Do Russia need European values? Are Western values ​​losing their influence in the world? Looking ahead, I would like to note - what kind of valuable values ​​are these, if what is initially laid down is, if not a lie, then not a logical and not a logical understanding

Inspired by the "Duel" Kurginyan-Zlobin.

If I were standing opposite Zlobin, the first thing I would ask would be: “Why do you think that Western values ​​are really supported by the population, politicians and administration of the West?” I would say a lot of things, in fact, because every liberal PHRASE that was heard on this show caused me dissonance with reality. Our liberals are either so naive or so cunning that they consider what is proclaimed to be reality.

Oddly enough, the majority of applications to the ECHR regarding human rights violations are from Russian citizens. Do you think this is because human rights are violated in Russia, but in the EU everything is orderly and noble? Not at all. It’s just that EU citizens have forgotten how to insist on their rights. They, like sheep, were taught only to humbly await death and allow themselves to be cut to the last hair. That is why we are surprised to see how they are not outraged by the fact that their own money goes to feed healthy men who will never be able to work, because the Dutch responded to the rape of European women with a march of European men in skirts, but fake rape the son of a Congolese minister led to mass protests, fires and looting in France.

Western values ​​are only a means for processing the masses, cutting their hair, the emergence of new markets and suppressing protests regarding the release of the next tax “for bribing the President.”
I am surprised and touched by the naivety of the same Kurginyan, who, when asked a question about a country where there is real democracy, named France. A-ha! France, where the voting system is tailored to “The National Front should not win.” Hollande promised to replace her, but this was before he was elected President, and then he conveniently forgot everything.
What kind of democracy can we talk about if the support of the President is 4%??? Normal people They would have already impeached us, but we are not looking for easy ways, we have forgotten how to fight for our rights. That’s why we allow politicians and their mongrels to mock us, tearing out our hair by the roots on the Internet.

So what are the notorious European values?
Let's not reinvent the wheel and turn to the primary sources. In 2012, at the request of the European Commission, a Report on European Values ​​was published. In 2012, the European Commission asked itself a question: in order to give more or less understandable forecasts of people’s reactions to their often stupid innovations, you need to know how much the people will allow themselves to be pushed in this or that area. If you dare to click on the report itself, you will read that the original question sounded different, but the essence and background do not change.

Firstly, the European Commission thought: have European values ​​changed after the crisis?
Both on! And we are told that European values ​​are an unshakable postulate with a centuries-old history. And it turns out that as soon as the elite loses a little money, values ​​change. Apparently, those are still values, since they depend on the ringing of coins (now it’s clear why they lost all the wars with Russia?)

Basically, they asked themselves three questions:
1. Proximity of European countries to European values. (WHAT??? This is one gang, all united front and all that! Well, at least they officially declare it... No, or what?)

2. What values ​​are most important to Europeans?? Which of them represent the ideal of happiness? And to what extent do European values ​​reflect personal values? (??? And Merkel is fooling us here about a universal round dance and integrity??? )

3, Economic and social values ​​of Europeans- how they change. (Hmmm... That is, the clinking of coins is a European value. I laugh wildly about Zlobin’s definition of European values ​​in “The Duel” as tolerance, human rights and something else that he himself does not believe in, apparently .But!!!Now you understand that economic values ​​for Europeans are values ​​that come after social ones, and not tolerance-democracy)

Here they tried to understand
- How do people feel about government intervention? A (in the affairs of the people).
This is another formulation, of course, since the state is a worker hired by the people, but here, it turns out, the state and the people are two different groups.

- How does this all relate to free competition??
If anyone still doesn’t understand, we’re all about European values ​​here, but we haven’t gotten to tolerance yet

- Do Europeans prefer equality to freedom?
That is, “flies - separately, cutlets - separately”? Freedom and equality cannot exist together?

- Is the justice system strict enough?
Interestingly, they did not consider inequality in legal systems and their relationship to elites and people.

- How do people see the contribution of immigrants to society?
It will be interesting to see how people view it now. after the influx of a couple of new millions.

- What to give preference to: environment or growth?

- and, finally, what is the ratio of rest and work?
“Finally” is a translation, so if anyone doesn’t understand: regarding the extent to which a person has the opportunity to relax, Europeans are officially the last thing to worry about. This is less important than the contribution of migrants.

There is no point in translating the entire Eurobarometer: it is 4 volumes. Not "Harry Potter", you know, so, sorry, let's limit ourselves to conclusions.

32,728 people were interviewed, that is, about 1,000 people per country. Let's assume that the sample is representative. Why is it permissible? As a person who has the background to talk about this, I admit that in view of so many criteria, they asked around two people per category of the population, that is, zero without a stick in the sense of representativeness. Well, it’s not for us to judge them; what has grown has grown.

