Metamodernism has arrived: Russia is going to the bottom, Ukraine is accepting the challenge of the era

I wrote three years ago текст about how the new cultural era will kill the postmodern states of Ukraine and Russia. Although I expected a different development of events, in the main I was right. Today, in April 2022, there is no longer either Ukraine or Russia. The new way of life has finally manifested itself, raised challenges, and now it is decided which country and which people will continue, and which will perish. I argue that Russia made a monstrous mistake, started a war with Ukraine, and the price for this mistake will also be colossal. I am also sure that Ukraine will stand up, win and, most importantly, enter a new era.

I strongly recommend reading the text at the link above in order to orient yourself in what is happening.

This time I want to present my version of why, in three years, neighboring countries, which are in more or less the same conditions, have gone completely different ways? What danger still threatens Ukraine, and what is the last historical chance for Russia. Let's try to talk about it at least in general terms.

Three years ago...

...Ukraine and Russia were first-class postmodernist states. This meant that they were perfectly able to imitate values, replacing the essence of changes with their appearance.

Simply put, in Ukraine, instead of honest rules of existence in society, development of the economy and the political system, traditionalism was cheerfully developed, they struggled with the language heritage of the empire and demonstratively tried to join the EU, which no longer knew how to christen us more understandable.

In Russia, they built the USSR with a human face and vaguely promised to show Kuzkin's mother to someone sometime in the future. At the same time, of course, they did not build anything, they only stole money and filmed fake reports about their successes.

All this was done in the name of one of the main values ​​of postmodernism: LET NOTHING CHANGE, BUT EVERYONE WILL BE INTERESTED. The era of postmodernism gave nothing to peace in terms of the development of human values, philosophical thought, technologies - in all these areas we are still exploiting the developments created in the 19th century, at most - in the early 20th century. But having fun is enough, that's right. Like any respite, postmodernism had to end sometime, and in the post-Soviet region it ended, as I believe in 2013 on the Maidan. At the same time, awareness will begin to come to the masses somewhere closer to 2018... or even to 2022.

In society, in politics, in international relations, IN THE AIR there was a request for seriousness, to which neither Russia nor Ukraine could answer. And not only them... That's why the countries they simply increased the level of entertainment and the quality of imitation.

For example: if you attack a neighboring country, wrest Crimea, wrest part of Donbass, you are not doing it in order to watch the Vremya program together with the Crimeans. This is an act of real aggression, a request for expansion, for a real redistribution of power in the world, and it is necessary to comply with this request. But in Russia they thought otherwise, turned international relations into the object of domestic policy is entertainment. Why did Russia need Crimea and Donbass? For a new empire? No, so that Russians don't ask Putin where their money is for several years. All. There is no more sense. Tens of thousands of people were killed so that the Russian fools would continue to clap their hands while their pension savings flowed to the shipyards where the yachts of the Russian oligarchs were being built.

It was the same in Ukraine, only more humane. They proclaimed a new Maidan identity, but there was almost nothing behind this identity - people both lived in poverty and continued to do so. Did they build a mononational, monoconfessional, monolingual country "without deviations" - is it so that Ukrainians could live well in it? No, it's "to be". So that everything remains as it was: the top steals, the bottom survives, and the disaffected are pushed abroad, support pensioners with international transfers.

I don't know how others coped with all of this, but in recent years I was suffocated by the senselessness of what was happening, all this imitation upon imitation, games of the state, games of the military, games of politics... I withdrew from public processes. He took care of himself, finally went to psychotherapy to improve his own life (by the way, it turned out very well, I recommend it to everyone).

In general, behind all this gloom of despair, I blinked at a rather obvious thing: even such "linden" postmodernist states as Ukraine and Russia continued to wage a war of attrition all this time. And Ukraine unexpectedly won this war for everyone.

