Uploaded June 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Benjamin Teitelbaum is an ethnographer of contemporary radical nationalism in Europe, a performer of Scandinavian folk music, and Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology and International Affairs at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
In this conversation we discuss: the philosophy of traditionalism underpinning the contemporary far-right and its leading figures, from Julius Evola and Rene Guenon to Alexandr Dugin and Steve Bannon; the key principles of this philosophy: a view of cyclical time; a belief in a hierarchical caste society; an opposition to progress and mass society; the belief that we are at a time of disintegration at the end of a cycle; the disagreement between Bannon and Dugin on the USA; how Bannon and Dugin see AI; the ethics of studying the far right; the intersection of traditionalism and accelerationism; the place of Trump in history; the traditionalist vision, or lack of vision, of what the supposedly coming Golden Age will look like; the political and sociological implications of digital; Dugin's view of the new political subject (against the "individual" of modernity); and Bannon's view that Dugin is the key to turning Russia back towards the USA and away from China.
Find Benjamin here:
benjaminteitelbaum.com
and his latest book here:
harpercollins.com/9780062978455/war-for-eternity
Benjamin Teitelbaum is an ethnographer of contemporary radical nationalism in Europe, a performer of Scandinavian folk music, and Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology and International Affairs at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
In this conversation we discuss: the philosophy of traditionalism underpinning the contemporary far-right and its leading figures, from Julius Evola and Rene Guenon to Alexandr Dugin and Steve Bannon; the key principles of this philosophy: a view of cyclical time; a belief in a hierarchical caste society; an opposition to progress and mass society; the belief that we are at a time of disintegration at the end of a cycle; the disagreement between Bannon and Dugin on the USA; how Bannon and Dugin see AI; the ethics of studying the far right; the intersection of traditionalism and accelerationism; the place of Trump in history; the traditionalist vision, or lack of vision, of what the supposedly coming Golden Age will look like; the political and sociological implications of digital; Dugin's view of the new political subject (against the "individual" of modernity); and Bannon's view that Dugin is the key to turning Russia back towards the USA and away from China.
Find Benjamin here:
benjaminteitelbaum.com
and his latest book here:
harpercollins.com/9780062978455/war-for-eternity
