A split personality means a loss of identity

Factions and groups, wings and flanks are mushrooming on the soil of party functionaries’ different views. If the doctrines, from Ecclesiastes to the books of the eternally living one in Moscow’s mausoleum, are anything to go by, this was, is, and will be common practice. Even the monolithic CPSU consisted of structurally-different crystals of workers’ and peasants’ primitivism and bureaucratically-intellectual classicism. The ideology first cemented and then broke them apart, like the water turned to ice crushes the strongest concrete. The stratification of a party and the split of a personality lead to the loss of identity.

Since then, the radiators of Ukrainian party engines have not been filled with ideology. They use an antifreeze mixture of biblical truths and commandments from the communism builder’s moral code seasoned with market economy rules. It is practical, obliges one to nothing, and is accepted by all. Yet pure pragmatism does not guarantee close ranks. We can feel this on the example of the ruling party. You can see the split of its mass and residual consciousness with the naked eye. In the morning the party men travel to Europe, diversify gas supplies, and instill the norms of democracy, and in the evening they crawl towards the Customs Union, put the main pipeline on sale, while three branches of power twist the arms of the fourth one. They can be at the same time in human rights commissions and correctional facilities, in the ranks of the regime’s defenders and critics. They age Gog and Magog, entrance and exit, those who recline in the palanquin and who bend under the weight of the latter. They are different hypostases of the same creature. They are all in the places where a multiple personality is the sole condition of political survival. It is dangerous to form a united entity – it would look as if the leading beetle lost the shield of mimicry under the beak of a subordinate starling.

“Some people identify themselves as bearers of a multiple personality,” I read on a professional website about this phenomenon. “They consider this a natural variation of human consciousness rather than a deviation…” Consequently, far from all want to integrate into one personality.

Which of us would not like to get his double to sweat over textbooks, while his own self will be kicking the ball in the courtyard, or to send the biological clone to the opera, as the second ego will head for a pub? The dreams of cloning the body did not extend at first to the multiplication of souls. But now there is an opportunity to multiply the inner world. If you look around, you will see that there are very few of those who are responsible for their actions, speak about and do the same thing, and compare yesterday with today. All around, there are multiple personalities – always clean and flawless like single-use shirts. They will plunder an apartment and will immediately answer the call to catch the criminal, they will fight for the freedom of expression and sell it retail and wholesale, they will, if need be, shed tears over the Bard’s grave and hinder his language. With matchsticks of arsonists still in hand, they will immediately appear before the eyes of gapers, brandishing fire hoses. They do not get reincarnated, nor do they play according to Stanislavsky on national and foreign stages, and very often they do even suspect of their dual essence like the sleepwalkers who have woken up in bed without remembering their nighttime adventures.

A multiple personality is sincere in his or her words and persuasions. We just not always know whose voice this personality is speaking at the moment. Psychologist James Hillman opposes the definition of the multiple personality syndrome as a disorder and calls this attitude a cultural prejudice. “Problems emerge when multiple personalities refuse to cooperate altogether,” the scientist says. “In this case an experienced therapist should help them find a common language and teach them to respect one another. For every individual deserves a fair deal, doesn’t he?” This quote is from the same source – a website of specialists who unanimously advise not to treat dissociative identity disorder with medications. This doesn’t help.

BRING BACK THE GREAT COUNTRY AND STAGNATION

Our north-eastern brothers believe that the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev was the 20th century’s most successful ruler. In a poll conducted by an authoritative sociological service, he is followed by Joseph Stalin, while Mikhail Gorbachev closes the list – almost a third of those polled take a negative attitude to him. “Many Russians view him as a traitor who ruined and sold out a great country,” the media say, commenting on these results.

Before pondering on Russian preferences, let us get back to the time when the Russian Federation, which had just shaken the USSR dust off its feet, was thirsty for changes and optimistically looked into the future. It could have become a country of tomorrow, had it not been for an unfortunate historical error. Russia became the successor of the USSR which its constituent nations hated so much. On the first signal from the Bela Vezha Forest, the big and small ethnoses, now republics, ran away, while the elder sister remained behind at home with an inheritance. We thought that “the party’s gold,” ambassadorial buildings, and other valuable real estate would prevent that country from bending under the burden of the past. But the oppressive anthem of the Motherland of October, nostalgia for leaders, and other regressive changes did the job.

Now let us sum it up. What is the historical sense of the perestroika and a free Russia if the people were happy even without them? It is not just the case of “back in the USSR” – it is the whole epoch of Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin, Medvedev, and Putin again, that was flushed in the toilet. This is the result of picking up an old bag on the road without thinking a little. They thought it contained the property of former Soviet republics, but it turned out to be a ghost of the past. This ghost is now ruling the country that dreams of stagnation.

DECENT ONES MAY ALSO BE BEGGING

Once or twice a week, requests come at my Facebook address. Sometimes they are not worthy of special attention, such as “click a like to my wife who takes part in a Bikini competition.” Some of them are full of material content: “We are asking you for 100 meters of linoleum for a kindergarten, and if you do not have any, 100 liters of gasoline will do.” My partners, engaged in wine-producing business, send heaps of messages with coveted alcoholic wishes. Serious governmental institutions, foundations, organizations, administrations of commercial exhibitions and entertainment contests keep asking for something to be made available and handed over.

I will dare judge the requestors who are in dire straits and in bad need. We do help, if and when possible, our close and distant brethren who have ended up on the rocks. But it is far more difficult to help the needy when all without an exception are asking, and walking around with an outstretched hand is considered a decent occupation. A lady friend phoned me recently: “I invite you to a party. There will be such people there, such a gorgeous reception! Please bring over some alcohol, for you know everybody in this sphere.” What can I say to this? If I refuse, I will hurt them. If I agree, I will show weakness. The usual reaction is to block the requesters’ telephones, but moral and ethical problems are badly solved by means of technical methods. Begging is not exactly an exalting endeavor, and it is shameful to some extent to do so by the old and current yardsticks. But this has become a habit here. Sometimes even the state asks us, for example, to pay taxes in advance. And not always says “please.”