Linor Goralik: "Substitutes is a sign of humiliation"

For the project “After”, Kirill Safronov talked with Linor Goralik about her program for adolescents “News-26”. Children - they are our real "after".

-On July 4, you launched News-26. How did the idea come, why right now?

-“ News-26 ” is a project on Russian politics for adolescents. It began as a weekly podcast , where we tell any news related to Russia. Heavy, good (we tell good news)-and bad, very complex, also-so that people can understand them, starting from 12 years of age. Now we are rapidly expanding the project in terms of content-we began to post in the telegram channel of the project and anti-war adult poems that we talk about so that the teenager can understand them, and urgent news that we simply write with text in telegram is not necessarily in the format of the podcast, and the “ political dictionary of the teenager ”, and some other relevant rubble. Our main point of application of forces is telegrams and social networks.

I rushed with the idea of ​​"political news for teenagers", probably for the past ten years. And all the time there was a feeling that "something else is needed to run it." We need money, we need strength, you need time, the right fifth to tenth. And here, suddenly, in the current situation, it became clear that all that is needed for this is to take and do it. I still have no money for this. I have a team, mostly from volunteers - thanks to them inhuman. I do this from my own funds - simply because I need to take and do it. I, of course, are looking for sponsors, because I want the podcast not to be weekly, but a daily: a full -fledged news program. And so that at some point “News-26” to become not only a news program, but a political media for adolescents from 12 years old, which will be called “Important-26”. But so far it seems to me that you need to do at least something. So I'm trying to do it.

- Why did they take and did it now, although they delayed ten years?

- Because I spoke with psychologists, with people who work with teenagers. I spoke with teenagers, I spent 20 interviews with them. Firstly, they are discussing everything, and all this happens to them here and now, and not “someday”. There are no “adults” topics and “children's” topics - we just do not want to think about it. But with them directly, for them, no one says about them in this situation. There is some kind of magical story about “ah, how to talk with children about what is happening?!”: Let them explain something globally, in large strokes from time to time. But events take place every day, not globally and large strokes. The information is heard to them every day. They discuss this with peers. They climb to read, of course, and telegrams, what is happening VKontakte, read all kinds of media outlets indiscriminately. But all this speaks in a language that is not available to them. Outside the context that they understand. For example, they have no idea what was in the Soviet Union. They cannot compare with what was five years ago - five years ago they were seven. No one speaks with them so that it is clear to them. I decided to do at least a tiny thing. This does not mean that I will solve the problem - but at least I will try. Five people will listen to me - I will try to help five people. 100 people will listen to me - I will try to help them.

- The problem is that, a person who does not understand the context is easy to manipulate? One of your texts - “8 life hacks on how to distinguish lies from normal information” - is devoted to this problem.

- It seems to me that there are three problems. In our channel there is a text “Why do you need to talk about politics with adolescents”, seven reasons are listed there. I will call three main ones. First: wherever a person has alarming, but incomplete information - his fantasy begins to act. The fact that he invents himself is worse than reality. It would seem - much worse than reality? But so. This is what my very smart interlocutor, a psychologist who works with teenagers prompted me. And with adolescents in injury, and with adolescents, who, among other things, survived the injury associated with violence. Everything that a person does not find out completely, everything that does not speak directly with him - he invents himself, and this is much worse. This is time.

The second reason - when a language is spoken with a person who does not suit him - he does not understand for the most part. And then - again - either fantasy enters, or he misses and does not listen, or he understands how he can - and we will not be happy when we find out how he understood. It’s not enough to say to the teenager: “Read the jellyfish ( included by the Ministry of Justice in the register of media-foreign agents ).” This will not help. It is necessary to say so that a person understands language and context. This is the second reason I do what I do.

And the third reason is that when emptiness occurs, it is filled with those who fill it up. And of course, adolescents are very easy to manipulate. From this first of September, the lessons of patriotism begin in our schools. And the children will pour everything remarkable into their ears ...

- But still, a teenager in Russia is a rather wounded category. It is customary to divide everyone into children and people. If we imagine that the teenager began to understand what was happening. And he comes home. And he begins to tell them the truth, to tell. And what will happen to him? Maybe even worse?

- We thought a lot about it. They talked about this with the team. We do not yet know what to do with it. Up to the point that we are thinking of making a special output of the podcast, which will be called "silent or speak?" What to do with what you think about what is happening, about politics now? We have no answer yet. We are preparing, we will consult how we build this special issue with psychologists and people who work with adolescents. Because maybe the right advice is to be silent. It's not about “Is it good to hide your views?” The fact is that, unlike an adult, a teenager does not have tools that an adult operates. A teenager cannot quarrel with his parents and leave to live in Georgia. He has no way to choose what to do next.

There is another very important thing. I firmly stand in a position that love of loved ones is more important than ideas. Your close to you is more important than ideas. And to learn to live with your loved ones, with different political views, is very important. And maybe this must be learned by a young man. We think how to talk with adolescents about it. And we will think up. Let's think up quickly, because it must be decided quickly.

- It turns out that you have some program formed? Not only “how to distinguish lies from normal ideas”, but also “where to be silent-where not to be silent”, that is, in fact, this is such a “school” where there is a program: critical thinking, identifying patterns, reasoned defending positions, working with misinformation and manipulation ... Is there some kind of program on which you move? Or how?

