Ukrainian Kairos

I am watching with great curiosity how Ukrainian thinkers and the citizens who joined them suddenly started advocating "good Russian" and "great Russian culture". Approximately in the logic that our Artist formulated a long time ago: "we cannot take revenge, we must love all rascals, thieves, murderers. They are all people, all God-bearers." And another thing, "non-resistance to evil with violence." Let's, they say, distinguish between war crimes and the culture of the people, these are (apparently) completely unrelated things.

Illustrative photo

The psychological mechanism of such advocacy is clear to me, it is very "Russkomirsky" at its core. Judge for yourself.

Their circle is narrow, they are terribly far from the people

In recent months, I have been asking the "good Russians" one single question: what are you going to do with the deep-seated people/swamp chthonia/orcs? Implying that the elite normalizes and cultivates society, this is its direct responsibility. The "good Russians" raise their fluffy paws and answer in the voice of a rabbit. Teeth: we don't know, there are too many of them, but we are too few, we have a country concentration camp built, and in general, we are waiting for only miserable ruins to remain in place of Putin's regime. That's when our wonderful spiritual people will see, will rise with the friendly shoots of true national culture and call us, intellectuals, to rule and rule over them. And here we are — uhhhh!

I sincerely sympathize with these intellectuals, who are forced to live in the regime of "one's own among others, another's among one's own." These are Westernized elites who have been trying for centuries to instill the ideas of civilization on the marshy Moscow soil. But it turns out badly. The Moscow sociocultural matrix eats up any strategies for breakfast and regularly reproduces warlike psychopathic leaders who unleash genocidal wars against their neighbors and overturn Russia into another riot. And casual liberal rulers, respected Russian dreamers, are either overthrown very quickly or physically destroyed.

At the same time, by the way, periodically making scapegoats out of Westernized intellectuals and letting them take out all the bitterness of historical grievances on these foreign elements. Let's not forget that Peter the First, stunned by the realization of Moscow's distance behind European countries, asked to quickly "remake the people." He eradicated Moscow culture with a hot iron, driving the population into a Procrustean bed of alien European norms. And, by the way, hurriedly "Ukrainizing". About what Nikolay Trubetskoy wrote in an article back in 1927 "To the Ukrainian problem".

Who knows, maybe as a result of this trauma, the deep-seated people became imbued with a subconscious hatred for everything Western, as well as everything Ukrainian? By the way, an instructive story for those who like to think about the fact that "we need to change the culture."

Be that as it may, Westernized intellectuals, not having the opportunity to fully fulfill the role of the elite, chose the path of escapism. They closed themselves in marginal, essentially closed communities. We indulged in the Game of Beads, Slavophile daydreams, reflexive uplifts, and the creation of virtual literary/artistic worlds. The latter is especially noteworthy, because what a temptation it is not to sit all his life, "like a magpie on a vine", conveying something with a bird's tongue to a narrow circle of like-minded people, but to act as a full-fledged playwright and screenwriter of his own, albeit virtual, World. Where are you not a renegade, but a Demiurge. Yes? Yes.

What am I for? There is no need to confuse culture and the products of the activities of intellectuals and other servants of Melpomene, calling them culture. After all, these are different and often conflicting phenomena. Except for the case when intellectuals become the elite and normalize society.

You can start throwing rotten tomatoes at me, but exactly the same, I believe, is happening in the Ukrainian intellectual environment. As "a separate subdivision of the suffering Russian mire, where the intellectual is waiting for a historical inquiry to be formed." Escapism, disdain for the social (actually, for culture as it is), the tragedy of unclaimedness and a kind of servility in relation to the authorities and the LPR in general, disguised as a self-complimentary "Aristotelian influence". With, by the way, constant criticism of the Ukrainian authorities, in fact, in the style of "insignificance, pitiful comedians" (compared to whom, eh?). And the people are unsuitable, and the managers are a pitiful trifle for the titans of thought. I hope I didn't miss anything?

Vengeance is mine and I will repay

Illustrative photo

But, let's leave the Russkomir corporation of intellectuals alone. Let them advocate themselves, and what else is left for them? We have more important things to do. Namely: the true, deep culture of Muscovy, which regularly generates genocidal wars, which, like tongues of fire, have been eating away at the Ukrainian lyophilic cultural continent for centuries. In contrast to the phantasms and fainting reflexes of escapist intellectuals, this is a real threat that our ancestors had to deal with and, if we are not careful, our grandchildren will also have to deal with.

