Ummamuudu

Сталин -- агент антироссийских сил?

2012-01-13T07:27:00.000-08:00

Читаябиографии выдающихся русских-советскихученых -- Льва Зильбера, Никиты Моисеева,Исаака Раппопорта, не могу опять недумать о том, что Сталин и кое-кто из егокамарильи были настоящими, может бытьи сознательными врагами русского народаи Российского государства. Даже нацистыне занимались так усердно преследованиеми уничтожением самых талантливых ученых,труды которых имели прямую связь собороноспособностью страны. Нацистытут были бóльшими прагматиками, ихпаранойя почти что ограничиласьантисемитизмом. Сталинская паранойяне была ограничена ничем, в том числе игосударственными интересами, если этопрямым образом не угрожало их власти.В самом деле, Сталин в такой мередействовал против интересов своейстраны, что нельзя не спросить, не былили его действия мотивированы некимииными интересами кроме его жажды власти.Или проще и круче: не был ли ИосифВиссарионович агентом каких-то сил,стремящихся к ослаблению или дажеуничтожению России. Как писатель-фантастя даже задумался, не написать ли рассказо том, как молодого Джугашвили завербовалатайная исламская организация, жаждущаяотомстить России за захват исламскихземель на Кавказе и в Средней Азии ивоссоздать халифат, новую исламскуюимперию, центром которой должны былистать именно те регионы Российскойимперии. Эти гипотетические мстителидобивались, а может быть добиваются иныне нанести России такой удар, послекоторого она уже никогда не оправиласьбы. Они хотели лишить России ее статусавеликой державы, заложив бомбу под еефундамент. Эта бомба должна была бытьхорошо замаскированной и нанестинепоправимый или очень тяжело поправимыйурон. Таким критериям лучше всегосоответствует "демографическая"бомба. Ее успешно можно замаскироватьпод бесконечную и беспощадную борьбупротив врагов народа, против контрреволюции,против буржуазных националистов,космополитов итп. Создать расплывчатыйобраз дьявольски хитрого вездесущеговрага, борьбой против которого можнообъяснить и оправдать все. Демографическиераны, потеря людей почти непоправимы.Можно быстро восстановить разрушенныегорода, фабрики, инфраструктуру. Ноневозможно воскресить убитых, погибшихлюдей. Восстановление нормальнойдемографической ситуации требует многовремени, и, кроме того, возможно лишьпри традиционном укладе жизни, вобществах, где большинство народаобитает в деревне и имеет большие семьи.Сталинский террор уничтожил и такойуклад жизни, уничтожил деревню, сельскуюжизнь, а тем самым и базу воспроизводстванаселения. Особенно трудно воспроизвестиэлиту, а именно по элите со страшнойсилой ударили волны террора 1937 - 1938годов, как и кампании против космополитовв сороковых годах. Институция ГУЛАГабыла отличным способом препятствованиярождаемости: находящиеся за колючейпроволокой мужчины и женщины, какправило, не зачинали и не рожали детей,а многие из них не были способны на этои после выхода на свободу.

Одним из многихвозможных возражений моей писательскойгипотезе о Сталине как враге народа спервого взгляда может служить факт, чтоон как верховный главнокомандующийвыиграл войну против Гитлера, которыйведь запланировал уничтожение именноРоссийского государства и русскогонарода. Под руководством Сталина Россия,т.е. СССР добилась крупнейшей победы всвоей истории, отодвинул свои границыдалеко на запад... Это конечно верно. Нопобеда Гитлера вряд ли могла удовлетворитьте силы, в чьих интересах действовалИосиф Виссарионович. Им могло бытьгораздо полезнее продолжение стагнации,надвигающийся демографический кризисрусского народа, депопуляция целыхобластей России, куда в будущем могутпереселиться выходцы из исламскихрегионов и республик. Победа СССР былаи вообще своего рода пирровой победой.Потери в технике и жилплощади можновозместить, но потери в живой силе,возникшие в результате использованиявоеннослужащих как пушечного мяса, плюспотери в годы большого террора практическинепоправимы. Рано или поздно должнабыла возникнуть ситуация, когда Россиипросто не хватало бы людей, чтобыуправлять и держать в повиновении своюгромадную империю. Это и стало одной изсамых судьбоносных проблем нынешнейРоссии. Сталин сделал из России колосса,но колосса на глиняных ногах. Упадок иразвал созданной им империи были ужезапрограммированы в ней с конца двадцатыхгодов, с начала диктатуры Сталина. Икульт Сталина увековечил главные чертысозданной им системы, не давая возможностиопознать его ошибки, объявить их ошибкамии реально изменить курс. Культ Сталинадействовал как яд, принимаемый в виделекарства, яд, приведший к роковойзависимости, к интеллектуальному упадку,к политическому тупику.

Mart Laar and his Freedom Fighters

2011-12-27T10:18:00.000-08:00

I read the news about Mart Laar's new initiative. He proposes that our Parliament recognized men who fought in the German Army (mostly mobilized into the 20th Waffen-SS division) against the Red Army as "freedom fighters". Well, without delving into the intricacies of the history of a small borderline country, I just wonder why our former Prime Minister and actual Defence Minister did such a thing and why he did it now. Somewhat cynically I find two possible explanations: either he rushed to save his Pro Patria party damaged by serious scandals, or... to save Vladimir Putin and his party harassed by growing popular discontent and mass demonstrations. In such a situation it would be useful to cry wolf, although Estonia is more a mouse than a wolf. We have a saying: "When hungry, the Devil can eat even flies".

From Story to Science

2011-12-24T03:33:00.000-08:00

In the beginning was not just the Word, but the Story. Many stories. A story is something where events, facts are not necessarily connected. After A not only B, but also C, D, E, etc. can happen. Bill can marry Alice, but also Jill, Eve or Melanie. At first our understanding of the natural world was not different, our knowledge of Nature was expressed as a story, Nature story or Natural History. It was an account of an enormous multitude of events loosely interconnected. Step by step, science began to diminish the number of such events, introducing more types of logical connection between them. The great idea of early scientists and philosophers was to establish a rule of rules, a "mathesis universalis", a set of equations or formulas that would permit to calculate everything from everything else, to predict every event from every other event. This was still the belief of Laplace. Now we know that the world we live in is not Laplacean but rather Bohrean. Freedom, banished from the world by Laplace, is still there. Freedom, non-necessity is necessary. Stories cannot be abolished either, stories are still there, history is still there. But we understand better the difference between what is strictly interconnected and what is not, between logistics and story. It is interesting that such a difference between stories and logistics has been discussed by theologians already in Middle Ages. Did God create everything by necessity, is the creation a necessary outcome of his essence, his divinity or of his free will? Catholic theology has inclined to the first view, Islamic theology to the second one. I have read that some fundamentalist Islamic scholars have demanded that e.g. in chemistry textbooks the explanations mention the will of God. God willing, the result of burning hydrogen is water... Here, the world we live in is still a story being continuously written by Allah, a story that he can write otherwise that follows no other rules than his free will. Is it a reaction to the beginnings of the scientific world view, to the emerging vision of the world as a mathesis, logistics that was developing in the Islamic world long before the golden age of Western scholasticism and the Renaissance? Is the conception of the world ruled by God's will giving people more feeling of security, more comfort than the conception of the world as a logical system with much less space for God's will or God himself? I don't know.

Президент и русский язык

2011-12-16T01:22:00.001-08:00

Наш президент опятьменя и не только меня неприятноудивил. На этот раз своими заявлениямио русском языке как языке оккупантов винтервью швейцарской газете Der Bund. Ужеизлюбленный нашей пропагандой термин"оккупация" некорректен: аннексияСоветским Союзом Эстонии началаськоротким периодом оккупации, но потом,когда эстонские граждане стали гражданамиСССР со всеми их обязанностями и правами(пусть сих прав было маловато), это былоуже аннексией. Две большие разницы. Всеюристы, в том числе некоторые членынашего Государственного суда, вличных беседах с такими определениямисогласились, хотя не стольмногие хотят выражать своёмнение публично. Но история русскогоязыка в Эстонии не начинается аннексией1940 года. Русский язык стал официальнымязыком наряду с немецким в наших краяхпосле Северной Войны, приведшей квключению Северной Прибалтики всостав Русской империи как Эстляндскойи Лифляндской губерний. Русский языкстал в 1880 годах единственным языкомделопроизводства, а также и обученияв казенных школах, и владение имдало многим эстонцам возможностьучиться, найти работу и сделать карьерув других регионах империи. Моя мама имой дед учились в русских школах. Всегосударственные деятели и большинствоинтеллигенции получили образование вимператорском Юрьевском университетев Тарту или в других учебных заведенияхРоссии. Все наши высшие офицеры,руководившие эстонскими соединениямив войне за независимость в 1918 - 1920годах, были выпускниками имперскихвоенных училищ, в том числе и ИмператорскойВоенной Академии. В России жили и работалисотни тысяч эстонцев, Санкт-Петербургбыл сто лет тому назад вторым городомпо численности проживающих там эстонцев.Само собой разумеется, что это привелок большому числу смешанных браков и ктесным контактам в области культуры.Для примера могу привести дружбу междуэстонским поэтом Хенриком Виснапуу ирусским поэтом Сергеем Есениным. Многиеэстонские военные и политики лучшевладели русским нежели эстонскимязыком. Конец такому взаимному обогащениюкультур положила большевистскаяреволюция и сталинский террор. До 1940года в Эстонии к русским, русскому языкуи культуре относились с интересом иуважением. Такое отношение пошло наубыль в советское время, но и тогдаотношения между интеллигенциейсохранились и иногда даже укрепились.Я открыл для себя волшебную силу поэзииблагодаря Лермонтову и Пушкину, могусказать, что стал писателем благодарязнанию русского языка, позволившемумне еще будучи школьником зачитываться русской классической литературой. Этавеликая литература и ее язык остаютсячастью моей личности, моего я, и еслия о чем-то сожалею, то о том, что не владеюв совершенстве русским языком и мненелегко писать литературные текстыпо-русски. Но кое-что я все-таки написали надеюсь написать и в будущем.

Crusade Preachers à rebours

2011-12-11T00:20:00.001-08:00

A friend sent me the URL of a page of the Memri TV: http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/3217.htm. I looked and suddenly realized that it's similar to what happened in Europe a thousand years ago. Fiery preachers calling people to a holy war against the infidels and, of course, the Jews. But the two civilizations have changed sides: the West is the sybaritic, sophisticated and nonchalant one, similar to what the Near East was a thousand years ago, The Near East is similar to what Europe was: uneducated desperately poor people, easy prey to fanatical preachers and cynical politicians. The child preachers... Another similarity. Will there be a children's Crusade too? My hope is that the West will be a bit more vigilant than the easy-going Muslim rulers a thousand years ago who didn't care too much when they heard of some barbarian rabble landing somewhere far from the centres of the civilized world. They were absorbed in their intrigues, in poetry, music and love. As we in Europe...

Arab Spring and Russian Elections

2011-12-06T09:33:00.001-08:00

There are some similarities between the Middle Eastern countries, now shaken by uprisings and revolutions, and Russia, where the ruling party is clearly losing some popular support. Many liberals in the West were (and some still are) enthusiastic about what they call the "Arab Spring". But this enthusiasm is going sour after the victory of the Islamists in several Arab countries. It is becoming clear that there will be no sensible improvement in human rights in Egypt, Libya and quite probably even in Tunisia or Marocco. Now, after the relatively poor showing of the Yedinaya Rossiya in Russia, some people are again seeing a chance of liberal opposition gaining strength there with the perspective of Russia changing from an autocratic to a fully democratic nation. I think this is an illusion. If Putin and his clan loses power, it will not be the liberals but the Communists and Nationalists who will gain power. And this is neither in the interests of the West nor in the interests of liberally minded people in Russia. We can compare Putin with the Austrian chancellors Dollfuss and Schuschnigg whose rule was more autocratic than democratic, but still infinitely more liberal and humane than the rule of Hitler who rose to power in a nearly democratic way... I find similar ideas in an essay by George Friedman from the website of the Stratfor Institute I warmly recommend:

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20111205-egypt-and-idealist-realist-debate-us-foreign-policy

Dream Logic?

2011-11-28T11:30:00.001-08:00

Sorry if I have already published these ideas in some form...

I believe that most, maybe even more than 90% of what people tell and write about their dreams is not authentic. Dreams cannot often be described in our common language, in our common conceptual system. Why? Because our language, our semantics are "Aristotelian" -- everything is what it is: A = A. A dog is a dog, no a cat, a cloud or a chair. Of course, not everything can be described and defined in the strictly Aristotelian way. There are fuzzy things that need a fuzzy language, a fuzzy logic too. There can be chairs that are to some degree, e.g. 40% tables or sofas. But even such a fuzzy thing, even a changing cloud or a waning wave is itself, is identical to itself in its fuzziness. However, in dreams, things are often not identical to themselves, they can be 100% A and 100% B, and the person dreaming of them doesn't often see any absurdity here. I remember having dreamed of a place that was both a room in a house with bookshelves standing at the walls, and a town square surrounded by high buildings: these buildings were at the same time bookshelves in the room. It is very difficult, nearly impossible to talk about such objects, our language is not made for such a purpose. Perhaps it would make sense to think about a language or a logic more fit for describing dreams.

Quantum God

2011-11-27T09:26:00.001-08:00

Recently I had a remarkably philosophical dream. I had discovered that the indeterminacy principle of quantum mechanics can be applied in many other fields. Of course, I didn't invent any formulas nor used
them. One of my dreamt-of ideas was that God's existence can interpreted as having some inbuilt indeterminacy in it, too. We can say of God that it exists: in this case we cannot say anything definite of it. Or we can say something about God, describe its attributes, but then we cannot say anything definite about its existence.

Most often such dreams give us nothing: waking up we discover that the revelations we got are worth very little. But sometimes, very rarely, the revelation can give us something, perhaps some lines of verse, perhaps
some strange associations, perhaps some real understanding. I don't know whether my dreamt-of idea about God's existence can explain us something...

Language as a Religious Affair

2011-11-27T00:37:00.001-08:00

An Estonian political scientist has said that nationalism is our main religion. I think it is more or less true, and we can analyze this religion, find out its main elements or components. I believe such a very important component of our national religion is the language. There is so much attention paid to it, there is so much discussion about it, and there is a nearly devotional attitude to it. Instead of typically religious discourse, we have a kind of pseudo-theological discourse about language. We have some elevated ideas about what the ideal Estonian must be, and there are legions of teachers, editors, proof readers, clerks and simply activists working with the language, making it more pure, more similar to the divine ideal. There, as in any religion or theology, are many inherent contradictions. The language, the mother tongue must be kept pure, it must be used in most correct way, uncorrupt by foreign loans and vulgar colloquial forms. But at the same time the language must be modern, it must be refurbished, remodelled continually, made more fit for the needs of the modern world, more close to the ideal. We have even a language police who must guarantee that only (uncorrupt) Estonian is used in public discourse. But at the same time Estonia wishes to be a 150% Western nation, and English is considered a most important feature in our Western identity. But, as in any religious discourse, the contradictions are either ignored or swept aside by either very banal or very sophisticated explanations. Our language as religion has also its prophets and high priests and, as I wrote, lots of mullahs or preachers who teach people how to use the language. Sometimes the high priests change their views or simply invent some new things that people must adopt, the old things should be abandoned (as info instead of teave). And, of course, the prophet, the platonically inspired person who, according to the semi-official doctrine, gave us the modern, Western-style Estonian language, is Johannes Aavik. Nowadays even our president has become one of the high priests of the sacred language, lecturing people about how the language must be used and refurbished. Here we see that our national(ist) religion is well organized, our state is also a kind of a church that guards the language from pernicious influences and regulates its use. Common people must observe its regulations, you are not supposed to write or speak as you will, but according to the rules and dogmas established by the Church.
What reminds me of Paul Valéry:

Honneur des hommes, saint langage,
Discours prophétique et paré...

Eh bien, nous y sommes... And, of course, from the glotto-ecclesiastic point of view I am a dangerous heretic who does not recognize the authority of the Church, obstinately refusing to use the established language. Maybe I am even considered a heresiarch.

It could be Worse

2011-11-21T04:59:00.001-08:00

There is a kind of a law of nature: everything or nearly everything bad could be even worse... When I see one more ironic or angry reportage or analysis of the political situation in Russia, I cannot but think of this law. Yes, the tzarist Russia was in many respects a lousy country, corrupt, more autocratic and theocratic than democratic... But Bolshevist Russia was much much worse. It would have been better for Russians and probably for Estonians, Latvians and others too, if Russia had remained more or less what it was. Now, the present-day Russia reminds me strongly of the Russia of the last tzar, there are many similarities between them including the cult of the autocratic father figure, be it tzar or president. The duma has a limited rule nowadays as it had a hundred years ago. But ... it could be worse. In no way is the present Russia the Stalinist empire recreated, it is an autocratic, but not a totalitarian state. But there are forces in it that would very much like to change it into a totalitarian state. The neo-Stalinist, chauvinist forces are there, and they are quite strong. In their view, in their propaganda, the present rulers of Russia are puppets of the West, henchmen of the Jews, Zionists or Freemasons (Zhidomasony). Their hero is Stalin, their ideal is the strong militarized state, strong order, suppression of any dissent, abolition of any real autonomy of the minorities. I have read of some coup schemes by dissatisfied military. Such a coup is most probably doomed to fail. But if someting goes terribly wrong in Russia, the neo-Stalinists are ready to seize power. Thus, in our interest and in the interest of world peace and stability is not to encourage, inspire or support them in any way. Even by waging a propaganda war against the present rulers of Russia, although in some cases, they can gain some points by being subject to Western criticism. In any case, Yedinaya Rossiya is most probably the least of possible evils in Russia. All the real alternatives are much worse. Liberals like Nemtsov or Illarionov have practically no popular support. We should keep this in mind and perhaps even give some discrete help to Putin and his clan if they are in serious trouble.

