The Crisis of Modernity: Leo Strauss, Martin Heidegger, Alexander Dugin, Julius Evola

Summary

This video script explores the multifaceted crisis of modernity, delving into its philosophical, ethical, and political dimensions. It discusses the works of various thinkers like Leo Strauss, Heidegger, and Dugan, who critique modernity's focus on rationality, materialism, and the decline of traditional values. The script suggests that the crisis is not merely political but also deeply rooted in our metaphysical and ontological understanding. It invites viewers to consider whether the crisis is universal or if non-Western thought offers an alternative perspective, and encourages further exploration through courses at miller school.com.

Takeaways

• 🌀 The script discusses a multifaceted crisis of modernity, encompassing metaphysics, ontology, ethics, and religious understanding.
• 🏛️ It suggests that modernity is characterized by a crisis in our understanding of God, theology, and revelation, reflecting a deeper existential and spiritual crisis.
• 📚 The crisis is analyzed through the lenses of various philosophers like Leo Strauss, Martin Heidegger, and Alain de Benoist, each offering unique perspectives on the nature of modernity and its discontents.
• 🔍 Heidegger views modernity as a culmination of a historical process in metaphysics, leading to nihilism, and calls for a 'new beginning' in philosophy to reconnect with our traditions.
• 🔄 Strauss sees the crisis as a deliberate political project that has led to a decline in rationality and virtue, advocating a return to classical political philosophy for guidance.
• 🌐 The script touches on the idea that modernity's crisis is not just political but transcends into the realm of the human soul and spirit, affecting our sense of purpose and significance.
• 📉 It critiques modernity for promoting self-preservation and material comfort over the aspiration towards excellence and virtue, which were central to classical political philosophies.
• 🔮 The discussion also includes the potential ways out of the crisis, such as through postmodernism, a return to premodern values, or a reevaluation of the modern project itself.
• 🌟 The crisis of modernity is presented as an opportunity to reflect on what it means to be human, to consider whether we are soulless automata or divine sparks with a mission on Earth.
• 🌱 The script concludes by inviting further exploration of these themes, suggesting that understanding the crisis of modernity can lead to a more profound understanding of our place in the world.

Q & A

What is the central theme of the video script?

The central theme of the video script is the 'crisis of modernity,' which encompasses various aspects such as metaphysics, ontology, ethical and moral theory, understanding of God, and the human soul.

What are the key characteristics of modernity as discussed in the script?

The key characteristics of modernity include a crisis of rationality, religious belief, and a sense of direction. It also involves a shift from the classical world to a modern era marked by nihilism, relativism, and a degradation of values.

How does Martin Heidegger view modernity in terms of the history of philosophy?

Martin Heidegger views modernity as the culmination of a history of metaphysics, leading to a crisis characterized by nihilism. He suggests that overcoming modernity involves reconnecting with the sources of our tradition and a new inception of philosophy.

What is Leo Strauss's perspective on the crisis of modernity?

Leo Strauss sees the crisis of modernity as a crisis of rationality and direction, stemming from a deliberate political project initiated by political philosophers. He advocates for a return to classical political philosophy to address the crisis.

How does Alexander Dugin approach the critique of modernity?

Alexander Dugin critiques modernity from both premodern and postmodern perspectives, using a wide range of thinkers and ideas to attack and propose alternatives to modernity.

What is the role of the classical alternative in Strauss's view of modernity?

In Strauss's view, the classical alternative, particularly the works of Plato and Aristotle, offers a more complete account of human potential and an orientation towards virtue and excellence, as opposed to the modern focus on fear of death and self-preservation.

What does the script suggest about the relationship between the political realm and the crisis of modernity?

The script suggests that the crisis of modernity is manifested in political circumstances but has deeper roots in metaphysics, ontology, and ethical theory. It combines an interest in the political realm with the broader implications for human existence.

What are some of the authors discussed in the script who are concerned with the crisis of modernity?

Some of the authors discussed in the script who are concerned with the crisis of modernity include Leo Strauss, Alexander Dugin, Martin Heidegger, Julius Evola, and Carl Schmitt.