In terms of understanding this horror, it's a wonder how good Ukrainian citizen Alexander Hlebych Nevzorov is now. Possessing brilliant critical thinking and, as a result, cutting down the truth-mother without fig leaves is paraphrased. This is what Glebych says: now, when the civilizing raid has finally fallen, Muscovy has engaged in the production of what it does best: thousands of corpses, destruction, poverty, hunger, torture, humiliation and slavery. As for culture, as a product of the activities of the intelligentsia, in a conversation with some exalted dreamer, he indicated: our culture is secondary, copied from Western models, and, of course, does not influence society in any way and does not "improve" it. So I want to ask: why did you give Hlebych citizenship? To listen to the ego "not with the ear, but with the belly"?

The question is surprisingly simple: what should we do with it? The answer is also surprisingly simple. Well, he is understandable to me, because basically I am not a humanitarian, but a person with a basic mathematical education. At the same time, I was brought up by my great-grandmother, the daughter of an Orthodox priest, so that I had the opportunity to listen to whole fragments of the Bible in the Soviet times by heart, without distortion. And later she got carried away by the magical world of games.

The answer is extremely rational for me personally. Both in religious, philosophical, game, and iterative-mathematical contexts.

In my time, I not only theoretically got acquainted with a wonderful game called the Prisoner's Paradox, but also played enough such games with different groups of people to consider in their results the inexorable action of the Law of God.

The essence of the game is that it rewards players for cooperation in each iteration, and punishes players for refusing to cooperate. So everyone's final result depends on internal decency and the ability to negotiate.

In order to read further and understand, I suggest you familiarize yourself with the motherhood in the article "Prisoner's Paradox". By the way, Robert Sapolsky referred to this game as an example of the action of a universal regularity in the lecture series "Biology of Human Behavior".

Pay attention to the iterative game of different strategies, which was carried out by Robert Axelrod. The absolute winner was the biblical, in fact, strategy of an eye for an eye. Which implies immediate retribution in an equivalent amount for refusal of cooperation/attempt to win at the opponent's expense. The Bible is not just a collection of instructive stories, but a kind of working methodology that should be seen in the Metatext. Later, Christ clarified this question, offered to forgive as soon as the opponent repents, and to return to the cooperative version of the game (and not to be a weak-willed rag and an eternal loser, as many understand it). Simply because the strategy of Zlopamyatny in the iterative version of the game turned out to be second from the end. I wonder, have you ever looked at the Bible like that?

Returning to our relations with Muscovy. We will be able to bring up at least some glimmer of awareness in her if we turn on the "Eye for an eye" mode with the possible option of forgiveness in case of repentance. In style: how will the shelling of Kharkiv be stopped? It will hit Belgorod symmetrically. But if Moscow repents and offers negotiations, go to them without regret and follow the next course. Although, for the sake of justice, now she only regrets that she did not prepare well for the war and killed few Ukrainians. Some kind of hypnotic Amok, to be honest. So, it is necessary to prepare for her many, many educational episodes in the style of an eye for an eye. My God, what will the supporters of the religion of tolerance and other philosophies say about me? don't care Since, among other things, the crisis of liberal ideology unleashed this monster, and I personally found an answer for myself a long time ago exactly in the spirit of the Prisoner's Paradox. Here he is — "Respect for cultural traditions".

I recall one of the Paradox games that I led, where, after negotiations, the group leader took on increased obligations and decided to personally play "refusal" for the sake of a momentary victory, although before that it was agreed to play cooperatively. Almost in the spirit of Putin. The explosion of indignation was not quickly stopped by my co-coach, but to be more precise, we held the players by the pants with four hands while the renegade ran through the gardens "home". And then they would have been beaten.

In approximately this spirit, Muscovy is now running into self-isolation, after irresponsibly sticking its fingers into the outlet of the Paradox game and the reaction of the whole world to this episode.

A couple more times - and she will begin to guess that it is not the world that is malicious towards her, it is something eternal and unchanging that returns her to the stable after the experiment of apostasy, purely out of love and compassion. As I would say: "Stupid swamp creature, every time you violate the agreement, you step on the rake of the Prisoner's Paradox, leave the cooperation, receive immediate retribution and lose iteratively. Do something already with your way of lying, stealing, killing, in general — wiping your feet, O Decalogue, because with all this you are digging your own historical grave."

