I belong to people who believe that ideas shape human reality, that is, that spirit has primacy over matter. Dialectical idealism above dialectical materialism, certainly not underestimating the material in the creation of existential reality and in influencing the formation of opinions.
In the context of what is happening in Ukraine, it seems to me that the conceptual basis is being put on the back burner, although it has been made available to the public through statements. Geopolitical interests, security agenda, political prestige, control over resources, etc. are the focus of the analysis.
I think that in order to understand the situation, it is necessary to go deeper. Slavophiles and Westerners, communists (statists and anarchists) and tsarists, personalists and communitarians. I recommend Nikolay Berdjaev's book Russian idea which analyzes and ingeniously breaks through all the movements and currents of ideas and actions through which Russian society passed, which has not lost its relevance. On the contrary.
Nikolai Berdyaev vs AlekSandar Dugin
I will try to contribute to the understanding of the situation by presenting the basic similarities and differences. It is about two Russian thinkers who influence Russian and world thought in different ways.
Similarities: gap towards democracy (for nuances and differences on another occasion), individualism of liberal society (Berđaev is a personalist, while Dugin is a statist/collectivist), social-class inequality and if I understood correctly Dugin's commitment (because he accepts as a sociological reality the existence of multiple truths - of the relativism of truth in an effort to justify the right to the existence of Russian truth), believers.
Differences: Berđaev places freedom at the center of his thought and, as said, he is a personalist (in psychological terms, he is a supporter of individuation, in spiritual terms of deification, as a personal path), an admirer of collective identification and sees value in it, i.e. he is not in favor of the abolition of the national, he is an advocate of the separation of the state and the church (spiritual and secular) and a strong opponent of nationalism.
He sees resistance to the descent of the eschaton to earth through quasi-religious substitutes and their danger as: "From the Christian point of view, national egoism (nationalism) is as reprehensible as personal egoism... Egoism, self-interest, suspicion, pride, will to power, hatred of others , violence, everything becomes a virtue when it is transferred from the individual to the national whole... Love for one's people is a very natural and good feeling, but nationalism requires hatred, enmity, contempt for other nations... Nationalism is already a potential war..." (I recommend his work The New Middle Ages in which he prophetically predicts what will happen almost a decade before the start of World War II). Although persecuted by the tsarist regime and permanently exiled by the communist authorities, he is not a political ideologue at his core.
Dugin starts from the primacy of the collective, at least in the case of Russian society, dividing humanity into different civilizations within which models of coexistence should be sought (work Fourth political theory). For him, Russia is definitely not the West and never will be. A strong opponent of liberalism, at least in the case of Russian society, sees the way out in collectivism (family, society, state...). The defense of the Russian world (civilization) rests on a strong state and the expansion of its power and clear geopolitical positioning. Dugin is a political ideologue whose views on the world have a strong influence on the practical politics of contemporary Russia.
All these ideas permeate Montenegrin society. What we chronically lack is a true commitment to building strong institutions that operate on the principles of full professionalism and non-selectivity. We need a relationship with the state as a common good, not as a prey that is the basis for a network of particular interests. I don't see a better model, with all its flaws, than liberal-democratic institutions that allow society (male and female citizens) to breathe freely. As far as Russia is concerned, if Western thought and practice cannot be implemented analogously, I would like Berdjaev to have more influence on the political and social elite than Dugin.
In the Legend of the Grand Inquisitor, symbolically and conceptually, both can clearly be connected to the actors of the story.
The author is mminister of internal affairs
Bonus video:
