About a year after the Orange Revolution, many suddenly realized that “something needed to be done,” since Viktor Andreevich wasn’t quite living up to expectations, and the Maidan experience had shown that we truly could, if we wanted to. Then “circles” began appearing everywhere, all searching for an answer to the question “What is to be done?” This activity was especially lively during the first year of the crisis, when various victims of economic woes joined the political activists. Yanukovych’s victory gave the people’s cause a new impetus; the feeling that “something needs to be done” became even sharper.
The author of these lines spent some time participating in projects of this sort, and now periodically keeps track of the movements that interest me most. If we set aside organizations initially oriented toward conflict and division—that is, various nationalists, “Russian-world” proponents, communists, and the like—then in most of the rest one can observe an interesting pattern. Sooner or later, the question of a program of action arises. At this stage, disputes immediately begin about what the content of such a program should be, and specifically, the eternal problem of “grandmotherization” comes up: the movement’s participants understand that for things to become good, they need to do “unpopular” things for which “grandmothers won’t vote.” As a rule, this is where it ends, but the most persistent try to move further, and here the pattern I want to discuss manifests itself—and moreover, this is a pattern of a purely theoretical nature.
So, the more persistent the movement’s participants are in their desire to bring happiness to every home, the more they begin to realize the following. In order to implement their bold and useful undertakings, they need to get into parliament. Moreover, they need to have a majority there, preferably constitutional. And parliament alone won’t be enough. They also need an “own” president. That is, a clear understanding arises that their program must be such that all people of good will would vote for it “hurrah.” Many say exactly this: “We need to find an idea that will unite everyone.” By “everyone,” they mean truly everyone, with the exception of various anti-social and villainous types, who, as we know from biology, are an insignificant minority among us.
And so the search for this very “idea that will unite everyone” begins. And here’s the thing. The farther this search progresses, the more supporters drift away, and in the end only two or three people remain, glumly refining formulations. Only those movements survive that don’t even try to please everyone.
This is that very pattern. The thing is, the “idea that will unite everyone” really exists. More precisely, this idea has long since united everyone, and it is thanks to it that what is called “society” exists. It can be formulated approximately as: “This is me, and this is mine; don’t interfere with me and I won’t touch you.” It can also be formulated as the principle “aggression is prohibited,” and then numerous corollaries become clear, like “any non-violent interaction is legal.” This is the idea—or more precisely, the conclusion from centuries-old practices that created society, that is, a system of relations that allows people to coexist peacefully, benefit one another, and even arrange a bit of scientific and technical progress among themselves. This is what unites everyone, since everyone is against being killed or robbed and generally against others interfering in their lives without asking. Different societies or “countries” differ precisely in how much well-meaning people prevent this idea from being realized, and, as a rule, things are better where they interfere less.
If even one group of seekers after the “idea that unites everyone” had thought it through to the end, they would have become convinced that maintaining this idea doesn’t need the activity they intend to engage in. It is precisely the approaching, forgive the expression, cognitive dissonance—the feeling that “something here is not right”—that breaks such groups apart as they search for a goal that will unite everyone. Thinking it through to the end, they will see that getting elected to parliament with the idea “we will no longer interfere in your life” won’t work. The situation is plainly absurd. And its absurdity, by the way, makes as clear as day the fact that parliament isn’t there for that.