Russian television nullifies the struggle for “spiritual values”

Any systematic work has both meaning and result. What about companionship? Apparently, too, if it is the main method of influencing the masses. Here, the deputies of the State Duma adopted in the first reading a bill on the protection of the Russian language. And this is done by the same party (it is in the majority, moreover, a constitutional one!), which even in the recent elections did not defend anything, but rushed like a chicken with the first egg with, God forgive me, “primaries”! “President” (position) will also be renamed, I hope? “Mayors”, “prefects” – all this linguistic muck from the pernicious West crept insidiously. Tempted, like Satan, our chaste bosses – they really wanted to be equal to European aristocrats. But the towns and villages that survived in Russia were pejoratively called “settlements” by the same “senators”. So that the people do not forget, feel the continuity with the national developments – the Gulag and its helmsmen. Oh, how dual-passport patriots, yachtsmen and villa owners care about smerds!..

Maria Shukshina, a public figure and TV presenter, speaking at the December session of the Moscow Economic Forum, shared an interesting observation: “When the state needed to vaccinate everyone, all resources were turned on: citizens were fired from work, deprived of wages, not let out on the streets, social cards for pensioners were blocked . Entrance to the metro and exit in Moscow was only by barcodes. The stores did not serve without these rags [медицинских масок]. And when it comes to creating conditions for educating a harmoniously developed personality on the basis of spiritual and moral values, there are no mechanisms, as we are told.”

Yes Yes. Here, our head of state signed a decree “On the approval of the Fundamentals of State Policy for the Preservation and Strengthening of Traditional Russian Spiritual and Moral Values.” Where are the mechanisms, the public wonders. Why are scandalous talk shows returning to the TV screen “in rhyme” to “high moral ideals” (value number 7 from the decree)? Chernukha, everyday life, vulgarity, base instincts, greed, cruelty – and all this from day to day, for years, for show. With what contempt should one treat the inhabitants of the “settlements” in order to arrange such “education of feelings” for them, turning their underwear inside out?! And then, as if nothing had happened, the vulgar double-dealers on the screen are broadcasting to people about the uniqueness of the “Russian civilization” and the greatness of the “Russian world”. Apparently, this is such a psycho-treatment, the purpose of which is to cause disgust for life or (conspiracy theories) hatred for state TV.

But that is in the past. Maybe these programs will show us “dignity” (value 2) or “creative work” (value 9)? Not at all. In the top are the revelations of astrologers and numerologists, the Vanga phenomenon and so on.

I am not an astrologer, not a numerologist, and not even a sociologist. But, in my opinion, things in Russia are very bad. Neither “protection of the Russian language” nor “traditional values” will help. This is all companionship, and rather sluggish. With vaccination, the camaraderie really was hoo! But then we reported on the number of dead, infected, and injected to the world’s top – to the World Health Organization. And who should report on following “moral ideals” or “purity of speech”?! It is very difficult to find in Russia a structure at the highest level of power, which 1) would really, and not in words, be interested in this; 2) she would be a model for the people. So it turns out that we have a state, it has strong repressive and fiscal functions, but there is no moral content in it for a long time.

That is why people are fleeing from Russia. Those that are richer, younger, with a good profession go to other countries. And those that are poorer, simpler – to the next world. UN data 2021: in terms of life expectancy, Russia is in 179th place in the world, the last in decaying and freezing Europe. As for men of working age, we are in 212th place. Even in Burundi, Djibouti, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Mali, Ghana, Gabon, men are living longer. By the way, life is in the first place in the decree on traditional values. But, you understand, “there are no mechanisms for implementation”, therefore, the ongoing extinction must be treated with understanding.

At the same time, VTsIOM reports: in October 2022, the happiness index for Russians was 66 points out of 100. How is it? We live in a dying country, we have an armed conflict with our neighbors, an economic confrontation with more than fifty countries, prices are rising, incomes are falling – and at the same time the people are happy?! But there is no mystery here. To paraphrase Karl Marx, we can say that “television is the opium of the people.” This is the very structure that has replaced the moral essence of the state, and its ideology, and metaphysics. The “black icon” of the TV screen exalts or overthrows a person, anathematizes or, on the contrary, pours oil on cities and entire nations, and the priests (TV presenters) of this “new church” read sermons, serve masses, perform shamanism, send curses and proclaim “sacred goals” for herd of millions. And all this hellish mess is interspersed with official and hidden advertising, interspersed with Soviet pop and cinema, reports of military correspondents, “secular news” and pathetic calls for “spiritual mobilization.”

In the middle of the 19th century, China lost two opium wars to England and France. The “age of humiliation” has come for the country. Opium, even if mental, is a sophisticated “tool of civilization.” A copy of the American “The Jerry Springer Show” has been resurrected on Russian TV. Incidentally, TV Guide magazine named this show in 2002 the worst TV program of all time. That’s right! Why should we take the best from the USA? For example, microchip production technologies, lithographic equipment. “Colonies of the spirit” are content with media garbage.

At the session of the Moscow Economic Forum, its chairman, industrialist Konstantin Babkin, posed a fundamental question: “Today, people, including those in the NVO, ask: what are we striving for? What is victory? Where is the Reichstag that needs to be taken so that we win? The head of the MEF himself answers this question in the following way: “To win for Russia means to build a healthy, powerful economy and, more broadly, to preserve and develop its civilization (the civilization of Russia).”

There is something Confucian in the stubbornness with which the forum’s experts are promoting precisely the economic direction in the era of media speculation and “opium consciousness”, which, by the way, is also largely inherent in the ruling class of Russia. Hoping for a chance, that everything will somehow work itself out, “dissolve”, hopes for the “Vanga phenomenon” or for television hysterics lead our rulers away from the real facts. And they are as follows: after 2012, the Russian economy practically does not develop. “Our GDP per capita is lower than in Portugal and Turkey. Less than in the former socialist countries. And even less than in the Baltic countries – Lithuania, Estonia. And this gap will increase,” said Robert Nigmatulin, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, at the IEF session, who delivered the fundamental report “Economic Warfare. Economic and demographic crises. What and how to do. One of the conclusions is that “a radical change in the vector of development is needed”. Of course, along with a change of people in the government, primarily those responsible for the economic bloc.

Polls on the VTsIOM happiness index give us the “average temperature in the hospital” – the majority of viewers are satisfied with everything. One can only guess: are the producers of television shows themselves so optimistic? ruling bureaucracy? Those who proudly call themselves the “Russian elite”? Duma members and deputies of all levels? Heads of regions and employees of their administrations? They are not surprised, for example, that “gasoline and electricity in the Russian Federation are more than twice as expensive as in the United States, both in terms of purchasing power parity and in relation to prices for homogeneous goods” (data by Robert Nigmatulin)? No doubts creep in? With such a situation, you can quickly reach not the Reichstag, but the Hague? ..

It’s never too late to start building. “Wake up, Russian people, There is no middle row: Break the narrow roads Get up to the last.” Our ancestors did it, and we can. If we are the masters of our lives, and not slaves of other people’s plans.