Us and them

Internal evolution from “I’m not interested in politics” - through “damn it, but this is all complete nonsense!” - “I’m ready to act” - “nothing will work except radical methods of struggle” happened very quickly. And the acute emotional split into “us” and “them” also became an obvious reality.

There are few “us”, there are many “them”, much more than it seems from Moscow. When I visit my family in a quiet northern regional center, “we” and “they” are transferred to kitchen discussions, where I, as in a mini-model of our society, am not just in the minority, but alone.

They watch TV and are incredibly afraid of change. And they don’t like “us” very much. They don’t understand who is protesting and why, they live in a completely different information space, and their arguments are largely determined, to put it mildly, by antipathy towards “this snickering Moscow”, plus a well-thrown bone: “they were all paid for by America with the goal of the collapse of Russia” , we also add homophobia and anti-Semitism. We add “idiots dancing on the altar in masks, who “serve it right.” Incomprehensible to them - of course! - scattered groups of oppositionists - “new bastards who are striving for power.” And we draw frightening radicals on the left. And here it is – an oil painting: this is how “they” see “us”. A frightening group of moral monsters, arrogant snobs, foreign spies, “gay perverted pedophiles” separated by commas, loser politicians and upstart bloggers, about whom half the population over 40, if not three quarters, know nothing at all.

And what comes from us is unacceptable in advance. They have no other sources of information. They - ordinary provincial doctors, engineers, teachers, welders, auto repair shop owners, ice cream sellers - believe that right now they live better than ever before. Yes, the authorities steal, yes, they are bastards, but this has always been the case, and God forbid, new ones will come who have not yet stolen. For them, what is happening now is stability. And knowing that tomorrow will be the same as today is the highest good.

They do not see, do not hear and do not know the opposition “with a human face,” and we are to blame for this. We are enemies for them, for us they are people sitting in an information well. In the well, the waves have nowhere to come from.

And “our” information space is endless reposts of the same quiet and loud horror from such a clear, concretely consistent, already daily tightening of the screws. And a statement of “our” own helplessness from the equally obvious picture of “swan, crayfish and pike” among “us”.

Is society rocking? There's no way it's swaying! We practically do not intersect in the information space, and only an economic catastrophe or something so loud, obvious and shocking to “them” can cross us, something that knocks out the main concrete block of the foundation from the basis of their conviction in their own rightness: “stability” .

We are already tired of chewing the same thing, being indignant at the same thing, drawing satirical pictures on Facebook, signing helpless petitions, becoming convinced of the futility of every single protest action. Nobody wants to wait for years in the hope that slowly but surely “society will mature.” And among “us” a group of those who decide to act radically will stand out. And the support for this group among those who were still peaceful yesterday will grow.

But besides “we” and “they,” no matter how interesting, scary and difficult life in Russia may be now, there is also “I.” Therefore, for a large part of “us”, which has already pushed aside the question “Who is to blame?” as unnecessary, the question “What to do?” is rolling up in a rapidly growing snowball. And “I” wins here. Run if everything is useless? Silence if you can’t shout to “them”? Or do something in this very small, active, interesting, but so unorganized “we”, so that “they” stop seeing us as enemies. Or we saw enemies where it was much more logical to see them. The tension is rising. And those who choose to stay will probably evolve into radicals at the same rate as I did.