Interview mit Tomislav Sunić
Von Alex Kurtagić ("View all posts by Alex Kurtagić"), übersetzt von Deep Roots.
Tomislav Sunić¶
The Liberal Double-Talk & its Lexical and Legal Consequences
Language is a potent weapon for legitimizing any political system. In many instances the language in the liberal West is reminiscent of the communist language of the old Soviet Union, although liberal media and politicians use words and phrases that are less abrasive and less value loaded than words used by the old communist officials and their state-run media. In Western academe, media, and public places, a level of communication has been reached which avoids confrontational discourse and which resorts to words devoid of substantive meaning. Generally speaking, the liberal system shuns negative hyperbolas and skirts around heavy-headed qualifiers that the state-run media of the Soviet Union once used in fostering its brand of conformity and its version of political correctness. By contrast, the media in the liberal system, very much in line with its ideology of historical optimism and progress, are enamored with the overkill of morally uplifting adjectives and adverbs, often displaying words and expressions such as "free speech," "human rights," "tolerance," and "diversity." There is a wide spread assumption among modern citizens of the West that the concepts behind these flowery words must be taken as something self-evident.
La balkanisation du Système ; Ernst Jünger et la fin des temps
La locution "la fin des temps" n'est pas sans rappeler les prédictions bibliques d'un cours du temps linéaire qui devrait conduire à la fin du monde. Cette idée semble être typique chez les gens dont la pensée est alimentée par le mental monothéiste et sémitique, comme l’annonce la Révélation présentée à la fin de l’Apocalypse (XXI, 1-2). Et j’ai vu un nouveau ciel et une nouvelle terre ; car l’ancien ciel et l’ancienne terre avaient disparu, et la mer n’est plus. J’ai vu aussi la ville sainte, la Nouvelle Jérusalem, qui descendait du ciel, d’auprès de Dieu, et préparée comme une épouse parée pour son mari.
Historical Dynamics of Liberalism: From Total Market to Total State
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL, POLITICAL & ECONOMIC STUDIES (winter 1988, vol. 13 No 4)
by Tomislav Sunic (University of California, Santa Barbara)
The purpose of this essay is to critically examine the historical dynamics of liberalism and its impact on contemporary Western polities. This essay will argue a) that liberalism today provides a comfortable ideological "retreat" for members of the intellectual élite and decision makers tired of the theological and ideological disputes that rocked Western politics for centuries; b) that liberalism can make compromises with various brands of socialism on practically all issues except the freedom of the market place; c) that liberalism thrives by expanding the economic arena into all aspects of life and all corners of the world, thereby gradually erasing the sense of national and historical community which had formerly provided the individual with a basic sense of identity and psychological security. This essay will also question whether liberalism, despite its remarkable success in the realm of the economy, provides an adequate bulwark against non-democratic ideologies, or whether under some conditions it may actually stimulate their growth.
History and Decadence: Spengler's Cultural Pessimism Today (part 1/2)
Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) exerted considerable influence on European conservatism before the Second World War. Although his popularity waned somewhat after the war, his analyses, in the light of the disturbing conditions in the modern polity, again seem to be gaining in popularity. Recent literature dealing with gloomy post¬modernist themes suggests that Spengler's prophecies of decadence may now be finding supporters on both sides of the political spectrum. The alienating nature of modern technology and the social and moral decay of large cities today lend new credence to Spengler's vision of the impending collapse of the West. In America and Europe an increasing number of authors perceive in the liberal permissive state a harbinger of "soft" totalitarianism that may lead decisively to social entropy and conclude in the advent of "hard" totalitarianism.1 Spengler wrote his major work The Decline of the West (Der Untergang des Abendlandes) against the background of the anticipated German victory in World War I. When the war ended disastrously for the Germans, his predictions that Germany, together with the rest of Europe, was bent for irreversible decline gained a renewed sense of urgency for scores of cultural pessimists. World War I must have deeply shaken the quasi-religious optimism of those who had earlier prophesied that technological inventions and international economic linkages would pave the way for peace and prosperity. Moreover, the war proved that technological inventions could turn out to be a perfect tool for man's alienation and, eventually, his physical an¬nihilation. Inadvertently, while attempting to interpret the cycles of world history, Spengler probably best succeeded in spreading the spirit of cultural despair to his own as well as future generations. Like Gianbattista Vico, who two centuries earlier developed his thesis about the rise and decline of cultures, Spengler tried to project a pattern of cultural growth and cultural decay in a certain scientific form: "the morphology of history"- as he himself and