Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels divided the history of mankind into five formations - primitive communal, slaveholding, feudal, capitalist and communist. With the exception of communism, we already went through the rest, sometimes in a very short time and within the same state. This classification seems rustic today, and not only because we know that slavery, feudalism and capitalism can coexist, without contradicting each other. But also because the fathers of communist theory did not see the light of yet another stage of civilization, which now has the character of a cultural phenomenon, but, apparently, will soon pull the economy along with it. This is the kneeling stage.
Now kneeling has become not only important, but also mandatory - kneeling and repenting, repenting. It is considered to be especially good practice to repent of what you did not do, before those to whom there was no harm from what you did not do. In other words, people who have never owned slaves even at the level of their great-grandfathers should kneel before those who were not even at the level of their great-great-grandfathers.
Police officers kneel before protesters not only in the United States. Protests have now spread throughout the world. What the protesters want is not very clear. White atonement for the guilt of slavery? And what even theoretically needs to be done for this? Do not push the toothpaste back into the tube. So, for now, you just need to kneel.
In Britain, the Hertfordshire police leadership held a briefing for their employees before the Black Lives Matter protests, where on slides they explained to police officers who should restrain the protesters and prevent unrest, how to kneel before activists. Literally: “If you feel an inner need to kneel before the raging, screaming crowd, be sure to do it. Despite the fact that it is everyone’s personal choice, we would like to warn you that those policemen who do not kneel in front of the crowd may become the target of aggression of the crowd. ”
So what are those protesting against who need to kneel before them? And not against something, on the contrary - for. For humiliation before them. People who imagine that they are personally entitled to reparations for the fact that, perhaps, but not exactly, their great-great-grandmother was a slave on a cotton plantation, they demand endless humiliation of everyone else.
These pseudo-slaves are adjoined by the guardians of everything that is bright and impeccable, such nominal defenders of all the suffering are left-wing activists who, as a rule, do not work anywhere and do not know how, but like to shout and humiliate.
If it comes to reparations, it means that money appears in the case. And really, how much can you just put white people on their knees? Once moral satisfaction from this will cease to be as acute as at the very beginning of the process, and food itself will not buy itself. This means that the symbolic knee worship will have to acquire a material component. A quantitatively very significant group of people will appear, united by a fictional insult and living on the money of those who, in her opinion, offended her group. This is not like any of the formations of the development of society described by Marx and Engels, it is precisely that the new stage is kneeling.
But, as is often the case in history, a sad irony appears in the very symbolism of this stage with a greasy stain. This whole whistle with protests began when the American policeman seemed to strangle George Floyd. Who was George Floyd? He was a drug addict and a robber. He paid with a fake twenty in a store and was rather roughly detained by the police. He died in a hospital, but it is likely that it was not so much from the consequences of detention as from the consequences of drug use and, in general, risking his life. And he was detained by a policeman practicing in the American police - he threw Floyd to the ground and stepped on one knee on his neck.
Now police in the United States and in much of Europe are kneeling before black protesters. Either they ask for forgiveness, or they mimic that American cop, from which it all began. Witty people.
And at the place where Floyd himself was detained, they installed a font, where everyone who wants it — better, of course, to be dark-skinned — can accept a new faith. The Christian Post newspaper reports that miraculous healings began to take place at this place - the deaf gained hearing, the blind received sight.
George Floyd, as we recall, was buried in a golden tomb, after having transported — well, just like the relics of saints — to several cities so that those who believed could venerate the shrine.
Apparently, kneeling is a formation not only cultural and economic, but also religious. More precisely, the formation of religious obscurantism. In other words, the new Middle Ages.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the publisher.