Mihail Pojarsky/Zocial Justice Warriors
Comparisons of the current history of the "naked party" with Western "cancel culture" are partly true and partly wrong. On the one hand, there is a fundamental difference in that there the abolition is managed by society, while in our country it is the state. However, both there and here they are canceled at the level of institutions, which are the layer between the public and media personalities. Brands, movies and music studios suddenly break contracts, abruptly turning a person into an untouchable. Nastya Ivleeva has also now begun to be canceled at the institutional level - MTS and Tinkov Bank are erasing her from reality. But the difference is also clear - in the West, the abolition takes place without parliamentary requests or tax audits. And here it is still unclear whether private companies would cancel someone without a comrade major who looms somewhere over the horizon.
But there is an important similarity. The abolition of both here and in the West occurs not at the request of the mass public, but under the pressure of a noisy minority. In the United States, “social justice warriors” are at the forefront of repeal. Activists are a small group, but organized and capable of collective action, and are also widely represented among workers in the media and educational sphere. When they make noise on social networks, the illusion of mass is created, and corporations, accustomed to responding to market signals, begin to get rid of toxic assets in the form of canceled people. Our Z community works in a similar way. This is a minority. Moreover, they are quite clearly aware of themselves as a minority - they themselves regularly cry that the people prefer to ignore the war, and their Z-agenda is not interesting to the masses. But as we see, they are no worse at emulating public sentiment than Western activists. There, well-fed white university youth present themselves as defenders of the oppressed inhabitants of the ghetto. We have sleek Moscow political strategists speaking on behalf of the offended masses of soldiers, who receive from the state and from advertising “NKVD knives” no less than Ivleeva.
In the West, corporations are slowly realizing that they are not dealing with the market, but with only cunning emulation. Therefore, the less you yourself play along in this performance, the less chance that you will actually be cancelled. In Russia, of course, this is more difficult. Here, Comrade Major will not disappear, even if you close your eyes very tightly. But in general the same logic applies. Surprisingly, Nastya Ivleeva grew up as an ordinary girl in the provinces, without a golden spoon in her mouth, but she forgot our Russian folk saying. Well, the one where the person asking “don’t hit me, it’s better to piss on me” ends up being both beaten and pissed on. Unlike IT specialists, artists are strongly tied to their native country, so the tendency towards conformity here is understandable. But it’s worth noting: those artists in a better position today are those who voluntarily or forcedly slammed the door a couple of years ago. How can you cancel Pugacheva living in Israel now? Or Morgenstern sitting in Dubai? No way. Arms are short. Surely, it was not easy for them to transport assets; they were faced with a decrease in their usual standard of living. But in exchange for these terrible difficulties, they received sound sleep. Those who decided to stay, bend, adapt and bow to Mizulina found themselves in a worse position. Now they have to stay awake at night, wondering what little thing someone will write a denunciation about tomorrow. After all, a “naked party” is really a trifle. Not a donation to Ukraine, not an anti-war statement. But having chosen conformity, they chose to live in fear of being eaten. And of course they will be eaten. And precisely because they cannot eat Pugacheva or Morgenstern.
Mihail Pojarsky 2023-12-27