So, essentially.
1. Proximity of European countries to European values.
In the first lines of the manuscript we are faced with what is called the manipulation of consciousness: the relative majority of Europeans believe that their values ​​are similar. Relatively the majority. That is, 49% out of 100. And 42% believe that there is nothing of the kind. A logical person would write that “opinion is divided”, since the smallness of the survey group units gives a percentage error of 20-40% (I proceed from the fact that people of different ages, professions, views, orientations, religions, etc. were surveyed). Moreover, since the criteria were “completely coincide”, “sufficiently coincide” and “coincide more or less”, of the 49% who agreed, 46% indicated that they coincided sufficiently, and 3% - as “more or less”...
But we are not looking for easy ways, that’s why “the majority”.
Note that in 2008, that is, 1-3 years after the famous accession of new countries, 54% of citizens of the “old” countries suspected that they were recruiting members of similar values ​​into the union.

"It gives the impression"(literal translation) that the “old” 16 members have similar values ​​than the new ones, but that their sobering-up stations work better: instead of 54% in 2004, only 47% of the “old Europeans” began to believe in the similarity of European values ​​in 2012... But Slovaks (70%), Poles (68%), Bulgarians (63%) and Czechs (63%) firmly believe that they are much closer to European values ​​than the Europeans of Old Europe! We run ahead of the locomotive, as they say. True, this does not prevent these same countries from spitting in the direction of Brussels when it comes to accepting refugees. I’m not sure that among AS readers there is at least 1 person who cannot explain this situation.

However, along with the promoters of European values ​​​​Slovakia and Poland (now Polish and Slovak nationalists and anti-LGBT people are tense), there are also backward Latvia (34%), Portugal (37%), France (38%) and Spain (40%), who believe that their values ​​are absolutely different from those of Europe.

But there are also surprising (for Europeans and obvious for AS) trends - 23% of Portuguese distanced themselves from European values ​​over 4 years (only 37% remained relatively religious), 15% of Greeks (43% still believed that they would receive a loan), 18% Spaniards, 16% of Cypriots (although in 2012, 52% of Cypriots still believed that Merkel would help them financially).
The people who most believed that their values ​​were close to the pan-European ones were Austria, which was given money, and Poland, which was apparently promised a share in the division of Ukrainian oil shale just in 2012.

As we see, for some reason, faith in the European values ​​of the people of Europe is directly proportional to the amount of money received by European states from the EU and decreases with the approach of the crisis, when they do not receive money. And not at all with “European tolerance”. But those who pay are disappointed.

As always, it is easier for young people to sell nonsense, so they believe more that their values ​​are similar to European ones. Their parents, people wise with experience and problems of feeding Euro-youth, are skeptical about tolerance as an opportunity to prepare Euro-borscht. Naturally, students pay tribute to European values. That is, the state’s ability to exploit the brains of the state increases with the level of education, and not with television viewing. The working class sends values ​​to hell, while those who can make money from the working class think that they have found a gold mine in European values.
European Union = Trump in the USA 2.0, in general.

64% of Europeans think their vote counts in Europe. Well, as you wish, gentlemen, but elections in the EU are not filmed on video cameras, so I can attribute this exclusively to the increased stupidity of Europeans.... “And then the card failed me,” as they say. In countries where a lot of companies sell people contracts that need to be signed before reading (and are successful) - this is for you to reflect on the Central European mind and ingenuity.

And here we come to the European values ​​themselves.

Western civilization is a type of civilization that is associated with progressive development, constant changes in human life. It originated in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The first stage of its development, called “ancient civilization,” was marked by the emergence of the basic values ​​of the Western type of society: private property relations, market-oriented private production; the first example of democracy - democracy, albeit limited; republican form of government. The foundations of a civil society were laid, ensuring individual rights and freedom, as well as a system of sociocultural principles that contributed to the mobilization of creative potential and the flourishing of the individual.

The next stage in the development of Western civilization is associated with Europe and Christianity. The Reformation gave birth to a new direction in Christianity - Protestantism, which became the spiritual basis of Western civilization. The main value of this civilization, on which all others were based, is individual freedom of choice in all spheres of life. This was directly related to the formation of a special European personality type that appeared during the Renaissance. “The individual becomes tragically responsible not only for approaching and moving away from the Highest, but also for the choice of what he, the individual, considers to be the Highest. He is responsible... not only for himself, but also to himself.”

Rationality has become the most important independent value of the West (M. Weber). Public consciousness is rational, free from religious dogma in solving practical issues, pragmatic, but the sphere of application of Christian values ​​is public morality, not only in personal life, but also in business ethics.

