Andrey Illarionov
former adviser to the President of Russia on economic issues
Andrey Illarionov, former economic adviser to the President of the Russian Federation, published an article in the Kommersant newspaper in which he proves that Russia has completely lost political freedom in recent years and has become the only completely unfree country in Europe besides Belarus. The loss of political freedom, writes Illarionov, leads to the degradation of society and not only puts up barriers to economic prosperity, but also develops the ideology of war against all.
Where are we?
The most important thing that has happened to Russia lately is that it has become politically unfree. According to the level of political freedom, measured by the international organization Freedom House, Russia in 2005 passed from the group of partially free countries to the group of not free countries. Now this is not just an individual opinion of this or that analyst. Now this is a dispassionate statement, fixed in quantitative indicators calculated according to universal methods, open to verification and regularly verified for a third of a century in relation to two hundred countries of the world. You can discuss the personal feelings of citizens - some feel colder, some feel warmer. But the objective reality is given in the readings of the thermometer: we are below the freezing point.
Each of the components of the index of political freedom - the democratic nature of the electoral process, the independence of the judiciary, the rule of law, the development of civil society, the independence of the media, the quality of public administration - has fallen catastrophically in Russia in recent years. While practically in all regions and groups of countries of the world political freedoms were strengthened. Now Russia is even lower than the OPEC countries, the only group of countries where in the 1980-1990s there was a decrease in this indicator.
In the 1990s and early in this decade, the change in the quality of political institutions in the two largest Slavic states, Russia and Ukraine, was virtually identical in direction and speed. A year and a half ago, the situation changed radically. And now, among the countries with economies in transition, we occupy polar positions: Ukraine has become a record holder in building up political freedoms, Russia is a champion in their destruction. It is not surprising that so many problems have appeared in our bilateral relations - we have become political antipodes.
More recently, the Balkan countries (Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia) were inferior to Russia in terms of political freedom. Today Russia lags behind them, and not only behind them. Today in Europe there are only three partially free countries - Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo. And two completely non-free - Belarus and Russia. According to the index of political freedom among 194 countries of the world, Russia dropped to 166-167th place - to the level of such countries as Oman, Pakistan, Rwanda, Togo, Chad, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Vietnam, Zaire, Iran, Cameroon, Kot- d`Ivoire, UAE, Swaziland, Kazakhstan, Haiti, Zimbabwe. Russia does not have such a lag behind the world average in any other indicator, even in terms of average life expectancy.
In terms of political development, Russia has nothing in common with the G8 countries, whose leaders' summit it is going to host in St. Petersburg. We and the “Group of 7” belong to different political worlds. Moreover, we are moving in opposite directions: the G7 continues to increase political freedoms from its very high level, while Russia continues to reduce it from its very low level. In terms of the rate of degradation of the index of political freedom in 1991-2005, Russia ranks 4th among 193 countries. Together with her colleagues in misfortune, she forms her own, different "Group of Eight": Nepal, Belarus, Tajikistan, Gambia, Solomon Islands, Zimbabwe, Venezuela. It is not surprising that what is happening in Russia has been called the "Zimbabwean disease" - the massive destruction of basic political institutions, so well known to the world through the activities of the government of Robert Mugabe.
Why do we need political freedom?
Freedom is not a luxury item. Freedom is a tool without which a country has neither prosperity, nor security, nor development, nor respect.
Free countries are richer than not free ones, on average, by almost an order of magnitude - in the ratio of $ 28 and $ 4 thousand per capita. The economy of free countries is developing faster: over the last third of the century, completely free countries have doubled the per capita income of citizens, partially free countries - by 40%, not free - have reduced by 34%. The transition from complete freedom to complete lack of freedom leads to economic degradation, in such countries the growth of GDP per capita becomes negative. The transition from complete captivity to complete freedom accelerates economic growth above the world average.
Freedom brings security. Compare politically free countries - European countries, USA, Canada, Japan - and not free - Rwanda, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, North Korea. Where is safer? Where is life expectancy higher? Where is the greater risk of being robbed, kidnapped, killed?
Freedom gives strength. With similar populations, which countries are economically more powerful? Spain or Sudan? Australia or Syria? Belgium or Cuba? Canada or Myanmar? Netherlands or Zimbabwe? Taiwan or North Korea? Finland or Libya? Freedom brings respect. Which of the mentioned countries is more attractive, respected in the world? And where do people go on a tour or to emigrate? And where?
Barriers of Unfreedom
Lack of freedom forms an insurmountable barrier to economic growth, social development, human, country, and state security. History does not know examples of completely non-free countries (which are not net exporters of energy resources with a population of more than 3 million people) that could overcome the threshold of per capita GDP at purchasing power parities of currencies of $12,000.
The countries that managed to do this were either already free, or became so before they approached this milestone. Among them are Spain and Portugal, Greece and Taiwan, South Korea and Chile. The one who was or became not free could not overcome this barrier. And those who were not free and rich (with a GDP of more than $12,000) became not free and poor. And this happened even to energy exporters, despite high oil prices. In Iran and Venezuela, in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, GDP per capita today is lower than it was three decades ago - by 10, 30, 40, 80%.
