Soviet-style ‘inner emigration’ is no escape from today’s reality
Stay informed with free updates
Just sign up to Policy MYFT DIGEST – Shipped directly to your inbox.
There is a flatter view in Bruno Monsaingeon Documentary About Switosislav Ricte, in which the world-famous pianist spoke about Stalin’s funeral in 1953. Moscow was summoned sharply, Richter was shaken by the open coffin of the Soviet leader.
He complained that they would present the score under the piano pedals so that they worked with the sixth Symphony of Tchaikovsky with the military group, Chikovsky’s son-in-law. From a musical point of view, Richert remembered. “All of them was overwhelming.”
The fact that the musician who lived throughout the Stalinist age could accidentally shine on the importance of dictator’s death, and showed amazing indifference to secular events. But these Chimes with the tradition of “Internal Emigration”, which developed both in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia as a mechanism for overcoming Totalitarianism. Unable to physically escape their country, they emigrated very much instead. For Richter, his inner world is much more than the outside world. The eternal genius of Bach exceeds Stalin’s temporary.
It is possible that Ritcher was exceptional in his ability to alleviate the outside world. But domestic emigration was re-registered in Russia today as anti-announced authoritarianism. And in many other countries, people seem to lose interest in the news, retreating from public life and prioritizing their inner world. “I intend to emigrate inside,” but frustrated, republican for a long time. wrote to the New York Times After last year’s US presidential election. “I think this is immediately impossible retreat, which should be engaged in politics, but sadly.”
This desire to turn off is understandable. There are very bad news in the world. Wars in Ukraine: Gaza and Sudan, the horrific growth of nationalism and the weakening disaster of climate change. There is also a Donald Trump’s phenomenon dominated by air waves, not only in the United States, but around the world.
As a technical-turn philosopher James Williams: They remember that Trump is like “the distributed denial of the service against a person’s will.” Just as hackers move to the botter armies to overestimate the websites and make them useless, so the victory assured the “strategic deviation”.
In the USA, AP-NORC feedback held in December It turned out that 65% of people felt that it is necessary to limit the consumption of political news due to the overload or fatigue of information. This trend was higher in the Democrats (72%), which had just lost the presidential election than the victorious Republicans (59%) that can be understood.
Today, one difference is the growing volume of news, speed and invasiveness, making it harder to escape. Social media is designed to be addicted and communicating with us. Anyone who wasted the evening with Doomscrolling Facebook, X, Tiktok and YouTube will know the feeling. Very often, according to research paper Computers in the Journal of Human Behavior last year, Doomscrolling can lead to “hopelessness”, “helplessness” and “existential anxiety”.
In his last book SuperBloom. What connection technologies tear us?Nicholas Knant warns about the dangers of our furious, FABRY, information-saturated time. Our individual and collective dependence on social media and a strong grip of giant technology companies now make it impossible to change the system. Thus, our only hope for “salvation” writes, lies in the voluntary actions of Excommunication and stands on the edge of the flow of information. “If you don’t live with your own code, then live by someone else.”
Carr has a point that should minimize deviation. But as someone who works for the media organization, I have obvious interest in people who continue to follow the news. Yes, the industry bears some responsibility to readers “If it bleeds it is leading to” negativity. However, attention is probably the most expensive asset we possess. We have to pay at least a few to follow the most important problems of the day.
It is clear that they, such as Richter, are in the totalitarian regimes retreat their inner worlds. But democracies depend on the active participation of the involved citizens, not only passive. Internal emigration can be formed in dangerous escapism, skipping the field for extremists to operate.
English