Russia's fatal mistake

From the middle of 2015 until the end of 2021, when the front in Donbas stabilized, Ukraine and Russia waged a war with each other to deplete the most important resource for such states. I mean the very possibility of not changing anything, which is called "stability" in Russia, and in Ukraine it is presented in the form of a dualistic cycle of "betrayal-victory". Russia oppressed culturally, economically, and militarily. Through its agents of influence, Russia constantly discredited Ukraine, defamed it and regularly threw in the message that Ukraine is not that important, and Russia is good as it is, and there is no need to change anything, you just need to watch and admire. During the COVID-19 epidemic, the Russians skillfully used the anti-vaccination communities they created to sow panic among Ukrainians — for example, like me and warned.

The Kremlin very much hoped that under this pressure, Ukrainians would "grow up", "reject Ukrainianism" and flee to Russia themselves. As a last resort, Russian tanks will come out with flowers to meet them.

In general, the Russian fool climbed on the stove and let's dream.

Russian blows did not hit the Ukrainian heart, they only scratched the skin. This happened for many reasons and, mainly, because we have always loved Ukraine a little despite it, and we have long been accustomed to imperfection.

Russia pressed, frankly speaking, it was boring. The funds allocated for undermining Ukrainian statehood were mostly stolen... In general, the Russian world turned out to have a very boring face.

But Ukraine answered simply and with taste. Ukraine did not delve into the question of who lives richer (the point in this question was raised already after the start of the war, when it turned out that Russia was, literally, a country of poor, hungry bums). Ukraine immediately came up trumps, clearly showed that INTERESTING lives. In the postmodernist war, this is the first trump card. Yes, we are a nation with greetings and jokes. One president was chased away, the other was driven from his seat. They went crazy, they chose a dude from KVN. Well, what about our country, our rules. It is clear that from the inside this recklessness looked a little, er, apocalyptic, but from the outside...

In the eyes of Russians, Ukrainian life turned out to be completely, two orders of magnitude more interesting than anything that happened in Russia. "Stability" is more interesting. Life is boiling here, a little crazy, but very sincere and cheerful. And there is the endless combing on May 9, the idealization of the past, the sad mutual onanism of Kurginyan and Yunarmy, and absolutely, absolutely nothing for the present. And, no, for the present, the Russians also found something! I'm talking about talk shows, on which Kremlin propagandists denounced Ukrainian politics with the greed of a voyeur near a keyhole.

That's why "stability" in Russia ended earlier than the safety margin of the Ukrainian circus. Russians began to suspect that the absence of changes is not necessarily a good thing. The country and its leadership faced an urgent need to change something, and with the energy that this change would release, rebuild the country and enter a new order.

In general, by the way, their situation turned out to be working and even profitable. Russia has a chance to truly change, to enter the metamodern era and blow the bank. Yes, including Ukraine, which is clearly stuck in an endless tent, not so much fun if you live in it, and not watch it on TV.

Well, yes, I would have to work! It would be necessary to let go of the reins of public opinion, allow Russians to have their own opinion again, not drown it out with chatter from a box. For such transformations, it is necessary to liberalize the economy, to allow Russians to earn something without the permission of siloviks. Even the elections had to be held without total falsifications.

And all this rested on a very simple thing: for any real changes in the country, Putin and his friends would have to leave. Even if he transferred the power to one of his own, he should definitely leave. Because new wine is not poured into old wineskins. People who have been in power for 20-30 years cannot make any reforms. Therefore, Putin had to leave in the name of future Russia.

And this turned out to be the main pain point of modern Russia: PUTIN CANNOT LEAVE.

Stupidly, while solving tactical political tasks, the Russians sacralized an old tired man, not quite healthy and not quite... capable. They also sacralized the past, making it more important than the future. Putin has become the living god of the "Russian world", and his reliable anchor, stably holding the country back from any changes.

The past won the future. Unable to maintain its current state, and also unable to move forward, Russia crawled backwards. In modern

Like there, in the stone age

Everything that is happening in Russia in the last two months is described in a simple word: degradation.

The economy and production have greatly simplified due to the sanctions. There are no components, no licenses, no software, no raw materials — no economy with production. Everything is very simple!

