Why the British and Americans without the existence of a successful nation in the world, and the Germans and the Japanese had to build a nation? Why Russian forced eternally to wallow in the maelstrom of Imperial and what we have in common with linewrapping? The French political scientist Todd brings the answers to these questions, from Ethnography of family relations in the country.
(Illustration: the US Immigration service regularly photographed arriving for permanent residence to them. There are photos of Europeans who arrived in the U.S. from 1906 to 1926, migrants were placed in the “filtration point” on the island of Ellis Island. Hovering the cursor over the photo, you can read what kind of a nation)
Another “Russian March” again made an educated audience to argue about national prospects in the country. Is it possible to build the Russian nation and what are the implications? Whether it will be in this case successful? And from what side generally to start nalbinding? As is usually the case in Russia, intellectuals in vain lay himself foreheads – the answers to these and other issues have long been there: in the academic Western world. A little pripodnimaet on a “struggle Nanai boys” and see which interpretation gives, for example, the French political scientist Emmanuel Todd in his book “After the Empire. Pax Americana – the beginning of the end” (publishing house “International relations”, 2004)
Book Todd at 80 percent is devoted to the description of the foundations of the American state. To answer the above questions Todd took not so many pages, but the material looks thorough. A French scientist first briefly tells that unites democracy and semi-democracy in the modern era (in the latter he includes Russia, Japan and Turkey) – a high level of literacy, going to the decline in the birth rate, the political activity of the masses is accompanied by confusion and violence during the transition period. But why is this the common substrate are formed by different subtypes of democratic regimes? Todd then meets an example of a dominant family relations in the country.
“Family system of the peasantry, cut off from the familiar environment as a result of modernization, were carriers of a variety of values: liberal and authoritarian, egalitarian and egalitaria. Then they became building material for the formation of the ideologies of modernization.
Anglo-Saxon liberalism suffered in politics the ideal of mutual independence, which was characteristic of the relations between parents and children in an English family where there was no equality between the brothers.
-The French revolution transformed the liberalism of the relationship between parents and children and typical peasants of the Paris basin eighteenth-century egalitarianism in the relations between the brothers in the universal doctrine of freedom and equality of people.
-Russian men treat their sons equally, but left them under his rule until his own death, whether they are married or not: the ideology of Russian transition to modernity, communism, was therefore not only egalitarian, as in France, but also authoritarian. And this formula was adopted everywhere, which was dominated by the Russian family structure such as: Yugoslavia, Vietnam, and even a few European regions – Tuscany, Limousin and Finland.
In Germany inegalitarian and authoritarian values of a family kind, which appointed in every generation one heir, has ensured a strong rise of Nazism. Japan and Sweden represent relaxed versions of this anthropological type.
-Structure of Arab-Muslim families helps to explain certain aspects of radical Islamism, which, as the same transition ideology, like others, is characterized by a unique combination of egalitarianism and community began, and this combination did not manage to reach the level of statism. This specific physical type in addition to Arabic spoken in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia and parts of Turkey. The humiliating position of women in this family type is the most obvious element. He is close with the Russian model in his community type, which unites the father and married sons, but differs markedly from it in the power of endogamous (closely related) marriages between cousins are relatives. Such marriages contribute to the family of a very specific attitude of the authoritarian type. The relationship of the father to the son are not truly authoritarian. The custom prevails over the father, and horizontal relationships between brothers have become critical. The system does not encourage respect for authority in General and state power in particular.
(Marriages between cousins relatives is now in Turkey 15%, in the Arab world 30% (with a peak in Jordan – 36%), Pakistan 50%. Against this background stands Iran, where the figure is 25%, but drops very quickly. From this world only Iran is now on the path of modernization)”.
The most problematic of modernization in the Judeo-Christian world, says Todd, will be held in Latin America. The obstacle here is again specific family relationships. “The hardest thing to imagine democratization and liberalization in Latin America, with the smallest family structures, of radical inequality of economic structures.” It may sound strange, in the most democratic society in Latin America Todd says Venezuela. “The literacy rate now standing at 93% (data for 2003, it is now 97% — BT), women of Venezuela are in control of the birth rate. Patronage, Church, private television and the army are rapidly losing value in society.”
Next, Todd goes a little specially on Russia, explaining a specific case why for almost 100 years, our country is in a semi-democratic state (not crossing the line and fundamentalism, but not entering into a developed democracy). “Break with the past provoked by modernization, is a backlash – assertion in the ideological form of the traditional relations. In Russia the one-party system, centralized system and the KGB took over the traditional role of a totalitarian country family…
…Is a stable system. It is, of course, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and then with the arrival of Putin was changed. Now she is on her way to Gaullist France.” Todd I am sure that the anarchy of the 90s was linked to the “care” of the state in Russia. With the accession of Putin this sad page of history is passed, “the state returned”, and the country for many decades waiting for the semi-authoritarian stabilization – organic, the most stable position for our country. Credit besides Putin, the French scientist puts, for example, that parties in Russia are funded by the state and the ruling party turnover. In response to the possible criticism that such a system can only conditionally be called a democracy, Todd responds that the Japan until the early 2000s, and France until the 1960s lived also, but it took someone to say that these countries are undemocratic. Yes, obviously, same as in Japan and France, in Russia, the authorities for the stability of the system will need to construct a “top” second party, which is only a branch of administration, but its main goal is to create competition for the elite (and not for “change of course”).
Todd gives an interesting interpretation of the relationship of Russia, the southern European States (Italy and Spain) and Germany. What brings us together – a very low birth rate. Among the indigenous population it is 1.2-1.3 (immigrants in these European countries and also the Muslim part of Russians generally increase this figure to 1.4 to 1.8), whereas in the US, England, France, Holland, the figure of 1.7-1.8. “It is precisely those countries in which originated in the transition phase in the first half of the twentieth century dictatorships. Before I had to fight with nature and decide not to have too many children, but today I decide to give birth one or more children. In countries with individualist traditions, the United States, England, France – this question is easier to solve. And the peoples living in the areas more authoritarian traditions, demographic issues continue to exist in the passive position.”
Now, why in the world the supremacy of the US and Britain will continue a very long time. Todd turns to Ethnography and anthropology, namely a specific type of family relations in these countries. “Anglo-Saxon indecision in determining the status of another is not a fact of contemporary history. It is predefined anthropological primitive, belonging the English to the periphery of the historical and cultural stratum, of the Old world. English culture is clearly characterized by the absence of a definition of the concepts of equality and inequality, which are clearly distinguished in the whole of Eurasia.
In a traditional English family there, the uncertainty, the corresponding uncertainty in the ideological sphere: the brothers are different, they are neither equal nor unequal. The rules of the unequal distribution of the inheritance of the Germans and the Japanese equal of the French, Russians, Arabs and Chinese are opposed to the freedom of the will have English parents to distribute their property as they please. While this freedom does not entail, with the exception of the English aristocracy, large deviations from equality, for example, inherit only in favor of one (all in the end something goes).
The state of uncertainty between differentialism and universalism makes the attitude of the Anglo-Saxons to the alien and aliens very interesting and specific, i.e. unstable.
The attitude of the Anglo-Saxons to the world of mobile. They have in the minds of the anthropological border. And this boundary can shrink or expand. Among the great (foes), some can be classified as re-like us. And among like – classified again as strangers.”
What can oppose Europe a “natural” resourcefulness of the Anglo-Saxon world? Todd gives the answer, which lies on the surface – only “crushing weight”: to take Russia into its membership (and also Japan). The emergence of such a “monster” would have meant the end of the hegemony of the United States and England.
