"Tale of Wanderings" as a bible of meanness

Alina Vitukhnovskaya, writer

The social world is arranged in the same way as advertising. And vice versa. People want something just because it is often shown to them. And because others have it. Such a global scam of pseudo-desires. I clearly understood this from childhood and wanted little. From what was offered - almost nothing. I didn’t have typical childhood desires. And was I a child?

In essence, a child is not only the most powerless creature, but also a rather uncomfortable, unnatural role model. That is, literally, children are forced to portray children.

I still have desires, as I wrote - to count on the fingers of one hand. Because everything in the world is exactly the opposite. It is only necessary to correctly formulate the question. I don't need something because others have it. Why do I need something, since others have it? I absolutely do not want to exchange for trifles, which, as it seems to most, make up a person's life.

I am more and more convinced of the idea that human desires are for the most part something inspired. By the way, like a significant part of human suffering. Sacralized suffering provides the matrix, as does sacralized pleasure. In this they are equal. Notice how psychoanalysts and psychologists are concerned about whether you get pleasure from what it is customary (prescribed!) To enjoy it.

Note - not from what is characteristic of you, but from what should be characteristic of everyone. This is the key to the puzzle. Note, too, that states are always spoken of when speaking of a private good. About the idea - when - about the public. In balancing on the edge is the key to managing the system.

There are certain stable ideas about "normal life" (home, family, work), within which most of the inhabitants build their tactics and strategies. In my opinion, these ideas are collapsing not even due to the catastrophic state in which the world is now, but due to the fact that the concept of a person is rapidly becoming outdated conceptually.

But in order not to be a philosophical manipulator who brings the picture of the world under the version that is most interesting to me personally, I arranged a poll on my social networks. The question, in fact, sounded like this - “Can you answer honestly first of all for yourself - is your life what you want? Are you fulfilling your true desires or those that your family and society instilled in you?

Here's what the first commenter told me:

"1. No, my life has never been what I wanted.

2. I do not carry out what I was inspired, rather, they suggest to me that the implementation is beyond the norm (animal protection). But I don't think it's a conscious choice".

The second participant in the conversation noted the following:

"I am a servant of other people's desires and most of the people around me are just like that".

The opinion of the third one was also interesting, especially since it mentioned UBI (unconditional basic income):

“If you look at how animal births go (quickly and calmly), and at human births (in painful agony, the child cries), one can assume that a person does not want to have any life at all. He was forced to do this, and now he must constantly invent some kind of meaning (family, children, career, etc.).

As for desires, everything is simple here: money, sex, power, self-affirmation. It's just that in society it is often hidden under different wrappers. It is impossible to do everything you want, especially for everyday life (washing dishes, brushing your teeth, going to day labor). And, of course, the existence of a civil and criminal code greatly restricts you.

You often talk about AML, and for me it would bring the life I want closer, but it seems to me that for the layman it will be a blow, he will understand that many of his desires and attitudes are false, that there is no “normal”, he will see in what he is in a metaphysical hole".

Obviously, the third answer is socially unacceptable, but the most honest. A person, especially a post-Soviet one, rushes into the maelstrom of life as survival even before he has time to form as a person.

From the age of seven he is trained at school, used as an unpaid au pair, and then he goes to work in the sweat of his brow from 8 to 8, for money that can only be compared with a shameful sop. And this most unformed person as a person, in essence, cannot be formed until his death. And not because he is weak-willed or intellectually weak, but because he simply does not have time and banal physical strength. And all the while, he takes the survivalist's wishes for his own. He accepts such being as the norm, not because it is normal, but because it is ubiquitous.

Interestingly, in a society with a broken hierarchy, there is an unconscious desire to equalize everyone with everyone and make those who are at least relatively happy unhappy. An excellent example of socialist thinking is the Soviet children's film The Tale of Wanderings.

Just as the boy in the disturbing "Tale of Wanderings" felt gold, so since childhood I have felt the meanings and words. Or rather, I had meanings from the very beginning, and words, language, in general, I felt some kind of physiological almost inside, right down to the crunch of cartilage. Therefore, in defiance of Roland Barthes (“The Pleasure of the Text”), I called writing torture.

"The Tale of Wanderings" is a typical example of the profanation of true meanings, saturated with local spirituality. The main character sets out on a dangerous journey to "save" her own brother from comfort (gold)! She takes him back to predictable and boring poverty, the abode of the simplest feelings. The very sacredness of feelings stems from the fear of loss of identity by a subjectless individual. Who has nothing in life but imprinted memories. The heroine needs her brother, while he doesn't need her. As Cronenberg sounded there - “Who told you that this is your wife? And who told you that she is even human?

"The Tale of Wanderings" is certainly a bible of meanness, wrapped in a wrapper of common values. It is also worth noting that it is saturated with latent anti-Westernism, which has become so relevant at the moment. In essence, this is a propaganda story about how "others" steal "our" children in order to make them "inhuman".

A modern alienated person will have only one disturbing ontological fear - to remain an economic and existential debtor, not to be able to pay for his loneliness. Civilization has no other task than to compensate for this monstrous existential and metaphysical gap. Private comfort is what will replace religion and other forms of profane community.