Translated material
Babylonian tower 2.0
Sensation is: no, but I am the founder and only member
Photo: Anatoly Zhdanov / Kommersant
The elusive future
The future has many macro measurements in addition to micro-human-it is enough to read long-term geological, climate, astronomical, demographic and other forecasts. There are diverse tests of distant economic prospects, and even the giant nebula of geopolitical predictions. Watching all this from Russia-25 is cute and funny, but it excites a little less than, say, the great series “Babylon-5”. Because in Russia now, apparently, there is no future-he was killed, stolen, broken, lost.
In short, this phenomenon is described by the legendary tweet of the “Ino -Agent” Roizman*, his first reaction to February 24: “*** The country on the wall”. The same about the wall, and still ***. Which, it seems to me, is even harder today than three years ago.
The point is not that the Russian economy will be comprehended. It will not be comprehended, more precisely, not such as to directly lie down against the wall with a bloodied face (we separately note that the predictions of a fierce disaster made three years ago by many economists, until brilliantly came true). There will be difficulties, but there are great professionals, there is a high adaptability of Russians to economic difficulties, (...), in general, we have indestructibility in this place. (...) Some isolation of Russia really suffered, but oil and gas are swinging into different abroad, and the suffering of Russians, some of which (few), as a result of sanctions, crashed life strategies, and as a result of military operations - moral collapse, the state is drowned out rather, pouring an unhealthy blush.
And it is not the fact that tyrants will burn books, ban cinema and performances, enter the city on white horses, burn gymnasiums and abolish science, introduce pioneer uniforms, prayers and bodily punishments - and then the country will collapse. All this seems to be quite peacefully in Russia, as it is already slowly taking root. (By the way, the first 15 lines of delivery in Google on “drove into a city on a white horse” treat exclusively to the song of singer Alexander Malinin with lines full of Sassens “wanted to enter the city on a white horse, but the mistress of the Korshma smiled at me”, I listened - a terrible story.)
Without good books, the most reading Russian person who reads in the world may well live, he will read shit (there are generations of generations again), as long as citizens who are prone to reading and prefer it to interactive multimedia content will not be translated. Theaters will be full for a long time, even if they show only the “Tale of a Real Man” (and if they once accumulate, they will make viewers according to the sedimentation). Sciences will not recover, but it is possible without them, the question is only in the level of claims. And the pioneering form and prayers in general, as it turned out, combine well, harmoniously, like a priest and howitzer.
And, more than aspirations, the point is not that in Russia all men will be sent to the front, they will put all dissenters and therefore a social explosion will happen (...). If you steal men gradually, in portions, then everything will be the TOP (rare discontent of relatives can be imprisoned for the same dissenters). In addition, the men go like this, some even run, limping, (...) And the troops - thanks to the wise actions of the authorities in the past and in the present - were today almost the only reliable social elevator for those Russians who have to climb the fifth level.
As for political prisoners, real and potential, we are still talking about a social group, quantitatively fitting into the framework of statistical error and, unfortunately, obviously not capable of its activity or terrible fate, neither affecting the regime, nor to influence it meaningfully, nor arouse political self -consciousness in the broad masses. Even, for example,
The executions at stadiums from some completely dystopic scenarios could hardly shake Russian socio-political homeostasis, it is stronger than bogs.
For a century, civil society has someday, perhaps, is perhaps on here, but not soon, and then, if it has time until global or warming or glaciation.
And it is not the fact that suddenly, for example, a nuclear war with its winter or the literal enslavement of Russia with a conventional horde will happen. This either nobody needs it, or no one needs at all.
That is, in general, Russia has norms. There are problems, but it’s okay, everything is like people, or even better than some. Today, it is not even necessary to humbly equalize your Rwanda indicators, something similar can be noted without satisfaction with the most prosperous and wealthy neighbors. The whole world, in general, crazy.
My lamentations are deprived of any household historicism, because he infuriates me. In the present, I am surrounded by smartest and many knowledgeable people who, in a minute of life, are ready to offer me to compare our current position with the periods of the Inquisition, Crusades, Great Plague, Great Terror, all revolutions, and so on, up to the tragic pages of history describing the cold -blooded extermination of tender Neanderthals with vile Sapienes. All this is to experience relief and rejoice in the present, they say that the grass used to be even less green.
