Lorenzo Pacini (Italy) speech at the Global Conference on Multipolarity
Lorenzo Pacini (Italy) – professor of political philosophy and geopolitics, and Italian referee for International Eurasian Movement
The Star of Ishtar: multipolar symbol for a multipolar future
I would like to introduce the Star of Ishtar, the symbol of Eurasianism. The symbolism of this icon is so powerful and, in my opinion, necessary of a deeper understanding for the future of our world.
The star has 8 points branching off in 8 different directions. the centre is the spiritual pole, the unique core, the One of Plotinus and the Greek Fathers, but also the divine One that the Far Eastern tradition delivers to us. The eight arrows spread this Spirit to every frontier, tracing routes and writing different histories and anthropologies, yes, but all sharing the same origin and profound meaning. The 8 arrows are also 8 directions of building multipolarity, reminding us of the multidimensional approach we need. The reality in which we live is a fractal not only on the plane of physics, of physical science, but also on the plane of culture, civilisations, geopolitics, which we are discussing together today. this multidimensionality is now inescapable and reminds us that the world is a complex system, whose explanation is not simple and, therefore, we cannot discount or live superficially. Knowledge is a human being's duty.
Descending a little more into the esoteric, reserved, sacred aspect of the symbol, we note numerologically 8 points, where 8 is the sacred number of the beatitudes and perfection of a complete order, but also of creation and the passage to something new; it is the number of the Mother of God, She who generates the Christic Logos in the world and who redeems all humanity; it is the symbol of sacred geometry par excellence, where the 8 points bind and intersect, creating a network of lines, angles, proportions that open up on multiple planes and manifest the entity in matter. We thus have an extremely powerful symbol, a key to understanding the present time, which acts as a link between Tradition and exploration of the new, a sort of portal to the plurality of those existential dimensions of which multipolarity is composed.
We cannot therefore renounce this elevative dimension. The metaphysics of multipolarity is a metaphysics with new, unexplored directions. Accepting this is not easy, because it means having to give up many of our beliefs in part; but it is indispensable, because without considering all directions, even opposing ones, we will never arrive at genuine multipolarity. This does not mean that we have to give ourselves up or that we have to destroy everything. Multipolar nihilism is a matter of inner transmutation, not existential destruction, it is quite different. Here we are talking about becoming aware that everything is part of a divinely established order of perfection, where the map is not the territory, so our individual vision is inevitably imperfect and needs the support of that of others. Multipolarity is anti-dividualistic, reminding us of the importance of the in-individual, which is undivided, unique, whole.
The understanding of multipolar metaphysics passes, in my opinion, through the inner experience of death and redemption, of the alchemical transmutation that has a political aspect and effect, as Prof. Dugin has explained several times in his writings. Multipolarity must be a feature, a style, not just a concept, and that is what we see now: for years we considered multipolarity as a theory, today we have entered a new era in which multipolarity will be the main theme.
Multipolarity as an innovative avant-garde concept
Multipolar theory is a particular trend that cannot be qualified simplistically in terms of progress/conservatism, old/new, development/stagnation, etc. The unipolar view of history and, consequently, the globalist perspective present the historical process as a linear movement from worst to best, from undeveloped to developed, etc. Globalisation is then seen as the horizon of a universal future, while anything that hinders globalisation is seen as the inertia of the past, atavism or the desire to preserve the status quo at any cost. By virtue of such an attitude, globalism and the 'civilisation of the sea' also attempt to interpret multipolarity, which is exclusively interpreted as a conservative position of resistance against 'inevitable change'. If globalisation is the Postmodern (global society), then multipolarity is presented as a resistance to the Postmodern (where there are elements of the Modern and even the Premodern).
It is indeed possible to look at things from a different perspective and set aside the dogma of linear progress (or 'monotonous process'). The notion of time as a sociological category, on which the philosophy of multipolarity is based, helps to interpret the general paradigm of multipolarity in a completely different frame of reference.
Multipolarity as opposed to unipolarity and globalism is not simply a return to the old, a call to keep things as they are. Multipolarity does not insist on the preservation of nation states (the Westphalian world), nor on the restoration of a bipolar model (the Yalta world), nor on the freezing of the transitional state in which international life now finds itself.
Multipolarity is a vision of the future (of a kind never seen before), a project of world organisation and order based on completely new principles and foundations, a serious revision of the axioms on which modernity rests in an ideological, philosophical and sociological sense.