How does the script define the 'crisis of the West'?

The 'crisis of the West' is defined in the script as a multifaceted crisis involving ethical, spiritual, and political dimensions, which has implications for the understanding of human significance and purpose.

What is the potential way out of the crisis of modernity as suggested by the script?

The script suggests various ways out of the crisis of modernity, including reconnecting with traditional sources, re-engaging with classical philosophy, and critically examining the political and philosophical underpinnings of modernity.

Outlines

00:00

🌀 The Crisis of Modernity: An Overview

This paragraph introduces the concept of a crisis in modernity, touching upon various aspects such as metaphysics, ontology, ethical and moral theory, and our understanding of God and religiosity. It sets the stage for a discussion on the nature of modernity and the West, suggesting that it's a multifaceted issue involving a sense of direction, rationality, and the human soul. The paragraph also outlines the various authors and philosophers who have contributed to the discourse on modernity, including Leo Strauss, Alexander Dugan, Martin Heidegger, and Julius Evola, each offering unique perspectives on the crisis and potential ways out.

05:01

📚 Philosophical Perspectives on the Crisis of Modernity

Paragraph 2 delves deeper into the philosophical analysis of the crisis of modernity, focusing on the works of Leo Strauss and his emphasis on the classical alternative. Strauss's view is contrasted with that of Martin Heidegger, who sees modernity as a culmination of the history of philosophy leading to nihilism. The paragraph also discusses the approach of Alexander Dugan, who critiques modernity from both premodern and postmodern angles, and the traditionalist stance against modernity as represented by figures like Rene Guénon. The discussion highlights the importance of understanding the political and metaphysical roots of the crisis and the potential for recovery through a return to classical values and a reevaluation of the impact of science and technology on politics.

10:02

🌏 The Global Impact of the Crisis of Modernity

The final paragraph broadens the scope of the discussion to consider the global implications of the crisis of modernity. It raises questions about whether the crisis is confined to the West or if it has become a global phenomenon due to westernization and modernization. The paragraph invites reflection on the nature of the crisis, whether it's moral, spiritual, or a result of secularization, and suggests that the crisis may have been precipitated by a revolution in religious teaching. It concludes by encouraging further exploration of these themes and promoting the courses at miller school.com as a resource for deeper understanding.

Keywords

💡Metaphysics

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including the nature of reality, being, and existence. In the context of the video, the crisis of metaphysics refers to a perceived decline or confusion in our understanding of these fundamental principles, which is seen as contributing to the broader crisis of modernity. The script mentions a 'crisis of metaphysics' as part of a series of crises affecting modern society, indicating a philosophical concern about the nature of reality and our place within it.

💡Ontology

Ontology is the philosophical study of being, becoming, existence, or reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations. The crisis of ontology mentioned in the script suggests a problem with the way modern society conceptualizes and understands the nature of existence. It is tied to the broader theme of the video, which explores the philosophical and existential challenges faced in the modern era.

💡Ethical and Moral Theory

Ethical and moral theory refers to the philosophical study of what is right and wrong, exploring the nature of moral values and principles that guide human behavior. The script discusses a crisis in ethical and moral theory as part of the broader crisis of modernity, implying a concern that modern society may be losing a coherent moral compass or ethical framework, which is crucial for social cohesion and individual conduct.

💡Nihilism

Nihilism is a philosophical viewpoint that suggests life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. In the video, the term is used to describe a perceived crisis in modernity, where there is a belief that traditional values and morals have eroded, leading to a sense of emptiness or despair. The script mentions Heidegger's view of modernity as culminating in nihilism, indicating a historical process within philosophy that has led to a lack of meaning in the modern world.

💡Relativism

Relativism is the idea that concepts such as truth, morality, and beauty are not absolute but are subject to individual or cultural interpretation. The script suggests that relativism might be contributing to the crisis of modernity by undermining the possibility of objective standards or truths, leading to confusion and a lack of consensus on fundamental values.