Two Estonias

2011-11-21T04:14:00.001-08:00

If the "Via Baltica" railway will be built as planned, it will connect Tallinn to Riga via Pärnu, that is, it will be a coastal railway, leaving the eastern and southeastern part of the country out of its scope. This means that this region, the "continental" Estonia will become more isolated from "maritime" Estonia. Even now, the bigger Tallinn is largely a place apart from other regions of Estonia. Tallinn has better connections with Helsinki, the two together form a twin city we may call Talsinki. In the past, the railway connection from Tallinn to Riga passed through Tartu and Valga, helping to connect Tallinn with the South and Southeast. Now this link will probably be neglected, and Tallinn will be even more the smaller partner in Talsinki, a half-Finnish city and even less an integral part of Estonia. The imaginary line dividing Estonia into two runs roughly from Narva to Pärnu and is well known to geographers and botanists. Now it acquires also a economic and political dimension. It is interesting that in the Middle Ages the situation was different: then there existed a waterway from Pärnu to the lake Peipsi via Tartu, making use of small rivers that have by now vanished, become just tiny streams due to the neotectonic rise of the western and northern parts of the country. Thus, geology is also helping to tear Estonia apart. Does this division have a geopolitical meaning? Do people living in continental Estonia feel alienated from people in Tallinn and elsewhere in maritime Estonia? Will they feel they have more in common with Russians, our eastern, continental neighbours than with the well-to-do and self-centered inhabitants of Tallinn and perhaps Pärnu too?

Jää ja Titanic

2011-11-11T11:53:00.001-08:00

Vahel saava vana kirotuse jälki aktuaalsis. Nigu Titanicu lugu nüit, ku EL ja euroga omma asja sandisti. Paar tsitaadikeist.
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Ka Titanicoli laev, millest paljud inimesed lootsid pääsmist. Ta pidi nadviima uude maailma, teispoole merd, mis Jungi sümbolismis märgibsurma. Sõit Ameerikasse oli surm ja uuestisünd. Vana elu, vanakodu, vana mina jäi maha, nendega tehti lõpparve ja mindi alustamauut elu. Sõit Ameerikasse oli natuke nagu enesetapp, üks neistväikestest surmadest, millega meil tuleb kokku puutuda enne suurtsurma. Mõned põgenesid sinna vaesuse, mõned sassi läinud pereelu,mõned lähedasi tabanud õnnetuste, mõned politsei, mõnedsandarmite, mõned omaste, mõned naabrite eest. Mõned põgenesidüksindusest, mõned üksindusse.

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Me olemekõige kiiremad, kõige turvalisemad, me pakume reisijatele kõigeparemaid tingimusi, kõige suuremat komforti kõige mõõdukamatasu eest, me hoolitseme kõigi, nii suurte kui väikeste, niirikaste kui vaeste eest.

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kuni12-aastastele lastele hinnaalandus 50%

Meie aitameteil teha teie elu kõige olulisema otsuse, me aitame teil alustadauut elu. Tulge meie pardale, kes te koormatud ja vaevatud olete, meviime teid teie unistuste maale.

Pühapäev,14. aprill algas laeval jumalateenistusega. Esimese klassireisijatele pidas seda kapten Smith ise, teise klassi reisijatelelaeva kassiir. Kui pärast jumalateenistust mindi laevalaelejalutama, panid mõned reisijad tähele, et õhk on läinud vägakülmaks. See oli märk sellest, et läheduses oli palju jääd. Ilmjäi külmaks ja selgeks terve päeva ega muutunud öösekski. Külmatundsid laeva ohvitseridki, kes teadsid ka selle põhjust. Ometi eivõetud ette midagi peale selle, et esimene tüürimees Murdoch palusmeest, kelle ülesanne oli hoolitseda lampide eest, et ta suleksesimese ventiili: sellest paistev kuma segaks tüürimeest jamastikorvis olevaid vaatlejaid märkamast valgust, mistõenäolikult helgib vastu lähenevalt jäämäelt.

Titanicu pardale

2011-11-04T12:54:00.000-07:00

Küll sai Eesti rahval vaiva nättüs ja tüüd tettüs, et pästa sakste manu Titanicu pardale!

Persehe...

2011-10-29T12:16:00.000-07:00

Noorus olli illos aig, kõk olli paremb ku prõlla, trepi olliva madalamba, suve lämmembä, tütriku ilosamba ja ropendamine olli ka nigu kodusemb ja mõnusamb. Mi saadi tõse persehe, ku sääne vajadus tulli. Ei saa ma inäp arvo mi ao nuurist, kiä muku inne laskva tulla näid türri ja munne. Ole-i inäp mugavust ja soliidsust. Ilm om hukan, ilm om perseh, mis tast elost saa, kui perse ja sita asemel tuleva türä, munni ja muu seksikamb sõnavara. Ja viimäte viil fuck ka. Vai om säänest meelemuutust vaija, et paremb olessi euro-ameerikaga integriiritus saia. Olku kuis om, ma jää elo lõpuni persele truuis.

Propaganda War against retired people?

2011-10-25T03:35:00.000-07:00

Some economics gurus here in Estonia and elsewhere are predicting that the pension system existing in European countries is doomed. As there will be less and less working age and really working people and more and more elderly, retired people, this seems to become an intolerable burden to the working people, i.e. taxpayers. Well, this is not the main problem. Let's make a thought experiment: there are no workers at all, the intelligent machines, robots make all the necessary work. Who will then pay the taxes, where does the money come from? This means the idea of work and taxation must be reconsidered. The GDP or in whatever way we measure the wealth of a nation has not diminished, there must be some ways to redistribute it without extra taxation of the wage earners and businessmen. For example the "Tobin tax" or something similar.

The real problem is not the ratio of people working and people retired but the rising cost of taking care of the elderly that is rising with the rise of average age. No easy solutions here. The aim must be to find ways to find efficient ways of keeping aged men and women healthy, to fight such deseases as Alzheimer, Parkinson's disease, etc. This is a difficult task, but not a mission impossible.

Death of a Barbarian

2011-10-22T11:47:00.000-07:00

In Libya, a barbarian chieftain was killed by other barbarians. It's quite improbable he was hit in crossfire. We can foresee other barbarians taking over. And it's hard to imagine that they will not engage in bloody internecine conflict.

There is no Devil

2011-10-21T03:53:00.000-07:00

It's sure, there is no devil. I think I have pointed to the fact that belief in the existence of an immensely intelligent and absolutely evil person leads to insurmountable paradoxes, to impossibility to believe in anything at all. But at the same time: there are enough people who have made and are making an enormous effort to take the role of the devil. And some of them have brilliantly succeeded.

From Multi-Culti to Specious Monoculture in Estonia

2011-10-20T01:48:00.001-07:00

Estonia is aborderland country between Eastern and Central and between Northernand Central Europe with a history of many conquests and many rulers.In the last couple of centuries it was a part of the Russian Empirewith some autonomy. Local aristocracy was German-speaking, majorityof them were descendants of the Teutonic Knights who conquered theBaltic provinces in the XIIIth century. German was the language ofadministration, culture and education with the exception ofEstonian-language village schools. Such situation lasted until the"russification" in the last quarter of the XIXth centurywhen Russian was introduced as the only official language andlanguage of education. The second half of this century was also thetime of the Estonian national revival movement inspired by the Germanromanticism and made possible by migration of many Estonian speakersto towns. For those people, identity became a problem that did notexist for their fathers and forefathers who were either peasants orurban underdog with little rights and practically no social mobility.The simplest way for these new Estonians was to become Germans, tobecome "linna-saks" as they were called ("saks"comes from the word for Saxons as the Gaelic "sassenach").For some, especially after the russification of schools, there weremany possibilities to find a good job or continue their education inRussia. To stay Estonian, to create a culture with Estonian as itslanguage, to have Estonian literature, theatre, university educationwas initially the dream of some idealists. Only thanks to thestruggle for supremacy between the local German landlords and theTzarist government these idealistic Estonians found some windows ofopportunity to create such a culture of their own. The rise of theEstonian culture was made possible by the boom of the Russian economyand culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Whenthe Russian empire fell apart as the result of the great war and theRussian revolution, Estonia gained independance. This was the resultof strong nationalist sentiment, but also of the existence of astrong educated middle class, and, of course, help from the Entente,especially the British who were interested in creating a "sanitarycordon" separating the chaotic Bolshevist Russia from the restof Europe.

In 1918 when Estoniabecame an independent republic, it was de facto a multiculturalnation with three main languages -- Russian, German and Estonian, allof which had an official status. Most educated people weremultilingual, and used all these languages in different contexts andsituations. In contrast to Russian and German, Estonian had been alanguage of peasant, and had to be made fit for use in science and"high culture". This "refurbishing" of theEstonian language began already when Estonia was under Tzarist rule,but gained momentum when Estonian became the official state languageof the newly created republic. But the two other languages preservedmuch of their role and status for at least a generation. Annexationof Estonia by the Soviets changed a lot, but not everything. I amborn in 1941, and in our family both German and Russian were still inuse to some degree. My mother read me poems in Russian when I was akid, and my grandmother and her friends used a lot of German words intheir speech. My generation is the first one who got all or nearlyall of their education in Estonian. This is one of the paradoxes ofSoviet life: although Russian was taught from the first of secondyear in schools, and it was de facto the state language of the USSR,the prestige and knowledge of Russian really

dropped during theSoviet period in Estonia despite the official propaganda and measuresto stimulate its use. The Estonian language became both a symbol andan instrument of Estonian resistance to Soviet rule. This rule shapedthe attitudes and orientations that have now, after Estonia regainedits independence, inspired our cultural and language policies. InEstonia, Estonian is the only official language and its use isstrictly regulated and guarded even by a kind of language police(Keeleinspektsioon) similar to the language police in Québec. Thisyear, a law has been passed that 60% of lessons in local Russianschools have to be given in Estonian. In practice, this amounts to aneffort to assimilate at least a good part of local Russian-speakingpopulation. In any significant publishing house and periodical, thelanguage editors are editing texts to make them to conform to theofficial standards of vocabulary and grammar. In some cases itamounts to a kind of language censorship. At the same time, mostyoung Estonians are learning English, and the influence of Englishand other Western languages can be felt in both written and spokenEstonian despite the official policies. The efforts of our linguisticpurists are centered on replacing the international words with whatthey consider Estonian ones, but there is little attention paid tothe more latent influences. In fact, Estonian is more and morebecoming a variant of the "Standard Average European", alanguage where an Estonian word is seen more as a correspondence toan English one than belonging to a group of semantically connectedEstonian ones. The rigid language policies have become an obstacle tofree, spontaneous speech and writing, partly obliterating theindividual or local differences of style and obfuscating the languagesense of most people. The real spoken language is living its ownlife, although it is often seen as slang and shunned or evenprohibited in official use. The fact that our language teaching andlanguage policies are centered on correctness and purity, notcreativity and spontaneity, is, in my opinion, the main reason whymany people in Estonia have difficulties in expressing theirthoughts. I feel that under the specious cover of the Estonianmonoculture, processes are under way that can become more destructiveto the Estonian language (and consequently culture too) than thehalf-century of Soviet rule.

I finish with an itemfrom my blog.

In his book "LinguisticEcology: Language Change and Linguistic Imperialism in the PacificRim", Peter Mühlhäusler writes:

"The grammaticaladjustment that is encountered in most Pacific languages that havecome under the influence of expatriate missions and education systemsis that a number of apparently viable languages (in terms of numbersof speakers and social institutionalization), such as Fijian orSamoan, have nevertheless disappeared, in the sense that what hasremained is primarily their formal properties and what has gone istheir semantic and pragmatic aspects. The continuation of merelexical forms of earlier languages raises the question of identity oflinguistic systems over time, external pressure(s) having introduceda degree of discontinuity and restructuring that renders the notionof historical continuity useless."

Hasn't the samehappened to the Estonian language that has been and is beingintensively restructured by foreign influences, these influenceshaving been successfully internalized and sometimes taken to extremesby our own literati? Has the old Estonian disappeared, being replacedby a euro-language that has lost most of its "semantic andpragmatic aspects"? Isn't, paradoxically, the Russian language,at present downgraded and driven out of use a potential counterweightto the overwhelming Euro-American influence on Estonian?

Estonian media on Russia

2011-10-14T04:10:00.000-07:00

Reading our papers, watching our TV I have more and more the feeling that materials published or shown on Russia are not just biased, but these materials can be classified as disinformation. People -- and this is true of most of our younger generation -- who are unable or not accustomed to read Russian press or Russian websites can have the impression that Russia is a dismal corrupt dictatorship where there is no freedom of expression, where dissidents are jailed or even killed, where common people are poor, etc. One of the latest news I could read on our national broadcasting company's website was a prediction that Russia has no other way than falling into precipice.

I have little personal experience of modern Russia, but returning from St. Petersburg on coach I could see with my own eyes that the area between St. Petersburg and the Estonian border that in Soviet times was partly abandoned, where there were only destitute villages with miserable huts, is now quite similar to what we see on the Estonian side of the border: a lot of new buildings, new roads, a lot of construction work, old houses refurbished, painted, small townships looking much better and cleaner, people better clad. As to the freedom of expression, I can every day read critical articles about developments in Russia on RIAN, Lenta, NG and other websites. I read a long review of a book written by the former Guardian correspondent in Moscow on a Russian website. And there is a lot of talk about the recent events, especially the sacking of the finance minister Kudrin and Putin and Medvedev changing their roles. And regularly we can read about Khodorkovsky, his opinions are quoted and retold. We can make an experiment, taking for example the titles of articles from the semi-official website RIAN.ru and calculate which ones of them could have been published in a Soviet paper. The result is niggardly, maybe 10%-20%. This could be a measure of the situation with freedom of expression in Russia.

Iranian Regime has no Future

2011-09-23T12:33:00.000-07:00

As a writer and a poet I am sensitive to details, small things, that say a lot about great things. Sometimes about peoples and states. There is much talk about the politics of the present Iranian regime, about their expansionism, their attempts to gain influence in the third world, about their nuclear project. But somewhere I read a short notice about their editing practice. I read that publishing the old Persian classics they replace wine with coffee. Well, I remember similar doings of the Soviet bureaucrats. They lived in a bubble, forcing their subjects to live in the same bubble. But the bubble burst. And I am nearly sure the bubble of the Islamic Republic will burst too. Perhaps sooner than we think.

In Honour of Max Weber

2011-09-23T12:20:00.000-07:00

Max Weber would be glad, if he could observe the present economical crisis in Europe. The countries worst hit by it are Mediterranean and in non-Protestant. In a sense, Ireland too: even botanically, a part of Ireland belongs to the mediterranean area with its arbutus and palm trees. And there is definitely not that much of Protestant ethic and spirit of Capitalism in the South of Europe. Thus, we can ask whether the model of Capitalism that the West has more or less officially adopted, is really the best economic model for all nations and cultures. Maybe the EU is doomed, and the real reasons of this is not the fact that some politicians in Greece, Portugal or Ireland didn't do their job well, but that they simply did what their electorate, their people, their culture prescribed them to do. Now, the IMF and the Protestant Europe want them to change their behaviour. But doesn't it mean that some nations must change their whole culture? Is it possible? It reminds me of the endless talk of the Soviet ideologues about the need to educate people, to "create a new Soviet man". Well, we know the result. Will the Protestantic attempt to re-educate the Mediterraneans, the Southern Catholics and Orthodox be more successful?

Laar lätt

2011-09-17T23:08:00.000-07:00

Laari minek IRList om kriisi märk. Tuust kriisist ole konagi joba kirotanu. Esämaa partei om kandnu Eesti vabas saamise ao vaimu, oma olnu ja taht viil olla rahvuslik partei. A ao omma muutunu ja inemiisi rahvuslus inäp nii pallo ei huvita. Ja rahvuslus om kollektivism. Esämaal om alustusest pääle olnu sääne vastaolu: ütelt puult om timä olnu kollektivistlik, rahvuslik partei, tõselt puult individualistlik, neoliberalistlik partei. Prõlla om nii, et individualismi, turumajanduse poole päält omma reformika timält hää jao valijit ära hauganu, kollektivismi poole päält rahvuslusel ole-i inäp vidämise jõudu. Ja sotsiaalsemit asju aava sotsi ja kesklase parembahe ja selgemini. Nii om seo poole päält IRL-ilt ka vähe kasvamise ruumi. Mul om tunne, et seol parteil ole-i tulevikku, tõenäolikult timä lagunes katte lehte: pintsaklipslase läävä reformi poole pääle, kampsuni jääse umaette ja kaova viimäte ärki. Osa näist peräkõrd tule paadipõgenike kombel SDEsse üle. Nii või sündü Keskiga ka: timäl om ka rasse umma sotsiaalsema sildiga poliitikat aija, sotsi võtva tolle üle ja vast osa kesklaisi ka. Viimäte või sündü nii, et jääski inne kats parteid -- kura ja hää käe partei. Ja vast mõne väikokese ka.