I find this proposal ridiculous and offensive to about the same extent as the proposal of radical vokists to consider the present dark centuries in comparison with the project of a sterile society of universal prosperity. People, as you know, are creatures of crocodiles. However, the idea that they have already learned to treat almost everything, to raise a tooth in a person, to repair genetic breakdowns, as well as fly to the stars and process almost any harmful in infinitely useful, as well as generate all kinds of unthinkable beauty (this is not counting the creation of a whole gang of young competing AI), but they continue to kill each other every minute - whether it was remotely, automatic in the face, in the face, in the face, in the face, in the face, in the face, in the face, in the face, in the face, Even in hand -to -hand combat - personally shocking me. People simply do not deserve themselves. They say that they were conceived. I don’t know, I haven’t figured it out so far, but I don’t like such a project. All in all,
So far, in the present, everything goes bad, but in general it’s not bad, I have a well -being of a great country, which is a decade of triumphantly rising from his knees, there is a feeling of absolute lack of the future.
I can’t even name the image of the future “black hole” that I have today, that has at least some cartoon visual. My future is simply not, everything is bursting out, the planning horizon is September: how to survive three tons of Antonovka in the garden. Further - nothing.
It is possible, however, that partly there is a notorious protective reaction of the psyche, since my purely age -related characteristics just suggest at least one long -term and absolutely specific perspective - I will have to bury many. All loved ones who are older than me, including the first cats in my life. This, of course, is so -so the source of inspiration and the not very inspiring platform for building life strategies. But, in the end, it is this age -related one that is generally universal and therefore can be removed from the equation. Another thing is interesting - the thought of the future of their own children rests on the same transparent cliff, it seems to be erased with an eraser.
The simplest explanation is, apparently, that the features of such a future, which is difficult to name for the future, has already sprouted in the present. This is the past, slightly edited. And I am not a contrast, I do not know how to live, waking up every morning in more and more gloomy yesterday. Like many of my peers, I am extremely spoiled by the habit of living in a state of meaningful hope for the whole best world. And if three years ago the wise remark of the senior comrades in the spirit of “Junker Schmidt, honestly, the summer will return” seemed to be reassuring at times, today the winter seems to be eternal, it seems that the polar has come in Russia yesterday. In any case, the wish to “survive” - until the restoration of the normal course of time - sounds among us less and less. It’s good to read the “Oprichnik Day” over a cup of coffee and a cigarette, I don’t want to live in it.
Even if you set yourself a utopian goal to “survive”, there is one unlawful question: and what, actually? To the natural loss of political elders? It already sounds as a maximum program, but there are circumstances besides them. Sooner or later, the elders will go to their monochrome rainbow, but all those people who rode on the elevator *** and miraculously remained alive or half-dead, all those who weaved the nets and made candles, all wives and children of criminals and sadists from the FSIN (even if the criminals are in prison, as they should be), who mentally and aesthetically crushed children, all children, along with the children. Shaman, everyone who did not know how to think and did not study this, everything, humiliated and offended by cursed Anglo -Saxons and their grunting hoarse - all these millions of compatriots will not go anywhere. As nowhere and never, in fact, they did not go. We just did not see them, or rather, did not look in that direction. Of course, the intelligent Russians (the beneficiaries of the dashing of the 90s) never called out such deplorambles people aloud, but a line with two will deceive a person with verbal politeness.
In general, by mature reflection, I don’t have any picture of the future, probably because I simply do not see a language in which all these terrible/beautiful people could agree among themselves about some guaranteeing future minimum-for example, not to kill each other physically. Not to mention more.
By the way, despite the seemingly in full swing, I still do not see a single scenario of the end of hostilities, because any such scenario involves non-zero-sum an approach. That is, not only the presence of a (absent) language in which one could negotiate, but also a desire to agree as a goal and value. But to agree is still not quite the same as to infuriate the opponent, drive the reptile into a corner, put on a bottle so that he signed grateful. The agreement implies the mutual desire of the subjects and the divine compromise as a result. I do not see the prerequisites for this divine (...). Neither in Russia, nor in Ukraine, nor in America, nor in Europe. This is just not the “end of history” (over which everyone has already muffled), but some of its bad continuation, this is the end of the future.
If you turn to a close measurement of this disaster to me, I can describe it something like that. It seems that neither I (the unemployed former journalist), nor my actively working colleagues, almost all in forced exile and/or at illegal position and on the verge of survival, do not know how, and in some cases we do not even consider it necessary to contact anyone except ourselves. Like colleagues from independent American media or European.
