Bad good person. How Russian people are able to combine imperialism and anarchism

Alexey Zubilin

Even the classics of Russian literature and social thought noted a very curious feature of their compatriots, who, fleeing the oppression of a totalitarian state, went and went to the forests, to the taiga, to Siberia, if only they would be left alone. However, the state did not lag behind and, one way or another, took over the households of its fugitive citizens. As a result, several centuries later, a unique, purely Russian psychotype was formed. Its owner strives with all his might to free himself from the state dictate, however, from childhood he is subjected to the dictate of state propaganda. And it turns out that, having reduced his dependence on the authorities to a minimum, at the same time, he subconsciously shares their completely cannibalistic beliefs. St. Petersburg publicist and blogger Vera Sokolinskaya , traveling with her husband on Lake Ladoga, met a man who fully embodies this contradictory nature:

“We don’t travel by train - there are no conversations with a random fellow traveler, we rarely communicate with people of a different circle (our layer is thin, but we don’t want to go deeper) - we unexpectedly spent 3 days on Ladoga with a fisherman who broke an oar. (For the first time I saw that only a handle with an oarlock remained from the oar, the rest was in chips).

Ladoga is an indicator of St. Petersburg sociability: if there is a tent on the island, no one approaches: sometimes they land on the other side of the island - they see a person - an apology "good afternoon" and run. Yes, we are each our own island, or better, an archipelago).

And now we are sitting at the end of the world under the stars with a random person for whom communication is painful, but we must endure (my missus was so happy that, compared to someone else, he is talkative).

20 years of fishing alone. I thought I was lonely - no, I have a wife, “but she doesn’t like hiking”, “like you, everyone travels to other countries.”

On a small boat: deflated, it is placed on a cart, a backpack on the shoulders, and so on the train ... He walks along the open Ladoga on oars - “used to”. "One does not depend on anyone."

Sometimes there is a random company, for 20 years I remembered two. One Pole. “A Pole, can you imagine, he is writing a book with us! Although for some reason they don’t like us very much ... ”- here I soared like a scalded one, because I know very well why.

And here sits such a nice man, with kind eyes:

- No, Katyn - it's the Germans who shot them. (Somehow a confession passed him by!!! But a gentle person, he doesn’t want to argue - “he didn’t hear.”

- There was no joint parade, it's all fiction: The Secret Protocols of the Elders of Zion ("Have you stopped drinking cognac in the morning yet?")

And not an aggressive person at all, absolutely alien to the empire, loving his boat and knowing about the fish - and somehow missed the rest. He just believes that “everything will be fine” and smiles. (Not like me, sarcastic ulcer).

And why should he, in fact, know history? - I can't swim like that. In fact, I can only read books.

Thank God, he is not interested in politics, he runs away from the state to his fish, gets wet in a tent, adds mayonnaise to porridge with condensed milk, in winter he goes skiing alone, in summer - on a boat. It's like my favorite "Apocalypse" Gibson!

He reminded me, on the one hand, of Vampilov's "Duck Hunt", on the other hand, of the heroes of the documentary "Happy People": people on the Yenisei live by hunting and fishing, without money and the state. Here it is, the self-sufficiency of man, for which we stand up in the abstract. No, we want him not to repeat nonsense yet!

Well, it's like they hung on everyone that you need to know all the nonsense that they are killing, and have an opinion on any occasion (and no education, no time, no analysis skills) - that's the layman takes all his opinions from the TV. It would be much better if just "I don't know."

Here everyone stigmatizes political passivity: yes, forgive me, it would be better if many did not have it, would not participate in evil and deceit (since they were not given the instrument of thought, experience). The cooks already ruled the state, and the scientists harvested the potatoes.

I can't stand "A good person is not a profession"; so to professionals in the case, but there would be more good people.

They didn't argue. We drink wine, got to talking, and he is compote and more and more silent.

During the day, while they waited out the bad weather, they and the missus made him an oar! Oh, our creative carving on plastic bottles (and they are still heat-shrinkable) - and he almost sailed away in English, despite the wave!

Then we made a detour of 30 km - we brought him new oars.

We do not make films about such nomads. How they go into the wild (American film "Into the Wild"). There is no Jack London on them, but there is only the arrogant anger of the intelligentsia at ignorance and passivity. And about kind eyes, a childish smile and such an incredible love for fishing and loneliness, for sitting in the dark under the stars, like a Hedgehog with a Bear cub in one person, recklessness in the fight against the abyss ...

Chekhov is such a motive, life is wider than ideas, and we are all “an amateur”, and all around is a “bad good person”.

Everything is compared: how many climb into the power to organize life at the expense of others! There are so many who walk over the heads and other people's lives, for money, stars, benefits, status, that sometimes it seems that non-participation is already a blessing ... "

This essay caused a lot of responses, and almost all of them were critical of the hero of the story. After all, it is no secret that it is politics (in the original, ancient Greek sense of the word) that turns a herd person, who is largely at the mercy of animal instincts, which any totalitarian government loves to encourage in its citizens - into a social person, and therefore - free. Here are just a few of the reader's comments on the subject:

- That is, he seems to live outside the state, but he probably receives a pension or a salary, he spends the winter in a warm apartment with his wife, not in a dugout. And he absorbed propaganda, but he does not care about injustice in the state. I hate such people! Others should give them everything - an apartment, and heat, and roads, and electric trains, and he will catch fish and think: I have nothing to do with it. Like, I served in the army (whether in Chechnya in the war?), I earned a pension, worked honestly for the state, and leave me alone. An ordinary man in the street, only not in the garden, but on a fishing trip. And life in the state should be organized for such someone else!

- Horror what. “I am not interested in history and politics, but I know for sure that Katyn and the joint parade, of course, are not true.” Darkness...

- I'm already tired of such honest people. It is not for everyone to sacrifice their lives, but inactivity and cowardice are unpleasant. This will not save in a human situation. He will pull out the boat and bandage his hand. And he will be afraid of officials and bandits. Such people always exist and will remain. I am already sure that the time to turn the other cheek (go to jail for the peace process) has already passed. And for me, the main pillars of our democratic path are still important: private property, and not public and bureaucratic property. Natural rights that are inseparable from man are important.

- Still, he has the answers to the questions of history, and the answers of the propaganda stamp. Oh, how the tentacles of lies spread out! How many of us are sober? And what is needed for sobriety? Spiritual honesty, courage to confront, choose, feel the information. Cinema and literature only to a small extent reflect the diversity of life. It's just that sometimes what you read is ahead of what you've experienced. And how is one and without a spare oar?

However, there were also such opinions, reflecting the opinion that is equally common, but also vicious from a democratic point of view, that professionals should be engaged in politics, and everyone else should enjoy its fruits:

- Everyone should do their own thing, politicians should do politics, economists should do economics. Why hate someone for not wanting to get involved in something they don't understand? Yes, he pays taxes, or paid, yes, he pays for utilities. What does a person owe someone else? So he lives for the sake of what, in fact, is the meaning of life - for the sake of happiness, and everyone has his own, someone in fishing on the island, someone in a noisy party in a nightclub. All people are different, if you hate them all because they are different, then your nervous system will not last long.