Uma riik ja uma kroonu

2011-09-01T00:12:00.000-07:00

Uma riik om hää asi, a egäl hääl asal om iks uma paha puul ka. Uma riigiga üteh tule uma kroonu, kroonu kiil ja kroonu miil. Ja nooreh riigih tüküs nii olema, et näide vaihel ole-i selget piiri. Paistus nii, et uma kroonut piässi ka umas ja armsas pidämä. Uma kroonut, kroonu kiilt, keelepolitseid, poliitikide pidujuttu ja udujuttu, paraade ja kuunolekid, Tuumpääd ja Kadriorgu, tulku tast, mis tule. Vinne valitsuse aigu olli halv just tuu, et Vinnemaa olli kroonu riik, nigu kirot Tšehhov. Tšehhovile olli asi klaar, timä jaos olli kroonu värk võõras värk, hädä om tuu, et olemi eesti kroonu ka umas võtnu, nakka-i kroonukiilsuse ja kroonumiilsuse vasta. Tuu eesti kroonu umas võtmine tule-i häste vällä, võõras om ja võõras jää. Ole-i peris uma riik, ole-i peris uma imäkiil... Niimuudu jäämi esi ka esihindäle võõras.

Toward a New Crusade?

2011-07-29T03:14:00.000-07:00

The mad or half-mad Norwegian mass murderer has turned our attention to a danger looming behind the European facade of political correctness and tolerant multi-culturalism. Not all cultures or cultural features are mutually reconcilable. To find a peaceful modus vivendi, a multi-cultural society cannot accommodate groups with militant religious views. The problem is not only the conflict between Christians and Muslims, but between the post-Christian, Englightenment-inspired Western secular society and some groups who do not accept the values of such a society: gender equality, rights of the individual as opposed to "family values", separation of religion and education, religion and jurisprudence, etc. Such values are in opposition with the values proclaimed and violently thrusted on people by Salafists and similar groups in the Islamic world. But they are also not accepted by many other traditionalist-fundamentalist religious groups, be it Christian, Judaist or Hinduist. Western liberal, secularist values that are the real fundament of any peaceful multi-culturalism, are under attack by newly invigorated conservative religious movements. If the religious conservatives succeed, we will see conflicts between various groups, between Christians and Muslims, Muslims and Jews, Muslims and Hinduists becoming more frequent and more violent. They all are fighting against one another, but sometimes even more violently opposed to what they consider to be the decadent, immoral Western culture. Essentially they cannot accept the view that humanist values are the most fundamental ones, and thus superior to religious values. We have two kinds of conflict, the conflict between religous groups and the conflict between humanism and fundamentalist religion. As the reconciliation between various fundamentalists has proven to be
nearly impossible, the weakening of Western secularism can lead us toward new crusades. The mass murder committed by the man calling for such a crusade is a clear warning sign of such a possibility.

In my opinion, the European Englightenment was greatly influenced by the Chinese Confucianism. Reading the Jesuit reports on life and culture in China, some European intellectuals realized that a great society can exist without any religious fundament, on a purely humanist basis, relegating religion completely to private sphere. They discovered that non-religious ethics is fully possible and can serve as a basis of a state that has withstood many historical vicissitudes and troubles. In many ways,
the Chinese society has also been able to survive the perpetual civil and non-civil wars and the cultural revolution of the twentieth century, and the Confucian heritage is still a force to be reckoned with in China. Perhaps we in the West should turn once our eyes upon the Confucian tradition, perhaps there is still something to be learned from it. Perhaps the Chinese and Western intellectuals should make a bigger effort to join their forces to combat the erosion of non-religous humanism in the present-day world.

Neo-Templars and neo-Crusaders

2011-07-24T01:19:00.000-07:00

Reading about the murders committed in Norway by a fanatic who dreams of restoring the Templar Order to fight against Muslim and other hordes invading Europe, I cannot but recall a text I wrote about twenty years ago. It hasn't been translated into English, but exists in Swedish and Russian translation. It's called "Ice and the Titanic". A kind of a collection of prose poems and mini-essays inspired by the Titanic disaster in 1912. There I refer to a newspaper article by an Estonian theologian and military man, lieutenant colonel E. L. whose ideas were quite similar to the ones proclaimed by the Norwegian terrorist B.

I translated hurriedly a paragraph from my "Titanic" into English with some unavoidable mistakes. But I hope the content is understandable and can give readers something to think about.

My head was full of other thoughts on my way to Finland. I had just read an article in an Estonian newspaper. The author, who calls himself historian, writes that the mafia of international capital has resorted to a number of actions aimed at the destruction of the multi-ethnic European Christian culture. In order to achieve this, he claims, they make use of false ideology, initiate wars. In Germany the same financial mafia helped Hitler to power, to let him start a war and destroy the bases of European spirituality. Now it has unleashed wars in Vietnam, in Iraqi Kurdistan and the Balkans. These wars are not fought in order to find a military solution to some conflicts, but to drive on the move large numbers of refugees invading Europe, taking advantage of the masonic understanding of human rights forced upon the Europeans, the idea that everyone has the right to live in any country, and there he/she must at once have all the rights. These refugees bringing with them their alien culture will finally ruin the European culture. There is a war between races going on in the world. The financial capital wants to change the whole mankind into what he calls "infantile Homo americanus consumens" interested only in consumption and in whom, in his view, there is nothing human left.

In another article he says that our effeminate young men need more virility, more Viking and knight spirit.

Of course, there is a long distance from thoughts to deeds, but once the thoughts are there,

the probability that sooner or later there will also be the deeds, is increased.

I have always thought that Norwegians have often been the first in many fields, as explorers, rulers (in Middle Ages rulers in several European countries from England to Sicily and Russia) were of Viking origin, scientists, writers. Now a Norwegian has emerged as a first euro-terrorist, perhaps heralding the rebirth of something its adepts call the New Templar Order, and an attempt to restart something we can call the New Crusades. Of course,
these guys are not original. They have been inspired by Al-Qaida and other Salafists with their vehement "anti-crusader" rhetoric.

In many ways, war is theatre. It's even suggested by the expression "theatre of war". There is a lot of histrionics in war, in militarism, parades, even warfare itself. As in theatre, there are actors and spectators, although sometimes the borderline between them becomes fuzzy. There are total wars, totale Mobilmachung, there are attempts to stage total theatre, to force the spectators to become actors. But in any case, we need theatre, and we have reason to ask ourselves whether we need war, theatre of war too. Here, most of us prefer to be only spectators, but nilly-willy we are there to listen, to applaud, to approve or disapprove. We are an important element in the war games staged by neo-Vikings, neo-Templars, Salafists and others. They cannot play their games without us, without us publishing their speeches, printing their portraits, raising interest for their ideas.

The Norwegian B. (I refuse to quote his full name or to include his photo!) is a talented
actor. The play goes on. After the two first acts comes a third: the court where he can
give a speech, propagate his ideas, launch his call to arms. And I am afraid the Norwegian
liberal democracy gives him ample chances to do precisely this. And I am sure this fair-haired Viking-looking young man will have many admirers, and possibly imitators too.

Psychoanalysis of Gods

2011-07-22T05:17:00.000-07:00

Reading the Bible and the Quran I cannot but think that the main dramatis personae there -- a certain IHWH and a certain Allah would be good subjects for a dedicated psychoanalyst or just a psychologist specialising in psychological portraits. My modest and superficial impression is that IHWH is a bit paranoid, as he says himself, he is jealous and revengeful, sometimes even sadistic, relishing in detailed descriptions of punishment of people who haven't observed his rules and loved him
enough. Allah seems to be less sadistic, but he is a megalomaniac who does not get tired of praising and glorifying himself in a way that is often quite tasteless and vain.

Безымянный Бог

2011-07-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

Почему Бог не хочет, чтобы его называли по имени? -- Ему стыдно за то, что он натворил.

На каком языке?

2011-07-02T12:26:00.000-07:00

В Фейсбуке пишут о том, на каком языке эстонцам следует говорить с здешними русскими.

На каком языке говорить с русскими? В социальной сети Facebook появилась группа "Говорим с русскими в Эстонии по-эстонски" (Räägime venelastega Eestimaal eesti keeles). Основатели группы уверены в том, что русские, живущие в Эстонии, не говорят по-эстонски только потому, что сами эстонцы при малейшей возможности переходят на русский язык и не дают русскоязычным говорить с ними на государственном языке. "Задумывались ли вы о том, почему русские в Эстонии не говорят с вами на эстонском языке? Потому что мы сами говорим с ними по-русски", - гласит заглавное сообщение на странице группы, - Давайте будем в своей стране говорить на своем языке! Так мы сможем и другим задать верное направление".

А я говорю с русскими по-русски. Русский язык мне просто нравится и возможностей говорить не так уж много.

Neo-flagellants

2011-06-21T00:15:00.000-07:00

There is more masochism in the Christian and post-Christian Western culture than in any other culture. In the past, the flagellants whipped themselves for their sins, nowadays the leftist liberals are doing more or less the same. We must think that we are the worst sinners in the world, being guilty of colonialism, sexism, imperialism, racism, slavery, Communism, Fascism, etc. We have sinned, we have done so much harm to Africans, Asians, native Americans, Muslims... Somehow the Africans, Asians, American Indians and Muslims are not plagued by such remorses. I haven't read of any attempt by some Muslim movement to repent, to ask for forgiveness from black Africans or Europeans for their colonialism, piracy and slave trade. The western do-gooders are even trying to reshape their sexist and imperialist language, to ban all words smelling of sexism, colonialism and imperialism. The Islamic theologians or activists have not asked for forgiveness from Jews and Christians persecuted and massacred. There are no such flagellants in China either. In other cultures, people either think that their culture, resp. religion is the best one or at least not worse than the others. Only the Westerners seem sometimes to think that theirs is the worst, the most unjust in the world, and they whip themselves and repent in public. They don't ask whether some other cultures and nations have not done even more terrible things. And sometimes they organize mass meetings, demonstrations and protest actions. The flagellants were vehemently anti-semitic, often killing Jews in towns they passed. The modern flagellants haven't so far organized pogroms. But they actively organize protest campaigns against Jews, against Israel.

puuk vallut mu

2011-05-22T12:38:00.000-07:00

Kõneldas, et jälki omma eesti mehe "vallutanu" ilmamaa kõge korgemba mäe Mount Everesti. Sis võissi üteldä ka, et puuk, kiä om päsnü mu päähä hiussihe, om mu ära vallutanu... Piät väiko puugikene olema, Džomolungma om päält 4000 kõrda korgep ku inemine.

More human, more primate-like?

2011-05-09T03:44:00.001-07:00

It is proven, that in affluent societies, men have more typically male personality features, and women more female ones as measured by psychologists. This despite the advances of gender equality, the fact that many women nowadays do work that was in the past reserved for men and vice versa. The explanation offered to this, at first sight paradoxical result is simple: nowadays people have more chances to become what they want to become and to be what they want to be: there is more freedom, and both men and women make use of it. This study proves that the for most of us, having male or female mind is something inborn, although in traditional, and necessarily non-affluent societies we cannot make full use of our inborn characteristics.

Now, we may ask whether this is true also of our "animal-like" characteristics, of the features we have in common with chimps, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans. Are we nowadays more similar to the big apes than in the past? We have indeed more sexual freedom, more freedom to play, to socialize, to chat and to have bodily contact with other people. We spend a lot of time boasting, competing, our aggression is canalized into entertainment and sports. Our inquisitive, explorative behavior finds a more or less free outlet in science and technology, as well as in tourism. These are but some of the parallels between the modern Homo sapiens and his/her primate cousins.

For many moralists, especially religious ones, re-emergence of our primate-like features is a clear sign of our degeneration, and points to the urgent need of returning to the traditional way of life, to "family values", to God-given rules, etc. However, the fact is that in our modern "decadent", "immoral" societies, there is much less violent crime and much less theft too than there was and is in more traditionalist, religious ones. And often the perpetrators of violent crime are precisely the moralists, traditionalists, fundamentalists. In some countries, it's a crime for a widowed woman to have sex with a man, but it is not a crime to stone her to death. One of many horrific paradoxes of the modern world.

The environment we need?

2011-04-27T01:45:00.000-07:00

I feel I am a somewhat archaic human being: I really feel a forest, a beach, the cloudy or starry sky are more interesting than any man-made environment. It fits well into the theory: we humans are foraging animals who had to be keen observers, the complex natural environment of savannah and seaside shaped us, made us what we are. And most probably this is the environment we still need, where we feel well. The rush to beaches, to seaside resorts seems to prove this. But why then there are many people satisfied with urban environment that is necessarily (Shannon's theorem for example is a proof of it) poorer than forest or seaside? Why are so many of us alienated from forest, from nature? Are the urbanites and modern farmers whose environment consists of buildings, monocultures and TV, somewhat their own pets, domesticated animals who are accustomed to live in their cages and don't feel well in more complex environments, are afraid of forest, of night, of mosquitoes, bees, mice and frogs? Why do we accept destruction of natural forests, replacing them with tree plantations? I feel so well in my own forest where every tree has a character of its own, where there are so many other plants in addition to trees, so much buglife and birdlife. And it's hard for me to understand how many other people don't feel like that and are not interested in preserving the nature in its real complexity, in fighting against excessive humanization, simplification of our environment. Do I belong to a small and powerless minority with my desperate need of Nature?

Лица и морды

2011-04-13T04:36:00.000-07:00

Людeй, особенно людей мужского пола можно разделить на имеющих лица и имеющих морды или хари. Конечно, чистых мордастых и чистых обладателей лиц (личностей?) немного, большинство из нас имеет признаки и тех и других. А по моим наблюдениям, мужчины сидящие за рулем своих дорогих машин чаще попадают в первую категорию, являются более мордастыми чем остальная часть населения. Поэтому я чувствую себя плохо на бензостанциях и в авторемонтных мастерских. Глядя на мужчин там, вдруг чувствую, что мир или та его часть, где проживаю я, мне чужд и враждебен.

Mis on Tartun hirmus

2011-04-13T04:24:00.000-07:00

Kevväi om käen ja lumi Tarto liinast lännü. Ja nigu Joel Sanga luuletusen, sulas lume alt vällä pallo aska ja muud. Tarto liin on varra keväjelt peris hirmus. Ja toda hirmsust tege viil suurembas seo, et liinan ole-i õigit parke. Tuust asast ole pallo kirotanu ja ei taha pikembält inäp kirotada. Parkest ja "hallasallust" roogitas vällä puhma ja tulemus om "rohilane kõrb", kon saisva samba ja kõk paistus läbi. Inemise silmi kotsil ole-i midägi rohilast, ole-i ello. Lätsi üle Ülikooli käen oleva suure nurme Ravila uulitsa veeren, koh saisva tehnoluugiainstituut ja kiimiamaja. Innemalt olli tolle nurme pääl inemiisil aiakeisi ja kasvi puhmit ja puid. Olli midägi varolist. Nüit sis om kõk tuu varoline är häütet, paar salgakest kõive inne om jäetü, näide ümbert om aga pajovitsakese ja kõk madalamp är ragotu. Kai toda ja vihasti. Mõtli, et kas om jälki parke ja hallasallu asjamehis võetu politseiniku, kinkä mure om tuu, et es olessi puhmit, sis ei ole pättel ja asotsiaalel kohegi hinnäst käkki. Nii vai tõisilde, tuu politselik pargiarhitektuur om Tarton iks võimul ja nii või üteldä, et Tarto om politseiliin. Kas sis Eesti om ka politseiriik? Jummal sa tiiät. Tahtmine Tarton ellä kaos kül är.

Стихи и тишина

2011-04-09T00:13:00.000-07:00

Хорошее, настоящее стихотворение, как и настоящая картина или музыкальное произведение -- в них больше тишины чем звука или красок. Настоящее искусство создает островок, оазис тишины посреди повседневнего шума, забот, потока сознания. А тишина -- это свобода. Свобода -- это возможность снова найти себя, прийти, возвратиться в себя из забвения, из иллюзий, шума звуков, образов, мыслей. Наше сознание полно такого шума, искусство иногда помогает нам избавиться от него хотя на несколько минут.

Too little imperialism?

