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(Links to previous Chapters are available here: Volume I and Volume II)
June 21, 2011.
At this stage of our intellectual and political marathon, I would like to have a very confidential conversation. I do not even know if such a confidential conversation is possible right now. But I’ll still try to begin it, since it is necessary. With a deep hope that it will work out.
Some of those who watch the “The Essence of Time” program very carefully react to it in an understandable, but overly simplistic and one-dimensional way. They say: “You are talking about some kind of damage. You think that those with whom you are conversing are damaged. And this means that you are standing in a position of arrogance, that you look at us like at some damaged material, and you are preaching to us about how exactly this material should be mended. ”
In my opinion, this is not fair. In my opinion, everyone who has at least some psychological astuteness understands that I am not speaking from a position of incredible arrogance and not from a position of possessing some absolute truth, which looks down onto the valley, sees that something is moving, and is trying to somehow manipulate it.
I speak from the standpoint of real human pain for what is happening, for what people have been subjected to. After all, they in fact were subjected to something over the course of the so-called perestroika, when their Ideal was smashed with incredible power. When people really gave in because of this collapse. When the country was criminalized, and this criminal monstrosity of a class was created, which is now mercilessly devouring the country, and it will certainly devour it to the end if something is not done. I am not preaching, I am simply sharing this pain and this understanding of the situation with other people, and nothing more.
I earlier talked about that “crooked goat”, which the Russians “rode” for centuries. All of a sudden, I started getting very agitated responses, “Why a crooked goat? Why are you proposing such an untidy and ugly image? Better a Humpbacked Horse or some fire-breathing stallion…”
Well, how can I respond to this? You and I, my dear listeners, together find ourselves in a catastrophically difficult situation. We have really gotten ourselves up a creek without a paddle. And if we don’t realize how far up the creek we’ve gone and how catastrophic of a situation we find ourselves in, then we will not get out of this situation, do you get it? We will never get out of it.
The first condition is to adequately understand the state of affairs, no matter how bad things are. No matter how sick you or your loved ones are, you want one thing first and foremost – the right diagnosis. No matter how grave this diagnosis is, it’s better than a lie. Even the most terrible disease still has a chance of recovery. There is always this chance. It can be one thousandth, one millionth, one billionth of a percent, but there is always a chance. And the less of a chance there is, the stronger the will and the mind need to be of whoever is coming out of this difficult situation. I have seen people who came out of incredibly complex, difficult, desperate situations, because their mind and will were strong enough. And they were able focus it into a laser beam, which could cut through thick armored sheets, break through any obstacles, and destroy anything standing in the way to the desired goal.
Everyone probably understands that such situations exist. And that in these situations some people come out as winners, while others suffer defeat.
Everyone remembers Maresyev, who flew military aircraft after losing his legs, this hero about whom Polevoy wrote The Story of a Real Man. But everyone probably understands that Maresyev went back to flying, but other people who also fought heroically – strong and courageous people – in the same situation as Maresyev – with amputated limbs – ended their lives in homes for the disabled. How is Maresyev different from these people? The situation was the same: your legs had to be amputated, a terrible misfortune happened. But Maresyev overcame this terrible challenge, while others folded. And indeed, they weren’t weak either. They were strong men, heroes, but they folded.
How can we ensure that our people, all of us in this situation, become a collective Maresyev, capable of overcoming something, instead of folding in the face of this huge, monstrous challenge? Do you not agree that you can’t understand how to respond to a challenge, you can’t even really mobilize yourself, if you do not understand the magnitude of the challenge?
Suppose you, for some reason, have imagined that you are on a high mountain, up on the summit, but you are actually at the base.
But you’ve imagined it. While in fact you haven’t even started climbing. You are in a completely different position, for the reality is that you are somewhere down here.
But you have imagined that you are up at the top.
What happens to everyone who comes to you and says, “Listen, this is just your imagination, and here is the reality”? This person insults you, because you already have the firm belief that you have ascended to unheard of heights in terms of intellect, strength of will, and anything else. But someone told you all of a sudden that you are standing much lower. If you resist and reject reality, defending this figment of your imagination, then first of all, you will spend most of your energy on displacing this reality. And secondly, you will never ascend to this higher position in reality. In reality, you will remain down there. You will only see yourself as someone else in your dreams.
The character from Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground tells how, in dreams, he saw himself “at the ball for the whole of Italy at the Villa Borghese on the shores of Lake Como”, then “almost riding a white horse and crowned with laurel.” My mother once told me that Dostoevsky reflected certain features of our national character very accurately, unfortunately, not the best ones.
In order for you to do something, you must dismantle this imaginary construct (scientists say “eliminate”), evaporate it… And say, “Yes, I am here. The reality is that I’m here.” In a trap. I apologize for the sharp expression, in deep shit. After recognizing this, you can plan your ascent. You will say, “I’m at this stage now, but next I’ll come up to this stage. Look, I’ve already reached the level where I used to only imagine myself. But I find myself here not in my dreams ‘on Lake Como’ and ‘crowned in laurel’, but in reality. And this is a great joy, because I have overcome these steps. Now I’m here. And there is one more step in front of me, and I can continue over there. If I want to move up the step, then maybe I’ll muster my strength and jump up there. But I will jump there (to a new level) from here, from this point in reality, from where I am now. ”
Why substitute all this with fantasies, ignoring reality and depriving ourselves of the opportunity to really move from a low and perilous state to a high or even the highest state, after putting in the necessary effort? Why do you need this fiction if it prevents you from moving somewhere? You are not going anywhere if you have this fiction! Because you already feel good. In your imagination, it is as if you have already achieved everything.
I return to that goat, which the Russians rode for several centuries. Which is clumsy, crooked, stubborn, awkward, and who knows what else. How is this goat different from the Humpbacked Horse [a Russian literary folk-style poem, written by Pyotr Yershov in 1830 – translator’s note] or a fire-breathing horse? It’s different in that the Humpbacked Horse is a pretty recent glamorous invention. It’s like the Palekh miniatures [a folk-inspired decorative art style that first appeared in 1923 – translator’s note]. It’s a beautiful-beautiful painting. But the crooked, smelly, wild goats reside at the depths of true popular folklore.
There is a well-known parable in which a powerful force tells the hero or the heroine: “Come to me not dressed and not naked, not on horseback and not walking.” And thinking painstakingly about how to do it, the hero or heroine (it seems, the heroine), eventually puts a fishnet on her naked body, sits on a goat and rides. And it suddenly turns out that indeed: she is not dressed and not naked; she is not on horseback and not walking, but riding this goat.
