Alexander Ivlev. Sub-progress: an introduction to the theory of the personalized state

Sub-progress: an introduction to the theory of the personalized state
Alexander Ivlev

Publication date: April 7, 2000

Absolute freedom and virtual space [0]

( Book summary )

Part one

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Apologies, bows and thanks

First of all, I would like to apologize to the readers and thank the editor of Net-culture E. Gorny. The article was born right away, but it took a long time and painfully to complete. The reader should show some leniency towards the content, since it was necessary to throw out whole pages of text - instead of the announced edition of the RJ article, for some reason a book began to emerge, completely inappropriate and out of time. The text gradually became overgrown with links and details and began to resemble a porcupine or a pincushion, which in no way contributed to squeezing it into a magazine frame. While we had to deal with what had already been filed and systematized, it turned out that Echelon [1] had been knocking its wheels over the world for several years already , Aum Shinrikyo had successfully developed software for the Japanese Self-Defense Forces [2] , the first “garbage” surveys were carried out attacks [3] and hundreds and hundreds more large and small events that, to one degree or another, confirmed some speculative theory of the development of a quasi-state society.

As for quotes and epigraphs, for some reason it is recently that Chuang Tzu [4] , St. John [5] , M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin [6] and Michel Foucault [7] have been re-read every other line . The quotes do not carry any messianic or religious meaning. They're just spot on.

Personal State

Dedicated to the memorandum of A. Bromberg. [8]

"- humanity will be divided into two unequal parts according to a parameter unknown to us, and the smaller part will forcefully and forever overtake the larger one"
A. and B. Strugatsky "Waves extinguish the wind"

“You cannot talk to a fish from a well about the ocean, because it is tied to its hole. You cannot tell a summer midge about ice - it is limited by the time of its life. You cannot tell a ossified scientist about the Path - he is bound by his principles. Only now, when you have left the banks , I saw the great ocean and realized my insignificance, I can talk with you about great wisdom."
Chuang Tzu.

The history of this text began two years ago. It was then, when the Soros Foundation opened the Khabarovsk Internet Center [9] , that I was completely unexpectedly asked to say something about censorship on the Internet [10] . This was the end of those blissful times when censorship in relation to the Internet was associated mainly with numerous sites of the XXX category, and hacking a site was more ritual [11] than economically profitable, and therefore a criminal act. An attack on freedom of speech was seen as a restriction of personal freedom to watch not entirely decent pictures on the monitor screen. The influence of the Internet on the public opinion of the average “dear Russian” was elusively small and was therefore ignored as a real factor in political life. However, the Libertarium [12] was already boiling loudly and someone was slowly but surely and without fuss screwing up SORM [13] to network and mobile freedom.

I am grateful to everyone who unwittingly corrected and clarified the picture along the way. Conversations with E. Gorny and A. Nosik, short correspondence with M. Moshkov, V. Naumov and the philosophical contemplation of A. Lebedev became the catalyst for the sluggish process. Everyone has their own vision of the situation. A. Nosik is a supporter of pure financial reason, E. Gorny - the theories of conciliarity and discourse, M. Moshkov is the best at digitizing thoughts, and V. Naumov - legal terms. The ideology of the right, in a cheerful but unproven interpretation by V. Kiriyenko, initiated research into non-Marxist theories of development [14, 15, 16, 17] , and the “door” philippics of G. Pavlovsky [18] pushed towards the theory of natural personal selection [19] .

As for what is stated below, all this does not claim to be the ultimate truth. Perhaps the day after publication, another piece will be added to the mosaic, and the picture will change radically. I ask you to consider this as a reason to think about non-ideological ways [20, 21] of the development of information civilization.

Two years of periodic diving into the Network and depression, private conversations with online people unexpectedly led to the crystallization of a certain model of the future Russian society. The theory of the future was not created as a consistent tree of logical premises - it was formed, like a cyclopean mosaic, from the chaos of individual phenomena and opinions. She is not without impudence and is funny. It is based on a deep conviction in the ineradicable egoism of human nature.

