What is the relationship between Christianity and Neo-Platonism? In this video, Michael Millerman goes over Alexander Dugin's 10 Theses on the topic from ch. 6 of Political Platonism.

Since 2022, I have seen plenty of news, analysis and predictions about what is happening in the battlefield and how the war is going to unfold, not only by the mainstream media in my own country (Portugal) but also by my online friends.

On the one hand, the analysts who are pro-Ukraine have been saying for the past 4 years that Ukraine is definitely going to win the war, that Putin is about to fall/be deposed from power (they initially said he was very sick and had Alzheimer´s disease) and some of them even said the russians were fighting with shovels and brooms.

On the other hand, the analysts who are pro-Russia have been saying for the past 4 years that Russia is about to crush Ukraine, that Ukraine doesn´t stand a chance against Russia, that ukrainians are going to revolt against Zelensky because they oppose the military draft, and one of them even said back in 2024 that the ukrainian ambassador in London was being trained by the MI6 to replace Zelensky.

In this situation, I would like to know if you could recommend any source of information (either in english or in portuguese) that is (as much as possible) unbiased and objective where I can find news/analysis on the Russia/Ukraine War.

Leio que uma dessas celebridades de meia-caca, muito representativa dos tempos que correm, a cantora Dua Lipa, abriu uma secção de livros “proibidos e censurados”, que “desafiam o poder e a narrativa dominante” num projeto colaborativo com a livraria Lello.

Com curiosidade, fui ver que “livros proibidos que desafiam a narrativa dominante” seriam esses...

E, conforme esperado, é toda uma parafernália de obras promovidas e disponíveis em qualquer livraria do Ocidente e que abordam um conjunto de narrativas politicamente predominantes: desde as ficções feministas de Margaret Atwood (tão “desafiadora do poder” que até tem séries de televisão baseadas nas suas fantasias), passando pelos títulos de Alice Walker (com os seus feminismos racializados), de Ocean Vuong (com as suas narrativas LGBT), de Trevor Noah (com a sua crítica ao apartheid) e todo um restante acervo dedicado primordialmente a temas de ideologia de género, sexualidades alternativas, racismos sistémicos e novas vagas feministas.

O libelo de “livros censurados” que “desafiam o poder” é risível e constitui obviamente uma operação de marketing comercial dirigida aos imbecis.

Por “censurados”, entendem-se ali livros que foram removidos de alguns currículos ou bibliotecas escolares dos EUA, por serem considerados inapropriados para a idade a que se destinavam ou excessivamente politizados para ambientes escolares, bem como obras banidas em regimes iliberais não-ocidentais que não toleram a propagação das taras sociais e sexuais que são o âmago da maior parte daquelas produções.

O facto é que aquele género de livros está disponível aos magotes nos escaparates de qualquer livraria ocidental, e geralmente em lugar de destaque. São precisamente as obras que certos meios culturais dominantes mais difundem.

Aliás, no Ocidente, falar de “livros censurados” exige uma contextualização prévia, pois são raras as proibições jurídicas de venda ao público e, na era digital, mesmo os títulos desaparecidos dos escaparates de livrarias físicas podem, regra geral, ser encontrados online com maior ou menos esforço.

Um livro proibido que desafia a narrativa dominante não é aquele que é retirado de um currículo escolar dirigido a alunos de 13 anos e que pode depois ser comprado na livraria que fica ao lado da escola…

São obras que não são reeditadas, não são traduzidas, não são publicáveis, não se encontram expostas nas prateleiras das livrarias convencionais ou cuja narrativa é proibida (nalguns casos até criminalizada) pelo regime.

A lista desses títulos daria em si mesmo um livro, mas quase todos se situam nos antípodas ideológicos daquilo que a Dua Lipa e a Lello, com o favor da casta mediática, promovem e cujas adaptações e variações até se multiplicam em séries e filmes nas plataformas de streaming.

Livros banidos seriam, para dar apenas meia-dúzia de exemplos de centenas de outros possíveis: Der Mythus des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts (O Mito do Século XX, Alfred Rosenberg) ou o Gott und Volk (Deus e Povo, Hans Blöthner), ambos de cariz ideológico; de revisionismo histórico teríamos casos como The Hoax of the Twentieth Century (Arthur Butz) ou Nuremberg ou la Terre Promise (Maurice Bardèche); e nos romances teríamos épicos como Die Geächteten (Os Proscritos, Ernst von Salomon) ou Mourir à Berlin (Morrer em Berlim, Jean Mabire).

Vivemos num circo global repleto de palhaços convencidos da sua própria seriedade, onde os conceitos são subvertidos e a linguagem é manipulada para criar realidades alternativas que contrariam a verdade objetiva. Este é só mais um caso.

Texto de Rodrigo Penedo

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

“There is therefore only one categorical imperative, and that is this: Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”  This moral law, formulated by Kant in  *Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals*  and then in *  Critique of Practical Reason *, is vigorously rejected by Maurice Barrès in the first volume of *The Novel of National Energy*,  *The Uprooted *. For him, the teaching of German philosophy contributes to detaching French youth from their roots.

