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A return of barbarism

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Abstract

This article discusses the 2022 war from the point of view of its well-documented savagery. It addresses philosophical discussions of barbarism and gives a dialectical explanation of this phenomenon through the gradual polarization between the forces of Enlightenment and the obstinacy of the subject. This clash has a double shape: formality versus materiality and morality versus happiness.

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Notes

  1. On populism as a logic of antagonism, see Laclau 2005.

  2. Jan-Werner Müller (2016), among others, believes an undemocratic authoritarian government can be populist if it is a result of populists coming to power.

  3. For example, in Kosovo: https://tass.ru/politika/14485101?utm_source=yandex.ru&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=yandex.ru&utm_referrer=yandex.ru, TASS, 26.04.2022.

  4. On the resentful aggressiveness in these strata, see for instance Gudkov 2004.

  5. On anti-populism, see Djagalov 2011 or Matveev 2013.

  6. Marquis de Condorcet, L’organisation générale de l’instruction publique (20 et 21 avril 1792), Discours à l’Assemblée Nationale, 20–21.04.1792. https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/histoire/7ed.asp#:~:text=Condorcet%20pr%C3%A9side%2C%20en%20outre%2C%20l,doit%20pr%C3%A9senter%20%C3%A0%20l%27Assembl%C3%A9e.:

    “Jamais un peuple ne jouira d’une liberté constante, assurée, si l’instruction dans les sciences politiques n’est pas générale, si elle n’y est pas indépendante de toutes les institutions sociales, si l’enthousiasme que vous excitez dans l’âme des citoyens n’est pas dirigé par la raison, s’il peut s’allumer pour ce qui ne serait pas la vérité, si en attachant l’homme par l’habitude, par l’imagination, par le sentiment à sa constitution, à ses lois, à sa liberté, vous ne lui préparez, par une instruction générale, les moyens de parvenir à une constitution plus parfaite, de se donner de meilleures lois, et d’atteindre à une liberté plus entière.” John Dewey: “A society which makes provision for participation in its good of all members on equal terms and which secures flexible readjustment of its institutions through interaction of the different forms of associated life is in so far democratic. Such a society must have a type of education which gives individuals a personal interest in social relationships and control, and the habits of mind which secure social changes without introducing disorder” (Dewey 1997, p. 99).

  7. “Memorial,” divided into Memorial International and Memorial Human Rights Centre, is a Russian NGO founded in 1989 with the purpose of commemorating the victims of Stalinist terror and, later added, of protecting the victims of contemporary unjust persecutions.

  8. “Sud nad Memorialom…,” https://www.bbc.com/russian/news-59772722. December 23, 2021. Attorney Jafyarov incriminated Memorial for “the formation of a negative image of state and the absence of proper labeling can cause a depressive condition in citizens.”

  9. See a study by the Russian “Levada-Center”: https://www.levada.ru/2021/06/21/samye-vydayushhiesya-lichnosti-v-istorii/. Stalin holds the top position in the all-Russian poll with a question “Please name ten most outstanding personalities of all times and places.” He “holds primacy in the poll since 2012.”

  10. This dissociation is analogous to the process of “Entbindung” of displeasure as described by Freud: in “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” he referred in this way to the dissociation of the life and death drive, that is, to the separation of negativity and positivity that had previously been mixed together (Freud 1920–1922, p. 10).

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  1. The European University at Saint-Petersburg, Saint-Petersburg, Russia

    Artemy Magun

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Correspondence to Artemy Magun.

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A fellowship from Gerda Henkel Foundation helped me in the preparation of this manuscript.

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Magun, A. A return of barbarism. Stud East Eur Thought 74, 483–492 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-022-09503-z

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