IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Winter 2014 - 15

disaffected Russian industrial worker, both enlisting
futurism to endow modern technology with glamour,
and appealing to the old Russian virtue of sobornost,
"togetherness" (a word that has the added, mystical
echo of sobor, "cathedral," within it). And the Communists first ignored the majority of the population -
the agricultural peasantry - and then returned them
to the serfdom of collectivization, employing methods as ruthless as mass starvation in the 1930s in the
Ukraine (the terrible holodomor, remembered today
as a case of genocide). The archaic, craftsman-like
world view of many Russian intellectuals is, then, not
the result of suppression by the state from above - a
kind of go-slow, retreating sabotage against the tyranny of the collective and the rulers and an assertion
of individual dignity and integrity - but a survival,
also, of the same pre-modern concept of society and
economy that affects the structure of the state itself.
Professor Graham and I are friends and colleagues
and Loren gave a book talk at a dinner recently, followed by discussion. I do not think I am mistaken in
the impression that most of those in attendance were
amused, in a condescending way, by the predicament
he outlined. When, their chuckles seemed to say,
will those backward, exasperating, lovable Russians
grow up and be more like us, like American capitalist
entrepreneurs?
It seemed to me it was time to offer a contrary
view. So let us consider this. Russia is the most northerly of all major countries, with harsh climactic conditions prevailing over much of its territory. (Canada
is up there, too; but most Canadians live near their
southern border.) Russia is fairly flat, rich, and easily invaded: in the 13th century it absorbed the full
force of the Tataro-Mongol invasions, which decimated the eastern parts of the civilized world with
the force of a nuclear attack. Napoleon's campaign
in 1812, which reduced Moscow to ashes, was a pinprick by comparison; and the assault of the Grande
Armée was nothing to the onslaught of the Nazis and
their allies on June 22, 1941. A society dependent
on a spider web of sophisticated technology, and
without strong central authority might not be able
to withstand such bad weather and worse neighbors.
(The German Panzers needed good mechanics and
much of their equipment broke down in the cold or
couldn't move in the mud. But it is not too much of
an exaggeration to say you could repair Soviet T-34
tanks with a hammer.)
Slow, steady innovation rather than rapid change
would be more conducive to the survival of Russia.
Even what appears to be radical revolution in Russian
history has some elements of reaction. Accordingly,
the center of power returned in 1917 from Peter the
Great's hastily built capital, his "window on the west,"
to ancient Moscow. And after the seventy-year-long
IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

WINTER 2014

Communist experiment with atheism, multiculturalism, and the dictatorship of the proletariat, Russia
under Putin has in some measure embraced the early
19th-century statist model of Tsar Nicholas I of autocracy, Orthodoxy, and nationality. The attendant problems that enlightened people justly lament and seek to
remedy, and that Graham addresses in his study, have
the quality of a vicious cycle, to be sure, and they can
be crippling; but they may also be, in some measure,
aspects of a durable, viable adaptation to a challenging environment, one whose conditions are not always
adequately appreciated outside the country. One is not
arguing here for Russian exceptionalism, the russkii
put "Russian way" of reactionary philosophers and
theologians, only for a more nuanced view. Perhaps
an experiment in imagination can help.
Russian literature is unsurpassed and universally
appreciated, but its important contributions in the
genre of science fiction are less well known. This
reviewer was graduated from the Bronx High School
of Science and the first friends I made as a teenager
visiting Leningrad were kids from a specialized high
school for mathematics in Moscow. Isaac Asimov, a
Russian-American, was our common language, and
science fiction was then the playground and garden of
our minds. (This has probably changed in the digital
age.) So as I considered whether the Russian mode of
living might be environmental adaptation rather than
the repeated failures of a mental patient applying the
same wrong solution over and over to a problem, I
was reminded of a work of science fiction. Ursula Le
Guin, the daughter of two prominent anthropologists,
evokes in The Left Hand of Darkness a planet whose
name, Gethen, means "Winter." Its people are conservative in their customs, and strongly wedded to
their ancient languages and folklore. They adapt new
technologies only gradually, necessarily valuing survival over speed. The people move slowly but deliberately, wrapped in heavy furs, driving big trucks on
bad roads, and tell jokes about fish. There are two
states: one is a monarchy with an inner-directed,
mystical religion, the other is an oligarchy espousing a messianic faith. The people of the planet, who
are all ambisexual, are imaginative and emotional,
capable of heartbreakingly deep affections. It actually took more than a minute or two - one's mind
works slowly - to understand why one felt at home
on Gethen.
Perhaps, then, one requires not so much blind faith
as a particular twist of the mind to comprehend planet
Russia. Yet Russia is of course not a planet, but one
country among many others on Terra. And this gave
rise to another thought at Loren Graham's book talk.
Academics, I find, pay lip service to global cultural
diversity but seldom really accept it: the American corporate, capitalist model is seen as a universal goal that
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Winter 2014