Words about an impending radical change in the information situation, gloomy pictures of a new network guerrilla [22, 23] and private networks beyond state control superimposed [24, 25] on the main one, were condescendingly accepted by the audience, like the inarticulate muttering of a Pythia on a tripod, smelling volcanic fumes [26] , more suitable as a preamble to a cheap science fiction novel than to create a new theory of social development.

Start:
aversion to social theories as a national idea [27] .

"The baby acts. Not knowing why, he goes, not knowing where; his body is like a withered tree, but his heart is like cooled ashes."
Chuang Tzu

The Russian landscape of social forecasting is dull and unsteady, like fog over a night swamp. It is unlikely that anyone with a mature mind and strong memory would risk proposing another theory of the development of Russian society [28] . The vague verse of Nostradamus [29] became on a par with the military logic of the Marxists. Social mystics come from outside and wander lostly through the expanses of their homeland. A statistical reference book inspires confidence no more than nervous flashes on the retina of closed eyes, and only the frenzied imagination of home-grown politicians populates the domestic swamp with chilly hallucinations of past greatness [30] . Any conscientious forecast does not extend beyond stating the lack of basis for any construction that claims to be scientific and impartial.

Nevertheless, it is worth making an attempt, albeit unsuccessful and controversial, to build one of the probable models of the development of Russian society. The fact that many European pundits paid tribute to futurology can serve as a shameful self-justification [31, 32, 33, 34] . Some of these constructions have remained nothing more than toys of the mind, but in any theory, even the most impractical one, one can find those rational grains that must be carefully selected and analyzed. For future researchers, they can become reference points for the forecast of the future world order.

The theory of a quasi-state contains a bit of mysticism, improvisations generated in the process of friendly chatter, and a vague premonition of the impending death of Russian civilization. This does not mean that the Empire will sink like the mythical Atlantis. It will continue to produce weapons and fight, sow grain and export raw materials. The last hundred years have forged from any citizen the most stable breed of the human tribe.

The death of the current Russian civilization will consist in the Great Exodus. But this outcome has no real geography and directions. This suggests one of the most absurd in its banality arguments of atheists of all times and peoples. It consists in the fact that you cannot wander for forty years in a place where, in a straight line, there are a couple of weeks of marching. The whole point is that it is not so much the migration of the flesh that is considered as possible, but the journey of the spirit, and in this kind of migration the starting point does not matter and there is absolutely no possibility of planning at the beginning of the journey where the geographical end of the journey is. This is nothing more than a post-factual fixation of the time of the beginning and end of the wandering. For travelers, it is important what and how happens during anabasis.

The development of society cannot be outlined on a map or predicted by recalculating statistical, economic and political data. Its basis is the national idea, the ineradicable need of the individual for self-affirmation and freedom.

What is not there

The history of Russia is a strange and unlike anything else conglomerate, collected from everyday myths and omissions, which can only be explained by the fact that in the archives, out of habit, “pigs were fattened for the holiday” [35] . In accordance with the theory accepted in everyday life, there is a certain watershed in it, until which the abomination of desolation, savagery and unbridled morals rampaged among the peoples inhabiting Russia, which was instantly replaced by “conciliarity” and “splendor.” Many historians associate the shining of reason with the so-called. “The Baptism of Russia” [36] (988 - 989) and the subsequent introduction of writing, serfdom and tithes. Not much evidence has been preserved about the “installation of reason” itself, and more researchers doubt the reliability of any of them than are willing to accept them on faith. [37]

It is to this period of time that the origins of the idea called “conciliarity” are usually attributed [38] . It must be admitted that today's PR people should learn from the ancients to give phonetically verified names to social abominations. The name “conciliarity,” which is pleasant in all respects, is no less than a legislative approval of the enslavement (i.e., the actual transformation into slaves) of the overwhelming majority of the country’s free population, formalized at the level of national doctrine.

Unlike Western Europe, where serfdom was limited to certain ethnic groups (Vilans, Remens and Servs) and was completely eliminated in the 16th-18th centuries, slavery in Central and Eastern Europe was more severe and even experienced a certain renaissance in the 17th-18th centuries (the so-called “Second Edition of Serfdom”) and was eliminated during the bourgeois reforms of the 18th and 19th centuries.

