The players of the Russian national team played a draw with Algeria and flew out of the World Cup. This news left someone indifferent or even delighted — you can exhale and just enjoy football. For someone, on the contrary, it caused severe pain and gave reason to accuse others of the lack of patriotism: “Ours lost, but are you happy? How can you hate your country so much? Psychologies columnist Vladimir Dashevsky is trying to figure out why the «patriotism» button no longer works in his head.
I was waiting for this event, as they are waiting for punishment in childhood, inexorable, painless, but insulting. And, not admitting to himself, he hoped for a miracle and for «suddenly.» Not that much … but you never know?
What would change? I think nothing. Fans would block Tverskaya, I would also go out into the street, snobbishly watching from the sidewalk, but deep down I would also be happy.
But, alas, ours did not win, and I wrote three words on Facebook (an extremist organization banned in Russia): “Thank God. lost.» And he wrote so, because the spanking still took place. Though well-deserved, but unpleasant. An end to the hassle and disappointment, you can exhale and stop getting sick — that is, recover and enjoy football as an art. After the publication of these three words, one of my friends was indignant: “How can you hate your country so much?”, And the other said that he would not shake hands with me now. At first I did not believe it, I thought it was a joke, but it turned out that everything was serious.
What did I want? After all, I was exactly the same.
I remember how my father and I ardently cheered for the USSR national hockey team all night long, I remember how terribly upset in 1986 when I found out in the morning that ours lost to the Belgians in one-eighth, or the tragedy five years ago when Slovenia closed the road for us for the championship. I have never supported any particular club, but national team games are sacred! And I was inflated with happiness in 2008, when we beat the Dutch in the quarterfinals at the European Championships.
- Feelings of patriotism
I admit that I offended someone or hurt someone’s feelings with my status. I offer my sincere apologies to everyone, I got excited. But what is written with a pen, or rather, published on the Web, cannot be cut down with backspace … It is clear that the team played indistinctly, but I am interested in another question: why did I stop getting sick? Switched switch? Am I really cured or have I ceased to be a patriot?
A nuclear Ukrainian-Jewish-Russian cocktail of blood is mixed in me. I traveled the length and breadth of the country in all modes of transport. Shouted with delight on the Khalaktyrsky beach, running into the icy Pacific Ocean, trout fishing on the Multinsky lakes, kayaking in Karelia, wandering the Ural Mountains, seeing fish frozen in the ice on Baikal, crying on Mamaev Kurgan and Piskarevsky cemetery, was born on the Volga, I have been living in Moscow for 20 years. When I recently watched Parfenov’s «Color of the Nation», I could not swallow a lump in my throat. I understand that I cannot identify myself with the ancestors of 100 years ago, but I feel their blood and pain. As well as the longing of all subsequent waves of emigrants in the 100th century. He grew up on Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky, Tarkovsky’s Andrey Rublev and German’s Road Check. In my youth, I seriously wondered if I would have the courage to endure the tortures of the Young Guard, empathized with the unsweetened fate of North American blacks oppressed by imperialism, and was proud that I was born exactly XNUMX years after Lenin and my name is the same — Vladimir.
I love the Russian language, I admire its possibilities and shades. I think I feel it. And I won’t be able to work in any other language of the world. I’ll probably do some training. But psychotherapy, especially metaphorical one, when you need to create stories, invent plots, work with the help of a pattern of pauses and intonations, is 100 percent tied to language. Its effectiveness depends on the ability to connect with the values of the client, wired in fairy tales, read to us by grandmothers, in books, movies, newspapers and television, come what may.
Then what’s wrong with me?
Why did I stop identifying with eleven, in general, not bad guys in the uniform of the national team? Maybe it’s because they’re losing? Is it more pleasant to cheer for the winners? Absolutely not. Footballers rarely indulge us with victories, but this did not stop me from empathizing with them in every, even a friendly or qualifying, match.
How did it happen that I stopped feeling belonging to the symbolism of modern Russia? I belong to Russia, but I don’t belong to its new symbols: the Olympic Games, our Crimea, oil. Can I remain a patriot and love my homeland without sharing the dominant ideology?
It feels like a long journey across the ocean on a huge liner and everything was fine. And then he got a little distracted, hesitated and suddenly found himself overboard. And now my ship, shimmering with lights, with songs and dances, slowly leaves for the horizon, and I, with a small group of the same poor fellows, remain in the dark …
According to Leo Tolstoy, “patriotism is an immoral feeling because instead of recognizing oneself as the son of God, as Christianity teaches us, or at least as a free man guided by his own mind, every person, under the influence of patriotism, recognizes himself as the son of his fatherland, the slave of his government. and commits acts contrary to his reason and his conscience. Patriotism in its simplest, clearest and most undoubted meaning is nothing else for the rulers, as a tool for achieving power-hungry and selfish goals, and for the ruled — the renunciation of human dignity, reason, conscience and the slavish submission of oneself to those who are in power. Thus he is preached everywhere.”*
I do not want to discuss the manipulative goals of the rulers, millions of words have been written and said about this. But what does Tolstoy say about me?
Morality outside, morality inside. If I stick myself to the whole people, nation, class or any group (production team, theater troupe, community), say “we” instead of “I”, accept someone else’s morality without criticism, regardless of my own moral categories, then I give up on myself. I become part of the crowd, like an animal in a herd, removing all responsibility for my own actions. I dissolve into the mass. Of course, it is possible that someone does this consciously, and then morality coincides with morality, while someone does not reflect at all. Everything becomes possible for us! Crush cars, tear out rebars, dig up cobblestones, burn books. And “we” will have nothing for it, zero responsibility. Responsibility is assumed by others – leaders.
- Which one of us is a patriot?
This phenomenon is explained by the simple and ingenious experiments of psychologist Stanley Milgram in 1963. The «scientist» in charge of the experiment asked the participant to press a button that closed the electrical circuit, and the subject behind the glass (actually a hired actor) «received» a shock, ostensibly to reinforce the correct memorization of foreign words. Each error increased the voltage by 15 volts. The «scientist» confidently allowed the experiment to continue, arguing that everything was under control. Only 12,5% of the participants stopped at 300 volts, another 22,5% stopped at higher voltages, when the subject showed terrible suffering. And 65% of the participants reached the end of the scale at 450 volts, when the subject no longer showed signs of life.
By no means do I want to generalize now, but, to be honest, I’m glad that the «patriotism» button stopped working in my head, and I don’t want to go back to the outgoing Titanic. I am still sure that I continue to sincerely love my Motherland.
*L. Tolstoy «Patriotism and Government» (Complete Works in 90 volumes, vol. 90, GIHL, 1958).