others dub his work - although the term "biology" seems more appropriate considering Spengler's inclination to view cultures as living organic entities, alternately afflicted with disease and plague or showing signs of vigorous life.2 Undoubtedly, the organic conception of history was, to a great extent, inspired by the popularity of scientific and pseudo¬scientific literature, which, in the early twentieth century, began to focus attention on racial and genetic paradigms in order to explain the patterns of social decay. Spengler, however, prudently avoids racial determinism in his description of decadence, although his exaltation of historical determinism often brings him close to Marx¬ - albeit in a reversed and hopelessly pessimistic direction. In contrast to many egalitarian thinkers, Spengler's elitism and organicism con¬ceived of human species as of different and opposing peoples, each experiencing its own growth and death, and each struggling for survival. "Mankind," writes Spengler, should be viewed as either a "zoological concept or an empty word." If ever this phantom of "mankind" vanishes from the circulation of historical forms, "we shall then notice an astounding affluence of genuine forms." Appar¬ently, by form ("Gestalt") Spengler means the resurrection of the classical notion of the nation-state, which, in the early twentieth century, came under fire from the advocates of the globalist and universalist polity. Spengler must be credited, however, with pointing out that the frequently-used concept "world history," in reality encompasses an impressive array of diverse and opposing cultures without common denominator; each culture displays its own forms, pursues its own passions, and grapples with its own life or death. "There are blossoming and aging cultures," writes Spengler, "peo¬ples, languages, truths, gods, and landscapes, just as there are young and old oak trees, pines, flowers, boughs and petals - but there is no aging `mankind.’"3 For Spengler, cultures seem to be growing in sublime futility, with some approaching terminal illness, and others still displaying vigorous signs of life. Before culture emerged, man was an ahistorical creature; but he becomes again ahistorical and, one might add, even hostile to history: "as soon as some civilization has developed its full and final form, thus putting a stop to the living development of culture" (2:58; 2:48). Similarly, each culture undergoes various cycles or different his¬torical "seasons": first appears the period of cultural blossoming or the spring-time of culture, followed by the period of maturation, which Spengler alternately calls summer or fall, and finally comes the period of decadence, which in Spengler's view is synonymous with "civilization." This "seasonal" flow of history is a predicament of all nations, although the historical timing of their decline varies with the virility of each nation, geographical area, or epoch. In the field of politics and statecraft, the process of decadence is very much the same. Thus, the closing years of the First World War witnessed the passing of the feudal rule of the landed aristocracy and the emergence of budding forms of parliamentary plutocracy - soon to be followed by the rise of rootless mobocracy and the "dictatorship of money" (2:633; 2:506). Undoubtedly Spengler was inspired by the works of Vilfredo Pareto and Gustave le Bon, who had earlier attempted to outline similar patterns of the rise and fall of political elites. In Pareto's and Le Bon's scheme, decadence sets in when the power elite no longer follows the established rule of social selection, and fails to identify internal and external enemies.4 Once it becomes emasculated by economic affluence and debilitated by the belief in the boundless goodness of its political opponents, the elite has already signed its own obituary. In similar words, Spengler contends that the rise of Caesarism must be viewed as a natural fulfillment of the money-dictatorship as well as its dialectical removal:
History and Decadence: Spengler's Cultural Pessimism Today (part 2/2)
Even with their eulogy of universalism, as Serge Latouche has recently noted, Westerners have, nonetheless, secured the most com¬fortable positions for themselves. Although they have now retreated to the back stage of history, vicariously, through their humanism, they still play the role of the undisputable masters of the non-white¬-man show. "The death of the West for itself has not been the end of the West in itself," adds Latouche.1 One wonders whether such Western attitudes to universalism represent another form of racism, considering the havoc these attitudes have created in traditional Third World communities. Latouche appears correct in remarking that Eur¬opean decadence best manifests itself in its masochistic drive to deny and discard everything that it once stood for, while simultaneously sucking into its orbit of decadence other cultures as well. Yet, although suicidal in its character, the Western message contains mandatory admonishments for all non-European nations. He writes: The mission of the West is not to exploit the Third World, nor to christianize the pagans, nor to dominate by white presence; it is to liberate men (and even more so women) from oppression and misery. In order to counter this self-hatred of the anti-imperialist vision, which concludes in red totalitarianism, one is now compelled to dry the tears of white man, and thereby ensure the success of this westernization of the world. (41) The decadent West exhibits, as