When “the people” are turned into a bludgeon, the individual citizen recedes into the background.
Thomas Mann writes in Doctor Faustus:
“For any friend of enlightenment, the word, the concept, of volk always carries some archaic apprehension, and he knows that one needs to address the crowd as the volk only if one wishes to lure them into some regressive evil. What all has not happened before our eyes—and not just before our eyes, either—in the name of the volk that could never have happened in the name of God, or of humanity, or of justice!”
Mann began writing the novel in 1943, when it was already clear that Germany would face defeat. Like all reasonable people, he understood that one of the reasons for that defeat was the evil committed in the name of “the volk.”
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I avoid using the word people because, while political science can define it, in political, journalistic, and social media discourse it is applied arbitrarily: “The people know who this or that is.” “The people have long rejected you.” “The people will have their say.” “I will not allow anyone to insult my people.”
This repertoire has been repeated by Civil Contract for the past seven years. Beating one’s chest while endlessly invoking “the people” has been a constant feature of politicians for centuries. The opposition does the same: “Our wise people already understand where Pashinyan’s regime is taking them.” Or: “Our not-so-wise people do not realize that we are on the verge of losing our statehood.”
This is roughly how political scientist Artur Khachikyan expressed himself, and he was strongly attacked by Pashinyan’s propagandists. The most active Pashinyan loyalists rushed to write denunciations, all in the name of “defending the people.” I also disagree with Dr. Khachikyan’s use of the word people. In Armenia, there is no singular “people.” There are citizens—individuals who orient themselves in one way or another and express their positions (even indifference counts as a position).
Some citizens are satisfied with Pashinyan, others are dissatisfied, and the overwhelming majority are deeply indifferent to all social issues, including whether we even have a state. This indifferent majority, in practice, is loyal to the current authorities. But these three categories are neither “zombies” nor “the people.” They are citizens whose positions are shaped by:
a) knowledge,
b) horizons, and
c) experience.
Of course, these factors must be studied. But attaching the label people to citizens, and then—based on one’s own preferences—assigning positive or negative characteristics to this “people,” seems ineffective. Unless, of course, the purpose is political propaganda.
…Supporters of Pashinyan sometimes write to me: “So, the whole people are wrong, and only you are right?” But what do they mean by “the whole people”? Three million citizens? Ten million Armenians? Let us suppose my opinion differs from those three or ten million. Does that mean I am not part of the “people”?
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