Maurice Barrès's *The Uprooted*  , published in 1897, describes the trials and tribulations of a group of young men from Lorraine. Influenced by Monsieur Bouteiller, a Kantian and Gambetta-inspired professor, they go to Paris to try to achieve a cosmopolitan destiny. The morality preached by the charismatic teacher profoundly affects them. In attempting to access the universal, the students detach themselves from their regional ties, their deep connection to the land, and a certain particularism. This "elevation" will, for many, turn into a fall, a perdition. Arriving in the capital, the poorest of the Lorrainers will find not glory, but only isolation and vice.

Bouteiller makes Kantian morality a rule of life. Convinced of the soundness of his teaching, he doesn't for a moment consider the corrupting nature of this law.  "Mr. Bouteiller establishes his dominance by deforming the souls of Lorraine, and at the same time prepares him for a broader role for which they are eager and capable."  In Barrès's eyes, Bouteiller's relationship with the moral law has a religious character. The intrinsic value of the categorical imperative cannot be questioned.  "In short, it would be absurd to suppose that a Bouteiller, who has taken Kant as his starting point and who now no more verifies him than a believer verifies revealed truth [...] can linger to weigh the consequences of his teaching and the risks of leading astray a dozen young people."

A disembodied morality

For Barrès, the categorical imperative is a morality of abstraction, a disembodied morality. As Péguy says in  Victor-Marie Comte Hugo: "Kantianism has clean hands, but it has no hands ." What disqualifies Kantian morality is that it does not take into account the existence of the flesh. The categorical imperative does not encompass the being in its totality. It is valid for a pure spirit but does not integrate bodily life, the specificity of the moment, or the urgency of the given context. It is an insurmountable horizon of morality. A law for gods, not for men.

But Kant is aware of this.  “In fact, it is absolutely impossible to ascertain with complete certainty through experience a single instance where the maxim of an otherwise duty-bound action rested purely and simply on moral principles and on the representation of duty.”  In Kant’s view, the moral character of an action does not reside in the action itself, but rather in the representation of duty that determines it.  “[…] when it comes to moral value, what matters is not the actions that are seen, but the inner, unseen principles of those actions.”

Kantian morality is the opposite of pragmatism. An action is only in accordance with duty if it is motivated by a "good will." This will can only be assessed a priori, by having access to the motives. However, this invisible dimension of morality, subjective and sometimes unconscious, cannot be objectively identified. Kant thus establishes the foundations of a morality that is not applicable in reality. Absolute disinterestedness, the condition of possibility for the moral act, is inaccessible to human beings, precisely because humans are not pure spirits, because they possess a living body that is situated in time and place. Human existence is necessarily embodied. Kantian law never takes into account this inevitability of embodiment. In addition to being ill-suited, it is sterile.

The morality of rootedness

But let's return to Barrès. His critique of the categorical imperative involves denouncing the reign of subjectivity. For the mature Barrès (the one who succeeded the Barrès of *The  Cult of the Self* ), an incandescent nationalist, the morality of action is never fulfilled as well as when it is placed at the service of the nation. Individual morality is secondary to destiny and "national consciousness."

“After their ambitions were revealed to them under the guise of duties, none of these young people wanted to remain in their native land, and they greeted invitations to choose a corporate environment with almost equal disdain. […] They wanted to be individuals.”  Barrès adopts a holistic perspective (the primacy of the whole over its parts). However, Kantian morality, while possessing universal views, finds its foundation in pure reason, that is, at the heart of human subjectivity. For Kant, what should guide my actions is the imperative revealed to me by my conscience. In Barrès’s view, morality does not stem from pure subjectivity but from the will to fulfill a shared destiny. The only valid morality is that of the land and the homeland. In this, Barrès clearly thematizes a morality of rootedness.

In  *The Uprooted* , Barrès attacks the government in power. Through the voice of one of his characters, he asserts:  “Always act in such a way that you can will that your action should serve as a universal rule. Act according to what is beneficial to society… I should have handed over Mouchefrin… I recognized that society, in its dealings with Racadot and Mouchefrin, had not behaved according to the Kantian principle… If the individual is to serve the community, the community must serve the individual.”  True morality, therefore, only has meaning if it is all-encompassing and serves the national community. If Racadot and Mouchefrin committed a moral failing by murdering Madame Aravian, it is this logic of uprooting that led to their downfall. If the two characters had resisted their teacher's injunction and remained in Lorraine, their fate would have been entirely different.  “Following all the ceremonies of this imposing funeral, I was led to think that if one wanted to transform humanity and, for example, make citizens of the universe, men of pure reason, out of little Lorrainers, out of children of tradition, such an operation involved risks. […] Racadot and Mouchefrin are our ransom, the price of our improvement. I hate their crime, but I still consider them, in relation to myself, as sacrifices.”

Kant's critique is explicit in this passage. By yielding to the temptation of both the universal and the individual, the group from Lorraine lost several of its members. The purity of Kantian law caused the weakest among them to lose all sense of direction. Only the wealthy survived. The dwarf Mouchefrin and the bull Racadot were dependent on the land they left behind. For Barrès, moral life is inseparable from this immanent consciousness. The soul is truly itself only when rooted. To abandon one's land is to lose a part of oneself. Kant wanted them to forget. They remembered, but too late  .

You can find the original article in french here.