Great Reset or Great Awakening? Pt. 1
Alexander Dugin’s Philosophy Points Toward a Better Future
Introduction
Are we on the cusp of a global totalitarian nightmare from which there will be no return, or a global awakening that will usher in a new age of light? Alexander Dugin’s book, The Great Awakening vs. The Great Reset, suggests we are headed for the latter, but only if we “seize the day.” This short little book is packed to bursting with philosophical ideas for the groundwork of a new and better era, one that New Age philosophers in the West have been calling the transition into the “Age of Aquarius,” even if they can’t agree which zodiacal era we’re in at present. Hindu philosophy places us in the deep time stream of the Age of Kali Yuga, a thousands-year long era of descent into ignorance, chaos and universal war. Depending on who you believe, this period is either just on the cusp of ending or still some millennia away from a transition into the next age when humanity will finally begin to recover its connection with Nature and the divine. Dugin merely alludes to these philosophies, but he is certainly calling for a philosophy that preserves the brightest lights of recent millennia. His philosophical timeline extends back to the medieval era rather than the Enlightenment, as is typically referred to as the starting point for collective spiritual and political awakening. Still, Dugin is sounding the alarm about the West’s suicidal cancelling of this tradition of knowledge.
His frank assessment that we have entered a period of global coercion is absolutely correct, as when he says: “Globalism is entering a totalitarian phase. This makes the possibility of new wars—including an increased risk of World War III—more than likely.” [1] As the publishing date of this book is 2021, Dugin is somewhat prescient given the current conflict between Israel and Palestine, with its potential for widening into a regional if not a global war. He sees Western liberalism as a scourge that must be stopped before it infects the rest of the world. In reality what he is indicting is the quasi-liberalism of the extreme left that has overtaken Western power brokers. In this context he specifically names “cancel culture” and its attempts to eradicate all remnants of classical liberalism.
As I’ve also observed, Dugin points out that “there is really nothing new” in the “Great Reset,” that in fact, it’s just a rebranding of the globalist New World Order with unrestrained capitalism and extreme leftist ideology at the helm:
“…it is a continuation of the main vector of Western European civilization in the direction of progress, interpreted in the spirit of liberal ideology and nominalist philosophy. Not much remains: to free individuals from the last forms of collective identity—to complete the abolition of gender and move toward a posthumanist paradigm.” —Alexander Dugin [2]
My argument has been that the “more of the same old, same old,” has to do with the globalization of corporate capitalism, unfettered by any regulatory restraint, national boundaries or ethical considerations, despite its superficial sheen of the ESG (environmental-social governance) concept and climate activism. The globalist predator class has simply co-opted the environmental movement in the name of a new set of products—electric vehicles, solar panels, windmills—and carbon taxes that do little more than provide a huge source of unaccountable revenue for governments. With nearly all Western governments now in total thrall to corporate interests, these taxes become a convenient means of furthering the globalist agenda rather than making any meaningful difference in solving environmental concerns such as pollution of the air, land, water and food supply with toxic chemicals, clearcutting in forestry, overfishing, etc.
What is currently being represented by the West as “liberal democracy” is a deviant and corrupted version of what was envisioned by the founders of the American Republic. This is what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been saying right from the start of his presidential campaign. I completely agree with RFK Jr. that what we have now in the West is a captured democracy, a corporatocracy that shares totalitarian values with fascism and Nazism. What RFK Jr. is arguing for, and I agree, is not an abandonment of liberal democracy but a return to its original vision as framed in the American Constitution or Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
What’s most hopeful about Dugin’s assessment is that the neoliberal philosophy embodied in the Great Reset is “a failed globalist strategy” that is becoming “openly totalitarian” in its death throes.[3]
1. Universalism vs. Nominalism
Dugin’s thesis is founded on a fundamental conceptual conflict at the heart of Western culture during the past millennium: between universalists and what he calls “nominalists.” This philosophical divide spread from what was originally a dispute amongst Catholic theologians. Universalists “recognized the existence of the common (species, genus, universalia)… (and) drew on the classical tradition of Plato and Aristotle. They came to be called ‘realists,’ that is, those who recognized the ‘reality of universalia.’” [4] He contrasts this with the “nominalists,” among whose chief proponents was English philosopher William Occam (of Occam’s Razor). Dugin claims that, “nominalism laid the foundation for future liberalism, both ideologically and economically. Here humans were seen only as individuals and nothing else, and all forms of collective identity (religion, class, etc.) were to be abolished.” [5]
In that respect it’s hard to disagree with him, since we’ve seen so-called progressives moving to eliminate even gender differences, one of Nature’s most basic collective identities. Dugin astutely invokes the principle of “divide and conquer” as part of this philosophy, and as we’ve seen, with the disingenuous agenda of “equality” and “inclusivity,” this has resulted in a society riven by so many micro-divisions it’s hard to count them all anymore. Thus, we see the triumph of a hyper-individualism that is in reality nothing more than narcissism taken to its logical extremes, making it impossible for people in the West to unite under anything more than a micro-faction within countless other factions.
