On Martyrdom and Beards

 

There are, amongst the names frequently mentioned as influencing Putin's drive, or bid, for control of Eastern Europe and the (re)establishment of a sphere guaranteeing this independence, one which is names quantitatively often but also with a special zeal. His name, as you will know, is Dugin, and his brain is - according to the proverbial statement - Putin's own. I cannot but shrink in disbelief, or at least frown, and move to a distance away from the proverbial speaker, not so much because Dugin's lack of enthusiasm as his laudable idealism and tendency towards the abstract. While hard-fact pragmatic can-do men can also be idealogical, such as Bannon, and the Rasputins of the world change its course from time to time, Dugin has that diabolical quality of being a man who actually believes in what he is saying, is thinking.