" Free cultures get what they celebrate "
Dean Kamen
After the bitter and toxic lesson of the 20 years that have already passed*) , anyone can now see that at least three generations of Romanians have lost their "bet with history", to paraphrase one of the most cynical and long-lived Romanian politicians. In the absence of a utopian and impossible group, community, and social solidarity (the causes of this situation no longer matter here), no individual initiative can change the course of history. Let us analyze in the graph below the relationship between historical and individual time for a period of approximately 100 years, taking as a reference point the year 1989, a crucial year for Romania and Eastern Europe. If we consider the 20 years as a standard interval, then an intuitive representation of the historical cycle could be the one below :
By convention, we consider the historical cycle to consist of four periods (I-IV), each with associated economic, social and psychological costs:
I - (1989 - 2009) - Social Deconstruction ("The End of Illusions").
II - (2009 - 2029) - The social settlement ("Social Depression")
III - (2029 - 2049) - Social Reconstruction ("Social Aggregation")
IV - (2049 - 2069) - Social development ("Social Solidarity")
The first two ("The End of Illusions" and "Social Depression") are a social cost paid for the mentalities associated with the previous era and kept alive artificially by indirect social control exercised through the mass media. Only in the last two periods ("Social Aggregation" and "Social Solidarity") will it be possible to truly speak of the emergence and social learning , and on a large scale, of new individual, group and social behaviors and mentalities - open communication, collaboration, team spirit, respect for personal space, human and social solidarity, etc. Let us briefly characterize these stages:
I. It is the most traumatic period in the modern history of Romania, defined by a former president as "state terrorism". Through the brutal repression of social cohesion and any tendencies of social aggregation, society regressed dramatically to a primitive stage, being completely transformed from an "aquarium" into a "fish soup". The annihilation of social memory, the stimulation and maintenance of suspicion and distrust, the state-citizen conflict, the associated social chaos, have reached pathological levels, causing the total collapse of the system of democratic values and generating negative social selection.
II. This stage is a social setback associated with the previous period of social deconstruction, being characterized by centrifugal social tendencies, confusion of values, and major social disintegration. The destructuring of the value system and the intense cultivation of negative social selection from the previous stage have now led to a major social disinhibition defined by:
- evading political and social responsibility, the disappearance of borders and social categories, the reversal of the scale of values and moral polarity ("crimes without criminals", "corruption without the corrupt", etc.)
- loss of credibility of state institutions, political parties and civil society representatives ("moral bankruptcy", "infiltration" thesis, etc.)
- hyperinflation and demonetization of intellectual, professional and social skills ( "30,000 fake university diplomas..."; " 25,000 doctorates in the last ten years and their secrecy by the Ministry of Education and the secrecy of ministerial orders through which thousands of candidates annually become professors and university doctors "; "30,000 employees on file in the Ministry of Interior" etc.)
- major increase in social aggression to the detriment of citizens' rights and safety ("domination of underworld and mafia clans", etc.)
- the intense social cultivation of vulgarity, obscenity and pornography (the "sexual revolution")
- the loss of social hope and the destructuring of the last strongholds of social cohesion through the emergence of social abandonment and catastrophic social reactions ("the last one turns off the light"; "whoever can escapes", etc.).
III. This is the beginning stage of a new social cycle following the "reaching of the abyss" of the previous stage and the first characterized by the manifestation of social aggregation and centripetal tendencies. Society and its members relearn to live together, the first transparent and honest civic initiatives with real social success appear, which become reference centers for social memory.
IV. The final stage is that of social development and solidarity. Although it now exists in reality in the northern states of Europe, for the current state of Romanian society it is a science fiction type.
Let's now analyze the passing of the baton between the post-communist generations:
(1) This is generation 0, lacking social memory, of those born in the year of the Revolution, namely those who are now 20 years old. It grew up in the most traumatic period in Romanian history, pays the full costs associated with the social change specific to the following period (II), and is the most vulnerable to social depression and loss of hope.
(2) It is the generation of those who were 20 years old in 1989, are now living their adulthood, but are slowly leaving the ring, and in another 20 years (which have already begun...) they will completely hand over the baton. It is the generation sacrificed in the Revolution and the murdered future of Romania, being the only one that could have truly brought about change, which is why it was terribly hunted in the mines and forced to disperse to the four corners of the world.
(3) This is the generation of those who were 40 in 1989, are 60 now and are already passing the baton. The probability that this generation will produce social change is minimal.
(4) This generation born in 2009 and with the risk associated with being formed in a period of social depression, will live its maturity in an era of social effervescence, will catch the seeds of real social change and perhaps the first signs of the development of Romanian society.
(5) Finally, if Romanians are to have a common future, the generation that will be born in another 20 years from now will truly benefit in childhood, adolescence and adulthood from the sacrifices of previous generations, will fulfill their hopes and perhaps the impossible dream of Mihai Eminescu, if this too will remain a national value by then and if we will still exist as a nation.
Conclusions
Generations (1), (2), and (3) can say goodbye to history in the sense that they will not be able to benefit from social change. The only exception can be (1), which at best could catch the beginning of it. The positioning of generations on this grid demonstrates that human solidarity (social, community, group) is the missing link in Romanian society, which for now makes it absolutely impossible to carry out long-term social projects (minimum 25 years, for example). Therefore, the only valid strategy for building a collective future is the individual involvement of citizens in social projects, but for the stage we are in now as a society, this involvement is for now a utopia and a contradiction in terms ("I'm not interested"; "It's not my problem", etc.). On the other hand, the individual positioning on this grid shows us that an individual and realistic life scenario cannot be separated from the social scenario which, unfortunately, is a pessimistic one and in which the dice have already been cast. As such, the present generations have lost the bet with history and only a social miracle can reset the casting of the dice. Finally, without a complete reactivation of the boycotted and systematically destroyed social memory, and without a real change in Romanian institutions, any democratic social change in Romania will remain only virtual and will never become reality. Perhaps that is why true Romanians always, and without wanting to, retell the story of the Wandering Jew. They give the true measure of their value, and are recognized and respected as such in other lands, but extremely rarely or not at all in their own country. There is a hand of fate here too, right?!
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David Piguet Author