End Time – Tomislav Sunic
Over the last decades, Liberalism used Communism as a scarecrow. Today, however, with the bankruptcy of Communism, this mode of “negative legitimacy” is no longer convincing. At last, Liberalism will be judged for what it really is.
Fundamentally, Liberalism is a doctrine which, out of an abstract individual, creates the pivot of its survival. It claims that the ideal system is the one in which there is the least possible authority. From the social standpoint, Liberalism destroys the Nation and Historical Meaning by rejecting completely the notion of common interest. In Liberalism, only the game of individual interests creates a functional society – a society in which the whole is viewed only as a chance aggregate of anonymous citizens. The liberal order is believed to be able to consolidate itself by means of an all out economic competition; that is, by war of all against all.
In the liberal system, historical meaning is destroyed by rampant individualism. Individualism encourages the anarchic proliferation of egotism, at the expense of values experienced collectively and which are capable of giving a meaning to society. The individual no longer feels attached to those who surround him; he has nothing in common with his people. Since everything is equal to everything else, nothing equals nothing.
Can liberals in Croatia provide strong communal beliefs in view of the fact that Liberalism views the Nation as non-essential? Liberal societies encourage ‘narcissism’; they live in a perpetual now. In liberal society, the individual is unable to put himself into perspective, because putting himself into perspective requires a national and collective consciousness, a common heritage and a common loyalty. In liberal societies, the suppression of historical meaning, which lies embedded in collective values, leads to the dissolution of social cohesion, as well as to the dissolution of group consciousness. This dissolution, in turn, culminates in the end of History and in the end of time.
Being the most typical representative of the ideology of individual well-being, Liberalism is the main factor in national dissolution. The management of one’s well-being becomes one’s sole preoccupation. In the attempt to free man from all constraints, Liberalism, in fact, brings man under the yoke of other constraints. Liberalism does not defend liberty; it defends the right to individual secession. Liberalism robs man of his reason and deprives him of the possibility of having a destiny.
Liberalism can do more harm to Croats than Communism. It has already brought about a low birth rate, corruption, drugs and decadence. Liberalism has created, particularly among the Croat youth, a “have fun” mentality – that is, that everybody must be happy, beautiful and rich. It has provoked dreams of permanent economic progress. According to the dynamics of Liberalism, it may happen that the Croat people will turn into marketable servicemen, offering cheap thrills to Western liberal plutocrats. The Croatian Dalmatian coast may well turn into a duty-free region, where young Croats clean beaches, pick up condoms and entertain foreign sharks.
The end results of Liberalism have been very well described by the French philosopher, Cornelius Castoriadis: “Western societies are in absolute decomposition. There is no longer a vision of the whole that would allow any political action to be determined and applied”. Politics is being reduced to a delivery
service; a decision-making process looks like an economic command post; the Army is being transformed into an auxiliary service of the police; the State into the night watchman; foreign politics into foreign affairs; statesmen into managers; nations into markets – this is where we are today within the liberal system. This is a system whose shareholders have no options in stock other than to drug and sleep-induce their gullible citizens by means of violence, delinquency and addictive substances.
Liberal tyranny creates the illusion inherent in its own principles. It fakes liberty – at the moment when it oppresses it most. It resorts to more subtle means. The dictatorship of the media and “the spiral of silence” appear to be much more effective than communist death camps. In Liberalism, nothing has a value, but everything has its price.
The writer and thinker, Dr. Tomislav Sunic, reflects on
the post-communist era of Croatia and the Balkans, reflecting currents and trends in Europe and the Occident in general .This is taken from a collection of essays and writings that was published under the title “Cool Croatia”.
AUTONOM will publish more of his writings on this blog in participation with Dr. Sunic.
Mnnn wrote:
Liberalism? In English (the U.S.A) this word is used to describe the political “left”, i.e. social democrats – incremental socialism. What you mean is classical liberalism.
The hypothesis that classical liberalism destroys the nation and so on is actually absurd when you look at what the abandonment of liberalism has wrought. Liberalism was abandoned after the first world war (the wrong side won). After it came communism, fascism and social democracy. And the result of this is what we see today.
“The individual no longer feels attached to those who surround him; he has nothing in common with his people. ”
A welfare state frees the responsibility and cohesion of family and community. How can you possibly blame liberalism for this. Government schools teach homosexuality and everything the columnist is against. Under liberalism there is no welfare state nor government school. And what does he blame? Liberalism!
This column presents the polar opposite of the truth.
Posted on 22-sept-06 at 12:05 pm | Permalink
autonom wrote:
It is irrelevant what it is described as in the limited American political lingo. The ideological sources and historical events of liberalism, the Enlightment and its subsequent conclusion the American and French revolution, is the anti-traditional well liberalism and its successor Marxism is born out of.
