Sergei Kusnetsov

0.

I have written very few political texts in my life. Each time that happened after a great catastrophe like explosion of an apartment house, hostage-taking or WTC attack. Nothing comparable to those events seems to be happening right now. But the urge to state my attitude towards the social processes of the last half-a-year prompted me to write this essay. I just hate seeing my friends gradually becoming inadequate.

1.

During my seven-year journalism career my texts have been repeatedly misunderstood by the readers. I have been regularly accused of fascism, liberalism, immorality, overfastidiousness, double-dealing, and drug propaganda. In most cases I tried to start a dialogue and explain that there was all the difference between what I actually wanted to say and what my readers found in my texts. It took quite an effort and nerve to carry on the correspondence, but I considered that part of my work as a journalist. After all, I thought, I could have explained something in a wrong or unclear way, or left something half-done, so I should straighten things out.

The last several months of my public life, however, provided plenty of evidence that people usually misunderstood my texts not only because these texts were bad or indistinct but also because my readers viewed them through some ideological glasses. I've come to realize that the environment we live in is much more ideologically divided today than it was in the nineties with their amorphism and spontaneous anarchism. The realization of this fact makes us all define where we are and whom we are with, the more especially as from everywhere we hear voices saying "who is not with us is against us" and warning against the illusion that it is possible to keep away from the fight.

This essay is actually an attempt to define its author's place in today's ideological space. And this attempt is all the more important, as I have a strong feeling that I am by no means alone in that place.

2.

A good example of the above-mentioned misunderstanding is the reaction to the phrase "I have few principles," which I have often said and written in recent years. Not long ago I found out that those who don't know me well enough tend to take it as a coquettish substitute for "I don't have any principles," whereas the actual meaning is just the opposite - "I have few principles, and that is why they are particularly important for me." For example, I never write what I don't think. And it is this (and not something else) that is, I think, called true professionalism.

That is why, apart from what I declared above, I also want to state in this essay the principles that enable me to occupy a clearly defined place on today's ideological map. My principles might be unoriginal, and others could have stated something similar earlier and better than me. What I am writing is not a sermon or agitation, it's just a personal statement. And this is what attaches value to this essay.

3.

Analysts may be right when they say that the world changed after September 11. Anyway, it was soon after the destruction of the World Trade Center that I first felt the impossibility of a dialogue. I lived in California at that time. On the day Americans started to bomb Afghanistan I met my old friends, who had been living in the Silicon Valley for almost ten years. I was astonished to find out that they were elated about the military operation. My mentioning death of women and children and low efficiency of such methods in the struggle against world terrorism didn't affect them.

"We are American taxpayers," said the man with whom I had liked to talk about Thomas Pynchon and William Gibson, "so we must either support our government or protest strongly, or leave this country. For me, the "this is wrong but I don't know what's to be done" position is unacceptable. "Let them bomb, it may serve as a lesson."

The emotional shock from this meeting was so great that for several months I couldn't make myself even call these fairly nice people. Now I'm even thankful to them, though. For the first time since long they demonstrated to me how the logic forgotten in Russia since 1996 works. That is the "if... then" logic of the least evil.

This logic forms the basis of most ideological discussions. If you are against US military operations, you support terrorists. If you talk about the need to respect the rights of minorities, you promote political correctness. If you call to appreciate the feat of the Soviet people in World War II, you are a disguised Stalinist. If you think that human rights are not just words, you support the US operation in Kosovo, and so on and so forth.

That is why the first principle I try to follow is the refusal of such logic. I want to reserve for myself the right to respect both Akademician Sakharov and Yegor Letov, to demand freedom to Eduard Limonov and conviction of Colonel Budanov, to recognize the equality of all nations and to hate political correctness as we know it.

I appreciate human rights and "democratic values" but that doesn't prevent me from understanding that the whole European culture rests upon the totalitarian basis, and all the attempts to build a democracy with no trace of totalitarianism turn into a hardly bearable nightmare.

I believe that people should live happily and comfortably but no social changes can save us from existential horror. I agree that social life in America is in many respects better than in Russia, but that in no way prevents me from regarding the US foreign policy hypocritical, selfish and aggressive. I think that writers, programmers and musicians must be paid for their work, and yet I consider copyright in its present form a great evil. I might dislike the political views of Alexander Prokhanov but I think that cannot justify boycotting the Ad Marginem publishing house for releasing Prokhanov's award-winning book.

I have to stop here to avoid turning this essay into a boring list of my own political views.

4.

