Update the software of the Russian soul?
Government attempts to modernise Russia are doomed because the Russian mindset remains stuck in an unchanging peasant mentality, laments film-director Andrei Konchalovsky. No change will be possible without reloading our spiritual software, but do we want to change? ‘It’s much more difficult to discern the problem than to find the solution. The former demands imagination, while the latter just demands know-how.’ J.D. Bernal This article is based on a lecture I gave at the international symposium ‘Culture, Cultural Change and Economic Development’. Participants included world-renowned Russian and foreign academic economists, sociologists, and culturologists and included some Nobel Prize winners. Needless to say, for me it was a revelation to meet my idols, my teachers in the world of culturology: the American Lawrence E. Harrison and the Argentinian Mariano Grondona. I owe a great debt to them for my own understanding of the destiny of my country and, of course, to the works of th...