On the final collapse of modernist archetypes

Alina Vitukhnovskaya, writer

Children were born not for life, but to solve everyday problems (money, apartments), or simply because "it happened". They a priori had no desire to live, they felt unnecessary, interfering. And now, like spoiled things that have served their time, they want to disappear so as not to disturb the local landscape, all these jelly rivers of crocodile tears and the milky shores of endless lies. And the feeling that everything around is “fake”, disturbing other sensitive natures in extreme moments, may have always been with them, and inside the “fake” life, they, following some nightmarish harmony, smoothly flow into “fake” death. "Isn't that right?" they ask some higher monster that rules the local plains. “No, not really”, - the monster smiles.

I have always liked people who are anxious, existentially traumatized, sensitive, selfish, in general, those who are now running. But these deliberately courageous, rushing to the front lines are just some kind of hypertrophied idiots. By the way, entire strata of outcasts - "Russian-Mirovites" have merged somewhere, of the type described by me in many stories of "Batman". I suppose they were simply possessed by animal fear, paralyzing clinical ideological zombies.

The type of “courageous man” is just as irrelevant, strained, redundant, grotesque, as, for example, “fatal woman”, appropriate in the 19th century, but now representing something pro-naphthalene, in fact, an ordinary urban madwoman. Expose modernist myths! Pumping up modernity with modernity (which pro-government Eurasian ideologists do) is bringing it to the point of grotesque, absurdity. That awkward moment when you wanted modern, but still got postmodern. Postmodern is total, absolute, inevitable.

But here it is important not to flatter yourself. Have no illusions. On the one hand, sooner or later we will get mass discontent. Because rationality and sanity has not been canceled. On the other hand, do not forget about the dark power, about the chthonic total negative of a part of the deep people. Many people, driven to despair by poverty and lack of rights, want to die. Let it be unconscious. About the fact that any life is valuable, valuable in itself, came up with Russian literature and those who have never lived badly. And who lived badly, who always calculated between the instinct of self-preservation and despair, inside that schizoid pendulum has long been turned on, leaning towards non-existence.

In general, completely unexpected things can prevail over the notorious value of life - from indifference and despair, to vanity and laziness. And not only squalor consists of the "lowest" properties, but often heroism as well. Yes, yes, sometimes being a hero is the easiest thing. Well, just in case you are lazy and ambitious. The simplification of motives, as well as their sacralization, is a property not only of Russian literature, but also of everyday consciousness. Not only do you not know how others are arranged, you can hardly imagine how you yourself are arranged. Only an intellectually sophisticated and tough enough person sees himself through and through. Others cannot bear the truth about themselves.

There is no concept more depreciated not over centuries, but over decades, than the concept of a hero. Moreover, it is truly devalued, which rarely happens with positively “sacred” images. True - should be understood as correctly, rationally, in the spirit of the time. The hero is always not a subject, but a manipulated object. A hero is relative to someone. But not for. Himself. Lately, we have seen only the socially manipulated hero (passionary). A sad, but at the same time convincing comic book example is someone who went to perform some brutal feats.

Demand dictates supply. Demand dictates sacrifice. The demand is obvious. This is agitprop with a metaphysical filling. Demand from above. Now the state, dressed in the clothes of ideological thimble-makers, is asking the hero. And once upon a time, perhaps, the non-existent "god" himself asked him. In the struggle with the non-existent - a certain ancient hero, a hero of past times in general - acquired an almost metaphysical status, pumped up, so to speak, metaphysical muscles. The hero, manipulated by the current state, does not pump up his muscles, but more and more often laughs with a guttural, chopped-off Mamlei-Maresian laughter. Into the deaf Russian void. What is subjectivity for the layman? This is the realization of who he is and where he is. In a specific place and at a specific time. This realization is now coming to him.