Dugin’s analysis benefits from a Big Picture view, a farsighted vision that realizes the end point of all this division: “Thus, the last step for liberals, who have traveled centuries toward their goal, is to replace humans, albeit partially, by cyborgs, artificial intelligence networks, and products of genetic engineering. The optional human logically follows optional gender.” [6] Dugin implicates the philosophy of the Davos cult (WEF) and its minions such as Klaus Schwab and Yuval Harari, with their insistence that the future of human evolution is purely technological: “This agenda is already foreshadowed by posthumanism, postmodernism and speculative realism in philosophy, and technologically it is becoming more and more realistic by the day.” [7]
To that I would say, yes and no, since the grandiose claims for AI and transhumanism ignore certain biological realities, certain lines that Nature is unlikely to allow to be crossed without catastrophic failure and massive pain. This is why every major system of world mythology has stories of arrogant individuals who become so over-inflated by their own power they begin to strive for godhood and are struck down for their hubris. In fact, it’s the theme of the oldest extant myth we have—the Epic of Gilgamesh, and arguably, the classical Greek myths merely repeat this theme with variations.
2. The Paradox of Western Individualism
In fact, there’s a paradoxical aspect to the globalist program of hyper-individualism, or what Dugin would likely call anti-collectivism. On one hand they exploit as many differences as possible to keep people divided and therefore incapable of resisting their globalist agenda. On the other, they want a total uniformity of thought, a complete subjugation to the groupthink of the herd, as was heavily promoted during the pandemic. This became clear with the release of the Panic Paper in Germany and revelations that elite military psyops units in Britain and Canada deployed the principles of mass formation psychosis through a constant bombardment of propaganda in the media. This was followed by the release of the Twitter files in the US, revealing that the CIA and FBI had directed social media companies in a concerted program of censorship and propaganda. Through fear and intimidation during the pandemic, the herd mentality was continually invoked, but in the soft tones of “caring for your neighbor” as an inducement to take the unproven genetic therapies touted as Covid “vaccines.” So we have a psychotic double standard at work in the perverted politics of the left—the decades-long cultivation of narcissism as part of the divide and conquer principle, and the need to ensure universal conformity with the plans of the elites:
“Thus, the individual of the future, as the fulfillment of the whole program of liberalism, will not be able to guarantee precisely that which has been the main goal of liberal progress—that is, their individuality. The liberal being of the future, even in theory, is not an individuum, something ‘indivisible,’ but rather a ‘dividuum,’ i.e. something divisible and made up of replaceable parts. Such is the machine—it is composed of a combination of parts.” —Alexander Dugin [8]
However, I would part ways with Dugin if he’s proposing a clear and total division between individualism and collectivism. Both philosophies can be taken to extremes, as with the former in the West and the dangerous collectivism that arose from Stalinist communism in Russia. As I wrote in my Substack essay, “Is Liberal Democracy Really Totalitarian”:
“The fact is, individualism in the Enlightenment sense has become perverted in the West. It was hijacked by political and commercial operatives to become pure narcissism, for multiple reasons: 1) appealing to the selfish impulse sells way more products; and, 2) it makes it easier to divide and conquer people. On this last point, we have to remember that since World War II, our intelligence agencies have deployed a concerted campaign for control of the public mind. Agencies that had been designed to combat our enemies in wartime became weaponized against their own populations.” —Sean Arthur Joyce [9]
As I also wrote in that essay:
“In my view what was most admirable about the American Constitution and the Enlightenment is its emphasis on protecting the individual from the State. The Constitutional framers, emerging from British monarchy with its continual abuses of its subjects, realized that this MUST be the pillar of any constitution worthy of the name. Otherwise, “the collective good” can be weaponized far too easily against the populace. Again, the past three years ought to have taught us this critical point.” [10]
The Enlightenment ideal of the individual was not a person atomized and alienated from society but one given the freedom to develop their intelligence and spirituality to the fullest extent possible given their opportunities. History prior to the Enlightenment had little sense of the individual except for the ideal of powerful kings and queens or rare outstanding types such as philosophers and poets. The rest weren’t considered important enough to even record their personal histories. I don’t think anyone wants to return to a medieval system of serfdom where that’s the norm. Yet a modernized version of serfdom is just what the globalist framers of the Great Reset are essentially proposing—a digitally controlled collectivism that ruthlessly enforces conformity to central control.
