And as with any great book, it pays dividends just to read it. Kindly do that soon.

*I would be remiss as a reviewer and friend if I did not thank Professor Alexander Dugin for his excellent heartfelt commentary within A Theory of Europe (and for gifting us the author), Constantin von Hoffmeister for his editorial prowess, Jafe Arnold for his translation skills and his Preface, and Daniel Friberg of Arktos for permission to utilize the foregoing quotations. Thank you, gentlemen.

Deo vindice.