Folklore in general, and Russian folklore in particular, has this concept of “self-deprecation”, after which the ascent begins. Russian fools-for-Christ behaved that way, and that is how our culture behaves in general. When a certain kind of self-deprecation leads to an inexorable uplifting, an inexorable ascent. When an awareness in seeing one’s own situation concentrates within itself both a very powerful feeling of being called to something, and a feeling of one’s own insufficiency, incompleteness, and freakishness. So you see, if both components are not present at the same time, then there is no folklore, only glamour.
I just examined the aesthetic aspect of what concerns the crooked goat, on which we have ridden for centuries. But there is another aspect that I see as even more important. If we were not riding on a crooked goat, one that sometimes refuses to budge, one that bleats, which sometimes goes where it needs to, but runs away somewhere else other times, but instead we galloped on some wonderful horse, then where did we end up riding to?
We have ridden, I apologize for the rudeness, into deep shit. We have reached a monstrous situation in which our territory has suffered incredible losses, our industry has seen an incredible fall, our population has been thrown into incredible poverty, drug addiction, homelessness, and a moral fall. And God knows what else.
Do you not feel this situation? Is it not terrible and monstrous? Do you not fell the pain of it all? But if you don’t feel the pain, then what politics are we talking about? What struggle can there be, if you do not see that you are really here, in this horror?
Blok once said concerning this:
“Open your eyes to all the blind,
Horror of life, open them fast,”
And then he added:
“But, without more ado, wipe off
The greasepaint mark of this sham life,”
Why do we need this Palekh today, these Humpbacked Horses, these fire-breathing horses, this glamour a la Rus, this patriotic sentimentality? Why do we need them in such a ruthless situation, in the midst of such horror and facing such terrible threats?
The play Izn [Ife, truncated and incomplete Life – translator’s note] contains the following lines on this topic: “Great heroism, indeed! Plague, chick! Your worthless antics make me sick! Your harlotry, your vain romance! Who cares in such a circumstance? When she’s to come, she’s on the brink!..”
“Who, Father?” the heroine asks.
He replies, “The Black Spring.”
So, who needs this “Palekh”, sentimentality, pathos, and unctuous romantic images when “she is on the brink”? Or is it not on the brink? Or are we engaged here in fabricating some terrible scenarios that will unfold? So let’s think again: are we inventing something for ourselves, are we creating some kind of theatricalization in the form of fearmongering? Or is the situation actually terrible? Are we in hell or are we not in hell?
Truthful newspaper articles and television programs appear one after another about how television is corrupting children, little children. About how 12-year-old girls going around and robbing people in cities that were previously considered oases of scientific and cultural life, about kindergartners who photograph each other in pornographic poses… Do you not care about the children? We understand that we are not talking about isolated cases, but that it is all hell, into which people have been cast. We understand that they were cast down into here, not somewhere else! This means we are in deep trouble.
What Humpbacked Horse, what kind of fire-breathing horse can we talk about then? Is it not clear that if we have gotten ourselves into such deep trouble, yet we are engaged in sweet talk, then we just look incredibly ridiculous?
Tell yourself, finally, the real truth. Maybe it will awaken something, maybe it will activate some additional human reserve capabilities. Maybe then this collective personality, this spiritual whole, which has found itself in Maresyev’s situation, will manage not go to the home for the disabled, but to take back off into the air and shoot down those vile Messerschmitts? Because we have this opportunity. But this opportunity only appears when we recognize reality and look at it with open eyes. When we really open our eyes to all this endless horror, in which we find ourselves. And when it becomes clear that this glamour, unctuousness, pathos, and romantic pictures are ill-fitting. And that something else fits – something that is breathing with this last power of both self-deprecating and self-elevating folklore.
Here we are. Yes, we have fallen. Yes, the devil only knows how we have been trudging. But this is our historical destiny. This is our historical personality. And we shall see who comes riding up to the ultimate goal faster – you on your horses, or us on this crooked goat.
Is it really unclear that on the inside, morally, and as human beings this is our only chance to get out of this present lowliness and start really moving up, to start really overcoming ourselves? And that there is simply no other chance? So why try to fool yourself and others, why treat yourself gently, when you have to as be merciless with yourself as possible in these extreme and ultimate situations!
Perhaps one of the reasons why Maresyev went back to flying was because inside he felt: “I’d rather drop dead than live in that shelter!” Because he could not live without flying. Because he was not damaged in that way, he didn’t possess that kind of weakness, as the result of which you suddenly end up in a shelter for the disabled. Or when you stand there drunk begging for alms, consoling yourself with memories of who you were yesterday… It’s a real possibility, after all. Just a little more and it will come, just a little more and it will become irreversible. Is this really not clear? Why is this not clear? Why?
I travel around the country. I will not say where in this case, so as not to offend anyone (because, God knows, the last thing I want is to offend someone). I arrive at… well, some other city, not Krasnoyarsk… And there not everything is quite so good with Essence of Time. People are confused, they have yet to gather themselves, they do not know exactly what to do… Some of them don’t have a very constructive attitude, to put it mildly. They sit, listen for hours, inquire, and really torture themselves over how to get out of this situation, and so on. Sometimes they demonstrate some kind of helplessness, and sometimes they don’t seem completely with it. Well, that is life. That’s the way it is. This is the reality in which we live.
Unimpressed with how this meeting went, I return with a heavy feeling to the hotel. The following morning, a big conference is on the schedule, where the business elite of this very serious city is supposed to congregate: the political elite, business elite, etc. I don’t like elites in general. And I especially dislike those who call themselves the elite in this monstrous situation we find ourselves in. But here it was somehow evident that the people who had gathered were serious, devoid of hedonistic vices, or narcissism.