3. The Last Battle: Liberals vs. Trumpist Populism
Under the heading, “The Last Battle of the Liberals,” Dugin tips the hat to Americans who believe that the election was stolen from President Trump in 2020, which he calls “Biden’s engineered victory.” It’s hard not to agree, given the increasing revelations of corruption, bribery and coercion on the part of the Democratic Party regime throughout the pandemic. Dugin casts the “Great Reset,” with its slogan “Build Back Better” as a response by globalists not primarily to pressing societal issues but to an ideological crisis. He admits that,
“…since the late 1990s, there have been virtually no more or less coherent ideologies in the world that can challenge liberalism, capitalism and globalism. Although to varying degrees, these principles have been accepted by all or almost all. Nevertheless, the implementation of liberalism and gender politics, as well as the abolition of nation states in favour of a world government, has stalled on several fronts…” —Alexander Dugin [11]
That includes resistance not only from Putin’s Russia, China and other BRICS nations, but from what Arnold Toynbee called the “internal proletariat” within Western civilization itself. Toynbee noted that in the terminal phase of an empire or civilization, the elites resort to increasingly coercive and desperate measures to shore up their power, which ultimately acquire the nature of an act of suicide.
In part this is due to the increasing disaffection of those internal proletariats, who will only suffer so much coercion before rebelling. And in part due to a principle well articulated by my astute friend Norbert Deurichen, who observes that as these globalists approach old age, they begin to get desperate to see their plans enacted before they die. This causes them to act too hastily to enact their ‘reforms,’ resulting in fatal mistakes. Or, in the case of transhumanists such as Ray Kurzweil and Klaus Schwab, they begin to more desperately grapple toward immortality, on the assumption that technology has the power to grant it to them. As John Ralston Saul observed 30 years ago in Voltaire’s Bastards, had these technocratic elites taken the time to acquire a classical education, they would have realized from literature and poetry that such a desire is contrary to Nature and can only result in failure. It’s this prospect that has globalist oligarchs in a panic:
“This is exactly the panic and almost hysterical state in which the representatives of the globalist elite have spent the last four years. And that is why the question of Trump’s removal as president of the United States was a matter of life and death for them. If Trump had kept his office, the collapse of the globalist strategy would have been irreversible.” [12]
I find it doubtful that Trump could have overseen the end of globalism; he was in the grip of Deep State forces far more powerful than himself. Dugin sees Trump not so much as an articulate leader as a kind of figurehead that became a convenient focus for the disaffected within the American populace—Hilary Clinton’s so-called “deplorables” who turned out in their millions to elect Trump:
“In his role as president, Trump was not always at the height of his own articulated task. And he was not able to accomplish anything even close to ‘draining the swamp’ and defeating globalism. But in spite of this, he became a center of attraction for all those who were aware of or simply sensed the danger emanating from the globalist elites and the representatives of Big Finance and Big Tech inseparable from them.” —Alexander Dugin [13]
Nevertheless, Trump’s symbolic role continues to inspire many American voters who are supporting his current run for the presidency. “So it is clear that Trumpism will by no means end with Trump. Half of the US population has actually found itself in a position of radical opposition, and the most consistent Trumpists represent the core of the anti-globalization underground within the citadel of globalism itself.” [14]
