Reconciling Nick Land and Alexander Dugin: Part Two
Right vs. Left: tradition, destruction, and revolutionary ecstasy
Michael Kumpmann examines the divide between the right-hand and left-hand paths through Evola, Dugin, and esoteric thought, linking warrior archetypes, carnival revolts, and technocommercialism to the deeper struggle between preservation and destruction.
Read part one here.
What, then, are the Path of the Right Hand and the Path of the Left Hand?
In principle, the Path of the Right Hand means building and preserving, while the Path of the Left Hand means destruction. But what does that really mean?
The difference is easy to grasp. Let us first look at how the term “right” is used. In many languages, “right” is synonymous with “correct” but also with “law.”
For example, samurai texts such as the Hagakure or The Book of Five Rings are considered “right,” whereas the Kama Sutra is seen as a religiously “left” text.
Evola described the Path of the Right Hand as represented by man as warrior and woman as mother, while on the Path of the Left Hand he located, on the male side, Gnosticism (that is, the questioning of conventional reality),1 sexual magic, and entheogenic drugs.
At this point, an obvious question arises for many: man as warrior and woman as mother are right-hand ideas, while the notions of sex, drugs, and rock and roll are religiously left-hand ideas. Does this not, in a sense, resemble the graphical representation of the political spectrum? On the right side we find, so to speak, fascism, and on the left side the hippies.
Yes, there are overlaps nonetheless. The warrior also stands close to the archetype of the hero. And as we all know from right-wing theory, he is sovereign who controls the state of exception. Yet one could also describe the hero as someone who, in the exceptional situation, restores order and control, thus mastering the state of exception. That Carl Schmitt is essentially the archetypal right-wing thinker, and that for him politics begins with the designation of an enemy, fits perfectly with the warrior. And on the other side, everyone knows the left’s fondness for sex and drugs. This was the case even before the hippies. Take, for instance, Charles Fourier, but also leftist philosophers such as Wilhelm Reich and Georges Bataille, who are of great interest in this regard. To some extent, Deleuze and Guattari also fit here, with their schizoanalysis and the dissolution of the ego through desire. Evola’s “left-hand” Gnostic, who has “awakened” from sleep and illusion and now finally sees reality, also bears a superficial resemblance to the modern term “woke.”
In Templars of the Proletariat, Dugin examines in detail the comparison between the political left and the religious left. He outlines a genealogy in which he traces the revolutionary left back to heretical Russian Orthodox sects. He then describes the political left as a search for a “revolutionary ecstasy” (an ecstasy that sweeps away rules and existing orders), which could manifest itself in political revolution and in “political riots.” This particular revolutionary ecstasy, he argues, is what links the political left with the Path of the Left Hand and with the idea of the apocalypse. (Including hippies and certain old 1968ers.)2 It should also be noted here that Jonathan Pageau associates carnival with postmodernism, the left, and also with the apocalypse.3 And carnival itself is based on the bacchanalia, which in turn are connected to the Dionysian cult of ancient Greece, one of the first cults of the Left-Hand Path in the West. In the Rhineland carnival there is a formalized ritual in which the “jecken” fools (clothed in rags and tatters) are imagined to overrun the city, seize control, and establish a “council.” The parallels with the political left, communism, and carnival are immediately striking. Certain actions by Donald Trump’s supporters, such as the “storming of the Capitol” on January 6 (in which some were even costumed), also carried a “carnivalesque” element. (And many alt-righters adopt the Joker as a personal symbol, who in the Batman comics is famous for regularly overrunning the city with a horde of “clowns.”)
The American tech industry has produced the phenomenon of people camping for days in front of electronics stores in order to celebrate the release of a new “revolutionary product.” Umberto Eco even described certain events by Apple and others as pseudo-religious happenings. Could one perhaps describe these too as a form of left-hand “revolutionary ecstasy”?
In his book, Dugin also connects the political left and the Path of the Left Hand with the idea of antinomianism and refers in particular to Crowley’s idea of the transition from the Aeon of Osiris (the age of law) to the Aeon of Horus (the age of free will). Dugin alludes to the notion that, in order to usher in the Aeon of Horus, one must demolish the remnants of the age of law (which can symbolically include bureaucracy). Here, of course, Elon Musk with his DOGE immediately comes to mind.