During the era of geographical discoveries and colonial wars, Europe spread its type of development to other regions of the world. For the first time, humanity, as a result of the worldwide spread of values ​​and institutions of Western origin (XVI-XIX centuries), was truly united within the framework of a world-wide system of connections. By the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. these values ​​and institutions became dominant on the planet and continued to determine the main features of the appearance of the Earth in our century until very recently.

The main content of the civilizational process in the 20th century. constitutes a tendency towards the historical formation of the structures of a universal world civilization. Processes that took place in the 20th century. in the West, acquired a global character, directly affecting all peoples, all other civilizations that were forced to seek an answer to the historical challenge of the West. This challenge was perceived in the concrete form of reality as an imperative for modernization. In such a situation, the question of the relationship between modernization and Westernization has become central for the vast majority of humanity in the non-Western world. Consequently, the analysis of the processes occurring in the area of ​​Western civilization is crucial for understanding the civilizational development of both humanity as a whole and its various components in the 20th century.

It is known that intercivilizational dialogue between the West and the East has always occurred. Writing came to the Greeks from the East, the first Greek philosophers studied with the Eastern sages, and the Greeks, as a result of the campaigns of Alexander the Great, influenced the East. Christianity was born in the East, which became the spiritual basis of Western civilization. B-XX centuries The process of mutual influence and mutual enrichment of various types of development is especially intensive, while preserving the civilizational characteristics of each community. The historical process is multivariate. Countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America were strongly influenced by Western civilization during the colonial empires. The European model became a reference point both for colonial countries and for populations that were not colonized but were also subject to Western influence. In the 19th century, Western-oriented reforms unfolded in the countries of the East, although most countries continued to adhere to established traditions. In the first half of the 20th century. attempts at deep reforms continued (China, India), but the beginning of the modernization of these societies coincided with the growing crisis of Western civilization, which complicated the process of introducing this type of society. After the Second World War, the process began on a larger scale, and the countries of the East, with the goal of accelerated development and industrialization, sought to preserve their fundamental civilizational values, choosing different paths of modernization.

However, not only the East is mastering Western values, but also the West is adopting Eastern values. Changes are taking place in public consciousness- the authority of the family and collectivism are strengthened, attempts are made to spiritualize Western commercialism, interest in Eastern philosophy, ethical and aesthetic teachings of the East is increasing. The process of mutual enrichment of countries and peoples is underway.

Considering the stages of development of Western civilization until the 20th century, we see that its main values ​​are interconnected and interdependent, but their relationship is very contradictory. The type of modern society that was originally formed in the West was created not simply on the basis of the predominance of certain aspects of existential * contradictions, but on the basis of the unconditional dominance of man over nature, the individualistic principle over public interests, the innovative side of culture over the traditional. These contradictions have been and remain the main sources of human development. But in order for a contradiction of this type to fulfill its function and persist, both sides must be quite strongly expressed. Excessive predominance of one side to the detriment of the other ultimately leads to the drying up of the source of development and the strengthening of destructive tendencies (as a result of increasing imbalances in the process of development of the civilizational system). This is the deepest basis of the civilizational crisis of the 20th century.

The formation of modern society in the West meant the establishment of capitalism, and, as a consequence, the alienation of man from the products of his activity, the transformation of the latter into a force dominating over man and hostile to him. The individual found himself face to face with the whole world, limitless and threatening. To be able to act, he must somehow get rid of this situation. There are two possible ways here: either a person builds anew, on the basis of his own choice, relationships with the world around him, restoring unity with other people and nature and at the same time preserving and developing his own individuality (without encroaching on the freedom and individuality of others), or he is looking for a way out of the situation on the way to escape from freedom. In the second case, due to a feeling of loneliness and helplessness, a desire arises to renounce one’s individuality and thereby merge with the surrounding world. Refusing the gift of free will, he is simultaneously freed from the “burden” of responsibility for his own choice.

The temptation to escape from freedom turned out to be especially strong in the 20th century. At its core, this was a crisis of that new European personality type that was mentioned earlier. The crisis was most fully manifested in the loss of the meaning of existence by Westerners. “Loss of meaning” means the collapse of that system of orientation of a person in the world (both in the reality around him and in his own soul), which developed at the previous stages historical development. Over the long centuries of the existence of European civilization, at the center of this system was, undoubtedly, faith in God in its Christian variety.

The search for the lost meaning of life constitutes the main content of the spiritual life of the West in the 20th century. At the beginning of this century, the global crisis of the West became a reality and actually continued throughout its first half. How close Western civilization was to destruction was already shown by the first World War. This war and the associated social revolutions of 1917-1918. can be considered the first stage in the development of Western civilization in the 20th century.