These people are dry, straight to the point, imposing, tenacious, and serious. You’re speaking with them, and they answer, “a catastrophe is coming, right now, right here.” And you understand that they are sincere in saying this. They are speaking seriously, they really are talking about a catastrophe. And it’s not that they are trying to cash in on it somehow, or that they are entertaining themselves with some strange kind of macabre show, a certain theatrical genre, where they frighten themselves and experience some kind of theatrical pleasure… This is not a horror theater. It’s not a horror movie. This is reality. I see that they are looking at me with honest eyes, and they are saying, “That’s it, a catastrophe! It is creeping upon us. ”
After it’s over, you’re sitting alone with one of the people who stood out the most among those who said all this. He talks about the same thing in an even more trusting manner… I answer him then, “Listen, you’re a really strong person, you know a lot, you’re very capable. Can you explain some things to this Essence of Time this group, which in this city has become a bit flustered and doesn’t quite understand everything? Come to them, talk to them, help them. Let’s work together.” And this person answers me (a rather young man, much younger than me): “Oh, you know, ten years ago I would have done this with great pleasure! But now I have so many commitments in life… ”
And all of a sudden, everything I saw before this (all of these smart, strong faces of the business and political elite, all this dry rationalism that I always admire, all this remarkable will and capacity for reasoning) all these good things that I had been admiring, it just took the form of crumbling clay… A moment ago it all seemed so alive, so solid, real, and genuine. And it just suddenly falls apart. And all that remains is a pile of sand.
And then you suddenly realize that maybe these semi-bewildered people who have gathered and who are clinging to each other in this Essence of Time group… (In that particular city, in other cities this is not the case at all, I emphasize: in Moscow, Leningrad, or Krasnoyarsk it’s not at all like that.) But in that particular city where I was, they were huddling up together in a somewhat confused and awkward manner… maybe these people are better…
Because, think about it… If a person, someone formidable, strong, volitional, and real, is talking seriously and without being theatrical about a catastrophe, then he has to start trying to overcome it somehow. Well, I do not know… he could dig a bunker for himself in case of nuclear war… And if he thinks holistically, then he must save the country from this catastrophe. What kind of life commitments can he have in this situation, even to his loved ones? There can be only one commitment, not many commitments. He can have one commitment: to thwart this disaster, to save people from it, if he is a strong, formidable, strong-willed, intelligent man with capabilities. He has no other commitments.
He could have plenty of these commitments in a different situation – if he looked at me and said: “Sergey Yervandovich! What are you confabulating here?! What disaster?! It’s all peachy, everything is cool. Russia is moving towards a revival. We will soon be better than anywhere else on Earth. And, sorry, I have a lot of specific obligations in life on this great, happy journey. I need to take care of my loved ones, my children, my parents. I have to take care of my business, I have to do something else. I have many goals, I have them arranged according to certain life plans.” This person would be right in that case. As soon as he says: “Yes, it’s all peachy, everything is fine. We are not going to the abyss, but we are on a great, happy road to the summit of Fujiyama, or Elbrus, or Everest. Everything is good,” then he has the right to talk about a huge amount of life obligations. And it would even be strange if he did not talk about it.
But if he says “in the first lines of this letter” (in Babel’s story it was said: “In the first lines of this letter I rush to notify you”) that a terrible catastrophe is approaching, if he talks about it seriously, wholeheartedly, truly, how can he continue to talk about how he has all these obligations in life? Which one of us two has gone mad? He or I?
It seems to me that this is a special state of mind and soul in which one center, one part of the brain and heart speaks about this catastrophe and turns in one direction, and the other part of the same brain and heart says that it has a huge amount of life obligations, and turns in another direction. But do you know what it’s called? It’s called a split personality, then that split personality splits in four and keeps going. It’s called, I’m sorry to say this, Schizophrenia. Postmodernists have written about this as schizocapitalism.
In this case I’m not talking about personal psychiatry, but about a syndrome that encompasses a whole community, a group. They have some commitment, do you see? On the one hand, it is a disaster, and on the other hand – they have obligations. And they have no time to help out some people, who have somehow shrunken down, are clinging to each other, feeling misfortunate, and confused, but at the same time they are good people and not that weak – they have no time for that. And maybe these people are the last chance to overcome the disaster? Maybe there’s no other chance. This chance is tiny, weak, but there is no other chance at all.
It’s the second day. I’m leaving the town. There were plenty of conversations, meetings… And in a half-unconscious state, I fall on the bed in the train car heading to Moscow, and I want to fall asleep.
At that moment some men and women behind the wall suddenly explode in incredibly filthy profanities. Well, I’ve worked in geological expeditions. I’ve directed plenty of plays in provincial theaters and other places. Generally speaking, I’m not a hypocritical goody two-shoes. But it was incredibly filthy, insanely-animalistic, beastly foul language. Then they start explaining to the young lady how something will happen… then the men… they almost oink like pigs, growl… Very loud American music is playing, so they start yelling even louder.
It’s 12 am. Something suddenly comes over me, and I know for sure that I’m just going to beat these guys down, who are shouting behind the wall. And if they try to move after that, I’ll do something worse. So, get up and start getting dressed. My wife sees this and runs to get the train conductor, explains something to her (apparently, quite intelligibly), and the conductor goes to this animal house. She begins to say: “Sons, sons, – and the conductor is a simple Russian woman, – sons, what are you doing? There are elderly people who want to rest, and they are old enough to be your parents. And what are you doing here?”
The growling of this collective beast suddenly quiets down. Then it grows even quieter, and quieter…
This simple woman turned out much smarter than me. She worked some kind of magic… A human being is somewhere here. He has already started moving towards becoming a beast. And she brings him back with the simplest words. Then she leaves the neighboring compartment, and she says that this is the 12th car, while the 13th is full of sports fans, and they’re all drunk. It’s their leadership who are partying here, the conductor says. While there (in the 13th car), the fans are wreaking havoc. The whole train car is full of police, and God knows what else is going on there.
But that’s not the most important thing. The most important point is that she manages to brings back the part of the human being, that has gone far towards the state of the beast, she brings him back to his humanity. But if she only brings him back for a little while, then he will start moving back there again. Even if someone else brings him back again… When exactly will this human component disappear completely?
We all say: “It’s a disaster, not a disaster… The Club of Rome… this and that… a geopolitical horror…” But this is the real catastrophe. It is already roaring behind the wall in your train car. It will go out tomorrow onto the streets, and it does not care about anything: not about the fourth project, nor the fifth, the seventh, or the tenth… It is already growling, it is crawling up to you from between the cracks. You can cover up all these cracks as much as you like, but it breaks through them again and again. And in a sense, of course, it has a character on a world-historical scale, and an even more complex, world counter-historical character. Is it not so?
But if it is so, then the only way to do something is to realize this, and tell yourself: “Dear friend, you are here. This is a complete disaster. Muster up your strength and get up. It’s hard for you. You are running on empty, at the limit, but take another step up. And then gather more strength and take another step up. Then another.”
