Fall of liberalism: we are doomed to Byzantium?

submitted by Rakean93Identitarian socialist from self.debatealtright

Long story short, I listened a lot of podcast lately, even if I usually prefer to read books. My main goal was to understand the philosophical basis of the order that will be in place after the Ukrainian war. I focused on Dugin and Fukuyama because why not, totally opposite POWs. Since I already agree with let's say 50% of the stuff Dugin says and I consider the remaining 50% Russian jank I'm too Western to even start to understand, Fukuyama was the one that made me though mostly. In several interviews ( here one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lREenJ_6m3s&ab_channel=TimesRadio ) he basically claims that globalism failed, free market integralism failed, national identity is actually valuable and we need to consider that in order to defend liberalism, which is, in his opinion, rule-of-law and check and balances. Given that this particular definition can fit most of the ancient regime states, I think that the undertext is that he thinks that the liberalism he promoted in the '90s failed and is on the process of beeing trashed by history (he is trying to save some core parts for reasons I suspect being mostly personal).

So let's assume that liberalism, as a political and cultural system, is about to loose the battle for the world domination. Personally I don't need to assume anything, because I'm sure that the very clear russian victory cracked the system (even if the west will try to frame it as a Schrödinger victory, where somehow everyone is both looser and winner, even while the Russians will end up in cotrol of the donbass). But since maybe not everyone agree, let's just assume that.

This doesn't mean that the liberal order will immediately fall and stop to exist altogether: in fact is not unusual for a system defeated on the world stage to survive in the place it was born. Furthermore, loosing the global struggle doesn't mean that liberal (western) country are going to be immediately poor - which I think is a pre-condition for every sudden regime change. So that's my question: what do you think will happen, assuming I'm right? Western liberalism is going to get even more rotten and degenerate while the rest of the world march on new systems? We are going to have a sudden or gradual change toward a non liberal order? (and framed how?) Or we are doomed to the fate of Byzantium, remaining the last piece of an old empire that will be able to change system only as the result of a foreign conquest?

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[–]casparvoneverecBig tiddy respecter 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm cautiously optimistic about Europe. Young Europeans are pro-dissident right whereas older ones are neoliberals. Once the boomers die off, expect Euro politics to get a lot more radical.

[–]NeoRail 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

he basically claims that globalism failed, free market integralism failed, national identity is actually valuable and we need to consider that in order to defend liberalism, which is, in his opinion, rule-of-law and check and balances

This seems to be in line with some of the takes I have seen - I no longer remember where, maybe Keith Woods - that since the American global project has collapsed, they are now attempting to seize most of the developed world and create a new Cold War situation. This would mean another round of "national liberalism", or in other words, more slow collapse, until another opportunity arises for a complete liberal world order.

Given that this particular definition can fit most of the ancient regime states

I have to disagree, in my view the traditional European states relied on completely different, opposite set of principles - the rule of men and decentralisation.

what do you think will happen, assuming I'm right?

I think a lot depends on how the Chinese and the Russians handle their own internal politics. There is a very real chance that after Putin dies, the Russian system will collapse and be replaced by a liberal regime. Currently, the only thing sustaining Russian independence is the power of the ex-KGB clique that Putin represents - if their power fails, Russia will become a liberal plutocratic regime basically overnight. China is much better off, but they are facing their own internal problems - from what I can see, Xi is attempting to keep the Chinese oligarchs in line and to curtail the social rot that economic conditions, both positive and negatives, are creating in the country. It remains to be seen if his efforts will prove successful. If China and Russia fall, then the liberal project will succeed, despite everything.

At the same time, the West also has all sorts of internal problems. The issue is that in the West, there are basically no alternative power centres, and it is difficult to imagine that such will emerge in the immediate future. This precludes the possibility for real change. What is more likely is to see various flavours of liberal elites replace each other, but this will not address any of the main problems in the West, and because of the economic and demographic policies of the past sixty years, the number of viable liberal currents is rapidly declining. I think the most likely replacements for the liberalism of now would be either some sort of hard left, resentment-based populism or Trump-style civic nationalism that attempts to weld a nation together. France seems to be the only major exception where right wing political forces demonstrate some sort of serious activity.

Unless some serious, right wing reconstruction movement takes off in the West or the situation with Russia and China changes, I suspect that the future of the West will be more of the same - continual decline.

