Ilya Ehrenburg compared human civilization with a fragile thinking reed. He believed that civilization exists only thanks to an extremely thin and vulnerable cultural layer that keeps it from sliding back into barbarism — if this layer is damaged, a humanitarian catastrophe is inevitable. Ehrenburg and his contemporaries themselves witnessed a catastrophe that clearly demonstrated how little effort is required to break this reed.
When a cultural layer that supports civilization dies, it is not a vacuum, as many think, but anti-culture replaces it. In place of a thinking reed, a thinking anthill is comfortably located, which immediately clings to power.
A thinking anthill is the opposite of a thinking reed. They are in a state of continuous war with each other. Reeds no longer grow where ants appear.
And the future of Russia, ultimately, depends on how the clash of these two mutually exclusive Russian civilizational bonds will end.
On the benefits of historical maneuvering
At the end of last summer, I published in Novaya Gazeta an article entitled “A Spoiler for Russia of the Future,” which I consider to be one of my most optimistic texts of recent years, lighting a light bulb at the end of the tunnel along which Russian liberalism is moving. But many of those who were blocked in the tunnel did not share my optimism, considering the article decadent, demobilizing and even justifying the lack of alternatives for the social system that has formed in Russia.
Diagnosis is the first step to healing. If dramatic events are not the result of a coincidence of circumstances, but follow from the logic of history, then there is a hope that her indefatigable mole will sooner or later do his job to the end and dig a way out of the tunnel, even in spite of the political blindness of the society stuck in it. However, my attempt to discover this logic and explain reality not by the will of an individual or even several individuals, but by the wide spread of mass delusions that form the will of these «malicious» individuals, was perceived as an apology for the regime and almost its moral and historical rehabilitation.
Photo: Alexey newspaper «
Paradoxically, my article was liked by the audience of RT, who considered that if the masses have a certain (imperial) charge, then only a movement with a similar charge can be successful in Russia, and caused sharp criticism in the liberal-oriented media, which condemned me for being I pay too much attention to charging the masses — according to such critics, political leaders can give the masses any charge and any acceleration they want. That is why, perhaps, any reference to the state of the masses, they tend to regard as opportunism.
The same Ehrenburg wrote that in Russia it is customary to scold a cab driver for bumps on the road. Research into the nature of a tumor does not indicate humility in front of it and, on the contrary, rituals over a tumor and uttering terrible curses against it are not an effective method of treating it.
I have not been able to find a single historical example of successful government in which the ruling class would manage to ignore the charge of the masses for a long time and with impunity. On the contrary, those who in their practical politics were oriented towards this charge broke all records of political longevity. Today, the Russian government takes this charge into account, and its opponents are trying to ignore it. The reader can draw a conclusion about the prospects for longevity himself.
What, then, is my optimism? It is that, knowing the charge, you can connect the wires correctly and make the engine of history rotate in the right direction, and without knowing the charge, you can only get an electric shock and remain paralyzed on the sidelines of progress. In the truest sense of the word, knowledge is power here. The objective reality, given to us in the most acute sensations, is that the stormy wind of history is blowing in Russia today. In these difficult historical meteorological conditions, the elites have chosen mainly two different but equally failed survival strategies: conformist and non-conformist.
Photo: Alexey Dushutin/»Novaya Gazeta»
Historical conformists with joyful glee turned their backs to the wind and rushed backward spiral.
They immediately overcame the red line of perestroika and within two decades made the largest decivilization of Russia in the last hundred years.
Their opponents, moving from the opposite, all this time tried to swim strictly against the wind, but were carried down to the same reefs, backing away.
In fact, civilization, like a sailboat on the high seas, can sail against the wind, moving in a zigzag at an acute angle, that is, turning towards wind from one side to the other in order to increase the force that will push it forward. This maneuver is called maneuvering. Tacking is the only rational way to move forward in a historic headwind. But for it to be successful, you must at least understand where the wind is blowing …