We always want to be kind to ourselves. We always want to be gentle. And this example shows that sometimes that’s the way we should be. But, I’ve been in different situations in my life. I’ve been in situations when in extreme hikes or geological expeditions I had two possibilities: either to show this ultimate and unpleasant toughness, or to die with the others; worst of all, get people killed for whom I’m responsible. Do you hear me? Do you hear that word? Res-pon-sible. Therefore, I will talk about unpleasant things not because I want to offend someone, but because it’s impossible otherwise. Otherwise, it does not work.
What I’m talking about are phenomena. There is a phenomenological method, it does not operate with concepts. (I will operate with concepts as well, but later.) It operates with ideal types, living situations, which are both images and concepts, both specific and abstractions… This is a reality that, when ultimately concentrated, does not become an abstraction completely, but it is no longer simply a specific case. It becomes something more.
Such method exists.
I will not give lectures about who used this method and when. The greatest name, probably, is Husserl. But many people have done this, opposing this method to the conceptual, scientific one. For me, what I discussed before this and what I will discuss now are phenomena. These are not specific people and not specific life situations. These are certain specific quintessences.
Among those people who have come to “Essence of Time” – and who have not just come, but are actively working and working well with high quality, there is one very nice, intelligent woman from abroad who has done a lot of useful things. And as they tell me, she continues to work. She deserves honor and praise for that.
At some point, she became disappointed and… she did not even stop working, but simply expressed in a disturbed monologue the whole degree of her disappointment. She wrote a very poignant, nervous text, in which she said: “How can this be? How can this be so?! We were all deceived! We came to the square for Yeltsin. We supported him, and he deceived us. Then we supported Lebed, and he lied to us… We supported Putin, and he deceived us… We support Kurginyan, but it turns out that he has something with the Communist Party. And this too is all deception. This too is no good. How can it be? We are always being deceived!”.
In this seemingly normal, poignant, painful text there is one aberration that requires ruthless discussion. This woman does not consider herself guilty for being deceived all the time, she is not the one to blame for this. According to her position, she cannot be guilty of anything. But this is not normal. If she is deceived all the time, it means that somewhere inside she has a “magnet of self-deception”. And as long as she directs her eyes at Yeltsin and others, but not at herself, and as long as she does not tear that “magnet of self-deception” out using forceps, tweezers, her fingernails, or her teeth, she keeps turning herself into something deadly of her country.
Think about it! They just kept becoming enthralled… They decided that they needed to create capitalism. They destroyed everything that their fathers and grandfathers created. They organized a terrible disaster. They trampled, spat on the colossal sacrifices and dreams. On everything! Now they are disillusioned with capitalism. They will start building something again. That means they will get disappointed again. But this leads to death for the country.
And what will those who use this “magnet” do? “Oh, you got drawn in? Then bring me up, to power. You’ve gotten me up here, eh? And now you are disappointed? And next you will be disappointed in something else? So you will keep staggering from side to side? Sorry, friends – you got me up here, but I will shoot you.” And that was how Yeltsin reasoned. Exactly. That is all filthy, disgusting, and cynical, I agree. But that is Yeltsin’s fault. What about the fault of those who were drawn in? Is there no fault here? Not at all? Is someone else to blame all the time? But this is the way to an illusory existence in some fantasy space “on Lake Como and almost in a laurel wreath.” This is not the way to the reality.
What can be done with this energy of staggering in general? Will you use it to drag yourself somewhere, and then extinguish energy? What else can you do with it?
Another gentleman says: “If we have sat down at the table to play with hustlers… We wanted to play cards, but we sat down at the table with hustlers. And if these hustlers beat us through cheating, then what are we to blame for? What is our fault?” What do you mean, “what is our fault?” It is so obvious to this gentleman, that it’s not his fault.
Excuse me, please. Let’s say you brought your money into a Ponzi. What is a Ponzi scheme? Money is collected from a certain number of people and distributed as dividends. More people run to get in on it. Their money is collected again and distributed as dividends. Then more people came coming. So the scheme swells, and inflates until the number of recruited people becomes critical and, having reached a maximum, it begins to decrease. Then the owners close their scheme, and the owners divide the remaining money from scheme, and they run away. But if you tell someone “Friend! This is a Ponzi scheme. It’s fraudulent activity, it’s a pyramid. That’s how it’s arranged,”but the person still puts his money in, then isn’t he partially at fault?
No, the fact that the hustlers who play this game are despicable, is clear. Everyone knows what their fault is. But the deceived person is also partially at fault. Or not? He is guilty of not being smart enough (people told him, explained, but he did not understand). And then he is to blame for having an undeveloped mind. Or he is to blame for believing that he will jump off and have time to profit before the Ponzi scheme gets closed. And in that case, it’s not his mind that’s defective, but his morality. It’s one of these two. What else can it be?
I am discussing this not because these particular cases have wounded my soul, but because they are incredibly important phenomena, without realizing the meanings of which we will not come out of our dead end.
After all, everyone understands that the opposition has been at a standstill for the past 20 years. We have to explain why it is in a standstill. Why is this minority, which is riding the majority, pursuing its dirty, mercenary goals, which are incompatible with the life of the country with such alacrity? Why? Does anyone have any answer to this question?
And now let’s move from phenomena to concepts.
What is politics?
We have agreed that in this series of programs, and in our activity in general, we will take part in politics, not in academic research or in moralizing. So what is politics?
Politics is the art of controlling social energy (or social energies, depends how you look at it). Real politics has no other definition. It is incredibly difficult to push this definition into the minds of our elite, because our elite at this stage shuns any kind of energy. They somehow believe that you can do without it, that you can nullify the energy, and that’s why there is no place for politics. They see the return of politics as a horror. Stagnation is their ideal. The absence of energy, that is, this very stagnation their dream. But there can be no stagnation.
There is the law of energy conservation. Energy does not become more or less. It just goes somewhere deep. You cut it off at the surface, but it goes to the depths, and there it changes its quality for the worse. And when it comes back to the surface in this worse quality, then you as a politician will become hostage to the quality of this energy that your predecessors had made. You will become hostage to this beast, growling behind your wall. You can either lead him to his destructive goals, because he dreams only about them, or you can end up crushed. And there is nothing else you can do.
A real politician is not engaged in mining new energy, nor in changing the quality of this energy. The real politician receives energy in a given form. “This kind of energy in such a quantity… Staggering about? Let it stagger around, we do not care.” He collects this energy and takes power using it. And then he does something with this energy. This type of political activity in the situation that we are experiencing, in the catastrophe that unfolds before our eyes, is doomed. And it is doomed twice. First, when people are trying to avoid energy at all. Secondly – when using the energy of the available quality and quantity.