The policy is unchanged. Earlier, Putin hid in a bunker because he was afraid of the coronavirus, but now Putin has turned into a hologram. Everyone who is under Putin carries some kind of nonsense that is completely unrelated to reality. The Russian people are relieved to return to "guessing by parades": the news of politicians is guessed by who is shown more often on TV, and who managed/was able to escape abroad.

War... we'll talk about war a little later.

Public opinion also degraded, although this may not be obvious to an outside observer. I will explain. Some six months ago, the average Russian also did not like Ukraine - he had an opinion about what was happening with the help of Russian talk shows, and this conventional Russian was happy to broadcast this opinion. He's smart! TV is watching!

Now the Russians say, it seems, plus or minus the same thing as six months ago. However, as it turned out good study of Medusa, the motivation has changed. Now it is dangerous to have an opinion, even one based on TV shows. Opinion is prohibited! People with glass faces simply voice the "agenda" installed in them, but do not emotionally engage in it. In Russia, they do not punish for thought crimes yet, but mentally Russians have already moved to the years of Stalin's terror. It is amazing that this happened in a few months, if not in a few weeks.

All this simplification is not caused by sanctions, but by a return to a simpler way of modernism. Complex relations, a complex culture, subtleties of managing human masses and an intertwined global world - everything that has become the norm under postmodernism - no longer fits in Russia. All this became very complicated, incomprehensible, uninteresting and fell away due to unnecessaryness. More precisely, by the impossibility of maintaining the established order of things. The Kremlin Gudvins ran out of magical pictures, they had to release the fiery Marranov god on the stage.

Why does Russia fight like this?

And how else to fight in modern times? Just like that! Tank wedges and press-press-press in numbers, not counting losses. This is how everything and always fought in modern times, because this is the only available format of war in this conception of the world. Screw people sit in boxes and drive under shells. Someone does it better, like the Wehrmacht in the first years of WWII. In Russia, such wars have always followed an equally bloody scenario.

Therefore, I believe that our propaganda does not embellish anything at all when it talks about the huge losses of the Russians and the low losses of the Armed Forces. Yes, during war it is considered a good tone to optimize information flows - that's what war is for. But we have a slightly different situation here. A postmodernist country, transitioning to metamodernism, is at war with a modernist army, which is eighty years behind in its organization. This is not the new "Great Domestic". This is the suppression of the colonial rebellion. The northern Kievan colony revolted and leaned on Ukrainian machine guns with pikes and boomerangs - this is the whole essence of "Russian Spring".

In order to defeat Ukraine, in war or without war, Russia had to either preserve itself in the postmodern or evolve. But for the sake of keeping Putin on the throne, the Russians chose voluntary degradation - and now they are rolling down the civilizational hill lower and lower, towards tribalism, greed and hoarding. The way down is always easier than climbing up.

Even despite everything that happened, I still have respect for Russia. After all, we were part of a large, interesting empire, then for a long time, more than a hundred years, we fought for leadership in the region, merging sometimes in hugs, then in fist fights. A lot has happened over hundreds of years, bad and good. Therefore, I believe that it is foolish to humiliate the enemy now, when metamodernist Ukraine only has to throw a handful of land on the grave of its former rival. It was a good dance, Russia. But that's all.

The dawn of a new Ukraine

Having won the postmodernist war of attrition 2015-2021, Ukraine was able to withstand the first terrible days of the war. This topic requires serious sociological research and many years of study. The people whom the "patriots" called "quilters" turned out to be the same patriots as the first ones. Without quotes. No magic. It's just that everyone turned out to be in favor of Ukraine. The percentage of support for the Russian invasion turned out to be minuscule, there was no question of any two-digit figures - otherwise the picture of the first days of the war would have been much more dramatic. Why so? Personally, I am sure that this is a direct consequence of the victory at the previous stage. Our Ukrainian life turned out to be more interesting, fuller, brighter. Russian sausage - moldy, fake, like Rogozin's rockets.

Therefore, the monstrous tragedy of Ukraine became its growth point. All the postmodern tinsel, imitation for the sake of imitation, abstractions - everything flew around like autumn leaves. Instead of disputes about whether Ukraine can be considered a family of mammoths, talking about language, the 2019 elections, European values... instead of all this, every Ukrainian has a Purpose, Meaning and Desire. Ukraine. Ukraine, as self-worth. Ukraine as a victory. Own country, as the foundation of personal freedom, as a support and... as pride.

