Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 1 – The ongoing “zombification”
of Russian society and especially of young people and intellectuals is “a
guarantee of the continued rule” of the Putin regime, but it is destroying the
prospects for the development of Russia now and in the future, according to
Dmitry Strovsky, an outspoken professor of journalism at the Urals Federal
University.
In a wide-ranging interview with
Aleksandr Zadorozhny of Znak.com,
Strovsky who has been in hot water before for his criticisms of Moscow’s policies
on many issues argues that the narrowing and closing of the Russian mind under
Putin is already having tragic consequences (znak.com/moscow/articles/27-02-19-41/103622.html).
Moscow’s
efforts to limit the range of information and interpretations people have has
led to “the colossal problem” of a rise of a new generation whose “quality is
falling catastrophically.” Because of shortcomings in their earlier educations,
he says, they increasingly act as if there was no history before their
appearance on the earth.
Many
of the students he sees do not know what happened in Russia over the last two
decades. For them, “the 1960s and 1970s are as distant as the times of Napoleon
and Kutuzov” are for their elders. And all too often, “the 1930s are just as
far away as … the Tatar-Mongol yoke.” They
thus lack any basis for judging their own times, and the Kremlin exploits this.
There
are many reasons why this has happened, Strovsky says. “One of them is that
today in schools work people who received their training” as the Soviet Union
was falling apart, “when the former history was rejected but at the same time,
it was absolutely unclear what history we would create today.”
“Having
finished university, these people formally are considered pedagogues, but what
can they give to students when they themselves” formed at such a time of
uncertainty lack “an integral worldview” and have “only the most cloudy idea
about where we have come from and where we are going,” he continues.
Moreover, Strovsky says, there was a
breakdown in the transmission of values from parents to children. Few of the latter
are in close contact with the former and “only a handful knows who were their
grandfathers and grandmothers let alone deeper family roots.” They thus have no
idea what was good and bad in the past and what is “permissible.”
Instead of families andbooks, the
authorities for this rising generation “have become the mass media,” which all
too often presents the most “primitive” “black and white” views of whoever is
in power – especially when journalists are actively discouraged from presenting
discussions of issues and told to put out one version of reality.
And because many Russians are
disconnected with the past, they have no basis for judging what those in power
are introducing in their lives. For example, Strovsky says, the Kremlin has
introduced the term “national traitor” into the Russian lexicon, something it
could do because few know that Adolf Hitler used it in his “Mein Kampf.”
“The entire world has condemned Nazi
ideology, including at Nuremberg. But now, in the new millennium, it turns out
that we are publicly approving some of its obscurantist ideas.” That would have
seemed preposterous and absurd only a decade ago, but now it is happening – and
few understand the origins of these notions.
Indeed, Strovsky says, what is going
on “recalls the times of the flourishing of totalitarian regimes – in the
Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and fascist Italy. The ‘unity’ of those in power
and society, the euphoria on the occasion of grandiose successes on the way to ‘a
bright future,’ the absence of doubt, and the subordination of people in the
cultural sphere to the interests and the priorities of those in power are all
present.”
According
to Strovsky, the key task of totalitarian ideology is to eliminate the
experience of the past and to eclipse it with the absolutization of the present
day” because that allows those in power to make any shift without having to
explain their reasons.
“Totalitarianism destroys the links
between cause and effect,” the Urals scholar says. And today, the Putin regime
is doing what the Bolsheviks did in the 1920s and the Nazis did in the 1920s,
eliminating any possibility that people will be able to draw on the experience
of the past to criticize the present.
Another reason that the Putin regime
has been able to move in this direction is the amount of poverty in Russia. “The
pro-Putin majority is relatively poor,” and its members need not only goods but
confidence that the state will ensure that they get at least the minimum even
if it denies them the opportunity to get more.
For such people, “to be a
totalitarian man … is simpler, more comfortable and more profitable” than not
to be. “The aura of the unknown disappears, the individual hopes for ‘a strong
hand,’ and he feels himself in a more comfortable position.” Moreover, this
becomes the basis for supporting the current regime because “if the state dies,
so too do the personal plans of such a person.”
“’Non-totalitarians,’” in contrast,
he argues, are “creatively oriented, thinking and doubting” and their chances
of retaining memory are somewhat higher. But unfortunately, In life, [they]
often are fated to greater complexities,” and thus this is not attractive to
many, including many who think of themselves as intellectuals but who want a
comfortable life.
Indeed, Strovsky says, there
are ever fewer genuine intellectuals, people prepared to question authority and
challenge it. Instead, they are quite prepared to use “the newspeak” the regime
employs to hide its goals and to seek the best possible places for themselves rather
than to live up to their calling.
Increasingly and mirroring the
behavior of those in power, they focus only on immediate tasks and thus both
create ever more problems for society in the longer term, he argues. That is
what is happening in education and culture in Russia today. The powers that be
may be getting a loyal group of subjects, but they are ensuring that Russia
will suffer even more in the future.
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