by Dmitry Taratorin
[REGNUM] In July last year, a certain Alena Agafonova posted a video on one of the social networks showing her finger against the background of the monument “The Motherland is Calling!” made movements that “tickled” the chest of the monument. This sparked an angry reaction online. And a criminal case was opened against her.
The girl recorded an apology video and fled to Sri Lanka. However, six months later, having apparently decided that she had already been “understood and forgiven,” she returned and was immediately detained. Now the case has been reclassified from the article “Desecration of burial places” to a more serious one – “Rehabilitation of Nazism”.
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The girl is understandably shocked. After the court hearing that determined the preventive measure, she wrote down a new apology in which she admits: “Due to my stupidity, I didn’t even think that I could hurt someone’s feelings.”
That is, whether a girl can think in principle is a big question. True, it is also unclear how brainlessness can be classified as a criminal offense...
Because the problem is actually very deep and certainly cannot be cured by isolating one individual representative of this kind of blogger from society. The question is that there is a whole industry of trade in idiocy.
“Man is created for happiness, like a bird is created for flight” - in Soviet times, schoolchildren regularly wrote essays on this topic. And they revealed it most often in the style of “Oh, it’s good to live in a Soviet country.” Then the country of the Soviets collapsed, and the optimistic formula was transformed into the popular song of the 90s “You need to live high.” That is, a person is born to get high?
In fact, it is precisely this idea (if, of course, you can call it that) that popular bloggers bring to the masses. That is, a person is born for the most meaningless existence, information-filled with the contemplation of something “cool”.
It can be interesting to trace the path of transformation of the meaning of popular quotes. This can tell you a lot. A phrase about happiness and flight from the text of the classic Vladimir Korolenko. It is characteristic that even educated people often sincerely believe that its author is Maxim Gorky. Well, in fact, “Man - that sounds proud” - that’s definitely him. Why not tell him about the bird? About “Burevestnik”, that’s for sure. Well, everything fits! But no, it doesn’t add up. “Burevestnik” has nothing to do with it.
Korolenko’s story “Paradox” certainly does not provoke thoughtless positivity and optimism. The fact is that this phrase is uttered by a man called a “phenomenon” because he was born without arms, but amazingly learned to use his legs with amazing dexterity. And this phrase, like a half-prophecy, half-parting words, he writes precisely through the leg of the boy, on whose behalf the story is being told. And this formula from a person doomed to suffering shocks the boy with its paradoxical nature for the rest of his life.
But if you look into it, it turns out that there is also a “second bottom”. “But man is born into suffering, like sparks to rush upward,” says the biblical Book of Job. This is the Orthodox, Synodal translation. But in the story, the “phenomenon” person uttering the paradox is a Pole. And in the Latin Catholic translation this biblical phrase is conveyed as follows: “A man is born to suffer (option: “hard work”), and a bird is born to fly.” Thus, the “phenomenon,” like the biblical Job, enters into an argument with the Lord himself.
Do you understand how this idea was emasculated as it became the subject of Soviet school essays?
It is also very significant how the disabled sage himself explains his formula in communication with a character who takes him on a cart around the city and collects alms based on the results of his demonstration of “dexterity of legs” and the utterance of paradoxes.
“You see, sometimes pleasant aphorisms make a difference. You have two hands, but your head is worthless, poor Matvey!.. Man is created for happiness, only happiness is not always created for him. Understood? People have both heads and hands. Only they forgot to glue my hands, and by mistake they put an empty pumpkin on your shoulders... Ha! This is unpleasant for us, but does not change the general rule..."
The fact of the matter is that bloggers who are looking for happiness in the form of an eternal buzz have an “empty pumpkin” instead of a head.
Nothing demonstrates the problems of democracy and free markets more clearly than the Internet. Freedom of speech. Freedom of opinion. Freedom of expression. And the only criterion is demand by the public...
No, we are not talking, of course, about creating a network cut off from the world, “cleaned up.” Totalitarian decisions only have an effect over a short period of time. And then such a rollback occurs that one has to bitterly regret the straightforward approaches. This is exactly what happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
A person has the right to be anyone in the range from an angel to a demon, maybe even a “pumpkin head”, but the question is, does society have a normative image of a person, what he is not “supposed” to be, but is called to be?
The concept of “vocation” was also primitiveized by the Bolsheviks and reduced to professional activity. But originally it was again from the Bible. And it means a task, an assignment, a destiny that is given by God to everyone. To varying degrees and of different properties, but for everyone. Realizing it and trying to fulfill it is the meaning of human life. And without this, true happiness is absolutely impossible.
The most famous example is the Gospel parable about the talents, where the one who did not increase the talents given to him, but “buried it,” is doomed to a terrible posthumous fate. But he probably lived quite “high” and “for fun.”
The problem with liberalism is precisely this - in a world built on its principles, it is impossible to seriously talk about vocation and responsibility. It only contains the standard of a thoughtless consumer of various “highs” imposed by aggressive marketing. And its guides are often popular bloggers. And their popularity, their hype, in turn, is based on charismatic idiocy.