Previously, Ukraine was somewhere close to Russia, the Holodomor, its Crimea, cheap labor. Okay, a little more boxing, sometimes football.

Now Ukraine has become a destroyer of legends. The killer of the "second army of the world", Kratos, Lancelot, fire-winged valkyrie. This is a country that is easy to be proud of, that has written itself into the book of world history with fiery letters.

The country, which threw off all the excess, moved into the metamodern.

From the point of view of psychology, this transformation is very understandable and even predictable. During the war, a huge amount of energy is produced in each person, the psyche is plowed "to exhaustion." Often this energy goes to staying in destructive states (alcohol, depression, exacerbation of chronic diseases, allergies), but if the energy is directed in a constructive direction...

Our hidden Ukrainian bonus worked here. In difficult times, Ukrainians perfectly mobilize, self-organize and begin to act. Therefore, as during the Maidan and the war of 2014, the Ukrainian community forgot its differences, again built flexible horizontal volunteer structures and synchronized with the vertical power. Everything as before, but on a different scale.

Yes, probably only during the war. Probably, then we will laugh again, quarrel and lose everything. But now the Ukrainian people act as a whole, without being a mechanism or a cog. No, this is exactly the same metamodernist swarm, multi-voiced and multi-headed, without a single decision-making center, but with a single goal that unites everyone.

Please note that this time the volunteer movement was stirred up not only in Ukraine, but also in neighboring countries. Tens of thousands of Europeans self-organized into perfectly functioning organizations to accept our refugees. Our experience is contagious, and that's great.

What is the metamodern, why is it needed - so that the Ukrainian army would beat Putin's duboloms to pieces, and the Ukrainian rear would scale to the Atlantic in the blink of an eye. It is impossible to imagine yourself in the past. But it became possible in the present.

Our monstrous price of freedom

We cannot forget for a second what a monstrous price we are paying now. Every day, hundreds of Ukrainians die, and our cities are destroyed in powerless malice by an insane Russian savage. Blood, blood, blood, blood - for the transition to new quality and new thinking, our people pay in full. Pays the worst possible price.

The news feed turns me inside out. I want to hide under the bed, not to see, not to hear, not to know. But I read and watch, sympathize and grieve with each one killed. Because I know that all current deaths are not only payment for development, but also payment for our signature Ukrainian stupidity. For quarrels and squabbles, for inability to find compromises and reluctance to show empathy. And, most importantly, for a house from the edge.

We could not play chess with a moron for seven years, but enter a new order even after Crimea and Donbass. Those lessons were enough to accept themselves in a new capacity, and surpass Russia in terms of civilization. Even then, we felt our strength and power, but we were afraid of it, and habitually screwed up everything. Well... almost everything. As we can see, the army stood up and saved us in a difficult time.

In all this there is also my guilt, which burns from the inside. Therefore, this text is long and very personal, as it is for repentance. It's not even that I took my family to Europe and stayed with them, although that doesn't make me happy either. Worse: in the last two years, I turned away from Ukraine, did not take part, did not worry, closed my heart. It seemed to me that nothing could be done, that we would no longer have any development, and it was necessary to follow the path of personal transformation into metamodernity. And "this" Ukraine is somehow "alone".

Only when the war started, I realized what a donkey I was...

Risks of Ukraine

Despite the brilliant rise, Ukraine still faces the risk of being destroyed. As usual, not during the war, but after it. Russia has already lost, but we haven't won yet.

However, it is very likely that after the victory over Russia, we will again divide into camps and begin to destroy each other and our joint future. And all the beautiful Ukraine will end. Many will perish (herbivore times have passed), the rest will remain poor fools, accusing each other of all mortal sins.

Cool perspective? And after all, many of those who line up as friends and allies will diligently approach her. Not everyone needs a new strong state on the ruins of the USSR. And free independent Ukrainian people are not needed by everyone, especially those who are used to electing him as a stick.

