Илья Марголин – The First Quarter Of My Century (страница 6)

Meaning is not lost suddenly. It is lost gradually. At first, a word is misused for convenience. Then, by inertia. Then, by habit. And at some point, its original function disappears. The shell remains, the sound remains, the context remains – but what made the word significant vanishes: precision, weight, internal measure.

Take, for example, frustration. Today, this word is applied to almost anything: fatigue, laziness, apathy, bad mood. «I am in frustration,» people say, as if referring to a mild inner hangover. Yet in psychology, it has a precise meaning: an internal tension arising from the impossibility of achieving a goal. It is not caprice. It is not laziness. It is a breakdown at the boundary between desire and obstacle. And if this meaning erodes, the distinction between temporary lapse and deep trauma is erased as well.

Or tolerance. How often is it used ironically: «tolerasts,» «tolerance as decay»? Yet in its proper sense, it is not about capitulation. It is about restraint. About the ability to coexist with another without losing oneself. It is maturity, not weakness. Yet public discourse has shifted the emphasis, and now the word lives as an accusation.

Manipulation. Today, any influence qualifies. If you persuade, you manipulate. If you argue, you are exerting pressure. The absurd arises: a thought, if persuasive, is suspicious; an idea, if effective, is toxic; conversation, if efficient, is cause for alarm. Thought becomes violence. Silence – the only permissible form of civility.

Infantilism, another example, is applied to anything that deviates from rigid norms. A person who feels – is infantile. A person who hesitates – is weak. Yet infantilism is not emotion; it is the refusal of responsibility. The refusal to be a cause rather than merely an effect. When the word becomes a label for any vulnerability, it ceases to discriminate and ceases to function.

Around these terms emerges a whole vocabulary of the new language: abuse, resourcefulness, trigger, toxicity, cognitive dissonance. They escape disciplinary context and settle into everyday life. Not because we have grown wiser, but because it has become convenient to speak complexly. This is language designed to appear competent. As if speaking a word is already understanding, as if a term is an argument.

But language does not forgive comfort. If we fail to maintain the boundary between meaning and decoration, language begins to collapse. Precision disappears. Distinctions are erased. Thought turns into noise, into social style. The paradox: we live in an era of words – and do not understand what we are saying.

A word that loses its connection to concept becomes ideology. It does not explain – it marks. It says: «I am from this camp,» or «I am not from that one.» Toxic – safe. Abuser – victim. Judgment – prohibited opinion. This binary is not about thought. It is about signaling. In such a language, one does not discuss – one determines.

Where does this come from? Primarily, from the loss of internal discipline in speech. We no longer feel the weight of a word. We choose it as an accessory, an impression, a shell. We confuse complex with compound, psychological with psychologizing, precise with terminologically dense. We enjoy sounding intelligent – and forget that to sound is not yet to mean.

And also – from acceleration. Speed kills nuance. Slow speech allows pauses, clarification, doubt. Fast speech offers only ready-made forms. On Telegram, TikTok, short videos, spontaneous reactions – what is needed is a signal, not a thought. So we take a word with a tag. It is already processed. Already provokes a reaction. Already in circulation. And thus – already imprecise.

What is to be done? Return. Not to the dictionary – but to effort. Speak not automatically, but with minimal caution. Do not fear clarification: «What do you mean?» Do not accept a label as a diagnosis. Do not trust words by sound – only in context. Teach yourself to think in language, not with language. Remember that clarity is not the enemy of subtlety. It is its condition.

A word is not a sound. It is a choice. We are not obliged to speak fashionably. We can speak precisely. Even if quieter. Even if slower. Even if more challenging to perceive.

Because meaning is also a form of respect.

Corruption as Climate

In this essay, I argue that corruption is not merely about money or bribes. It is about an environment in which the meaningless becomes normalized, inefficiency is protected, and redundancy is built into the system. Corruption is a climate in which the unnecessary persists, activity is simulated, and the connection between actions and their real value disappears. I examine how this logic infiltrates not only institutions but everyday life: language, work, thought, and the way we spend our time. For me, this is not journalism – it is an attempt to capture a form of decay that begins with internal consent to the meaningless.

Corruption is not always about money. And almost never only about money. Money is merely an obvious trace, a consequence, a visible marker of a far deeper process that rarely appears in reports. Corruption is not a transaction. It is a climate.

Its presence does not necessarily manifest in bills or briefcases. It may lack a concrete episode, a criminal act, a «hero.» It can be formalized, coordinated, sanctioned – and still be fully present. Because at the heart of corruption lies not theft, but the breakdown of connections between a thing and its purpose, between function and execution, between words and deeds.

In an uncorrupted system, a person holds a position because of competence. A project exists because it is needed. A structure functions because it produces results. In a system infected by corruption, everything is inverted: a person remains in position because they cannot be removed. A project exists because it has already started. A structure exists because someone is responsible for it.

This is the essence of institutional decay: the impossibility of stopping the unnecessary. Fear of halting. Desire to prolong, preserve, leave untouched. Careful indifference, where every inefficiency protects someone else’s stability. Where emptiness becomes a status. Where simulation becomes a form of occupation.

Thus emerges an environment in which no action is strictly necessary. Everything exists «just in case.» It is created to exist, not to function. And within such an environment, people change. They do not become thieves – they become useless. Quietly. Carefully. With respect for the regulations. They know what to say, what to write in reports, what not to touch. They cease to seek real work.

This is the second stage – ethical corruption. When action loses its horizon, when the goal is not the result but the continuation of the process. When efficiency is a threat because it undermines stable inefficiency. At this stage, anything that does not imitate provokes anxiety, suspicion, unease.

At this stage, corruption ceases to be a violation. It becomes the norm. The fabric of the environment. Reproduced, maintained, justified. A collective tactic of self-preservation emerges: «Better this than worse.» «At least everything is calm here.» «No one bothers anyone.» A project long devoid of meaning persists because its closure would trigger inconvenient questions. A person who contributes nothing remains – because any replacement would create friction. And everything stays as it is – but without internal legitimacy, without belief.

At this point begins the third level – time corruption. It is quieter, not scandalous, but deeper. Because it is no longer about money, but attention, life, human hours spent on the unnecessary. Participation in what is not needed. Presence where there is no reason to be. Consent to be part of the unnecessary. This is the heaviest form: when the individual has not stolen, falsified, or lobbied, but simply devotes themselves daily to nothing. Without resistance. Without questioning. Without asking, «Why is this?»

In this context, doomscrolling is not laziness. It is participation in the general corruption of time. Lingering in a feed mirrors a meaningless meeting. Procrastination is not personal weakness but a symptom of an environment where results are irrelevant, goals diffuse, and everything can continue indefinitely, simply for the sake of continuation. We learn to be busy – but not necessary.

This is the true scale of corruption. It is not that something was stolen, but that everything remains in place. The meaningless persists. The redundant is protected. The superfluous is untouchable. The necessary is accidental. No criminal statute can capture this condition. Because it exists not in acts, but in the air, in the structure of everyday life. In language, where «held a meeting» sounds like achievement. In reports, where the line «completed» closes any question. In a tone where initiative provokes concern and the initiator provokes suspicion.

What is to be done? Probably not destruction. That is a temptation: expose, fire, cancel. But corruption does not fear loud words. It fears the simple question of necessity. «Why this?» – the most subversive question in a bureaucratic environment. Because it requires not an answer, but justification. And justification is rarely stable in a system that relies on the status quo, on inertia, on collective consent not to see.