Lack of freedom means social regression and economic degradation. This is the decay of state institutions. This is the risk of unprovoked aggression against neighbors. And this is real aggression against their own people.
Ideology of war
What do the countries of “our little G8” have in common? What unites such diverse countries as Nepal and Belarus, Tajikistan and the Solomon Islands, Russia and the Gambia, Venezuela and Zimbabwe? In essence, there is only one. These are civil wars. Announced and unannounced. Open and closed. Hot and cold. Taking property and destroying society. Sending to camps and destroying citizens only because they have a different idea of the world, faith, law, freedom and their own country.
It is no coincidence that the propaganda nightingales of these regimes are so fond of the word "war". They hope that the wars already being waged and unleashed will write everything off, cover up any violence and crime. They need wars - civil and external, because only in conditions of wars waged against internal enemies, in the name of "territorial integrity", for the sake of empires - gone down in history, "liberal", energy ones - can people be terrorized.
Unfreedom is war. The war of the corporatist state against civil society, the country and the people. Lack of freedom is needed to incite hatred - social, external, internal. Against "oligarchs" and "plutocrats", "orange" and "democrats", "unipolar world" and "world behind the scenes". Only with the help of hatred, fear and selective violence can one try to keep what is dearest to them - power.
Lack of freedom is a monopoly on power, political, economic, informational. Lack of freedom is the taboo of topics of national discussion. From Chechnya to Yukos, from the terrorist attacks in Nord-Ost and Beslan to caricatures of the prophets. This is a ban on discussing what the country is obliged to discuss. This is an exclusion from the public life of topics, people, companies, groups. This is the primitivization of public life and the archaization of the state. This is the decay of morality and the degradation of national consciousness.
The policy of unfreedom is the policy of impoverishment of the population. Country lagging behind. State weakening. Unfreedom is a historical dead end. Path to national catastrophe.
Freedom is not a luxury item. This is a tool. The most massive, the most powerful, the most effective. Today Russia is not a free country. But she definitely will. How to become free is a topic for another conversation.
We all want to be happy.
Many understand that happiness is a destiny of man.
But only a few realize that only FREEDOM makes a straight-walking primate a HUMAN.
Therefore, only a few are happy.
Take a look around and see for yourself.
Look at young people and older people. And the truth will be revealed to you.
Young people who have not yet done anything with their lives are more cheerful, mobile and cheerful. Older people are the same young people who have already managed to achieve what they were striving for. They are less mobile, less cheerful, and what they could easily do in their youth is now impossible for them. They just have limited freedom. They already have duties, status, business, etc.
The conclusion is simple. When a person reaches supposedly their aspirations and desires, he becomes less happy and cheerful. And this is not an isolated case but a RULE.
Why don't we notice such a simple thing? For two reasons. The first is the rule. Everyone lives like this and I live like this, there is nothing to work out. The second is the elementary lack of energy. We spend almost all our energy on creating bondage - our own and our loved ones. And also to maintain semantic structures that allow us to ignore the obvious. For example, society has taken it as an axiom that older people are less cheerful due to the fact that physical strength and endurance of the body decrease with age. And at the same time, everyone understands perfectly well that the average young person is much inferior to the more adult one in terms of strength and endurance and efficiency in any particular intellectual or physical task. And the physical activity of traveling Western pensioners is generally impressive. Ka and the fact that for a few hours of physical activity in a nightclub, young people are required to use "doping".
Even if one person thinks about his life for a few minutes, wants to understand what freedom, love, happiness, dignity, honor, justice are. For a few seconds he will forget about the heap of rubbish that disturbs him, which costs nothing and sees the beauty of the sky and all living things. So everything is not in vain. And another Man will appear in the world.
I stress HUMAN, and not a resident, consumer, soul of the population, voter, etc.
By the way, you can be convinced by this simple example - a lot of efforts are made so that a PERSON - PERSONALITY never appears. This concept is even outlived from speech. You can find out from the news how much milk per capita, what the average voter wants, what the consumer chooses, you can become a member of society, a citizen who is lucky enough to be a VIP. human or Personality never. On the contrary, this concept is reduced to nothing and is used for an impersonal mass = There were 100 people at the rally.
When we get tired of everyday lies and become honest with ourselves. At this moment, we clearly understand that in life We are interested in only a few things, approximately in this sequence
Happiness(we want to be happy)
Love(we want to love, and even more to be loved)
freedom(we want to be free from heavy and dull duties that oppress us)
On the pages of this site you will receive answers to all the most important questions
How to be happy.
This question will always be our number one priority. The reason for this is our little trick. We think we are smart, and happiness is an all-encompassing category that can include love and other joys. And becoming happy, we will get everything at once at wholesale prices. Or it may so happen that when we become happy, we don’t need everything else. Therefore, every (mentally healthy) person wants happiness.
How to find your love.
People have always wanted to love. Much has been said and shown about this. Everyone was looking for love. But before, they were looking for more, a worthy candidate to fall in love with. Now we are much smarter, and using a little trick again, we increasingly want to be loved. So much more profitable and convenient.
