NEOLOGISMS OF WAR
Two relatively new words to characterize the attitude towards the war of Russia against Ukraine, of authoritarianism against democracy, are “above-the-fray'ers” and “it's-complicated'ers.” I like them both. But I would also add “it's-unbearable'rs”; it is unbearable to read about it. That is why I close my ears and cry. Sometimes I even shake. About one “it's-complicated'er,” a very intellectual woman. Imagine, she does not like Putin, but she likes America even less. She believes the West has pushed Putin over the edge. That is, it simply forced him to start the aggression. And why did the West need to do that? To ruin Russia. To obtain a reason for sanctions . . . . It looks like only Russia and the West exist for this woman. Ukraine? What is that? Dostoevsky once described the dialectics of historical development as an opposition of the Russian kingdom and the “Jewish kingdom.” All the rest can be disregarded. Including China, which is a total anachronism today. The world looks bipolar; Russia and the USA. All other countries are “spittle in God's mouth.”
The target group of Putin's propaganda is the majority of the Russian population and the “senior group” of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine and other near and far abroad countries—all those people whose main source of information is television that literally hypnotizes them. The creators of Putin's propaganda don't give a damn about intellectuals and other “degens” (I'm remembering The Inhabited Island here). It’s like they don’t exist. As for those who sit and watch TV news, they get an important role as lie transmitters—they will share new “facts” with those who will come back from work, and with their relatives in Russia’s neighboring countries. Primitive binary oppositions—day and night, white and black, alive and dead, yin and yang, Russia and the USA. The land of white birches vs. the kingdom of Mammon. War is a blessing. It brings out the best in a person. Spilled blood means salvation (that's Dostoevsky again). How dangerous it is, when mysticism and religion interfere with military matters! Look at Putin quoting the New Testament in Luzhniki, saying that there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends. Coming from him, this phrase of Christ gets the opposite meaning—go and kill. Die, lay down your life for me, your President. “Soldiers, I deliver you from a chimera people call conscience.” This is not Putin anymore, this is Hitler. One more of the recent dialogs. “Which country is bigger, Russia or Ukraine?” “Russia.” “Who has a bigger army and nuclear weapons?” “Russia.” “Who started the war?” “This time, Russia.” “And before?” (Long silence.) “Don't know. It's complicated.” The destruction of facts, the replacement of truth with some “post-truth,” with pluralistic information, blindness to inconsistencies, and the creation of an “alternative reality”; all of it requires neologisms. Doublethink, as Orwell put it.
Right now, my wife is talking to a friend who is rambling about the global government that decides and controls everything. I think this friend has heard it from a priest as she is a zealous orthodox Christian. In her view, everything that is happening is not real. It is only a mask of another reality where archangel Michael overthrows the devil. “Tell her, tell her that Michael is the patron saint of Kyiv!” I whisper to my wife, but she does not hear me.
March 22, 2022 Translated by Maria Lelyanova