NEFARIOUS RUSSIAN MINDSET: MANUAL FOR SURVIVAL
How to use Soviet wisdom to thrive in uncertain times.
Note: This guide was supposed to run in a cool post-woke downtown magazine. But turns out our practical life advice is too radical even for the edgiest gen-z’s in America. They’re not ready to listen to our ancient Soviet wisdom. They’re not ready to radically transform their lives. But we believe that you are. So we’re publishing it here…
America, and the West more broadly, is entering a phase of decline — people are afraid and there are signs of collapse everywhere for those not too scared to look. It can be daunting. Your society has abandoned you. What can any one person do on their own when faced with systemic failure — failure that has been building up for decades or even longer? Even the political movements opposed to the status quo are only working on the margins, leaving underlying structural problems intact and festering. But just because you’re on your on your own doesn’t mean there is nothing you can do. These are steps you can take on a personal level without waiting for big reforms in society that can immensely improve your quality of life today and right now. Yes, everything is against you. But you still have power and agency to live your life in a different, better way. And so we offer you this guide…
The principles in it are adapted from the best parts of Soviet society — no gulags here. The thing about Soviet values is that they come straight out of Christianity — they’re Christ’s message to the world, but stripped of its metaphysics. So it’s about practicing these values in your daily life and in your society, rather than going to Sunday mass and confessing your sins while never really taking the core principles to heart. The main thing to remember is that everything in this capitalist realism world is structured against happiness and communal fulfillment. But we still have power and agency. So it’s time to for you to reclaim what you can in your fight against this system. And perhaps your biggest foe is the toxic individualism that you’ve integrated into the core of your being.
RULE #1: TREAT FRIENDS LIKE FAMILY
Friends are the family you choose. So treat them like that. Share things with them, help each other, be there in times of need, don’t be obsessed with boundaries. Friendship is not just about hanging out at bars and having fun. It’s also about bothering each other sometimes. Let them live with you for months if they need to, spend two days helping them move from one city to another, be with them when they visit their mother in the hospital, even if it means you miss out on some fun. These are the memories that will remain with you and the ones that you’ll cherish. Not the parties or the sex or vacations.
RULE #2: ABOLISH BODY MAINTENANCE SPACES
Forget lonely sessions at the gym. Sports and physical activity should be for health and fun and community, rather than about a biometrics and chasing a perfect body image. Washboard abs and bulging triceps won’t make you happier or more attractive or make you a better lover. Gym rats are not sexy — they’re like those genetically modified chickens you see at the supermarket with puffed up breasts and legs.
RULE# 3: BABIES ARE NOT CONSUMER PRODUCTS
There’s never a perfect time for a baby because a baby is beyond your control. A baby isn’t something you buy like a car or a home when you make enough money, it’s part of being alive. To be OCD about picking the "right time” is to misunderstand the very nature of life. Anyway, it’s always better to have a baby when you’re younger because you need energy and you’ll get to have more life time together with your child. Also, your back and joints will thank you. Are you living in an apartment with a bunch of roommates? Who cares, have that baby — and who knows maybe your roommates will love it and baby sit for you. A baby is better than a cat or a hypoallergenic dog on prozac.
RULE #4: BIOLOGY IS REAL
Both sexes have their own limitations. It’s good to know and respect those differences. The differences don’t make you superior or inferior. Both have their strengths and weaknesses and imply different life cycles. Here’s an example: a young woman with nothing to her name but looks and personality can marry rich and have babies at 25, while a guy her age has to work harder to make something of himself. But a woman can’t do this at 50 while man can still have a shot at a family and kids.
RULE #5: TRAP HIM/HER WITH A BABY
This might sound cynical, but the way things are right now, the system is unfair to women. Men control most of the resources and the state offers no help to mothers. So take matters in your hands. If you want a child, trap him with a baby. You like him? You think he is smart and hot? Hopefully he comes from money? Stop talking birth control. Don’t ask if he wants kids. Let things happen. And if you’re a guy and you met a rich girl, you can still trap her too as long as she’s not on that birth control. Don’t worry, it won’t ruin her life. She’ll thank you later.
RULE# 6: A MARRIAGE IS JUST A PIECE OF PAPER
Don’t put so much stock on your marriage ceremony. Marry for love, be spontaneous. There are certain things you can’t plan. It’s an emotional thing. Embrace life. You can marry someone after two months of knowing them and they will be your mate for life. You can date someone for years and you’ll get divorced when you’re middle age and have kids and end up depressed and all alone. All those Disney princess fantasies broke your brain. Forget the giant diamond engagement ring. You’re not a prize horse.Get some self respect!
RULE# 7: LIVING WITH PARENTS IS COOL
Moving in with your parents as an adult is cool — it’s free food and shelter and you will have a chance to get to know your parents better outside of Thanksgiving and Christmas. And if you have a baby, even better. They’ll help with childcare and besides, it’s much healthier and more fun for a kid to live with an extended clan rather than a closed nuclear family, which is usually quite toxic. Living communally won’t isolate you and your kids from the cycles of life. They’ll see aging and death and wisdom right in front of them, which is good. And your parents won’t waste away alone and miserable in an old people’s home, but hang out with your kids and tell them stories. It’s a win-win situation, as long as you don’t hate your parents and they aren’t insufferable assholes.