How to become free.
This question is the least common, but it has the most aspects. We want to be free from everything. We are interested in financial freedom, physical freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of choice, freedom of thought, freedom of expression and many, many freedoms.
And of course we will start from the end.
freedom it is a complex and voluminous concept that should become part of every personality.
A person who is in voluntary slavery is not such. Remember this forever!!!
And only a person is worthy of love and happiness. It's an axiom!
With the release of this site, everyone can receive or help others in freeing Man from the illusions in which he lives and which turn him into a slave proud of his chains.
This is how most people live, having no idea of their true destiny in this world, giving their lives and freedom to forces about the nature of existence that are not even suspected. As a result, everyone is in the race for ghostly goals, reaching which they often feel empty. Probably everyone has had something like this in their life. You get what you wanted, you expect a feeling of festive joy, happiness, but it does not come. Everything is ordinary and uninteresting.
“The anticipation of the holiday is more interesting than the holiday itself.” Over time, this becomes a normal state, and by a certain age, a person understands that there is no future, everything will be the same as before with minor changes. And only somewhere deep in the soul barely audibly lives the hope that everything will somehow change and become different and right, and we will feel it. Love comes unexpectedly. You will be happy and it will be nice to look at you.
In the meantime, this has not happened, we do what we can, what we have been taught. And they taught us little, unnecessary and harmful things, why we must be freed in the first place. And no one told us that happiness and love would not come to us. Because we are not free. And happiness with love for us simply will not miss the convoy.
Therefore, in order to be happy, we need freedom from
GREED who has 1 ruble changes his life and strength in order to have 2. Whoever has a million wants 10 and so on ad infinitum.
freedom from
ENVY a million and 10 million we need only because someone has more, and nothing but envy drives us in this race, no matter how we justify it. Imagine the situation that you live in a society where everyone works approximately the same and receives approximately the same money for it, say 1000. A “manager” comes to you and informs you that from next month your salary will increase to 2000. This will be a holiday for you and family, now you are rich. But the situation will change a lot if you find out that you have raised your payment by 2 times, and everyone else by 5. You have become twice as rich, but you will feel like a poor man. Although life will be better for you twice. Such a paradox. Think about it and you will understand that it is so.
freedom from
STUPID, because we rarely think about what and how we live, feeding greed and stupidity, etc. There is a common phrase “Everything is for sale and everything is bought” and no one ever tells you that you can sell everything and forever, but you can not buy everything, and forever you can not buy anything at all.
You can forever sell love, friendship, health, respect, but you can never buy this. You can buy only sex, flattery, drugs, toadying.
You can buy movable and immovable property, but you will be deprived of it without fail (criminals illegally, the state legally, and if not, then death will do it by definition). This must always be remembered. This is easy to see if you watch the news and know the history.
What is described above is not the main essence and not the main goal, it is the beginning of the path. Even complete FREEDOM is only a step. We will go much further, and we know that any path begins with the first step, any ascent from the first step. And remember that up is harder than down. And the good news is that a free person has much more strength, he wants to go up, he is pleased to go up. And he succeeds.
I am not a film critic. The film for me is just an occasion to reflect on our life, on the eternal. As, for example, does the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. At the Faculty of Philosophy of St. Petersburg State University, we even have a permanent film analysis seminar “Watching Deleuze”.
The Edge is a film about human love in inhuman conditions. And about freedom.
In my opinion, this is the best film by Alexei Uchitel. I think The Edge deserves an Oscar nomination. Although it seems to me that this film will not be understood in Germany, especially in America. For them, this is some kind of alien, otherworldly life.
Film director Alexei Uchitel says that he has discovered a new genre - "drumbuster".
Even before writing the script, he was attracted by two ideas: 1\ a steam locomotive race, 2\ a German girl who lived in the Siberian taiga and did not know that there was a war.
The film is superbly shot. It feels like good camera work. The picture is a harmonious combination of intrigue, drama and lyrics. But the expressive melody is not enough.
I didn't feel any inadequacy in this movie. But in Mikhalkov's film "Burnt by the Sun: Anticipation" in almost every frame.
There are stretches, of course. Well, how can a German girl live alone in the Siberian taiga for five years? I lived in the Siberian taiga (albeit in the summer); and even in the summer one cannot survive there alone.
But in general, everything in the film looks quite believable. The crowd worked well. I myself acted as an extra in the American film Anna Karenina, and I know how difficult it is to manage people.
Vladimir Mashkov, in the role of Ignat, is more convincing than ever.
Freed from the image of a sex symbol, Mashkov became even more interesting and deeper. For complete credibility, he even performed locomotive stunts himself (judging by the credits).
And why do women love such people? .. “There are more devils in him!” - the most honest answer of a woman.
Ignat is a man of iron! A sort of "man-locomotive". “Nails would be made of these people, there would be no stronger nails in the world!”
How many such people died at the great construction sites of communism, how many Komsomol construction sites are abandoned?! ..
But this is not "Communist", and Mashkov (for all his talent) is not Urbansky.
I do not want to shout in support of the victorious Ignat, as they shouted to the dying communist.
