About the old and new

In one of his reports, cultural historian Sergei Averintsev drew attention to two little discussed by researchers oddities of one of the most famous New Testament texts - the initial chapters of the Gospel of Matthew.

In the first chapter, the famous genealogy of Christ “Abraham begat Isaac...” is suddenly interrupted by the unexpected “the birth of Jesus Christ was like this.” And it turns out that this whole majestic genealogy seems to be malfunctioning, that Joseph included in it is not the father of the promised Messiah, and His entry into human history occurs in such a way that at first it confuses all the characters.

The second chapter unfolds a magnificent and unhurried story about how the Magi from the east who came to Jerusalem to testify to the universal significance of the birth of the Tsar of Judea, are to Herod, as all Jerusalem leads to the excitement, as Herod is convicted of high priests and scribes to comprehend this news, how the wise men, led by a star, come to Bethlehem and bring their gifts. But suddenly - and this is said in a short sacramental construction - the Magi receive a command in a dream not to return to Herod - and the story, which at first resembled a triumphal procession, turns into a story of flight.

“I can’t see it otherwise than the fact that both times Matthew, the author of the first gospel, proceeds from a very difficult attitude between the promise and performance,” writes Averintsev. — All biblical teaching about the fullness of time, i.e. About the historicity of God's work of salvation of people, suggests that the promised can come when some gate for him will be built on earth in order to accept him. But then everything happens so that it should enter these gates - although the gate is needed. This is both times. "

The image of the majestic gates, which solemnly lined up specifically so that the future has entered them, seems to say something important not only about the gospel history. By and large, everything truly new always comes this way. The change of eras, scientific paradigms, generations does not occur as a well -prepared and rehearsed transmission of the key from the city from hand to hand, but as an unexpected change in the perspective, more precisely, as its screening.

Here the Latin culture, which considers the culture of the popular language as something little worthy of attention, suddenly discovers before itself the “Divine Comedy”, after which Latin poetry clearly passes into the category of monuments. Here, the publications of Nicolaus Copernicus and Andreas Vesalius, published in the same year, break the thousand-year-old ideas about the structure of the Universe and man, transferring the center of the solar system from the Earth to the Sun, and the center of human activity from the liver to the heart. Here are the calculations of an unknown employee of the Berne patent office over the course of several years that throw classical Newtonian physics into the past.

Actually, the old turns out to be old precisely when it ceases to adequately respond to what is happening around, and the mass of accumulated new facts and phenomena that cannot be explained within the framework of the old and do not fit into it finds a place within the new paradigm. But this does not happen without pain, because ignoring the new and resisting it turns out to be a desperate way of self-defense for the previous model.

The gates from the Averintsev image are not so much lined up for meeting a new one as to preserve themselves, in order to initiate this new one in their own way, declare a successor, and declare his rights to him. These attempts remain successful only until the new one has really ripened.

"Schoolchildren's Riot"

No matter how sorry to narrow such a beautiful reasoning before the socio-political anger of the day, but it seems that this breakdown of prospects, this non-accidental meeting of the old and the new one is the image that most accurately describes that from the light hand of journalists and political scientists, it turned into a plot about the ripened in Russia in the spring of 2017, a “protest of schoolchildren.”

First of all, it is worth making a reservation: the “schoolchildren’s protest” is a myth, but not in the sense of untruth, but in the sense of a simplified, but convenient and understandable to many, explanatory model of what is happening. (The same myth is the “re-Stalinization” that is actively discussed today: a few examples of the opening of museums and monuments to Stalin, statements of officials and programs purposefully thrown into the public space and on the air of federal channels, normalizing Stalinism, accompanied by the opening of state museums and memorials to victims of repression and meeting a response in the growth of initiatives to perpetuate the memory of victims and popularize the truth about repression, create a “discourse” that is convenient and understandable for both defenders of the government and its opponents.)

Facts show that teenagers and even some particularly young people did not make up the majority at the rallies in the spring-summer of 2017. According to monitoring social networks, the largest audience of the film “He’s Not Dimon for You,” which became the trigger for the protests on March 26, were people from 21 to 24 and over 34 years old, while minors made up only 5.5%. The largest age group among people registered for rallies on social networks is from 21 to 30 years old; minors make up less than 7% of the participants in these groups (people under 21 years old - 27%), and among those detained on Tverskaya on May 12, their share is 15%. . Finally, the participation of young people in protests is not at all an innovation in 2017: it is enough to recall how the protests of 2011–2012 in a number of large cities took the form of “occupies” (Occupy Abay and Arbat in Moscow, Occupy Isaakievskaya in St. Petersburg, etc. ). All the features of protest actions that so struck observers today—predominantly youthful composition, lack of fear of the police, coordination through social networks— were present even then.

The impression that the youth suddenly became interested in politics, because Navalny miraculously with the help of a film about Dimon told them about her - the result of a misunderstanding.

The disinterest of young people in politics is as much a myth as its sudden politicization. Research into the phenomenon of “apoliticality” among young people, conducted after the 2012 protests, suggests that exclusion from politics is not at all the result of a lack of interest in it or a perception that social activism is unimportant. It is more correct to talk about “anti -policyism” as a rational rejection of politics (this is very reminiscent of the concept of “ aggressive immobility ”, and not the passivity of Russian society), the spheres of a well -known, but considered alien, in which the activity is seen meaningless, while participation in civilian initiatives is perceived as perceived as it is perceived self-realization, not as political activism.

