The Polish model and our immature emotional intelligence
I am afraid of the following: that small and medium-sized businesses will suffer the most in the forthcoming lockdown. I will also say something from the heart: we do not have a right-wing economic tradition through which to think of those who create jobs and are de facto the backbone of the economy. On the contrary, we massively consider not the “people” but the state as a true “sovereign” – and it should primarily be an arbiter of economic relations, not a major player in them. This is, after all, the difference between us and, say, Poland. Poles – for a variety of historical reasons – are right-wing as nous, as an understanding of how they will “succeed”.
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I’m just guessing, but it may or may not be related to Zolidarity since the early 1980s. I only know the following, from a Polish friend of mine, Beata, who is now the CEO of a foreign bank in Warsaw – that and there are corresponding culturological problems, but somehow the majority agrees that right-wing thinking and the rule of private property precede any other kind of politics.
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I will not elaborate on their healthy Russophobia here, although there is a connection.
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We are far behind them, as well as after the Czech Republic, without much success. Lately, on top of everything, not only have we not parted with social nostalgia, but we have somehow ended our historical expertise. Which coolly informs us that – with the exception of a magnificent Russian imperial move against the Ottoman Empire, thank you very much, liberators – the tragedy of our historical destiny in the twentieth century is connected with Russian imperial policy, and especially its sinister avatar USSR.
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To any “political Russophile” (because I am proud to be a “culturological Russophile”, with a deep knowledge of their language and culture, any difference) I would throw that of Vazov – “read, cattleman.”
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But do not deviate. I will admit to a slight bias here, death calls Sylvia Platt on another occasion, but we have a distorted tradition of what is known by the Whigs and Tories as early as the nineteenth century – the political riot of what is left and right and the “outplay” who will be more – dishonest populist.
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By the way, do you remember how Martin Eden exposed himself to an educated young lady in the upper classes as he tried to impress her by saying “this Swinburne” (instead of “Swinburn”, ie old Algernon)? And to draw a parallel with the current ignoramuses you are voting for, which are a natural projection of other ignoramuses?
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We don’t like success and this is a huge cultural issue. We long to humiliate him, but – notice – if it happens to us, then we forget that we did not like him, and as if we want to put him in the face of “his former tribesmen.” It is as if the pleasure of success lies not in him per se, but in his malicious swinging.
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This, in Jungian terms, makes us a nation with the emotional intelligence of a 13-year-old.
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It is not only our “prerogative”, far from it, but we are obviously excellent in two sports – rhythmic gymnastics and self-hatred.
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Add to this the paranoid thinking about vaccination, because of which – as my friend Prof. Kosta Kostov, a first-rate doctor as a pulmonologist, says – we will lose a lot of people, not just adults (he specifically told me about a 30-year-old man who has not fought the virus), and I will not stop saying it. I don’t know if you understand the monstrosity here. It’s about HUMAN LIVES, no apologies for the capital letters. While we are talking in the media about whether we should be vaccinated or not, the British even have a specially appointed Minister of Vaccination with even more special powers – Nadim Zahavi. Can I guess what our average commoner with access to a social worker would say here? Probably, “Oh, Zahavi, the Jews are everywhere.”
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In my opinion, not getting vaccinated means that you are not just dumb – you are already stepping beyond ordinary stupidity and becoming somehow transcendental dumb.
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Because it’s good to read paper books: do you remember Swift and the Lilliputians? There, the “rulers” chose them in something like a circus – according to what bends and applause they can show. Ie Swift looks like the first Enlightenment irony. Gulliver “admired” the Lilliputian system – in the sense that the ruling Lilliputians would be thieving and “inept” anyway, but at least entertaining the Lilliputian king. Ring any bells?
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And let me remind you of something else – the Lilliputian king sometimes falls into something like catalepsy, sometimes into himself, sometimes into something in the middle. Remind you of someone?
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And more: do you remember that about Zeus, who took the handsome young man Ganymede for “oinohoos”, i.e. “Wine glass”? Well, I’m a cynic-plus-epictetist and I’ll ask, what happened after Zeus drank, if you know what I mean? So it is with our political system. In general: we hire a Ganymede, but the wine doesn’t come from him, only then something hurts.
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Be careful. New prokaryotes will not become eukaryotes.
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By the way, speaking of “sovereign” all the time: I, as a sworn Anglophile, can not help but think of the English gold coin “sovereign”, since Tudor times (Henry Seven, something like Boris Three, as Penata would say) ). It is a “bullion coin”, i.e. not a literal means of payment, but rather something high in gold in which to invest. Should I make the obvious sarcastic comment, or will you remember it yourself?
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Something like “Luidor” and “Golden Napoleon”?
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Our situation is like a culturological and crushing nonsense spat out by a supposedly important election professor. He said, I’m not kidding, “like a sword of Damocles over a Gordian knot.” This is the uneducated level of “talavizia”. It’s so low that anyone in the world can pass for an expert, as long as tired editors invite him to fill some TV time.
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If I have to explain why the above quote is a terrible stupidity, I will underestimate you. And I never underestimate you.
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For more freedom and breathing, I will recall what Paul McCartney himself said about how he coined the phrase “Sgt. Pepper ”: that he did not hear well from one of the service staff who told him“ gimme salt and pepper ”at a dinner.
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Do you see? Sometimes it gets great, in the case of the Beatles – “We’re Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band / Sit back and let the evening go.” And then “A Day In The Life,” by the other genius. (But for Lennon – separately and soon.)
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Our politicians are currently throwing the pacifier out of the stroller. “Soldiers and bidders, this is you from the first to the last” – if you allow this reference to Carlson.
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It’s also a child’s play of “traitors,” fourth grade. The sun is no longer my friend because he stole my pen and hit me on the head with a notebook.
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Everyone doesn’t trust everyone else, sorry for the bad grammar. Because, above all, they do not trust themselves.
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Therefore, do not count me. A little irony won’t hurt.
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P.P. RIP Marin Bodakov – my eternal cultural ally, author of book reviews in “Egoist”, a brilliant teacher and poetic mind. You will be missed, my friend. And our literary “virginity” is no more.
NB: Nova Broadcasting Group’s lawyers, very unpleasant and sour professionals, warn: no part of this text can be republished without their explicit permission.