The institution of slavery, which had spontaneously formed in Russia by the 11th century, inevitably required state approval. The Russian option was total. Attaching peasants to the land and placing them under full judicial and administrative subordination to the feudal lord, which lasted from the time of the first Code of Law [39] in 1497 and the decrees on reserved and designated years, was finally formalized by the “Council Code” [40] in 1649. The process of deprivation of liberty could not proceed without the inevitable excesses in such situations. The struggle, which was initially of an ideological nature (i.e., directed against the idea of ​​the institution of slavery), gradually developed into a spontaneous economic search for a better life, irreconcilable contradictions between physiological needs (I want to eat) and the social structure (“...well, where is the cow? Increased , my light..." N. Nekrasov). Riots generated by slavery and its consequences broke out sporadically until the last quarter of the nineteenth century. [41, 42, 43]

To understand the history of Russian society, it will be interesting to see the connection between the introduction of a single religious doctrine (Christianity) and the subsequent unique experiment on a global scale - the establishment of a totalitarian regime, designed as a system of multi-level control over everyone living in the country.

A slave in Russia had personal (feudal), administrative (state), land (place of residence) and mystical-sacral (“Servant of God” and secret confession) dependence.

There is something otherworldly about the fact that the nominal abolition of serfdom in Russia coincided with the launch of the first line of the London Underground (underground). (1861). [44]

Mysticism

“The grave diggers visited the tomb of Tutankhamun twice after its construction... Around 1070 BC, when the high priests ruled the “State of God” of Amon, the final capitulation to the robbers took place. The history of the so-called wandering mummies dates back to this time. To save the deceased rulers from criminals, the priests in the darkness of the night dragged their mummies from one dungeon of the Valley of the Kings to another. With a wooden tablet on their thin, withered neck, the mummies - until recently "deities" - turned into displaced persons.
Peter Elebracht, "The Tragedy of the Pyramids." Econ Verlag 1980. Progress 1984 [45]

The London Underground and the abolition of serfdom in Russia. The historical parallel is well-worn, hackneyed (World History, Imperial Bank...), but we are talking about mysticism, not about progress, leaving discussions about two nations to one of the domestic lovers of London pubs and cabbie canteens (see V.I. Lenin (Ulyanov), PSS). [46]

It was the London Underground that became the first act of plebeization of the sacred. A city resident gained access to the taboo world of underground communications, previously accessible only to priests and grave diggers. The opening of the first line was accompanied by a PR campaign aimed at the mass consumer. A one-legged invalid who rode an escalator from morning to evening deprived millions of residents of another refuge of dark forces and fears.

The eras of enlightenment and technological revolutions are characterized by the fact that both the first and the second have an economic background. But their common flaw is that they must include, as an indispensable element, the ideological disinhibition of citizens. They must receive a certain degree of freedom necessary to adapt to developing environmental conditions.

In the case of Russia, we are dealing with a continuous series of revolutions and counter-revolutions. Moreover, each counter-revolution is an adaptation of the idea of ​​total control at a new stage of social development. [47]

It was here, as in the most “advanced” state in the field of social experiments, that the most “advanced” level of slavery was introduced - state slavery. The institution of state slavery was finally formed in the 17th and 18th centuries to ensure the production of goods and products, the monopoly on the use, consumption and sale of which belonged exclusively to the state.

If we recall the origins of the concept of “citizenship,” then first of all it characterizes the political and legal affiliation of a person to a given state, the privilege of freedom and the nominal right to choose power for oneself [48] . The word “citizen” in Russia has come a remarkable way - from the self-designation of young dreamy reformers of the 18th century, who pronounced it when addressing each other as an identifier of a secret and not entirely decent vice, to a prison-tram insult. Since a person’s belonging was associated with private property and was enshrined at the level of state law, “citizenship” and “citizen” for a resident of Russia are another identifier of slavery, only at a higher level.

