Russia Against Modernity Quotes

“Genocide does not function as a causal chain of events that starts with a small difference and ends with a mass grave. The opposite is true. Mass murders happen for reasons that have nothing to do with ethnic differences, big or small. But after they have taken place, the survivors on both sides explain the slaughter by converting their small, negligible differences into grand, overwhelming narratives.”
― Alexander Etkind, Russia Against Modernity

“What's worse, malice or mismanagement? The correct answer is, a mismanaged malice.”
― Alexander Etkind, Russia Against Modernity

“Theology teaches that vices cannot be deduced from one another: greed is separate from wrath and both differ from gluttony. Tyranny is also deadly and irreducible to other kinds of evil.”
― Alexander Etkind, Russia Against Modernity

“Corruption, like Covid, is contagious; but unlike the virus, it always defeats its own purpose.”
― Alexander Etkind, Russia Against Modernity

“In 2020, researchers found out that around two-thirds of the Russian bureaucracy had parents who had also worked in the bureaucracy. Thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet system, the descendants of the Soviet officials made up about 60 percent of Russia's ruling class.”
― Alexander Etkind, Russia Against Modernity

“we will never run out of oil because we will run out of air first.”
― Alexander Etkind, Russia Against Modernity

“Postwar periods are intellectually productive: they create ideas that feed the next generations, though they do not pre­vent these new generations from starting another war.”
― Alexander Etkind, Russia Against Modernity

“Peace is good for complexity; war brings clarity.”
― Alexander Etkind, Russia Against Modernity