The First World War was a qualitatively new grandiose clash compared to all those armed conflicts that humanity had previously known. First of all, the scale of the war is unprecedented - 38 states were involved in it, where the vast majority of the world's population lived. The nature of the armed struggle became completely new - for the first time, the entire adult male population of the warring countries was mobilized, and this is more than 70 million people. For the first time, the latest technological advances were used for the mass extermination of people. For the first time, weapons of mass destruction—poisonous gases—were widely used. For the first time, the entire power of the military machine was directed against not only enemy armies, but also against civilians.

In all the warring countries, democracy was curtailed, the scope of market relations was narrowed, and the state actively intervened in the area of ​​production and distribution. Labor conscription and a card system were introduced, and measures of non-economic coercion were applied. For the first time, an occupation regime was established in territories occupied by foreign armies. In terms of the number of casualties, the war was also unparalleled: 9.4 million people were killed or died from wounds, millions became disabled. The scale of violations of fundamental human rights was unprecedented. They far surpassed everything that was known to the world community at that time.

Western society was entering a new stage of its development. Barracks psychology has become widespread not only in the army, but also in society. Massive destruction and extermination of people showed that human life has lost its intrinsic value. The ideals and values ​​of Western civilization were being destroyed before our eyes. Political forces were born that proposed the implementation of alternatives to the Western path, Western civilization: fascism and communism, which have different social support and different values, but equally reject the market, democracy, and individualism.

Fascism was a reflection and generation of the main contradictions of the Western path: nationalism, brought to the point of racism, and the idea of ​​social equality; the idea of ​​a technocratic state and totalitarianism. Fascism did not set as its goal the complete destruction of Western civilization; it was intended to use realistically and historically proven mechanisms. That is why it turned out to be so dangerous for the West and the whole world (by the early 40s, only its “islands” remained of Western civilization: England, Canada, the USA). In the mass consciousness, the priority of collectivist values ​​and the blocking of individualist values ​​were asserted. During the existence of fascism, certain changes occurred in the public consciousness: Hitler and his circle had irrationalism, which is not typical for the rational psychology of the West; the idea of ​​the coming of a messiah capable of saving the country, a charismatic attitude towards fascist leaders, i.e. there was a mythologization of social life.

However, even in an era of deep crisis, there was a line for the development and renewal of Western civilization, for finding ways to mitigate its inherent contradictions. In the 1930s, three democratic alternatives were put forward.

The first option is the “new course” of American President Roosevelt. The essence of his proposals was as follows; the state must redistribute part of the national income in favor of the poor, insure society against hunger, unemployment, poverty, and also regulate economic processes so that society does not turn into a toy of the market element.

The second option is the Popular Fronts (PF), created in France and Spain as a special version of the democratic alternative. The main specificity of these organizations was that in response to the threat of fascism they were based on the cooperation of qualitatively different forces. Their programs included many profound reforms of a democratic and social nature. Such programs began to be implemented by the NF that came to power in France and Spain (1936). In France, the implementation of programs at the first stage led to the deepening of democracy and a significant expansion of the rights of citizens (in Spain it was not possible to fully implement the initial program, since the civil war began). The main activities of the NF programs were basically similar to those carried out within the framework of Roosevelt’s “New Deal” and the Scandinavian model.

The third option is the Scandinavian social democratic model of development. In 1938, the central union of trade unions and the Swedish employers' association signed an agreement according to which the main provisions of collective agreements were established through negotiations between them. The state acted as a guarantor. After the creation of such a mechanism in Sweden, there were no major strikes or lockouts (mass layoffs) for several decades. The success of the reformist course of Swedish social democracy received a great response in the world and was significant for the entire Western civilization as a whole, demonstrating the possibility of successful functioning of society on the principles of social reformism. Despite some differences from Roosevelt’s “new course,” the Scandinavian model of overcoming the crisis was united with him in the main thing: the growth of state intervention in the socio-economic sphere was accompanied not by the curtailment of democracy, but by its further development and the expansion of citizens’ rights.

The Second World War, in which 61 states with a population of 1,700 million people participated, i.e. 3/4 of all humanity turned out to be an even more terrible test for the world than the first. It lasted 6 years and one day and claimed more than 50 million lives. The main result of many years of bloodshed was the victory of the democratic forces of the anti-Hitler coalition.

Europe emerged from the Second World War weakened. The third stage of its development has begun. Two states began to dominate the international arena: the United States of America and the Soviet Union. The Geneva League of Nations, having failed to live up to expectations, was now replaced by the United Nations, headquartered in New York. The rule of the great colonial empires in Africa and Asia collapsed. In Eastern Europe, where the troops of the Soviet Army were stationed, satellite states were created. The United States expanded its political, economic, and military ties with Western Europe through the implementation of the Marshall Plan (1947) and the creation of NATO (1949). In 1955, the USSR and other socialist countries created their own military-political union - Warsaw Pact. Growing misunderstanding and mutual distrust between the two superpowers eventually led to cold war.