Since I already agree with let's say 50% of the stuff Dugin says and I consider the remaining 50% Russian jank I'm too Western to even start to understand

Dugin is a schizo, I doubt even he understands that other 50%.

[–]LGBTQIAIDSAnally Injected Death Sentence 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I think the most likely replacements for the liberalism of now would be either some sort of hard left, resentment-based populism or Trump-style civic nationalism that attempts to weld a nation together.

I particularly find this part of your comment agreeable. Essentially, I think the only two things that can happen is:

  • A doubling down on the Leftward shift occurring in late-modernity. This means that the problems consequent of our being poisoned are to be addressed only by taking more poison. This is the position essentially represented by Sanders, 'The Squad', Green parties, etc.;

  • Or, slightly reverting the Leftward shift occurring in late-modernity without altering any of its fundamentals. This means that the problems consequent of our being poisoned are to be addressed only by taking a slightly lesser dosage of poison. This is the position essentially represented by Trump and DeSantis.

What I do think, however, is that one of these two camps must prevail because the 'centrist' (by modern standards) camp represented by the likes of the Clintons, Biden and Bloomberg is simply going to lose the appeal that these two camps do. People on both sides of Western politics now understand that something is very wrong, but the Left-side of it have never been and likely never will accept responsibility for the decline, whereas the Right-side of it still agrees with the Left-side on all of the core fundamentals like universal adult suffrage, and only fights (and usually loses) against whatever the latest issues are, like CRT. Essentially, you have one side who acts ('Left') while the other side ('Right') has become accustomed merely to responding. There is no real opposition faction, only more-status-quo and less-status-quo factions.

Another reason why there will only really be two options is because numerous factors (such as Duverger's Law, that first-past-the-post political systems tend to sustain two-party states like America) will preserve the GOP and the Democrats. Direct political change cannot really come from outside of these two groups. The only ways that the two-party state can change is:

  • First-past-the-post disappearing. The outcome of this is that American politics will increasingly resemble many Western European political systems in that coalitions between parties are needed to form government. Nonetheless, I think all that would happen is that you'd see Democrat-Green or Democrat-Libertarian-Green or possibly Republican-Libertarian coalitions forming. This doesn't really improve our specific situation, because even the AfD (and even moreso the NPD and III. Weg, who are practically the only good guys) is shut out of all coalitions in Germany and thus any party even slightly better than the GOP, like the A3P, would also be.

  • If something leads to either dominant political party disappearing. That being said, I don't see the Republicans splitting at all (the Trump v. GOPe divide is the only chance of that) and the Democrats probably won't split until after America is firmly majority nonwhite (at which point I imagine they will start to become much more split between ethnic factions because teaming up against Whitey no longer has as much of an appeal when Whitey is no longer a threat). What would happen in that scenario is that some other party (probably the Libertarians if the GOP collapses, or Greens if the Democrats collapse) would rapidly fill the gap and therefore preserve the two-party state.

It is worth mentioning that activist or lobbying groups are becoming so powerful that in some Western countries they have higher membership counts than the major political parties themselves do. Political party membership counts in general are actually decreasing across the vast majority of European nations. Considering this, I suspect that people underestimate the power of activist, lobbying groups and overestimate the power of political parties, hence why the DR keeps trying to make political parties that have no chance of electoral success any time soon if ever.

[–]NeoRail 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I think Democrat centrists like Biden may actually hold their ground. They already compromise with the left on everything that is not related to money, and they have enormous wealth and connections, both of which are powerful tools in a plutocratic system like America.

Political party membership counts in general are actually decreasing across the vast majority of European nations.

It would be interesting to see if that also translates into lower turnout at elections. Unfortunately, there are still too many people who are stuck in the hyperreality spectacle etc. etc., but at the very least if there are a lot of people dropping out of politics, that would create a large pool of disaffected potential voters.

[–]LGBTQIAIDSAnally Injected Death Sentence 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Memberships in organizations of all sorts with few exceptions (including the activist and lobbying groups I mentioned, which seem to be bucking the trend) are declining. There is some sort of wider atomistic, hyper-individualizing sociological phenomenon occurring, one which is leading to people disengaging from being card-carrying members of all sorts of groups, including labour unions, whose decline has long been observed. Indeed, the decline of labour unions (and thus of the 'Old Left') accompanied Leftist parties essentially discarding their old, less trustworthy voting blocs and resorting to becoming the parties of 'post-materialist' voters.

