How Russia defeated common sense

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There is such a famous team of graffiti artists - " Why ". Most often they depict this very word on the walls. You must have seen their work.

At the very end of February, we were sitting in a cafe with a good friend. I was at a loss then. And the degree of my confusion was such that it was most accurately described by the obscene form of the word why . I am still there (not in a cafe - at a loss). And my friend. And many, many others.

It is clear what we were talking about. What are we talking about. What are they talking about now? And since in my circle of friends for some reason it is believed that I understand politics, a friend asked, and I had to answer. "For what? a friend asked, “tell me, why did he get there at all?” Why does he go after them at all?" I repeated something that I managed to read and even write in recent years (after all, we were somewhere in the last eight years). Empire. Resentment. Quasi-religious cult of Victory. External expansion as a way of avoiding internal problems...

It all looked smart, but it didn't mean anything anymore. Lost in reality. For seven months I have been trying to answer this question - and nothing has worked out for me.

There are officially declared goals. They, as various big bosses, including the president, have repeatedly repeated, will certainly be achieved. Demilitarization. Denazification. Non-expansion of NATO. Protecting the people of Donbass. They are shuffled, swapped, sometimes they completely forget about some, but so far they haven’t offered us anything else.

And here, perhaps, it would be appropriate to recall the American sociologist Robert Merton. He has the term "self-fulfilling prophecy" in his book Social Theory and Social Structure. Roughly speaking, it works like this: you come up with something for yourself, and then you start to rebuild your whole life under this invention. And fantasy becomes reality.

It is too late to argue with the main theses of Putin’s article “On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, published last summer and, as we now see, the future of the whole world, it is useless, and, being in Russia, perhaps even illegal. But I do not propose to argue, I propose to look at the results by the end of September 2022. The non-expansion of NATO did not work out. Demilitarization has led to the fact that now the Armed Forces of Ukraine have at their disposal the best weapon of the West, the army of Ukraine has increased and is fighting effectively (even the most zealous of the military correspondents urge to stop underestimating the enemy, I will not argue with the military commanders). And most importantly, no matter how it all ends - if it doesn’t end with a nuclear nightmare and the abolition of humanity - then Ukraine will now definitely turn into an “anti-Russia project”, about which Putin wrote. It will not and cannot be otherwise. Alas.

an answer to the question why Enthusiastic fans of Russia's actions are also looking for , and not only those who are on the payroll of the state. They also lack official formulas. They, too, feel that there is a lack of meaning behind official formulas.

By the way, I'm proud of it. For many years I have watched how the statist rhetoric degrades. Like modern life, which is constantly becoming more complicated, they try to pack it into concepts borrowed from the Middle Ages. And how the carriers of these concepts are gaining strength and weight. And for many years, colleagues told me: “It's all steam and emptiness. Smoke screen. Power is pragmatic and rational. The real meaning of their actions is yachts, palaces, offshore and gas pipelines. Crackling rhetoric is for the masses.”

And finally, we see that there is no pragmatics in the actions of the authorities. Yachts and even gas pipelines are easily sacrificed for the sake of a simple set of concepts that makes it possible to replace complex reality with primitive schemes. And almost daily raising the stakes: now the prospect of a nuclear conflict is being discussed quite calmly, and there is definitely no pragmatism in collective suicide. There is no side that can win.

But back to looking for answers. I have read various things. And about the fact that our destiny is to build an empire and grow territories. But this is not the answer to the question why . Because I immediately want to ask it again: why should we grow in territories if we are already the largest country in the world, and at the same time not the most arranged and not particularly efficiently managed? Why not remember about our territories, why not think about what we can offer our neighbors before we “grow”?

I read about the eternal desire of the West to destroy us, about the fact that what is happening is a matter of survival. Or the eternal confrontation between “Good” (and good is us) and “Evil” (evil, of course, is they). But these constructions are easily broken. They are also irrational, they are empty inside: it is not clear why even on February 23 with Evil it was possible to safely trade hydrocarbons and there was no question of survival, and on the 24th everything suddenly changed. This also includes “preservation of sovereignty”: if the savior of sovereignty is asked to move from big words to concrete examples, he will certainly be lost. Because there are no such examples. Well, or remember the gay parade, as well as "parent number one and parent number two." For some reason, this is considered a universal argument in the circles of lovers of the Putin state.

Against this background, even the officially declared goals of "demilitarization" with "denazification" begin to look almost reasonable.

I even read that " Russia is the home of the Most Holy Theotokos , and therefore ...". But the supporter of this concept did not cope with the task at all and could not explain what "therefore". Therefore, we must fight to the last. Why is it necessary? Who needs?

It is easy, by the way, to notice that in all these explanations the most ordinary person is lost, taken out of the brackets. There is no person in these constructions, in pursuit of territories, in search of mystical meanings ... People in these schemes are not even consumables, but simply a missing element. Yes, it cannot be otherwise, all this can be formulated only if people who want to live are ignored. People of Donbass, by the way, too. This is about protection.

And now the result is rather pessimistic. Russia's actions now are beyond the rational. This must be recognized even by the most zealous admirers of the leader. You can admire the irrationality of what is happening, seeing in it secret transcendental meanings - alas, you can, I personally know people who admire. And I would be afraid to be in the same room with them, but I ended up with them in the same country. You can admire irrationality, but you can't ignore it. Let's change the tone a little at the end. “Partial mobilization” makes the question of why relevant for those people who previously preferred not to ask them or put up with the official explanation, which is one and the same. I don't know how they will answer this - scary, actually - question. But I think that they will need just the most rational explanations. Something so simple, at the level of common sense. Something that the supporters of the leader do not have in their arsenal.

The opinion of the author may not coincide with the opinion of the editors.