I received some questions about how divine institutions are coming under attack by Russian and Western political theories, so I thought I would adapt the answer for our blog here:
Russia’s fourth political theory (4PT) is called that because it sees itself as coming after three previous political theories: liberalism, socialism, and fascism. 4PT borrows from each of the three previous philosophies, but it is most similar to the most recent theory, fascism. Aleksandr Dugin borrows heavily from National Socialist German Workers’ Party members, especially Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt.
Schmitt formed a philosophy of Großraum or “big space” which sees giant land masses and sea masses as needing to be unified under singular governments (hence the mandate of expanding the Third Reich’s authority to unite the Rhineland). Heidegger formed a philosophy of Dasein, which dissolves the individual into the collective “being.” Dugin’s interpretation of Heidegger and Schmitt sees the world as naturally dividing into great spaces, or “poles,” that are unified over collective Daseine. The emphasis on ‘being’ is contrasted to Hitler’s emphasis on race and Mussolini’s emphasis on the state (and further detached from liberalism’s emphasis on the individual and socialism’s emphasis on the community).
That is a nutshell version of the fascist presuppositions of 4PT. It also happens that wokeism shares common roots with National Socialist ideology (i.e. the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory and Giovanni Gentile’s ideas of state control). Wokeism wants to dissolve borders while 4PT wants to expand borders. The eschatological goal of wokeism is globalism and the eschatological goal of 4PT is multipolarity, so while there is a surface-level disagreement, both are rooted in the ideas of big space and Dasein.
That is what the woke and 4PT are doing. What does all of this have to do with divine institutions? The divine institutions are institutions that are ordained by God for the benefit of all of mankind, both believer and unbeliever alike. The relevant divine institutions are responsible labor, marriage, family, civil government, national distinctions, and arguably Israel and the church.
Regarding responsible labor, marriage, and family, both wokeism and 4PT are characterized by the collapse of the individual into the collective, which is a fundamental assault on the individuality of the divine institution of responsible labor. Wokeism’s relentless attack on gender undermines the divine institution of marriage, and in turn, corrupts the divine institution of family. Both wokeism and 4PT are traced historically to the Marxist notion of dissolving the family to the community, but while wokeism has “it takes a village to raise a child” as its war cry, 4PT is more subtle. 4PT criticizes the sexual ethics of the West and insists on traditional marriage for the mythological Russian Dasein (hence its attractiveness to some Western Christians), while at the same time recognizing a plurality of Daseine, thus allowing polygamy and other perversions in other poles.
Regarding civil government and national distinctions, both philosophies want national distinctions to be dissolved and civil government to be expanded. The globalist agenda wants a unipolar world, which has never been pulled off successfully (in all likelihood, globalism only be feasible during the coming 7-year tribulation). It seems that 4PT recognizes how unlikely the globalist project is, so it takes a smaller goal of creating a dozen or so governments instead of one. Of the two ideas, 4PT is probably better for Satan’s agenda as it takes baby steps toward globalism, but eschatologically speaking Satan does not need Dugin’s help to establish a one-world government. Interestingly, eschatology contributes to Western Christian attitudes toward the growing global conflict; the current rise of postmillennialism in American evangelicalism has contributed to a currently passive attitude as it depicts Christianity as a globalist power of its own that will eventually conquer Russia and the Middle East.
As for Israel and the church, this is where October 7th brings in an interesting dynamic. Both wokeism and 4PT are deeply antisemitic, so it should be no surprise that both Russian propaganda and the woke have been overwhelmingly supportive of Hamas, while Ukraine has been overwhelmingly supportive of Israel. The surprise (albeit probably not too surprising, all things considered) has been the division of loyalty among Westerners. When Iranian technology that was developed to murder Israelis is used by Russia to murder Ukrainians, the woke mob feigns support for Ukraine, but when Iran and Russia support the murder of Israelis, the woke mob shows its antagonism against Israel. Likewise, there are some Christians who believe anti-Ukrainian conspiracy theories and oppose Ukraine when Ukrainians face genocide, but when Israel faces Russian/Iranian-backed genocide, they fortunately see it for the antisemitism that it is. As for the divine institution of the church, Russian Orthodoxy is trying to oust true Christianity from the alleged Russian Dasein while allowing Sharia Law to normalize in the alleged Islamic Dasein and so forth. The failure of the woke to oppose the normalization of Islam is truly baffling as Islam is most oppressive to the critical groups that wokeism hails the most.
—Paul