“Giving birth in the concrete jungle”: what Alexander Dugin is wrong about

“No one will really give birth to children in the concrete urban jungle. “Despite any maternal capital,” the philosopher asserts, implying that for these purposes Russians should be resettled in villages.

“Children are born on earth,” he sums up.

Well, in order to survive, children are born in maternity hospitals under the supervision of qualified medical personnel.

And those on earth used to die, seven out of ten. I don’t know whether the philosopher Dugin read the church metrical books. Where it was written who was born, who died, who got married. An entertaining read, I must say.

Thick Talmuds from the early twentieth century from one of the provinces of central Russia. I studied them and was horrified by the age at which babies died and the causes of death. Six months, a year, several months, with the mother in labor, six months, three years… Diarrhea, scrofula, colds, colic…

Most often – in the summer, this season accounted for more than half of all infant deaths, when adults were mowing and the child was left with seven-year-old unintelligent nannies.

Until forty days, the newborn was not shown to anyone, the dowry was not prepared in advance, this superstition has gone on since then – maybe it will die.

“The mortality rate is especially terrible under the age of 1 year, and in some areas of Russia this mortality rate reaches such figures that out of 1000 children born, much less than half survive to one year, with the rest (for example, in the Karachay district of the Okhansky district of the Perm province – 60% ) die during this first year of life.

If we add to this the mortality of older children, 1–5 years old, then from 5–10 years old and from 10–15 years old, we see that out of 1000 children born, a very small number of children will live to be 15 years old, and this number in many places Russia does not exceed one quarter of those born, and if at present the total population in Russia is not decreasing, but increasing, this is explained by the significant birth rate, which still exceeds the death rate.”

This report was made at the joint meeting of the Society of Russian Doctors and the Statistical Department of the Highest Established Russian Society for the Protection of Public Health, March 22, 1901.

Or does the philosopher Dugin propose to take technical progress from the 21st century, and the way of life from the 19th?

But it won’t work that way. Who will ensure this progress? What if everyone leaves the cities for villages?

Alexander Dugin himself, as is known from open sources, has a diploma from the correspondence department of the Novocherkassk Engineering and Reclamation Institute, I don’t know how they teach philosophy there, history, apparently, not very well.

Otherwise, he would at least know about the reasons for the appearance of cities. Cities usually arose as centers of crafts and trade. Banking developed there, educational institutions and hospitals were opened, connections were established, including international ones, roads connected cities and countries with each other for intensive exchange.

Life was in full swing, money was being made. Which were put into circulation. Science, medicine, industry, culture – these are all cities. This was a natural process of social evolution. This is in any history textbook.

People were not forced into cities; they chose urbanization themselves. In the villages, on the contrary, they were kept by force. This was called serfdom.

In the villages there was constant physical labor and early death. Including from basic diarrhea. Because there are no antibiotics. And there are no production factories. And there are no laboratories where new drugs are created.

Dugin proposes, having resettled megacities, to provide rural residents with preferential conditions for building houses and equipping them with gas and electricity for young families (with progressive repayment of the loan at the birth of each subsequent child). Great idea!

How will we build houses – with sewerage or with an environmentally friendly smell of the Russian spirit?

Or in modern settlements everything is gas- and electrified with God’s help from the air, there is no need to lay pipes or install communications, hot water from iron taps and a drain tank will also flow according to the pike’s command? After all, cities no longer exist, which means there is no industry either.

Will we buy technology, materials, even toilet paper, from China and India, invite specialists from there, and pay with resources in return?

Will bankers simply hand out non-repayable loans for the construction of houses for young families for each baby? Or will the state pay for everyone? But where will it get the money? From the nightstand?

After all, now this is taxpayers’ money, and if everyone leaves for the villages, how will the Russian budget be formed? Where, who and how will ensure the livelihoods of 140 million people sent beyond the “101st kilometer”?

Or will someone still remain in the damned cities as servants to the multiplying villages? How will we choose? By lot? Through connections?

I would gladly laugh at all these thoughts if much of what the philosopher Dugin spoke about, after a while, did not begin to be voiced in all seriousness from high tribunes. Already people with real positions.

Maybe it’s the cities that influence officials and deputies this way? Maybe they should go to the village? For fresh air? How to allow projects to be implemented that are devoid of any logic and contain huge contradictions?

We see what is happening now in the same Gaza Strip. Where residents hoped only for childbearing, imported resources, the Israeli water supply system and their ideology. “The womb is the weapon of the Arab woman,” is a well-known slogan.

And now almost two million illiterate Palestinians sit as human shields under precision bombing. Because a higher level of technological development will ultimately always defeat those at a lower level.

Or does someone not understand – in order to keep up with civilization and be competitive, it is necessary to educate smart, educated, broad-minded people of both sexes, capable of moving society and their home country forward? And offer new cultural meanings that the whole world will pick up. And that for this there will be no need to bribe or force anyone.