Multipolarity, just like unipolarity and globalisation, is geared towards the construction of something that has never been before, the creative tension of the free spirit, the philosophical quest and aspiration to build a better, more perfect, just, harmonious and happy society. But only the image of this society, its principles and values, as well as the methods of building its foundations are seen as radically different (by globalists). Multipolarity sees the future as multidimensional, variable, differentiated, heterogeneous, preserving a wide palette of choices of self-identification (collective and individual), as well as half-tones of neighbouring societies, with an overlap of different identification matrices. It is a model of the 'blossoming complexity' of the world, where many places combine with many times, where collective and individual actors of different scales enter into dialogue, clarifying, and sometimes transforming, their identities in the course of this dialogue. Western culture, philosophy, politics, economics and technology is seen in this future world as a local phenomenon, in no way superior to the culture, philosophy, politics, economics and technology of Asian societies, and even archaic tribes. All that we have to deal with in the form of different ethnicities, peoples, nations and civilisations are equal variations of 'human society' (Menschliche Gesellschaft), some 'enchanted' (M. Weber) and materially developed, others poor and simple, but 'enchanted' (M. Eliade), sacred, living in harmony and balance with the surrounding existence. Multipolarism accepts any choice a society makes, but any choice only becomes meaningful when it is linked to a space and a historical moment, and thus remains local. Western culture itself, perceived as something local, can be admired and looked up to, but its claim to universality and separation from historical context turns it into a simulacrum, a 'pseudo-Western', a caricature and kitsch. To a certain extent, this is what has happened to American culture, in which Europe is easily recognisable, but a hypertrophied, sterilised Europe, lacking internal harmony and proportion, charm and tradition, Europe as a universalist project rather than as an organic, albeit complex, paradoxical, dramatic, tragic and contradictory, historical and spatial phenomenon.
Multipolar versus unipolar (globalist/antiglobalist) Postmodernism
When it comes to the measurement of things in the world of the future, multipolar theory and postmodernism begin to have serious contradictions. Liberal and neo-Marxist postmodernism operate with the basic notions of the 'individual' and linear 'progress', which are conceived from the perspective of the 'liberation of the individual', and in the last phase from the perspective of the 'liberation of the individual' and the transition to the posthuman, the cyborg, the mutant, the rhizome, the clone. Moreover, it is the principle of individuality that they consider universal.
In these matters, the multipolar idea diverges sharply from the main line of postmodernism and affirms society, the collective personality, the collective consciousness (E. Durkheim) and the collective unconscious (C. G. Jung) at the centre of things. Society is the matrix of being; it creates individuals, people, languages, cultures, economies, political systems, time and space. But there is not just one society, there are many societies, and they are incommensurable with each other. Only in one type of society, Western Europe, has the individual become the 'measure of things' in such an absolute and complete form. And in other societies it has not become and will not become so, because they are organised in a completely different way. And every society must be recognised as having the inalienable right to be what it wants, to create reality according to its own concoctions, giving or not giving a higher value to the individual and the human being.
The same applies to 'progress'. Since time is a social phenomenon, it is structured differently in each society. In one society it contains an escalation of the individual's role in history, while in another it does not. Therefore, there is no predetermination on the scale of all societies on Earth regarding individualism and post-humanity. This is probably the fate of the West, linked to the logic of its history, but for other societies and peoples, individualism is indirectly relevant, and if it is present in their culture, it is usually in the form of colonial attitudes imposed from outside and alien to the paradigm of the local societies themselves, but it is the imperialist colonial universalism of the West that is the main opponent of the multipolar idea.
Using the terms of geopolitics, we can say that multipolarity is a terrestrial, continental and telluric version of postmodernism, while globalism (as well as anti-globalism) is its maritime and thalassocratic version.
That’s why, to conclude my speech, I think it’s pretty necessary to focus on our star as example, leader and vision of a multipolar future: the only possible, the only one with justice, with integral realization of human being, with a prosper horizon for all the lands of the Earth.
La Stella di Ishtar: simbolo multipolare per un futuro multipolare
L'étoile d'Ishtar : un symbole multipolaire pour un avenir multipolaire
Το Αστέρι της Αστάρτης: Πολυπολικό σύμβολο για ένα πολυπολικό μέλλον