I wouldn’t quite go that far—I certainly don’t consider myself a Trump supporter, yet I support anti-globalism, as do many like me who were not historically conservative voters. It may be more appropriate to say that the core of this movement are those who see themselves, as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has described himself, as “classical liberals” in the tradition of the founders of the American Constitution. Though perhaps not as well articulated as in America, Dugin sees a similar movement in Europe, “where populist movements and parties are increasingly aware that they are dissidents deprived of all rights and subject to ideological persecution under an apparent globalist dictatorship.” [15] Once again, however, the globalists have their hands firmly on the tiller, with the recent passage of a bill in the European Union for the institution of digital ID and its concomitant central bank digital currency (CBDC). Despite my quibbling over details, Dugin summarizes the overall situation accurately, characterizing it as “the final battle”:
“This is not the West against the East, not the US and NATO against everyone else, but liberals against humanity—including that segment of humanity which finds itself on the territory of the West itself, but which is turning more and more away from its own globalist elites.” —Alexander Dugin [16]
Dugin here states in different terms Toynbee’s principle of terminal civilizations resisting the increasing use of force against their internal proletariats by the governing elites:
“No matter how much the globalists who have retaken power in the US want to present the previous four years (under Trump) as an ‘unfortunate misunderstanding’ and declare their victory as the final ‘return to normality,’ the objective picture is far from the soothing spells of the globalist upper class. Not only countries with a different civilizational identity are mobilizing against it and against its ideology, but this time also half of its own population, gradually coming to realize the seriousness of the situation and beginning to search for an ideological alternative.” —Alexander Dugin [17]
As with all such doctrinaire movements, the philosophy embodied by the World Economic Forum and its billionaire class casts unbelievers into the pit of darkness (to invoke a Biblical metaphor): “If some persisted in their aversion to globalization, this could be seen as mere inertia, an unwillingness to be ‘blessed’ with liberal progress,” writes Dugin. [18] This “progress” of course rests upon the foundation of the “technocratic transformations” of digital technology and transhumanism. Added to that is their philosophy of One World Government, the need to abolish national borders and identities, as we’ve seen with the massive immigration flows into both Europe during the past decade and, more recently, through the southern border of the US. As Douglas Murray wrote in The Strange Death of Europe, however, this has only unleashed social chaos, turning liberal democracies that had achieved a high level of public safety into places where women are no longer safe to be out alone at night:
“At such times, the gap between what the public can see and what the politicians can conceivably say, let alone do about it, became dangerously large. An Ipsos poll published in July 2016 surveyed public attitudes towards immigration. It revealed just how few people think that immigration has had a good impact on their societies…” —Douglas Murray [19]
Reports on Redacted News from the southern US border and Central America by independent journalist and former US Marine Michael Yon reveal a situation that is out of control, with up to 80,000 immigrants per day streaming across a porous border. These are mostly young men, although nearly all nationalities seem to be represented, including many Chinese. Nor are they being bused to the border in rickety old school buses; his video shows them being ushered into luxury buses and given bank cards loaded up with cash. And who is paying for all this? The UN. As Yon said in one Redacted report, “Unless you get that this is all emanating from the World Economic Forum, you can’t possibly understand what’s going on here.” (Or words to that effect.)
But as always, those who grow progressively more arrogant in their exercise of power inevitably end up succumbing to a blind spot, a tragic flaw. This again is the lesson not just of history, but of civilization’s legacy of great literature. The fact is, you can’t unleash the whirlwind and hope to control its path. It’s the universal principle of the X Factor, where X equals the unknown, unforeseeable, unpredictable. You could also call it Nature’s ace up her sleeve—you just never know how, when or where she’s going to play it to trump you.