2011-03-21T05:26:00.000-07:00

I am not a fan of the US, I have no sympathy for the American way of life, for the fundamentalists, for the fast food chains, for Hollywood and the hypocritical talk about value-based politics. And for many other things. I wouldn't be happy to live in America. But looking at the mess the world is now I think that the Americans have missed a historic chance to put this world in order, to make it a better place. In my childhood the Soviet press was full of attacks against the "American imperialism". But perhaps the mistake America made was not to become really imperialist. It would have meant to issue in 1946 an ultimatum to the only real competitor, the USSR, and to make the whole world the US zone of influence. It would have meant that all other nations would have been in a situation similar to what Western European nations were in the times of the Cold War. But there would have been no cold war, no arms race, no big wars in Asia and Africa, probably also no mad dictators as Idi Amin or Pol Poth. Tamerlan is quoted to have said that the world is too small to tolerate many rulers. This is nowadays more true than ever. The tragedy is that it is no more possible to unite the world under one ruler, under one centre of power. The only chance to make the world a better and safer place would be something similar to the Vienna Congress in 1815 that established a consensus between European powers guaranteeing peace for nearly a century in the continent. Nowadays it would mean finding such a consensus between the main big players -- the US, China, Russia, Europe (although Europe still has not succeeded in finding a common denominator in its relations with the outside world), India and some emerging nations of Asia and America.

Der Wille zur Macht

2011-03-09T12:01:00.000-08:00

I think Nietzsche's famous phrase "Der Wille zur Macht" has many possible interpretations. The most banal -- and the most fatal -- of these is the political-military one. Here, the hero is the fair savage ready to kill, destroy. Power here means power to do to other people what one doesn't want to be done to himself, blatant, sadistic negation of the "golden rule". This notion of the will to power was turned into an ideology, and we, children of the XXth century, know what this meant in practice. It is one of the paradoxes connected with interpretation of Nietzsche. There are others. Let's think of his well-known hatred for the German nationalism, "Vaterländerei", his attempts to find Slavic or Jewish ancestors. The facts that were ignored when Nietzsche was more or less proclaimed the philosopher of the German military (in the beginning of the Ist World war every officer got a free copy of the "Also sprach Zarathustra") or the Nazi gang leaders. But I would propose a different interpretation: I would like to compare Nietzsche to the shamans, to these (often as eccentric and ailing) men and women who were also striving to get more power. This meant power to enter other worlds, to bring back souls stolen by spirits, to heal, to see the unseen. This power was called śart in Ostyak (Khanty), it was called vägi in Estonian. There are many parallels in European languages, although I hesitate to say that the Latin numen or Greek pneuma (or Hebrew ruach) meant the same thing. Egon Fridell has written that Nietzsche was the last great Father of the Church. Perhaps. But we can also say that he was the first proto-neoshamanist, one of the precursors of the New Age. He too did not think intellect is our most precious, our highest gift. This highest gift is precisely the power, the pneuma, the vägi. This was one of his messages to us, a message a Siberian shaman would agree with. The difference with most New Age would-to-be shamans and prophets and Nietzsche is that he had the power, and he was able to use it to deconstruct most of the classical philosophy, to use intellect to blow up the edifice intellect had built during the last millennia. He understood that in real power there is intellect too, although intellect is not power. But abandoning intellect, abandoning science doesn't give us power. Intellect by itself is not power, but neither is absence of intellect power.

Граждане и подданные

2011-03-07T23:50:00.000-08:00

Результаты выборов в Эстонии показали, что что-то изменяется. Но медленно, с трудом. Пока еще большинство народа не граждане республики, а подданные правительства. Как, по-видимому и в России.

Toward chimpanzee politics

2011-03-07T01:17:00.001-08:00

Following the recent election campaign in Estonia, especially the show-like debate between the prime minister candidates (that strongly reminded me of Eurovision and similar contests) I cannot but feel that the theatrical element in politics is already stronger than the rational one. What we often see is ritual performance by rival males (or females playing the role of males) striving to become alpha-males, leaders of the herd. What the onlookers evaluate, is not the practical abilities of the candidates but their histrionic talent. The challenges candidates face in this theatrical combat, are very different from the challenges they will face in real politics, in managing state affairs. The book "Chimpanzee politics" by Frans de Waal tells a lot about our political show-business that is becoming more similar to the struggle for power in primate groups. But after all, we all are primates.

Technology as thought-booster

2011-03-02T06:09:00.000-08:00

About thirty years ago I wrote in an essay that our technology is a kind of an amplifying system, a booster that transforms the biocurrents in our brain measured in milliwatts into much more powerful currents and processes: here we can speak about megawatts, gigawatts and terawatts. Technological progress means more amplification, but does not change the basic fact: everything we create, every process we unleash, begins in our brain. This means that our mistakes, our erroneous thoughts are boosted, made more powerful and more dangerous too. This is something that should be taken into account in our discussions and disputes on the use of nuclear energy, e.g. when we must decide whether to build a nuclear power plant in Estonia or not. Such a plant doesn't exist by itself, it too is a part in a complex man-technology system. It cannot but amplify processes, thoughts, images, emotions in our brains. Thus, to calculate the risks of any such project, any plant or mechanism, we must take into account these mental processes. It is not enough to know the tehnological components of the system. We must know ourselves, otherwise we don't know how risky a technological project can be. A simple way of assessing these risks is to look back at our recent history. If a nuclear plant is designed and built to be operational for several decades and its waste remains dangerous for millennia or even for tens of thousands of years, then such looking back may well serve as a warning. Can we be sure that during the next decades, not to speak of millennia, there will not be people determined to use our technology to fulfill their destructive impulses, and capable of finding ways to do it? We should not be afraid of the nuclear, we should be afraid of ourselves, of our destructive, aggressive instincts, our lust for power and simply our stupidity, our avidya. As there is probably no way for us to radically change our brains, our mind that the evolution has given us, we should at least be very careful in getting in our hands (and in the hands of our descendants for many generations) the powerful instruments we have invented and constructed. We cannot be sure how they will be exploited in future. And, of course, we should make a huge attempt to understand ourselves, to study our psychology, our brains, our emotions, to see more clearly what we want and what we need. If we want to survive we must find a way not to think dangerous. I don't know whether this is possible.

Taha-i vanur olla

2011-02-27T08:44:00.000-08:00

Ku küsütäs, et mille ma inäp ei saa kirotada eesti keeleh, sis vastus om peris prostoi: eesti keeleh võidas minno kutsu vanuris, võro keeleh säänest sõnna ole-i ja loota om, et ei tule kah. Ma või olla vanamiis, vanataat, vanapapi, a vanur ma küll olla ei taha ja olla ei saa.

Prisoner of one's own past

2011-02-26T00:43:00.000-08:00

These last years I feel often quite desperate: I got many invitations to come and read my poetry or talk to some audience about my work or about Estonian history and culture. But all this means I have to take the role of a certain J.K., Estonian writer and ex-politician. It means I have to be what I was ten, twenty, thirty years ago. I have difficulties saying "Thanks, no" to people who invite me, but feel that I simply cannot play the role of this J.K. any more. I have some years left, my brain is still capable of thinking and formulating some ideas, I want to use the time and energy left to think about some problems that interest me, to write something about language and philosophy of language, about the human condition, about Drake's equation... I don't want to be a prisoner of my own past, of my poems, of my renommée. I want to be what I really am: somebody else, un autre, kiäki muu. And to have a better understanding of this somebody and something else.

Birthday present

2011-02-23T22:51:00.000-08:00

A most extraordinary present I got on my 70th birthday:

http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=29528

Some demonological observations

2011-02-23T22:45:00.000-08:00

We like to live in stories. We admire fictional figures more than real people. Our heroes are such semi-fictional persons, we prefer them to real people, and they use this our predilection for their own ends. They let us create them, transform them into heroes from epics, legends or fairy tales, ancient and modern. And sometimes we bring to life mythological figures, spirits, gods, devils. Thus these non-existent creatures become real figures, although they still behave like their fictional prototypes. One of our most popular figures is certainly the Devil with his legion of avatars, servants and impersonators. I have met him (them). One of his avatars, one of the many devils I happen to know is the Missionary. A little devil travelling in exotic places fishing or hunting for souls. I heard from a friend of mine that this type of devil is an especially common species in the black Africa. In some Ghanean villages people have learnt to play an original game with the devil: they change their denomination, go from one church to another. Of course inspired by some material benefits the devil promises or gives them. In this way he demonstrates his ability to go on with his job in our buy-and-sell world. But in fact, as we know from our old folk tales, this is not a real innovation: even in good old times the Devil could pay quite a huge price for somebody's soul. Thus, the Devil can well be a Businessman too. In this way this classical Devil is a close relative to the very modern one. To the devil who is always busy flying, driving and speaking with his mobile phone at the same time. But even this modern devil has an old prototype. In an Estonian tale we encounter a man whom the Devil befriended (nothing human is alien to the Devil!) and once took flying, carrying him piggyback. The Devil flew with such a speed that the hat of his friend was swept from his head by the wind. He shouted to the Devil to stop so that he could look for it, but the Devil said that they are already tens of miles from the spot where the hat had fallen. This devil is a real precursor of the people we meet in business class lounges in airports around the world, to people who fly around the world once per month. They are the same type of personality they play the same role as the medieval Devil from the folk tale. Although the scope of their business interests is wider: they buy and sell many other things besides human souls. Certainly the Devil is not the personification of Absolute Evil as some Missionaries and philosophers try to convince us. The Devil and his friends and servants are neither better nor worse than most of us. They have read something of Adam Smith, and they can quote Milton Friedman and Margaret Thatcher. They probably believe that there is no such thing as society, there are only inidividuals, and the more easily each individual can follow his/her interests, the better for us all. They believe that they deserve some privileges, they have earned the business class seats and tax cuts because they have really worked very hard to maximise their profits.

Gods as parasites

2011-02-03T15:52:00.000-08:00

Gods and similar beings are among the most successful parasites of our mind, our memosphere. They are most often not violent, but can become very dangerous both to the person infected and other people. They realize their aims in manipulating us, taking control of our actions. Probably they are relatively new parasites, thus a stable, in ideal mutualistic relationship has not yet evolved, although it is not guaranteed that such a mutually beneficial relationship could ever emerge. It is quite possible that either of both, gods or humans will kill the other. It would certainly be better if we could get rid of the gods or God and their consorts, but so far the attempts to achieve such a godless state have not been very successful. Instead of one God or gods, other, often quite dangerous beings creep into our minds and do a lot of harm. Still, a dictator whose aim is only to secure his own power, not to build a God's realm on Earth, is usually better for his subjects and us all than one who thinks he fulfills God's plans, is an instrument in the hands of Providence. As thought Hitler and some of his entourage.

Stanislaw Lem has a little story about a plant on an exoplanet that grows and blooms if insulted and cursed. I think that perhaps the God/gods are somewhat similar: they can grow stronger if attacked, they become more entrenched and can take more dangerous, sometimes hardly recognizable forms, if we try to cast them out. Thus, I think the best chance to get rid of them is to ignore them, being neutral to their lure and their menaces can step by step turn them into harmless mythological beings or literary heroes. As such, they can even serve us well.

I think that sooner or later gods, in our case God (Allah, IHWH, …) will, with the help of men he has successfully turned into his slaves, get in his hands weapons of mass destruction, and unleash an Armageddon. And unfortunately I don't see the world leaders taking decisive steps to stop such potentially dangerous development. Our leaders too seem to be to some degree manipulated by their godly parasites. Still, these parasites are not absolutely evil as some of them have made us believe of their rivals. Thus, there is some hope that they will not made a well-aimed effort to destroy the world. This is most probably not their aim, but they can achieve it unwillingly, just neutralizing some of our vital instincts, including the instinct of self-preservation. One of their ploys is suggesting us that our instincts, our human nature is nothing but evil and only following their instructions, obeying their will, can we do good and live a good life. They want us to believe that they have given us our moral code, without them we would either not exist or exist as savages without any ethics, any moral rules. A widespread belief that is definitely not true: all human beings have rules regulating their behaviour, and even most mammals and birds, first of all primates seem to make a difference between what is just and what is not.

Thus, paraphrasing the famous maxim of Confucius, the best way of dealing with God/gods is to keep away from them, avoiding fighting against them too.

A dice-throwing God?

2011-02-03T15:50:00.000-08:00

As we can read on the Science Daily website on January 6, The Pope Benedict XVI has said that “the universe is not the result of chance, as some would want to make us believe." But what if the God whose “infinite creativity” he appraises in his sermon, is also a dice-throwing God, a God who is free to use stochastic rules? Why do we think of God as a god as a creator of exclusively strictly deterministic systems? Can we prescribe him what logic he uses?

Мужественная страна

2011-01-23T23:09:00.000-08:00

По Чарльзу Дарвину маори Новой Зеландии были самой воинственной народностью мира. И сейчас, по-видимому, Новая Зеландия является, если не воинственной, то по крайней мере довольно мужественной страной, как видно по фотографиям. Для владеющих русским и эстонским языками комментарии излишни.

WE humans are an invasive species

2011-01-02T09:12:00.000-08:00

On the website http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101230100050.htm we read:

ScienceDaily (Dec. 31, 2010) — An influx of invasive species can stop the dominant natural process of new species formation and trigger mass extinction events, according to research results published December 29 in the journal PLoS ONE. The study of the collapse of Earth's marine life 378 to 375 million years ago suggests that the planet's current ecosystems, which are struggling with biodiversity loss, could meet a similar fate.

It's us, humans who are the foremost invasive species at present! Together with some of our commensals and parasites as rats, cats, opossums, some viruses and bacteria. But they are not the most important ones, their expansion is a result of our expansion. Will the result be similar to the result of the big collapse described in this article?

Extinctions are most probably quite sudden events measured on the geological time scale. The biosphere as most if not all ecosystems are non-linear systems, and are stable only in certain limits. There are thresholds, tipping points and other such things that our linear thinking most usually doesn't like to accept. We think as somebody recovered from a serious illness who thinks that he will certainly not die: he as recovered several times, and all the sinister prognoses are simply inventions of paranoid pessimists. There is no death despite so many dismal talk about it: we have lots of examples of people recovering after an illness called fatal.

Life without Savisaar?

2010-12-24T03:55:00.000-08:00

First of all: I think Edgar Savisaar should now leave his posts as the chairman of the Centre Party and mayor of Tallinn. At least until he has taken his case to court and the scandal about him has been cleaned up. Certainly, Estonian politics would be much less interesting and colourful without him, and the neoliberals and nationalists must find another enemy. I doubt whether finding this enemy is very easy. But as to the scandal itself, I have read the compte-rendu of our secret police about it, and have some serious questions left unanswered. It has been told that the director general of Russian railways, Mr. Yakunin (hope have not misspelt the name) has been a high-ranking KGB officer. How can such an experienced man and some of his entourage acted so naively, giving our police the chance to record his conversation with Savisaar? Athough he talks about the need of conspiracy, he seems not to be a good conspirator. Now, did the Russians who reportedly offered some money to the Centre Party really want to do it in secrecy? Is our police really able to record conversations between important people in Moscow? Were they given the materials by some other intelligence agency? Was there an agent of our police among the persons accompanying Savisaar? Couldn't some people in Russia simply want to get rid of Savisaar and leak the information to our police? The scandal has an international dimension, and so far the only person who has paid attention to this is our former prime minister Siim Kallas, now EU commissioner for transport. Here, one of the main questions remains: cui prodest?

Nativitas

2010-12-23T04:37:00.000-08:00

Dicitur Deus natus esse. Dicitur Deus mortuus esse. De natis mortuisque nil nisi bene. Omnibus lectoribus amicis inimicisque
tranquillum tempus Nativitatis felicemque annum novum voveo.

More on stupidity

2010-12-14T12:51:00.000-08:00

We are discussing over choices, often ideological choices, we are either rightist or leftist, liberal or conservative, we want a stronger or weaker state, we are for family values or for personal freedom, we are Catholics or Protestants, Jews or Muslims. But in all these choices, there is a hidden dimension, something that often is more important than the choice itself. To say it in simple words: everything or nearly everything can be done in an intelligent or stupid way. And being leftist or rightist, Catholic or Protestant, pro-choice or pro-life does often not matter so much if it is not seasoned with a minimal amount of intelligence. And perhaps it is important to add, that intelligence itself cannot be fully functional without one of its basic ingredients -- sense of humour. Intelligence paired with humour is something we can call wisdom. Let's think of Buddha's smile and Zhuangzi's laughter. And of Jewish anecdotes.