Some will say: art is a lie, and the film "Communist" is a beautiful lie.
But today everyone is already tired of the "darkness". And even more from the so-called "humor" on TV channels.
The film "The Edge" is a rare exception for modern cinema that denigrates our past. As if there were no bright sides in the recent Soviet reality.
But I, who lived under socialism, disagree. Man aspired to the high, and not only to the satisfaction of his material needs!
My uncle worked as an assistant driver on a steam locomotive, and told me how hard it was. Many didn't make it to retirement. He also had to escort captured Germans who worked at a construction site. No matter how much they tried to adjust them, they worked according to their own unhurried rhythm, but on the other hand they did everything much better than our hacks.
When repairing a steam locomotive, Ignat tries not only for himself, but for others too.
But now they are trying only for themselves. Today man's selfishness determines what is good and what is bad; what is fair and what is not; what is true and what is false.
Man - he is not from head to toe, but from the top of his head to heaven!
Man was created for lofty goals and super-tasks.
But in the "Edge" this is not!
While love may be the ultimate goal, the highest goal of human life is to learn to love no matter what!
No, Russia cannot be understood with the mind!
Only we drive in the opposite direction. What this leads to, we see constantly.
Death is not afraid!
Russia is the land of the impossible! Nowhere else! - a free settlement where people do not live behind barbed wire.
According to the French aristocrat Marquis de Custine, who traveled around Russia in the 19th century and left the book "Notes on Russia", Russia is "a wild and barbaric Asian country inhabited by an ignorant and illiterate, rude people."
But the author of the new book "Russia and Freedom" P.A. Sapronov believes that “the accounts of Russia-Russia with freedom are very complex, difficult and confusing. The loss of freedom for the country and the people means a crisis or catastrophe, but a stable stay in freedom is not given either.
The breakdown into bondage and slavery on Russian soil had an external source - the Horde yoke. But freedom is not given to a Russian person in the hands of the nature of his religiosity, relationship with God.
The Russian man longs for super-freedom as fullness and love, neglecting freedom, slipping past it. Freedom is too little."
“Did they drink all of Russia away, or just up to the Urals?” - the hero of Sergei Garmash asks in the film, and this question sounds quite relevant.
Everything is relative. And so I would like to quote the words from Oliver Stone's new film "Wall Street: Money Doesn't Sleep": "The time is now quite vile. So, you have to be a scoundrel!”
But in my favorite film by Sergei Solovyov "Alien white and pockmarked" the father of the protagonist, a former front-line soldier, says: "No one and nothing will force us to be dishonorable people"!
If even in Stalin's time it was possible to make a passport in a roundabout way, then what lack of freedom can we talk about?
A retired friend of mine told how in those years he decided to run away from the mine where he worked. Well, passports, of course, were not issued there. Decided to go to Moscow. And on the trains they went and checked the documents. A woman saved him by hiding it under her skirt.
The name is fate. Therefore, it is no coincidence that in the film "The Edge" a German boy is saved by a Russian Madonna (performed by Yulia Peresild) with the name Sophia (in Greek, "wisdom").
The sister of one of my acquaintances was taken to Germany during the war, where she gave birth to a child. She worked in a boiler room, and thanks to the fact that she was paid child support, she was able to survive.
Russia has always been saved by women.
Russia is a “woman”, and it was women who successfully ruled such a country. The reign of Elizabeth Petrovna and Catherine the Great was not the worst in the history of Russia.
Russia has always been based on women and thanks to women. Men were killed in wars, and therefore the whole burden of destruction and restoration fell on women's shoulders.
I have an aunt during the siege of Leningrad, when her mother died of starvation, she came to the factory at the age of twelve and worked there until she was 75! Now at 82, she is alive and well.
Women think about children, and men about war!
While our women work both at work and at home, give birth and raise children, our men quarrel and take offense at each other like children in a sandbox.
Some call Russia Vasilisa the Beautiful, but not Vasilisa the Wise!
And the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov believed that Russia would be saved by the Eternal Femininity, SOPHIA - the Wisdom of God.
The main idea of Vladimir Solovyov's philosophy was the idea of Sophia (the Soul of the World). He understood her as a mystical cosmic being uniting God with the earthly world.
Sophia represents the Eternal Femininity in God and, at the same time, God's plan for the world. This image is found in the Bible, but it was revealed to Solovyov in a mystical vision.
Vladimir Solovyov believed that "all men are Christs, all women are virgins."
According to Vladimir Solovyov, “the meaning of love is ... the heavenly object of our love is only one and always the same for everyone - the eternal Femininity of God ... But the task of a person is not to worship her, but to realize and embody this ideal as an individual and on earth... True love cannot be preserved in our material environment if we do not understand and accept it as a moral feat.”
Yes, we love the poor! But the poor are taken care of better in other countries.
For some reason, Russian people do not see the point in a simple happy life. Give them hard difficult happiness. Only in a difficult life do we see meaning.
Why is life even given to a person?
What is the meaning of human life?
