However the situation develops, the current “ceasefire” has become a point separating “yesterday” from “today,” a reference point from which to begin counting and which gives reason to draw some conclusions. Actually, the conclusion I want to discuss is more than obvious—the system not only survived the Maidan, but strengthened and expanded. None of the officials have been punished; only the most prominent among them are in exile, while the rest are sitting on Shuster’s again and running for parliament. No “open lists” have appeared, and whatever party list you take—they are all the same. The “schemes” haven’t even stopped, nor has the primitive, I would even say, brazen and provocative corruption. For example, they write that volunteer military first-aid kits cost 300 hryvnias, while for the Ministry of Defense they cost 700. And nothing. Everything is fine.
Of course, Ukrainian officials should erect a bronze equestrian monument to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. The war he started has not only significantly helped officials preserve the system, but helped them survive within it and get a head start for the future. But the matter here is not only, and not even so much, the war. The matter lies in the choices people make and the actions they take. War merely adjusts this choice.
The problem I am speaking about can be described as “word and deed.” Here are two examples. First. A person who considers himself a liberal, or at least a person of “progressive views.” He believes that the future belongs to self-organization. He was at the Maidan, currently volunteers or sends text messages “for the army.” At the same time, he supports censorship (“these are the times”), strengthening of economic regulation (“we need to save the budget”), tells people that they cannot withdraw money from banks, “otherwise everything will collapse,” and so on. As a result—the growth of the state meets no resistance from his side.
The second example—a certain Soviet employee. He believes in communism, believes in a firm hand, order, and the state. He is even convinced that he lives and acts for these goals. However, in everyday life, he uses “the system of connections and speculation.” The reason is obvious—otherwise he will not have certain important necessities, he will not be able to “get” his son into a prestigious university, buy a car, or “obtain” an apartment. That is, this person does not use the Soviet Union, although he speaks at Komsomol meetings and hotly argues in the kitchen about methods of improving Soviet trade. In real life, this person uses systems alternative to the Soviet Union. As a result, the Soviet Union dies. I will emphasize—it dies because people stopped using it, not because everyone suddenly became anti-communists, and not even because oil prices fell.
So here. The problem I am speaking about is that various thoughts and words people produce regarding the goals they strive for have no bearing on the existence of the institutions they use. What matters is only actions (or inaction).
If a “revolutionary and patriot” uses and strengthens state-controlled institutions, then those institutions flourish, not some desired “self-organization” of theirs. And, conversely, if a person believing in communism, order, and the like does not use this communism, but uses the anti-Soviet system of connections and speculation, then communism meets its doom. The first one wants self-organization and for everything to be like in Europe, but as a result of his activities, state control, tyranny, and chaos come. The second one wants communism and more of it, but thanks to him this communism falls apart. The “word” is not important; the “deed” is. At the same time, of course, we are not talking about a banal “mismatch of word and deed,” not about a “broken promise” and similar phenomena that involve fully conscious promises and goals. We are talking about a very complex phenomenon called “spontaneous orders,” about what can be called the “way of life” of a society. We are talking about those real orders of human interaction that arise as a result of the actions of many people unfamiliar with each other, orders both stable and changeable, visible and invisible, that is, those whose existence is not even suspected by their participants (such are probably the majority). You will find more abstractions describing this phenomenon in cybernetics than in sociology.
About a spontaneous order, one thing can be said firmly—it cannot be managed. But it is entirely possible to manage one’s own behavior, which, in the end, forms spontaneous orders. And this is a very important point. This is the reverse side of our “word and deed” problem, the side where the word (thought, belief) determines the deed. A simple example from the same series. People who, against their will, destroyed the Soviet Union did not stop believing in the state and its firm hand, and therefore, in their further activities, they used the state (yes, of course, it’s not what it was, but such as it is), grew it, placed it on their heads, and now are surprised at what is happening.
In general, all this is to say that only your choice determines what will be. If you believe in the future of self-organization but send text messages “for the army,” you will most likely not help the army, but will weaken self-organization and strengthen the state monster. On the other hand, if you collect money for the specific needs of specific fighters and units, they receive your support, the state monster shrinks, and self-organization develops, regardless of whether you strive for it or not.