There are no words

Why all socially significant terms now have to write in quotation marks

More than twenty years ago, when a lot in the country began to change, two objects were the first objectives of the reconstruction - sociology and independent media. VTsIOM was taken from Yuri Alexandrovich Levada immediately after the Gusinsky television company NTV was deprived.

It was a correct debut idea from the point of view of its authors. Having lost feedback, society gradually lost the understanding of what was happening and then - immunity to propaganda. And this affected everyone - both the slave and those who consider themselves intellectuals.

Now, attempts to comprehend what is happening rests exactly on this - the lack of reliable data about which country we live in, and next to whom, and what they think in reality, and what, accordingly, to expect.

If we draw analogies with medicine, then we were discarded at a time when the doctors did not have at the disposal of CT, MRI and X -ray, but even an elementary laboratory. And nothing, people lived, however, not for long.

Having lost sociology and media, we found ourselves in the position of people who themselves cut out the appendicitis with a dull scalpel, and, completely in vain, because they suffer from pediculosis.

It will not continue so forever. Modern methods of social diagnosis and treatment will return, if only because the memory of their existence and effectiveness has been preserved. And everything will begin with what it always begins - from the word. This will be a non -fast path, where it would be nice to do terminological cleaning for a start. It is impossible to prescribe treatment without making an accurate diagnosis.

But new words will not appear until it seems to us that the old ones are suitable.

For example, many freely use the expressions “Watniks”, “Liberals” and “Creative class”, no matter what sign. For their appearance in our vocabulary, by the way, it is necessary to thank V.Yu. Surkova, the cult figure of the National School of Frusting of the head.

If you look closely, these three words are no more than a quail in the Soviet description of the social structure, which, according to its authors, consisted of the proletariat, collective farm peasantry and labor intelligentsia. That that picture of the world was delirium, what this one. And the prevalence and common use of these words is that then, that now is the success of propaganda, and not the result of accurate knowledge.

Sensations are added, those who use the “intelligentsia” in the old fashioned way. And this is half a century after the appearance of the brilliant term “education”, thanks for him a lot to Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn.

Other, outwardly simple and understandable, but completely empty and meaningless words become perfectly in this series.

For example, "opposition". Who is this and where it is shown? Actually, the opposition is found only in parliament. And if you use this word, you will have to recognize the fact of the presence of parliament in the country.

Who got on our heads from? Therefore, the next step in this logical chain is the recognition that elections took place in this territory. This is already called - the legitimization of the booth. There are no such articles in the Criminal Code, but the intellectual crime is evident.

How to describe this phenomenon? “The part of the population that is unhappy with the external and domestic policy”? Or just "dissatisfied"? Here comes an understandable fork: too long in one case, too simple in another, and in both there may be a feeling that you are not highly enough. But you will have to choose, you can’t live in such a language mud.

Some - without coercion and court decision - take the phrase “deep people” in their mouths. This is already very embarrassing - to eat terminological scraps from the hands of the administration. Which after the departure of V.Yu. Surkova tragically lost in the mental level. So you can get to the “86 percent of support” or other fantasies of VTsIOM.

And the very concept of "people" arouses suspicions of insolvency. Those who use it clearly exclude themselves from these ranks.

Only a vague suspicion creeps up that something prevents them from openly calling himself an intellectual elite, and all the others with a blunt and dark cattle. On the other hand, such restraint is already not bad.

What can we say about the “electorate”, which persistently returns us to heavy thought about whether there are elections, parliament in the country and this, like its opposition.

And so wherever you throw it. All socially significant terms - such familiar, convenient and saving time - have to write in quotation marks. You can write, but you can’t think and communicate in quotation marks. This is like carriers of Farsi would turn to the francophons, while they are all deaf -blind.

The result of such helpless usage is intellectual paralysis, which in the circles of less enlightened is indicated by one word that causes rejection of Roskomnadzor. No one with anyone to agree with anyone is able to even understand what it is about. The state of politics, economics and everything else is a consequence of this impasse.

If - others and to ourselves in trouble - we want to continue this general collection of a camp following the results of the management of the stud farm, no one will hinder us. If we decide to start choosing, it makes sense to first stop the current unfiltered bazaar and take up the selection of new words. Otherwise, we will writhe lies of blessing.

Mikhail Shevelev , for Novaya Gazeta