Dugin is blunt in his assessment of the Davos cult’s endgame: “The Great Reset is indeed a plan for the elimination of humanity,” since the freeing of the “individual from all forms of collective identity cannot fail to result in the freeing of the individual from himself.” [20]
Arguably, this is why 70 percent of the American population is currently on some form of antidepressant drug, why despair and rootlessness has only grown even in the midst of plenty. When the individual is atomized, cut adrift from society except for equally atomized identity groups related to race or sexuality, you also have the prime conditions for “mass formation,” as Mattias Desmet explains in his book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism. Social atomization creates what Desmet describes as “free-floating anxiety” that is on the lookout for something to attach its energies to, leaving people vulnerable to power elites looking to demonize a particular out-group in society they want persecuted or eliminated. Desmet agrees with Dugin that what we’re seeing is the radioactive fallout from an ideological war:
“The escalating social crises of the early twenty-first century are the manifestation of an underlying psychological and ideological upheaval—a shift of the tectonic plates on which a worldview rests. We are experiencing the moment in which an old ideology rears up in power, one last time, before collapsing. Each attempt to remediate the current social problems, whatever they may be, on the basis of the old ideology will only make things worse. One cannot solve a problem using the same mindset that created it. The solution to our fear and uncertainty does not lie in the increase of (technological) control. The real task facing us as individuals and as a society is to envision a new view of humankind and the world, to find a new foundation for our identity, to formulate new principles for living together with others, and to reclaim a timely human capacity—Truth Speech.” —Mattias Desmet [21]
[1] Alexander Dugin, The Great Awakening vs. The Great Reset, Arktos, London, 2021, p. 4.
[2] Dugin, The Great Awakening vs. The Great Reset, ibid., p. 15.
[3] Dugin, The Great Awakening vs. The Great Reset, ibid.; Appendices: interview with Deutsch Stimme, p. 49.
[4] Dugin, The Great Awakening vs. The Great Reset, ibid., p. 8.
[5] Dugin, The Great Awakening vs. The Great Reset, ibid., p. 8.
[6] Dugin, The Great Awakening vs. The Great Reset, ibid., p. 13.
[7] Dugin, The Great Awakening vs. The Great Reset, ibid., p. 13.
[8] Dugin, The Great Awakening vs. The Great Reset, ibid., p. 24, emphasis mine.
[9] Sean Arthur Joyce, “Is Liberal Democracy Really Totalitarianism?” Substack, October 27, 2023: https://seanarthurjoyce.substack.com/p/is-liberal-democracy-really-totalitarian
[10] Sean Arthur Joyce, “Is Liberal Democracy Really Totalitarianism?” ibid.
[11] Dugin, The Great Awakening vs. The Great Reset, ibid., pp. 13, 14.
[12] Dugin, The Great Awakening vs. The Great Reset, ibid., p. 15.
[13] Dugin, The Great Awakening vs. The Great Reset, ibid., p. 21.
[14] Dugin, The Great Awakening vs. The Great Reset, ibid., p. 23.
[15] Dugin, The Great Awakening vs. The Great Reset, ibid., p. 23.
[16] Dugin, The Great Awakening vs. The Great Reset, ibid., p. 23.
[17] Dugin, The Great Awakening vs. The Great Reset, ibid., p. 23.
[18] Dugin, The Great Awakening vs. The Great Reset, ibid., p. 18.
[19] Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, Bloomsbury, London, 2018, p. 199.
[20] Dugin, The Great Awakening vs. The Great Reset, ibid., p. 25.
[21] Mattias Desmet, “The Psychology of Totalitarianism,” via Dr. Robert Malone, Substack, August 29, 2022:
Yes indeed, the reset can happen if we accept responsibility for our brillance ...This is a good book to confirm what is happening... The Secret of Resilience - healing personal and planetary trauma through morphogenesis by Stehanie Mines, PhD. I got my copy from Banyen Books online. we are 500 years into the Aquarain age... people are slow to wake up but we are now on the sunny side of the street. You can read my new Musings using astrology at Discover 65,, https://discoversixty-five.com/ put out by pennywise.. I am the last two pages. Maybe we should have a meeting about this world and how we are being in it. my email is Angele@Kaslo.org Good work on the article you are getting close.