Илья Марголин – The First Quarter Of My Century (страница 5)

At times, we notice that between what is allowed and what is just, there lies not an obvious, but an increasingly perceptible boundary. Formally, the rule is observed, the article applied, the procedure executed. Yet internally, a sense remains: not everything is right. It is as if the law has been pronounced – but has not convinced. It has not resonated.

This distinction – between legality and legitimacy – has long existed. Plato, in The Republic, already distinguished between justice as an idea and justice as an institution. Law is a technical instrument. It can be adopted, codified, enforced – and still fail to elicit internal consent. Legality corresponds to form. Legitimacy corresponds to expectation, meaning, trust.

Hannah Arendt wrote that power rests not on force, but on recognition. A law can exist without legitimacy – but it quickly becomes not a support, but merely an external regulation. Procedure without substance. And then a social discomfort arises: everything may appear «by the book,» yet the experience feels alien, dry, mechanical.

History offers numerous examples where what was formally permitted provoked internal protest. There were eras when society sensed that not everything codified was worthy. Conversely, there were acts that were prohibited but commanded respect because they were grounded in moral intuition, in a sense of justice.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau described the social contract not merely as an agreement to obey, but as an agreement to participate. We observe the law when we feel it is our own. When it protects us rather than simply regulates. When it embodies the logic of the common good, rather than merely the mechanics of enforcement. The moment this perception fades, cautious detachment begins. People live by rules without trust. They comply without consent. And this is a gap that, over time, becomes noticeable.

Today, this distinction is particularly important. The world has grown more complex, procedures have become more transparent, yet the perception of justice remains internal, human. If society senses that a given norm is formally permissible but arouses doubt, this is not a cause for escalation, but a reason for discussion. For seeking a form of law that can again be perceived as just.

This is why we increasingly return to the question: what makes a law persuasive? Not merely binding – but respected. Not every «permissible» action becomes right. Not every «forbidden» action is experienced as justified. Between form and meaning, there must always be space for critical reflection – not for conflict, but for deliberation. For aligning law with conscience, norm with trust.

When the law speaks with the voice of meaning, it functions not through fear, but through consent. And in this lies its true power.

Numerologism

This essay is devoted to the phenomenon of numerologism – a cultural transformation in which quantitative indicators acquire the status of the highest legitimation of meaning. Numbers no longer serve as a measure of reality; they replace it. Reach, ratings, views, and metrics displace content, intonation, and substance. I offer a philosophical reflection on how the logic of algorithms and managed numbers shapes a new type of thinking – disciplined, comparative, self-adjusting – and how, in this process, space for non-quantifiable experience disappears.

In a world where every gesture can be recorded, every click counted, and every emotion reduced to a reaction, the number is no longer an instrument. It is an authority. We have entered the age of numerologism, a new cultural formation in which quantitative thinking assumes not a subsidiary but a governing function. What once measured now commands. What once helped navigate now determines what exists and what does not. Visibility becomes a condition of being.

Numerologism is not merely faith in numbers. It is the inability to think outside of numerical frameworks. It is the erosion of content within form, where reality is counted but not lived. What matters is no longer the text, but its views. Not the act, but its reach. Not the speech, but its conversion. We believe we control numbers. In reality, they control our behavior. We write a post not when we have a thought, but when «the algorithm sees activity.» We choose a headline not for meaning, but for clickability. We think of ourselves in terms of statistics: subscriptions, steps, calories, efficiency, reach, focus time, scores, coefficients. Mechanics replace meaning, and productivity replaces conviction.

Foucault formulated power as follows: power is not what presses upon us, but what structures the field of possibility. In this sense, the number is power. It does not forbid, punish, or control directly. It constructs the desired, it guides: this is better, this is more successful, this is more visible. The number does not argue. It declares: «Here is the proof.» You see: fewer likes, fewer views, less engagement – therefore, you erred. And you do not try to understand, you try to align. To adjust. To conform. The number does not require meaning. It requires repeatability. And here lies the distinction between numerologism and any other form of rationality. This is not simply numbers as accounting; this is numbers as a totalitarian language.

Baudrillard wrote that reality disappears not under censorship, but under the excess of its simulacra. We no longer seek truth; we seek the number that substitutes for it. Authenticity now exists only when verified. If you speak – and it does not spread – then it has no weight. An opinion without likes is not a thought, but an error. Beauty without views is not beauty, but invisibility. Even pain, if not formatted as a viral story, loses legitimacy. A thought not confirmed by numbers is perceived as devoid of value. A new form of knowledge emerges: what has received a metric.

A numerologist is not necessarily materialistic. They can be deeply spiritual, ethical, subtle. But they will count. They will check. They will fear being outside the field of visibility. Because outside visibility is out of the game. And out of the game is out. Numerologism is voluntary discipline. We ourselves ask numbers to measure us. We wear trackers, set goals, generate reports. We rejoice when the numbers rise and lose confidence when they fall. We do not notice how we abandon spontaneity because it cannot be forecasted. We do not follow intuition because it is not representable on a chart. We do not trust our sensations – but we trust weekly screen-time statistics.

This is the point at which power ceases to be external. It becomes part of operational consciousness. The power of numbers is not in frightening us. It is in being understandable. Convincing. Rational. We no longer need coercion. We discipline ourselves.

It cannot simply be labeled «bad.» It cannot simply be labeled a tragedy. Like any historical mutation, numerologism does not demand moral judgment. It demands understanding. Numbers are a powerful tool. They can measure pain, track epidemics, optimize logistics, reduce corruption, predict disasters. But when numbers become a way of thinking about everything, they cease to be a tool. They become a framework. And a framework, once accepted as natural, ceases to be noticed.

What do we lose? We lose the sphere of life that cannot be measured. Doubt, trust, internal intonation, inspiration, love, silence, the invisible tension of thought, intellectual risk, moral ambiguity. Everything that resists quantitative verification disappears as a factor, is displaced as noise, ridiculed as «unsubstantiated.» We begin to fear not mistakes – but the unmeasurable. To fear being incomprehensible, unvalued, inefficient. To fear being outside evaluation, because that means being outside significance. And that is almost akin to disappearance.

It is in this fear – subtle, modern – that numerologism lives. It does not shout. It does not impose. It simply proposes counting. Then proposes comparing. Then proposes adjusting. And then it no longer proposes, but demands. And you do not even notice how you stop thinking outside the numbers. Because outside them – nothing exists.

The Wrong Word

This essay is an observation of how meanings are eroding in contemporary Russian speech. Words sound confident, yet fail to signify what they ought to. «Frustration,» «toxicity,» «abuse,» «infantilism» – terms ripped from their contexts have become markers of thoughtless speech. I diagnose a superficial use of language, a symptom of cultural haste and intellectual negligence, and I call for a return to precision in words – as a form of respect toward oneself and one’s interlocutor.

Russian speech today is full of words that sound correct but convey almost nothing. We speak with them, write with them, and create an impression of thought through them. These words are not false – they are emptied. Like an old tea bag, still fragrant but no longer steeping. Words that have lost their tension. Or, more accurately, words that now live not as thought, but as ornamentation.