Patriotism in General is passive and active (process). 999 of the thousand patriots profess passive patriotism, and only 1 of the thousands professes technological. Passive patriotism is when many people dutifully absorb the propaganda of its specialness, I believe in the romantic myths about the secret war against hostile neighbors.
Passive patriot doesn’t know the difference between his own interests and purposes of the ruling class, and in any case to demonize everyone who is abroad our blessed Fatherland. Such patriotism is a psychological rationalization of the inability to go where life lasts longer, more options for implementation, a different level of respect for the individual.
Technological patriotism is a profession, not a diagnosis. A patriot distributes, translates, organizes processions, comes up with memes, castigates sedition, exposes the enemy and arrange for the carpet bombing of mass consciousness. This is usually well paid, although the competition for closeness to the checkout, here are his own and trample. Do you believe technological patriots in what they say? Usually fifty-fifty. If you believe in it fully, you will not be able to make this useful for the authorities a mass product, it becomes a passive consumer, and if, on the contrary, completely not believe, it is very difficult to work with, such a high degree of cynicism — “hi guys, I’m back you cheated!” — still not common. So often we are dealing with partial polluted their own propaganda. The organizers of patriotism are guided by three principles. First, in war all means are good, and so lie ceases to be a lie, if it is useful. Secondly, the current government is the lesser evil in comparison with any other option, so we’re accepted. If the government suddenly will change, but will save us a job, then the new government will be “the lesser evil”. And finally, all the other patriots-technologists are not real, it is high time to reduce funding, and present and professional lovers of the Motherland for a long time already it is time to increase the fee.
That, in fact, I suggest that instead of patriotism? Here it is better to refer to the authority of the classics. Here’s a quote from Leo Tolstoy, answering this question:
“Come to your senses and understand that your enemies are not the Boers, not the British, not the French, not the Germans, not the Czechs, not Finnish, not Russian, and your enemies, some enemies — you are supporting his patriotism depressing you and making your misfortune governments… Understand that all the evil from which you suffer, you yourself are doing, obeying those promptings with which you deceive the emperors, kings, members of parliaments, rulers, military, capitalists, clergy, writers, artists — all those who need this deception of patriotism in order to live your work…”
Always, of course, there is a blue man who, having read this far, I ask sarcastically: is a patriot who just loves his Homeland? And press it on each of these words, alluding to the spiritual deafness of the interlocutor: …just… like… Home, you know?
But the fact that it is not easy. It is very difficult. First, what kind of Home he loves? With or without the Crimea?
In the borders of the USSR or the Russian Empire? That is, with Finland and the Baltic States. Another snag is that the political regimes in the country again changed, and repeated our clarifying question: what kind of Home he loves? Capitalist Russia? Soviet socialism? Class society of the Romanov Empire? With serfdom or without? You can of course hide behind the “We love not the state, and culture”, and then questions arise less from Nabokov and Brodsky. With the socialist realism. With Pussy Riot?
And what is “love”? Loves like a spectacle that can be enjoyed from afar? Or loves, as the chief, any order which needs to be done — then the love for the Motherland becomes a way to experience collective solidarity in obedience to superiors? Or as a way to experience solidarity in defiance of the extreme manifestation of which is the rebellion?
If the clarification of such things is considered sedition, dismembering untold national soul, the one who “just loves the Motherland”, it is obedient to the clay, a perfect object of manipulation for the ruling elite.
“This is your country,” a stark reminder unit, which then belongs to all the millions who are here narindera nothing. “This is your country,” says the ruling class to all others, implying by these words: “do Not argue with our government.”
So most ceased to be “extra”, it shall become a co-owner of the pipe, a collective recipient of rent, and it’s not something else, is the primary political task facing society, and all the other obvious problems (independent courts, freedom of speech, democratic representation) from the solution of this problem then follow (not automatically, but at least as a possibility). That is, if the raw material economy and the majority of people for the elite unnecessary, you just need first to radically expand the percentage of owners and co-owners with profit from the commodity flow in the pipe.
Under such economic patriotism looked to be a little less absurd.
Alexei Tsvetkov