Goodbye my Estonian

2010-12-10T13:05:00.000-08:00

Some people have been irritated by the fact that I don't use Estonian in my blog. I am sorry, but I have some reasons not to do it. First of all, I have written and published poems, essays and articles in Estonian for more or less fifty years, that is, for half of a century. Isn't it enough? And for about thirty years, I have written about the problems of contemporary Estonian language. Often polemicizing with people who have the authority to say how one should write and speak Estonian, what words and forms we are allowed to use in press and in books. I have different, sometimes radically different ideas about this. I want to use my own breed of Estonian. I have had a lot of controversies with people who think they know better -- editors and specialists in language policy and language maintenance (keelekorraldus). I haven't found much understanding, and even now, editors change the words and forms I use calling their changes amendments and generously giving me the right not to agree with such "amendments". I certainly accept real corrections of my typos and other mistakes -- errare humanum est; I think every writer needs an intelligent and attentive "first reader". But to a writer with fifty years of experience and a background of linguistics being able to read texts in about dozen languages, to see his text, his style changed, his words replaced with different ones, is an insult. But my attitude towards the official Estonian is not just a purely personal matter. I feel deeply sorry about the fact that the language that, according to my deep conviction, should be our common property, should belong to the people who have created and are using it, has become a property of a group of specialists (and, in fact non-specialists too) who have usurped the right to tell us what is right and what is wrong, and to many amateurs who enthusiastically try to invent new words to replace the old ones. I cannot agree with such a situation: I don't think anybody has the right to tell Estonian people what words they should use or not. And nobody has the right to change the language according to his or her ideas, but the people, the speakers and owners of the language. This simple fact is ignored both by our authorities and institutions whose task is to maintain and develop our language. Our linguistic policies are authoritarian, and it seems to me that this authoritarianism has increased in recent years. Now, even our president has intervened in our language policies telling to us what words we should use and what words not. Even if his command of Estonian and knowledge of linguistics were perfect (what is not the case) no president has the authority to teach people how to speak or write. Now, our State Broadcasting authority has, in a hurry, replaced the loanword "infrastruktuur" with a newly formed word "taristu", and all the reporters are obediently using the new word. In my opinion, this neologism is a failure for several reasons. I could explain my opinion in detail, but here I mention only the fact that it makes little sense to replace one compound with the word "struktuur" instead of finding a purely Estonian word for "structure". And for most Estonians, the root "tari" has only the meaning of cluster of berries. But the authority of our president has most probably helped to replace a well-established international word with a strange neologism. In my opinion, such instances are a proof or the absence of democracy in our language policies. It is the result of some ideological stereotypes our language authorities and amateur neologists have inherited from the futuristic ideas of the early XXth century, and the passive attitude of our common language users who have given away their rights, their proprietorship of their language. I has led and is leading to creeping alienation of our people from their language, of the standard Estonian becoming more and more an artificially standardized and maintained language. While most people seem to silently agree with this, I cannot. I feel I have been too intimate with my language, I have tried to do my best in using it intelligently and creatively. I have tried to defend it from excessive normativeness and excessive fondness for neologisms. Now I feel that my efforts have had no results. I have lost my battle. I have nothing left than to resign. I don't want to read Estonian press, to listen to our radio or TV. The modernized language hurts me. I have to abandon writing in Estonian, and try to write in Võru keel, English and Russian. Certainly my command of these languages is not perfect, but I can without resentment accept editors correcting my texts written in English or Russian. And I cannot accept editors "correcting" my Estonian texts. Thus I feel I have been an Estonian writer for half of a century, but I am no more an Estonian writer.

Neeger -- Negro -- Preto

2010-12-05T01:07:00.000-08:00

In the name of political correctness now in Estonia too the word 'neeger' has become a
no-word, instead, people most often use 'mustanahaline'. This is quite odd because 'mustanahaline' means either 'black-skinned' or 'dirty-skinned', and the word 'must' was often used in Soviet times as a derogatory word for black-haired people from Central Asia or Caucasus. All this fuss is the result of primitive understanding of the meanings of words and correspondences between words in different languages. It is naively presumed that the English 'negro' is the same as the Estonian 'neeger'. But it is not so. As is proven by the fact that in Portuguese, the word that was used for Blacks, used to be 'preto'. Nowadays it too has become a politically incorrect word, and instead of 'preto', one must use 'negro'... The morals is that every word belongs to a web of connotations, is connected with other words in its language. In some cases, especially in second class languages as Estonian, these connotations tend to include also words in first class languages, in our case English. And often our language is reinterpreted in the light of such interlingual correspondences. And remodelled to fit better into the patterns established by (American) English. The result is a language using Estonian-sounding words, but having the structure of English. Every word in this hybrid language corresponds to a word in English.

Är tsurkva mu keele

2010-12-04T11:02:00.001-08:00

Lui Sirbist president Ilvese kõnet vahtside sõnnu tegemise võistluse kotsile. Mu jaoss saiva selges paar asja. Edimäne asi om tuu, et mi president ole-i peris “native speaker”, timä eesti keele tundmisest jääs veedü puudu. Timäle om eesti kiil ütsi opit kiil ja tuuperäst om tal rasse vaihet tetä, mis om uma, mis om võõras. Nii tä kasutas ummamuudu eesti kiilt ja paistus mõtlevat, et nii piätki olema: tiit keele säändses kui tahat. Tõne asi om tuu, et timä tiidmise keelest üleüldse omma ka veedü puudulidse. Tuu, et inglise keeleh om kats sõnna – “politics” ja “policy” ei tähendä viil toda, et eesti keeleh piässi sammamuudu olema. Eesti kiil võissi olla midägi muud, ku üts hulk sõnnu, minkäs inglise või muud Standard Average European'it tõlgitasse. Mi keeleh om olnu ja om viil põrõhõllaki veedü tõne miil, mõttit saa vällä üteldä hoobis tõistmuudu ja mõtte eski võiva olla tõistsugutse. Tuud es mõista presidendi suur iihkujo Aavik ka. Ja sõna ei saisa keeleh ütsindä, sõna ole-i saare, nimä omma köüdüssih muide sõnnuga. Ku mõteldas vällä vahtsene sõna infrastuktuuri jaos – “taristu” vai mis timä olli, sis võissi iks mõtelda, mis tetä tõisi sõnnuga, koh oma tõne sõna sammamuudu “struktuur”: “allstruktuur, superstruktuur, süvastruktuur, pindstruktuur, ...” Nii lüvväs üts sõna muist lahku, aatas keele struktuur segämini. Ja kas iks om sündsä tuu, et president, kiä ole-i keeletiidläne ega peris native speaker, nakkas rahvast oppama, määne piät eesti kiil olema. Nõuka-aigu olli sääne hää sõna ku “isetegevus”, mis võro keeleh võinu olla “esitegemine”. Nüit sis tule jälki vällä, et eesti kiil om esitegijide kätte sattunu. Ja või küssü, kas Eesti riik ole-i viimäte ka ütse esitegeline riik. Är tsurkva mu keele. Olessi nooremb, nakkassi tõtesti muuh keeleh kirotama, a põrõhõlla om joba rasse. A pruumi iks võit...

Worst Mistakes US Made

2010-12-02T00:55:00.000-08:00

I agree with people who call the US "the unwilling empire". US could have been able to rule the world, to become not only the single superpower, but the one effective ruling power in the world using the military and economic means at its disposal. For various reasons it has not chosen this way. America has more or less successfully avoided the emergency of existential threats to its security, intervening only in situations it considered very critical. Some of these interventions ended with fiasco, as in Vietnam or in stalemate as in Korea. The Americans have tried to find counterbalances to nations they considered too powerful as the USSR or India (thanks to the special relationship between New Dehli and Moscow) and a menace to their interests. Thus the US has supported Pakistan against India and the Afghan islamist guerillas against the Russians. I think these were Washington's worst mistakes. Despite everything, the Russians, and of course the Indians, are pragmatic and would never launch into too dangerous adventures. They are not fanatics. Unfortunately, many people in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran are fanatics who are capable of destroying the world in the name of their God or religion. Now, thanks to the US politics, these forces have become more powerful, and as the result the world is becoming a more dangerous place. The stalemate established in Korea, the existence of the failed state with its crazy and desperate rulers is helping the fanatics in South Asia to strengthen their positions. And they get some support from quasi-moderate rulers in other Asian countries as Turkey. To cut it short: the USSR and India, or nowadays Russia are not apocalyptic nations ready to launch an Armageddon. Iran and one day Pakistan are capable of doing it when they get the necessary means. But the US seems not to be capable of preventing them to do it. Democracy means compromises, negotiations and hesitation. Religious and quasi-religious dictatorships can do without it, and for a short period of time, they are capable of mobilizing all their resources and put aside all hesitation to achieve their goals. In a world with nuclear arms it means that the democracies are becoming dangerously vulnerable.

Breaking taboos

2010-11-27T23:31:00.000-08:00

Breaking taboos, breaking taboos... But culture is a system of taboos. Do we have a culture that wants to destroy itself? Is it an intrinsic feature of every culture? Or only of some cultures? Only of the so-called Western culture? Thoughts that make me feel uneasy.

Prokuröri ja ahukaadi

2010-11-26T11:34:00.000-08:00

Ku kaet televusserit, koh näid juriste iks näüdätäs, sis paistus nii, et 90% prokuröre omma Eestih noorepoolitse naise, 90% ahukaate jälki mehe. Tiiä-i, kas prokuröre valitas vällänägemise perrä (vällänägemise üle ole-i põhjust nuriseda) määndselgi iludusvõistlemisel või om asalugu kudagi tõisilde. A nii timä om.

Knowledge ruins its object

2010-11-26T09:09:00.000-08:00

There are many reasons to be optimistic about the future of mankind and of our planet. Human beings are quite smart, and so far have been able to find a way out of severe crises, be it ecological, social or economical. Coal mines saved the forests from over-exploitation, mineral fertilizers saved us from hunger, antibiotics saved us from many infectious diseases. But there is something that may put this optimism into question. This is something I would call “stupidity factor”. If we are able to find a positive solution to a problem, we can sometimes express it with a positive number. Be it rise of standard of living, survival rates of cancer patients, productivity of crops, e.t.c. But this positive number must always be multiplied by another number that is necessarily smaller than 1. This positive number s: 0 < s < 1 is the stupidity factor. We must take it into account in all our predictions connected with human activity, human decision-making. Predicting that the GNP of a nation rises for about 10% in next decade, we must multiply it with s. The result is less than 10%. More information does not always mean more knowledge, the s comes in here too.

The s is not something that can be avoided, it is an intrinsic part of the human condition, and certainly of the most fundamental laws of the universe we inhabit. It is a corollary of the law of increase of entropy that is valid in the universe as well as in our brain, a micro-model of this universe, a microcosm simulating the processes of the macrocosm. The principle of increase of entropy means that the value of s must be less than 1, it has a negative influence on our productivity, on the results we want to achieve. It introduces mistakes into our texts, faults into our ethnology, into our theories, economies... In principle, these mistakes can be corrected, faults faulted. Our brain is not a closed system, we can put into it some information, some negative entropy harvested from outside. But this comes at a price, the price means that something in a bigger system must be changed, degraded, some of its positive measures (as e.g. its complexity) must be multiplied by s. We can learn, diminish our stupidity by reading books, surfing in the internet, listening to wiser people, thinking, trying to find solutions to our problems. But we cannot be sure that what we learn is free of mistakes, whether we want it or not, we take over some of other people's faults. And unavoidably we introduce some more “mistakes” into our environment. Having more books means destroying more trees, surfing in the internet means wasting more energy, increasing the entropy on our planet. And as ourselves, our civilization, our culture and any ecosystem can survive and thrive only in limited conditions, in a limited interval of temperature, moisture, pressure, the degradation of our environment means that we are diminishing the chances of our own survival in future. Our knowledge is always infected with stupidity, the s is present in everything we think and do. Constructing something, we deconstruct it or something else. Our actions have always some negative results. Our knowledge ruins its object.

Olessi nigu peris luuletaja

2010-11-13T11:43:00.000-08:00

Üle tükü ao löüse üte luuletuse, mis mulle miildü. Veronika Kivisilla luuletus Sirbi viimätsel lehekülel. Hää luuletus ja intelligentne ka. Ku nuur inemine tiid, kiä olli Hildegard von Bingen ja misasi olli ordoviitsium, sis tege iks hääd miilt küll!

Where autocracy comes from?

2010-11-07T01:30:00.000-07:00

We men-women are not adapted to the life in big societies. Our normal social environment is small groups, be it families, peer groups, kins or small tribes. In these groups there is no need for formal regulation of social relations, no need for strict etiquette, law and law enforcement. In big societies we need a lot of formal rules, otherwise these societies cannot function properly. In fact, they fall apart, become just loose assemblies of such smaller groups. Often people tend to look on the society as if it were a small group. Sometimes a small group can effectively seize power in a society, sometimes its leader becomes the leader of a big tribe, of a nation. He cannot rule just by himself, he needs the support of his close entourage, his own small group. Here, the relations are not formal. Stalin, Hitler nor Saddam Hussein had their own kins, peer groups, politbureaus and used these to seize power and secure their hold of it. And they tried to rule a nation, a country as a small group, ignoring formalities, ignoring the existence of different views, interests and personalities. There are many types of autocrats from paternalistic father-figures like the Estonian president Päts to paranoid dictators as Stalin or Saddam. But, in my opinion, their common feature is a kind of atavistic tendency not to accept the real complexity of a society, but to try to rule it as if it were simply an extended family or a tribe. The secret of their success seems at least partly to be due to our inborn, instinctive disposition to assume a role in a small group, most often the role of a subject, of somebody who obeys the alpha-individual, sometimes even the role of a slave. But some of us are well ready to assume the role of a leader, of an alpha-male. Which is analogous to the role of a father in many traditional families or the role of the leader in a male peer group. In my childhood, our ruler was a man often called Father, Leader or Teacher. Thus, comrade Stalin assumed a couple of age-old traditional roles, in fact degrading the whole Soviet society to the role of his descendants, his children, subordinate members of his peer group or his pupils.

Genetic and memetic drift in small populations

2010-11-06T12:00:00.000-07:00

Genetic drift is a statistical phenomenon: especially in a small population, some genotypes become more frequent, sometimes even dominant by pure chance, without any connection with their survival value. In the same way, some genotypes can be eliminated, when, for example, a storm destroys some nests of a tiny and isolated colony of birds. Such gene drift interferes with natural selection. Natural selection, as a force based on stochastic mutations, can do its work in a orderly manner in a big population where random changes balance one another.

There is a clear analogy to the gene drift in the cultural changes in human societies. Some such changes, some memes have a positive value, help the society to function in a more efficient and smooth way, minimizing the possibility of harm to its members, enhancing their happiness, creativity, etc. Some changes are harmful. In a big society, there are more changes, more innovations, but each of such innovations has a smaller effect on the society as a whole. In a small society some innovations can influence the behaviour of the society as a whole. It means also that single persons can more easily become influential in a small society. The culture of a small nation can more easily be influenced by a strong personality. I think we can find good examples of such influential personalities in Estonian culture. I can mention the “language engineer” Johannes Aavik who introduced into the standard Estonian several dozen memes, new words of his own creation and some grammatical forms. There are other examples. Some scientists have had an exceptionally great influence on the development of biology, physics or philology here. Botanical studies in Estonia on the second half of the Xxth century wouldn't have been what they were without the works of the great botanist, one of the great figures of plant sociology, professor Teodor Lippmaa. The fenno-ugric studies developed under the aegis of Paul Ariste, our oriental studies have been shaped by the influence of two major scholars – Linnart Mäll and Rein Raud. The problem is that such leader figures in their respective fields can be broad-minded and tolerant, but sometimes this is not the case. Then, their authority can become an obstacle, they become gurus, their students become their disciples more or less blindly accepting their ideas and attitudes. There are simply no other persons of similar authority, no good colleagues, no rivals, no adequate criticism of their achievements.

Could we also find analogies of such a situation in Estonian politics? I hesitate to answer, but my tentative answer is no. Despite all the fuss and noise around politics, it still has a definite survival value, and no politician is capable of monopolizing the scene here. However, in politics too, some ideas, some memes can become influential more by chance than by their real value, and as such, shape to a significant degree, the life of our society. One such idea is the neo-liberalist ideology imported and spread in Estonia by some active supporters of Milton Friedman, although these people had little understanding of Friedman's work in economics. But thanks to the activity of our Friedmanian politicians, Estonia is now a kind of an experiment in neo-liberal economy and politics. So far this experiment has been successful, despite some very serious problems on the horizon. But as such, the Estonian experiment can serve as a good or bad example for other nations, even for the bigger ones where different views and their proponents to a much greater degree balance one another, creating a society more based on the aurea mediocritas.

Our non-Aristotelian dreams

2010-11-04T10:03:00.001-07:00

I believe that most, maybe even more than 90% of what people tell and write about their (and other people's) dreams is not authentic. Dreams cannot often be described in our common language, common conceptual system. Why? Because our language, our semantics is "Aristotelian", based on presumption that everything is what it is, is identical with itself. A = A. A dog is a dog, a rose is a rose is a rose. A dog is not a cat, a cloud or a chair, at least not at the same time. Of course, not everything can be described and defined in such Aristotelian way. There are things that demand we use a kind of a "fuzzy" logic to describe them. There are chairs that are also to some degree, e.g. 40% tables. But even such a fuzzy thing, even a mythological chimaera, even a cloud or a wave are themselves, are identical to themselves in their definiteness or fuzziness. But in dreams things are sometimes not identical to themselves, they can be 100% A and 100% B at the same time. Oddly enough, the person dreaming doesn't usually notice any contradiction, any absurdity here. I remember having dreamed of a place that was both a room in a house with bookshelves standing at the walls, and a town square surrounded by high buildings. How to describe such a scene? How to call these shelves that are also buildings? To describe dreams we should invent a different language, use words in an unconventional way. But as a rule, dreams are not meant to be communicated extensively and exactly. Nobody can check whether the description of a dream is correct or not. Dreams belong to our private world, not to the world we share with others. And when we want or to have to share it with others, it is difficult, sometimes even impossible. But can these difficulties, these problems have a sign of our need of something really private, of our need to isolate ourselves from communication, to live in a world that does belong only to us? Can the dreams also be a means to escape from the inexorable Aristotelian logic of our everyday world where we everything has to be itself, where we too have to be ourselves, having no chance to escape from our identity that is largely imposed on us?

