Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 7 – Coming on top of all the tragedies of the 20th century, the collapse of the Soviet system led ever more Russians to lose faith in science and to put it instead in the irrational. Some turned to religion, but many others turned to witches and shamans – and that pattern now holds at all levels of Russian society, Olga Khristoforova says.
The anthropologist at the Russian Academy of Economics and State Service says that there was an explosive growth in this trend in the 1990s. The government tried to limit it by banning coverage and advertising in regular media, but the Internet has defeated such efforts (rosbalt.ru/moscow/2022/01/07/1937686.html).
Khristoforova says that “astrology and other forms of magic are popular whenever an individual has specific responsibilities and therefore concerns and worries.” He or she wants certainty be it in business, government or daily life; they turn to those who promise certainty. When science can’t, they listen and rely on those who say they can.
She says she observes this among businessmen and students in particular but that it is common throughout society; and the more insecure society becomes, the more people will turn to magicians and those who promise that they have access to higher truths not accessible to everyone.
This trend has become so widespread in Russia and in some other countries as well that even scientific proof that such things don’t work has no impact. People who are worried see such facts as simply yet another effort by those who control their lives to continue to do so and dismiss them.
Indeed, she suggests, the real divide is between those who are prepared to live in a rational world where uncertainty is the norm and those who want certainty regardless of reality and will turn to those, from magicians to politicians, who claim they can provide it, all the evidence that they can’t notwithstanding.
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