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Comment by lovegrenoble | Hacker News Reader

<<< Nobody on earth has taken utopia as seriously, on an intellectual, spiritual, and practical level, as the Russians. We have the Brits (by way of Sir Thomas More) to thank for the name and a general distrust of the idea, and America may have been founded on some ostensibly utopian notions, but it's the Russians who ultimately took the idea with the seriousness it merits and followed it to its (tragic, in their case) conclusion.>>>

Russian cosmism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cosmism

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The Russians are a people of fascinating extremes.

On one hand, as this explains, they've taken utopian ideas quite seriously and have always been great innovators in the sciences, the arts, and technology. First orbit, first person in space, designed the Tokamak, could easily have been first on the Moon if things had gone a little different, countless great artists and composers, etc.

On the other hand there seems to be a side of Russia that's cynical and nihilistic. There's a joke I heard once that goes something like "in America you die for freedom, in France you die for your country, in England you die for the Queen, and in Russia you die." Today you seem to have dominant thinkers in Russia like Aleksandr Dugin who believe only a tiny number of humans are worthy of agency and this is, with a lot of sophistry, romanticized. For a large number of Russians to swallow this implies to me a level of cynicism about the potential of the human condition.

Or maybe it's not a contradiction. Maybe the utopianism and innovativeness is a brave stand against the cynicism and totalitarian cults of misery-for-most.

The USA of course has its contradictions, like being simultaneously progressive and reactionary. It's a nation built on both slavery and liberation.

Well we are (humans) are quite lazy (by nature).

The only way for us to move anywhere is to establish set of motivations. Utopias (as extreme goals) are such grand scale motivations.

Were we, as a society, would be without Russian revolution and its attempt to implement extreme utopia of "happiness to everybody and free of charge here and now". I suspect that modern Europe and US that are social-democratic now (but not centuries later) is a result of that idealistic and utopian push Russians tried to implement ahead of time.

Humanity needs global goals that will motivate us to move further. Global warming fight is OK but not enough I think. Something great like "jump to stars now" and is required, no?

Russian here. Speaking of Dugin, I'm not a fan of his ideas about archaic way of living, and I don't personally know anyone who likes them. I consider him to be a hypocrite who talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk – unlike German Sterligov, who actually lives in a village without modern technology that he founded and built.

However, there's a sad fact about Dugin. He experienced a personal tragedy – his adult daughter was murdered, likely for political reasons. So, while I'm not a supporter of his ideas, I can never judge him for these ideas considering what he went through. Maybe advocating for these ideas is his way of surviving his tragedy.

However, his ideas seem to precede the tragedy

As a Russian how would you characterize Dugin? Over here he’s usually considered a fascist (which I don’t think is technically accurate, though he is authoritarian) or grouped with neo-monarchist type “trads.”

I’ve always had a dark view of him. His writing gives me a veiled nihilist vibe. He seems like someone who is bitter about something. He lives in a fantasy world and wants people punished if it can’t be real.

Not a unique thing. This is the dark side of many idealists and romantics. The more someone lives in a dream the more they often hate the real world.

I agree that the attempt on his life is sad and I’m sure further radicalized him, though most of his ideas predate that. Who do you think it was? I always had three possibilities: Ukraine, anti war Russians, or the Putin regime itself for some reason.

Maybe this is my cynicism, but I think the USA is not that different from Russia. The few people who have agency are just better at psychology. They are great at making the masses believe that the utopian ideals handed down from up high are their own ideals.

> The Russians are a people of fascinating extremes.

You could say this about most societies. Just pick one of a million dimensions that a culture is likely to be an outlier in and blamo you got a radical society.

Nikolai Fyodorov was first Russian Cosmist, and his real last name was Gagarin

MIT press released a book on it a few years back, fascinating reading.

There's also an interesting timeline, even if some of the entries are only loosely related to cosmism: https://cosmos.art/timeline

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