In order to preserve our conquests (I'm not talking about Crimea and Belgorod now... although I'm talking about them too), every Ukrainian must understand very simple things about himself and all other Ukrainians.

All adults are actually adults. Every Ukrainian can decide for himself how to treat him, how to live and what to think. And, accordingly, one should not look for "treason" in the actions of others, but look strictly at one's own plate. Learn to trust each other. He learns to empathize with each other, to see the pain and needs of specific people, and not to look for some abstract justice and break others at the knees in the name of pictures in his head.

Policy

Let's finally accept it as a fact: there are no truly anti-Ukrainian parties left even after 2014. Now there are not even those who are "on the spot" left. After all, this camp is completely destroyed and hopeless. Therefore, let's stand behind each other and stop fighting over who voted for whom. In 2019, the intensity of pre-election passions turned out to be too strong, and it would be nice not to have such a shame again. Yes, there are different parties, all of them are good in something and necessarily bad in something. But we are adults, we have the right to choose and we understand that Ukraine will live and develop regardless of who sits in the chair of the president, prime minister or speaker of the Verkhovna Rada.

There will be different elections. There will be different vectors. Different opinions. As a result, it will be the same as Ukraine.

Language

It is necessary to completely stop these arguments about the language. And in the context of the "Russian-speaking people are being oppressed", and in the context of selfless maddening of single-minded patriots. Honestly: after I got acquainted with European realities, I became ashamed of what is happening in our country. In the same Spain, these variants of the Spanish pond are ponds. Not only the "separate" Catalan, but also the Galician, Aragonese, Castilian, etc., which is completely loyal to the crown. The difference between these versions of Spanish is significant, and the state of Spain protects this difference. Children in schools learn both standard Spanish and their own, pass exams, use it freely. No one takes anyone's brains out, everyone speaks as it suits them. We spent too much time and effort to interfere with the natural course of events, we paid too much for it, to step on the same rake a second time.

My proposal: the language law needs to be modernized. It is necessary to give people the opportunity to conduct business in a language convenient for them and to live the cultural life that they like. To rename the Ukrainian version of the Russian language - which is clearly different from the articulated language of racism - into the Odessa dialect, slightly seasoning it with Yiddish. And the question is closed.

Economy

One of the cornerstone problems of the entire Ukrainian economy is toxic paternalism. Citizens of Ukraine, beautiful strong and free, for some reason are perceived by our state economists as little harmful children. Allegedly, without a wise state, its checks, decrees, reports, taxes and collections, everything will fall into the abyss.

In fact, the best thing the government can do is to leave business alone. Especially small and medium. The recipe has been known for a long time and proved itself well under Kuchma. Give people a normal single tax and minimal reporting, and the people will immediately show themselves.

This is super important, because Ukraine will very soon face the economic consequences of a long war. Domestic logistics were destroyed, production chains were destroyed, millions of people were displaced. By itself, the "wise" state-father will not cope with the task, it is necessary to rely on a simple Ukrainian and not prevent him from saving the country.

international politics

Now the whole world is helping us, because we are saving the planet from a terrible threat - the Russian threat. This is a very romantic plot: the Ukrainian Lancelot chops off the heads of the Russian dragon one by one, while the world looks hopefully into the crimson sky. But when the blood of the dragon floods Red Square, Ukrainian Lancelot will become inconvenient for many. I don't know where, how and under what circumstances, but Ukraine will definitely be offered to exchange its brilliant triumph for some bright and meaningless glass beads. I don't really know what it could be, but the closest analogy in terms of meaning is the Budapest memorandum. When we exchanged a real weapon for a gun.

Something similar in terms of destructiveness will be offered to us even after the victory. Then the moment of truth will come: have our elites matured to exist in the metamodern, or hopelessly obsolete. For some reason, it seems to me that they have grown up.

For the first time in a long time, I am convinced that everything will be fine in Ukraine.

A low bow to all those who are fighting and those who died for this new Ukraine.

Exclusive

Denis Skorbylin, for Newsky