In Ukraine, the West,
modernity, and the New World Order have found its peras—its defining line,
its frontier. It is also where Nazism as the most radical modern expression of
the spirit of man’s abyss, destruction and chaos (aperion) is being unleashed from its bonds again and is now
fighting for its second life.
The unleashing of such a
destructive force, that is, a combination of destructive forces in the form of
Banderite fascism, thieving oligarchs, and an anti-Russian geopolitical project
or war by proxy is also the main reason
why Ukraine is now being destroyed. As
Lada Ray put it, “Ukraine is the
geopolitical fault line between the two worlds. It's the ground zero of the
struggle between the old and the new. A lot is being decided there.”[1]
In Ukraine, the ground of the
new order of human things is now being forged and fought over. The issue and
its antagonism is fundamental. It goes down to the very root of the question
about what it means to be human. The question has been posed again with a
great urgency and it has to be answered. If Nazism is back, then also
man’s very best needs to be called up to fight it as well.
To advance toward a better
understanding of such re-ordering and re-orientation, it is also necessary to look
deeper into the specifically political and othetwise concealed meaning of the
“principle at issue,” to use Marx’s expression. Conversely put, what is
required is exposing the otherwise buried non-standard, that is, critical political controversy—the great
political question—otherwise lost and buried behind our abstract clichés.
Specifically, here, it means to raise the almost taboo question of Nazism, and,
further specifically, the question of slavery or enslavement (as a process of
transformation and deformation) as it helps expose the political and cultural
mission of Nazism itself.
To get to the root of Nazism
and tyranny, requires that one grasp its political
meaning. In its essence, politics represents an antithesis to living all by
oneself. Man is by nature a political being, as Aristotle famously said. But,
again in this case too, one cannot just stop at what became a lifeless, hollow
cliché, but one also need to look at what comes after and thus follow the word
up or down into the actual thought hidden behind (which is, by the way, also
“the method” pursued here with respect to McLuhan’s “The Medium is the Message”
and the meaning of the war at the Ukrainian frontier):
Man is by nature a political animal. Anyone
who by his nature and not simply by ill luck has no politea [political order in him] is either too bad or too good;
either subhuman or superman—he is like the war-mad man condemned in Homer’s
words as having mo family, no law, no home; for who is such by nature is mad on
war: he is a non-cooperator like an isolated piece in a game of draughts. But
obviously man is a political animal in a sense in which a bee is not, or any
other gregarious animal. Nature, as we say, does nothing without some purpose,
and she has endowed man alone among the animals with the power of logos. Logos is something different from voice … Logos serves to indicate … what is just and what is not just. For
the real difference between man and other animals is that humans alone have aesthesis [thorough mindfulness, an integrated
common sense][2]
… Whatever is incapable of participating in the association [i.e., logos and aesthesis] which we call politea, a dumb animal for example, and
equally whatever is perfectly self-sufficient and has no need to (e.g. a god),
is not a part of politea at all. …
[Man] is worst of all when divorced from law and justice. Injustice armed is
hardest to deal with. … Hence man without virtue is the most savage, the most
unrighteous, and the worst in regard to sexual license and gluttony. (Aristotle,
Politics I.ii, 1253a1-1253a29)
Man is by nature not a lonely
Robinson Crusoe who treats all other human beings as a good Hobbesian would in
his “state of nature”—either as enemies to be destroyed or as slaves. Politics
is about how we live together and along with others. Nature and the meaning of
given politics is thus determined chiefly by how one treats and wants to treat
others.
Thus, in order to understand
the political meaning of Nazism, therefore, means asking (specifically and
directly) how exactly Nazism wants to treat other people. In this regard,
Nazism’s answer is unequivocal: if liberalism treats others (other than
oneself) as a commodity, then Nazism’s
answer to how others ought to be treated as twofold: either extermination or
enslavement. Either death or turning others into helots or slave labor, with
bestiality added to it. In this twofold treatment, enslavement is the use
of the other merely as a provisional and temporary exchange for life and death.
In Ukraine, such Nazism—the
radical meaning of the so-called Maidan Revolution or “Revolution of
Dignity”—was expressed by Tamara Farion, a member of
Ukrainian parliament, who delivered a keynote speech in the front of the
Verkhovna Rada in Kiev during the official, state-organized celebrations
of the 2014 anniversary of the creation
of the pro-Nazi UPA (the Ukrainian Insurgent Army). Her program message is a collective execution
of all who have a different mindset: “The ideals of WWII Ukrainian nationalists
who resisted Moscow should become universal for Ukraine… everyone in Ukraine
who lacks Ukrainian soul should be executed… and Moscow has to be erased, for
remaining irredeemable black hole European security.”[3] The Ukrainian Maisan “Revolution” is
one in which its participants were massively and with a gusto shouting death to
a whole nation—the Russians: “Moskaliaku na giliaku”—“Ruskies on gallows!”[4] On
this openly genocidal slogan, Y.K. Cherson dryly commented: “The famous slogan “moskaliaku na
giliaku”- hang Russians on a tree- can sound like a joke, but among the
Ukrainian youth of 15-23 years of age from the Western parts of the country, it
is no joke; they take it quite seriously, and the Ukrainian social forums and
media are full of calls to kill Russians …”[5]
[1] Lada
Ray, ”Is Putin part of New World Order? Signs
of the Times, August 15, 2014 <http://www.sott.net/article/285535-Is-Putin-part-of-New-World-Order>
Accessedon October 21, 2014.
[2] To
translate aisthesis, the key term
here, merely as perception is inadquate and misleading. A beter, more complete
sense of the term is ”perception by the intellect as well as the senses,” “discernment,” “clear realization” or “having full possession of one’s faculties.” αἴσθησις (aithesis) is from the verb αἰσθάνομαι from a Indo-European compounded root *h₂ewis (“clearly, manifestly”) and *dʰh₁-ye/o- (“to render”);
cognate with Sanskrit आविस् (āvís, “openly,
manifestly, evidently”). Henry
George Liddell. Robert Scott, A Greek-English
Lexicon, revised and augmented throughout by. Sir Henry Stuart Jones. with
the assistance of. Roderick McKenzie (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940), Perseus
Project, < http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=ai)sqa/nomai>
Accessed on October 21, 2014.
[3] Quoted
in Vladimir Golstein, ” Ukraine's
Descent into Fascism and How the West Turns a Blind Eye,” Russia Insider,
October 21, 2014 <http://russia-insider.com/en/ukraine_opinion/2014/10/21/07-17-10am/ukraines_descent_fascism_and_how_west_turns_blind_eye>
Accessed on October 21, 2014.
[4] A video
from a youth nationalist gathering in Lvov; the slogan ”Ruskies on gallows!”
starts at 0:10. ”Москаляку на гіляку -Русского на ветку,” <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofEF5l72sjQ> Accessed on October 21, 2014.
[5]
Y.K. Cherson, ” How the
USA Started a Civil War in Ukraine,” Cherson and Molschky <http://chersonandmolschky.com/2014/06/04/usa-started-civil-war-ukraine/>
Accessed on October 21, 2014.
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