I think that we can see these parties changing their voting blocs again, by trading out 'post-materialist' Whites, who cannot always be counted on because of their declining numbers and so forth, for various nonwhite groups. So the Tucker Carlson types who say that mass immigration is solely to change election results are not wrong, they're just missing other things.

'Post-materialist' is essentially social-scientific jargon denoting people who, due to rising wealth, are economically comfortable enough and have primarily non-economic concerns, such as self-actualization. This of course ties in with all the extreme 'wokeness' that some, who conceptualize Left and Right only economistically, deny is even Left-wing. Of course, I do not mean to suggest that 'wokeness' is reducible to a mere side effect of economic success.

That being said, people ceasing being card-carrying members of political parties does not necessarily indicate that people are becoming disaffected with party politics more generally. They may be among the very same people taking up memberships in the growing activist, lobbying groups instead.

I haven't looked at whether voter turnout is also being reduced at the same time as party membership count decline. The closest thing that I can offer is that American voter turnout was far higher back in the 19th century (the record is an astonishing 81.8% in 1876), and it is unlikely that many 'postmaterialists' existed at that time. My feeling is thus that voter turnout is also declining alongside party membership count. Of course, it is not clear whether that means that they are more likely to engage with other political parties like those of the DR, like Patriotic Alternative and AJP, because they're just disengaging from almost every type of institution, irrespective of whether they are pro- or anti-System.

[–]LGBTQIAIDSAnally Injected Death Sentence 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Fukuyama's views are essentially:

  • Liberalism is the ideal political ideology;

  • Democracy is the ideal political system;

  • The development of liberalism is inevitable (it will eventually destroy Islam, conservatism, Marxism and anything else that deviates in some way from liberalism);

  • The development of democracy is inevitable (authoritarian regimes like those in Venezuela are doomed to be replaced by 'liberal democracy', populists like Orban will also fail to move towards 'illiberal democracy');

  • The Far-Right (of which he seems to think Nietzsche is essentially part, similar to his teacher Allan Bloom, who also identifies Nietzsche with the Right) is very bad;

  • The Far-Left (of which he mostly thinks of as Marxism) is also bad, but not as bad as the Far-Right;

  • Trump bad, Obama, Clinton and Biden good;

  • The only acceptable forms of national identity are 'creedal', ascriptivist forms of national identity (e.g. ethnonationalism) are bad. I think he's on the Left-wing of Civic Nationalism;

  • Problems with 'liberal democracy' can only be solved by even more 'liberal democracy', that is, they come from too little 'liberal democracy' rather than too much;

Three things that come to mind that I have no confirmation of:

  • I think he is wary of 'The Squad' but still prefers them over Trump, which is why he's an Obama/Clinton/Biden Democrat and has probably voted straight Democrat since 2008 or even 2004;

  • I think he would choose liberal-progressivism over democracy if forced to choose: he'd rather a 'progressive' undemocratic regime than a conservative democratic regime. This is why he's become a mild Civic Nationalist: he, I think, has slowly realized that atomistic hyperindividualism is corrosive and unsustainable, and hopes that a 'creedal', Civic Nationalism can save liberalism from collapse and replacement by something like what Orban offers (which is clearly unacceptable to Fukuyama, for who liberalism must be saved by all means necessary);

  • I think his conversion from Republican to Democrat is representative of a wider process that will likely occur in all democracies that become too liberal, especially that become multiracial: that is, the general replacement of ideology with identity. In other words, Fukuyama started to care less about his liberal triumphalist ideology in the Bush era (belief in which perfectly augmented him being a Republican) and aligned with his immediate racial interests as a nonwhite combatant in an informal racial war over control of the United States (which are better served by the Democrats). This is probably why he has backed away from some of his claims since he was catapulted to fame in 1989. But I've heard nothing which suggests that he's rejected the core liberal triumphalist beliefs that made him famous in the first place, he's only changed peripheral beliefs.

I don't really know what Dugin believes in order to comfortably contrast the two.

As for my view on Fukuyama, I think that Fukuyama is probably right in his core argument that 'liberal democracy' will eventually take over everything, though I believe it has very little if anything to do with the thumos or recognition he believes is the prime mover behind this development. The only difference is the value-judgement to which I apply to it: For Fukuyama, 'liberal democracy' will perfect the world, whereas my view is precisely the opposite, that it will literally extinguish the world (i.e. reduce all birth rates to zero if given long enough, through a very wide range of proximate causes in which 'liberal democracy' plays a clear causal role, such as feminism and transsexualism).

