The Theory of a Multipolar World

Alexander Dugin's The Theory of a Multipolar World is a cheerful and optimistic view of a future in which humanity will reach its highest development. However, it will not be the uniform humanity pictured by the globalizing and leveling schemers and manipulators. Instead, old artificial borders will be dissolved and new natural divisions installed. Mankind will blossom in its manifold manifestations, namely the distinct civilizations and the ethnoses that breathe their souls into them. Drawing from a variety of philosophies from both the Right and Left, Dugin maps out the immediate goals and ultimate vision of this theory, and what is required to implement it. Multipolarity is the tapestry that creates a myriad of colorful potentialities rather than a single dead-end passage, whither an anonymous human mass is herded to languish till the end of days. According to Dugin, the Westphalian system of the sovereignty of nation-states has long since become obsolete and ceased to function. In its place will be erected a continental system of "large spaces" (in the Schmittian sense), where individuals are integrated in the social whole based on the insoluble bond of kinship and common tradition. It will be a time of high adventure, boundless curiosity and the rediscovery of what it truly means to be different and therefore able to think of unique solutions in lieu of standardized ones.

The "metaphysical" poetry of Thomas Traherne (1636-1674) is less well known than that of his predecessors, John Donne and George Herbert, and can seem daunting both to the student of English, uncertain about his theological ideas, and to the student of theology, put off by seventeenth-century poetic conventions and diction. This book looks at Traherne's verse in its poetic context. Taught from an early age at school to translate Latin and Greek poetry into their own verses, people in many walks of life in the seventeenth century frequently turned to verse to express their own strongest feelings or to put their ideas in a nutshell, thus providing an ideal context in which to get to grips with the poetic expression of Traherne's thought. To be voluble is not only to be fluently expressive, but also have the 'capacity' to comprehend (both understand and include) all of God's creation. Traherne's understanding of the soul and its 'capacity' will be explained. Traherne's delighted comprehension takes in the latest scientific speculation about the atom and astronomy, and also the fascinating details revealed by the microscope, but does not exclude a clear-sighted view of Restoration society's materialism and - in one startlingly savage satire - the corruption of the royal court.

Appendix -- Theory Talk #66: Alexander Dugin -- Other Books Published by Arktos -- Notes