(no subject)

image via ya.ru

Back in the USSR, the government designated father as Parent#1 and mother as Parent#2. Further, every child would automatically get their second name assigned after their father as the official patronymic name. In short, patriarchy was built right into the very basic order of Soviet family.

At the same time, the mother was officially designated to be the head of the family because the father could always be drafted into the army and die on the battlefield, leaving the mother in charge of the children. That meant that the government put the father's military obligations above his family responsibilities. Essentially, the head of the government who would issue mobilization orders was considered the father of all fathers, i.e. Parent #0.

Probably, the same hierarchy is in effect in Russia today. This means that allowing people to chose their parents' designations subverts the implicit order of public life and challenges the hierarchy in a very subtle and deep way. If I'm allowed to chose who my Parent #1 is, I'm also allowed to tell the presumable Parent #0 to fuck off when he tries to draft me into the army. No wonder Putin rails against this tiny change in parent designations in his mad military speeches. It's one small step for Russian family; one giant leap for Russia.

Post-truth ca 19 century CE.

Turned against reason, this understanding behaves in the manner of ordinary common sense, giving credence to the latter’s view that truth rests on sensuous reality, that thoughts are only thoughts, that is, that only sense perception gives filling and reality to them; that reason, in so far as it abides in and for itself, generates only mental figments.

In this self-renunciation
of reason,
the concept of truth is lost,
is restricted
to the knowledge of mere
subjective truth,
of mere appearances,
of only something to which the nature of the fact
does not correspond;
knowledge has lapsed into opinion.

GWH Hegel, The Science of Logic.

Hegel was extremely successful in his project to rediscover truth and put on a solid foundation of new logic. I wonder whether something like that would be even possible in today's world. What would it take to overcome the post-truth attitude in our society?