In part, the idea of the Path of the Left Hand roughly corresponds to what the American right calls the “purple pill.” The blue pill means denying the truth, the red pill means learning the real rules and thereby achieving a better life (in the sense of “getting on the right path”). The black pill broadly represents the idea that after recognizing the real facts one has no chance of changing anything. The white pill, on the other hand, represents the choice to live nonetheless (Nietzsche’s amor fati). The purple pill means knowing both the rules and the illusory character of most beliefs and laws (see the antinomianism just mentioned), and bending both to one’s own purposes so as to carve out a niche for oneself. This “purple pill” has certain parallels with postmodernism and thus with leftist thought.
It must be said, however, that this overlap does not fit 100 percent. We can see this with Miguel Serrano, who repeatedly adopted the teachings of the Kama Sutra, and with Savitri Devi, who taught that one must be both lightning and sun. By this she meant that one must unite the forces of creation, preservation, and destruction. Thus the lightning, meaning destruction, and the sun, in the sense of creation and preservation. The “man above time” would use only creation and preservation, but not destruction, and the “man in time” would use only destruction and neither creation nor preservation. Both ways of life, however, were doomed to failure and would fall victim to the Kali Yuga. Only by uniting both can one become the “man against time” and triumph over the Kali Yuga.4 Savitri Devi believed that Adolf Hitler had recognized this and tried to live it, but had ultimately failed.
Both show that one can literally worship Hitler as one’s god and still be religiously left-oriented. This means that these ideas cannot be perfectly mapped onto the political spectrum. (On the other hand, Dugin also wrote in Templars of the Proletariat that many esoteric rightists were in fact clearly leftists in the religious sense, and that, without realizing it, they stood very close to the mindset of the Bolsheviks.)
Dugin suggested that one could regard the technocommercialism of Nick Land, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and others as a Path of the Left Hand.
(Translated from the German)
It must be noted here that this is associated with the wise old man, but in Jungian teaching also with the (court) jester, since seemingly opposing archetypes can be reduced to the same basic pattern. A good humorist or jester also exposes logical contradictions and unmasks things that people believe even though they cannot be logically true. Or he reveals implications people have not considered. And the archetype of the trickster/fool serves in Jung’s view to tear off someone’s mask and reveal the hidden truth beneath it.
See also: Apocalypse as Praxis.
Carnival Has Taken Over the World | Benjamin Boyce & Jonathan Pageau, The Anti-Christ and Carnivals (Jonathan Pageau, David Gornoski), The Symbolism of Halloween, The Metaphysics of Clown World, Kanye West — Jesus is King | The Fool and the Inversion, Lindt LINDOR | Verschenke Glücksmomente | Präsente | 20s.
Comic artist Alex Ross wrote in 1997 a Nietzsche-inspired Marvel comic series titled Earth X in which he commented on many Marvel heroes. For instance, he suggested that the name “Brotherhood of Evil Mutants” in X-Men was deliberately adopted by Magneto so that his enemy Professor Xavier would be seen as “the good one” and would ultimately be broken by that ideal.
Interestingly, Ross altered the figure of Captain Britain in such a way that Merlin gives him the magical power of creation and preservation on the one hand and destruction on the other. He rejects destruction and chooses creation and preservation. A few panels later it is said that Captain Britain failed and died because he made the mistake of thinking he had to choose between the two. The correct answer would have been to take both. This strongly recalls lightning and sun.
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This is full of wildly false dichotomies from start to finish.. the reality is blurred and complex. The whole argument hugely fabricated. Like so much of this stuff, built on shifting sand.
While Dugin weighing in after CK's 'martyrdom' in such a divisive and disruptive way is very troubling, though thoroughly predictable. It plays into the hands of all the wrong forces and if he really thinks that whatever outcome results from these tumultuous events will lead to some kind of rapprochement between East and West, then he's clearly deluded.
But I suspect he knows this, which is even more troubling.