On this edition of Parallax Views, independent scholar Wahid Azal joins Parallax Views to discuss the ideology of Russia’s Aleksandr Dugin, which he describes as steeped in imperialism and occultism. Dugin has become known in the West as “Putin’s Brain”, but lost his academic job at Moscow State University in 2014 after essentially calling for genocide against Ukrainians. He is known for advocating what he calls the “Fourth Political Theory” and for writing the book The Foundations of Geopolitics, which had influence in the Russian military. Wahid makes the case that while Dugin is marginal in Russia and Ukraine, his ideology has been boosted throughout Europe through oligarch funding and in the U.S. thanks to a number of factors including Dugin’s Rasputin-esque image being perfectly fitted for sensational, attention-grabbing headlines and features. In this conversation we discuss the underpinnings of Dugin’s thought including the idea of Atlantacism, the role of the apocalypse in Dugin’s worldview, the influence of Heidegger on Dugin, Dugin’s connection to Traditionalism and how the influence of Heidegger on him is not in line with Traditionalism (we also discuss what Tradtionalism is from Rene Guenon to Julius Evola and how Dugin’s thinking could be described as Counter-Traditionalism), Dugin’s current interest in the Russian Orthodox Church and his previous interest in chaos magick, the neo-nazi Satanist group The Order of Nine Angles, the death of Azal’s wife and how he believes Duginists may have been involved in it, explaining the meaning of Dugin’s quote “We will cure you with poison” and its connection to alchemy, and much, much more.
