During the gold rush that Jack London and Louis Lamour described so vividly, early prospectors were often fooled by a mineral such as pyrite, which was confused with native gold. It was also called "the gold of fools". The euphoria of such a prospector who has filled his traveling bags with pyrite is very reminiscent of the revolutionary excitement of recent months. First of all, the fact that, as in the case of pseudo-gold, the participants, for example, the protests in Hong Kong or the electoral ones in Moscow, became victims of their own ignorance.
This was most clearly manifested in Ukraine, when, during a survey of protesters on the Maidan, suddenly! it turned out that they had no idea about the true essence of the events, which they were “for” or “against”. Neither the details of the Euroassociation, nor the alternatives offered by Yanukovych were unfamiliar and, frankly speaking, simply uninteresting.
This applies to almost any modern protest. Most of the participants are guided by hysterical, emotional urges, completely not understanding what is really going on, which is why all the fuss.
As a result of protests in Hong Kong, a man was released, who last year killed his girlfriend in Taiwan and stole her belongings and a bank card, which he used. It was his extradition that mainland China demanded. How many of those who fiercely fought on the streets of Hong Kong now understand what they were fighting for? What were all these riots, burned metro stations, ransacked bank offices, beaten and mutilated people for? For the freed killer?
A series of protests in Moscow. Despite their small number, most of the participants, especially those from other cities, could not name at least one candidate, whose non-admission to the elections brought them out into the street, to an unauthorized rally. Even fewer people knew that the refusal to register was caused by falsification in signature lists, simply by the excessive presence of dead souls. What do those who today received real prison sentences for attacks on the police think about this? Do they understand what kind of bogey they risked their freedom for?
Garbage reform. Exactly the same hysteria, exactly the same emotional appeals, whether it be a modern waste processing complex in the Moscow region or an enterprise converted from a chemical weapons destruction plant in Udmurtia. In all regions, be it Moscow, Kazan, Izhevsk or Saratov, the terminology that has set the teeth on edge is used, such as "death factories are being built next to us." And people sign petitions, take posters, go out and hold a meeting. They rally, not realizing that any modern waste sorting complex or incineration plant is orders of magnitude safer than an ordinary landfill outside the city, which poisons the entire district with corny combustion products, because landfills always smolder and burn. But the crowd is not interested in the technical details, and those who lead the crowd do not deliberately convey them to the people.
Chile, Santiago. There are victims, a shopping center, a skyscraper, buses, metro stations and trains burned down. Hundreds of people were detained. But the worst thing is that it all happened due to a slight increase in the cost of travel. Which, attention! was canceled by the authorities as soon as the mass demonstrations of people began. Everything that followed was already pure bacchanalia and lawlessness. What for? Who can say now, beneficiaries in such cases remain in the shadows.
It is important to understand modern realities. The information society is prone to hysteria, but the desire to find out the details and essence is extremely weak. And if you run in the crowd, shout slogans, but do not know for a long time and personally the organizers of this action, their motivation, then you are simply used. You are like that prospector, hysterically and enthusiastically stuffing a bag with fools' gold.
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