💡Modernity

Modernity refers to the period following the Middle Ages, characterized by significant cultural, intellectual, and scientific developments. The video discusses the crisis of modernity as a multifaceted issue encompassing philosophical, ethical, and political dimensions. It contrasts modernity with premodern or classical eras, suggesting that modern society has lost certain virtues or insights that were present in earlier periods.

💡Postmodernity

Postmodernity is a term used to describe a cultural and intellectual movement that reacts against or comes after modernism, often characterized by skepticism, deconstruction, and a rejection of grand narratives. The script mentions the possibility of moving through modernity into a postmodern phase, suggesting that one response to the crisis of modernity might be to reevaluate and move beyond the assumptions and structures of the modern era.

💡Tradition

Tradition refers to beliefs, customs, and practices that are passed down within a culture or group. The video discusses the idea of reconnecting with tradition as a potential solution to the crisis of modernity, suggesting that there may be valuable insights or resources in premodern or classical sources that can help address contemporary challenges. This is exemplified in the script when it mentions the need to reflect on the history of philosophy to open up to a new dispensation of being.

💡Political Philosophy

Political philosophy is the study of government, politics, and the social order from a philosophical perspective. The script discusses the crisis of modernity as having its roots in political philosophy, particularly in the works of political philosophers like Machiavelli, who are seen as initiating a shift in attitudes towards political life. This crisis is characterized by a change in the way political life is understood and valued, moving away from classical ideals of virtue and excellence towards more pragmatic or self-interested goals.

💡Classical Political Philosophy

Classical political philosophy refers to the study of politics and governance as practiced by ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. The video contrasts classical political philosophy with modern political thought, suggesting that the former offers a more comprehensive and aspirational understanding of human potential and the best way of life. The script mentions that classical political philosophers oriented their lives towards virtue and excellence, in contrast to the modern focus on fear of death and self-preservation.

Highlights

The crisis of modernity encompasses a wide range of philosophical and ethical issues, including metaphysics, ontology, and moral theory.

Modernity is characterized by a crisis in understanding God, religiosity, theology, and revelation.

The human soul and spirit are in crisis, reflecting a broader existential and identity struggle.

The concept of modernity and its replacement of premodern eras are central to understanding the crisis.

The nature of the crisis is multifaceted, including a potential degradation of values and a loss of direction.

Nihilism and relativism are identified as possible outcomes of the crisis of modernity.

Heidegger views modernity as a culmination of the history of metaphysics, leading to nihilism.

Leo Strauss sees the crisis as a political project that has led to a lowering of aspirations and a focus on self-preservation.

Dugin offers a critique of modernity from both premodern and postmodern perspectives.

Traditionalists like Guénon and Evola view modernity as a form of spiritual decay and materialism.

The crisis of modernity is both political and transcends politics, affecting the human condition at its core.

The crisis can be analyzed through political circumstances, such as education and governance.

The theme of the crisis of modernity combines an interest in politics with deeper philosophical concerns.

The crisis raises questions about the nature of being human and the significance of human life.

Theological origins of modernity suggest a revolution in religious teaching as a root cause.

The crisis of the West may be a global phenomenon, with implications for non-Western thought and existence.

The discussion invites reflection on whether there are pockets of non-Western thought unaffected by Western modernization.

Transcripts

it's a crisis of metaphysics it's a

crisis of ontology it's a crisis of

ethical and moral theory it's a crisis

in our understanding of God and

religiosity of Theology and Revelation

it's a crisis in the human soul and

[Music]