The defeat of fascism in the Second World War through the efforts of the USSR and democratic countries opened the way for the renewal of Western civilization. In difficult conditions (Cold War, arms race, confrontation) it acquired a new look: forms of private property changed (collective forms began to prevail: joint-stock, cooperative, etc.); The middle strata (medium and small owners) became more powerful, interested in the stability of society, democracy and the protection of the individual, i.e. the social base for destructive tendencies (social conflicts, revolutions) has narrowed. The socialist idea began to lose its class character, as the social structure of society changed under the influence scientific and technological revolution(NTR); The working class began to disappear with its desire to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and the humanistic ideal to regain value.

The increased level of national wealth makes it possible to create high level social protection of the individual and redistribute this wealth in favor of the less affluent sections of society. A new level of development of democracy is emerging, the main slogan of which is individual rights; The interdependence of states due to economic development is growing. Interdependence leads to the abandonment of absolute state sovereignty and national priorities in favor of multinational communities (Common European House, Atlantic Society, etc.). These changes correspond to the tasks of social progress. value western culture civilizational

Today, the unity of humanity lies in the fact that nothing significant can happen anywhere without affecting everyone. “Our age is universal not only in its external features, but absolutely universal, since it is global in nature. Now we are talking not about something interconnected in its internal meaning, but also about integrity, within which constant communication takes place. Nowadays, this process is designated as universal. This universality must lead to a completely different solution to the question of human existence than ever before. For if all previous periods of cardinal transformations were local, could be supplemented by other events, in other places, in other worlds, if during a catastrophe in one of these cultures there remained the possibility that a person would be saved with the help of other cultures, then now everything that happens is absolutely and final in its meaning. The internal significance of the ongoing process is also of a completely different nature than the axial time. Then there was fullness, now there is emptiness."

The global problems that humanity faced in the 20th century were generated by technogenic Western civilization. The Western path is not a fairy-tale idyll. Ecological disasters, global crises in the field of politics, peace and war show that a certain limit of progress in its traditional forms has been reached. Modern researchers offer various theories of “limiting progress”, understanding that there is a certain environmental imperative, i.e. a set of conditions that a person has no right to violate under any circumstances. All this makes us think and critically analyze the prospects and achievements of Western civilization. Apparently in the 21st century. world civilization will develop, focusing not only on the achievements of Western civilization, but also taking into account the accumulated experience of the development of the East.

About 15 years ago I had the opportunity to give a presentation at one of the conferences on my usual topic. I said that turning Russia into an enemy is not a good idea. During the discussions, one of the conference participants, who, as I later found out, was the retired head of a very serious intelligence structure in NATO, objected to me, arguing that the Russians did not share our values.

Our values, commonly referred to as “European values,” were the subject of much discussion in the 1990s. NATO in those days was proudly called the alliance of universal human values, or more precisely, European values. In general, they still call it now, perhaps not so loudly. I remember one Spanish Eurocrat explaining to me what these values ​​are. Just think: a Spaniard, who grew up during the time of General Franco, was confident that he could educate a Canadian about democracy and freedom! However, these were the quirks of the time.

I actually found his ranting quite tiresome. Firstly, Franco, Hitler, Marx, Engels, Mussolini, Robespierre, Napoleon, Quisling (Norwegian collaborator, National Socialist, actively collaborated with Germany during the Second World War - mixednews) and others, they were all Europeans.

And secondly, damn it, if it weren’t for the Soviets and the “Anglosphere” (English world), the “European values” that the Eurocrats and their minions were so proud of in 1995 would have contained much more leather uniforms, forged boots and greetings with an outstretched arm. After all, it wasn’t the French, Spaniards, Belgians, Danes and Italians who liberated Europe from the German Nazis, was it? In addition, NATO is a military alliance that has gone through the Salazar dictatorship in Portugal, the "black colonels" in Greece and various coups d'état in Turkey. NATO was actually hesitant to swallow Franco, but the US had so many agreements with Spain that formal NATO membership was not necessary. Back when NATO was a defensive alliance, real estate and the presence of a common enemy took precedence over “values.” However, in the 1990s there was a general fascination with the idea of ​​“common European values”.

I admit that this was not completely meaningless. I don’t like the sanctimonious word “values” itself, but I thought that the collapse of the USSR marked something important. Contrary to the fears of many people in the 70s and 80s that the clearly weakening Soviet system would triumph over our disorganized and fragmented West, it was the Soviet system that collapsed. For me, the lesson of this collapse was not that our “values” won. Simply put, because the future is unknown, a system that allows for more problem-solving options is more resilient, since today's answer may no longer fit tomorrow's question.