If you bother to read a little history beyond the 20th century, you will learn that Marxism followed up the egalitarian principles of Liberalism and the French revolution to its logical conclusion, which in essence was the revolution of the materialistic and mercantile bourgoise against aristocracy, and marked the end of traditional Europe. A process that started with the fall and dawn of Medeaval Europe and the birth of materialism as the dominant over spirit in the European cultural realm.
Egalitarianism, Communism, Social-democracy, feminism, mass immigration, and most importantly the spiritual death of Europa are all children of your beloved liberalism. Wellfare state? Which wellfare state? What do you want, a stateless society, where the best and smartest will win the social game to the benfit of a greater all? Where the one who is the greediest naturally also is the best and most responsible leader? Sorry, but your utopia is utterly unrealistsic and even worse, objectionable in every sense to AUTONOM. And what does your rant about homosexuality have to do with liberalism? I thought at least a man could be free to do what he wanted to sexually under your prescious liberalism, but I was wrong ;)
In fact you should follow the autonomous principles as outlined in our manifesto ( http://autonom.motpol.nu/index.php/category/manifest/), and create your own mini-Liberalistic paradise, but I guess not being able to extort and leech on a greater society and others in order to show off you superficial status symbols, doesn’t quite do it for you :)
As for the Sunic text, he has experienced both Liberal-democracy and harsh Communism, his thoughts are not mere theories, but based on experiences.
I can respect a Libertarian survivalist, a free man, but not a Liberalist who seeks to use a society to his own mediocre gains, sorry.
Posted on 22-sept-06 at 9:11 pm | Permalink
Mnnn wrote:
“Egalitarianism, Communism, Social-democracy, feminism, mass immigration, and most importantly the spiritual death of Europa are all children of your beloved liberalism.”
Yeah, the idea of limitless omnipotent government flows directly from… the idea of severely limited or non-existent government? Sorry, that just seems crazy to me.
“Wellfare state? Which wellfare state? ”
Explain this question to me. I don’t understand it. Are you really trying to say that Sweden or the U.S. for that matter are welfare states?
“where the best and smartest will win the social game to the benfit of a greater all? Where the one who is the greediest naturally also is the best and most responsible leader?”
This just looks like the usual marxist blathering… I won’t even respond to stuff like that.
What superficial status symbols are you talking about? I don’t understand that. The idea that poverty in some way is noble and preferable reminds me of the totally discredited theory of the “noble savage”.
Posted on 23-sept-06 at 10:02 am | Permalink
autonom wrote:
It may seem crazy to anyone who hasn’t bothered reading the history behind liberalism. Didn’t you know that egality and universalism were the main goals of liberalism, which they actually achieved by decimating the last remnants of nobility and tradition in Europe.
Consumerism has replaced chivalry.
It is actually like Marxists claiming that the Communist regimes based on Marxism as their ideological foundation, were not real marxists, but they themselves are and they will be even better, when people like you claim that liberalism has not really happened yet, as if any society could exist in a perfect, pure, ideological state.
Non-existent, limited state? Who is going to protect your freedom? Why do you think that the most successful capitalist would be interested in preserving the freedom of others. USA is a great example of the opposite, where the big industrialists are partners of the state in order to maintain and increase their influence and power. It is a natural process, power wants more power.
Liberalism is about matter conquering the spirit, the minor ego defeating the greater ego who acknowledged that in a meaningless void only striving for the greater in yourself and others give meaning.
I don’t see this society as a wellfare state; I think the term is an oxymoron, as the states you are mentioning don’t fare well in either way you look at it.
Status symbols? If the gains of merit is buying a lot of tasteless objects without any cultural relevance or referance, endanger the future of coming generations by exploiting nature to its near-death, when the ability to consume is more important then the ability to produce, as it is in this society, it has nothing to do with the assumed nobilty of poverty or savagery.
Might and glory is something I can admire if it is glorious, spiritual and in a greater cultural and spiritual context. In a society where nothing is holy besides someones temporary ownership of som irrelevant goods, death and life is equally unimportant.
Anyway, have you understood the text? There is no-one defending an omnipotent state in Sunic’ text or in mine for that matter. You live in the illusion that either you are a right-wing capitalist or a left-wing socialist. I and he is neither.
I belive in an organic, hierchical society were power is given through your commitment, degree of participation, inherited duties and sacrifice.All within a natural and spiritual context. This is now long gone, but I am still waiting and striving for its return as in the Eternal reccurence, and knowing that this cycle in history is at its end.
That is why I believe in autonomy. That is small communities and networks of likeminded persons who in a certain period of time prevail within a state or society they are opposed to by building a nucleous of a future culture and society.
Some may say it is utopian, but in reality it is just simple means to an end; basic strategies for spiritual and cultural survivalism.
