Comment by Ivaylo Noyzi Tsvetkov:
So you wonder where to start. From Andreshkov's problem, in which the genius of Elin Pelin is not fully understood and we consider him a positive hero? From Vazov's "Candidate for the Hammam", in which the man with small accounts is ironically mocked as how he will blather on as an MP? Where? From Alekov's feuilletons?
And maybe none of that. No one described today's Bulgarian political opportunist, who takes advantage of the common Bulgarian cognitive bias - the tendency to reject new information that conflicts with already established understandings - and short-termism - focusing on short-term results at the expense of more distant, large and strategic goals. That is why it happens that literally anyone can be a politician without having the slightest preparation for it. It is precisely such people who, de facto, govern you.
The absurd has become normal
Let me remind you that in traditional democracies they cultivate future politicians in certain universities, which, by default, do not prepare political leaders. This is far from the case with everyone, but we have wonderful examples - from Gladstone and Salisbury to Churchill and Kennedy.
We have had more or less similar ones, but we do not have them at the moment. In the last three decades, we have had opportunist communists, lecturers from the Academy of Social Sciences and Social Management (AONSU), former tsars, skilled firefighters, hedge fund tricksters, show stars "with an opinion" and a special breed - "Varna excellent". Warming up at the touchline are military aviators, "southwestern" career lawyers with marshal's batons in their huge jackets and a few more ordinary "designers".
And the results, with few exceptions (in the case of the late AONSU lecturers on planned economy), are deplorable to this day. But far more deplorable is today's political situation from a cultural point of view - that the vast majority of Bulgarian voters from all stratification levels are passing or have already passed into the "banalization of the absurd" mode. That is, the complete absurdity of Bulgarian politics is becoming something normal, in a somehow acceptable environment.
The apathy that covers like a fog
In other words, the majority is somehow getting used to or has gotten used to living in the current political and social absurdity and this is sucking out the last joules of civic energy. It seems to me that this is the greatest cultural danger today, because it leads to partial or complete apathy towards the public and political.
Even to Max Weber's "disenchantment" from the political itself, including a secondary and doubly frustrating disenchantment from the subconscious primary disenchantment.
This is when certain relatively high expectations are not justified, and reality seems to be replaced by our peculiar political and all sorts of zug-zwang lately. The end result is this cultural apathy, in a sense creeping, which, like that fog of Stephen King, absorbs ever wider layers of citizens.
If we can joke and derive a formula - apathy (A) is equal to the political impasse (P), multiplied by the lack of a national goal (N) squared. For example, A=pn2.
And maybe like this: civic energy is equal to the political successful mass, multiplied by the speed at which changes occur, squared. And this is actually a very sad reference to Einstein, who reminds us that energy and mass are interconnected, and there is no speed of light.
But the question was about the purely cultural danger of apathy: the thing is that the match is very difficult to turn around in a cultural sense. If apathy towards politics in our country is two-thirds of the electorate and leads by at least 2:0, as it currently is, the return to relatively broad civic and political energy borders on the impossible. If we continue the football tactical metaphor: the political closes in from the back in a low block (the party cores) and lurks for corruption counterattacks, respectively - the civil eventually plays fruitlessly with passes in width (which of us exactly is the change and how to do it). If we even assume that the civil in question wants to win this match at all, and to play it at all.
More like Sanna Marin, less like Orban
Let's be philosophical for a moment, it usually doesn't hurt much. Apathy is nothing more than a cognitive trap. It also leads to dryness in the "government-voter" relationship, for which there is no invented magic gel. The only non-steroidal medicine is more liberal democracy. It is being implemented in the hope that sooner or later it will produce leaders more like Sanna Marin than Orban.
Why have we fallen into it? Because in their attitude towards politics, many make the same a priori mistake and from there they step on a primary vicious argument - that the current Bulgarian politicians are expected to act in the interest of the many. There is no such thing - the Schmeisser is asleep for you, and this partly leads to the sad result that we are observing.
We already have candidate Orban, candidates Harold Wilson and a tetrahedral candidate Fico. Will we also find our Sana, who - with a firm female hand - will show that the liberal democracy in question is alive not only constitutionally, but will also actually lead us to the prosperous existence of a functioning European state? Of course not, but in general cultural terms it is always good to hope.
That is, who, this time in small letters, will undertake to come up with a plan on how to reverse the above-mentioned cultural and political situation? Because this would be our only chance to leave our children from the Alpha generation a different Bulgaria.
It is healing!
Bulgaria of opportunities, Bulgaria of moderate but visible progress, Bulgaria of Estonian-style technology, Bulgaria of relative justice, without people whose suits look bad. Bulgaria, which has come out of the habit of Bulgarian absurdity and at least to some extent has also come out of the "Bulgarian model" of the bitter genius Stratiev, who left early and without time. Bulgaria of the choice to stay.
"Western" Bulgaria - in all senses, if you will. Something like "Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe" by Kendrick Lamar. With all kinds of "Western" problems - give them to us! We will also deal with "woke" the quarrels and the problems with migration - with their innate moderation and cynicism.
There is a possible BG world in which almost no one is ashamed of being Bulgarian - and it is in our hands, literally. But it goes through the exit from the cultural-political-life apathy, simple truancy and the habituation/adjustment to the "Bulgarian Absurd".
It is cured through small, everyday kindness and love for one's own. And agreement to observe common rules of life besides those enshrined in the law.
Less Facebook and producing nothing, more work. To refute the desperate Boycho Ognyanov, who shouts "What kind of people! What kind of people!"