We need a different kind of quality and quantity. What is a way out?
The way out lies in the following. This social energy can change its quality.
Thus, one strategic task is on the agenda – changing the quality and quantity of the social energy. This, strictly speaking, is not a political task. This is a strategic task, and in a sense (take this word, if you like, in quotes), even a metaphysical task. But this; at the same time, is the only task by which the situation can be saved. And we need to work only for this purpose. The ultimate goal and salvation lie only in this. Without it, there will be nothing.
Recently, the forecasts on Russia’s destruction have gained new life. Some of them are speculative and incomprehensible. But there are other conversations as well…
Recently, a certain Edward Luttwak came to Russia by the invitation of the Conservative Club of the United Russia party with a series of lectures. This is a very significant person. A real valued big name who intellectually services the interests of the Republican Party of the United States of America. He did not just come by somewhere. He came not to drink some coffee at some café, but to the Conservative Club (conservative, mind you) of the ruling United Russia party.
What is the point of Luttwak’s theory? It points to the fact that in order to prevent Russia from supplying China with resources, the United States is ready (I will add, are now ready) to separate Russia from its Far East region and Eastern Siberia by transferring them to Japan. According to Luttwak, the geopolitical poles of the modern world are the mutually adversarial United States and China, and Russia is destined to be an ally of one of these poles. The US-China conflict is inevitable in the future, says Luttwak, as the Chinese economy continues to grow at a rapid pace, and the US is not ready to abandon its leadership positions.
Everything is correct here. As already mentioned, the Anglo-Saxons do not give up power under the pressure of objective circumstances. “China is growing too fast, so let’s give up the power to them!” Anglo-Saxons destroy the objective circumstances, having the necessary means for this purpose: both military and otherwise, which we will also discuss.
Luttwak does not doubt that Russia will eventually join the United States. Not as a whole, he says, but in smaller parts. Can a foreign political scientist come with such forecasts to any country other than Russia? Can I come to China and tell them how exactly China will join someone “not as a whole, but in parts?” Or can I come to an African country? But in Russia everyone listens to this.
“Apparently,” writes the author of the article in the Versia newspaper, who discusses this visit by Luttawk, “the arguments of the American political scientist seem to be significant to the representatives of the Russian government, since he was invited to such a high level.”
Luttwak does not give any kind of bad forecasts “in the style of Nostradamus.” He is a political scientist, giving a dry lecture at the club of the country’s main political party and there he says: “It’s okay, you’ll join in parts, guys. What else can we do? ”
Really, what can they do? One of the options for the US is to create some major conflict, to jack up the oil price by another factor of 10-12-15, try to hold out using their internal resources, which are enough for several years, and to radically humiliate China, India, and other countries. But China, in this case, will quickly take over Siberia, and the Americans will oppose this. Here you have a war. And a collapse. And the end. Here you have this disaster.
There is a certain Georgiy Malinetsky, who is the deputy director at the Mstislav Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The specialists know that the Mstislav Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics is a very serious institution, which has always serviced our army, military-industrial complex, and so on. So, this Malinetsky believes that with existing trends there will be no more than 10, or at most 15 years left for the existence of a united Russia (not the party, the country). That separate parts will begin to fall away in the future. That China and Japan will share the Far East region. Kamchatka, Chukotka and Siberia will depart to the US. A Muslim enclave will appear in the European part, in the Volga region. The Northwest will become separate. God knows what will be in the Caucasus. And so on. He says that this will happen even only because of internal reasons.
Now put together these forecasts by Luttwak and Malinetsky. These both people are more than serious.
There are massive amount of such forecasts, analytical papers, etc.
There is incredibly alarming information about how specifically we have to prepare for a large-scale war in Europe. How exactly NATO exercises are taking place in the Baltics and in other regions.
Is this information not enough? They scream, howl, break into the door, into the windows, and crawl into all the cracks. And what does the consciousness that receives this information do? It pushes all this information away. Why does it do so? Because it believes that if it understands that the situation is so bad, then it will be uncomfortable to live?
So, a terrible, enormous machine of evil, inexorably approaches your house, but you are sitting there and drinking tea? And is this correct and appropriate behavior for a man?
You need to think all 24 hours a day about how to ward off this machine – if not alone, then together with others. And if this cannot be done, since society’s energy is in its present quality (with all this staggering, confusion, and unwillingness to attempt self-purification and self-transformation), then you have to make this energy become willing – or die, but with honor.
The newspaper Kommersant writes about how “democracy will be downloaded from the Internet” [https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1659553], about how global networks are created for those who oppose authoritarian regimes, how they create a little Internet briefcase, how they will build new cellular networks. Is there any response to this challenge? Because this is all a single enormous challenge.
One might ask: “How can you respond to this at all?” I’ll tell you how you can. The same way as Gaddafi responded. For he did respond!
They now talk about how “The US president is faced with wartime conditions” [https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1660792]. That Congress demanded that “US involvement in the operation in Libya be put to an end” by the end of the week. Whether or not Obama will get away with it again, he has received a very serious ultimatum: “You know, you did not warn Congress that you were going to begin these military operations. Or, more precisely, you only warned us, but you did not coordinate your actions with us. Now the time has come, and please be so kind as to leave Libya in the coming days.”
Let’s imagine two options: either Obama leaves or he does not. If he leaves, has Gaddafi won? But even if Gaddafi does not win, he is the last knight. He looked into the face of this giant country and war machine that are incomparable to his own, and he said: “Get out of here… If my people are with me, then I will destroy your machine. And if my people have abandoned me, then it’s better to die than to live abandoned by my people. ”
He acted like a knight, like a man, like a warrior.
I have always admired Serbia. I will remember my wonderful trips to Yugoslavia for the rest of my life. The Serbs and Montenegrins are my brothers, I sincerely love them with all my heart. But even then, during these trips, one could notice how modern consumer society had damaged them: this cava, juice, restaurants, leisure, conversations… This relaxed semi-consumer state.
The Serbs said: “It’s okay, if any threat arises, we will be ready at a moment’s notice.” The Serbian generals said: “If even one German tank crawls back onto our territory – we will strike Bonn with missiles!”
Then the moment of truth came. The bombing began. The Serbs behaved nobly. Those scoundrels, those thugs who bombed them are evil, and the Serbs behaved nobly. But at the decisive moment, when there was an opportunity to strike the ground forces with all their military power, to really respond to the fullest, to inflict casualties that would have been excessive for this very spoiled, “inflated” rubber opponent … To inflict the maximum casualties on this opponent and then to demonstrate that Serbia and the Serbian leaders are no weaker than Gaddafi. At that moment, Milosevic caved in.
