Savages Are Bred In Us
SIRANUYSH PAPYAN
Story from Lragir.am News:
Published: 16:28:27 – 15/06/2011
Interview with Vazgen Ghazaryan, physicist, Candidate of Sciences
Vazgen, political developments in Armenia are around the same people
and forces. In your opinion, why new politicians are not born in 20
years of independence?
I agreeing but at the same time I disagree. Our political or even
the social environment in reality gives birth to young forces and
activists but the problem is that the majority of these “births” are,
to put it mildly, imperfect and do not live up to the expectations
of the circles who are concerned about this issue. Let me clarify
that I mean the expectations of the circles concerned about progress,
modernization, democratization and decriminalization and accordingly
the young forces which are able and willing to transform the state
and the society. In any environment, after making the bid, the force
becomes a player which acts in accordance with the laws and tendencies
of the given environment or has enough potential to resist to the
environment’s influence of neutralizing and sending to “idle mode”.
The first type is present in abundance, so the problem is the total
lack of the second type of forces which are able to cancel the “idle
mode” and awake the society from “numbness” and give new momentum
to development.
What causes this lack?
The issue is highly complicated and multilayered because in order to
understand it deeply it is necessary to try to understand in what
environment we act and what are the laws of this environment which
enable the members of the society to enter into politics and life. It
is even more difficult to speak about the rules which make the society
move, and I have no ambitions to make comprehensive judgments on this.
As I said, the society, the system, functions of setting to “idle mode”
are dominant in us. I think, generally it is expressed in the form of
material dominance, lack of mental efforts, instincts, and a set of
mingled habits which support them, which is excellent at preserving,
fossilizing, reserving a certain state, minimizing external influence,
both positive and negative. This system works under the principle of
neutralizing external influence which is able to change the system,
and if the latter is absent, it is almost unable to develop and change
from inside.
Such a system itself does not have a negative impact on the society
because it has a regulatory importance but as soon as it becomes
autocratic, it leads to stagnation.
The other is the system of search for new and bold ways of
development, development of abstract philosophical and theoretical
mind, experimenting.
The creative development and steady progress of the society requires
balance between these two forces which cause the society to move
forward, and regulate, stabilize this movement, which has lacked
for centuries.
You are describing an abstract model. What are its expressions in
our everyday life?
The examples are many. I said in my previous interview last year
that our historical experience is wasted, and our lifestyle is an
anachronism. It is connected with the abovementioned reflections
and the mechanisms of functioning of forces leading to relaxation
of our society. Relaxation itself leads to idleness of mind which
is expressed through phrases like “do you need that?”, “why are you
focusing on it?”, “just relax”. These are dominant motifs ruling out
any mental activity opposing to the material wellbeing.
This constant craving for “safe and relaxed condition” and the
absence of mental activity directed against it have perhaps caused the
reality that the activities of Armenians worldwide have been limited
to merchandising, an activity aimed at ensuring material wealth. Even
here, holding all the strings of global trade, the Armenian system
crashed as soon as the time of making mental effort came, and the
medieval status quo stopped satisfying the global players.
In a few years the entire Armenian trade network collapsed before
calculated actions, and the astronomical capital accrued during
centuries was wasted, bringing no development to us as a system,
society, people. Historical examples are many. If necessity, it
is possible to discuss them separately because they reveal serious
civilization problems, connected with the expressions of independent
or secondary thoughts in Armenia.
I think everyone is aware of the dominating tendencies to use
everything, every innovation, every achievement of science for material
needs or instincts. I was shocked to discover that many young people
refer to their Classmates page as internet, and refer to webcam as
Skype. These are minor indicators though there are major and trite
indicators and I think they are enough to show how low the absence
of environment of mental activity may bring a member of the society,
and how instinctive “nimbleness” can become a fighting national
trait. All this is the result of the action of the abovementioned
forces, more exactly, the absence of counteraction leading to balance.
Why isn’t this regulatory force shaped in our society?
Because every system wishes to keep the previous state, the “stable”
state. Of course, this is generally so. But in order to answer this
question, one needs to understand how it appeared. I cannot give a
complete answer to this question. I think every historical epoch
left its trace and seal, becoming a hookup of tested habits and
stereotypes but the main influence was, nevertheless, that of the
soviet period because it operated a mechanism of negative selection
which overlapped with the Armenian system’s dominating motives of
meeting material wellbeing and instincts, and started reproducing as
an administrative system, hindering the appearance of an innovative
mechanism or the development of the one in place.
The highly-fossilized and eternally repeating ideology, turning into
a mind-killing mantra, hindered the development of social science
and other humanitarian and social sciences, dragging it behind world
tendencies, and when it disappeared, it left behind absolute emptiness
and total absence of guidelines, not enabling the educated layer of
the society to orient in the changed reality and laid the basis for
reoperation of instinctive habits refined through ages.
Stalin’s system based on KGB’s intimidation made servility, cowardice
and flattery guarantees of social and political career of a person,
maximized the instinctive panicky thinking of sacrificing one’s
friend to save oneself. The social institutes pigeonholing everyone
and uprooting every note of pluralism crashed free mental activity.
This system baked through 1937, gulags and madhouses eventually shaped
the post-soviet environment which still reproduces itself despite
20 years of legal independence, gradually resembling the former
soviet system of functionaries produced by student boards, trade
unions, Communist party committee and provincial district committee
secretaries. This negative selection gave birth to the system which
we witness. This is the answer to the question why young politicians
now are the way they are. And this is the answer to the question what
news the nurseries like the young people’s parliament break.
The product of student boards and trade unions cannot be different.
Meanwhile the regime is pushing forward these social climbers because
those who disobey the system cannot be in the system.
And if the only alternative offered by the social system to a person
with normal education and mental activity who wants to have progress
is these organizations, I think it is clear why the able forces become
politically passive and mostly leave the country because they find
no arena for activity and expression. It is difficult to blame them
for failing to unite against the present-day “red army”.
Is only the Soviet to blame?
Of course, not. There is also the savage street selection. This is
already a profound problem of societies. A freak alone can prevent
the progress of ten talented children. Unfortunately, this phenomenon
is backed by our society’s “mentality”.
There is a hypothesis that language was created by the weak to
protect themselves from the strong. Gradually the “savage” genome
was replaced, and those individuals isolated from the society became
extinct, which marked the beginning of development of humankind. The
opposite process seems to have started in us, when savages are bred.
This is deeply opposed to the rules of a progressive, creative society
because the “mechanism of security” of a separate individual has
become dominant over the general security of the society.
I believe this shows that the disastrous dominance of the instinctive
system over mental activity leads to decay of the social system. This
savage social “neurosis” is not only the result but also an obvious
indicator of the crisis of “conservatism”.
In other words, our nation is not talented?
Of course, not. The correlation of able people is almost the same
everywhere. The problem is the environment necessary for progress. In
our country, it is zero.
Is it a matter of time or change of mentality?
It is a matter of making mental efforts, as well as deep analysis
and revelation of the causes, overcoming of systemic cowardice and
most importantly the Soviet Russian servility, which would allow
eliminating nurseries of functionaries and conformists.
The problem is whether we will have the courage to condemn the
past vicious systems. The first step towards problem solution is to
acknowledge the existence of the problem.
From: Baghdasarian
http://www.lragir.am/engsrc/interview22234.html