[–]EthnocratArcheofuturist 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

of which he seems to think Nietzsche is essentially part

Nietzsche's message is far-right. His ideas were a major inspiration for fascism. Mussolini himself translated his work from German to Italian.

[–]Rakean93Identitarian socialist[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Nietzsche is a wild card, like Wittgenstein, Gramsci, Heidegger and so on. Everyone is using them for extremely different purposes, mostly because the reality they were grounded in is gone and all it's left is an interesting way to think the world.

[–]EthnocratArcheofuturist 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Yes and no. It's true the Nouvelle Droite used Gramsci's ideas, but there's no doubt about the fact that Gramsci was an avowed Marxist who would have opposed them. The same is true for Nietzsche and Heidegger in the opposite direction. They were both fundamentally opposed to egalitarianism and universalism, which makes them right-wing by definition. Heidegger himself was a member of the NSDAP and never rebuked it. There are indeed left-wing Nietzscheans and Heideggerians, but I fail to see how they could use their work for left-wing purposes. With Gramsci it's much clearer because his concept of cultural hegemony could be used by pretty much any political force.

[–]Rakean93Identitarian socialist[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

When I was at the university my course of philosophy of the language started with an extensive account about Nietzsche; the professor, however, was a prominent member of the left, involved in local and national politics. So here we are, the left is definitely using his works. Moreover, Nietzsche at first was more of a anarchist philosopher than a fascist one - in fact, rhe zarist regime was concerned about "nihilist and communist attacks" just before the revolution. Anarchists still like Nietzsche, and they mostly identify themselves as left.

But except for the case of Nietzsche, which was pretty much contested from the beginning, the point is simply that philosophy doesn't work as coherent blocks, so everyone now is using those authors even if they don't agree with everything they said. The whole nouvelle droit is quite composite, but if we speak about Alain de Benoist, I'm pretty confident that the most important single figures inspiring him are Gramsci and Dumezil, the first providing the method, the latter the content. It doesn't matter that Gramsci would have sided with the left if he was still alive.

Lastly, universalism is both left and right. The opposite of universalism is relativism, which used to be mostly leftish, so I would argue that if we are going to not consider the last 40 years, universalism is pretty much right wing. I'm strongly against universalism and that's why I don't like biological racism, racialism, iq and similar stuff: I don't care if they are true or not, because I don't think that any kind of measurement can be done speaking about races. Every evaluation must be subjective, which on this case means ethnocentric. And i would like to point out, since I have the opportunity, that ethnocentrism itself as a concept was divulgated by Levy Strauss, who was a Jew and started as a Marxist. So there's another example of what I'm trying to say.

[–]LGBTQIAIDSAnally Injected Death Sentence 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I take your side on the matter of the philosophers. Leftists commonly misappropriate Right-wing thought in order to repurpose it for purposes they consider 'emancipatory' or 'liberatory' or whatever. However, some feel a great deal of guilt about doing this at times.

You can see this in the way that Mouffe and Agamben (both Far-Left) misappropriate, but unapologetically so far as I know, off of Schmitt.

And in the way that Marcuse misappropriated Heidegger in the hope of fusing his ideas with the garbage of Marx. Marcuse felt exceptionally wrong in doing this and essentially discarded this project in the 1930s (probably upon realizing that Heidegger had joined the NSDAP). However, even today, some tankie morons still praise Heidegger and wish to misappropriate his ideas again.

And in the way that Horkheimer misappropriated Schopenhauer, and some might put Hegel himself on the Right as well, and thus claim that Horkheimer has misappropriated two thinkers. Furthermore, if one believes that Hegel is indeed of the Right, then they must conclude that all of Marxism has misappropriated Right-wing thought at its very base.

You're spot on about Nietzsche. If one goes back to the 1890s or so, his main supporters are essentially anarchists (indeed, one of the American anarchist leaders called him an 'honourary anarchist' or something very similar, but did admit that Nietzsche was no friend of anarchism). I have encountered the same thing in reading of Nietzsche's initial reception in Japan. There he was also again adopted by the Left. The 'Right-wing Nietzsche' seems to me a later phenomenon.