Democracy is political pluralism, freedom of expression is mental pluralism, and the free market is economic pluralism. The Soviet system, like the Nazi system, had One Great Answer to all questions. This worked for a period of time until a problem arose that the Great Answer was unable to solve. By the way, I am sure that Putin understands this, even if few in the West agree with this, and today he says: “History proves that all dictatorships, all authoritarian forms of government are short-lived. Only democratic systems are stable and capable of survival.”

So, it seemed to me that conclusions had to be drawn and lessons learned. Alas, this did not happen. On the contrary, we have today a sanctimonious and arrogant glorification of “European values” that were sent down to us from heaven. However, what is important: for us, not for them. And it was like this: they either learned from us (if this was actually possible) or went to the bottom.

So where do we in the West find ourselves today, two decades later? It looks like everything is not so good. Political parties that deviate from the views prescribed to the entire society are quickly pushed aside and demonized: just read any material in the official media about the French National Front party to see the word “ultra-right” on almost every line. That way, everyone knows it's bad, and there's no need to find out anything at all. Volleys of “flattering” epithets are heard against any party or person who threatens the established order: Donald Trump is “a racist, a fascist, a fool, a homophobe, a misogynist.” Freedom of expression is severely limited by laws against hate speech and rules of political correctness. The long ears of government are absolutely everywhere. Killing people with unmanned devices has become the norm. As for market freedom, today's world appears to be run by financial manipulators for their own benefit. Pluralism is becoming less and less relevant, and the legendary “European values” are looking more and more shabby and unnecessary.

One very ancient European named Herodotus once said: “Divine justice will punish human arrogance.” Our victorious “values” have transformed into self-confidence, which has given rise to excess and carelessness, and today we find ourselves in the grip of delusion. Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, will inevitably bring about just retribution and restore the destroyed balance.

Let's continue the conversation that Olga Zinovieva started recently about European and Russian values.

The other day, Estonian Foreign Minister Marina Kaljurand noted that one of the reasons “why the EU will continue to follow an anti-Russian course is the difference in approaches to the issue of “core values.”

At the same time, the head of the Estonian Foreign Ministry was able to name only one “value”, which, in her opinion, distinguishes Europe from Russia. This is the “aggressiveness” of the latter. "Given the aggressive nature foreign policy Russia, Europe will continue to maintain its previous position towards it,” Kaljurand pronounced her verdict.

Logic, as we see, did not spend the night here. There is a dissonance between the true meaning of what is being said and objective reality.

But I will leave aside the logic and comparative analysis of the indicators of genuine aggressiveness of NATO, which is unilaterally expanding its influence towards the Russian borders, and Russia, which is forced to activate its defense systems in response.

Let me move on to the main thing - the question of what the true values ​​of modern Western Europe actually are, including in comparison with Russian values.

Faith in TV as the easiest way to find support

I dare say that the consciousness of the majority of citizens modern Russia, which abandoned the “socialist” ideology and did not adhere to any somewhat reliable doctrine, which is much freer (in the sense that it is less clichéd) of the consciousness of the average Western person.

Post-Soviet people for the most part are in a state of protracted and largely independent search for a new ideological doctrine. As a result of the absence in Russia of an idea that is clearly attractive to the majority of citizens (where will it come from if the elites do not have such an idea in the Russian Federation today), a post-Soviet person is forced to join one of four groups.

The first group (the largest) of citizens prefers to believe Russian TV and, therefore, home-grown cliches.

The second group prefers not to believe Russian TV, but to believe Western TV with its sophisticated casuistry.

The third group does not believe in anyone and, in the absence of faith, is marginalized or slides into banal consumerism.

Finally, the fourth group of citizens rushes between many televisions and readily accepts any idea that seems acceptable to them at a given moment in time.

In a word, in modern Russia we see pluralism in action, which, on the one hand, provides people with freedom of choice, but on the other hand, does not save them from the inevitable immersion in the chaos of meaningless interpretations of what is happening.

It’s a different matter for a Westerner who was deprived of the freedom to choose, but was convinced that he was free like no one else. Over many years of struggle against “world evil” (whether it is expressed in communism or Russian “imperialism”), he was taught to believe exclusively in his media. Moreover, they were forced to believe that their own Euro-American mass media were more professional and truthful than any others.

The Western public has been convinced that any information or position that does not fit into the picture of the world approved by Washington, London and Brussels is PROPAGANDA.

I note that such core concepts for Western people as “freedom”, “democracy” or “progress” are now worn out and discredited. And, for example, Europeans (as people less clichéd than Americans) are beginning to switch to a different terminology that is more convenient in the process of manipulating the masses. In particular, the term “propaganda” that we mentioned has become one of the most important categories of the ideological sphere of modern Western Europe.