This does not mean his trial was fair. This does not mean that you can equate him with those bastards who put him in jail. Milosevic is a victim, and those scoundrels are thugs. But Milosevic showed weakness. And it all was the weakness of those, who had already tasted the comfort, the consumerism, and all the temptations of the “global” and “civilized” society .
When all these temptations come inside you, into your soul, then you lose your last willpower. And then they crush your country.
Hussein is a victim, and those who invaded his territory with false accusations are butchers. But Hussein showed weakness, while Gaddafi did not. Mubarak showed weakness, the Tunisian leader showed weakness, but Gaddafi did not.
It’s a small country… The Bedouins gather together, and watch the heavy American airplanes flying over their tents, and they shake their fists at the planes, saying: “Look, Americans, if you attack us, then the great Libyan people will finish the war in New York.” Where did this willpower, this “collective Maresyev”, come from? Where did this true spirit of war and honor came from? And how can we bring it back to our land in these times of trouble?
They will say: “It’s impossible.” I do not believe it. This is a real problem. And we all have to solve this problem together.
Everyone needs to look inside himself and help others to do the same. This damage can be fixed and must be fixed.
The people have received a monstrous blow. The people’s Ideals were struck with monstrous, excessive force. At ten percent of this capacity, any other people would have been destroyed. The Russian people survived. They are only damaged. This damage can be fixed and must be fixed. But for this we must accept the reality. Accept in all its ugliness, and not hide behind the glamour. We have been hiding for last 20 years. We have been consoling ourselves for 20 years with beautiful fairy tales. Enough! The situation is too serious.
Let me just show you how serious it is.
Director of Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ISISS), academician Yuri Pivovarov, as well as an ISISS fellow, came together to Hungary and declared that the Great Patriotic War is “the so-called” Great Patriotic War, and the victory is a “myth” and so on. The Hungarians rejoiced.
Did we not say that all this “de-Stalinization” means only one thing: removing Russia from the list of victims and victors in the Second World War? Did we not say this? Here is your confirmation. Is this confirmation not enough? You may ask, who is Pivovarov?
Next … The head of Lithuania accused the USSR of planned genocide. “President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite called the mass deportation of the citizens of her country, which took place 70 years ago under Soviet rule a “planned genocide,” on Tuesday (June 14) at a commemoration ceremony for the victims of repression, occupation, and genocide [http://news.siteua.org/system_category /266809]
Is this all not going after the Russians? Is this Pivovarov? This is the head of one of the NATO member states.
Estonian President Toomas Hendrik said that Russia must apologize for the crimes of the USSR. That Russia, as the legal successor of the Soviet Union, should ask for forgiveness for the crimes of the totalitarian regime. “European states in which totalitarian or authoritarian regimes took power in the 20th century asked for forgiveness for these crimes, and expressed regret over the past. One state has not done so yet, and instead accuses others of what it calls a revision of the outcome of World War II,” the Estonian president said. – “Their World War II began after the deportation, after the occupation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, after the attack on Poland <…> They really did not have a war. There were two allies – Stalin and Hitler, the Soviet Union and Germany” [http://www.vz.ru/news/2011/6/14/499355.print.html]
Did the Ministry of Foreign Affairs voice its protest about this?
But what kind of protest can there be if the head of the central executive committee of the United Russia party, Andrey Vorobyev, calls the words of the United Russia Duma member Vladimir Medinsky, who proposed a resolution by the State Duma to declare a genocide of the Russian population by the Bolsheviks, his personal initiative. And he emphasizes that the party cannot speak on such serious topics without careful study and discussion!
Mr. Vorobyev, do we not know what kind of discipline exists in the United Russia party? Do we not know that Mr. Medinsky cannot organize such an undertaking? “I will certainly try to initiate the adoption of a decree of the State Duma, in which the suppression of the Tambov uprising with chemical weapons – and these are weapons of mass destruction – would be equated with an unconditional act of genocide against the Russian peasantry by the Bolsheviks,” – says Medinsky [http://old.er.ru/print.shtml?20/7756].
Hence, on the one hand, the Baltic States speak of genocide. And on the other hand, Mr. Medinsky says the same thing. And all this comes together at one single historical bottleneck. What for? To give a massage? Or to strangle the monster to death – this hated country called Russia?
This is quite clear, in my opinion.
All that we said earlier about the Muslim Brotherhood, about how the United States will try to use as radical Islam in the global process (and use it in a way that is incompatible with our staying alive), has now been confirmed. The Muslim Brotherhood is preparing to become the main party in the parliament, and they are thinking about whether or not to get their own president elected. This is already a fact. And the United States is looking upon this with endearment and admiration. They have created all of this. Did they pull this off to let us live?
German mediation between the representatives of the Taliban leader Mullah Omar and the US government is a fact. The Americans have put on some kind of filthy spectacle with the death of Bin Laden and immediately began cuddling with Mullah Omar, who is worse than any Bin Laden. Why is this being done? Is it not trouble for us that is creeping up through all the cracks in the world? Is there still any question about this? It seems to me that there are no questions.
And against the backdrop of all this, our pseudo-nationalists come into play. I said it before, and I’ll say it again: pseudo-nationalists. We don’t have any conflicts today with normal nationalists, who strive to preserve our territorial integrity, or to restore our great power. We can have some disagreements about what the state structure should be, or about how we look at specific episodes of our history. But if we are talking about preserving territorial integrity or restoring our great power, then there are no fundamental conflicts at the current stage of political life.
We had a reason for analyzing Mr. Karpets’ article, who holds completely different positions than I do, and I did not express any position from my own name. I agreed with Mr. Karpets’ opinion, and with other nationalists who are not engaged in undermining our state integrity.
Are there people who are engaged in something else? Of course, there are. Here is a text by Belkovsky: “As for the North Caucasus, I believe that, indeed, in the near future the situation is quite possible that it will be much more advantageous for Russia, not only in the economic sense but from a political standpoint too, and from the standpoint of security, and in civilizational and cultural terms to actually agree with splitting off the North Caucasus.” (“Echo of Moscow “, the “Vlast’”, 07.03.2009, http://www.echo.msk.ru/programs/politic/602919-echo /)
That is his position. We call it liquidational or shrinking nationalism, pseudo-nationalism, liberal nationalism, liberal pseudo-nationalism, national-orangeism. It has nothing to do with real nationalism.