The emergence and incredible popularity of the myth of the “protest of schoolchildren” indicate that he has fallen into important points of tension of today's reality. It is all too obvious to everyone that the conflict between the political system of Russia and its people and reality is generational: outside the window it has long been spring and the first leaves, and it is as if musty air has been deliberately pumped into the premises of the “Russian state”. The new is noticeably nearby, and the old one significantly survived its age and should have rested in rest for a long time. The latent expectation of this new thing turns out to be perhaps the strongest feeling for the active part of Russian society.

The yield of youth on the streets-in principle, is a normal phenomenon, unexpected only because of the common belief regarding the apoliticality of the young generation-superimposed on these feelings and expectations and coincided with them “without a clearance”; Thus, the myth of the “schoolchildren’s crusade” was born and set off on a triumphal march through the information field, drawing everyone into its zone of action: from political scientists and deputies to the presidential press secretary.

And in this sense, what happened on June 12, as a symptom, is much more important than the fact that a larger number of young people than usual went out onto the streets.

Premonition of the future

The discontent that manifested itself in the 2017 protests is most visible among young people, but in fact it characterizes all ages and social groups across the country. This is the main difference between what is happening from the protests of 2011-2012, which have become an expression of discontent, mostly the capital's middle class.

It is important to understand what exactly takes to the street of today's dissatisfied and is it possible to talk about some general set of motives. The word (slogan, hashtag) “tired”, not very successful as a political slogan, because it does not imply any specific “program of action,” turned out to be a very successful expression of the latent and not yet articulated aspirations of very different groups of the population. Moreover, today’s protesters are “tired” not specifically of Putin or Medvedev, for whose replacement Navalny is not specifically proposed - this dissatisfaction is of a much deeper nature. We are talking about the aspirations of more fundamental changes, the feeling that some fundamental “Paradigm change” has ripened.

Dissatisfaction that finds itself on stocks of recent times is discontent with a gaping void, more clearly indicated in the place of the image of the future . The active return of this phrase to the political agenda and expert discussion is extremely significant. In the last 10-17 years, there were urgent tasks at the site of the future, and then, when economic growth allowed to exhale and look around, a void luminous under them, which were called up by the paintings of the past. The increasingly persistent exploitation of victory and other images of the glorious past is not only a means of mobilization, but also evidence that the authorities sees the danger of emptiness in the place of the future, but feels its inability to give any adequate response to these aspirations.

It turns out that this is why the poorly articulated aspiration of the future can generate much more energy than system protests. Another important difference between what is happening today from the situation of 2011-2012 is that this is deep and fundamental discontent is the result of the lack of illusions about the possibility of dialogue with the authorities, constructive cooperation with it.

The “Bolotnaya” protests were aimed at getting the authorities to comply with the rules of the game: recounting election results, eliminating fraud, etc. Participation in an authorized action, although surrounded by police, still means presence in the system field and agreement with the proposed conditions of the conversation. The line between permitted and unauthorized actions is blurred simply because it is stupid to ask permission from a state that demonstratively speaks a different language and does not offer the possibility of dialogue.

All those who go out into the streets now are already internally in a state of confrontation with the authorities. Therefore, the transition from the model of permitted actions to unauthorized ones - marked by the decision of the organizers of the rally on Sakharov Avenue to move it to Tverskaya - is nothing more than following this change that has already happened in the minds.

Therefore, by the way, it is incorrect to say that Alexei Navalny “led teenagers to the batons of riot police,” as state propaganda presents it; He only felt better than others what was worn in the air, and followed him, finding the most appropriate form to this. The fact that of the current politicians he felt alone means that he has a potential to become a politician of the future.

Old and new

This clash of paradigms seems to be much more important and interesting than talking about the "riot of adolescents."

One of the eloquent examples of such a clash is a wave of videos posted by schoolchildren and students of conversations, which were conducted with them according to the results of rallies on March 26, teachers and officials . Here, the collision of two realities is very clearly visible: speaking the condo tongue of the Soviet political formation of the state and youth, for which its simple fixation becomes a natural reaction to such a non -interactive format of communication and laying out “into public”.

This response turns out to be quite effective. So far, professional opposition and human rights activists with the usual angry talk about the inadmissibility and illegality of ideology in the education system, the need for institutional reforms and their impossibility in the conditions of authoritarianism, the new generation simply laid out the “vidos” and often achieves its own. And not even in the sense of resignations of “high-profile” teachers, but in the sense of demonstrating the dilapidation of the old structure in general and the ineffectiveness of the usual measures of influence in particular.

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The authorities’ desperate attempts to intercept the youth agenda by inviting video bloggers to the State Duma, financing the creation of video clips urging people not to go to rallies, developing the law “On Youth Policy” and the state program “Youth of Russia” are very reminiscent of the image of the people of the past building a gateway to the future from which we started this essay. But, returning to biblical images, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than to build relationships with the future through a government program. The future, as always happens in such cases, will pass by these gates, not thinking of sweeping them away on its way, but simply discovering their mediocrity and worthlessness - just like schoolchildren exposing their political informants to ridicule.

The image of the Magi, who sensed the importance of what was happening in Bethlehem of Judea, but, realizing that the “leaders of the people” were unable to adequately perceive this message, “went back to their country by another way” is a reminder that the old, if it is not ready to see and accept new, is doomed to leave the historical stage. Unfortunately, it usually does not understand this itself and tries to resist the course of history, which often results in the beating of babies, but does not prolong its life in the least. Is it worth it to remind you that the “Herod of the Capherialist” ended his years in exile, and Jerusalem was ruined and destroyed, as it is said, precisely for “not recognizing the time of visiting his”.