Against this backdrop, the multitude of intellectuals, both Russian and Ukrainian, look, to be honest, helpless. Probably, you should not pay attention to it, or if they do, it is purely nominal, out of consideration for "grey hair"/media weight. Yes, the theory of "non-resistance to Evil with violence" in this context also plays with new colors - it resembles the handiwork of Evil, which does not want to be legally punished. A note on your cuffs in the piggy bank of the understanding of the Great Culture...

Researchers claim that people went crazy trying to win the Prisoner's Paradox jackpot and never won it. "Vengeance is mine and I will repay" is not a threat of a sitting grandfather sitting on a cloud and observing violations of the Law, like the National Police, relying on watchful grandmothers. The preset regularity works and iteratively repaints any daring players, regardless of the incoming motivations. Doubt? Play it.

Ukrainian Kairos

Illustrative photo

Of course, in order to be able to respond immediately and symmetrically, Ukraine must become a strong and subject country. Now, against the background of the destroyed economy and infrastructure, millions of refugees, unemployment, an empty budget, corruption that has not disappeared, this wish looks fantastic. In this way, nobody needs Ukraine, and I do not understand the optimism of citizens who are sure that "now they will give billions of money for reconstruction" and we will live as before. Still, you say? And didn't the previous state of the country make it an easy victim of aggression and forced it to run around the world with an outstretched hand, begging for money and weapons?

The situation would be hopeless if it weren't for one "but". Namely, the global system crisis and, apparently, the subsequent transition to a new technological system. The rhythms of phase transitions are always accompanied by inhuman shocks. For example, during the transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic, 80% of the human population died. Even before the beginning of the dramatic denouement of the crisis (unfortunately, everything started again on our territory), experts discussed the gigantic problems with which this crisis is accompanied and their possible catastrophic consequences.

Ukraine will correctly use the window of opportunity if it becomes an experimental territory, where projects solving these problems will be implemented. In case of such an ambition, we will be given both technologies and resources for their implementation. For the subsequent right to scale solutions found and tested by Ukrainians. And Ukraine will be one of the first to move to a new technological system. Moreover, we have nothing to lose personally, the war freed us from the supporting foundation of the previous technological system and cleared the territory for the construction of, I am not afraid of this word, a new world.

But, of course (returning to the Prisoner's Paradox), we will need to curb our corporate individualism and learn to play the cooperative version of the game at all levels. Without it, no technology and money will benefit us.

My God, how we need an intellectual elite capable of inculcating the principle of cooperation as the norm! Possessing both an understanding of the importance of this norm and the tools for its introduction into culture.

Looking at the pool of public Ukrainian intellectuals, I feel bitterness, despair, and dark longing. Continuous sermons and moral education, in the style of "I awakened good feelings with a lyre." Or the style "if you weren't such morons, but listened to me - we would have walked in golden boots a long time ago." At this point, I would advise you to retrain as a priest, if there is such a desire for uplifting sermons or condemnation of sins, if it were not for the example of Andrey Sheptytskyi with his success story of a century ago. A vivid example of how an intellectual and spiritual shepherd became an elite and helped the people/flock to get out of a monstrous crisis situation. He built an educational circuit on the basis of church parishes, followed by a moral, from the point of view of Christian ethics, economy. Which subsequently gave unimaginably wonderful fruits. And he could pathetically begin to argue "through the lip" that language and embroidery exclude the construction of modern industry...

In general, respected intellectuals, before you take offense at the whole world for your lack of demand, remember that Ukrainians in this difficult situation need elites, not intelligentsia. Moreover, it is not an imported intelligentsia, nor has it become an elite in its native country.

Finalizing Yes, we are going through a dramatic period in our history. But Kairos, the god of a happy occasion, smiles at us from heaven and extends his hand. And it only depends on us whether we will grasp it or collapse into a catastrophe. By the way, the Greeks often depicted Kairos with a Cossack forelock, which can be grabbed and jumped into a favorable situation. Are there elites in the country who can organize this? The question is open...

Exclusive

Kateryna Gladkevich, William D. Donovan Foundation for International Peace