spirit let's discuss the topic the

crisis of modernity the crisis of the

West so this is a theme that can

organize several different authors now

let's think about what we're going to

learn from it on one hand everybody has

to have a sense of what is modernity so

what characterizes the Modern Age the

modern era Modern Man the modern mind

what was the world that it replaced so

how do we assess the premodern the

classical or the world of antiquity and

what is the nature of the crisis is it a

crisis of common rationality is it a

crisis of religious belief is it that

somehow things have degenerated and

degraded because we no longer know who

we are what we're doing where we're

going or why anything matters is it

nihilism relativism what exactly is it

and then what's the way out of this

crisis do we have to go through it come

out the other end in a certain sort of

postmodernity can we pause it freeze it

remain modern but avoid the excesses of

modernity that bother us or do we need

to just reject the modern world and go

back so all of the authors that I talk

about on this channel Leo struss

Alexander Dugan Martin haiger n Schmidt

Evola recently they all are concerned

with this question so it goes without

saying for each of them that we are

modern and that we are in a crisis okay

this is a pretty common basis for all of

these thinkers now take heiger for

example heiger sees modernity in terms

of the history of

philosophy the gradual disappearance

from our attention as it were of being

itself and the culminating stage in

metap physics that he calls nihilism so

our time in modernity is characterized

by a certain sort of nihilism which is

the consequence of a history of

metaphysics in other words it's a

process that belongs to the history of

philosophy heiger who stands at the end

of that process is a transitional figure

writing about what he calls another

another beginning of philosophy a new

Inception

uh overcoming modernity overcoming this

dark KN of the Soul by reconnecting with

the sources of our tradition not

primarily in a literary way in other

words he doesn't say we should just go

read Homer until we are inspired to

become homeric Heroes he says by

reflecting on the meaning of the history

of philosophy we can make ourselves open

to as it were a new dispensation of

being roughly stated Leo Strauss when he

looks at the crisis of modernity he sees

it as a crisis of rationality a crisis

of Direction a crisis that took place in

the history of political philosophy not

through some Destiny like in haiger the

destiny of being is to culminate in

nihilism and a transition to another

beginning of philosophy but in stuss

modernity is a deliberate political

project inaugurated by political

philosophers for good reasons so when

makavelli writes the prints and the

discourses he fun fundamentally changes

our attitude towards political things

and our understanding of them compared

to the classical alternative and he does

this for reasons that are possible to

understand even defensible in a certain

to a certain extent though ultimately

Strauss is critical of the modern turn

and argues that we should have the

classics back on the table because they

oriented their lives and understanding

of things towards virtue meaning

Excellence both politically in the best

regime and personally in the best way of

life so you had a TS you had an

orientation you had a hierarchy of the

human soul you had something to Aspire

to something to understand and a more

complete account of the human being and

his Potentials in Antiquity in the

classical political philosophers Plato

and Aristotle first and foremost than

you have in the modern teaching which as

St famously argued lowers the bar it

sets a low but more easy to hit ideal so

if the classics oriented themselves by

Excellence virtue the perfect man

something that is rare then the moderns

Orient themselves by fear of death

desire for comfortable self-preservation

production consumption and things that

you can pretty much count on more than

you can count on aspiration towards

excellence and Perfection and yet for

stros as I say there's a crisis of

modernity we can analyze that crisis

he's got a great essay called three

waves of modernity which helps us to

distinguish the various uh key moments

Within in the modern period and he

writes a lot about the meaning of the

classical alternative in particular to

repeat the problem of Socrates and the

great lessons of platonic political

philosophy Strauss is indispensable for

us in trying to understand what it means

to be modern and what we gave up when we

became modern what it's still possible

to recover in terms of political

rationalism seeing and understanding

political life clearly Dugan another

figure who is critical of modernity and

he has various approaches to analyzing

that crisis sometimes through the lens

of the traditionalists like genon and

Evola sometimes through the lens of

haiger as I just mentioned and in

general I would say Dugan is in some

sense the

most far ranging acumenical and

multimodal critic of modernity because

he's willing to hit it both from the

classical side from the premodern side

from the world of antiquity as well as

from the postmodern side and he really

sets his aim on modernity and lets

anything that is not modern come into

the picture okay Leo stros in his own

way did this as well because he focused

on the medieval thinkers myones he said

that medieval rationalism is in some

