Comment by Ivaylo Noyzi Tsvetkov:
"I know about the duality of Bulgarian politics, well, I don't need a joker", the audience would say, if we had to paraphrase a former punk leader. But the leaked parts of the chats remind us that Bulgarian politics has always, and even more so now, been divided into "meta reality" - the official one, which we hear and see in the media - and the hidden one, driven by the belief that people's motives are, if not necessarily good, then at least understandable. In this "reality of reality" apparent political enemies write to each other as lovers, because they have agreed that politics is a priori a relativistic pursuit and therefore allows everything. Even if you seek approval from your supposedly greatest enemy.
The latter, of course, collapses the very idea of political struggle, hey, a struggle of ideas. Through this alleged violation of the rules, the fabric of our political system rots. All this also collapses the concept of full-fledged competition, ideological and otherwise, and in a sense leads us to the ancient Socratic "soma sema" ("the body is the tomb of the soul") or in this case: "the political body" is different from the "political soul".
The secret embraces between Levski and CSKA
"But wait a minute, there is no need for ancient philosophical references, everything is clear". And you would be somewhat right. Bulgarian politics in the last 30 years has always been dual - one for the electorate and a completely different one in reality, with other voices, in other rooms to which the public never has access.
These other rooms rightly doubt Bulgarian humanity, that it is a serial victim of what is supposedly happening there. And Bulgarian humanity, in general, is not wrong - we most often watch the media meta-reality in some television show, in which politicians furiously threaten how they will cut each other off by one political head, and the next morning they are back in parliament, entering other rooms and speaking to each other in a somewhat scandalously intimate manner. "Yes, yesterday I said never with you, but let's have a cup of coffee (oily or instant) and decide what we're doing."
Of course, this is far from just a Bulgarian practice, but if we think about the present and the future - Gegenwart und Zukunft - according to Jung's idea, we should at least worry, even talk about the aversion to publicity. But we don't, and this status quo often leads to a refusal to vote. Every time the stage curtain opens, all the Kikitas, Nikitas, Mikitas, Diditas, etc. somehow cease to have a public argument in the eyes of large segments of the population.
In short, one game for the media and a completely different one in reality. Here's a great parallel: In the meta-reality on the pitch and in front of the microphones between Levski and CSKA, everything is a kilo of blood and a meter of skin, but the other reality, where we are all on the chalga after the derby, governs us - the secret culture, according to which everyone writes/talks to all supposedly enemies, regardless of the tribalism that is otherwise offered to us in the official media.
The official so-called traditional or legacy media, in order to distinguish them from social networks, do not ask the Pythagorean question: But why do you do that? In other words, the controlled release of chats does not paint even 5% of the picture. In Bulgarian politics, Levski and CSKA often hug, but you are not given to know about it.
Can we make common sense popular again?
It is clear why they are careful not to peek behind the curtain - because of the solipsistic horror that they may lose even their small social capital. While in fact all of them (because they have long been "they" and are pure opposition to "us") with almost erotic pleasure affirm only one thing - the officialized, metareal BG politics, which considers itself immortal, precisely because it watches itself on the ever-obliging TV. While it is careful to take over the culturally primitive - some with a sold vote, others with a smartphone in hand, who simply "slide through Facebook or Instagram". And for whom there is a wonderful quote from John Kennedy, albeit from the late 1950s, which talks about people who believe that "mine is mine, and yours is up for negotiation". This also applies to the current government, assembled with seemingly Herculean effort. With the other voices in the other rooms...
Kennedy's is a classic, but don't forget the ending of this phrase: "You can't negotiate with such people". By "such people" we mean those who actually believe almost religiously that theirs is theirs.
Okay, another philosophical assumption: Each of you suspects that only some of us are relativists, but right now - after Trump's thunderous speech at the inauguration - it is extremely important to support neoconservatism at the expense of neoliberalism (for those who even know what neoliberalism means) - although the right-wing version of the latter is not much different. In fact, the difference is somewhat age-related - and through Trump, the true and maximum possible gerontocratic-machist order reigns again. By the way, the thing that made me laugh the most out of Trump's entire speech was that all federal employees must immediately abandon their home offices and report to work tomorrow. In our own words: "no more slacking".
But I wonder again: is there a way in our country to apply the so-called compartmentalization of thinking, which psychologists call Compartmentalization, to our political situation? That is, to bring back reason through criticism, according to that clever and truly rationalist online phrase: Let's make common sense common again or to make common sense popular again.
"Because this is politics"
I'm afraid that this does not concern us here: the cultural majority in our country grew up without social networks, mainly in a communist environment, ergo - today's adult Bulgarians are the most desperate relativists in history. I was going to say "since Hume", but in Hume's time, the mid-18th century, we can only boast of Paisios.
The only way out, completely irrelevant for the moment, is to both accept a certain status quo and adapt, and to remember that it, the status quo, usually overthrows itself.
That is, bad news for Bulgarian citizenship: Everyone, including some funny and tragically unprepared leaders of the supposedly liberal democratic forces, can no longer ignite a situation in which the double bottom of Bulgarian politics becomes relatively fair. That is, the "democratic forces" in our country have not just failed, but they are no longer "forces".
In the new Trump-reality, according to Vaz, only the Munchites will dare to protest. And NOT protesting is the easiest thing in the world: here and there there will only be sad songs about lost freedoms, and you will wonder why Bulgarian politics still has a double public bottom. That is, the incomprehensible opposition of the moment, including the PP, is actually anorexic and negotiates in other rooms, "because this is politics".
And so you will stay home. Just say "OK" and we will do it.