Is this Stanislav Belkovsky’s authentic position? Yes or no?
And here is another text by Mr. Belkovsky. The text, in which he fully aligns with Pivovarov and other pro-American abominations, who dream of destroying our country: “The nationalistic paradigm carries certain costs with it, for which the contemporary elite consciousness may not be ready. First of all, it is the revision of the results of the Second World War.” [http://www.specletter.com/politika/2011-04-20/print/kreml-stoit-na-razvilke-libo-stalin-libo-natsionalizm-.html]
There you go! Here the Lithuanians and Latvians speak about revision. Here Pivovarov howls in Hungary about revision. And here Belkovsky talks about revising the results.
“Because after casting down Stalin,” says Belkovsky, who emphasizes that this must be achieved, “that victory was unnecessary and the war was unnecessary. And maybe it was better to make peace with Hitler. In addition, the victory of the nationalist paradigm in one way or another should justify General Vlasov, because if Stalin is bad, then Vlasov is good by default. On the other hand, it is necessary to admit (and such attempts are already being made, look at the film “The Priest” and other things that have now manifested in the cultural sphere) that the Russians lived better on occupied territories than under the rule of the Bolsheviks. This means that victory did not meet the interests of the Russian nation at all, but the overthrow of Bolshevism, which could have been achieved in an alliance with Hitler, would have met them.“[ibid.]
Belkovsky talks about occupation as a blessing. And here’s a new text, now it’s about Budanov [Yuri Budanov was a Russian military officer convicted and stripped of his rank in 2003 for the murder of 18-year-old Chechen girl Elza Kungayeva. In the 1990s he commanded the 160th Guards Tank Regiment, which took part in the Second Chechen War. Budanov was released six years after his conviction. Budanov was shot in the street and died on June 10, 2011 – translator’s note]. “It seems we have only one way out. – says Belkovsky. “We must officially give Chechnya what it so long sought and had effectively gained – independence. It’s time to end the two-hundred-year war for the North Caucasus, which ultimately gave us nothing but blood and tears.” [http://www.mk.ru/print/articles/597263-chechnya-obrela-nezavisimost.html]. This is a direct quote.
Do Mr. Shiropaev, Mr. Krylov and others support this position or do they not? Yes or no?
Next. “Russian nationalists prepared their solution to the Caucasus question“, April 18, 2011: “The presentation of the report ‘Caucasus-2011: The Russian view’ will be held on April 19th at the Ogorod café. Alexander Sevostyanov, Valery Solovey and other authors of the report stated in a press release that “the Caucasus issue has matured to such a point that many citizens are ready to support the immediate separation of the North Caucasus from Russia on any terms, seeing in it only a subsidized ‘black hole’ and a breeding ground for crime and terrorism.” [http://evrazia.org/n.php?id=17622]
So, the plan for to split off the Caucasus has already matured? Did everyone decide that it matured all at once? Did it mature for Mr. Luttwak, the Baltic leaders, the pro-American liberals, and nationalists?
They ask me: “Where did Belkovsky say anything about occupation? Let’s split them off and everything will be fine…” Here is what he says about occupation: it is necessary to establish a constitutional monarchy in Russia (after the separation of the North Caucasus) and make Michael of Kent the monarch. And all this should be done “with the participation and the under pressure of outside forces” [http://www.zavtra.ru/cgi/veil/data/zavtra/09/818/41.html].
Is the formula “with the participation and under the pressure of outside forces” not an occupational formula? Do you not feel this machine of evil is approaching?
Everything is being prepared here, both disintegration and occupation. When will you perceive it completely? Only when it will all be done? And then you will blame everything on others? And you will say: “What could we do, since our legs were cut off?”
But Maresyev was able to do something, while the people who went to the homes for the disabled could not.
Now a few words about the strategic dialogue with the nationalists and their division into national liberals, color revolutionaries, shrinking nationalists, liquidational nationalists, and normal nationalists.
This is such important issue that I will list everything point by point.
First. On the relationship to history.
If these gentlemen declare (and they are saying this): “Down with the imperial,” “Down with the Russian historical destiny that was imposed on us,” “Down with our history as a curse,” “Down with historical destiny” (the very thing that gathers the people). What are these gentlemen really saying?
That this people should be disintegrated. Yes or no? And how else can the curse of historical destiny end, except through the disintegration of the people, through surrender and occupation? There is nothing else.
Mr. Shiropeev became offended at Mr. Karpets, because Karpets supposedly quoted him wrong. And he said that he was in favor of federalism… Can we get the details from this point? What federalism? Do we need seven Russian republics in order for the Russians to truly express themselves? And why seven, and not twenty? Or, maybe, the more republics there are, the better the Russians will be able express themselves? And if each county is a republic, then they will express themselves even better?
Well, Mr. Shiropaev explains what he means. He complains that Mr. Karpets quoted him incompletely. And he should have kissed Karpets’ hands and bowed to his feet for incompletely quoting him. Because when he quotes himself completely then everything truly clears up.
“The Russian people are very great and very diverse in regional sub-ethnic terms,” he says [A.Shiropaev, “How to solve the Russian question.” Speech at the round table “The Russian Question on the Eve of Elections”, held in the State Duma on May 23, 2011. http://shiropaev.livejournal.com/66673.html]. Therefore, it is necessary to build republics for all these sub-ethnic groups. All these are sub-ethnic groups: the Far East, Siberia, the Urals, the Volga region, Central Russia, Southern Russia, the Russian North … These are all sub-ethnic groups that must acquire their own territorial statehood!
And what next?
My heart was shocked once at the words of one of the nationalists, who had once recited from the podium of the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR: “The Siberian is not to blame for hiding in his clothes a knife. For he is to a Russian like a leopard is to a lemming” (poems by L. Martynov). To my question about whether this man will be arrested, whether he will be taken out in handcuffs from the congress, I was told that he had immunity. I said that this immunity must be revoked, otherwise the Russian people are finished.
Next, these sub-ethnic groups will begin to clash. Siberia has resources, and Central Russia has none. We know what happens next. Disintegration is next.
Second. Under what conditions will this federalism be implemented? It will be implemented under the conditions of a failed state. It cannot be implemented under any other conditions. So, the question at that moment will not about new authorities, but about a new statehood. In other words, about the disintegration of the country. Because as soon as this collapse happens… And with the existing processes, it will happen inevitably. I again emphasize: the existing tendencies are incompatible with life for Russia. The existing trends are criminal. A class that has gone mad in its greed and propagates these tendencies is a criminal class. And don’t say that we are protecting what exists… We are defending the country, without which the Russian people will be destroyed immediately.