Hümn sai veidi parandedus

2010-10-26T08:02:00.000-07:00

Vana papa Janseni hümni on rummal laulda ja luke. Om aast ja arust. Vahtset ole-i vast vaija, a vanna võissi parembas tetä küll. Ma kõrra pruumse, panni eski aolehte, a vastakaija es ole joht. Mõtli, et ku inemise lugeva mu blogikest, sis peräkõrd om näid, kink meelest vast sünnüssi säänest teksti lauldaki. Ma pallo ümbre es tii, veedü inne kohendi.

Mu isamaa, mu õnn ja rõõm,
mu vanemate maa!
Ei sinust kaunimat küll eal
või leida laia ilma peal
ei armsamat kui oled sa
mu kallis isamaa!

Sa oled mind ju sünnitand
ja suureks kasvatand:
mul püsid meeles alati,
ma jään su lapseks surmani,
mul kurb on olla sinuta,
mu kallis isamaa!

Su üle taevas valvaku,
mu armas isamaa!
Ja päevapaiste hoidku sind,
mu sünnimaa, mu kodupind,
jää kestma sa, jää vabaks sa,
mu kallis isamaa!

Suomalaisittain Sofi Oksasesta

2010-10-22T11:41:00.000-07:00

En minä ole suinkaan ainoa enkä hyökkävin Sofi Oksasen Puhdistus-kirjan arvostelija. Ystäväni, filosofian tohtori Suomesta kirjoitti minulle seuraavaa. Hänen luvallaan siteeraan:

Kun olin lukenut Puhdistuksen, minua alkoi vaivata kummallinen ajatus. Se ei tietenkään ole kirjaimellisesti tosi, mutta päässäni pyöri: S.O. ei ole itse kirjoittanut tuota kirjaa, vaan sen on pistänyt kasaan joukko viihdeteollisuuden huippuammattilaisia. Hehän osaavat kaikki kikat ja tehokeinot: kuinka rakennetaan vetävä juoni (uusi, mutta kuitenkin kliseinen ja sopivasti ennakoitava), vetäviä henkilöhahmoja (uusia, mutta kuitenkin ikivanhojen arkkityyppien toisintoja) ? ja kuinka päälle päätteeksi kirjailijasta itsestäänkin luodaan ?selvästi erottuva brändi?. Koko komeuden pitää tietenkin uida myös poliittisen valtavirran suuntaisesti (mutta kuitenkin niin, että se näyttää kapinalliselta, vastavirtaan pyristelyltä).

Näin mieleni silmin myös, kuinka tuo koneisto ahmii kitaansa aineksia virolaisten elämästä ja muokkaa ne säälittä kulttuuriteollisuuden standardoiruiksi tuotteiksi. Jonkinlaista PUHDISTUSTA lienee sekin. Siinä on myös ryöstön tai hyväksikäytön maku.

Mutta ehkä tuo kuvitelmani ei ole täysin väärä. Ehkä kulttuuriteollisuuden koneisto on siepannut Sofi ?paran mielen vähän samalla tapaa, kuin ne varasohjelmat, joita taitavat tietokonerikolliset yrittävät istuttaa meidänkin läppäreihimme.

Samoan and Estonian

2010-10-20T10:33:00.000-07:00

In his book "Linguistic Ecology: Language Change and Linguistic Imperialism in the Pacific Rim", Peter Mühlhäusler writes:

The grammatical adjustment that is encountered in most Pacific languages that have come under the influence of expatriate missions and education systems is that a number of apparently viable languages (in terms of numbers of speakers and social institutionalization), such as Fijian or Samoan, have nevertheless disappeared, in the sense that what has remained is primarily their formal properties and what has gone is their semantic and pragmatic aspects. The continuation of mere lexical forms of earlier languages raises the question of identity of linguistic systems over time, external pressure(s) having introduced a degree of discontinuity and restructuring that renders the notion of historical continuity useless.

Hasn't the same happened to the Estonian language that has been and is being intensively restructured by foreign influences, these influences having been successfully internalized and sometimes taken to extremes by our own literati? Has the old Estonian disappeared, being replaced by a euro-language that has lost most of its "semantic and pragmatic aspects"? Isn't, paradoxically, the Russian language, at present downgraded and driven out of use a potential counterweight to the overwhelming Euro-American influence on Estonian?

Кнут и пряник

2010-10-19T03:11:00.000-07:00

Что лучше, что хуже -- кнут или пряник? На такие вопросы нельзя ответить без уточнения. Лучше вообще или хуже вообще не имеют смысла. Надо спросить для кого, для чего что-то хорошo или плохo. Мое поколение жило главным образом под кнутом партии и зависящих от нее органов. Кнут может ударить больно, и в каком-то смысле боль более реальна, чем ее противоположность, по крайней мере сладость. Одной из причин сокрушения советского строя была его неспособность дать людям пряники, которые своей сладостью могли бы соревноваться с болью, причиняемою властью. Нам сильно недоставало сладости, наслаждения, всего, что вызывает позитивные эмоции. Это конечно плохо в эмоциональном плане и наверно имеет негативное влияние на психику вообще. Мы жили под постоянным, хотя изменяющимся в интенсивности стрессом. Стресс сильно снизился после смерти Сталина. Но о стрессе мы знаем, что стресс иногда полезен для нас, иногда нет. Стресс мобилизует организм, стимулирует иммунную систему, подготавливает нас для активных действий. И вполне нормально спросить, не был ли кнут советской жизни, советского строя иногда именно таким стимулирующим кнутом. Тогда следует и спросить, не может ли пряник, жизнь в обществе благополучия тоже иметь некоторое негативное влияние на нашу психофизиологию, иногда даже более вредную, чем боль, страдание. Вопросы те сложны и я не могу на них ответить ни сейчас ни наверняка вообще. Но иногда мне кажется, что для более полного развития творческого потенциала человека ему нужно вырасти, жить в не очень благоприятной среде, иметь опыт не только пряника, но и кнута. Конечно, кнута не до серьезно травмирующей, сокрушающей степени. Но может быть, что именно кнут, не только авторитарность и строгость режима, но и его неспособность дать нам многие элементарные блага, была именно тем источником умеренного стресса, мобилизующего наш интеллект, наши творческие способности. Доказать это непросто, но на то возможно указывают научные и артистические достижения людей, выросших под этим советским кнутом-стрессом. Иногда они могли проявляться и в советской среде, как например семиотика или эстонская поэзия шестидесятых-семидесятых годов прошлого века. Иногда они проявляются в полной мере лишь в более открытой, свободной среде, где люди, выросшие под кнутом, в неблагоприятных условиях, нередко достигают вершин в многих областях, как например в точных науках, особенно в физике и в математике. Бывшие советские ученые имеют невероятно большой успех на Западе.

Интересно то, что в искусстве кнут намного сильнее пряника. В пряничных западных обществах художники и писатели создают все более агрессивные, шокирующие книги, картины, фильмы, как будто идя навстречу нашей потребности в кнуте. В эту категорию попадает и популярный триллер финской писательницы Софи Оксанен, которая почерпнула материал для своего horor-story в недавней истории Эстонии. Если читать книгу как триллер, книга неплохая, написанная по давним правилам такой литературы. Но ее книгу никак невозможно принять за реалистическое описание жизни в Эстонии во второй половине ХХ столетия. Как и романы лауреатов Сталинской премии, иногда очень хорошо написанные, нельзя принять за реалистические описания советской действительности.

Удивляются, почему я не пишу в моем блоге по-эстонски. Об этом я уже коротко писал тут же. Я человек без настоящего родного языка, родной язык моей семьи -- выруский -- был подавлен и отчасти уничтожен языковой политикой эстонских властей, а официальный эстонский слишком далек и от того эстонского, на котором говорили у нас дома. И нынешние тенденции развития эстонского языка превращают его все больше в некий евро-эсторанто, которое мне совершенно чуждо. Официальный эстонский развивался под сильным влиянием нашего варианта русского футуризма, идеологии, провозглашающей изжившими свой век народные языки, которые следует коренным образом перестроить в цивилизованные. Такой перестройкой моего родного языка и занимались несколько поколений различных деятелей, часто самоучек, и результатом их деятельности стало это евро-эсторанто. Поэтому я все чаще пытаюсь пользоваться языками, не перестроенными лингвистами-футуристами, языками, которыми неплохо, но к сожалению и не в совершенстве, владею.

Machine-inventing Man

2010-10-18T00:38:00.000-07:00

Human beings are machine-inventors. Instead of doing something, we try to find a machine, an instrument that does it. Nowadays these machines are real machines, be it calculators, computers or washing machines. But in a way, ideologies, religions, world views, life styles, trends, fashions, art movements are also machines who do some of our intellectual work for us, help us to achieve thought economy. To some degree it's unavoidable, but there's also a danger in giving away too much of our intellectual sovereignty to an impersonal system of views and values.

We are never entirely ourselves, a part of us is borrowed, taken over from others, from the "collective mind". Our individuality is an outgrowth of a bigger identity, we are partly dissolved in this collective mind. Our conscious life is always a compromise between the collective and the individual parts of our mind. It's a dynamic compromise, sometimes we let the collective stream of consciousness to carry us, sometimes we strive to swim in a different direction, sometimes even counter the current. But we are never entirely successful, the current is always there. The current that carries us, and the machines that do our work for us. And often dictate us what is the work that has to be done, what is the life we must live.

Книги, книжонки...

2010-10-08T02:36:00.000-07:00

Читаю с интересом, скорее всего интересом языковеда роман Натана Дубовицкого Околоноля, который по неофициальным данным принадлежит перу серого кардинала Кремля -- Владислава Суркова. Там нашел прекрасный пример вариативности русского языка:

Порожнего времени получалось много и расходилось оно на подруг, друзей и вот ещё — в метро, перед сном, за едой, до и после секса, по мере распития вин и водок — на чтение, чтение, чтение книжищ, книжиц, книжек, книжонок и просто книг, сначала без разбора, с тем же насмешливым любопытством, а потом всё избирательнее, точнее.

Думаю, что русские со своим языком близки к финноуграм: и те и другие недовольны обычными способами выражения своих мыслей и всегда пытаются найти, испробовать иные возможности, иные слова и обороты. Русский язык очен вариативен, как язык он неготов, всегда в движении. По-моему, для русских язык не средство мышления, а средство выражения своих мыслей, существующих до их выражения в неком доязыковом коде, до-языке, mentalese'е.

Поэты и прозаики

2010-10-08T02:30:00.001-07:00

Самые талантливые и интересные эстонские прозаики ныне вне сомнения Andrus Kivirähk и Indrek Hargla. Из старшего поколения конечно Madis Kõiv. Но он уж слишком непростая фигура, чтобы его в твиттерском стиле как-нибудь охарактеризовать. Kivirähk'a и Hargla можно считать писателями-фантастами: особенно необузданная и игривая, наслаждающаяся своим собственным эланом, фантазия торжествует в творчестве Kivirähk'а. Hargla склоняется к более традиционным формам фантастики, будь то science fiction или fantasy. Интересно то, что в то время, как наши прозаики увлекаются фантастикой, альтернативными мирами, древними мифами, мистикой, алхимией, людьми, превращающимися в медведей, наши поэты пишут об обыденных делах, о малых происшествиях повседневной жизни. Иногда мне кажется, что у нас поэты и прозаики обменялись местами, прозаики пишут как поэты, поэты – как прозаики. Интересно, почему это так.

Я враг народа...

2010-08-28T10:50:00.001-07:00

Российское инфоагентство Regnum цитирует нашего министра просвещения Тыниса Лукаса, который как будто сказал, что те, кто противятся эстонскоязычному обучению в русских гимназиях, враги Эстонии. Так ли он сказал или не совсем так, но такие взгляды довольно типичны для тех эстонских политиков, в число которых входит Лукас. Мне грустно на это смотреть. Советские власти дали эстонцам учиться на эстонском языке в течение всего периода аннексии (и не оккупации, как любят говорить наши патриоты). В тартуском университете я должен был слушать лишь несколько курсов на русском языке. Могли бы мы иметь хоть чуточку великодушия и не проводить эстонификацию намного усерднее чем Москва проводила русификацию. И что мне совсем непонятно и даже противно, это кампания проводимая нашей языковой инспекцией, которая проверяет знание эстонского языка преподавателей русских школ: какого черта учителям, преподающим по-русски, нужно знание эстонского языка на таком высоком уровне? По-моему это все просто малодушная месть и придирательство. Несмотря все оккупации и аннексии я не уверен, имеет ли одна община, имеют ли говорящие по-эстонски (или по-русски) моральное право принудить другую общину перейти на другой язык, будь то в школе, на улице или дома. И конечно, в нашей языковой политике много просто откровенной глупости включая тенденцию принудить всех к использованию довольно жестко регламентированного государственного языка. Об этом я немало писал в эстонской прессе.

Sofi Oksanen and the Stalin Award

2010-08-24T02:49:00.000-07:00

The immense success of Sofi Oksanen's novel "Purge" (Puhdistus) astonishes me. But recalling books I read in my childhood I think I understand it to some degree. In the early fifties of the XX century I had not many books to read in Estonian, and after having read nearly all children's books published in the independent Estonia that were accessible to me I began to read Soviet literature, mostly books for grown-ups. Among those translated were a couple of dozen books by laureates of the Stalin award. I remember some of them that were really well written as Peter the First by Aleksei Tolstoy or In the Trenches of Stalingrad by Viktor Nekrasov. Most of everything else has become something anonymous, a fuzzy whole of half-mythological stories with sadistic Germans and their collaborators as anti-heroes and brave patriotic Partisans as heroes. But nevertheless, these books had a certain appeal, the fitted into some of our deep psychological needs, to our needs for fairy tales, for tales of heroes and villains. Oksanen's book falls into the same category as the Stalinist books of my childhood, only the heroes and anti-heroes have exchanged their role. It's a skillfully written horror story with many corpses. Let it be. My only, but very serious objection to the book is that it pretends to be a realistic story about life in Soviet Estonia in the second half of the XXth century, and seems to have been accepted as such by the public in Europe and America. S. O. who has no direct experience of the time and events she describes has taken parts of our life, sewing them together according to some age-old rules of ideological-mythological literature, and is now selling it in the West. She is selling something that pretends to be our life, but isn't. Our life in the Soviet Union was not a horror story! Of course, there were many horrific episodes, years of terror and counter-terror, but as a whole, we lived a life that was often quite interesting and funny. I cannot approve the idea that my life, the life of my parents, my friends, my colleagues was not a life worth living, that we felt we were prisoners in a large prison camp. The USSR after the death of Stalin was not a prison camp. It was a lousy country, but there were and there are many much more lousy countries in the world. One of my basic convictions is that there is no Devil (probably no God either, but here it's not important). Soviet Union was not a diabolical country. And the lives we lived in the second half of the XXth century in this country were not lived according to some diabolical rules and supervised by the Devil or his henchmen. I don't want anybody to take my life away from me and sell an adulterated version of it to unknowing people abroad. Dixi.

Väikokodanlus malaka iist

2010-08-19T03:10:00.000-07:00

Jälki kirotedas väikokodanlikkusest. Seo kõrd saa mööda kaala Jaan Tätte, inäp viil timä austaja. Väikokodanlikkuse vasta lastas kultuurifilosuufia raskesuurtükke tsitaatega, abis omma Lotman, Barthes... Mulle tule miilde üts lugu. Vilniusen om Eesti saatkund, kinkäle ehitedi vahtsene maja. Maja om väega imelik, saadiku pere magamistaren om lõunapuult sain uma neli miitrit korge, sainakappe ole-i oleman. Saalin, kon om koonolekide ja konverentse kotus, ei paistu aknast muud katuse pääl oleva ventilatsiuunivärgi vai muu sääne kraam. Hoovi pääl om maa-alone garaaž, kohe päses mulgust. Mulgu ümbre es ole määnestki aida vai tõket, nii istutiva saatkunna inemise taha puhma, et latse es sattassi alla. Arhitekt olli käünü umma tüüd kaeman ja ütelnü puhmidest, et neo ollev väikokodanligu...

