Facing "Ethical nazism"

Early this morning, after dealing with our cat's nausea episode and cleaning up consequences, I went back to bed, hoping to enter the dreamland again. I thought an article or two would help my body to relax and doze off. Oh, well, I signed up for a ride and it made some noise in my head.

The first article was written by Andrej Zvyagitsev, a famous Russian author movie director, who gave us the Leviathan and got awards at the Cannes Film Festival. The world recognized him for it. At the bottom of this article, I saw another hyperlink that said: "Konstantine Bogomolov. Kidnapping of Europe 2.0". Director's manifest. Another director, I like. Click.

Konstantine Bogomolov is known for being provocative. I just simply think he is an honest and smart person. It isn't as strange to me, that having those characteristics can provoke so many opinions. "Who are you to question things?" I have heard that since the first grade. I mean you should see how fast Russian media responded to his notorious manifesto.

I am interested not because I like them necessarily and they are famous, or would want to work with them, because I am an actor, but because they are sensitive human beings that act upon their feelings and ideas. They do things and their films are watched, plus they can see our world from a different angle. I read it first, to see how I feel, then decided what to do about it, because I had this feeling inside that made me crunch and twist my stomach. It was revolting and I was hungry, hungry to get to the truth of what is going in me at that moment. I decided to dig and dig deep. I am as good as my actions. And I know I risk being judged and/or rejected for it, but I care about my own opinion. So, let's see what happens. I will be putting in quotes all that he said directly in his Manifesto. The rest is either my interpretation or simply my reflection.

"The complex human"

Konstantin Bogomolov began his article by referring to the West as to the inmate and the main character of the movie Clockwork Orange, Alex, programmed to be disgusted by all the negativity, fearing any image or action of violence, regardless of its nature of origin. " Chemically castrated and lobotomized" into this day they go, imprisoning "the complex human" and sides of human nature, "beautiful,” creative side and "terrible," destructive, denying existence of the latter. To operate such power to balance both sides is a hard task to accomplish, that continuously changes itself, grows. Nowadays negativity is another monster to be feared of. Sorry, I am not sorry for being "so negative". It is a part of our life and that is the way it is. I have been lucky enough and obtained such knowledge by the time I became a 30-year-old man. I hid my true emotions, mostly the bad ones by myself, nobody forced me, I was just scared of what others would say. The lucky part happened when I was 24 years old and discovered acting. For the first time in my life, I voluntarily accepted it all, good and bad, and expressed it. I realized back then, that it can be expressed safely, and having feelings is alright, Terrible, and beautiful. The risk remains the same, even in art people may not like it. The same goes for life, you take risks and live or you can be sensitive and careful, hopefully you won't be putting yourselves in cages, regardless of how logically or ethically accepted they are. After all, you realize that all you do, you do it for yourself too, whether you know it or not. Sometimes we step into the shoes of people we despise ourselves, that's how I learned to think for myself the good and the bad, instead of joyfully joining the cool gang where I feel safe and happily nod my head with others. I still think about it though. Those sides, the bad one and the good one, coordinate with each other which informs us of our balance or lack thereof. It is intellectual, it's a more intuitive process as well.

"Ethical nazis"

"Nazis have changed into queer-activists, feminist fanatics, and ecological psychopaths, that are similarly hungry and aggressive towards total change in this world."

Sounds rather judgemental to an average American ear if you ask me. Russians can be very direct, to be honest, all eastern Europeans can get very honest without any filter it needs to be, let alone artists. It's their job, after all, to tell the truth, no sugar coating. Well, let's look at it this way.

Were protests violent and aggressive? Yes, they were, it's an emotional act, based on emotion, spontaneous, impulsive, uncontrollable, chaotic, fair if you ask me, needs to be expressed, I agree with that. There is a time when people just cannot take it anymore, time to show that you have teeth. I was born and raised in Ukraine, I should know enough about that, especially after what happened in the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv, on Feb 20, 2014, when dozens of people got shot dead on the square of Independence just because they went out to protest against being treated unfairly. Mostly men, young ones too. That is the true price of revolution, which is blood. And it always will be that way. I hate any violence of any kind. I was molded by it, sometimes I remember I got into a fight in school, looking at my classmate with raised fists, cheered by girls and boys, so that it can break off and take its course. Let alone the injustice that happened here, in the United States of America, is beyond compare. I sometimes let out a short psychotic giggle, because I don't get the racism here, and how stupid it is to base your actions just on the skin color of another fellow human. Just because they are different or something and I am scared to understand each other. We had a student from Africa in my hometown. I was a bit fascinated back then, when I was more or less innocent. I can only explain that it is all laziness to look one way but not the other, humans do that, habitually. It is hard to be willing to listen to others when all I want is to be treated fairly. People can be afraid and selfish.

