Happiness vs freedom. On moralizing against the backdrop of the new 1930s

Alina Vitujhnovskaya, writer

The other day, Dmitry Bykov said literally the following:

“There will be something after today's Russia. And this is what it will be - it will not be good. It can be confusion, it can be the new 90s with criminals and redistribution, it can be devastation. The air of freedom does not guarantee happiness".

Well, first of all, apart from the 1990s, there was nothing in Russia. In addition, criminals and the protracted redistribution have acquired a systemic status in the form of the current Russian statehood. Secondly, freedom is a much broader concept than happiness. Freedom is a chance, a potential opportunity to fulfill one's will.

And happiness is just an illusion, a dictated semi-moralistic, semi-hedonistic ersatz. In addition, happiness is such a personalized state that, as it acquires a social scale, actually turns into an authoritarian phantom - so much so that any attempt to pass it off as an unconditional public good risks turning into a general tragedy. For what is good for one person is death for another.

Simply put - everyone needs freedom, but only some people need happiness. I will definitely prefer resource and freedom over happiness.

On my Facebook, I conducted a mini-survey. What will people still prefer - happiness or freedom? Anton Myrzin, my assistant and secretary, who, by the way, had to emigrate to Ukraine many years ago because of his persecution for participating in a Kiev art exhibition, put it this way:

“Happiness, unfortunately, has become a bargaining chip for all sorts of 'socialisms'. In addition, this concept, being supported by moralistic maxims, has become an invariable attribute of "every decent person". But how can this be if happiness is, in fact, imposed instead of freedom? First of all, instead of free will. How does it define itself as a good at all? For me, happiness, as Alina said, is so personal that, in principle, it does not need to be submitted to any public court. And therefore, I perceive any forms of mass happiness exclusively as mass madness, covering up the tragedy of any subjectless being".

Poetess Alyona Maksakova said:

“Happiness is an internal resource. The state cannot give it.

I am for freedom, of course!"

Writer Nune Barseghyan unequivocally supported my idea:

“Of course, freedom. I can't imagine happiness without freedom.

And no one promised happiness".

Petersburg poet Lev Kolbachev also spoke for freedom:

“There can be no happiness without resource and freedom, so I don’t see an element of choice here”.

Incidentally, this is also a legacy of socialism and poverty - to pay too much attention to conditions. In the USSR, especially among the intelligentsia, the notorious inner world actually replaced the outer one. More precisely, the impossibility of the external. Here spirituality should be understood as the antagonism of comfort, civilization, resource and success.

In principle, if nothing hurts me and there is no deep depression (in which a person cannot get up), then what difference does it make to me how I feel? What interest is there in delving into the nuances of your sense of self? There is something unhealthy about this. So we are approaching the refutation of Fromm's "To have and not to be", which in this context can begin to be exposed as a latent socialist slogan. The land did not go to the peasants, and the peace to the peoples. And a modern person was offered to give up the right to a resource in the name of states.

Unfortunately, the domestic intelligentsia is still focused on these very states (the essence is reflection) and on external moralism, which replaces both logic and genuine morality.

So Alexander Podrabinek recently reacted sharply to the fact that I wrote an article where I say that he condemns Roman Protasevich. And, mind you, I myself do not blame Podrabinek for this. As a journalist, writer, and philosopher, I only point out social trends. Moreover, I believe that the full range of opinions should be presented on each issue, for this is democracy.

Alexander Podrabinek objects to me:

"There was no condemnation of Protasevich and could not have been"

But the very statement of betrayal is condemnation. What his readers write about to Alexander himself, and with which I completely agree. If we proceed from the fact that the phrase “I condemn” is considered a condemnation, you and I will quickly turn into formalist officials.

It clearly follows from Podrabinek's post that Protasevich behaved badly. I will cite a famous example about the soldiers of the Israeli army, who are given direct instructions under torture to betray everything that is possible. During this time, the army will come up with new secrets. So there is no technical problem in this kind of "betrayal". What is left? Moralistic hysteria is a favorite domestic game.

Frankly, at one time I myself made similar claims to people who, in my presence in prison, slandered themselves and others. I used myself as an example for them. But I think I had the right to do so. If only for the reason that no one tortured me or them. I was threatened, there were attempts to use violence, provocations with inmates, but not torture.

In the meantime, while we are discussing the nuances of the behavior of victims of terror, which, to admit, in itself, is already beyond good and evil, we quickly moved from the Brezhnev 1970s to the Stalinist 1930s.

In the new 1930s, instead of the feeling of catastrophe spilled in the air, there is a broadcast of continuous happiness, unprecedented bliss. Never before have I seen such satisfied Muscovites. Any catastrophe, apocalypse, limit, harbor tranquilizing components inside themselves so that the victims, wandering to the slaughter, do not resist the future.