Abstract
The book offers a multi-level analysis of the thinking of American post-anarchist Hakim Bey, author of the concept of the "Temporary Autonomous Zone", and the Russian post-fascist Alexander Dugin, author of the Fourth Political Theory, who is very influential and controversial thinker and public figure. In spite of all the fundamental differences in the bases and conclusions of both authors, one can find a great number of the remarkable parallels that point to the more general features of radical thinking after 1989 and the symbolic "end of utopia".
Both thinkers analyze the significant limits of philosophical traditions, post-Cold War liberalism and its most important alternatives such as neo-conservatism and neo-Marxism. They offer the concepts that resonatedi in some political debates and allow us to understand a number of aspects of some political streams, subcultures, and social movements (squatting, rave or alterglobalization movement in the case of Hakim Bey and neo-eurasianism in contemporary Russia in the case of Alexander Dugin).
The book is divided into three parts. The first part is analyzing Hakim Bey and Alexandr Dugin as political thinkers.
This, in the first place, means to present their biography as political actors. We focus on the discussions of their key political concepts, focusing in particular on how both authors perceive and politicize the space and territory.
Dugin reconstructs geopolitical way of thinking and eurasianist ideology in very ideological way, thus for him land and sea becomes political and also spiritual categories, which he uses not only to challenge post-cold war spatial order, but also to challenge liberal and progressive concept of the time. Dugin mainly bases in particular on his own theory how he defined his ideological position to liberalism and its two great criticisms: communism and fascism.
In the case of Hakim Bey, he sees the Temporary Autonomous Zone as a specific renewal of Utopian energy in a space of temporary deflection. The second part focuses on the comparison of the religious and spiritual origins of both authors.
At first, we critically examine Dugin's links of so-called traditionalism. This effort is complemented by his highly critical attitude towards modernism and postmodernism.
Other subchapters deal with Dugin's relationship to other forms of modern Hermeticism - especially Aleister Crowley's magic and so-called Chaos magic. In the case of Hakim Bey chapter, we analyze his attempt to so-called coherent hermetic theory, which tries to integrate hermetic tradition, ecology and radically emancipatory social projects.
Bey's "green Hermeticism" relies on both the traditional European hermetic directions (alchemy, natural magic, astrology) and authorities (such as Paracelsus, Giordano Bruno, William Blake, Charles Fournier) and the mystical forms of Islam-schools. But the Sufi mysticism is Bey's reinterpretation is far beyond the boundaries of monotheistic Islam.
Another significant source of Bey's spirituality is shamanism, which he perceives as the "core" of all historical religions. It is the communal aspects of shamanism, hermetic traditions and Sufism are links to its anarchist political origins.
The whole text concludes with a part devoted to the literary parallels of both thinkers (especially Vladimir Sorokin and Viktor Pelevin in the case of Dugin and Chuck Palahniuk and David Mitchell in the case of Bey). Special emphasis is placed on the latest dystopian novels od Vladimir Sorokin (Day of the Oprichnik, Ice Trilogy: Ice, Bro, 23000 and Telluris) that create fantastic pandas to the political visions of the Russian post-fascist.
While the echoes of post-fascist ideas have found their place primarily in Russian postmodernist prose, the pirate and other utopias of the American post-anarchist philosopher Hakim Bey have their counterparts mainly in poetry.