Order, Chaos and Multipolarity. Geo-philosophical considerations

Order and Chaos are fundamental structures of reality as a whole. They are consistent poles of the basic dynamic that characterizes and produces life, movement and relation: without the connection between Order (the fixed, constant κόσμος, that ensures the ontological and epistemic stability of the Unus Mundus) and Chaos (χάος, the pre-formal energetic dimension from which everything derives and toward which everything comes back, in a dynamic, process) nothing could be properly understood.

The geographical and geopolitical domains can also be interpreted trough the hermeneutical lens of these two concepts. It is precisely that holy dimension that links Order and Chaos to geographical and geopolitical sciences which we are going to briefly touch, in order to underline their role also in relation to multipolarity.

The qualitative, spiritual and archetypal dimension of spaces is also deeply connected to the concept of Genius loci. This notion, which has recently been brought to the fore by Christian Norberg-Schulz (1979) – who theorized the loss of Genius loci in modern era as a loss of memory, orientation and identification – finds its origin in the ancient Latin civilization: it refers to the numen, or spirit, which protects a place, that is a divine companion and defender of the quality and interior essence of a place. Every locus guarantees through its Genius the existence and safeguarding of the transcendent immanence that finds different manifestations in different places. There is thus a strict correspondence between a place and its own Genius loci. We should understand it as the whole relation – thus beyond subject-object dichotomy – of man and God happening in a place. And the place inhabited by the Genius is a place open to the Ereignis, the eschatological event in which the Being (Sein) relates itself to the man (Dasein). This integral and holistic dimension – which can be found, with different names and definitions, in all human civilizations – allows us to underline that a sacred topology is another way of philosophically comprehending the essence of spaces, beyond modern secularism and naïve positivism. In this connection, wherever in sacred place the human and the spiritual subjectivities enter into relation, the figures of Order and Chaos also manifest themselves as poles of this original, at the same time eternal and dynamic, exchange. The Chaos is the energetic and primeval power that gives life to the place and that is mastered by the Genius loci as a figure of Order. But man also has chaos within himself, and therefore aspires to reach the spirit of the place (Genius loci) as interior balance and metaphysical centre.

Order and Chaos can thus be considered the fundamental pillars of sacred geography, which is the symbolic and esoteric interpretation of the essence of spaces. Not all the places are obviously the same. The concrete space is not homogeneous, or isotropic (like Cartesian space), instead characterized by qualitative distinctions.
This ancient awareness survived in Christian civilization and on its spiritual map, made of monasteries, churches, significant ritual places and pilgrimages towards them: it is significant that the first geographers were theologians and missionaries.

An important contribution on this topic comes from Alexander Dugin’s research. Dugin’s awareness that territory is deeply connected with history, culture, philosophy, semantics, is reflected in the Neo-Eurasianist comprehension and interpretation of the cosmos. It is, according to Dugin, a place of spiritual Order in which all levels of reality are interconnected. “The Eurasianist cosmos is permeated with subtle trajectories traversed by fiery, eternal ideas and winged meanings. Reading these trajectories, revealing them out of concealment, and extracting complex meanings out of the corporeal plasma of disparate facts and phenomena is the task of humanity” (Dugin, “The Battle for the Cosmos in Eurasianist Philosophy”, Eurasianist Archive, 2020). This means that the essence of place is not only material, but strictly archetypal and symbolic: “For the Eurasianists, the cosmos is an inner notion. It is revealed not through expansion, but rather, or on the contrary, through immersion deep within it, through concentration on the hidden aspects of the reality given here and now” (ibid.). Through this doctrine, which is not conveyed as an abstract ideology, but as a pragmatic and concrete way to experience reality, men can perceive in the world its sacred dimension. Every people, according to their traditions, master a different interpretation of the sacred pillars of spaces. As we have considered analysing the figure of Genius loci, the experience of hidden dimension of places reveals a post- or extra- dualistic dimension, where subject and object, matter and spirit, are the same.

At the same time, however, the identitarian pluriversum is part of a universal (but not universalistic) pluriversum, where all cultures can find and express their own identity. This is not a modern relativistic perspective, instead it is the discovery of a fundamental process at the core of reality, which we could define as ‘ontological perspectivism’. Every Kultur, in fact, going deep into its own cosmos, can near a supra-identitarian dimension, which can however be grasped only as a unity which is the final path of going through a specific worldview, which can become the door to the One, to the Principle.

This kind of “cosmic pluralism”, embodied in traditional sacred geography, can still be reactivated by a process inverse to the famous modern attempt to “disenchant the world”, as Max Weber wrote. It is, on the contrary, necessary to “re-enchant the world”, fighting Western colonization not just in its political and economic roots, but especially in its powerful capability to condition and influence the collective imaginary. This cultural, spiritual, philosophical perspective finds in geopolitical multipolarity its natural political consequence and representation, because only multipolarism takes into account the defense of pluralism, which is the inner core of the aforementioned worldview.

Within geopolitics, Order often means ‘political model’ or ‘paradigm’. In recent history three main models have existed: bipolarity (during the Cold War); unipolarity (the USA order after USSR collapse); multipolarity (the current and still emerging international framework).

Multipolarity is the geopolitical model that is most suitable – because of its intrinsic pluralism – to a rediscovery of the sacred dimension of places: multipolarity allows for perceiving international relations as plural and multidimensional; different traditions and civilizations are considered as simultaneously coexistent, dignified and politically relevant; the Genius loci of every territory can come back and acquire a public recognizable status; multipolarity is thus more than a Western values-based multilateralism.

Chaos is the necessary counterpart of Order in the construction of multipolarity.
Only by going through a period of international Chaos, a new counter-hegemonic and multipolar Order will be established. In these horizons, the notion of Chaos acquires a new and positive meaning, concerning the dynamic structure of the multipolar Order, where the balance of poles can always change, opening to the pivotal role of history and political decisions.

Leonid Savin shows that the concept of polycentricity and pluriversality (Ordo Pluriversalis. The End of Pax Americana & the Rise of Multipolarity, 2020, pp. 125-148) have also been developed outside of Western culture, with the elaboration of really interesting models that directly derive from different traditional cultures. Significant is, for example, the Chinese contribution to the theory and practice of multipolarity (duojihua in Chinese) (ibid., p. 85).

Also the confrontation with different cultural paradigms and symbolical representations is very fruitful in order to imagine the global pluriversum in a more complex and shareable way. We have to take into account that, as written by Amaya Querejazu, “the world each being inhabits is populated by entities (persons, objects, theories, practices) that are ontologically configured in processes of choosing and decisions that produce the establishment of reference frameworks that people use to situate themselves in the world. Accordingly, these reference frameworks are very different to a person in the Amazon than to a person raised in a Western city” (“Encountering the Pluriverse. Looking for Alternatives in Other Worlds”. Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, vol. 59, n. 2, 2016, p. 5).

In this perspective, multipolarity embodies the anti-mainstream worldview, which can be defined in philosophy as ontological perspectivism (“Noology”, according to Dugin lexicon), in spirituality as Perennialism, in literature as Hermeneutics, in Culture as Pluralism. Order and Chaos are fundamental structures of this anti-hegemonic worldview, and nevertheless an interpretative ‘toolkit’, which should be implemented, in a multipolar perspective, in order to avoid any easy reductionist scheme.