Note: if your first thought is “OMG social Darwinism”, it’s not - that ideology rather primitively applies strictly biological “dog eat dog” logic to human society[^1], while the actual evolutionary processes of societies are humbly studied and referred to as sociocultural evolution.[^2]
So, is #Russia really “world’s cancer”? The actual biological cancer is the result of a disruption of the mechanisms of control of cell division in a healthy organism, which have been developed by millenia of evolution. The disruption may be caused by environmental factors (mutagenic chemicals, radiation), biological factors (inflammation) or completely random mutations. There’s a few conditions here for a mutation (however caused) to develop into cancer, but that’s another story.
The idea that Russia exists somehow aside of the evolution would perfectly play with the old myth of Russian “uniqueness”, but it would also require another popular myth to be true.
Specifically, it would be the utopia that the current socio-economic system in Europe or the USA is the end of history and an ideal on which social evolution stops for all time.
I’ve asked myself a question: is a society in which people have to pay $400 a month for insulin an ideal which I would like to last forever? Okay, so let’s rather go on evolving…
The biological evolution is based on constant mutations that confront the environment and either give their carrier an advantage or not. Christianity, democracy and Enlightenment were such “mutations”, where societies invented new ways of organising themselves - and gained massive advantages.
But Russia is subject to social evolution just like any other society, it operates within the global evolution rather than somehow disrupting it. Russian kleptocracy is also certainly such an “evolutionary trait”, which, thanks to the wild money greedy British and European financial sector, has given Russian elites political influence in Europe and financial security at home.
Russian imperialism, too, is such a trait, which has flourished only thanks to the highly receptive Gerhard Schroeders of our time, and from the Russian point of view it absolutely worked. If not for Putin’s absolutely disastrous decision of 2022 Russia would continue accumulating enormous wealth, accessible to the lucky few, and enormous political influence on EU. From evolutionary point of view, they could grow forever, with serf-like society that never rebels.
Naturally, this particular social trait also holds the seeds of its collapse - inability to correct things that look like a mistake, mostly because they are a mistake. Popular Russian “wisdom” says “once we entered the fight, we need to fight till the end”. Many Russian political commentators literally use it on the single breath after confirming 2022 was a huge mistake.
But there’s a second side to this equation - the fact that Russian imperialism works is also only thanks to the weakness of European societies, which have made of the phrase “let someone else do something” an unofficial creed for the 21st century… this is precisely the process of social evolution that we are watching from the inside.
Putin’s decision was also an evolutionary one - to be precise, it tested the resolve of a system based on high-risk choices made by a narrow, authoritarian circle of command.
What happens next? Different outcomes are possible.
(continued)
[^1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism
[^2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociocultural_evolution
