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2022(6a)

The basis of Geopolitics: Geophilosophy

by

Marco de Angelis

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Printed publication: no

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Digital publication: yes, below

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A widespread idea at least in the West is that money rules the world and that the political struggle is merely a struggle for economic power through military power. However, this is not really the case. This is precisely the mistake that Marx made and which prevented him from developing a real alternative to capitalism. If we think that it is money that rules the world, we are wrong. 
Taking the current situation as an example is the now very clear proxy war that the US is waging on Russia via Ukraine, which, on its own, would never, ever have even dreamed of challenging the Russian giant, it is obvious that the US’s aim is economic, military, etc. domination over its competitor Russia and it is therefore linked to material power. But the way they do it, the principles the US follows to impose its dominance over the world (Iraq, Afgnanistan,Libya, Syria) depend on their philosophy, i.e. the English and Scottish philosophical liberalism of the second half of the 19th century. From there come unbridled individualism and economic liberalism, in essence the principles of capitalism. The same goes for China: it too intends to exercise its own economic and military power, albeit the latter regionally more limited, but it does so following the principles of Marxism or, rather, those it considers to be such. 

Europe for its part is in a strange position, as is Russia, since it is not fully liberalist, think of the Scandinavian or even German welfare state, the social-democracies then, but it does not yet have a clear identity of its own philosophical diversity from the US, and for this reason, together with the enormous lie of liberation from Nazism by the USA (which instead had powerfully financed Hitler in an anti-communist key, see the story of Henry Ford and his very close ties with the Führer), it is psychologically subject to a sense of inferiority to the USA. But we are not like them, sooner or later we will realise this and abandon them, a matter only of time and philosophical work, i.e. strengthening the identity of the European people, as I called it in my book ’Philosophy for All’.

Finally, and this is very interesting, Russia’s philosophical identity is not at all clear. It has abandoned Marxism and would actually be ready to join the EU, the social democracy, but they did not want it. One has to understand who and why, as Putin had given signals to that effect several years ago. Russia’s philosophical identity is a fundamental question, since its future and also the stability of the world depends on the position it will take in world geophilosophy. Now it tends towards China, of course, but that cannot work for long, since Russia has abandoned Marxism so it is in its own principles irreconcilable with China.
This is at the bottom of power struggles, which of course take place, but they are directed by philosophical principles, they are never the ultima ratio. The ultima ratio, what really distinguishes peoples and civilisations, are the underlying philosophical (or religious) principles, the values that inspire them, the ultimate motivations for their political, and therefore also economic and military, choices. If we do not understand this, we will never truly and thoroughly understand what is happening in the world, i.e. in geopolitics. Geophilosophy is the foundation of geopolitics (for some states we can also speak of geo-religion, e.g. for Arab and even African states, whose politics are inspired by precisely religious principles). 

As far as Europe is concerned, understood as the cultural space in which the peoples that form the hard core of Europe live, hence from Greece, where European civilisation was born, to Italy (the Roman Empire), Germany and France (the Holy Roman Empire), passing through Spain, Portugal, Benelux, Scandinavian countries, Eastern European countries up to and including Russia, in my book ’Philosophy for All. Manifesto for the Philosophical Identity of the European People’, I have attempted to identify its geo-philosophy, i.e. the philosophical principles that inspire it or should inspire it, as they form its cultural background. (The text is available to all here).

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