Psühholuug Steven Pinker om kirotanu säändsist asjust peris targaste. Timä näütäs, et modernismin om ettekujotus, et inemise esteetilise väärtusegi omma puhta kasvatuse vili. Et se, mis om illos vai ei, om kotun vai koolin opit. Niimuudu sis tahtva modernisti inemist ümbre kasvatada, opata tõistmuudu ilo kritiiriumme, pästä inemise är väikokodanluse diskriitsest võlust. Kui muu avita-i, piät šokiirmä, inemiisi raputama, tsuskima, ärritämä... Piät nüütämä, kui hirmus om tegelikult seo väikokodanlik hääolemine, kui hirmus om ilo, kui hirmsa omma inemise. Kui rummal om traditsiooniline kunst, arhitektuur... Kui inemise lahti saava raputedus ummist väikokodanlikest nägemisist, saa maailm parembas. Kunstniku, arhitekti ja kultuuriteoreetiku tahtva maailma pästä Umwertung aller Werte läbi. Üts asi om subjektiivne, tuu, et mulle om väikokodanlikkusel uma võlu ja taha-i ma tuust valla saia. Tõne asi om tuu, et suure osa kunsti- ja kultuurieliidi tiidmise inemisest ja timä psühholuugiast omma häbemädä sandi, et näide ilmanägemine om peri koskilt XX sajandi edimätsist aastist, timän om viil naiiv-futurismi jälekeisi nigu usk, et kõkke esi kujonenut saa ümbre tetä, parembas tetä ja nii piätki tegemä. Revolutsiuun om pagenu uulitsilt, barrikaadelt kunstivällänäütusile ja kuntiteoreetikide tekste sisse. A timä ideoluugia om jäänü samas. Iks piät vana är lahkma, vanale vasta hakkama, sis tule uus ja parep.

Traditsiuuniline maastikumaal ei lövvä moderniste ja avangardiste silmin küll määnestki tunnustust, seo om puru-väikokodanlik... A tegelikult näütäs seo maastikumaal, olko Lääne vai Hiina oma ütte ja tõist inemiisin geneetiliselt olevist miildimuisist. Inemine, kiä om kujonenu Aafrika savannen, peläten lõvve ja leoparde, taht olla ümbrusen, koh selä takan om puhm vai sain, mis and kindluse tunde, et kiäki takast kallale ei karga, iihn aga piät olema lake väli vai viikogo. Säänest pilti kaien om inemisel parep tunne ku kaien pilti, koh nii ole-i. Ja inemisel, nigu om ruumipsühholuugia näüdänü, om ka parep olla pargin vai muial, kon pengi takan om puhm ja iinpuul om lagedat. Ku sis tahami inemist ümbre kasvatadaja panemi timä ümbruste, mis ei vast timä vajaduisile, om tulemus inne tuu, et inemisel om ebämukav ja timä püüd muiale minnä. Kui seo ümbrus om pilt vai installatsiuun vai performance vai mis neo kõk omma, timä lihtsalt ignoriir säänest kunsti vaid mis seo kõk om ja kunstnikel ja kunstiteoreetikidel jää-i muud ku kiruda, et inemise omma väikokodanliku ja pruumi viil kangembit šokiteraapia võttid. Tulemus: inemise hoitva avangardist viil kavvembahe. Asi om sandim, ku inemiisile tetäs peris ümbrus, kon timä piät elämä ja tüüd tegemä. Ja õnnetuses om osa arhitekte ka säänest inemiisi ümbrekasvatamise usku vai lihtsalt tahtva uma tsunfti sisen luurberit lõiku. Ja teevä sis maiju ja muud liinaümbrust, kon väikokodanlik inemine hinnäst sitaste tund, mis ei vasta inemise sisse programmiirit vajaduisile. Mul om küll tunne (ja või üteldä, et ka lootus), et säändside pretensiuunega kunst (incl. arhitektuur) kooles vällä ja inemise loomust nakatas tõtitselt arvestama ja seo perrä timä jaos kunsti ja eluümbrust tegemä. Inemine om üts väega vana elläi ja kand hindä sisen miljonide aastide aolukku. Toda ei saa väega kavva ignoriiri.

Нужен ли нам русский язык?

2010-08-19T02:59:00.000-07:00

Каарел Таранд пишет, что учиться русскому языку не имеет смысла, русский язык не имеет будущего и нам больше не нужен. Не знаю, нужен ли он нам или нет, но мне русский язык просто нравится, нравится даже больше чем официальный эстонский. Мне жаль, что не владею русским языком в такой степени, чтобы свободно на нем выражать все свои мысли и чувства и действительно стать и русским писателем. Хотя кое-что по-русски и написал и надеюсь писать и в будущем. Русский язык гораздо более естественен чем усердно модернизированный и регламентированный официальный эстонский, и по некоторым характеристикам более близок к коренным финно-угорским языкам чем нынешний эстонский, который мне все труднее считать родным языком.

War?

2010-06-24T05:33:00.000-07:00

My intuition tells me a war in Middle East is quite probable, maybe even imminent. Tensions are rising, and diplomacy seems to be incompetent and impotent in its attempts to defuse them. And possible the leaders of some countries think the sooner the better. I don't think President Obama is a dovish person. Quite the opposite. Can he accept the waning of America's influence in the whole world and the rise of extremist forces. Maybe he draws some parallels with the situation in Europe in the late thirties and thinks that the war wouldn't have been so devastating if the British, French and their allies were determined enough to attack Germany before it became too well prepared and equipped.

Monarchy is democratic!

2010-06-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

Some politically incorrect thoughts I had looking the royal wedding of Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and Daniel Westling

Isn't monarchy more democratic than elected government? Why must we prefer some special persons, why shouldn't we trust simple, ordinary people? And members of royal families are just such ordinary people who have no special genes or talents. In away, this is true of aristocracy in general. You are either born into nobility or you are ennobled for some reason. In general, this amounts more or less to random selection, the nobility is a more or less good sample of the general population. Why should we think persons we elect to become deputies and ministers are more able to do their job, to govern, take difficult decisions? If we want competence, we should give our future rulers proper education, they should have a competence in political science, economics, sociology, psychology, ecology. As a minimum, this would mean a couple of years of specialized graduate studies. Very few of our parlamentarians or members of government can boast of such preparedness for their job. Wouldn't it be better to choose the rulers at random and to give them the necessary education from the very beginning?

Трубочист на цыпочках

2010-06-19T01:33:00.000-07:00

Пока не ознакомился с творчеством скульптора Тауно Кангро, думал, что он просто один из заурядных, не выдающихся ничем особым наших скульпторов. После того, как видел его статуи целующих на Musumägi и особенно, когда видел его статую трубочиста, почему-то стоящего на цыпочках, понял, что Кангро даже не посредственный художник. Его скромный талант скульптора не идет ни на какое сравнение с его талантом пиарщика. Очень боюсь, что он еще осчастливит наш столичный город огромной статуей Kalevipoeg'а. Эстония сильно страдает от безвкусицы и потери чувства меры на государственном уровне.

On the Background of the Israeli Attack on the Turkish Ship

2010-06-09T05:43:00.000-07:00

The Israeli leaders have made a big blunder. Sending special troops to take over the blockade-bustering ship led to the bloody clash, and a major diplomatic disaster for Israel and particularly its present government. It would have been better to send to the ship a police force with real experience of dealing with violent crowd without making use of live ammunition. But I doubt very much that the present pre-cold-war relations between Turkey and Israel are mainly the result of actions taken by the present and previous Israeli governments that certainly irritated Ankara. I am inclined to think that there is more theatre than sound political talk in the angry rhetoric of the PM Erdogan. He wants to gain more votes for his party and more sympathy from the street in the Near East. But most probably the rift between Israel and Turkey would have opened sooner or later. Distancing himself from Israel is just one step in agenda aiming at islamization of Turkey and asserting Turkey's role as a regional superpower. I wouldn't be astonished if the incident weren't even pre-arranged. It helped Erdogan to achieve one of his aims: to neutralize the military who were his main adversaries. After the clash on Mavi Marmara it would be nearly impossible for the Turkish generals to stage a coup or even put much pressure on the ruling Islamists. Erdogan and his entourage have already clashed with the military arresting several generals who are accused of subversion, of preparing a coup against the ruling party. Thus, the fight between the Israeli special troops and the would-to-be martyrs was also a fight between the Turkish military and Islamists. The process of islamization of Turkey goes on for many years already, and has resulted in introducing some changes in the society: more segregation between men and women, more Islamic propaganda, more agitation in favour of Muslim brethren in other countries, and redefining the national interests of Turkey taking less into account those of the US or other Western countries. It has also resulted in creating more tensions between the majority Sunni Muslims and minority Alevis, Christians and secularist intellectuals. One result of this tension is the recent murder of a Catholic bishop in Turkey, an act that has not raised much protest in the West. The incident on the "humanitarian" ship was Erdogan's spectacular PR victory, and certainly helped him to move on with both his Islamic and nationalist agenda. But it put him on a collision course with Iran who is fearing to lose his monopoly as the Big Brother or the oppressed and humiliated Muslims in the region. This is not necessarily good news for Israel: the competition between the two would-to-be Big Brothers certainly means there will be more attacks and provocations against Israel in next months and years, maybe even some small-scale wars between Israelis and Iranian proxies on the other side of the border. But I am more or less sure that neither Turkey or Iran will be careful enough not to burn their own fingers in the flames they are fanning.

The most famous Muslim not a Muslim...

2010-06-07T10:53:00.000-07:00

The most famous Muslim scientist in the XXth century is undoubtedly the Pakistani physicist Abdus Salam. The irony is that while he was a deeply devout person with firm belief in God and the Quran, he belonged to the Ahmadiyya spiritual movement that has always been loathed and persecuted by the mainstream Muslims in Pakistan. Nowadays, thanks to an amendment to the Pakistani Constitution, no devout Ahmadis can call themselves Muslims. Recently there were terrorist attacks in Lahore against worshippers in two Ahmadi mosques (they are not allowed to call their temples mosques) where about 70 people were gunned down. If Dr. Salam were there (he spent some time in Lahore) he would have been murdered too. However, he was fortunate enought to die peacefully at his home in Oxford. For some Muslims it is a luck to live in a non-Muslim country...

Russia -- less USSR and more Russian Empire

2010-05-24T23:52:00.000-07:00

Our image of Russia is heavily influenced by the recent past, we see Russia as an extension, alter ego of the USSR. In fact, we should see Russia in a longer historical perspective. The USSR is a relatively short-lived phenomenon in Russian history, and its behaviour and ideology are somewhat atypical. The Russian Empire has never wanted confrontation with the West (in the past this meant Britain, France, Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire) as a whole. It tried always to find allies in the West, and often succeeded in finding them. Russia has had a special relationship both with France and Germany, and it seems that these special relationships are now firmly reestablished. In relations with Russia it is useful to learn from its imperial history. The USSR of Stalin didn't have any allies, the Russian Empire had. It is a fact of particular importance.

Taha-i suvandeid

2010-05-22T00:25:00.000-07:00

Ei saa arva, mille mul ütekõrraga Google'i Chrome läts eestikiilses. Vai õigep om üteldä, et tulliva säändse imeliku
sõna ku suvand ja vaikebrauser ja muu säändse, minkast mul om rasse arvo saia. Ole joba aastit harinenu inglis-
kiilside sõnnuga, taha-i näid kunstlikke sõnnu. Ja minno vihastas tuu, et ilma küsümäldä lätt brauser "eesti"kiilses.
Mu meelest om seo lihtsalt rummal, ku paar aastaka perän tuud, ku programmi tuleva inglise keelen, tetäs kuigimuudu
eestikiilses ja tuu kiil om väega imelik ka. Parep olessi võtta inglise sõna eesti kiilde. Et ei olessi suvand, olessi
optsioon vai optsio. Parep oppi veedü ladina kiilt ku punnitada puul-eestikiilsit IT-sõnnu tetä. Olko ik üts rahvus-
vaheline kiil nigu keskaol olli ladina kiil.

Võrdõiguslikkus ja psühholuugia

2010-05-22T00:09:00.000-07:00

Sotsiaalministiirium on käümä pandnu kampaania "stereotüüpe vasta". Idee om seo, et arvosaamine tuust, et
omma oleman mehi ja naisi tüü, om üts stereotüüp. Paar miljonit kruuni pandas tuu pääle, et latskeisile selges
tetä, et nimä võissiva kasvõi sepätüüd tetä ja poiskeisile, et näile sobissi latsiaidniku tüü... Inne ku säänest asja
tetä, võissiva ametnigu luke Simon Baron-Coheni raamatut "The Essential Difference" ja näütüses ka Steven
Pinkeri "The Blank Slate". Ja võrdõiguslikkuse volinik Margit Sarv võissi inne näid raamatid luke ku timä kirotas
kurje kirju muusiumele, kon tetäs poiskeisi mänge päivi. Arvosaamine, et naise omma rumala ja nõrgakese, om
aost maaha jäänü. A prõlla või üteldä, et XX aastasaa arvosaamine, et mehe ja naise erinevuse omma kasvatuse
tulemus, om ka võlsis osutunu. Egäüts, kinkäl om olnud poigi ja tütrit, tiid eski, et näil omma esimuudu huvi
ja tahtmise. Iisraeli kibutsen proomiti latsi õkva üttemuudu kasvatada: poiskese ja latskese opseva üttemuudu
ravvatüüd ja nõglatüüd, püssülaskmist ja söögitegemist. A viimäte lätsiva mehe iks rohkep insineres ku naise ja
naise rohkep oppajis ja meditsiini ja sotsiaaltüü pääle kui mehe.

Kas tule viil Masingu-usk?

2010-05-19T23:33:00.000-07:00

Lue Sommeri-poisi Masingu-luku ja mõtle, et peräkõrd om aig nii kavveh, et Masingule tule uma Paulus nigu Jeesusele tulli. Paulus, kiä es tunne Jeesust, es ole timägä konagi kokko saanu. Jeesuse veli Jakobus toimet tassa Jeruusaleman, timä ümbre olli väiko salgakene inemiisi, es ole vahtse religiuuni tegemises jaksu, es ole päälehakkamist. Inne ku tulli Paulus ja nakse sekeldama, Jeesusele PR-i tegemä, kogouisi luuma. Neo inemise, kiä Masingut tunseva, tiidsevä inemist; tuu inemine es ole paljalt prohvet vai üliinemine, vaihel olli veedu nallakas ja veidergi. Olli sääne inemine, kinkä nimega saa-i minna lunastust ja vahtset ello kuulutama. Nooremba, kiä ole-i Masinguga tutva olnu, lueva timä kirätöid ja näile om timä prohvet, imeinemine. Näist või tulla Masingu-usu apostli. Masingu armulugu olli ammuaigu teedä, huvitav om tuu, kuis tuu lugu muutus kiräniku käen ummamuudu religiuusses luus. Ole-i inäp asi tollen, et vana miis taht noore latskesega sängü minnä, om hoobis üts salaperäne kosmiline draama, kon üts tõselt galaktikalt peri inemine ots tõist. Ja ku löüd, sis piät midägi sündümä, viimäte eski inemisesugu lunastedus saama. Egäpääväne, banaalne saa müstilise tähendüse, nii et või saada Masingu evangeeliumi ütes päätükis. Vaia viil Pauluse kirju ja sis om nätä, mis edesi saa... Tule üts kristluse muudu new age'i sekt, kon om Magellani pilve, reinkarnatsiuun, kon Darwin om kurat ja Bernard Shaw ja mõni tõne omma pühämehe.

Imäkiil

2010-05-19T23:27:00.000-07:00

Ole arvo saanu, et ole inemine ilma imäkeeleta... Vanaimä-vanaesä es kõnela eesti kiilt häste, võro ja saksa sõnno ja vorme tulli iks sisse. Imä olli käünü vinne koolin suuremba osa aost, sis elänu ja opnu Saksan ja Prantsusen. Kui olli viil koolipoiskene, naksi imä tõlketöid lugema ja kohendama, timä es ole kinmä uma keelele. Nii es ole imä mu keeleoppaja, ma olli imä oppaja. Raamatuist ja koolist, rohkep küll tõisilt latsilt ku oppajilt sai tuu eesti kiil opitus. Ja nüit, ku lue näütüses haridusministiiriumi suurt ja vägevät plaani, kuis toda eesti keele oppamist-arendamist tävvendädä, tõhustada, parendada jne, siis tuu tekst om kirotet küll säändsen keelen, kumba kuigimuudu imäkeeles ei saa pitä. Mis imäkiil või olla üts kroonukiil?

Europe without Borders

2010-05-17T05:03:00.001-07:00

I have several times written and spoken about Europe as a continent without borders. Now, here in Czech republic, I said several times I am a European. Well, I thought that for me, Europe doesn't end on the Irish shores or in the Urals. My Europe extends to Canada and to some degree also to the New England, to Vermont, to Maine... I think I will find it also in New Zealand.

Aryans in Europe

2010-05-17T05:02:00.001-07:00

The only groups of people speaking a language called Aryan by linguists are Gypsies -- Roma, Sinti, Kelderash... It is a macabre irony of history that these people were among the ones destined to be exterminated by Nazis as non-Aryan.

Eurohädä

2010-04-28T23:46:00.000-07:00

Mi puul muku kõneldas ja kirotedas, kas saami euro vai ei. Viimätsel aol om jutt iks nii, et saami. A ku kaia, mis Euruupan sünnüs, sis piät nakkama küsümä, kas euro jääs pidämä vai ei. Ku Krееka, Portugal ja Hispaania pankrotti jäävä, sis on euro tulevaig peris tume.