There is a good book about this by Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning. In it he writes:
“A person strives to gain meaning and feels frustration or vacuum if this desire remains unfulfilled... Lack of meaning gives rise to a state in a person, which Frankl calls an existential vacuum... "screws".
“All men are born free,” says the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Freedom is the inalienable right of every person, his natural right!
Nikolai Berdyaev believed that all his work is a "philosophy of freedom."
Vysotsky has a song with the words: “Yesterday they gave me freedom. What am I going to do with her?"
Many do not understand and do not know how to dispose of freedom. This is well shown in the film "New Earth": as soon as the prisoners were released, they began to mercilessly kill each other.
All this has long been described in the book "Escape from Freedom" by the famous American psychologist Erich Fromm.
“The main idea of this book is that modern man ... has not acquired freedom in the sense of realizing his personality ... Freedom brought a person independence and rationality of his existence, but at the same time isolated him, aroused in him a feeling of powerlessness and anxiety ...”
"Modern man ... is tempted to give his freedom to all sorts of dictators - or lose it, becoming a small cog in the machine: not a free man, but a well-fed and well-dressed automaton."
Freedom is now sacrificed to order.
George Orwell in the novel "1984" convincingly showed that totalitarianism can deprive a person of freedom, but is not capable of depriving him of love!
Love is the freest state of man. Love is freedom!
But why does a person need freedom?
Does a person need freedom?
As the philosopher Vadim Mezhuev recently said: “Freedom is equal to avoiding time.” "Free time is the time when a person creates himself."
The measure of the wealth of society should not be working time, but free time.
But if now people are given a lot of summary time, the majority will get drunk.
Psychologists have even identified the “weekend syndrome”, when people do not know what to do on their next vacation or on a long New Year's vacation. Most are known to escape and amuse themselves by drinking.
And drugs, and pornography, and meaningless parties, endless surfing on the Internet ... Isn't this what most people spend their free time on?
I agree that "the problem is not to increase free time, but to give meaning to work, to turn it into a source of freedom and self-realization."
What does the driver Ignat spend his free time on in the movie "The Edge"? He replies that he does not have free time, because there is a lot of work. Ignat is fully self-realized in work, and he does not need time for leisure.
In the last twenty years, the value of labor has fallen markedly. First, because labor has ceased to be a value and measure of human life and effort. Everyone sees that they are paid not for work or even for knowledge, but for a position, for a place, for connections.
For Protestants, work is a blessing and a value, a source of God's grace and a measure of a person's evaluation. That is why the Protestant work ethic created a great industrial America.
And in our country, labor is not honored, which is reflected in folk wisdom: “by righteous labor you will not make stone chambers”; "work is not a wolf, it will not run away into the forest" ...
No matter how much you work, how much you put off labor savings, they will still take it away, not through default, but through inflation. Our parents still cannot forgive the state for losing all their labor savings as a result of the so-called reforms.
Our people are spared the difficulty of choosing: to have or to be? They were deprived of the opportunity to HAVE, leaving only the opportunity to BE. Not at all like in the book of the famous American psychologist Erich Fromm "To have or to be?".
Happy is he who is free, because freedom is the ability to recognize what is necessary as unnecessary.
Money does not give freedom, because freedom does not depend on money. It doesn't depend on anything at all.
You can't wish for the impossible: have a lot of money and be free!
If the goal of progress is freedom, then it does not depend on any conditions.
A person may feel freer in prison than in his own home.
If a person is free, then he is free regardless of any material or political conditions. He can be free always and everywhere no matter what. And when some conditions are required for freedom, then this is no longer freedom. If you like, freedom is free!
Anyone who makes his own understanding of freedom dependent on circumstances is not free.
Freedom cannot be the goal of human existence. She's more of a tool. Is not it?
No power makes a person freer, because any power is unfreedom. And for those who have this power, and for those who naively expect more freedom from it.
Freedom is not given or won. Whoever wants to be free is free, that's all.
The famous physicist Roger Penrose is trying to find the foundations of human freedom at the level of the quantum structure of brain cells.
Freedom is the feeling of gain when you lose everything!
Freedom of the spirit is freedom without conditions.
Some people think that there can be no freedom without private property!
Others, on the contrary, say that property is a trap for freedom.
Is freedom good for man at all?
Freedom from society is an illusion as long as we live in it.
Freedom does not depend on society, but on the individual himself!
Freedom is not in material security, but in self-restraint. And not only in the rejection of existing attachments, but also from the attachments desired.
The main thing in a person is not what he has, but what he can give; the rest is its essence.
Russians, perhaps more than anyone else, need freedom. They seek equality, not equality, freedom of the spirit, not freedom of desire, freedom without convenience, freedom from convenience and profit.
What other nation is able to fight with their own wealth? Maybe this is masochism, but the Russian soul cannot live without suffering, and before compassion, because as soon as it frees from the captivity of pleasure and personal gain. We are ready to suffer with joy for the sake of everyone, finding in this the meaning of our existence. It is the thirst for compassion, and without any calculation, that is the distinguishing feature of the Russian soul. Compassion for profit is impossible; it's the only thing you can't do for yourself." (from my novel "Alien Strange Incomprehensible Extraordinary Stranger" on the site New Russian Literature)
If freedom is a conscious necessity, and love is the freest state of a person, then
LOVE CREATE NEED!
