Translated material
People and mass
In society
People and mass
December 29, 2011 Dmitry Balburov
For Putin, the majority or not? 25-30 thousand people or 80-100 thousand reached Bolotnaya and Sakharov Avenue? Disputes about numbers in different variations covered the thinking part of Russian society. The keyword is thinking, that is, civil society and power. The rest of the Russian people, much more numerous, this topic is uninteresting. Their mood is perfectly expressed by one advertising slogan: "Give the people of beer!"
Therefore, we will leave the bickering on the topic “on whose side people” beyond the scope of this note and look from the other side. In the Earth biosphere, unicellular organisms are most numerous, there are more than 30 thousand species. Mammals that make up the visible appearance of the Earth are 4.5 thousand species. Both lower organisms and the highest - all occupy their niche, unique, unique, useful, necessary, etc., but there are much less higher.
Another example, well -known. In 1917, the number of the Bolshevik party did not exceed 11 thousand people, but due to their passionarity, favorable historical moment and foreign assistance, they managed to grind the 180 millionth country. They relied only on the "advanced workers." The opinions of the bulk of the population, by and large, did not ask either the “white” or the “red”. Applied agitation - yes, it was carried out, but there were no propaganda campaigns on a national scale. Moreover, sociological measurements.
I propose to divide the concepts of “people” and “mass”. “People” are “mammals” in the country, relatively small, but determining it to the noosphere. These are not the Gumilev passionaries who, for the sake of belief or practical purposes, are ready to put their lives, health and freedom and not a new -fashioned “creative class”, but a broader concept. I would describe them as residents of the country with a certain intellectual minimum, interested not only in the events of their private life, but also by social processes or at least understanding the relationship between phenomena in the world. With certain historical prerequisites or due to the political culture inherent in the ethnic group, the “people” can become most of it or, conversely, the smaller one. Similarly, on an individual level: the same person, depending on the political, economic, intra -family situation or even the time of the year, can behave both “people” and “mass”.
Accordingly, the “mass” of the open type is “unicellular”, a large community of people whose intellectual and educational minimum is lower, behavioral programs are more likely reflected than conscious, the circle of life interests already, and the ideas about the interconnections of the surrounding world are easier. In relation to the “masses”, although controversial, but rather logical arguments formulated by the Nobel laureate Elias Kanetti in the book “Mass and Power”, which saw the light back in 1962, are applicable. According to Kanetti, the “mass” by definition is plastic, strives for growth, the equality of members prevails inside it, it loves density and needs a direction. As already mentioned, the “mass” can be open and closed type, it can occur suddenly and as unexpectedly disappear as whirlpools in river rifts. It is to a greater extent than the "people" amenable to panic, that is, decay. This once again indicates that the division does not occur according to ethnic, religious, educational, property and other anti -humanistic features. Say, in the exchange sector of the economy, panic is a very common occurrence, although people from the so -called "creative class" participate in it.
The interests of the “masses” are often issued for universal and even contrasted by the interests of the “people”, using the substitution of concepts. Undoubtedly, the desire to calmly raise children, receive sufficient salaries, have tolerable medical care, etc. - These are the natural needs of a person, how to breathe and drink. However, the “mass”, which does not represent the relationship of the world, is inclined to consider these needs as a thing in itself, isolated, and their projections for big policy - as an attempt on private life. In contrast to the “mass”, the “people” understands at least in general terms of causal relationships between great politics and private life. In other words, the beloved Putin's call “Separate flies from cutlets” is demagogy, since both “flies” and “cutlets” are included in the diet of any Russian.
That secular, that the spiritual power over the millennia of the history of mankind has learned to control the “mass”, but in relations with the “people” there was a symbiosis, including the liberal “theory of social agreement”. Any regime, democratic or autocratic, seeks to reduce the ratio of “people”-“mass” in favor of the latter. But autocracy at the same time declares the “people” by marginals, demchiza, jackals at foreign embassies, etc. - with the support and approval of the "mass". Which, after Kanetti, is plastic and needs to be directional. From this point of view, it does not matter what percentage of the population of Russia was indignant at the castling inside the tandem and the cranes in the Duma elections, and what percentage he took it for granted. Because according to all objective and subjective signs, unflappable are “mass”. She cannot influence current political processes, does not want to influence power and the “people”, but, on the contrary, due to semantic properties, it has a need for manipulations of herself. A striking example of this: a popular (more precisely, “commonress”) referendum on the preservation of the USSR in the spring of 1991. In just six months later, none of the members of the “mass” moved a finger to protect the Soviet state. Even the traditional support of the regime - officers in our country - began to accept sovereign Russian citizenship. In Central Asia, there is a simple majority in Ukraine.
Thus, in the equation “Power - Opposition - People - Mass”, the last element can be safely thrown away as insignificant. The argument of the Putin spokeswoman Peskov “a small part of the people came to Bolotnaya and Sakharov” and the opposition counter-revolutions lose their meaning, because “unicellular”, intentionally called the “people”, will accept any winner. But the struggle for the minds and souls of "mammals" is just beginning.