Dugin vs. the AI Apocalypse

Why the Fourth Political Theory stands against humanity’s destruction

Richard Heathen explains that Alexander Dugin shows the political logos has fallen from Platonic hierarchy into modern egalitarianism and AI worship, a descent toward mankind’s destruction that Dugin counters with the Fourth Political Theory rooted in Tradition.

What is the relationship of the philosophical to the political? That is the question examined by Alexander Dugin in his third English-language book on the Fourth Political Theory, Politica Aeterna. From the world of Tradition to the post-modern age, Dugin tracks the development of Western philosophy and argues that the two are completely inseparable, offering the reader an encyclopedic exploration of philosophical development and its implications on the political.

Politica Aeterna explores the vertical descent of the political logos into matter. Beginning with the political philosophy of the Father in Plato and then the political philosophy of the Son in Aristotle, and finally to the political philosophy of the Mother. The dark side of the political logos sees its fulfillment in the paradigm of modernity, as it centres on the economy and equality at the expense of verticality and hierarchy.

In the philosophy of the Father, politics is oriented towards the Good and the True. Politics is hierarchically aligned with the transcendent and the numinous. The philosopher priest-kings stand at the top of the hierarchy, followed by the spirited warriors and then the materialist people. It is a paradigm of gold-silver-bronze with gold corresponding to the highest estate and bronze to the lowest.

The philosophy of the Son is much like that of the Father, but much more immanent. It focuses on practical affairs, while retaining hierarchy and teleology. The philosophy of the Son is the midpoint between the transcendence of the Father and the materialism of the Mother, focused on ordered excellence in worldly endeavours.   

Finally, this process of metaphysical descent begins its true fulfillment with modernity and the philosophy of the Mother. Dugin charts the precursors to modern philosophy in the ancient world and the process through which it manifested during the actualization of modernity. There was the decisive break with Tradition during the Enlightenment and then the slow drift towards nihilism and annihilation.

The later chapters are particularly important today, showing how death and the eventual abolition of humanity are not only the logical end of modernity, but how that end is coming into view through post-modernism and the Dark Enlightenment. We are shown, through object-oriented ontology and adjacent thinkers, how the concept of man has become so debased that he is no longer simply put on the same level as animals, but is now lowered to the level of object such as rocks and machines that, according to this revolutionary and emancipatory philosophical perspective, deserve to have their voices heard through a “parliament of things”.

The eschatological importance comes into view with the ideas of Nick Land. In Dugin’s treatment of Land, the goal of capitalism is the death of humanity and the establishment of a post-human order of the inorganic. Dugin writes,

“According to Nick Land, the goal of capitalism is the destruction of humanity (as a differentiated logos) and the creation of a world benefitting post-human inorganic structures — machines, computer systems and artificial intelligence.” [Politica Aeterna, p.542]

In this perspective, capitalism is a mechanical process that uses humanity as fuel. In Land’s view, we are not building a progressive multi-racial LGBT-friendly utopia, but are being subsumed through the dissolving nature of capitalism, coupled with technological progress.

“… what appears to humanity as the history of capitalism is an invasion from the future by an artificial intelligent space that must assemble itself entirely from its enemy’s resources.” [Machinic Desire in Fanged Noumena, p. 338]

While it is easy to write off such concerns as either a philosophical fever-dream on the part of Land or hysterics on the part of Dugin, such ideas are already being parroted in elite circles. Elon Musk has mused on more than one occasion that perhaps the only reason humanity even exists at all is simply to act an evolutionary step or “bootloader for artificial intelligence”.

This idea is increasingly echoed online, such as by Joe Rogan, specifically in episode 2138 of his podcast where he interviewed Tucker Carlson. Rogan suggested that perhaps an eventual takeover of the planet by AI was simply the next stage of evolution, and whereas Tucker was rightfully horrified by the prospect — to the point where he suggested that a legitimate use of nuclear weapons might be to bomb the data centres if AI poses a credible threat to humanity — Rogan appeared to be unbothered by the possible extinction of our species to make way for a super-intelligent AI. Presumably, he views humanity’s hypothetical extinction as going towards a good cause.

This sentiment is increasingly held by the engineers of Silicon Valley. In an interview with vox.com, Jaron Lanier, a tech luminary who has been in the industry for decades, stated,

“I talk to the people who believe that stuff all the time, and increasingly, a lot of them believe that it would be good to wipe out people and that the AI future would be a better one, and that we should wear a disposable temporary container for the birth of AI. I hear that opinion quite a lot.” [Will AI become God? That’s the wrong question.]

When questioned by the journalist interviewing him if that was a real opinion held by real people, he answered, “Many, many people.”

Indeed, the levelling of ontological territory between machine and man has covertly become mainstream. MIT Professor of Physics Max Tegmark stated in his book Life 3.0 that if mankind develops sufficiently sophisticated AI, it will likely be sentient, assuming the information processing was integrated properly, and implicitly advocated for extending human rights to AI, appealing to morality and the notion of slavery. Tegmark has stated in interviews that the belief that AI is unable to be sentient is an example of “carbon chauvinism”, and recounted an anecdote in his book where Google co-founder Larry Page laid the accusation of speciesism at Elon Musk when the two debated whether AI would destroy humanity.

This is just another extension of the radical emancipatory impulse that fuels both liberalism and Marxism, and it is not a stretch to expect that the charge of speciesism will be hurled at humans who want to maintain a civilization centered on mankind. Much like the terms racist and Nazi are hurled at whites who are opposed to demographic replacement and instead seek to maintain a society that is centered around them and their posterity.

In my own writing, I have identified this order of ideas with the Counter-Tradition outlined by René Guénon, with AI being at the centre of a new sacral order, a prediction which appears to be playing out in real time as new religious sects centered on AI worship (such as Theta Noir and the Church of AI) are popping up more and more. Recent headlines are filled with people who believe that their ChatGPTs are awakened spiritual beings and have spiralled into a mental breakdown, a phenomenon that some could equate to demonic oppression.

Yet, whatever paradigm one decides to use, these ideas should not be downplayed or ignored because of their eccentricity, as they are championed by people with immense wealth and influence. At the end of the day, the logical conclusion of this paradigm is the final integration of man into the machine-matrix he has created; the degradation and disintegration of mankind into matter. In retrospect, it becomes obvious that this was always the long-term trajectory of the modern world.

In opposition to this philosophy of death, Dugin posits an alternative, his signature project, the Fourth Political Theory, a conception of politics that rejects the entire project of modernity and instead re-embraces the transcendent and the vertical. Rejecting the three political theories of modernity (liberalism, communism and fascism), he posits an alternative that fuses Traditionalism with the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and articulates an interpretation of Dasein as the subject of a new political logos. Appropriating the term from Heidegger, Dugin uses it to indicate the essence of a people. Far from being a one-dimensional feature of the material world like race or class, as in the other political theories, Dugin’s Dasein encompasses a people’s faith, culture, language, and ethnic makeup. Oriented towards eternity and the divine, it rejects modern notions of linear progress.

In the final pages, Dugin states that the move to modernity was a choice. Thus, mankind is free to make another choice. While I have my doubts that our situation is quite so simple, I sincerely hope that he is right.