© Nikolai Kofirin – New Russian Literature –
FREEDOM
Answering journalists' questions on January 31, 2006, President Putin said: "The historic merit of former Yeltsin is that the citizens of Russia have received freedom." Let's, dear reader, try to understand in more detail the questions: What is freedom? What freedom did Yeltsin give us? Is it for the whole population or just a select few? Did it benefit Russia or did it harm? Can this gift of Yeltsin be considered a merit? Putin did not specify what kind of freedom he was talking about: political, economic, moral, creative, etc. We will do the same. It will be about freedom close-up.
“Clarify the meanings of words, and you will save humanity from half of the delusions,” the famous French thinker Rene Descartes advised back in the 17th century. So let's heed the wise advice and first clarify the meaning of this "sweet word freedom", using the opinion of the authorities.
Recognized connoisseur of the Russian language V.I. Dal: "Freedom is one's own will, space, the ability to act in one's own way; the absence of constraint, bondage, slavery, submission to someone else's will. Freedom is a comparative concept; it can refer to a simple, private, related to a well-known case, and, finally, to a complete unbridled arbitrariness or arbitrariness". The last sentence here is disturbing. Dahl also warns of the need for legal and moral restrictions on people's freedom.
Big encyclopedic dictionary: "Freedom is a person's ability to act in accordance with their interests and goals, making a choice. People are not free to choose the objective conditions of their activities, but they have relative and specific freedom when they retain the opportunity to choose goals or means sanctioned by the norms and values of a given society their achievements." Societies can be moral and immoral, respectively, the goals and means of their achievement - too. There are no restrictions on freedom! Every choice must be sanctioned, limited.
Philosophical Encyclopedia, edited by F.V. Konstantinov: "Freedom is the conscious necessity and actions of a person in accordance with one's knowledge, the possibility and ability to choose in one's actions. The problem of freedom traditionally boils down to the question of whether a person has free will. Free will is a philosophical problem, which, in a general formulation, is formulated as a question about freedom of man in his actions, this is one of the applied questions of philosophy, the history of disputes around it began from the time of Socrates Hegel, for example, wrote: therefore, it is really subject to them, as about the idea of freedom. "As you can see, the great thinker did not perceive human freedom unambiguously as an unconditional good! Freedom can also be evil! One cannot but agree with the author of the article that free will (of a person) does not consist in independence from society but in the ability of a person to make decisions consciously, with knowledge of the matter.
Ethics Dictionary: "Free will is a philosophical category, in the most general sense it means the ability of a person to independently, in accordance with his worldview, determine his actions, act on the basis of his own decision. Making an act, a person makes a moral choice between good and evil, moral and immoral, that is, he must be morally responsible." In other words, moral restrictions are imposed on the freedom of choice. The choice can also be immoral.
Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary: "Freedom is a person's ability to be active in accordance with his intentions, desires and interests, in the course of which he achieves his goals." And further. “Freedom can be both positive and negative. The so-called “negative freedom” (freedom from material deprivation, exploitation, social and national oppression) determines “positive freedom” (all-round development of the individual, creative work, etc.). Freedom "is not tantamount to arbitrariness. Abstract freedom does not exist. It is always concrete and relative. In an antagonistic society, the division of labor, private property and the split of society into opposite classes determine the dominance of private, separate interests and spontaneous processes. Under these conditions, the freedom of the ruling classes to dispose of property, material wealth and knowledge turns into a lack of freedom for the lower classes, the need to work for the enrichment of others and to fulfill the will of the masters. In the relationship between individuals, the individual freedom of some is opposed by the arbitrariness of others to act at their own discretion, infringing on the freedom of the majority.
It is noteworthy that not a single author of the article on freedom admits unlimited freedom and does not consider it an absolute good. Good and evil, as you know, are in dialectical unity. A seemingly good deed may turn out to be evil and vice versa. It is not for nothing that folk wisdom says: "Do not do good, you will not get evil!" This fully applies to the freedom granted to us by Yeltsin and the Yeltsinoids! However, the President of Russia either does not know this and does not want to know, or is completely satisfied with what this freedom has brought to him personally and to the peoples of the country!
The example of many countries of the world proved the viciousness of the bourgeois doctrine of freedom, in particular, the concept of A. Smith, popular in the 19th century, which implies the maximum limitation of the sphere of state activity, which supposedly will be accompanied by general welfare and the flourishing of individual freedom of all members of society. However, the Russian government is still guided by this concept! The current generation of Russians has become convinced in practice that only an insignificant part of the population, charismatic individuals and leaders, needs bourgeois freedoms. And those, according to psychologists, in society are only five - seven percent! All other people from birth are executors of someone else's will. Look around you, how many of your acquaintances or colleagues have taken advantage of personal freedom and become prosperous businessmen?! Leaders by nature - former party, Komsomol and trade union workers - thanks to the Yeltsin freedoms, really became nouveau riche, sharing the wealth of the USSR among themselves! And this should not be surprising. Most have lost what they had!
