Russia, you got sick

Leonid Gozman sums up the results of the year as a psychologist and politician

Our country is mentally ill. I have been sick for a long time, but in the last year the disease went into a new, even more dangerous phase. Of course, about the disease of individual leaders of the country - and even more so the country as a whole - in the absence of an examination, one can speak only metaphorically, but this is not easier.

At first, power fell ill.

The main sign of mental health is adequacy in the perception of the world. The authorities have long been demonstrating something opposite. I do not want to be limited to impressive examples of recent months - the disease has been developing for several years. For example, the impulsive introduction of product “counter -sanctions” wanted to damage the West to the offending us (the interests of their own population were ignored quite consciously), but did not take into account the fact that the entire volume of agricultural products to Russia is less than one percent of the European Union trade turnover. That is, “counter -sanctions” then did not achieve and could not achieve the goal simply because Europe was arranged not as it seemed to our authorities. As a result, individual firms and manufacturers were injured, but not the West as a whole. The constant hopes of the same image of the West is evidenced by the form of the West that part of the business unhappy with the support of Ukraine will be able to force the government of their countries to change politics.

Our leaders do not understand that even very wealthy businessmen in Europe or in the USA do not open the door with their foot to the office of political leaders, and these leaders themselves are not in the share with them. But in order to understand this, you do not have to be seven spans in the forehead - we must want to understand. They don't want.

Well, the limit of inadequacy is this war. After all, they believed that Ukrainians would not fight, weapons would sell our army and meet Russian soldiers with flowers.

And the front shape was ordered to be loaded into the advanced tanks - the parade must be carried out! The parades for them are generally the most important. And by the way, probably now they believe that Europe is freezing.

Apparently, the image of his own country among the authorities and, above all, Putin himself is as far from reality as the idea of ​​the outside world. Numerous actual mistakes in the speeches of the first persons who seem to be completely embarrassed, they say that the image that has developed in their heads is more important than what is really happening. These are not problems of memory - this is a symptom of a much more serious pathology: ignoring reality as such, replacing it with its own ideas.

They not only do not understand, or rather, do not want to understand the world around him, but they don’t want (not capable of?) To enter into a dialogue with it. In response to numerous accusations against our country - whether it is the tragedy of the Malaysian Boeing, the problem of doping or buch - our government never seeks to convince anyone. “You're lying everything,” and okay. Even refuses to convince. So, Putin did not speak at the G-20-even remotely, in a psychologically safe situation, when no one can offend you, refusing to sit with you. And then it was a great opportunity to explain to humanity, which is all inadvertently unlawful, the correctness of the Russia led by him.

The point, I believe, is not only that they are all abroad - villains and Russophobes, of which it is impossible to convince anything. It is more important that official Russia feels in complete (civilizational?) Loneliness. They do not need feedback - and from whom, in fact? They themselves evaluate their achievements without resorting to external assessment. So, at one time, the CSTO announced the Russian victory in Syria, that is, in fact, the Russian Federation itself; The US opinion, for example, does not matter. And the stupidity of the type of reporting about the giant Putin-Burger in New York for the president’s birthday is generally possible only if you forget once and for all that except for the first person you need to please, there are other spectators that this information costs nothing, and the effect will be the exact opposite of the plan. Now, judging by the reports of the Ministry of Defense, Russian troops destroyed the entire personnel of the Armed Forces of the Armed Forces fifteen times, and Simonyan recently pleased citizens with a statement that we had taken Kyiv in the first week of the war. In the same way - only life in a completely illusory world - we can explain the periodic informing of their own people about how his income grows and, in general, how well he lives. And an anecdotal decision on the "Olympic champion in the Russian Federation." They no longer distinguish reality from a computer game: Putin, demonstrating cartoons about a miracle-arranged, probably believed in its existence. This is more and more like North Korea announced her victory in the World Cup, in which her team did not participate.

In their fantastic world, the basis for issuing Russian passports to residents of the DPR-LNR was that they “think in Russian” (Surkov) and that they have a “Russian soul” (Shergunov). And the war is waged for the liberation of Russian people from dill Nazi oppression-the fact that these same Russian people did not ask for liberation and protect Ukraine with weapons in their hands in their hands. The image that has developed in the heads of the authorities does not require verification and is sufficient to make any, the most terrible decisions.

In an attempt to understand the reasons for this inadequacy, there is immediately a temptation to talk about intellectual deficiency. In all, they say, low intelligence and poor or specific education and professional training are to blame.

KGB schools - and we have every first one in the power from there - are not imprisoned for the reproduction of intellectuals, and for success a very specific image of the world is required there.

However, the explanation on the principle of “they are all idiots” is too universal and arrogant. Moreover, it is obvious that “there” remained “there” and very smart people, which does not prevent them from behaving the way they behave.

