An interesting incident happened during Prime Minister Putin's recent meeting with the representatives of political and non-governmental organisations. The secretary of the Public Chamber, Mr Velikhov, who was one of the first to speak, told the Prime Minister about a recent resolution of the Public Chamber's plenary session on the topic "The National Economic Strategy in the Context of the World Crisis". The resolution stressed the importance, in time of crisis, of understanding that the state is an institution of national solidarity. Before giving the floor to the next speaker, Mr Putin commented on Mr Velikhov's reference to the "need to consolidate society in the face of the threatening crisis today".
The fact that the guest and his host used words with the same root need not obscure the fact that they mean different things, etymologically even opposite things. In a nutshell, one can put it this way: speaking about the solidarity of a nation, people think in terms of "from the bottom up". The state and the Government use their levers to uphold the basic interests of the nation (basic means interests that have been accepted by national consensus and not scribbled on the back of an envelope by three spin doctors, of which more later). Speaking about the consolidation of society, people usually think in terms of "from top down": consolidation around something or more frequently around somebody. The leaders of the state - and the Government - know exactly what should be done and how, and it remains for society to support their labours in saving society (salut public, if anyone has forgotten).
Few of those present paid attention to this minor discrepancy, the majority just gathered that the host agreed with his guest, and that is what the newspapers wrote. One can understand people: however deep may be the difference between the two terms derived from the same root, they are outweighed by similarities. Thus, both national solidarity and consolidation of society are useful and at present both are commodities in short supply. No one has a universally acceptable or complete answer to the question why they are in short supply. The discussion of such topics tends to quickly degenerate into a "chicken and egg" argument: "government does not serve society well...", "no, society is immature," and so on ad infinitum. Some specific answers (for example that consolidation is unthinkable given the all-pervading corruption) are not satisfactory because they merely reformulate the riddle (isn't the unconquerable corruption itself a sign of lack of social solidarity?). Even so, I would stick my neck out and suggest another specific answer which does not appear to be totally tautological to me.
One of the reasons why consolidation is making no progress and no consensus on national interests has been achieved is that both the style of utterances and reactions to them have become binary. Until recently a decent person refrained from glib generalisations as automatically as he got up to his feet when a woman came in. He was taught that excessively strong conclusions were as bad as not washing your hands before eating. Not so today. After reading barely half a sentence the reader determines whether the author is "friend or foe" and the act of communication fizzles out without ever starting: the response to the speaker comes pat. That it is possible to agree with one sentence and disagree with another is hardly ever remembered even in private conversations, let alone public debates. If the text comes from a "foe" its author is sure to be if not a Kremlin stooge or "orange riff-raff," at least a moron and a jerk. A text that comes from a "friend" by definition cannot raise objections no matter what rubbish it may contain. Of course, I am exaggerating, as everybody does nowadays, but not too much. When a former presidential advisor was delivering lectures right and left and used regressions to argue that economic growth does not depend on the amount of investment did any of his "friends" challenge him?
The consequence of this primitive approach is inevitably a downgrading of the level of discussions and of its participants. The people who are used to not wanting to hear something quickly learn to ignore somebody they don't like. Their world becomes as barren and monochromatic as their attitude to their interlocutors.
Our editorial staff recently listened with admiration to an audiotape of an interview with a prominent Russian economist, an invariable member of the Government's expert panels. The expert claimed that it was not the Government's business to be interested in technological problems: its business is to create the right conditions. A member of our staff asked, "What about the Paulson plan?" Expert: "What about the Paulson plan? It's just three pages". When our employee assured his interlocutor that the adopted plan consisted of several volumes with a lot of far from institutional details such as concrete technological corridors, the expert was stunned, "You've got to be kidding". I think you would agree that such an approach has little chance of consolidating the expert community, let alone the whole society.
On second thoughts, my explanation is almost a tautology. Granted, manners are increasingly found wanting. But a pointed refusal to listen to "foes" is rather more directly linked to fundamentally different views on the goals of the nation and the priorities facing it. One hears from time to time that we have left the worst behind us, that the crisis is easing and will be over soon and everything will be fine again. Wish it were so. But if it isn't, if the economic situation becomes increasingly serious, the discussions on ways out of the crisis will become still more acute and there will be a lot of finger-pointing. Given the current level of communication between different groups, that guarantees severe polarisation when acknowledging some reasonable elements in what "the other side" says will be regarded not as merely old fashioned, but simply as an intellectual crime. One shudders to think how much more difficult it will be to arrive at reasonable solutions in the face of gigantic objective problems.
All this strikes me as not being very solid. Talking about words with the same root.
By Alexander Privalov