An Awkward Correlation

2010-03-25T09:50:00.000-07:00

I strongly suspect that the amount of sports news in printed press and TV is correlated with the amount of overweight people... In the past, when overweight wasn't yet a problem, sports news occupied quite a modest place among other news. Nowadays when about a quarter of news is dedicated to sports, obesity has become a huge problem. Virtual sports, following sports events in TV is certainly one of many causes of obesity. Should we cut drastically the media coverage of sports to fight it?

Vinnemaast kõneldas...

2010-03-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

Viimätsel aol omma Eesti poliitiku tulnu vagurambas. Vinne-vastast retoorikat on vähämb; aolehin iks om vannamuudu, a ministri kõnelase joba, et piät iks Vinnemaaga asju aama ja suhtit hoitma. President ütel, et Eesti ei saa umma jonni aada ütsindä, ku kõk muu eurooplase mõtlese ja toimetase tõisilde. Üts analüütikus kutsut provva ütel, et Vinnemaa om prõlla mõõdukamb ku olli. Mi hädä om tuu, et õiget analüütikat ole-i oleman. Analüütika piässi arutama toda, mis neo ütlemise ja tegemise õigehe tähendäse. Mis president mõtel, ku ütel, et piät Moskvahe minemä. Ja mis tuu analüütikus kutsut provva mõtel, ku ütel, et Vinnemaa om mõõdukamb. Ja toda võissi ka analüüsi, et ku üts konverents vai mis tä olli, Tallinan peetüs sai, kon üts Vinnemaa raudtii suur asjamiis ka olli, sis mi ministri võtiva ja kõneliva vinne kiilt. Konkotsil omma mi analüütiku, kiä rahvale neo asja är seletässi ja ümbre panessi? Ma esi mõtle, et ole-i Vinnemaa mõõdukamb joht, a vägevämb om küll. Gruusia sõda näüdäs toda väega häste ja toda ka, et õdagu puult tule-i avitust, piät inne uma mõistusele ja jõule luutma. Ja vast sis tuuperäst kõk neo jutu ja toimetamise. Ja õigehe om mul hää miil, et Vinnemaast kõneldas nigu ammu olessi võinu kõnelda: ole-i ma konagi mõtelnud, et Vinnemaa om põrgu vöörüs ja vinne poliitiku õkva vanakuradi sulase. Hää om kaia ja kullelda, ku mõistus kodo nakas tulema.

In defence of Richard Dawkins

2010-03-19T13:01:00.000-07:00

I've read Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion", and many comments about the book and its author. Quite often Dawkins is labelled an extremist, a kind of an militant atheist preacher, and in this way, several authors explicitly distance themselves from him as from a bad-mannered youngster. In good company you don't spit on floor, don't use slang words and speak reverently about God and religion.

I don't wholly agree. I think there should be some parity between religious discourse and discourse critical of religion. If we compare Dawkins with most priests, pastors, preachers, ayatollahs, imams, mullahs etc, he seems extremely mild and polite. He doesn't incite people to burn churches, to kill believers, he doesn't want to prohibit religion, he doesn't say religions are work of Satan and must be fought against with all available means, he doesn't want to ostracize religious people, doesn't want to punish church-goers, doesn't think celibacy, homosexuality, heterosexuality, abortion, contraception, test-tube babies and cartoons depicting Jesus or Muhammad are crimes. What he wants is abolition of various privileges churches and other religious organizations still possess. He wants atheists and agnostics to have similar chances to speak about their views and to propagate them. He doesn't do what so many religious people do every day. He doesn't think that he can speak with divine authority, that he cannot be mistaken, as so many preachers, pastors and imams who have no respect for people who have different beliefs or non-beliefs. I cannot but remember a phrase from a finnish orthodox journal where it was stated that the Mari (Cheremis) native religion had "absolutely no value" and, accordingly, the Maris should be converted to Christianity, preferably to the best variety of it, i.e. to Orthodoxy.

My own views are somehow different. I would like to see the deep psychological knowledge, the age-old wisdom about human life, suffering, joy and freedom to be liberated from the supervision of all breeds of ayatollahs and theologians, and to be translated into a different language that is not a language of belief, where there must not be a God as supreme arbiter and authority. I want us human beings to accept the fact that we live in a world where there is no absolute certainty. I believe it is perfectly possible and even unavoidable, if we want to survive on this planet (or maybe somewhere else). My God plays dice, and I think we can well enjoy playing dice with him. Or without him. No difference.

No Words at the End of the World

2010-03-10T06:26:00.000-08:00

There are things I avoid describing and speaking about. I cannot and dont't want to say anything about the redwood trees I saw on the coast of Oregon and northern California. I don't want to tell anything about what I felt and thought looking at them and walking under their shade. I don't want to say much about my emotions and thoughts at the Cabo de Sao Vicente in Portugal. This cape is the extreme soutwestern point of the European continent, and until the Portuguese discovery of the Acores and Madeira, and before the discovery of America it was considered the end of the world. The Romans called it Promontorium Sacrum -- the Sacred Promontory. I have no proper words to describe the redwood trees and the cape at the end of the world. But somehow I feel there are things we should not try to describe, things that should remain nameless, undescribable, ineffable. In the past such things were considered sacred. Perhaps they still are. We should understand our limitations and the limitations of our language and thought.

Religion for Egoistic Male Genes

2010-03-05T05:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I read a shocking story told by an Estonian serviceman in Afghanistan. A young girl escaping from a rapist had climbed over the wall of the NATO military camp. She escaped the rapist, but was later shot by her father: he thought too many faithless men had seen her daughter unveiled, it was a shame for him... I am more and more convinced that religion, especially the big monotheistic religions, and especially the Islam among them, are well engineered devices that help human males to guarantee the survival and successful and exclusive transmission of their genes. Religion gives men control over their wives, makes it very difficult for the females to get inseminated by other males except the men who possess (I think it's the right word) them. A girl is strictly controlled by her father, then handed over to her husband (and his kin). Any chance of her even meeting other males is made virtually impossible by the religious law and custom. In Saudi Arabia, flirting is a crime, religious police persecuting young people seen chatting and laughing in public places... In Christianity too, free sex was and is considered a grave sin, and in some traditionalist societies women's sexual behaviour was very strictly regulated, and having an extramarital child was one of the most shameful things that could happen to a girl. In the past, admonishing such girls was a favourite pastime of Lutheran pastors, although our ancestors didn't consider sex the mother of all sins, and in some places unmarried mothers were not ostracized by village people at all. What we see in places like southern Afghanistan or Aceh, is male control of female sexuality run amoc, become an obsession. Shared by the Salafiyah ideology in general. I remember that for Sayyed al-Qutb, one of the most influential ideologues of the Salafiyah Islam, seeing young people dancing and flirting in America was a shock experience, a vivid example of the moral degradation of the West. For me, al-Qutb's indignation at young people expressing their erotic feelings, is a sign of the sexual paranoia inherent in some forms of Islam. A paranoia that can well be explained by the theories of evolutionary psychology. On the ethical level, I cannot but quote my friend Gary Snyder who told that the world would need several thousands of years to overcome the bad karma created by the monotheistic religions. But I'm afraid that we don't have so much time to turn our attention from sexophobia, homophobia and misogynia to real dangers facing ourselves and our planet.

A Beneficial Disaster?

2010-03-05T04:58:00.000-08:00

I have believed that a "moderate" ecological disaster would be good, it would push people toward a more sustainable way of life, help us to put brakes to our wasteful consumerism. But reading about developments in the Indonesian Atjeh (Aceh) province, I am beginning to doubt whether such a disaster would really help us. Atjeh that lost more than two hundred thousand people killed by the huge tsunami has now adopted a very rigid form of fundamentalist Islam, favoured by the idea that the tsunami was sent by Allah as punishment for people's sins. Such ideas can easily gain ground in the USA as the rhetoric of some influential evangelical preachers after the catastrophic flood in New Orleans has shown. Thus, an ecological disaster can be followed by an ideological disaster that can make things worse not better. Instead of fighting against big cars and big houses preachers will fight against homo-marriages and sex education...

Sofi Oksasen "Puhdistuksesta"

2010-02-26T13:03:00.000-08:00

Sofi Oksasen kirja "Puhdistus" oli minulle pettymys. Ehkä olen tullut kaunokirjallisuuden suhteen liian kriittiseksi... Mutta minusta kirja antaa liian dramaattisen, muutamassa yksityisasiassa jopa väärän kuvan Viron elämästä neuvosto-aikana. Kirjailija käyttää taitavasti hyväkseen romanttisen kirjallisuuden keinoja ja konsteja, kirjottaen romaanin, jossa poliittinen kauhutarina on itse asiassa kohtalokkaan rakkaustarinan palveluksessa, antaen sille värikkään taustan ja lisää traagisuutta . Oksanen uudelleenkirjoittaa antiikista tutun arketyyppisen tarinan. Päähenkilö Adele on tavallaan nykyajan Medea ja idea rakkauden tuhoisasta voimasta, surmaavasta Eroksestakin on peräisin siitä. Paralleelit Aino Kallaksen kanssa ansaitsisivat tutkijan työtä. Kuten mainitsin, on yksityiskohtia, jotka Virossa asuneelle tuntuvat selvästi outoina, liioiteltuina. Uskallan väittää, että yhden päähenkilön Martinin kaltaisia fanaattisia kommunisteja oli Virossa hyvin vähän, suuri osa puolueen jäsenistä ei taistellut jouluja vastaan, useimmilla oli jopa kotona joulukuusi, vaikka virallisesti jouluista ei puhuttu ja koulunopettaja, joka vei oppilaansa joulukirkkoon katselemaan, mitä merkitsee jumalanpalvelus, sai potkut. Mutta ideologia ei ollut meillä koskaan näin tärkeä ja aitoja kiihko-kommunisteja oli vain kourallinen. Elämämme oli silti paljon enemmän kuin vain kauhutarina, elämä neuvosto-Virossakin oli elämä. Eihän äskein itsenäistynyt Virokaan ollut täysin villi länsi, jossa pimpit voisivat vapaasti saalistaa ja surmata uhreitaan. Yhteenvetona: taitavasti kirjoitettu action-romaani, jossa on rakkausta, kidutusta, jännitystä, raakaa seksiä, takaanajoa, neljä ruumista ja happy end. Haluaisin kiistelemättä lahjakkaalta kirjailijalta enemmän huomiota elämän monenlaisiin ulottuvuuksiin.

Sex, its parallels and metaphors

2010-02-26T12:02:00.000-08:00

A good work of literature, be it a novel, a short story, an essay or a poem has some striking structural or compositional similarities with sexual act. In literature too, we have a foreplay, then action which leads to mounting tension and finally orgasm or, in case of literature, to a kind of a solution, katharsis, be it happy end or not. And finally, there is a rest, a peace, absence of urge or conflict. I suppose evolutionary pshychology and ethology have something to say about this. Literature, poetry is somehow similar to birds' singing or tomcats miaouing and fighting. And in the same time it's mimesis, a representation of such, often demonstratively, pugnacious behaviour. Troubadour is a kind of a songbird, but often a songbird singing about its life and its song.

Have the other arts also parallels and perhaps origins in our sexual behaviour? In classical music or in indian ragas, we have similar composition, often mounting intensity and tension, and finally -- the powerful, energetic orgastic finale. And of course: in music as in sex we have rhythm. That connects sex and music with poetry and dance. But similarities between dance and sexual act have been obvious for people for many generations. Not so obvious are the parallels between sex and war, the most intense and fatal conflict that sooner or later is solved, followed by peace. I have found fighting and warmaking as metaphors for lovemaking both in antique Roman and old Chinese novels.

Demolition

2010-01-30T01:47:00.000-08:00

Lui uudisist, et inglase lammutase Bournemouthi vabaao keskuse, mis pidada olema Inglismaa kõge vihatum ehitus. Kai tolle keskuse pilti ja löüse, et mi puul on sändsit ehituisi üts jago. Om näid Talinan ja Tartun. Olessi hää neo ka är lammutada. Ma võtassi lammutamise nimekirja: Tartu keskliina kaubamaja, Tasku, Talina Solarise, Ühispanga maja, paar vahtset hotelli ja muidoki Vabadussõa samba. Olessi tüüd lahkji ja arhitekel, kiä võissiva sis midägi parembat projektiiri. Kaege esi: om õkva ku Eesti viimätse ao suure keskuse.

Family values -- human values

2010-01-05T08:11:00.000-08:00

There has been a lot of talk, sometimes nostalgic, sometimes even aggressive talk about "family values". I think we have some confusion here. Family is an important thing for us, human beings, men and women. We need it. But at the same time, family is not a person, it has no feelings, no wishes, it doesn't suffer. We do. And I don't think it is fair if a man or woman, a child or a grown-up person suffers for the sake of family. What counts, is not family, but other persons, their feelings, their security, their well-being. Strictly speaking, there is no such a thing as the well-being of a family. We speak of the family as a kind of a super-person. Language is often illogical, we tend to find short expressions for complex things, use metaphors. Sometimes these metaphors begin to live a life of their own. Family, marriage, honour, love become things that seem to have an intrinsic value, independantly of our feelings, of our well-being, our happiness or suffering. Sometimes these values help us, we get some support from thoughts about family, honour, love... But sometimes they turn against us, can even become destructive. In the Christian and especially Islamic tradition, adultery is not, first of all, a sin because it makes another person suffer because of jealousy, because a person feels abandoned, abused, insulted... This is a human tragedy. But for the tradition, adultery is a sin, because it is directed against an institution that is considered sacred or nearly sacred, not because it causes suffering. Adultery is a sin in itself, an abomination regardless of what the persons whom it directly touches feel and think. I feel this is wrong. What matters is not the institutions, but us humans, our happiness or suffering. Family is just an instrument that should increase our happiness, give us more security, more ways of live a good life. Family should be for us, not us for the family. As is often the case in traditional societies. After all, nobody can kill a family (I don't mean family members, humans), but sometimes men and women are killed in the name of family. Or family values.

Nordic Christmas-kitsch

2010-01-04T06:42:00.000-08:00

As you see on this photo I took on the second week of December 2009 in Tavira, a small town at the Atlantic coast in Southern Portugal, even here the Christmas icons are snowflakes and fir or spruce trees. You can also see figures Santas in their winter coats, and even reindeer. At the same time, there is no real winter in Tavira. A local inhabitant told me her grandmother had once seen snow there, and the temperature never falls below zero. There are no fir or spruce trees in Algarve, thus the Christmas light girlands are decorating palms. In fact, the nature here is much more similar to the nature in Galilee where Jesus was born and grew up. In Galilee there are no firs or spruces, no reindeer, no real winter. In Galilee you can see palms and camels. Why then is Christmas celebrated as a Nordic festival, why do we have all these Nordic kitschy reindeer with their sledges, snowflakes and imitations of fir trees made of neon lights? Why do we not celebrate Christmas in Northern Europe and North America with Mediterranean icons as camels, donkeys and palm trees?

2010

2010-01-04T06:38:00.001-08:00

Kõigeparemad soovid 2010ks!
Kõgõparemba soovi 2010s!
Best wishes for the 2010!

J.K.

Crimes of Communism...

2009-12-20T01:47:00.000-08:00

Reading these two words, I have mixed feelings. Communism is not a person, but only persons, not ideologies, not political philosophies or religions can commit crimes. But political philosophies, ideologies and religions can be used to justify crimes, even mass murders or genocide. This is in no way a privilege of Communism. Hideous crimes have been and are committed in the name of Christianity, Islam and love of one's Fatherland. These crimes should be revealed, and their perpetrators found and made account for their deeds. The many means we use to justify our lack of humanity should be made subject of serious sociological, historical, psychological study. But I cannot agree with the idea that as ideologies, Communism and Nazism are equally evil, that there is no essential difference between them. In my view, Communism is one of many messianistic ideologies, inheritors of Zoroastrian-Christian eschatological vision of a coming last struggle between the forces of evil and good, a struggle necessary for the coming of a brave new world of egality, justice and happiness. Nazism is an ideology that basically denies the existence of good and evil, and considers absence of empathy and humanness not only necessary in some limited period, but essentially good. In Nazism, evil is good and good is evil. In Communism, evil is necessary evil to achieve universal good. Here we see a difference between ends and means, it is an important difference. Although we must keep in mind that for people who had been submitted to ordeals by Nazis or Communists, this difference was not essential, what was essential was their suffering. Here, we should ask whether the ideology that was used as a pretext for causing this suffering really could justify it or not. I see no reason to see a direct and necessary link between the political philosophy of Marx and the GULAG, although many publicists want to see such a link. But in any case I see a clear link between Mein Kampf and Auschwitz.

Once again...

2009-10-22T22:49:00.000-07:00

A quotation from the Stratfor analysis of Vice-President Biden's hawkish performances in Eastern Europe:

"The United States has effectively given Moscow notice that it intends to actively push against its entire periphery and that it intends to conscript the Central European members of NATO as its foot soldiers."

Many politicians here are happy: the Big Brother encourages us to tease the Russian bear. I am not relieved. I think geography is still more important than political constellations. Estonians have already some experience in being foot soldiers of foreign powers. We should take care. Take care. Once more Sinimäed, and there will be no Estonian people capable of maintaining its own state, its own culture...