Their behavior and the image of the world behind it resemble several mental illness at once, but it is unlikely that this can be reduced to one specific nosology. Obviously, however, that we are talking about very deep and non -accidental violations in relations with the world, it is impossible to feel comfortable in it and, as a result, about building impenetrable psychological defenses. Life inside the illusions, where the traumatic effect of reality does not penetrate, is characteristic, for example, for people with psychoses, severe neurosis, dependence on psychoactive substances (in the latter case, we are talking about drug addicts, alcoholics - he personally did not mean anyone! - etc.).

But the departure of the whole generation of politicians into the world of illusions indicates the pathogenic development, which is not based on physiology, but rather the inability to overcome life problems. Judging by Putin’s memories of his childhood - namely, his inadequacy has the largest destructive effect on the country and peace - he lived in a marginal environment (the city was quite prosperous - I myself grew up there at the same time as Putin, - the St. Petersburg street, who allegedly taught him to beat first, was no more than semi -criminal and low -standing vehicle The enclave, which he mistakenly took for the whole world). It was possible to break out, but only entering another, also closed Wednesday - into the world of the KGB. There, the career did not work out either. Then, of course, a fantastic rise and the royal throne. But a person carries a feeling of failure in himself - he did not succeed in what he wanted. The West did not take it for his own. The very people who looked at him in childhood also look at him now: he is the president of the village, but not cities, educated prosperous people - his enemies. He cannot identify with the protesters, his own for him - the riot police recruited in the provinces. And after the Crimean peak, the peaks (for himself) of his presidency - and completely continuous failures that were now complemented by shameful defeats on the battlefield, which presented him not the leader of the superpower, but a pathological liar and a loser. And many years of isolation was added, “You are the great king, Your Majesty!”, No matter what stupidity he did, well, sitting in a huge sterilized coffin during the pandemic and fear for his own life, which he demonstrates every day. He is bad in the real world, so he went to where it was good.

And then the people got sick. Not himself-he was literally poisoned, like Navalny and Kara-Murza.

They poisoned, of course, propaganda, planted on the drug.

By the beginning of Putin’s reign, national self -esteem was quite low. Of course, there were no imperial phantom pains - they were invented later,

In the middle of the zero. At the time of the collapse of the Empire, only those whom fate brought into the countries who became independent and from who, due to the policy of the new authorities, began to change their life, regretted. Moreover, these people were not the invaders for the mass: someone was in Asia, for example, by distribution after the university, someone for other reasons, but they did not think that they were going to the conquered countries, like the British when they went to serve in India. But a sharp change in identity, negative information about the Soviet Union, the inevitable difficulties of the transition period have done their job. Many people began to feel Russia not as an advanced state, the flagship of all mankind, but as a rather backward country, the task is to catch up with Europe, which should abandon the messianic self -awareness, and so on. There was even a slogan: "Catch up to Portugal!" - Correct, but not spiritual!

Everything would have worked out - we are not the first, we are not the last - but, taking advantage of the monopoly dominance in the media, the authorities began to offer another, at the same time more prosperous and extremely dangerous concept. We are the best (spiritual, kind, keepers of true Christianity and family values). Therefore, everyone envies us. Therefore, they hate. But we are strong and we will defeat everyone.

Such a picture of the world was extremely beneficial to the authorities: she attributed all the failures to the machinations of enemies, and made patience and humility with valor. A side result was the growth of national self -esteem - the best we are not the race of gentlemen, but the chromosome is already special. Of course, this concept meant no less departure from reality than that of the authorities - after all, there are no enemies envious of us in nature. But the departure in the illusion cannot be partial: if you don't give a damn for reality, then combat mosquitoes arise, the Americans hate us, the drug addiction of Zelensky and so on. Ahead is a flat land standing on three whales.

Within the framework of such an attitude, the faith of many of our fellow citizens that the Ukrainians themselves attacked us, bombed Mariupol and arranged a massacre in Buch, no longer cause surprise. We could not do it all - spiritual, fair and so on!

This attitude is psychologically comfortable. This is the situation of a drug addict, who does not like the world surrounding him and his place in it, but everything improves the dose. True, then another one is needed, already about it, and then still, and ahead only inevitable and painful death. But which of the drug addicts understands this, especially when the drug - the TV - is available at any second?

This is treated. There is only one difficulty: to recover, the patient must want it! He must understand that something is out of order with him, he must realize the disastrousness-for himself and for others-continuing life within the framework of artificial reality. Only then is there a chance.

The disease of our power and our society is terrible not by depth and incurability, but by the fact that both the authorities and people are quite comfortable inside the disease. But such cases, alas, are non -jurable.