“The Shield and the Sword” – in my opinion, there is an episode in this wonderful Soviet film when the actor comes out on stage in the appearance of Charlie Chaplin and simply raises his hand. The fascists gathered begin throwing eggs to his face. “Charlie” is standing for this very reason to get humiliating hits. As the other actress of the “show” explains, “we are executing the Reichs Führer’s command, raising the combating spirit of our troops.” The soldiers feel themselves good for egg throwing “joint ceremony”, their combating spirit apparently is rising. A classical example of “negative consolidation”.
Not only severe restriction of freedoms is typical to totalitarian societies, but also the “negative consolidation”, a consolidation against something, which, among other things, provides the high rating of the “leader” fighting against evil. Even if it is a positive (although, an absurd) notion – the worldwide communism, the Third Reich, Caliphate, etc., anyway, the main stimulus is consolidation against the “enemies”, jointly throwing the eggs. In many cases, the positive notion is absolutely missing, but the enemies should mandatorily be. This is true in Putin’s Russia, “we stand on our own feet while the Americans and Europeans are disturbing us.” Like in other totalitarian regimes, a task is set to divert people from the rational ideas, first of all, the aspiration of prosperous and peaceful life by shamanic and mystical allegations. In modern life, the “zombie-box” plays a decisive role here.
Armenia is a small country, there is no and almost there has been no very high rating of the first figures, neither during the independence nor the Soviet period. There is no and there could be no totalitarian system here too, though many think otherwise. However, negative consolidation traditions exist in us too, and in our case, much activeness is attributed to the “Facebook Armenians.” The recent case refers to the calling of the Diaspora Minister on the Diaspora Armenians to invest in our banking system. Maybe it was a wrong call, maybe it was made with a disrespectful tone, but the fact is that the Facebook “hangout” has not spared eggs to throw eggs in the direction of Hranush Hakobyan. I realize that after writing this much, some of the eggs will reach me too, but what should I do but to tolerate somehow.
Levon Javakhyan recalls in his “Kirva” short story (for which, he has also received quite a lot of “eggs”) that at the beginning of the Karabakh movement, he yielded to the destructive emotions, for which he is ashamed later. “At that time I was a hero, writes the writer, – until I returned to my human nature.” There are many heroes on the Internet.
Read also
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