The slogan "Freedom" has long been widely used by politicians and ideologists for propaganda purposes in the struggle for power, since it has an irresistible appeal to a wide range of people who do not try to get to the heart of the problem. In all cases when propagandists talk about the need for freedom, it is reasonable to ask questions: Freedom for whom, what segment of society is meant? What will it consist of? What will I personally gain from this and what will I lose? Only after that decide whether to support the one who stands up for freedom or not. Today it should be clear to everyone that for some, bourgeois freedom is an opportunity to manipulate the consciousness of the people and enrich themselves at the expense of others, for others it is a high probability of being cruelly deceived, "abandoned" and dying under a fence! Just remember "our" false constitution, which, on the one hand, guarantees a social state that implies universal prosperity, and, on the other hand, sanctifies the property of the oligarchs stolen from the people.
A person should be so free that his personal freedom does not turn into an infringement of someone else's freedom. The freedoms of individuals in society must be balanced. The personal freedom of citizens must be limited by reasonable legal and moral laws, which is what the authors of all the above definitions of this concept call for! From a practical point of view, this is, of course, an extremely difficult question!
We note another important aspect of the problem of individual freedom. It divides the people into individuals who live more by their own selfish interests than by the interests of society, the people as a whole; hinders its unification in the struggle against internal and external enemies. After all, a free man owes nothing to anyone. Why do Caucasians "rule the show" in Russian markets today? The answer is simple: they are not free, united in national diasporas, strictly subordinate to their leaders. The same can be said about organized crime and terrorism. We, the Russian people, do not represent today a single cohesive people, we are a collection of free individuals - therefore we cannot cope with these negative phenomena of our life, and this is the result of the bourgeois freedoms graciously given to us and their consequences. Our ancestors could maintain their independence for thousands of years in the face of constant invasions of either the Chimerians, or the Huns, or the Goths, or the Pechenegs, or the Khazars, because they could unite, relegating personal freedom to the background and submitting to a single leader. We defended the independence of the Motherland in the Great Patriotic War only thanks to the lack of freedom, which ensured the unity of the peoples of the USSR, united by the indisputable leader I.V. Stalin. Free French, Poles, Austrians and other peoples could not withstand the onslaught of not too free Germans!
"Divide and rule!" the ancient Romans knew. This principle is successfully used even today by those who want to rule over us and rob us with impunity! They are the ones who vote for freedom. So the word "freedom" is not so sweet. It contains a lot of bitterness!
Pay attention, reader, who stands up for freedom most of all, and not only here in Russia, but throughout the Western world? Most often these are representatives of the small so-called "God's people", for centuries and millennia themselves tightly soldered by the psychology of the kahal (community). Only thanks to their lack of freedom, interdependence, subordination to the single ideology of the Talmud, this tiny nation has already subjugated half the world, and the whole world, with our passivity and lack of cohesion, is not far from the victory of the idea of globalism, that is, its complete domination over all earthlings! Only by becoming "slaves" of society, recognizing its interests above your own, united, you can feel protected and free from the danger of being deceived, robbed, humiliated and insulted! Thousands of people who are personally free from the state and from each other can be enslaved even by a small band of unfree and united!
For about twenty years now, the idea of individual freedom or will has been assiduously drummed into Russians by the media (especially television) under the ideological leadership of the Ministry of Culture, in which the notorious Russophobe Shvydkoy plays a more than significant role. Does this ministry deal with culture or contribute to lack of culture and spiritual impoverishment of the people?
People have been talking about free ugliness on TV screens for a long time. "And nothing has changed!" Veterans of the Great Patriotic War appealed directly to the President with a request to rid us of television abominations. But they received in response: "We have freedom! If you don't want to watch, don't watch!" Did the President of the "social" state protect the grandchildren of these honored people from immorality, vulgarity, depravity, propaganda of consumerism, selfishness, worship of the "golden calf"? Who, if not the authorities, should limit this freedom of the owners of the media, who are only concerned with profit, which has turned into a great evil for the people - a decline in morality? She must not want to see the future Russia powerful, rich, happy, populated by physically and morally healthy people who remember the traditions of their fathers and speak their native language! The free media has already reached the point where drunkenness is promoted in books for preschoolers, and sex in children's cartoons! Doesn't it seem cynical to you during the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Victory of our people in the Great Patriotic War, the appearance on television of films discrediting our commanders and the victorious Red Army, and praising the leaders of the fascist Reich? So who needs this freedom and for what? The answer, in my opinion, is obvious: all the same nouveaux riches to satisfy their boundless greed!
Art - a part of spiritual culture - has always had a goal: to educate, educate and entertain the viewer, listener or reader. However, "our" ideological leaders welcome only entertainment, in other words, distracting a person from serious reflections about what is happening around. They do not want to see their people cultured, aware of and understanding a lot, so they turned culture into an entertainment industry. Watch the Russians how half-naked, seductive, shameless girls twirl their backs and get excited; listen to voiceless, again, sexy little girls and dream of being in their bed; laugh at the primitive and vulgar jokes from the stage above you by the unscrupulous Russian-speaking "wits" and try to become like a civilized European! Why bother with the thought process? We will decide everything for you!