- I do not know how to think with big projects. Great tasks of this plan. "Social tasks." Here, I was looking for words and found them! I can think about one thing-that somewhere there is a teenager, 12-14 years old (this is our main target), which has horror before what is happening. Who does not understand what is happening. In which parents talk, lowering their voice. Who sees that parents are shaking. To whom now they will begin to pour soap in the ears in school. Who discusses something with his friends, and they cannot even discuss what. Because there is no complete information. Some kind of scraps of information. And I want him to hear five normally explained news once a week.

In parallel, we get some questions all the time. How to distinguish normal news from abnormal? Let's write a list of life hacks. Well, good - here, you recognized these five news, here - you will have a class hour with a lesson in patriotism, lay them out? Raise your hand and say, “I heard that the opposite is the contrary”? Or keep silent? Let's write about this text. I do not have a far-reaching thought-out plan, I have an idea of ​​a living young man who needs to live somehow right now. I imagine that maybe we have three listeners, but these three listeners can make at least a drop of something human. Here we are trying for them.

- So, this is not a “school”, this is such a “cool hour” of a normal person? It’s just that with a small child it turns out that you always look at him from above. And teachers advise squatting to be on a par. That is, it is such a cool hour squat?

- No. You always say institutional structures with such structures. And I think of private structures. This is not a cool hour, this is not a school. This is not a party program. This ... I could talk like the guys in the zoom. This is a piece of private life for private people. For individual teenagers. I really imagine that there are three of them. That's what I don’t have in my head is institutionalicality. We are trying to imagine that there are three living people, and we are telling them something. Somehow we are trying to help them a little.

-Are there any analogues in the world, references that you focused on when inventing this project?

“I don't know a single one.” In Western countries, a bunch of all kinds of political circles for children. But I do not know a single news podcast for children. I do not know a single political talk show for children. It was once with sex. It seemed that these two words could not be pronounced in one context. But somehow they overcame it. “Children” and “politics” were somehow never pronounced in one context. But here I am trying to overcome it. All the time I have a feeling that if there is some kind of social group and some topic that is not customary to combine, this means that you need to start immediately. As soon as a person cannot be talked about something, it means that it is necessary to start talking to him immediately. Because he definitely thinks about it. And silence is a sign of some kind of humiliation. Which must be stopped immediately.

-Do you have any feedback with the audience?

- Yes, she is very different. Firstly, I get endless threats. This is a separate genre. It is absolutely amazing that all the threats and insults that I receive in a stream (they go to the project’s mail, in a personal, to me to messengers), curse me for corrupting Russian children (not in a sexual, but in a political sense), and they are all fantastically illiterate in terms of the Russian language. I understand this correlation: the level of education is worse - more the degree of exposure to propaganda, it is easier for a person to manipulate, but seeing it with eyes - makes a very strong impression. But this is not interesting.

Interestingly, there are teenagers who write to us. "I am listening to the podcast with my parents." Or "I listen to the podcast, then I discuss with my parents." Or "I'm listening to the podcast, I have no one to discuss it with, thank you for doing this." These, the latter, letters are simply heartbreaking: when you understand that the person was alone with his thoughts at all-and suddenly he has someone who talks to him. My tears are full of eyes when I think about it. This is the person for whom we work. I am now doing all the news for this person.

But the most interesting feedback is from adults who write "you are the only news that we can listen to because you give hope." And we really try every news, no matter how terrible it was, to end so that the young man we talk with, has at least a glimpse of hope for the future. And people write "I am an adult, but I am listening to your news." And they sign "Olenka, 40 years." And this is terribly touching. And he says that, it would seem, now a billion sources, and if people want to hear the news not only of the propaganda plan, then they have something to hear, but there is still some kind of request that we apparently fall into.

The format about the fact that each news should end with something encouraging, I did not come up with. This was invented by the brilliant teenagers whom I interviewed, and who told me, among other things, two things: that we need to give hope and that the release should end in good news. You can’t finish the release of what is happening now-there must be something good. Here we finish each issue with something good. But to find good news now is some kind of Hell perfect. I do all the podokast in some normal time, and then I look for good news for the same amount of time. I need it to be connected with Russia, and this is wow. It was the teenagers themselves who thought me, it is not me so smart.

But I have one ban when it comes to good news-but I will someday violate it, because someday I won’t find another good news: "Someone was born in the zoos." So far, we have never sank before, but the hour will come, and we will go down before that. It’s hard with good news.

- It seems to you that in the last 30 years, Russian culture or Russian education made more mistakes?

- “Who has stopped drinking cognac in the morning,” I understand. It seems to me that this is a question of such a degree of complexity that we have to answer it for another 100 years - if you can put it like that (I'm far from sure). I don’t know at all whether culture and education made mistakes. And who made mistakes, and who now needs to repent. I am much more interested in the question-who can do something now? I am firmly sure that each of us can do anything now. In one way or another. As a private person. As a public person. In a tiny extent, to a huge extent. This is the only thing that matters now. Only the question "What to do?" Matters. It seems to me that it is much more important than the question "who is to blame?" - And for a long time it will be much more important.