Staunton, Nov. 7 – In yet another way that parallels the actions of some Western leaders, Vladimir Putin and his regime are making conspiracy theories the centerpiece of their emerging ideology, theories which hold that the West is seeking to destroy Russia and that will further divide that country from the rest of the world, Vladimir Gelman says.
In the course of a discussion of how the Kremlin is destroying Russian higher education, the political scientist at St. Petersburg’s European University says that at the center of this effort is a disturbing new ideological trend that the regime is now imposing on the country’s educational system (ridl.io/ru/promyvka-mozgov-v-auditoriyah/).
Until recently, Gelman argues, “the main obstacle to ideological indoctrination of Russians was that political leaders lacked a coherent ideology that could serve as the basis of a new academic discipline. Now, however, as a result of the efforts undertaken by Putin and his entourage, such an ideology not only has been formed but is becoming dominant.”
According to the political scientist, “it is founded on a conspiracy theory, popular in the post-Soviet space, which talks about the crafty machinations of the insidious West, led by the Anglo-Saxons and their hirelings inside and outside ethe country, who seek to destroy and enslave Russia.”
To promote such notions at the university level, Gelman continues, there is to be taught a course on “the Fundamentals of Russian Statehood” that is being prepared by officials like Vladimir Medinsky and commentators like Sergey Karaganov and reflects notions being pushed by the Foreign Ministry and Russian Security Council.
Given the failures of indoctrination of Marxism-Leninism in Soviet universities near the end, many assume that this effort will fail, he suggests, “but if the authors of ‘the Fundamentals’ turn out to be creative, a global conspiracy against Russia could be packaged in a bright and attractive wrapper and sold to a student audience quite successfully.”
“Such a development may prove far more detrimental to Russian higher education than the ideological indoctrination known from Soviet times, based on Marxism-Leninism,” Gelman says. That is because “the official social science doctrine in Soviet times was constructed as a simulacrum of scientific knowledge about the world.”
To be sure, that ideology “relied partly on outdated and/or erroneous notions, but partly it contained quite reliable information, and, most importantly, it formed a large and rather coherent scientistic project (the phrase ‘scientific communism’ was not accidental). Over time, this simulacre became dilapidated and, quite expectedly, ended in the dustbin of history.”
But it should not be forgotten that “the most talented social science students who used this simulacre were later able to learn other ways of understanding the world, and some of them managed to evolve into well-qualified sociologists or political scientists,” the European University scholar says.
“The current Russian ideological doctrine has different origins, which, by definition, do not involve any scientific knowledge of the world, although it is also part of a large and fairly coherent project;” and as a result, “this brainwashing endeavour should not be viewed as relatively harmless among the numerous other destructive steps taken by the Kremlin.”
That is because, Gelman points out, “those whose minds are infected by the conspiracy worldview are unlikely to be easily cured of it and later become able to transform their views, embracing scientific knowledge about the world.” Instead, they are likely to remain “crippled,” without the ability to think critically and help the country recover in the future.
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