sense a culmination of platonic

political rationalism so the medieval is

not backwards for Strauss it's advanced

in terms of its understanding of

political things modern man is advanced

in terms of his understanding of Science

and Technology but medieval and

classical man is advanced in terms of

understanding

the impact of Science and Technology on

politics and all of that okay so so

Dugan attacks modernity from the

premodern and the postmodern angles

that's why sometimes you see him writing

about duus for instance or reading

leftist authors and incorporating

leftist themes into his thinking not

because he's a leftist not because he's

a deconstructive postmodernist but

because he believes that that tendency

of thought and I have a video on this uh

on Dugan's postmodernism it frees up

resources for the attack on modernity

and it frees up resources for the

construction of a political theory that

is non-modern but not liberal communist

or fascist an important point for Dugan

but to go back to the main thing here he

is against modernity okay so Dugan is an

anti-modern thinker haiger sees a crisis

of modernity stuss sees a crisis of

modernity okay Eva gwon and the

traditionalists or genon and the

traditionalist they see very openly

explicitly and as their opening Salvo in

some sense that modernity is caluga okay

that whether we're talking about decart

or k or lock or bacon we're in a world

here of gross materialism and somehow of

not always and only of materialism okay

you're not going to accuse K of being

materialist in this sense but a sort of

psychic Schism and a world that no

longer is related in a meaningful and

well integrated sense to Transcendent uh

domains realms values and

aspirations all right so crisis of

modernity another good thing about this

topic of the crisis of modernity is that

it combines two themes that in my

opinion and in the opinion of these

authors it is profitable to combine so

on one hand it's the realm of the

political so in many respects we see the

crisis of modernity in

political circumstances you know you

look around and you see what are the

schools teaching what are the

politicians doing what's happening in

Parliament and senates you know how come

everything seems so degraded seems so

low so you get a lot of evidence in

politics for this crisis but at the same

time the deepest root of the crisis is

always transp political it's always more

than just mere politics it's a crisis of

metaphysics it's a crisis of ontology

it's a crisis of ethical and moral

theory it's a crisis in our

understanding of God and religiosity of

Theology and Revelation it's a crisis in

the human soul and spirit and and so the

theme crisis of modernity allows us to

combine in a very profitable way our

interest in the political realm and the

manifestations of that crisis in

political life so it's down to earth

it's real it's concrete it's practical

and it affects you you can see it you

can understand it and it takes us into

that deeper Dimension that really

concerns what it means to be human what

it means to be who are we how much does

it matter whether we are soulless

automata or whether we are somehow

Divine Sparks on Earth with a mission a

task a purpose and a fundamental

significance so that's what I wanted to

say to you briefly that this General

topic of the crisis of modernity is a

very useful one in other videos or maybe

in live streams we can go into detail on

some of the readings so for example in

this book by Leo Strauss the city and

man you have an introduction which talks

about the crisis of our time the crisis

of the West and which explains from st's

point of view how to make sense of that

why it should concern us and why the

right way to address it is to turn to

the authors he studies in this book

Plato Aristotle and thus

cities you know or we could pull up

passages in Dugan that show how he deals

with that problem but I wanted to give

you a highlevel conceptual overview of

this theme crisis of modernity it's

something that is all throughout the

courses I teach at millerman school.com

which includes these authors and several

others like Rabbi cichic Carl Schmidt

Arthur moer vandenbrook someone you may

not know or have heard of yet

crisis of modernity think about it let

me know what you think what is it moral

crisis spiritual

crisis is it because there was a

secularization or was it because there

was a new religious teaching so this

book I've shown recently on my channel

the theological origins of modernity

argues that it was not modernity is not

fundamentally characterized by

secularization but by a revolution in

religious teaching so that the

nominalist revolution in the Middle Ages

is what set the first domino in place

for modern liberalism modernity the

contradictions of modernity incidentally

a thesis that deep Dugan also holds in

his great reset book so what is the

crisis in your opinion how do we make

sense of it and is the crisis of the

West a global crisis is there still a

meaningful pocket of non-western thought

and existence that is spared from the

movements of Western man and from the

movements of the western mind or is the

whole world implicated in westernism

westernization and modernization these

are deep interesting and uh rewarding

themes to pursue I'd love to know what

you think if you want to know more about

what I think subscribe to the channel

and definitely check out the courses at

millerin school.com they're all about

this topic