Z as an object

Ella Rossman's column about why Russian propaganda (nevertheless) works and what to do with it

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The letter Z became a symbol of the new stage of the war in Ukraine immediately after the invasion of the Russian army on February 24. At first, the supporters of the war and its opponents were surprised by the image chosen by propagandists ( probably representatives of the PR block of the Ministry of Defense). The letter Z is from the Latin alphabet, it is initially alien to those who use Cyrillic.

Analysts described Z as an empty sign or symbol without specific filling: it was not clear what meanings and contexts he refers, his choice seemed random and irrational. It was not believed that this image could become part of some kind of ideology and an effective mobilization policy, it seemed that citizens could not arrange such an empty message.

After almost six months of the war, we can say that these predictions were incorrect. The wire Russian propaganda, perhaps, does not force to believe in ideas that it promotes, but it is definitely very effective in intimidating and pulling Russians with each other and with the whole world. Participants in the anti -war movement, on the contrary, are faced with difficulties, trying to attract new people to an anti -war campaign or simply hold the military agenda in the focus of Russians. The Z-propaganda perfectly pulls attention, mobilizing strong political emotions, resentification and resentment, rooted in the old injuries of Russian society. Why did analysts underestimate the potential of wire propaganda and its main symbol?

I think that the main role here was played by the wrong approach to the emerging ideology (or quasi -deological narrative, as the literary critic Mark Lipovetsky characterizes Rachism) and its main symbol. Speaking that Z is an empty, not sending sign to anything, analysts approached it as an element of a classic sign system, almost in the Saussky sense. In this system, the truth, Z does not work: it does not refer to a specific value (which were noted by the representatives of the Russian authorities responsible for the ideology of the current war), to the other sign system. Z itself is not directly related to discourses already developed in the Russian state ideology: for example, with narratives about the Second World War or the “Russian world”, which were central to Putinism in the 2010s. I think, in order to understand how Z acts, it is necessary to consider the symbol not within the framework of the sciences of signs and texts, but with the help of object-oriented approaches that allow it to be much better to understand its work.

Object-oriented approaches are a group of philosophical, sociological, anthropological methodologies and theories that develop and develop different authors, such as sociologist Bruno Latur (creator of actor-sulfur theory), representatives of the philosophical school of speculative realism (Graham Harman, Quentin Meayasa, Ray Bracles) and feminist) Theoreticess Karen Barad, an author of the concept of agent realism. Common in their texts is an increased interest in extrahuble objects. All these authors suggest that agents, subjects or actors (that is, active “figures”) in social systems or ontologies can be not only people and communities, but also other living creatures, as well as inanimate things. For example, Harman can act as an object as a single reality that changes and enters into a complex relationship with other realities, but at the same time remains closed on itself. He considers a variety of entities as objects, including "atoms, vegetables, nations or songs." The gender researcher Jazbir Pooir in one of his articles offers to complicate the too anthropocentric theory of intersectionality and writes about complex assemblies (a concept from the philosophy of Deleuz and Felix Guattari), in which things, people, power and social relations gather. Karen Barad pays special attention to matter, which in her theory appears not just an inanimate substance, but at the same time a process and an active agent that gives rise to relations and related to other agents. Theoreticons, which are associated with the course of feminist new materialism, such as Barad, as well as Jane Bennett or Catherine Bihar, in their texts significantly complicated object-oriented approaches: in particular, the feminist criticism of objectivation they brought not in their ontological isolation, but as parts of existing political political systems.

Active objects in object-oriented paradigms can be not only physical objects, but also elements of the language, for example, individual words. Bradley A. Gorski, professor of Slavici from Georgetown University, in his study of the post-Soviet commercial book industry claims that not only people and publishers, but also separate words, and especially the concept of “bestseller” played a large role in the development of the Russian book market. Going to Russian from English, this word mutated, acquired new meanings and sounds (for example, somewhat ridiculous in Russian appeared in Russian, but for us the already legitimate expression “intellectual bestseller”) and influenced the formation of a whole commercial field. “Besseller” at Gorski turns out to be an active and influential agent, who determines the logic of industry development and pushes the field of high culture under the rules of the capitalist system, becoming a kind of mediator between Soviet cultural institutions, readers and new economic reality.

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In Russian wire propaganda, we are dealing with a situation where such an object becomes not even a word, but a single letter. As in the case of the "bestseller", this letter is brought from the outside of the tongue. As analysts who wrote about Z correctly noted, initially this symbol did not refer to any finished system of values. Instead, Z created a dynamic system of meanings around him, rebuilding the entire existing Russian -language discursive field under a new (and all the time) agenda. Z is not filled with information, but charged with anger and energy; The environment that he forms around himself is an affective topology ; Newborn images and meanings in it are intertwined, dynamic and initially extremely emotionally charged and explosive. Z makes us in parts of their structure, simultaneously passive (most Russians do not resist the new order) and active (emotionally reacting, arguing on the network, hating, enhancing affect and thereby participating in the development of this system). For the ideology of Z, the logic and harmony of the narrative is not fundamental: the official comments of the Russian authorities are contradictory and are changing all the time, but this does not weaken them at all. The Z-structure is opposed to any complex or balanced discussion and joint action and erodes the meanings that existed in a public field before it.

Affective Topology Z is determined not by the fact that the sign itself directly carries in itself, it arises around it. At the same time, the graphic elements of the sign and its weak connotations, I think, can play a certain role in what meanings it creates. Unlike symbols V and O, which at first also claimed to mean a war in Ukraine, Z is an extremely aggressive image, almost a stigma. In the stories and films about Zorro, who, by the way, tell about the vigilanta adventurer, who alone challenged the villains and fights them bypassing all existing laws and rules, the main character carved Z (the first letter of his pseudonym) with three blows of Rapira. Two parallel straight lines, broken by the diagonal, rhyme with how the war in Ukraine crossed out all the prospects for the development of Russian society, as well as with unsolvable conflicts that the new Russian ideology generates. The affects that this sign creates are built on binary and a sharp rejection of the inconvenient past and any future, rejection of empathy and natural human feelings, basic morality and ethics. Just try to imagine that some other letter, like a rounded “o” or much more “friendly” Russian “z”, has become a symbol of this war: it seems that it would simply not have taken root in such a role.