“In totalitarianism, power suppressed free minds by putting any kind of fear through our minds”, it was forced, and people did snitch on each other, out of fear mostly. At some point, it became a power move to use those words against someone. However terrible that is, I feel similar about today. We do that voluntarily now, out of love so to speak. Joining the lines of a herd, that will judge and kill if possible(hopefully not)any sign of hatred in a country where free speech is accepted, but not always, especially for those who go against the mainstream, lashing back the digital whip of justice now without mercy and judging them. I wonder how much difference such a strategy can bring. We sure know that some people already lost their jobs over it, even careers, people that brought us culture and made us laugh, etc. Ah, we don't care about that, we can always get a new one. How much better are we after all? Or did we just join together to feel safe? That is where I get this feeling from, the revolt in me. I understand if you don't like it, and you want to talk about however indirect or direct one chooses to do so under the convenience of distance and anonymity provided by social media. How is that a freedom, when you fear to say what you want to say, because it may upset some people? How is it different? It will always be like that, it's a part of life. Let me bring an example from my life.

I crossed the US on a bicycle by myself, during the pandemic. With care and a bit of luck, I have caused zero cases. I did take a significant risk and life gave me back an adventure. An adventure where I've met a lot of people.

I've met at least 75 different people and their families on such an epic journey. Single mothers, single fathers, forgotten homeless veterans, our heroes we love so much, Trump supporters, people that hate all people, happy peaceful people, young adults, etc. Do you know what I saw in them? That they are all human, with human flaws like me, some I like and some I don't agree with, some of them I even argued with openly and tried to give them advice. And you know what I like them all for those very reasons, that regardless of anything they've said and done, however good or bad I felt about it they are still human. They accepted me into their home, however strange it may sound to let's say an average New yorker. I can say that I've lived long enough.

My point is that regardless of what experience I've had there I remained present as much as I could, allowing myself to listen. I even got into a quarrel with a one-handed state Ranger during hunting season in the desert. I could feel how hard he tried to prove himself to be in charge by threatening me to end up in jail for telling him the truth. I accidentally passed through the gates of a state park. I hated his behavior at that point, but we went through it and I am okay now, alive more than ever. All I wanted is to see caves, so well advertised by another state park ranger I met that day. I trusted him. Oh, well, shit happens too.

I learned that playing tug of war is never gonna get you to be a winner, in the end, only raising above it, even leaving it behind. You can stand for yourself and move on, continue to live freely. In short, I am worried about how things may unravel when people continue talking at each other, instead of talking to each other. You can't force love, even Denzel Washington said it once, that you cannot ever legislate it, no power can make us get along.

“Nationalists trained people like dogs to hate difference.

New ethical Reich is trained like a dog to love, taking away the right to hate”.

However scary it is to hate or to even use the word, it is in our nature, the other side of the human heart, I would say.

We care so much about who we are as individuals and yet have no tolerance and do not care for any identity other than our hiding behind lies. There ain't no right or wrong, but do you understand? or you just don't want to? I just hope that people will not turn this into one of the episodes from Black mirror come true, where speaking your mind freely can naturally turn into a prosecution process set in motion by a bunch of people hiding behind their screens with media giants like Facebook in charge of the self-promoted Justice department if not God sometimes.

Choosing a president was an easy task for me in 2020. Two people: "One is a child villain with a disorder of a compulsive liar, who ruled in a way that fashionably reminded me of actions of Fascism and Socialism when they had power. The other is a professional politician, also a villain, who knows what he is doing or makes a good impression of it.'' Both candidates are human. The choice is obvious and mostly intuitive. They all give promises anyways. The first one simply reminded me of Hitler more than the other. I chose the one who is less capable of starting another world war. I wouldn't want that to happen again. I did it out of fear, out of love for life, also out of anger and hatred that was passed on to me from previous generations who had enough guts to fight not for themselves but the future too. But there is no guarantee that the change will happen the way we want it to happen and forcing that change on others will result in an endless tug of war between each other inside an endless blackhole of all opinions that matter. I feel that especially in the US opinions only matter when they go viral, raise noise and turn some heads around to sign virtual petitions, I mean how hard can it be to do so from a laptop. Take me for example. I am here, inside of my room with all my thoughts and feelings. Sometimes I despise myself for it, because I, as so many of us am brave enough to write about stuff, because I believe that it matters to me, that when I see people talking at each other instead of to one another, sporadically beating their soft bodies, spraying gas in their eyes, hoping to blind their souls with fear, denying justice, embracing vengeance on both sides, even violence at times, stealing property, betraying loved once just be fair. It's chaotic, isn't it?

Changes are happening as we walk, share and like, talk and breathe, but it won't go far and it won't be much different if we continue this tug of war instead of raising above our ego, that instead of projecting our feeling, whether it is hate or love, but to be brave and talk to each other. I mean since all wait for changes, allow me to bring you back to reality.

As you may have heard in Ukraine the newest president was a comedian, a person with a talent to make everyone laugh. That was before he got fed up with empty lies and decided to try on the president's chair himself. And evidently, people wanted him to be there. The fact is you don't get to control the system until you know it, and you won't know it until you get in it. And so he did. A few years later things became different. Now we have Covid, a scandal with Trump inquiries to snitch out, two other wannabe Ukrainian presidents standing on stage, yapping about yesterday's news, when the term isn't even over yet. Chaos is back. Fair enough. What do I want in the end? For everybody to have a chance and live life, really live, not just behind screens but next to each other, willing to try not to point our fingers on a digital arena or actual streets, but in the physical world too. I can only hope for the best I can and for as long I can.

If you want to see the manifesto I was getting myself related to, here is the link:

https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2021/02/10/89120-pohischenie-evropy-2-0

Good luck!