Recently I read quite an interesting material about the abolition of slavery in the United States, in which even documentary evidence of former slaves was enclosed. Imagine my surprise when most of those slaves talked about how well they lived in slavery and how bad their life became after its abolition.
The most difficult thing for yesterday’s slaves was to take responsibility for their lives. It turned out that people find it difficult to live without someone who will tell them when to wake up when to eat, what to wear what to do when to go to bed. The absence of such a master turned out critical for many of them. And even after getting freedom many slaves remained with the owners on the same terms and with the same rights as before.
When I tried to figure out how the abolition of serfdom was perceived here, it turned out that many peasants were also totally against the abolition of serfdom and being put out to pasture. And it is for the exact same reasons – it was scary to live without a master, to take responsibility for their lives. It is much easier to obey the will of another person.
We know for sure today, already as an axiom: slavery is bad. There’s no doubt in it, but are we completely free? Was Homo Sovieticus ever free?
Homo Sovieticus is any person born in totalitarian Soviet society. Do not be too worried, I also remember Andropov’s funeral. So Homo Sovieticus was very often told about freedom. But at the same time, it was pointed out what was good and what was bad. How to act, how to think, what a Soviet person should wear. What should be a woman’s job. How to raise people. So was that freedom at all? Or maybe just the illusion of freedom?
When I was reading about the last descendants of slaves in the United States, I even saw stories of grandchildren describing slavery past of their ancestors in bright colors. Even those that only heard the echoes and accounts of that slavery. Today I often hear young people who have never stood in line for a day to buy a bra, who did not fight in line for milk, and these young people, born in the era of free sale of sneakers and jeans, so easily get nostalgic about the party line, sausage for 2.20 rubles and plombir ice cream. Not to mention people born in the conditions of this slavery, when the “master” from above had to tell how to live, what to do and how to think. And it seems nowadays there is such a freest freedom that we can wallow in it – discover the world, savor life. But no – nostalgia about the past and about the image of the master and the syndrome of learned helplessness do not even let to open our eyes wide.
Recently, I had to talk to an audience about freedom. In particular, the freedom of women. That I can, I have the right, I want is not the same as I must. I had a long and rich talk, but the audience in which the majority was people older than 50 seemed not to understand much of what I was talking about there… what freedom, why? Why should a woman be able to choose a profession and a lifestyle? How can a father be on paternity leave, why should a woman work at all? They were frankly nostalgic about a kind of collective image of an old-fashioned family man and Oleh Vynnyk, who says to her, that 60-year-old lady: “Baby, don’t do anything, it’s a man’s world, I’ll settle everything for you. I’ll take charge of your life. Here’s the kitchen, here are the children, here’s the church, here’s the sausage. Don’t think at all anymore,” and tops it up with a blowing kiss.
People want to listen to the “master”, to a good man who will promise sky-high pensions, eternal youth and a flower for a holiday, that will tell them how to live, what to do, even tell what to experience and feel. It’s so easy – you don’t even have to think about your life, you don’t have to make hard decisions and take responsibility. After all, freedom is always a responsibility, your own great responsibility. And a free man does not look for those responsible for his life’s problems, but takes matters into his own hands and changes them. A free man does not need any ready-made thoughts put into his head, he can think himself. A free man does not need anyone to make a choice for him, he is able to choose for himself…
So who are we now, are we free people? Or are we simply still in search of a new master?
Tatusya Bo