Peter Pomerantsev on Postmodernism in Russia

Around the turn of the millennium, it became fashionable among Russian Duma deputies to quote Jacques Derrida or Jacques Lacan. The philosopher Alexander Dugin, who is close to the Kremlin, has taken the end of the grand narratives diagnosed by Jean-François Lyotard as the occasion for a new grand narrative: Russian imperialism. Leading Russia expert Peter Pomerantsev provides an insight into the influence of postmodernism on contemporary Russian politics.
Peter Pomerantsev is a journalist, author and television producer. His publications include Winning the Information War (CEPA's Information Warfare Project in Partnership with the Legatum Institute 2016) and Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia (PublicAffairs 2014)

[@mryouben]

Tx Mr Pomerantzev

[@RoundSparrow]

@26:50 - in both UK and Germany he finds people war a mask. Autism masking is a subject to expand upon this in modern times, the past 10 years there has been a "unmasking movement" in autism.

[@yrmanja]

If someone thinks that he/she can only take power by being part of a collective or can express his/her agency by having a strong leader it means that he/she thinks in a tribal way. I would replace word fascism with tribalism. Age of tribes is stil very much alive-not only in parts of Russia (Dagestan, Chechnya...), but also in Europe (Scotland, Albania, Montenegro..). In popular culture Africa is well known for tribalism. It seems to me that tribal culture is often mixed with criminal culture or criminal culture is masked by tribal culture.

[@your_gingerbread]

I don't know about Montenegro, but about Russia, unfortunately many westerners do not understand the so-called prison culture spread in Russia and which is sincerely romanticized on television. In addition, Russia instills this culture in its neighbors due to the common past as part of the USSR

[@your_gingerbread]

I would also like to add that Russia as a country, or rather the entire political line of its leadership, behaves precisely within the framework of prison culture. Such people are called gopniks. Such people understand only power, and this is precisely what people from other countries do not understand. This is not a mysterious Russian soul - it is literally a herd of savages.

[@your_gingerbread]

To some extent, I agree with your thesis about tribal culture, but with regard to Russia, it has a rather crystallized nature in the sense of fixation on the humiliation of the individual.

[@yrmanja]

@@your_gingerbread In terms of slavic tribalism, perhaps it would be better to call it slavic paganism. Igor Stravinsky's ballet Rite of Spring with Coreography of Vatslav Nijinsky and ballet the Wedding with Coreography of Bronislava Nijinska can give some answers in understanding russian paganism, but also mysticism. In some way it is close to teutonic spectrum of emotions that are connected with mystical societies such as Vril and Thule. Ballet Rite of Spring explains in a simple way how millions of young people can be recruitet for war and sacrificed for the sake of traumas of old people. Someone said that lives of Russians are cheap, but it is easy to remember that lives of Germans were also cheap, specially lives of young people. It is possible that prison culture and humiliation of the individual are results of gloryfing collectivism no matter if collective is nation, tribe, ideological or religious collective or group.