The "who is not with us is against us" logic, as well as the logic of "tertium non datur" and the least evil has always been meant to unify views into systems. This is a standard marketing and PR method. If you buy human rights, you also have to buy the US right of interference in regional conflicts. If you buy disgust at political correctness in its Hollywood version, you're swindled into buying homophobia, anti-Semitism and racism. The Russian elections of 1996 vividly demonstrated us how this principle works. Either you choose Zyuganov or Yeltsin. Either Saddam Hussein or George Bush, and so on.

It is only possible to abandon this logic by accepting that your views must not necessarily form a system. Each particular case demands from you an independent decision. And that must be an individual decision, since you are personally responsible for it. References to Karl Marx, Carlos Castaneda, Alexander Dugin, or Hakim Bey are as useless as those to Anatoly Chubais, Karl Popper, or Zbigniew Brzezinski.

To live like that, one has to repudiate authority in every form. Any ideology works like Internet Explorer, which asks you if you are ready to trust everything you download from the Miscrosoft site. Putting a tick means losing control over what goes on in your computer. Similarly, putting a tick opposite any of the above-mentioned names means losing control over what goes on in your mind. The only difference is that the ideological space provides one more option - "Never download anything from this server." A good example is Sergei Dovlatov's story about Joseph Brodsky, who said, "If Yevtushenko is against collective farms, I am for them."

Popular aphorisms are no less harmful, the more especially as they are usually divorced from their original context. Thus, the phrase "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" originally had the following meaning: "Even the worst scoundrel will save himself by becoming a patriot." The phrase "Either colored people slaughter us all, or we send them to other worlds" has a continuation: "but neither is Christian." As Joseph Brodsky, the author of the latter saying, once noted, it is inadmissible to construct an ethics upon an interrupted quotation, and I agree with him. That doesn't mean, though, that I would accept any of his statements.

5.

So I have my own views but they don't fit any ideology. This statement is itself a principle, which I intend to firmly stick to, since, as I have said, I have few principles and I can't afford squandering them.

At first glance, such a position may seem to condemn me to loneliness. Adherents of liberalism can always rely on support from Grani.ru and progressive intelligentsia. Supporters of anarcho-satanism and conservative revolution are always welcome at L.E.N.I.N. Enthusiasts of consumerism can take pleasure in gloss; knights of underground in samizdat. All of them can unite in some party cell, publish their own newspaper or at least establish their own Live Journal community.

Those who refuse to adhere to any widespread ideology condemn themselves to tough pressure from every side. Not a single press organ, webzines included, supports their views, if for no other reason than just because these people may have rather surprising opinions on any specific issue.

To me, the stated way of life, however, has one strong advantage, which outweighs all the disadvantages. It is only by renouncing ideology as a system of rigid views that we are able to keep in touch with reality. I realize that being in full touch with reality is a utopia. Anyway, every preconceived opinion, every ideological clichй, every indisputable thesis erects not even a foggy glass but a solid brick wall between us and reality. Taking into consideration that our psychological structure often prevents us from seeing reality, since it is replaced with our own projections, ideological structures are all the more superfluous.

One more advantage of my way of thinking is that I don't need to discard any of my acquaintances because of their political views. I can disagree with the views of Misha Verbitsky but gladly accept his position on drugs and copyright. I disagree with many views of Alla Gerber but I like her talking about the 60's.

The views of my acquaintances are after all not so important, since I communicate with people, not with their views. The other thing is, that it isn't very pleasant to communicate with someone who is unable to hear you and tries to impose on you the "tertium non datur" logic, since it isn't very pleasant to communicate with someone who militantly refuses to face reality. It is rather sad and disgusting to see people being unable to hear what they are told because of the habit of matching every thesis with an ideology and attacking the latter. Under such conditions, communication makes no sense at all, and even the wish to talk about Gibson and Pynchon disappears.

6.

Despite what I have written, I don't feel lonely. I'm confident that most thinking people prefer reality and their own point of view to what any ideology tries to impose on them. Moreover, it is my colleagues - journalists, writers and politicians - who have the strongest inclination for ideological constructions. They have to talk and write much, so it's rather hard for them to generate their own point of view on every occasion. It is much easier to establish an ideological or aesthetical system for oneself. Atlanticism: bad, Eurasianism: good. Liberalism: good, Nazism: bad. Independent cinema: hurrah! Blockbuster: what rubbish! A common person, - that is, a person who is not involved in art and politics owing to his occupation - decides whether a film is good or bad judging by his own feelings. Neither respect to human rights, nor love for America will ever make him admit that bombing Iraq is sound and humane.

No authority works, and this essay is not intended as a shield for those who are accused of having no principles or political views or trying to sit on two stools. Those who don't want their views to fit any ideology can only gather from this essay that they are not alone.

There are at least two of us in this world.

http://english.russ.ru/ist_sovr/20030305.html

Russian Journal, March 5, 2003