Secondhand Times by Svetlana Alexievich is a must read for #bookstr
Some highlights:
1. Frequent changes of social, economic and political systems create frictions among generations leading to nostalgia for the past and little hope for the future. Each generation feels as if they live in a different country when in fact they live in the same one. All this leads to the desire fot even more change having no stability upon which generations may compound on their progress.
2. Modern manipulation is based on fiction and is like a Matryoshka Doll giving rise to extremism.
Interview of 25 years old officer identifying as “[…] a Russian Orthodox patriot. I serve Our Lord. […] Who sold Russia out? The Jews. The Rootless.”
His proof comes from a falsely attributed quote of former CIA director Allen Dulles. What is the actual origin of the below mentioned quote that is at the bedrock of his mentality:
1971 Soviet fiction novel The Eternal Call (Vechny Zov) by Anatoly Ivanov — spoken by a fictional Nazi character, not Dulles.
“[…]What we’re dealing with is a conspiracy against Russia. […] After sowing chaos, we will imperceptibly substitute their values for false ones. We will find like-minded individuals, our allies within Russia … We will turn the youth into cynics, vulgarians, cosmopolitans. That’s how we’ll get our ways …”
This is what he is fighting against. If it would be true you could say he is rational. But when your propaganda is based on soviet fiction which is disguised as truth, adapted to current political tensions and you are spoon fed it, well your life is not rational or objective, you are just manipulated.
This is our world today, that is why one has to live life through #objectivism.