While not related to social thought per se, it is also similar to the way that Adorno felt immense guilt over liking Wagner's music, clearly believing that Wagner was an evil proto-fascist. I imagine he probably felt that in liking Wagner he was in some way complicit with fascism, connecting with it, or found that the music revealed a sort of 'fascism' within himself that he wished was not there, or something similarly silly. I think this is what happens when your artistic tastes clash with your ideology: the former tempts you to embrace the proto-fascist, but the latter tells you that you are dirtying, demeaning, lowering yourself by embracing the proto-fascist.

I agree with your second paragraph. I am also piecing things together from different thinkers and do not commit myself to any particular one. Many people who are self-proclaimed Marxists probably have far more influence from more contemporary feminist and queer 'thought' than from Marxism itself. And if they were smart enough to read and comprehend their works, they'd probably soon realize that they're closer to someone like 'Butler' or Foucault than to Marx.

However, most self-proclaimed Marxists are probably just idiots who have subscribed to some 'tankie' or 'BreadTube' video creator, have watched a few videos and thought: "Hey, this guy is pretty cool, and what he's talking about sounds pretty cool, I think I'll subscribe to him and call myself a Marxist from now on!"

[–]Wrangel 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

The US has declined from 50% of global gdp post wwii to 16% of global gdp today. Russia isn't going to defeat the west or liberalism, it is going to be a combination of many factors. The rise of China, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, turkey, gulf states, Iran, etc. provides a large illiberal block. A Kenyan diplomat said that when China visits they get a hospital, when the UK visits they get a lecture.

The developing countries are tired of the meddling of the west. They don't want trade deals that are full of rules and constraints imposed on them. They are treated like children by the US and they are tired of it. Even Saudi Arabia has sour relations with the US. They are fed up with being bossed around with and pretty much everything they need can be bought from China.

Keeping a global empire together is difficult and when other countries increasingly have a will of their own and modern weapons it becomes increasingly difficult to bully the rest of the world into submission.

Another big factor is the decline of the imperial core. The west is declining in iq, there is far more corruption in the west than there was before, diversity is ruining institutions and we are increasingly struggling to keep things going.

Liberalism will increasingly fall apart as local leaders develop a stronger will of their own and deal with each other rather than liberal institutions.

[–]NeoRail 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

I don't know about Pakistan, but to my knowledge India is very much a liberal state. The only thing special about it is its non-aligned foreign policy.

[–]EthnocratArcheofuturist 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I wouldn't call Modi a liberal.

[–]ifuckredditsnitches_Resident Pajeet 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Domestically he is absolutely an egalitarian leftist in the same line as people like Mandela, MLK, and crucially in the Indian context, Ambedkar. He has massively increased gibs and affirmative action for all minorities beyond any previous administration of any ideological character. He has done very little on the other hand to actually further the demographics who actually vote for him and maintain Indian society at large.

However at the same time India doesn't really align within the same foreign policy block as the liberal US either, given India's inclinations towards Russia, Iran, and historically even Palestine. To be honest I think Modi personally wants to realign towards the US/Israel just based on some of the statements his party has done but the bureaucratic inertia within India is too far within the orbit of Russia to effectively do so.

[–]NeoRail 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

/u/ifuckredditsnitches_ can probably shed more light on the matter, but my understanding is that Modi simply applies a nationalist, religious coat of paint to the liberal democratic Indian state.

[–]ifuckredditsnitches_Resident Pajeet 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Yes though with foreign policy things get a little more complicated. Since India is dependent on Russia for weapons systems, America has always been scathing in attacks towards India and fomenting color revolutions within. The most effective color revolution was probably the Khalistan movement but more recently you have the CAA protests and farmers protests that were widely astroturfed on western media. So this is how you get a country that is both domestically in line with American policy but at the same time is one of the major forces against the GAE (unintentionally).

[–]NeoRail 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Interesting. I did not realise that the USA meddled in Indian internal politics as well.

Pinging /u/Ethnocrat in case he's interested in this.

[–]ifuckredditsnitches_Resident Pajeet 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Pakistan historically is illiberal but is a US client state foreign policy wise. India is the exact opposite. It's a clusterfuck over there, especially when you get into the US backing Pakistan and China against India while simultaneously backing India against those two.

[–]NeoRail 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

especially when you get into the US backing Pakistan and China against India while simultaneously backing India against those two.

American Empire moment.