Today this category is at the peak of its relevance. And it doesn’t matter that it has long lost its true meaning, turning into a cliche and a bogeyman. It is important that this stamp is functional, universal, and therefore effective in terms of achieving the goals of information warfare. It allows you to label anything to your advantage, including Kant’s imperatives.

The central category-ideologeme for Western European policy makers was the simulacrum "EUROPEAN VALUES". (from my point of view, this is the favorite term, for example, of German Chancellor Angela Merkel).

Western values ​​are an “ideal” imposed on the world

By throwing the category “Western values” (meaning “values ​​of the civilized world”) into the global information space, the West is resolving a certain semantic conflict. So, if modern Russia does not have an official national idea (moreover, at the official level it demonstrates in every possible way its commitment to liberal, that is, pro-Western ideology), then how can one wage an ideological struggle against it?

So the West does not declare war on Russia on ideological grounds, as before. He accuses the Russian Federation of having “wrong values.” Which, as it were, gives the West moral and other grounds for attacking Russia in all possible directions.

At the same time, Western ideologists and intellectuals, if you ask them to decipher the concepts of “American values”, “European values”, “Western values”, etc., as a rule, will name a dozen common cliches that have long lost their original meaning.

When deciphering, for example, the term “European values,” they will first of all tell you the same “democracy.” Also - “freedom of movement”, “strong civil society”, “priority of law”, “political pluralism”, “system of social guarantees” and “tolerance”. These “values” extremely excited, for example, Ukraine, which went crazy on “European integration,” as well as millions of citizens of other backward countries who became migrants.

Of course, no one explains to Ukrainians or anyone else the difference between genuine value and a simulacrum of an ideal. On the contrary, the discrepancy between words (for example, “democracy”) and deeds (the total suppression of dissent and the organization of the overthrow of legitimate regimes in undesirable countries) has become one of the most important technologies that allows the West to expand the space of its “values.”

It is clear that a simulacrum of democracy is better than a concrete massacre in some Syria, and a really functioning system of social guarantees is better than the growing oligarchic lawlessness in Ukraine. But Russia is not Ukraine, and certainly not a devastated Libya or Syria, in order to suddenly exchange its values ​​for those of others.

And TV in Russia works incomparably better than in Ukraine, explaining some of its advantages to citizens of the Russian Federation.

Two worlds - two ways of life

The list of values ​​given here can be continued (I did not touch here, for example, on different interpretations of the history of the Second World War and world history in general), but the course of our thought, as well as the nature and scale of the fundamental differences between the two value systems, I think, is clear.

As we can see, there is a difference in values ​​between Western Europe and Russia on all counts, except for the last one. That's how the paths diverged, that's how they diverged...

Critics of the position presented here will certainly notice that the “values” listed in the right column of the table are, rather, declared ideals, but in fact in modern Russia the degree of consumerism is exactly the same as in Western Europe. And they steal and lie in our country even more than in the West. And there is no solidary society in Russia, but there is an oligarchic state. And there are problems with justice.

Indeed, much of what is listed does not actually exist in Russia today. But the fact of the matter is that it contains not so much current Russian values ​​(which are in a state of erosion largely due to their purposeful pro-Western recoding), but “the values ​​of Russian civilization”, which constitute the immanent content of the civilizational code of our country. A code that Russia partially abandoned in the Soviet and then in the New Russian era, and today seeks, if not to restore, then at least to take as a basis for the emerging turn to a new development strategy.

The problem with our “Western values” is not the content of these values ​​themselves, although some of them are being questioned today. The real problem is the triumphalism they acquired after the West's "victory" in the Cold War, and this dangerous triumphalism continues to this day. We have finally convinced ourselves that the whole world dreams of what we have already achieved, and, therefore, we can use any methods, including the most cruel and bloody, as well as secret operations, to spread and establish our values.

We have convinced ourselves that we have the right to do this, we tell ourselves that the end justifies the means. Therefore, we turn a blind eye to the side effects, so to speak, and continue to fulfill our noble and righteous mission. “As a result of this distorted view, so-called “bleeding-heart liberals” are emerging, calling for a humane solution to a colossal humanitarian crisis while at the same time intensifying NATO bombing,” Erlanger writes.

This is an insurmountable contradiction, based on the false idea that we have a responsibility to rid the world of the “bad guys” we don’t like and fill it with other “good guys” we love. We rarely think that this task may actually be impossible, or even, God forbid, that we are simply mistaken. Because, of course, Western values ​​themselves are “true” in any case. Or, as historian Paul Robinson recently wrote in his blog on the failures of Western foreign policy: “The idea that Western foreign policy doctrine might itself be false has never been the subject of serious analysis. And this leads to increased cognitive dissonance. And, accordingly, disasters pile on top of each other.”

