Arya Gotsdanker: fault lines

Man is a social animal, and besides, by nature, poorly armed. We have no fangs, sensitive smell, acute vision and much more of what other animals have. Accordingly, the main strategy for survival of the species was joint survival. Only having united, ancient people were able to get their food and provide protection. Nature did not leave an ancient person at all without advantages, we were given an amazing opportunity - to study. Ancient people quickly learned to coordinate their actions on the hunt so as to resist any, even the strongest predator; To organize your camp so that he was not threatened by either lions or tigers. This is a small inconspicuous advantage - to accumulate your experience and transfer it to other generations - led to the development of human civilization. Today, mankind has no natural enemies left, except itself.

A public way - over the century - underwent changes, but how we were social animals, they remained with them. Only in a society of loved ones can we feel safe, feel emotional comfort. Therefore, in unstable periods, we need people close to us, friends, in associates. During periods of serious shocks, when troubled times come, we intuitively begin to look for people close to us: in spirit, by belief, by origin. At such moments, the automatic process of self -organization of the masses is triggered. Remember 1991, when citizens took to the streets of Moscow and, without agreeing with each other, moved to the White House. Everyone, assuming where others will go more likely, chose almost the only right place that would be the first to come to mind and others. During the protests of 2012-2013, during the so -called festivities in Moscow - where did people go? The person’s mechanisms in the alarming periods are evolutionarily laid in a person when there is no sense of safety, when the future is not clear - where to run and what to do. You can disable all social networks, mobile phones, this will only slightly complicate the self -organization of the masses, but will not stop it. Mobile communications and the World Wide Web is just tools, and the need to unite in the nature of man.

When a wave of fear and anxiety takes possession of the masses, in this someone should be guilty. Humanity defeated its main enemies (from epidemics of viruses to wild predators), so that the cause of fear and anxiety can be only one: also a person, but the other is an enemy. That is why we so passionately begin to look for enemies and traitors in all around. Urgent a cause of disasters is needed, a simple and understandable image of the enemy is needed. Only having received the enemy or forming his image in his imagination, we understand: the world has become a little less alarming. When they decided with the enemy, everything becomes clear: these are “their own”, they are good, they are reliable, safe and comfortable with them; And these are "strangers", enemies, they are bad, there is nothing human in them and the norms of morality that we apply to friends do not apply to them. This is precisely what explains terrible social disasters - genocide in Rwanda, Holocaust, Red Terror and many other shameful episodes associated with the mass extermination of some people by others.

Now more and more support is received by leaders with an aggressive disconnecting agenda, who simply and clearly tell the society who is his enemy. Such leaders subtly feel the need for the masses and accurately form the image of the enemy. Their words are not necessarily confirmed by deeds, but the use of a disconnecting agenda allows them to take a leading position. Recall the pre -election campaign of Donald Trump: he made statements against migrants, Muslims, Latinos, but then made a tour of the countries of the Middle East. In Russia, one can also observe the emergence of social movements that are trying to unite to fight someone or something, from incomprehensible and unknown from the Orthodox activists from nowhere to a well-meaning opposition movement against corruption. Now, apparently, an era is coming when people will unite in order to be friends against someone. The fault lines went in different directions: territorial, national, ideological, religious, economic and many other fault lines. The worst thing is that on each such line of fault a lot of fates can break, or even a lot of blood.

You can announce today that corruption is to blame for everything, and this will be a great share of logic, but what's next? And then it went according to the classical scenario: corrupt officials - enemies, enemies should be judged, punished, lustrated. This causes a response: officials snap, justify, refuse dialogue. Everything is like in a classic family quarrel. But if the quarrel does not stop, then a classic conflict develops, it is time to act through threats and sanctions. Each of the parties uses all possible mechanisms to strengthen its position and pressure on the other, the conflict is spitting in a spiral, the winning of one side is one more percent indicates the loss of the other. Spouses can divorce and live separately, then how to be a society, through the pierced by multidimensional contradictions? It is impossible to live together, it is impossible to disperse, so only one option remains - mass emigration and labor camps for the losers.

Russia, as a fortress peasant, lives one day

At the same time, society is able to unite around the creative agenda, a person can not be friends against someone, but for the sake of some common idea. The same factors that become fault lines can also become a unifying factor. Fear and anxiety force society to slide into the search mode for an external enemy. Internal anxiety nourishes this tension in society. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, society underwent the same transformations: people went out into the streets, eagerly looked for information about what was happening, but then they did not unite massively against someone. On the contrary, the leader, who offered uniting a constructive agenda, received public support. The country was passionate about the creation of a new democratic society, freedom of speech, competition, and discovering borders. Is the transition from a destructive disconnecting agenda to a new creative idea possible now in Russia?

It is not at all necessary to destroy to the ground in order to build something new on the wreckage, as it was with the Soviet Union. Today, Russia is not too different from the late Soviet Union: clanity, opacity of power, state monopolies, corruption, general inefficiency. Another turmoil or revolution will not eliminate the main problems, the most important of which is the inability to resolve conflicts of various groups and interests. Yes, the main problem of Russia is the inability of its ruling class to resolve conflicts. Any society is faced with contradictions, all the more so multinational, territorially extensive and diverse as Russian. Any married couple will quarrel, but successful couples can find out the relationship so that this does not lead to an increase in discontent, but on the contrary, clarifies each other's needs.

Russian society needs to be shifted from the game with a zero amount, when the winnings of one is a loss of the other, transfer it to such a regime of functioning, in which the benefits of one of the parties do not lead to a guaranteed loss of the other side. Then you can already bargain and look for compromises. It is necessary to teach the parties to see and hear the real needs of each other, to get away from the regime of endless criticism and self -defense to the situation when each partner understands the needs of another.

Let's try to understand the experiences of Russian society. There - very deep, one might say, chronic, already transmitted for many generations and fear confirmed by history: everything you have do not belong to you, at any time all your merits, accumulations, everything can be selected, destroyed and destroyed. A long period of serfdom, then the revolution, then the communist period. Take a group of rich officials who, only by united in clans, can ensure their safety. Educated and successful representatives of the middle class solve exactly the same problems: efforts for well -being and career can be depreciated at one point; Only by uniting informal teams, you can help each other to stay afloat, retain their positions. Scenarios can be different, but there is only one reason for fear - instability and uncertainty, in which it is impossible to protect your living space. Russia, as a fortress peasant, lives one day.

Humanity has found a solution to this problem - the constant resolution of the emerging contradictions, the consolidation of these agreements in the form of legal acts. The construction of the legal state corresponds to the needs of all layers of society, but this must be explained for a long time and difficult to explain. It is much easier to come up with a new enemy, to put the society into motion, but, besides new disappointments, this will not give anything. Now Russia is at a conditional point of bifurcation, when the further development of events can go both along the destructive and in the creative path. Translations begin in society, the need for communication increases, the feeling of information hunger increases. So maybe, instead of simple explanations, "we are good, they are bad" to develop a dialogue? The main natural strategy of people is to unite for joint security. It is necessary to set the right goal and understand that the enemy does not need to be sought outside, you just need to learn how to resolve conflicts without bringing them to social disasters.

Arya Gotsdanker is an organizational psychologist, expert on the management of changes and the psychology of the masses

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