Almost all the media space today is the gigantic quarter of an echo-camera, in each of which there is cross-pollination of one inherent audience inherent in this chamber, an endless exchange of mutually lessoning narratives,
Infinitely confirming the picture of the world that has already formed among the inhabitants of this camera. Fox pollinates some, nyt - others, “Medusa”* - third, Russia Today - fourth and so on.
Many echo cameras share the same audience, which is impossible to expand without going beyond the already ossified narrative. Any bee that is trying to fly not in construction, study or pollinate other people's flowers, is rejected, condemned and expelled, remaining lonely buzzing among the armored greenhouses. The journalist who has chosen the method of honest contemplation, which inevitably exposes the monstrous complexity of the world, is immediately declared an “ambiguent”, an opportunist, pouring water on someone (always bad) mill, unprincipled, harmful and so on.
Difficulty - not only as a product, but also as a phenomenon - resolutely rejects today even by those people who sincerely and passionately bake about the fate of the world and actually really want to make it better. But it seems that this does not work very much, the world is not done better, it is made clearly worse, albeit without a bubonic plague and public wheeled (not everywhere, however, without).
That is, it would seem that people learned CRISPR and shoot smart series with one frame, but they can only talk about their values and only defend them by waving a bloodied arrapatical or a poster “Having a conscience, creatures!” (This was such a poster, I do not get tired of remembering it). Either bombing, or terrorist attacks, or cruel repression, or “drive a rat in a corner”, or “cattle”, “Redneki”, or “fascists”, “Liberda”, and so on.
And after all, it is already clear that it is not so accurate to agree. No one and no one. Therefore, I think, it seems to me that there is simply no future. The only thing I can imagine with a sufficient degree of persuasiveness is so gloomy and bleak that “you can’t look around,” as my grandmother said. This future resembles shots from one documentary, long -standing, pre -war - about the work of the Black Tulip volunteer detachment in eastern Ukraine (not to be confused with Afghan tulip). Everything is so beautiful and slow - dusk, fog, rain, slush, graphic black bare trees, a “loaf” with fogged glasses is shredded in a champing dark rolle, and desert fields around. Tired people are shaking in the “Bukhanka” who travel to the places of the recent combat unfortunate, they find and exhumes the human remains that are randomly scattered around their homeland, documented them, carefully collect very black bags and take them into one distant laboratory, advanced morgue, where the remains are trying to identify at the Ukrainian base of the DNA. So that the relatives of the dead during limited hostilities in 2014-2018 could find the bones of their sons, husbands, fathers, brothers. And to bury them finally.
Something like this is from mine today tomorrow. Only there now there are much more lost bones, which have failed into obscurity of names and unidentified graves. Only there are also mines, thousands and thousands of mines everywhere. And erased from the face of the earth of the forest, cities and villages, on the remains of which the destroyers erect new-killer (...). And hatred, at best, turning into the next generations into deaf enmity, with a new folklore and epic on both sides. And definitely no non-zero.
And why, tell me, such a future? We have to focus on the present, forcibly live “in the stream”, although mostly bad news. True, you can temper so far, study stoicism and complex art not to sit down with the prison, trying to do something useful. You can come in advance to everything to see people in passers -by, to train questions, the answers to which you are not known in advance, you can try to sympathize with everyone indiscriminately, based on a common disaster - co -living in a uncomfortably complex world.
And we must try to attach three tons of Antonovka in good hands ahead of time, preferably in the root.
On the day of delivery of this text, I returned from a dizzying jazz concert. Stunned with happiness, walked and thought that Jazz Jam was perhaps the perfect model of the world, because people inside it have a common language, which is the key to life. Autonomous, free and very different citizens are sometimes gathering together and, remaining themselves, create a perfect universe, into which all those around are drawn and begin to live there, with the rhythm of happiness inside. And this is a story not so much about notes as about the Convention. An excellent convention, that’s so, I thought.
But having returned, she read the huge material of the “foreign Agent” “Mediazones”-about the so-called “Azov ** process”, which continues in Rostov-on-Don. I examined the photos from there.
Incomprehensible. Combining all this and not touching your mind is the task with such a fat star that it seems to me that it is beyond its best. I, too, can not cope with the difficulty, which I still can’t and I do not want to not see. In general, I do not need such a future. I am the founder and only member of the sect of witnesses of the flood. Sorry.
The whole report
A large expert study of the laboratory of the future “Novaya Gazeta” can be bought at the “For dear people” telegram store , we released a report with a separate brochure.