Learned helplessness

I don't understand how people know about this. If we proceed from the usual idea that 72% (Levada Center, data for November) unconditionally trust the authorities and TV, then these 72% should have calmly accepted on faith that there are certain difficulties in the financial market, but speculative leaps will soon stop - as they believed for the last year that Crimea is our sacred homeland, Europe suffers terrible losses from the ban on parmesan, and Topol laughs at the sanctions - take it on faith and continue to watch, for example, how TV presenter Malakhov breeds an elderly wife and a pregnant mistress of the singer in different corners Prokhor Chaliapin: it was this vital topic that was discussed on prime-time television in the evening when the ruble collapsed. But it was not there. Bad news jumps like fleas - and before Chaliapin had time to figure out his feelings, Moscow got stuck in traffic jams, crowds rushed to IKEA and Auchan, ready to buy in bulk everything that came to hand, queues lined up at exchangers, around the city rumors circulated about ATMs that allegedly had already stopped dispensing cash - and judging by the reports of regional websites, this is not a specifically Moscow phenomenon. People learned about what was happening from somewhere out of thin air and instantly made the only right decision: run, spend, save whoever they can, and no comforting forecasts on television news could console anyone. For the past year, we have been convinced that there are things more important than the stock market and that we need to make sacrifices for the sake of sovereignty and sacredness, and we seemed to agree and fully supported - but at the decisive moment we voted with our feet, and now go and understand what is more correct to measure the trust rating - data VTsIOM or the length of the queues at round-the-clock M-Video?

There is, of course, nothing to rejoice at here: this excitement arose for a really unpleasant occasion and bears all the signs of a collective panic; if, at the sight of growing numbers in exchange offices, you run to buy a ton of buckwheat, this can hardly be considered a reasonable investment, in a couple of months you yourself will wonder why you did it. And, of course, this behavior matrix is ​​already laid down at the level of genetic memory: as soon as there is the slightest risk that money may depreciate, you need to immediately invest it in any, even the most absurd asset - so in August 1998, my friend living in Moscow Spaniard, went to the nearest store and bought 50 meters of tulle with all the money. And if the only way to test the effectiveness of state propaganda is by halving the ruble, I would prefer not to test it. But the fact remains: in any incomprehensible situation, people run to buy buckwheat and toasters, and in this sense, their choice is no different from what was made in the late 1980s - no matter how many people you feed with anti-Western rhetoric, at the level of everyday habits they still live in a global
"the world-as-in-a-supermarket".

In the book “It Was Forever Until It Ended,” just published in Russian, Berkeley professor Alexei Yurchak analyzes the world of late Soviet man, in which for the vast majority the collective world of slogans, demonstrations, and party meetings coexisted perfectly with the personal, everyday world, which was built on completely different principles. It would seem that this analogy is not applicable to the current situation - the current state propaganda requires much less ritual actions from its addressees, but it hits emotions more strongly; you are absolutely not obliged to go to the May Day demonstration, but, having seen enough of Kiselyov, you begin to sincerely hate the Pindos and support the wise actions of the president. And in a critical situation, it turns out that all this unconditional support is the same ritual as voting at a party meeting: you raise your hand, especially without delving into the meaning of the words rushing from the podium and thinking only about whether the Yugoslav boots were thrown away in the department store. Psychologists have long described the phenomenon of learned helplessness - chronic disbelief in the possibility of changing something for the better; in the same way, somewhere deep inside us sits a learned anxiety, an unmistakable instinct for behavior in a crisis situation: between a toaster and buckwheat - and television spells about stability and sovereignty - we choose without thinking, and this is somehow reassuring.

All last year we were convinced that there are things more important than the stock market and that we need to make sacrifices for the sake of sovereignty and sacredness, and we seemed to agree, but at the decisive moment we voted with our feet