Even a person who is absolutely not interested in geopolitics, if asked about it, will answer that Western values ​​are universal, the whole world strives for them, and attempts to spread these values ​​are a noble mission. We all witnessed the massive celebration of the beginning of the Arab Spring, heard from all Western high stands. We were told that this was a great moment for democracy. Our values, we believed, had begun their triumphal march throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The process acquired unprecedented proportions, and tears of happiness appeared in everyone’s eyes just from the mere thought of it. It doesn't take a genius to understand today how it all turned out.

However, there is no significant difference between relatively ignorant people and those who should have complete information. I argued with New York Times columnist Roger Cohen several months after he made the wildly dubious claim that Middle Eastern refugees were flocking to Europe to embrace Western values. It is for this reason, he wrote, that they do not rush, for example, to Russia. I objected that if Russia were located on the opposite shore of the Mediterranean Sea, where Greece and Italy are, they would try to get into Russia. I argued that Western values ​​have little, if anything, to do with the reasons that drive so many people to make such a dangerous journey to Europe. If it were Western values ​​that attracted them, I wrote, we would not have half the problems with integration and assimilation that constantly arise between the indigenous population and immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa that countries like Britain, France and Sweden have to face. .

I think it is quite clear that most of today's refugees would not be trying to reach Europe if their homes, towns and villages had not been destroyed. These destructions were the consequences civil war, repeatedly strengthened by various “humanitarian interventions” of NATO.

Stephen Erlanger emphasizes that one of the significant features of today's China, which is a combination of state capitalism and communism, is that it has shown no interest in spreading its own model throughout the world. “China compromises with the outside world for its own interests, clearly demarcated by moral values, and shows virtually no proselytism.”

The above is true, according to Erlanger, in relation to Russia. Russia, which is characterized by both authoritarianism and democracy, is interested in its near abroad, that is, countries that, for obvious reasons, are connected with it by a common language and culture. In other words, with places where people feel (and actually are) Russian.

This does not necessarily mean that Putin intends to carry out some historical mission of conquering the Baltic and restoring the former glory and power of the Soviet Union, as Barack Obama recently stated. This simply means that there are certain regions that Moscow considers as part of its sphere of influence, and, therefore, reacts more actively to all events that occur there. The problem is that Washington is absolutely convinced that America is the only country that has the right to a sphere of influence, and any point can be included in this sphere of influence at any time globe. At the same time, Moscow, from the American point of view, is simply not granted such a right, even close to its own borders.

More broadly, Russia, like China, has no interest in spreading its model of government or cultural values ​​to the rest of the world. Its own recent history makes it clear that this kind of imperialism simply does not work. This is why we hear so many statements from the Kremlin about the importance of a multipolar world order and international structures based on mutual respect, and not on dictate and the actual transfer of part of sovereignty to the self-proclaimed world leader.

Western leaders and politicians are unwilling to accept the fact that there may be countries and territories where a completely different model operates, and at the same time their continuous declarations of superiority are mixed with hypocrisy that is almost impossible to bear. While calling for one thing, they simultaneously do something completely different. Do what we say, don't do what we do! Forcibly imposing one's values ​​and “democracy” on other cultures that either do not want them or are not ready to accept them does not seem very democratic, to put it mildly.

Erlanger quotes American cultural historian Jacques Barzin: “Democracy cannot be established from the outside. It is formed depending on a combination of numerous elements and conditions. It cannot be copied from another people living nearby in a particular region. It cannot be brought by foreigners, and perhaps attempts to establish it from within through the efforts of dedicated citizens of the country will not lead to success.”

One way or another, there is something that Western leaders never talk about: even if a country already has democracy or some semblance of it, the West can forget about it at any time if it doesn’t like the regime. Democracy, apparently, immediately evaporates somewhere and appears again only when Western leaders want it. If the “right candidate” wins the election, this is a victory for democracy. If a politician undesirable for the West is elected, he must immediately be removed from power in the name, as you might guess, of freedom and democracy.

Not only democracy, but also state borders have a similar property of suddenly disappearing at the right moment. When US or Western interests are at stake, borders may well evaporate. And in fact, the White House once proudly declared that it did not intend to “respect the borders” of Syria when it found it necessary to intervene uninvited in the civil conflict on its territory. However, a few months later the whole world was talking about the border violation in Crimea.

Western interests are always legitimate, transparent and highly moral. The interests of Russia are always illegitimate, inexplicable and untenable from a moral point of view. This is the “general line” that the West stubbornly adheres to.

The author, Stephen Erlanger, is an American international journalist who has worked in more than 120 different countries. Currently, he is the London bureau chief for the newspaper "The New York Times».