So what kind of federalism is that, can we have more details?
Third. They are discrediting the very principle of the empire in the 21st century. Meanwhile, the only way to survive in the 21st century is to create power centers with a population of at least 500 million people. This has been calculated mathematically. Those who don’t know can acquaint themselves with the data on this subject.
The United States of America wants to unite with Canada and Mexico. The Europeans have created their own power center. China is itself a power center. India is a power center. The Islamic world aspires to the Caliphate, because it seeks to create their own power center.
And if we do not create our own imperial (it can’t be otherwise) power center, then which center are we going to integrate with? Name it, please. What center are we going to dissolve into? Up whose ass do we want to crawl with no vaseline? Speak, instead of crying about how the empire hinders something or another. You’ll always find someone else to blame.
Fourth. There is a total chaos with regards to nationalism in general. When a national idea, the idea of a nation (for example, the Indian polyethnic nation, etc.) is replaced by with a subethnic idea, you get not even an ethnic, but a sub-ethnic mess. Do you understand what this means? This is no longer even a dismemberment, for everything just turns into dust.
Fifth. There is a direct appeal to separatism. Did I not quote this call? Yes or no? How do you respond to this – specifically, dryly, using political language, without foolish acrobatics?
They claim that we are saying that Russians should tolerate any form of humiliation in order to preserve unity, that they should be subservient to non-Russians. What kind of dirty PR tricks are these? You have to answer the political questions. Because these questions are being posed not by someone specifically; life itself and the impending catastrophe are posing these questions. And very soon you will need to decide where you are. In the ranks of those who fight, or in the American rear?
Sixth. They are glorifying occupation. You heard this yourself: “…with the participation and under pressure from external forces.”
Seventh. Bad energy is gathering. People are fairly irritated about how elite gangster groups from the Caucasus (North Caucasus and otherwise) behave. These pseudo-nationalists are saying: “Do you see how they’re behaving? You are unhappy. Come to us. And now we will lead you to your country’s destruction.” That’s how they are gathering bad energy. (That’s why purifying the energy is so important, that’s why it’s important to change its quality). And they throw this energy in with destructive goals. Similarly, they threw in this energy of discontent with the nomenklatura in order to destroy the Soviet Union and to bring about the catastrophe, the fruits of which we now reap.
Eighth. Always and in all cases, people want to destroy the country by using two destructive energies: the separatism of the outskirts and the shrinking nationalism of the core. The Soviet Union also collapsed when Valentin Rasputin suggested that the RSFSR secede from the USSR, and then Yeltsin did just that. Now a new stage of the same process is approaching – it is necessary to destroy the Russian core. It is necessary to undermine the strength of the state-forming people. The enemy needs to direct the people’s protest energy into their own liquidation. That is the essence of this despicable undertaking.
And finally, ninth. What does national-democracy have to do with this? When and in which country of the world did national democracy dream of some kind of federalisms, which we see immediately turning into a confederacy? Did the Confederates, the slave-owners of the South, believe in democracy? Abraham Lincoln believed in democracy, and he snuffed out those Confederates in his own American way.
Were the Jacobins confederates? Part of the Girondins, a small group, during the Great French Revolution tried to lunge in this federalist direction… Then it turned out that you either need to ally with the royalists and join the German-English occupational forces, or die. And they died with honor.
The Jacobins never encroached on the integrity of their country. True democracy, if it existed in Russia, would always serve the country’s integrity.
So, instead of democracy we have false pseudo-liberal rot. And now the rot is looking for more of its kind. The false pseudo-nationalist rot is looking for another kind of rot.
That is the disaster we are all facing now.
These are only minor symptoms. Therefore, our main task, which we will discuss in the next, third cycle of our programs, is to find a way to save ourselves from this catastrophe, to change the quality of the energy, to truly unite all those who want the country to live, and to find a different kind of energy.
How can we make people understand the horror of today’s situation, so as not to break them, but to mobilize them so that, having overcome this horror, they could reach those very heights in reality, which they can now only dream about?
And then they will see that these heights in reality are much more divine, great and real than what they saw in their underground dreams 10 minutes before the death of the country.
“…The heavy hammer shatters glass, but forges steel blades.”
We are forging the steel blades of this victory.
Victory is being forged in hearts and minds. Defeat is forged in the same place.
We forge our victory in people’s hearts and minds. And we will accomplish this task.
Source (for copy): https://eu.eot.su/2021/02/06/essence-of-time-chapter-21/
Essence of Time: The philosophical justification of Russia’s Messianic Claims in the 21st century
Sergey Kurginyan
Experimental Creative Centre International Public Foundation
Essence of Time is a video lecture series by Sergey Kurginyan: a political and social leader, theater director, philosopher, political scientist, and head of the Experimental Creative Centre International Public Foundation. These lectures were broadcast from February to November 2011 on the websites, www.kurginyan.ru and www.eot.su .
With its intellectual depth and acuity, with its emotional charge, and with the powerful mark of the author’s personality, this unusual lecture series aroused great interest in its audience. It served at the same time as both the “starting push” and the conceptual basis around which the virtual club of Dr. Kurginyan’s supporters, Essence of Time, was formed.
The book Essence of Time contains the transcriptions of all 41 lectures in the series. Each one of them contains Sergey Kurginyan’s thoughts about the essence of our time, about its metaphysics, its dialectics, and their reflection in the key aspects of relevant Russian and global politics. The central theme of the series is the search for paths and mechanisms to get out of the systemic and global dead end of all humanity in all of its dimensions: from the metaphysical to the gnoseological, ethical, and anthropological. And as a result, out of the sociopolitical, technological, and economical dead end.
In outlining the contours of this dead end and in stressing the necessity of understanding the entire depth, complexity, and tragedy of the accumulating problems, the author proves that it is indeed Russia, thanks to the unusual aspects of its historical fate, which still has a chance to find a way out of this dead end, and to present it to the world. But, realizing this chance is possible only if this becomes the supreme meaning of life and action for a “critical mass” of active people who have in common a deep understanding of the problems at hand.
Dr. Kurginyan’s ideas found a response, and the Essence of Time virtual club is growing into a wide Essence of Time social movement. In front of our very eyes, it is becoming a real political force.
