In recent years, income inequality has become a major political and economic issue in America. It is true that, adjusted for inflation, average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory employees in the private sector have barely changed between 1979 and 2015. But wages do not provide the full picture of workers’ earnings.
Even if one doesn’t like industrialization and its consequences, one cannot escape the reality that what preceded modernity was materially, intellectually, and culturally close to zero for nearly everyone. Something is surely amiss when modern critics, enjoying all the material comforts and conveniences as well as the cultural amenities available at the push of a button, venture to dismiss modernity as if it were something even one in a thousand of them would give up.
Reflecting on the debate with Adam Kokesh and briefly replying to the hit piece written about me by a pathological skeptic, I give my response and launch into a lengthier critique of all modern revolutionary thought. This critique analyzes the assumptions of all modern liberal (nominalist) positions, from Marxism to anarchism to fascism.
Prof. Alexander Dugin is an author, lecturer and former advisor to Vladimir Putin. He was gracious enough to speak with me in this in-depth philosophical discussion that covers a wide range of topics, including: The origins of modern liberalism in the Enlightenment era, the problems of atomistic individualism, the anti-metaphysical stance of Anglo-saxon and Scottish empiricists, how this philosophy was mirrored in the Calvinist reformers, and the desacralization of Nature in the West.
