Comment by Evgeniy Dainov:
Politics follows with some delay what is happening in culture. The multiplication of today's populists – from Trump to Peevski – followed previously happened things in the sphere of morals.
Let's start from the beginning.
The painfully long ennoblement of morals and the formation of the modern cultural environment – somewhere between the 1550s and the 1880s – ultimately leads to what the historian Lord Acton formulates as "exiting from a dependent existence and going towards an independent life". At the end of this process, after 1945, we get liberal democracy, in which we continue to live and prosper. It is characterized by its democratic character (ruled by representatives of the majority), but also by its constitutional guarantees that these representatives will not crush minorities and individuals. The right of might, which dominated for millennia, was replaced by the power of law, protecting each individual from the power of the strong.
The return of the rule of the ruthless
This exaltation takes, in the end, about half a millennium - slow work. When culture goes downhill, the processes accelerate sharply; falling is easier than climbing. The brutalization of morals became visible at the very end of the 20th century. Today we observe with justified horror the political consequences: the return of the dominance of the strong and the ruthless.
In the last half of the 20th century we already observed a certain downward movement of culture. It was defined as "democratization". As post-war prosperity advanced, a huge middle class formed, which ended the previous division between the poor majority and the wealthy elite. It positioned itself in the middle and pulled the majority up, from a position of uncultivation ("savage", in Claude-Lévi-Strauss's terminology) to cultivation. It pulled the elite minority down, mixing it with the exalted majority. The mid-brow culture that set the style of the century was formed.
In politics and government, this culture imposed moderation of ideologies and modesty of morals, restraint of appetites and actions, self-discipline, hard work, politeness, goodwill and decency - i.e. restored the civic virtues formulated in Antiquity by thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle and Cicero.
Brutality of speech and cruelty of morals
Towards the end of the century, however, the measure turned out to be broken. The downward movement of culture went beyond democratization and entered the territory of barbarization. The barely entrenched virtues turned upside down and were replaced by those anti-virtues that Catholics describe as mortal sins: pride, greed, gluttony, lust, laziness, anger and envy. The shift to behavior dominated by such motivations gave birth to the brutality of speech and cruelty of morals that Vladimir Putin first demonstrated during the Second Chechen War. Not long after, in the form of greed and vulgarity, such behavior invaded Europe and finally - the United States.
The natural political result was the reshaping of the methods of power. Starting in the large global corporations and monopolies, law was replaced by force, and principles - by worship of the strong. In place of civil equality, feudal coteries took their place, forming around the powerful of the day and looking at citizens as serfs.
While we still lived in the world of law and democracy, extreme authoritarians did not seem to have much chance of becoming the rule. In Europe, they started losing elections as early as 2017-2019, and in the US, Donald Trump lost in 2020 to the liberal Biden. After that, however, the rules of civilized living were trampled under the hard-soled boots of force – first by Putin in Ukraine, then by Trump’s attempt to stay in power with the help of a rebellion. The brutality of speech and the demonstration of force in other countries continued and reversed the trend. In the atmosphere of force (and the fear that always accompanies it), authoritarian types were reborn and today seem to be dominant factors in world and national affairs.
I hear voices that this is the "new normal"; and that we should just resign ourselves, put our heads down, and find a niche where we won’t be harassed. However, this is impossible when it comes to the rule of force, since it is extremely aggressive and constantly expanding. On its national terrain, it becomes increasingly oppressive and eventually harasses everyone (it always has something to do with it). Outside of it, it sets out to prove its masculinity with aggression against other countries. And once it has begun, this aggression returns inside, where it leads to more repression. To justify it, it attacks more and more other countries outside.
How do we get out of the bottom of savagery?
This is what Putin did. This is what his colleagues like Fico, Orbán and Xi Jinping really want to do. This is what Trump is announcing today that he will do with regard to his domestic enemies, as well as with regard to foreign countries like Greenland, Panama, Mexico and Canada.
The conclusion is clear. If we manage to eliminate this madness with the methods of politics - before it has eliminated us - then we will immediately have to start restoring the measure in culture. From the bottom of savagery, into which we have fallen as societies, it is imperative that we manage to rise again to a life subject to virtues and culture in behavior.
Otherwise, everything will repeat itself again.