State-owned manufactories and factories [49] , which were transferred to the full disposal of officials, may be the true embodiment of Utopia [50] and the future society of social justice with its “scientifically based distribution of the social product.” The implementation of Plato's hallucination, depicting a ruler-philosopher and a just society [51] , was hindered only by the theory of probability, the limited time of the experiment and the too long period of time for a working individual to reach sexual and labor maturity.

Before the construction of a chemically pure state, ideal in its totality, there were two steps left - the first: the elimination of private property (objective, relating to the material world, and subjective - all forms of relations between the slave-master pair) in any form and the elimination of personalized power as the main source weaknesses based on the ideas of humanism and the dominance of the personal over the public.

There is a temptation to interpret everything that happened and is happening in Russia throughout the 20th century as a certain chain of random and tragic events, but even a brief analysis allows us to say that it is difficult to imagine anything more natural and logical.

Rescue Tools:
slavery as a catalyst for the search for truth

“Once we have received our body, we gallop somewhere until our death, enduring and suffering from the world, and are unable to stop - isn’t it bitter? All our lives we work and work, not knowing the fruits of our labor, we are exhausted and We don’t know why, isn’t it regrettable? People talk about immortality, but what’s the use of it? The body decomposes, and consciousness goes away with it - can’t we call this a great misfortune?”
Chuang Tzu.

"Only two things worry me..."
I. Kant. [52]

Assigning the hereditary status of a slave to an individual cannot but affect his worldview. One can talk a lot about the phenomenon of black slave culture in the North American states [53] , but only in Russia did slavery reach its logical conclusion. Slavery was something forced for the rest of the world. Slaves became captured foreigners or the indigenous population conquered by foreign invaders. Russia is the first country where slavery became an instrument of national eugenics. It did not result in physically ugly forms of guimplen. The creation of a new person acquired not so much physical as moral, moral and social features. Sobornost as a manifestation of state power and its paired individual essence - community, which have shaped the Russian mentality for a millennium, have created a bizarre moral construct, colloquially referred to as the “mysterious Russian soul”.

There is something about this mystery that allows us to talk about this mystery as a classic case of split personality. The splitting of Russian consciousness took place secretly. In Russia, as in any other country with legally enshrined serfdom, the attitude of the ruling class towards “smart cattle”, due to its commonality, did not need research and description. In this way, Russia was no different from Central and Eastern Europe. But there were some differences. The gigantic expanses and relatively low population density could not but affect the speed of dissemination of information among the serfs. The inevitable consequence is huge subconscious reserves of personal imagination. The restriction of physical and religious freedom, with an almost virgin education, should inevitably create the conditions for a unique experiment. The consciousness of a Russian resident “fell inward.” The expanses of the homeland were reflected in the consciousness and took a person further and further from reality into the realm of pure abstractions. Then literature begins.

Russian and Gypsy:
mystical retreat

One of the most remarkable phenomena of Russian life was “gypsyism”. If you don’t “multiply entities beyond what is necessary,” then you can put forward and accept a simple and uncomplicated hypothesis, according to which the gypsies were one of the first sound-reproducing devices and simply helped brighten up the leisure time generated by vodka and the vastness of their homeland. On the other hand, why not force a local genius to play the saw instead of corvée and sing tunes dear to the heart?

But it was precisely during the period of preparation for the “first liberation” that Russian culture was enriched with one of the strangest phenomena. The beginning of the tradition was, as usual, “Our Everything”. It was Pushkin who for the first time in Russian literature brought out the first mystical image of a wandering people [54] . A people without roots, without a homeland, forced to wander forever, without mixing with others and without revealing to them their language and secrets. After Pushkin, Russia became sick with gypsies. And there is no reasonable justification for this disease.

Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Ostrovsky [55] and hundreds of other now half-forgotten writers and poets with manic inflexibility ensured that Gypsy culture became an indispensable kitschy addition to Russian culture.

What could they have in common? Almost nothing. A people who left their homeland more than two thousand years ago, about a thousand years ago made numerous attempts to settle in medieval Europe and were forced to become nomadic [56] under the pressure of national hostility, and a people who were enslaved by their own fellow tribesmen for a thousand years - it is difficult to find more different fate.

To be continued

Notes