Quote:

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Originally posted by captaincrunch:
https://granta.com/russia-verge-nervous-breakdown/

The triumph of inertia

In Russia, the opposition will not stand in opposition. Citizens will not stand up for civic rights. The Russian people suffer from a victim complex: they believe that nothing depends on them, and by them nothing can be changed.

‘It’s always been so’, they say, signing off on their civic impotence. The economic dislocation of the nineties, the cheerless noughties, and now President Vladimir Putin’s iron rule – with its fake elections, corrupt bureaucracy, monopolization of mass media, political trials and ban on protest – have inculcated a feeling of total helplessness. People do not vote in elections: ‘They’ll choose for us anyway;’ they don’t attend public demonstrations: ‘They’ll be dispersed anyway;’ they don’t fight for their rights: ‘We’re alive, and thank god for that.’

A 140-million-strong population exists in a somnambulistic state, on the verge of losing the last trace of their survival instinct. They hate the authorities, but have a pathological fear of change. They feel injustice, but cannot tolerate activists. They hate bureaucracy, but submit to total state control over all spheres of life. They are afraid of the police, but support the expansion of police control. They know they are constantly being deceived, but believe the lies fed to them on television.

======


Learned helplessness was first described by the American psychologist Martin Seligman. He exposed two groups of dogs to electric shocks. Dogs in the first group could stop the shocks by pressing a panel with their nose; the second group had no control. The dogs were transferred to a new, shared environment, with a low partition wall. When they were exposed to shocks, the first group jumped the wall and escaped. The second group did nothing. The Russian people have become like that second group of dogs.

My husband and I once spent eighteen months in a village 300 kilometers from Moscow, in the Kaluga province, which is relatively well supplied. The village population was noisy and querulous, they would pick up their knives at the slightest provocation. Every evening we would hear shouts – somebody’s chicken was stolen, somebody’s dog poisoned, someone’s wife seduced, somebody had been beaten and was now chasing his attackers with an axe. These were energetic, proud people.

The village water system was only connected to a few lucky houses, but the majority of villagers had to carry their water in buckets from the street fountains. One cold, gray November day the fountains suddenly dried up. The nearest well was in the ravine whose slopes were slippery at this time of year. The usually boisterous and quarrelsome villagers, always ready to start a fight, trudged meekly into the ravine with their buckets.

When I asked them how long the drought would last, they said: ‘Until spring.’ Assuming that the villagers knew best, we started packing our things to leave, but at the last moment I called the emergency maintenance service to check on the situation. My call was news to them. None of the villagers had informed them of the problem, even though there was a telephone in almost every house. The next day a team of workers arrived, repaired the water tower and restored the water supply. If it were not for my call, the villagers would have waited for water until spring.

====

Essentially: "why bother, we have no power."

"Russia is a country that lives in contradiction. For example, the president tells us that he is fighting the oligarchs, then awards those same oligarchs with medals ‘For Service to the Country.’ Or the government tells us that prices for consumer goods will not rise, and a month later they double. Or the church teaches us that greed is a sin and ‘it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven,’ while the Patriarch rides in a motorcade and befriends the rich and mighty. Or officials tell us that there are no Russian soldiers in Ukraine, while the media talks constantly about Russia’s military successes on the Ukrainian front.

In this atmosphere, people cease to differentiate between the literal and the metaphorical, suspecting intrigue where there is none and, conversely, losing the ability to read between the lines. The acceptance of contradictions is enforced by social pressure: believers are not supposed to criticise priests, tax-payers are not supposed to criticise the government, and criticism of Putin is tantamount to treason."

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by captaincrunch:
https://granta.com/russia-verge-nervous-breakdown/

The triumph of inertia

In Russia, the opposition will not stand in opposition. Citizens will not stand up for civic rights. The Russian people suffer from a victim complex: they believe that nothing depends on them, and by them nothing can be changed.

‘It’s always been so’, they say, signing off on their civic impotence. The economic dislocation of the nineties, the cheerless noughties, and now President Vladimir Putin’s iron rule – with its fake elections, corrupt bureaucracy, monopolization of mass media, political trials and ban on protest – have inculcated a feeling of total helplessness. People do not vote in elections: ‘They’ll choose for us anyway;’ they don’t attend public demonstrations: ‘They’ll be dispersed anyway;’ they don’t fight for their rights: ‘We’re alive, and thank god for that.’

A 140-million-strong population exists in a somnambulistic state, on the verge of losing the last trace of their survival instinct. They hate the authorities, but have a pathological fear of change. They feel injustice, but cannot tolerate activists. They hate bureaucracy, but submit to total state control over all spheres of life. They are afraid of the police, but support the expansion of police control. They know they are constantly being deceived, but believe the lies fed to them on television.

======


Learned helplessness was first described by the American psychologist Martin Seligman. He exposed two groups of dogs to electric shocks. Dogs in the first group could stop the shocks by pressing a panel with their nose; the second group had no control. The dogs were transferred to a new, shared environment, with a low partition wall. When they were exposed to shocks, the first group jumped the wall and escaped. The second group did nothing. The Russian people have become like that second group of dogs.

My husband and I once spent eighteen months in a village 300 kilometers from Moscow, in the Kaluga province, which is relatively well supplied. The village population was noisy and querulous, they would pick up their knives at the slightest provocation. Every evening we would hear shouts – somebody’s chicken was stolen, somebody’s dog poisoned, someone’s wife seduced, somebody had been beaten and was now chasing his attackers with an axe. These were energetic, proud people.

The village water system was only connected to a few lucky houses, but the majority of villagers had to carry their water in buckets from the street fountains. One cold, gray November day the fountains suddenly dried up. The nearest well was in the ravine whose slopes were slippery at this time of year. The usually boisterous and quarrelsome villagers, always ready to start a fight, trudged meekly into the ravine with their buckets.

When I asked them how long the drought would last, they said: ‘Until spring.’ Assuming that the villagers knew best, we started packing our things to leave, but at the last moment I called the emergency maintenance service to check on the situation. My call was news to them. None of the villagers had informed them of the problem, even though there was a telephone in almost every house. The next day a team of workers arrived, repaired the water tower and restored the water supply. If it were not for my call, the villagers would have waited for water until spring.

====

Essentially: "why bother, we have no power."

"Russia is a country that lives in contradiction. For example, the president tells us that he is fighting the oligarchs, then awards those same oligarchs with medals ‘For Service to the Country.’ Or the government tells us that prices for consumer goods will not rise, and a month later they double. Or the church teaches us that greed is a sin and ‘it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven,’ while the Patriarch rides in a motorcade and befriends the rich and mighty. Or officials tell us that there are no Russian soldiers in Ukraine, while the media talks constantly about Russia’s military successes on the Ukrainian front.

In this atmosphere, people cease to differentiate between the literal and the metaphorical, suspecting intrigue where there is none and, conversely, losing the ability to read between the lines. The acceptance of contradictions is enforced by social pressure: believers are not supposed to criticise priests, tax-payers are not supposed to criticise the government, and criticism of Putin is tantamount to treason."

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