The Postsecular – Jürgen Habermas, the Intellectual Dark Web, and Alexandr Dugin as (In)Voluntary Participants in a Global Dispositif

Abstract

While being decipherable as a normative positing within a Euro-American genealogy, the conflictual discourse on “religion” and “science” should be seen as a potent globalized dispositif with local variants, ultimately shaping the reality of, not only active discourse participants, but all individuals, collectives, and institutions in its gravitational field. In order to explore, examine, and attempt to explain both perspectives on the postsecular era – i.e., as an entity emerging from discursive articulations and a force acting upon discourse itself – three very different, yet conceptually related types of recent articulations and their discursive connection can be taken into account: first, Jürgen Habermas’ Eurocentric and Christocentric description of religion and science in the postsecular era; second, the so-called Intellectual Dark Web’s fusion of religious and scientific discourse elements via a Judeo-Christian narrative; third, Alexandr Dugin’s ethno-nationalist formulation of collective identities with a strong emphasis on religious elements and a fundamental opposition to the “West.”