Will Russian philosophy gain a foothold in Russia?  It already has, laments David Brooks in a New York Times op-ed (“Putin Can’t Stop,” March 3).  Brooks finds disturbing Vladimir Putin’s tendency to quote the likes of Nikolai Berdyaev, Vladimir Soloviev, and Ivan Ilyin; more worrying still, the Kremlin has recently sent copies of these three philosophers’ works to provincial governors.  An interest in Russian Orthodox thought has injected a “moralistic strain” into the Russian president’s speeches, Brooks argues, and said interest highlights the “highly charged and messianic ideology” now driving Russian decisions.  One gets the impression that the best-case scenario would be if Putin’s purported convictions turned out to be as phony as those of Beltway conservatives; what Brooks seems to find scariest is the possibility of the former KGB officer half-believing his own rhetoric about “defending traditional values to ward off moral chaos.”

Sincere or no, by recklessly destabilizing Ukraine Putin has set into motion forces beyond his ken:

The tiger of quasi-religious nationalism, which Putin has been riding, may now take control.  That would make it very hard for Putin to stop in this conflict where rational calculus would tell him to stop.  Up until now, we have not been in a Huntingtonian conflict of civilizations with Russia.  But with passions aroused and philosophic zealotry at full boil, it may temporarily appear that we are.

For Chronicles readers the irony here will be obvious.  A journalist who supported the Bush Middle East policy finds messianic ideology troubling?  A regime promoting global revolution and democratic “fire in the minds of men” sets the standard for coolheaded rational calculus?  “We”—i.e., Brooks’ colleagues in the globalist political elite, certainly not any kin or friends of mine—haven’t been striving all along to Americanize Russia?  Really?

I know just enough about Soloviev to say safely that Brooks’ attempt to link him to radical nationalism is intellectually dishonest.  The model for Alyosha—the earnest, selfless protagonist of Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov—Soloviev not only is admired today by Putin but was a favorite of Pope John Paul II, who in 2003 related with “deep joy” his support for those who would study “the treasures of [Soloviev’s] thought.”  In his Jesus of Nazareth Pope Benedict XVI drew upon Soloviev’s “Short Tale of the Antichrist” to highlight the ambivalent nature of biblical scholarship.  Scary stuff indeed—if you serve corporate sponsors who find a real God inconvenient, that is.

Moreover, Soloviev was critical of nationalism, which he defined as “the transformation of a living ethnic consciousness into an abstract principle.”  He preferred patriotism—a “love for one’s homeland,” which emerges from the “fundamental debt of gratitude toward one’s parents.”  Of course, per the 21st-century multiculturalist elite, a patriotic spirit connected to an actual place and people is indistinguishable from “nationalism,” and a “nationalist” is anybody who expects his people to study their own intellectual heritage instead of America’s (as defined by that same elite).  Such overweening imperialism can only be resisted by reasonable freedom-lovers equipped with fleets of flying robot assassins and fat checks from George Soros.

On second thought, trying too hard to prove that neither Soloviev nor Berdyaev nor Ilyin is “guilty” of promoting quasi­religious nationalism would be to concede moral authority to standards that have given us mothers in combat boots, a proletarianized youth, and the massacre of over 50 million unborn.  So the most important point here is not how superficial Brooks’ treatment of Soloviev and Berdyaev is—though before insinuating that Berdyaev was some sort of totalitarian mystic Brooks could have thought a moment about Berd­yaev’s warning against utopianism, which opens Aldous Huxley’s obscure little book Brave New World.

Rather, what needs to be acknowledged, and loudly, is that the philosopher Brooks dwells upon most—Ivan Ilyin—really was as hostile to liberal democracy as Brooks thinks.  So what?  Antidemocratic or no, Ilyin exhibits in his thought a gravity, depth, and insight woefully lacking among U.S. decisionmakers.  “Patriotism,” explained Ilyin, “does not call for the subjugation of the Universe; to liberate your people does not at all imply overtaking and wiping out your neighbors.”

Don’t expect the conservative establishment to heed this lesson anytime soon.  Don’t expect it to expend the slightest effort defending traditional values or warding off moral chaos, either, since only philosophic zealots—and the suckers of flyover country upon whom conservatives’ careers are based—take such causes seriously.