According to Bertolt Brecht's words, unhappy the land that is in need of heroes. In this sense, we are not only unhappy, but also unsuccessful, because especially the defeated nations are in great need of the heroes. Glorifying the nonexistent victories and not talking about the existing defeats inevitably leads to the rejection of any critical thought and silencing of the dissidents and to the axiomatic approaches and denial of any form of disagreements over the realities. As it's known, societies that silence dissidents are doomed to stagnation: lack of willingness to question their own history, traditions, culture and values testifies to the non-competitiveness and inferiority of the society.

Throughout the history, by glorifiying and sanctifiying many people and making their deeds unqestionable and indisputable, we have voluntarily deprived ourselves of sound logic. Considerations regarding any of the "heroes" for a large layer of society are viewed only at the emotional level -- outside of the political platform. This gives the opportunity to push forward politically unreliable and unrealistic pseudo-political agendas.

If the truth is repulsive, the society is plunging into a friendly lie. In other words, the lie becomes the main demand of the society and anyone who makes a convincing offer to provide the much needed lies, easily attracts large masses. The more trite and the more hackneyed is the political statement, the more impressive it is for the crowd, which has found a suitable form of self-engagement in the closed circle of senseless and empty realities. Let us take the motto of a regime change that has become a goal for everyone under the slogan "Overthrow the regime and capture the power". In this case, the change of power doesn’t imply the change of the system but the change of the roles of the same actors in the existing system. If instead of a systematic change-oriented vision, the society is being fed the idea of change of personalities, and the society swallows it and falls for a "steady change of power" promised by the "hero", naturally, this whole power revolutionary delirium ends with street clashes and finishes in social networks with fervent speeches.

And the fact that few people think of what kind of state we want to achieve as a result of the change of power speaks about the infantilism of our society, the disadvantage of the value system or its total absence, and low culture. It is easier for the embryonic society to find continuous "heroes" and attribute all their expectations and hopes to them, than self-organize and claim collective responsibility. Moreover, in order to preserve the image of the fancy "heroes", the society has gained great skill in distorting the reality and presenting it in the most favorable shade, as a result of which obscurantism, obfuscation and deception have become the main elements of our political identity. All this turns politics into a primitive sect and leads the public to a deadlock.  

Either the society must mature so that it does not escape self-determination, becomes able to define common values for everyone and draw out realistic programs and, therefore, get rid of the idols that reflect our defeats or be in free fall. The question is whether this society has sufficient potential, will and desire to mature…

Marina Muradyan