Russian Liberalism
Paul Robinson, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen
I had a conversation with Professor Paul Robinson and Alexander Mercouris about Russian liberalism. Liberalism elevates the individual above the group, yet there is no clear definition of liberal policies. Big government can encroach on individual rights, yet it can also defend the individual's rights from the concentration of economic power and an oligarchy. While Russians are in favour of the freedom of the individual, liberals are commonly perceived negatively due to their anti-government stance, their hostility towards Russian traditions, and a tendency to be used by foreign powers against their own country. Liberalism is commonly recognised as a revolutionary ideology as it aims to liberate the individual from something. In Russia, liberalism often manifests itself more radically by seeking to remake Russia in the West’s image. Can liberalism be an organic and moderate part of the Russian political system, or is it destined to be revolutionary by uprooting and discarding what came before?
Professor Paul Robinson’s book on Russian liberalism can be found here: https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501772177/russian-liberalism/
Your definition of liberalism - more specifically Western liberalism - is a core component of Western imperialism. In fact all Western instruments - ideological, repressive, economic, cultural, and so on - are bad faith representations of painfully anachronistic concepts that are designed to distract, and ultimately serve only as viral vectors for Western supremacy and imperialism.
These ideologies should be evaluated from the perspective of the dominant position, in terms of their utility with respect to subdueing populations, and preparing the way for resource extraction.
Western liberalism is a fine example of a system that produces false consciousness as it's primary outcome through the commodification of dated formulations of concepts such as "freedom" and "individualism", mediated through the standard exchange relations of capitalism, producing fully paid up subscribers, or "stakeholders", rather than bestowing actual freedom or promoting authentic individualism (as if "authentic individualism" in itself is something of value outside of the crude economism of the elites).
Debating the finer points of Western liberalism (or for that matter Western conservatism) qua Western liberalism is to view these ideologies as authentic and legitimate, rather than distracting and destructive, and in the end to legitimise them - akin to childen debating the motivation of Harry Potter in their favourite work of fiction - these ideologies are certainly no longer legitimate - in fact, as recent history has shown, they are the very definition of failed ideologies.
Given the wealth of contemporary and historical data, why would any country want Western liberalism (or Western conservatism) to be a part of their politics? No educated body politic would, or should, willingly introducing a Western imperialist backdoor into their political system. Russia - and the Global Rest - are fully justified in treating it with suspicion.
Robinson doesn't perceive the real danger of liberalism for Russia. Liberalism has a congenital internal dynamic, which is ultimately a killer of any society it infects. It's a stealthy, slippery slope driven by absolute EQUALITY!.
A key agenda is the racist-antiracist paradigm. It's the same evil that's destroying western society. It's gnawing at the fringes of the Russian Federation via its non-Slavic, non-Christian republics, oblasts, and neighbors. Within these areas, western influences (NGO's, media, etc.) promote this paradigm, thereby undermining Russian Slavs.
Russia is already a multicultural, multiracial country, which makes it vulnerable to such a hyperliberal agenda. It's also sensitive to anything resembling Naziism. It's Russia's Achilles heel. In 30 years Russian culture could become just as degraded as the west. Equality and antiracism, along with "tolerance" for supposedly victimized minorities, can creep into Russian Slavic society via monumental guilt trips disguised as morality. Liberalism destroys society by splitting it into two false factions, the guilty and the victims. Then racism-antiracism, in its crusade for perfect equality, ensures there is no way to reconcile the two. The only way Russia can survive this evil is to formulate a specific ideology that directly counteracts it. Aleksandr Dugin's Eurasian philosophy is not even close.