Politics are dead to me, cultural strive and creation is my way. You can have your decrepit ideas and your society for maybe another century, but I wouldn’t bet on it as things are tumbling down ;)
You can read AUTONOMs manifesto here:
http://autonom.motpol.nu/index.php/2006/07/29/autonom-autonomous-manifesto/
Posted on 23-sept-06 at 7:16 pm | Permalink
Mnnn wrote:
Well, if you make the same arguments as radical socialists and radical environmentalists, are you not a leftist then? You don’t believe the Western states are welfare states, in the sense that you don’t think welfare is big enough. This is extreme leftism.
“If the gains of merit is buying a lot of tasteless objects without any cultural relevance or referance”
Why would this be a “gain of merit”? I’m not interested in buying tasteless objects. I don’t understand these types of arguments.
“Consumerism has replaced chivalry.”
Exactly. But why? The inflationist creed is a major cause. If the government reduces the worth of money, why not just spend it right away? Why be chivalrous in a state where government is supposed to handle everything and chivalry is taught in regime schools to be “sexist”. Anti-liberalism has brought this.
“Didn’t you know that egality and universalism were the main goals of liberalism”
In the sense that there would be no king or “nobility” ruling over everyone else. Not egalitarianism in the sense of socialism.
“USA is a great example of the opposite, where the big industrialists are partners of the state”
Exactly! You just identified the problem; the state and its laws and its regulations. The threat to my, and everyone elses’ freedom, is the state. Just ask East Germans.
Posted on 24-sept-06 at 9:50 am | Permalink
autonom wrote:
The state and its laws are not the problem in itself, as even a strong state would be necessary to reassure the kind of freedom you are seeking through Liberalism. But I agree that a state that is just a mere frame,a division between people and its potential to fulfill its potential higher goals and gains, a state that is a mere tool for a power that is a hollow hull of what once was a people, an organic society, is a state that should be abandoned and rejected.
More important is that our culture is dying and has been in a near dead state for a long time.In order to resurrect, regenerate and even create our culture in new forms, but in principle and core the same as ever before, the state and the nation must be demolished. You should not concern yourself with that, as the state is falling apart and disintegrating from within.
Still Liberalism is not an alternative as it is one of the ideological foundations of this exact society we are experiencing now, where materialism takes the high ground over what the true purpose of any people is, to procreate and create culture, and strive for the highest possible goals and ideals while doing so. That is no task for the individual alone, althogh the strong and independent mind must take the lead.
For a different political input I urge you to read the French New Righ Manifesto of Alain de Benoist in the year of 2000:
http://home.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/debenoist/alain9.html
Although it doesn’t present my ideas totally by any means, it gives an interesting input to someone who is used to think in typical left-right terms of yesteryear, that is the ideological heritage from the American and French revolution.
Posted on 24-sept-06 at 5:22 pm | Permalink
Mnnn wrote:
The mistake you are making is that you associate liberalism with egoism, materialism and self-centredness. There is no basis for this at all.
“as even a strong state would be necessary to reassure the kind of freedom you are seeking through Liberalism.”
You don’t even try to motivate this assertion. I can understand why. It’s not possible to do so.
“The state and its laws are not the problem in itself,”
I disagree. It is the problem. The regime requires that you send your children to their schools to be “educated”. This is NOT a problem…?
Posted on 25-sept-06 at 3:35 pm | Permalink
autonom wrote:
Yes there is a basis for that, liberalism sprung out of the Enlightenment which was a rebellion against the the dominance and influence of the sacred over the spritual and political domain.
The individual was asserted as an independent entity against the previous organic and hierarchical society.
I have stated repeatedly the fact about the historical development of Liberalism, and you have not answered to this. The French Revolution was a liberalist revolution, not anything else in its core, even of you would say that that is not the Liberalism you believe in today, it is as patethic as a Communist who claim that the Bolshevik revolution wasn’t a communist revolution, but something else.
You on the other hand refuse to see and answer anything to the fact that Liberalism is a materialistic ideology and is based on the ego, unless you believe in spirits guiding the capitalist market to the benefit of something greater.
It is all about the ego trying to gain whatever goods for himself and for that cause alone under tha banner of freedom in order to make it look acceptable for anyone who thinks egotism is a rather low and obvious ambition, that doesn’t need to be enhanced further.
Yes, there are liberalist idealists that believe that freedom can bes asserted through Liberal democracy, but they mostly as you do, fail to see the fact that one will need a strong state to enforce the freedom literarily. Because who is going to protect you individual rights in a lberalist state against a strong industrialist or stock owner for that matter, that craves monopoly as everyone who gains power do in the end consciously or unconsciously? Who? Who are going to uphold law?
In th states it is the state that has to enforce anti-trust and conglomeration legislations. Microsoft is only kept undre control by these law of the state, without them they would have conquered the market totally, as an example.
