The Orthodox Nationalist: The Social Thought of Petre Tutea

Dr Matthew Raphael Johnson concentrates on Petre Tutea of Romania this week, a nationalist writer who died in 1991 and deserves a much greater amount of exposure in the west than he has had up until now. He was a former Communist who converted to Orthodoxy and the Iron Guard and he based his philosophy on the reintroduction of Plato as the center of thought.

He saw the folk, classic and medieval mind-set as all being the same in that they all rely on hierarchy, order and truth, but most of all, they center on rejecting appearances. Appearance is the opposite of the real and when objective knowledge is rejected, then the powerful can decide on not only what is true, but also what is real.

Nominalism, the rejection of universal truths, is essential to the entire modern world. When words are severed from their referents, and words create reality, then those who have control over language control reality. Nominalism is needed for democracy, socialism, capitalism, communism and all forms of totalitarianism. To be “totalitarian” is merely to believe that everything can be politicized and thus, can be the subject of political regulation.

Reason is slippery because language is. Reason can easily become rationalization and discerning the difference is the task of true philosophy.