Is the one who benefits society, takes care of it, is praised by the media and the state today? The one who successfully "works" for his beloved, who "bite off the Soviet pie" more, in other words, stole, enjoys honor! And who, then, will "before thinking about the Motherland, and then about themselves"? And who, if necessary, will defend the Motherland!?
Now, from the freedom of the individual, freedom of will and all the charm that we received from it thanks to Yeltsin, let's move on to the question of the freedom of our people as a whole, its independence, sovereignty.
Sovereignty (from sovereign, ruler) means supremacy independent of any forces, circumstances and persons. This concept defines the independence, independence of the country and its people. Recognition of sovereignty plays an important role in the unification of the state, its internal cohesion and strengthening. In politics, sovereignty implies the freedom of the state and has the same meaning as the freedom of the individual. For a sovereign state, this is not only the right to independence and freedom from outside encroachment, but also the right to govern, the ability to make independent decisions.
Despite Yeltsin's loud statements about the sovereignty of the Russian Federation (they even introduced the Independence Day holiday, although it was not specified from whom?), did our country gain independence from external forces after 1991 or, on the contrary, lost it? The question is rhetorical! The USSR, being one of the two most powerful states on the planet, pursued a completely independent policy. Before Gorbachev came to power, his government was not too interested in what the West would say about certain decisions made. Can this be said about the government of the Russian Federation? Even Prime Minister Chernomyrdin publicly announced that Russia can no longer be considered an independent state! Now all the fundamental decisions of the Russian government and the laws adopted by the State Duma must first be approved by the World Government. Even Yeltsin concluded an agreement with the West about this! Now we are receiving instructions from there: which enterprises and entire sectors of the national economy that compete with the West should be liquidated first; what methods should be used to finish off the remnants of our army; with which states of the world we should be friends, and with which it is forbidden. So the good for the people of Russia and in this case was freedom or evil!?
In a bipolar world (as long as the Soviet Union with its unfree people existed), the US did not have the opportunity to dominate our planet, which we are seeing today. They wanted to in Washington and bombed Yugoslavia and dismembered the state for the convenience of managing its peoples. They wanted to - and occupied Iraq. And the heads of sovereign states were put in the dock! Who can guarantee that tomorrow the rulers of the world will not like the policy of the Russian Federation and our state will cease to exist altogether (all the more so there is no one to protect it today - we have no army, again thanks to Yeltsin's freedoms, in fact, no), and our President will not share the fate of Milosevic and Hussain? Here is an assessment of the gift to the Russian people in the form of individual freedom and the sovereignty of the state! Is this not clear to the Kremlin rulers? Have they lost even the instinct of self-preservation in the pursuit of wealth!?
It is appropriate to recall some of the history. After all, Hitler was also going to give freedom and sovereignty to the peoples of the USSR, that is, to divide our state into several independent, easily manageable ones (create a kind of CIS) and run the entertainment machine at full capacity. Television, fortunately, was not widespread at that time, so it was assumed that in every Russian hut the radio would constantly sound. By the way, Hitler was a "humanist" - he intended to reduce the population of Russia by only four times, while our current Western "friends" according to M. Thatcher - by twenty!
Freedom is a fundamental concept of Western Romano-Germanic civilization. Ideally, it is believed that a person should be free from all kinds of obligations - before God, country, relatives, family, etc. From everything except the satisfaction of their personal ever-growing needs and, of course, from the moral laws that limit the ability to satisfy these needs. In fact, such a person is a slave of those who, through the satisfaction of needs, manipulate his consciousness, actively using the media that belong to them! It is this kind of civilization that the Russian people are being pushed into today.
Freedom of the individual or free will, which the liberal rulers impose on us, dismembered the people, allowed a small number of charismatics, natural leaders to enrich themselves, and the majority to lose what they had under Soviet rule. Having lost the sense of collectivism in the pursuit of satisfying personal needs, our people have become incapable of fighting for their common interests, both with internal and external enemies.
Those who want to continue to plunder the country and people shout about the merits and necessity of personal freedom.
Having gained personal freedom, we have lost public, state freedom. Now our rulers act on orders from outside, often not in the interests of their people.
Freedom is the main link in the process of systemic, comprehensive destruction of the traditional life and life of the peoples of Russia, and the peoples of the whole world. This is a powerful weapon in the hands of those who seek to dominate the entire world, while reducing the population of the Earth to two billion. The first is the "golden" billion masters, the second is a billion servants. You and I, the reader, and our descendants do not get into the "golden" - all places are occupied!
Only with a significant restriction of individual freedom, the revival of high morality in society, the strengthening of state power and the acquisition of state sovereignty, is it possible for Russia to emerge from the systemic crisis and revive it as a powerful prosperous state. As for Yeltsin, his associates and successors, it is appropriate to recall the prophetic words of the great Russian writer Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol:
“Whatever you say, the inspector who is waiting for us at the door of the coffin is terrible. As if you don’t know who this inspector is?
Igorpavlovitch. people 2. ru petrani. niido . rupan-i. ru etc.