You obviously havent’t bothered to read my manifsto, as you would see that it rejects the state of to day completely, and of course the schooling system of the regime as a problem, as it indoctrinates everyone to think along the same terms as also you do. But is is not a state in itself that pose the problem, but what the state is serving and how itr is defined and constructed.
The equal right of anyone to do anything, is a ridicoulous notion, because freedom is in reality a privilege that only can be earned through insight and realization of which forces that always will be governing you life no matter how, and has nothing to do with physical freedom. But waht you assert as freedom, the freedom og of choice, should also be a earned privilige to those who have proven themselves reponsible and who has dedicated themselves to ideal goals and actiopons of necessity on behalf of a society. Those persons know that freedom is in most cases is an illusion, even for the ones on top of the hierarchical ladder, as do the ones who is further down on the ladder; and the cloest you can come to a sense of freedom, is that your existence have meaning and purpose beyond your limited life span.
As of now I see as a prerequisite for the regeneration of traditional and hierarchical values, that the state and the nation state is demolished, but that is more a matter of time and is more an irreversible process, than an ideological, revolutionary process.
So instead of attacking som leftist ghost which you won’t find here, without proving or even presenting any of your own ideals, other than attacking the state like an infantile anarchist, you should really think outside the confinements of your ideology, and perhaps you will realize that the the freedom you are seeking is not to be found within Liberalism, but somewhere else, wherever that may be.
Just bear in mind for the eventual further debate, that my goals not are the same as most in contemporary political discussion. My goals are not democracy, freedom for everyone, a wellfare state, lower taxes or whatever gains. My goal is in its most simple term the right to live in and build a socity of meaning and purpose in accordance with my spiritual values as well as the spirit of my forefathers and future generations, regardless of what others choose for their lives.
Amen
Posted on 25-sept-06 at 8:08 pm | Permalink
Mnnn wrote:
I don’t really know if it’s meaningful to respond to the blatant marxism you spout here. Anti-trust legislation is just a tool for inferior entrepreneurs to punish someone for offering too low prices and better quality. You are openly saying you are against a market economy, which means that a planned economy would be preferable. How can you possibly deny that you are a leftist? You talk about how communists won’t see what their ideology results in… but at the same time you are a communist yourself! And how does an industrialist threaten anyones freedom without help of a state? Once again you do not explain yourself. A commie would use the exact argument you are using.
“The French Revolution was a liberalist revolution”
I’ve already answered this. It was liberalist in the sense that the rule of the king and special priviliges for nobility was eliminated. But by your logic the Bolshevik revolution was also a liberalist revolution because the Tsar was slaughtered. It’s realing that you do not bring up the American revolution since doing that would demolish your arguments completely.
“You on the other hand refuse to see and answer anything to the fact that Liberalism is a materialistic ideology and is based on the ego”
Stop this nonsense. Liberalism relates to the regime versus the individual. Not anything else. You still blame liberalism for the materialism that is the result of anti-liberalism of today.
The rest of your post is just a long, bad excuse for blatant dictatorship.
“My goal is in its most simple term the right to live in and build a socity of meaning and purpose in accordance with my spiritual values as well as the spirit of my forefathers and future generations, regardless of what others choose for their lives.”
How does this conflict with liberalism in any way? Liberalism lets you do all this, the state would stop you. Unless of course your “values” say that you enslave people.
Posted on 26-sept-06 at 1:29 pm | Permalink
autonom wrote:
It seems like the totalitarian face of Liberalism has showed its’s ugly face again. Just because one denounces Liberalism one is a Communist/Marxist, as there were only two alternatives in politics – that being a fundamental part of the Liberalist heritage, which reduces politics two a two party game in essence.
No dictorship doesn’t attract me as an ideal other than in a period of chaos and pseudo-democratic tyranny, but to a person who thinks that Liberal-democracy is the only alternative in mankinds history to dictatorship, everything tends to be rather simplified and narrow.
And yes I have mentioned tha American revolution in an earlier post, and i find that part of the same heritage of course as it was founded on the same egalitarian principles as the French, and just as reductive and totalitarian in its end, even more so in fact. Showing its true face in what is known as the American civil war ( or perhaps it was the commies? ;).
You even present the ridiculous and childish notion that the “best” industrialist/capitalist will win the market-game and will I assume not take control of the society by limiting others freedom – that is so unrealistic and lack any kind of historical sense or knowledge, that I am wondering if you are serious.
Just let it be stated for others that AUTONOM doesn’t want to be ruled by party, state or market, but by the guidelines of his own cultural heritage/ tradition, spiritual moral codes and creative futuristic innovation.
As you don’t present anything, but the same effortless attacks, there is no point in dragging this on – it’s getting old as they say…
I have been called a lot of things, but commie wasn’t among them, thanks for a new name ;)
Posted on 26-sept-06 at 2:15 pm | Permalink