Linking ideology to specific geographical and political boundaries proved, in their view, to be an extreme form of “false consciousness”. For ideology to be worth anything, it had to claim to be universal. But it is the denial of a common history and common perspective for humanity that becomes the most important principle of various nationalist projects, which in the modern world predetermines their inevitable and repeated collapse. You can mock as much as you like at the illiteracy and anti-historical fantasies of homegrown ideologues who have been entrusted by officials to “invent meanings” to justify their current activities. But the problem is that the corrupt pragmatists are sincerely trying to re-educate society and even themselves, turning into reactionary rapists. Ideology cannot achieve anything on its own, it only serves and supports certain trends. And in this case we are talking about the spontaneously emerging trend of isolation, degradation and destruction of Russia. This destruction has nothing to do with the mythical “disintegration” of the country into separate parts (which is impossible in principle for an economy built along a very long pipe and living to serve it), it comes from within and from above. It is unlikely that university students will seriously embrace the new ideology, which is a crazy mess of archaic myths, conservatism, xenophobia, nationalism and postmodernism. The fear is not this, but that those who preach it will start to believe in something like this. Thus the last vestiges of adequacy, the last link with reality will be lost in the ruling circles. The hatred of progress, freedom and individual rights, presented under the guise of opposing Western values, will, if one is serious about such ideas, lead to the logical necessity of completely eradicating and destroying classical Russian culture, from Pushkin to Chekhov and from Tchaikovsky to Tarkovsky. But we need not worry: Russian culture will survive all this. But cultural, educational, and scientific institutions in Russia will most likely have to be rebuilt as after a bombardment.
Boris Kagarlitsky
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