On the issue of demography: moral climate
Recently, in Military Review, authors often raise the topic of population decline and related problems of migration and questions about the need to increase demographics.
Of course, the topic is very relevant, given that since the beginning of the Northern Military District we have lost some people who emigrated abroad, and some due to losses within the conflict. The fact that new regions and their demographics were annexed in the process made the numbers positive, however, as they say, unfortunately, it’s not over yet. And the SVO is not finished, and emigration is not finished.
So I won’t waste letters on moaning, there’s already been enough talk about the decline of the gene pool, and I’ll go straight to the heart of the matter - let’s look at the problem of demographic decline, as I see it.
They say that a problem, if it is unscrewed into screws and dowels, loses its insurmountability and simply turns into a problem that can be solved one way or another.
It would be a wish!
Moral climate
I see the important, and perhaps the first, problem of demographic decline not as an economic issue, although it shares the first line with morality in importance. Let's leave the economic factor for later - the devil is in the details, and in the decline of the birth rate there are enough of them even without the economy.
Morality, setting, environment, substrate - all these are clearly the most important elements of the reproduction of anything (anyone) whatsoever. These are already biological laws - man is also subject to them, no matter what kind of king of nature he considers himself.
Let's look back many years ago - were there many reasons for positivity?
As our president liked to say as he spent almost every year: “It was not easy.” Any country has its share of difficult years, but when the chain of such years becomes quite long, and you can no longer see the beginning or feel the end, this will certainly affect morality.
Whatever you say, we largely perceive our surroundings through sensations - as you know, walking down a mountain is easier than uphill, but there is no feeling in the air that we are already starting to walk down the mountain.
Each such “difficulty”, each fact, a year or so since 2010 offhand, led us up the mountain.
No, there was a certain period when the average person on the plateau breathed a sigh of relief - after the end of the Chechen war and before the beginning of 08.08.08/2008/XNUMX and the economic crisis of XNUMX.
Then there was also a short period of rest - 2009–2010. And then we began to climb - and Sochi 2014 was, as they say, lights on the path.
For those who remember those years well, I mean some 2007–2010, I think there is no need to explain how much was different then from now. And not only in terms of the international situation. The screws were much less tightened, the opposition rhetoric sounded much less apocalyptic, and in general - yes, it still sounded then.
It was not yet fashionable to show cartoons about superweapons and dress up children in military uniforms. And in general, the one so beloved by many – nuclear – sounded much less frequently. weapon.
On TV one could still see calm analytical programs in which the participants did not splutter and did not have epileptic seizures; there one could still see real experts with calm faces and cool heads. And, in addition to analytics, there were programs about science and international cooperation, and in the news they did not fill the voids by collecting money or castigating the pernicious “someone out there” with a parade of savory epithets.
The problem of a toxic environment
Hatred. Does it sound like that? There is a lot of hatred and anger right now. She literally oozes toxic poison from every pore, the same Soloviev - if you remember the years like 2008–2010, he was still watchable in places. Well, okay, he sometimes invited adequate people and allowed them to talk without interrupting.
For a modern person, a fruit of the late 90s, who did not experience any special cruelties like terrorist attacks and the Chechen wars, who grew up on the remnants of Soviet humanism, which was still found in the cultural product, and who grew up on the remnants of Western humanism, free from many crazy things that Nowadays people easily fall into mass culture - for these people with their values, what does it feel like to feel such a wild contrast now?
Of course it will be theirs frighten. Especially if it develops progressively.
But we take the issue of the current mass culture - after all, its activities can (and should) in such difficult times smooth out accents, entertain people, improve the moral climate, and meet needs by producing a sought-after product.
Instead, what do we see?
An endless stream of low-grade archaics, identical dramas about suffering, poverty and hopelessness. Stupid, amazingly formulaic melodramas, also with sediment. Endless relishing of the crime theme in all its 50 shades of gray - I want to ask, what do you charge people with? Don't they have enough depression?
Of course, there are good films and TV series - but all of this is literally drowned in fierce quantities of passable, colorless content that brings toxicity or despondency, rather than taking it away.
Lack of an image of an attractive future
Where is our mass culture developing in general?
We have a lot of talk about how our culture is a world-class culture - but do you have this feeling? I personally don't have one.
You can’t endlessly eat the classics of the XNUMXth century; modern culture must find beautiful, aesthetic images and answers to today’s questions. She must create characters who see what is ahead - over there, where “Russian civilization” is, where the future is, for the sake of which this is all now.
We must show this to ourselves in a good way, so that we are not ashamed to show it to others. Even so - so that they themselves want to watch it, so that it hooks them the way Korean dramas or Japanese anime do.
But no, we are not creating something like that. Come on, point out to me that we have started making good cartoons - and I will answer you that there is no doubt, but cartoons are for very young children. And not for those who need to raise the demographics now.
For these people we have no an attractive image, an attractive image and a picture of the future, where you want to live yourself and for your children to live.
On the contrary, this future is hidden by leaden clouds; it is not visible in any way. A kind of singularity through which no one is even trying to build at least a semblance of an architecture of something attractive.
The vector of the existing tuner will not promote fertility, that's what I want to point out.
A person loves to dream, and even if he feels bad now, but he sees that everything is getting better or not getting worse, he begins to live in this tomorrow with his thoughts and aspirations. This is what helped us survive the horror at all times.
But now, as if this issue and its importance are not understood at all, the phrase “more hardcore” fits perfectly.
Questions that are long overdue
We urgently need a competent policy to saturate the information field with something long-lasting positive, reduce depressive content, detoxify the airwaves and, in general, we need to outline an image of the future for people.
Clear, logical – that’s what we strive for. Material indicators in an aesthetic shell. And preferably without cartoons with weapons and excessive fantasy. The more real, attractive and achievable it looks, the less abstract it is perceived, the better.
We need to outline a concrete future for people and give them the feeling that we have almost reached the top of the mountain in the present. It has to be something long-term, carefully built.
Without this, our moral climate will continue to deteriorate - and some will emigrate, some will not give birth, some will become drunkards. With this, peoples will flock to us, couples will want to have many children, and there will be no need to engage in self-destruction...
So, a competent solution to this problem will have a positive impact not only on demographics: a positive moral climate is the basis for the success of the country and its population, one of the pillars of its attractiveness at the international level.
In the next article I will consider other aspects of the demographic problem - and, as always, your opinion is very important to me, dear readers!
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