Spengler hints, a travestied culture living on its own past in a society of different nations that, having lost their historical consciousness, feel an urge to become blended into a promiscuous "global polity." One wonders what would he say today about the massive immigration of non-Europeans to Europe? This immigration has not improved understanding among races, but has caused more racial and ethnic strife that, very likely, signals a series of new conflicts in the future. But Spengler does not deplore the "devaluation of all values" nor the passing of cultures. In fact, to him decadence is a natural process of senility which concludes in civilization, because civilization is decadence. Spengler makes a typically German distinction between culture and civilization, two terms which are, unfortunately, used synonymously in English. For Spengler civilization is a product of intellect, of completely rationalized intellect; civilization means uproot¬edness and, as such, it develops its ultimate form in the modern megapolis which, at the end of its journey, "doomed, moves to its final self-destruction" (2:127; 2:107). The force of the people has been overshadowed by massification; creativity has given way to "kitsch" art; geniality has been subordinated to the terror of reason. He writes:
La destruction des Allemands ethniques et des prisonniers de guerre allemands en Yougoslavie: 1945-53 (Ecrits de Paris ~ Mars, 2008)
Par les médias européens et américains, on peut souvent avoir l’impression que la Seconde guerre mondiale doit être périodiquement ressortie pour donner une crédibilité à des demandes financières d’un groupe ethnique spécifique, aux dépens des autres. Les morts civils des perdants de la guerre sont, pour la plupart, passés sous silence. L’historiographie standard de la Seconde guerre est couramment basée sur une distinction nette et polémique entre les « mauvais » fascistes qui ont perdu et les « bons » antifascistes qui ont gagné, et peu de spécialistes sont prêts à enquêter dans l’ambigüité grise se trouvant entre les deux. Même maintenant que les événements de cette guerre s’éloignent dans le temps, ils semblent devenir politiquement plus utiles et plus opportuns en tant que mythes.
Vilfredo Pareto and Political Irrationality
Few political thinkers have stirred so much controversy as Franco-Italian sociologist and economist Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923). In the beginning of the twentieth century, Pareto exerted a considerable influence on European conservative thinkers, although his popularity rapidly declined after the Second World War. The Italian Fascists who used and abused Pareto's intellectual legacy were probably the main cause of his subsequent fall into oblivion. Pareto's political sociology is in any case irreconcilable with the modern egalitarian outlook. In fact, Pareto was one to its most severe critics. Yet his focus extends beyond a mere attack on modernity; his work is a meticulous scrutiny of the energy and driving forces that underlie political ideas and beliefs. From his study, he concludes that irrespective of their apparent utility or validity, ideas and beliefs often dissimulate morbid behavior. Some of Pareto's students went to so far as to draw a parallel between him and Freud, noting that while Freud attempted to uncover pathological behavior among seemingly normal individuals, Pareto tried to unmask irrational social conduct that lay camouflaged in respectable ideologies and political beliefs.
"De l'esprit communautaire et communiste à l'étatisme fragile: le drame de l'ex-post-Yougoslavie" (Catholica ~ Hiver 1997-1998, Nr. 93)
Lorsque l'on analyse un pays éclectique comme l'ex-Yougoslavie, on est tenté d'utiliser une méthode éclectique. En 1991, un concours de circonstances diverses et convergentes a provoqué l'éclatement du pays, prélude à la guerre entre les principaux acteurs : Serbes, Croates et Musulmans bosniaques. Lors de l'agression grande-serbe menée par l'armée yougoslave contre la Croatie, et plus tard, lors de la guerre interethnique en Bosnie-Herzégovine, et après les Accords de Dayton, dont l'architecte fut le gouvernement américain en 1995, une multitude d'analyses sur l'origine du conflit ont vu le jour. Les crimes perpétrés par les ex-belligérants ont été décrits et décriés par les médias aux quatre coins du monde. On débat toujours dans les chancelleries occidentales sur le futur scénario militaire et juridique qui s'imposera dans les Balkans, notamment dans le nouveau petit Etat multiethnique de Bosnie-Herzégovine.
La Grande Europe et terrorisme intellectuel (Rivarol ~ le 16 Mai 2003)
C'est le 16 avril, après le oui triomphal (83,8 %) des Hongrois à l'Union, qu'a été "couronnée" à Athènes l'Europe de 25, sanctionnée par un traité de 5 000 pages qu'ont signé pour la France Jean-Pierre Raffarin et Dominique de Villepin avec la bénédiction de Kofi Annan, secrétaire général de l'ONU, sous l'égide de laquelle s'inscrit donc la "Nouvelle Europe". Un parrainage assez inquiétant, notamment en ce qui concerne la liberté d'expression. La police de la pensée est difficile à repérer car elle se cache souvent sous les concepts rassurants de "démocratie" et "droits de l'homme." Si les Quinze exhibent volontiers les beautés de leurs paragraphes constitutionnels, ils admettent rarement les ambiguïtés de leur Code pénal. Et c'est dans une grande discrétion que l'an dernier, la Commission européenne avait tenu a Bruxelles, et à Strasbourg des réunions d'une importance historique sur l'avenir de la libre parole.