RULE #8: EMBRACE THE AGE GAP
Don’t segregate your life based on age. Embrace age gap friendships (not just romance). Segregation by age leads to narrow mindedness and makes you dehumanize anyone outside your age group. Your age group is not the center of the universe. Learn from others and get a leg up in the world. Don’t be a closed off idiot. Talk to the grandma next to you’re on a park bench. She’s not glued to her phone like you. She might be the coolest chick around and will tell you about the 70s.
RULE #9: CAREER SUCCESS DOES NOT GUARANTEE LOVE
Marry your college/high school sweetheart if you love them. Don’t put off relationships to pursue success. You might lose your chance at love. It might never come to you again, no matter what a big shot you become or how big your bank account gets. Love is precious. It’s not a consumer product available for purchase when you’re ready for it. Have you ever seen the old sweet couple who walks in the park holding hands and who lovingly look at each other, even though they are all gray haired and wrinkled? Well, they do that because they lived a long life together — and they see the attractive young people in each other’s face they fell in love with decades ago. They look like that at each other because they care about someone more than they care about themselves…because they dissolved their ego into something bigger than themselves. Because love is magic. It puts you on a cloud among the mere plebes and makes you appreciate the world around you more. Don’t miss out on it.
RULE #10: MEDS ARE NOT THE SOLUTION
Some people — a minority — really need medications for their mental health. But for most people their problems are socially induced. Psych drugs don’t cure. And in many cases they simply mask what are essentially cultural problems. You’re not autistic nor do you have ADHD. You just spend too much time on social media and have lost the ability to spend time with other people without feeling weird. There is nothing wrong with your chin or your self image, you just take too many selfies. Stop medicalizing everything and stop running to your therapist. Talk to a friend and get away form the self-surveillance machines — your phone, your Apple watch.
RULE #11: ART IS NOT JUST FOR RICH PEOPLE / BEING CREATIVE IS NOT JUST A CAREER
We are all creative beings. Just look at memes — the ultimate people’s art. So art should be done by anyone who wants to do it. The art life shouldn’t be utilitarian — but should be within reach for all who are inclined. David Lynch worked as a plumber before he “made it in Hollywood” and he said he’d do his art anyway even if his day job was always plumbing. And anyway, being an artist isn’t just about a career — it’s about how you look at the world and interact with what’s around you. It can be an everyday thing — anyone can write stories and poetry and draw and, yes, even pump memes.
RULE #12: SAY NO TO BODY MODS
If everyone can tell you had work done, it doesn’t make you look younger or hotter. You look like a vain freak who tries to hold onto a youth that’s gone. People are uncomfortable and feel bad for you — like you’re a burn victim. Don’t do it. And this goes for men, too. You shouldn’t have the muscles of a 25 year old if you’re 65. You look like a freak, grandpa, drop the T and HGH. (The young model on your arm isn’t with you because your pecs are tight. She’s still with you for the money.)
RULE #13: BIEING TRAD AND A FEMINIST
Liberal feminism sold women short and did a lot of damage without delivering the goods. And by goods we mean: free childcare, a long maternity leave, support for things that help children develop like music and art classes and sports. Liberal feminism feels like a psyop meant to make women miserable. Sexual “revolution” liberated women to have as much sex as they want before marriage or instead of it. But everything that has to do with childrearing and maternity has remained private and unchanged, while the only thing that has “progressed” is the ability for women to work and climb the corporate ladder like a man. In that sense liberal feminism is more pro-trans women rather than biological women. Rachel Cusk had the same realization after living a big chunk of her life according to libfem values: “What I lived as feminism were in fact the male values my parents, among others, well-meaningly bequeathed me—the cross-dressing values of my father, and the anti-feminine values of my mother. So I am not a feminist. I am a self-hating transvestite.” So in this libfem world it’s still hard to be have kids and a career. But it shouldn’t be — in the Soviet Union maternity leave was a year long and all-day childcare was free along with sports and art and music classes and other leisure activities for kids. So you didn’t need a successful husband to have a family. Hell, you could be single mother if it came to that.
The NEFARIOUS RUSSIAN REVOLUTION awaits!
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Lynch also had a paper route while filming Eraserhead. He'd take breaks to go deliver newspapers. :)
Two thumbs up for free, or even heavily-subsidized, childcare - and long, long maternity AND paternity leave. It makes things far easier. Some of my inlaws in the States are forced into the "traditional" breadwinner dad at work and caregiver mum at home arrangement, because they don't have cheap childcare in Maryland. They felt struggling, unlike us in Queensland that could work double incomes once the maternity leave was over, because of the aforementioned childcare.
(But it's the childcare thing that makes me also sceptical of the "America, and the West more broadly, is entering a phase of decline" sentence. I can't quibble about the "America" part - I did see a lot of decaying and even rusting architecture when I last visited that States. But America isn't the West. It's a big cautionary tale to others in the West, however, if they choose not to ignore it.)