And Civilization, If Everyone Behaves This Way?

One is tempted to write off Russians as self-caused sufferers of delusion and destruction, not only for being the champions of communism and hopelessly attempting to force equality and mediocrity on all unable to escape the empire. Stalin and Lenin were by no means unique in Russian tradition, a problem captured by works such as Puskin's Boris Godunov (1831) and Gogol's The Government Inspector (1842) trying to warn their countrymen by showing how bad tendencies doomed the entire society for the next several centuries.

The same sickness is psychologically harmonious with a lifelong vodka haze: utter disregard for consequences in favor of the moment's poisoned beliefs about reality, with tolerance of corruption sustained by violence against non-believers. This societal structure attempts to steal from itself, with value frittered away through lying, cheating, negativity, endless pits, fraud, and devotion to illusion. It was not a mistake that Dr. Lysenko won sainthood with his innovative and revolutionary discoveries.

"Evil men have no songs." How is it, then, that the Russians have songs?

It appears Russians have nothing in common with Europeans, until you find that their greatest artists and thinkers defy every tendency of their countrymen and share the same aspiration and awareness as all visionaries ever have. The brightness of their souls, daring honesty, and rich sensibilities -- as if transplanted by the cosmos as a gift of extraordinary perception intended to rehabilitate the whole or at least hold off total collapse.

No educational system studies great people or teaches how a person can cultivate superior traits and become better, yet a handful of exceptional people created all of civilization, their efforts outlasting death and even previous civilizations long gone. If we change our role models and cultural expectations from the contemporary to those that are excellent and timelessly enduring, we could once again have a society that was meaningful and rewarding.