Ar mums dar reikalinga Lietuvos valstybė?

LTKnyga suskirstyta į tris dalis, o šias sudaro vienuolika skyrių. Kiekviena knygos dalis aptaria probleminį Lietuvos politinio gyvenimo aspektą. Tai demokratija, vertybiniai karai ir tauta.Modernios demokratijos esmė yra piliečių atstovavimas. Lietuvoje atstovavimo principas neveikia, daugybe klausimų piliečių valia yra ignoruojama, iš jos atvirai šaipomasi. Netrūksta elitistinių teorijų, esą piliečiai nepajėgūs racionaliai nuspręsti, kas jiems geriausia. Jos iškėlė technokratinių "profesionalų" vyriausybių idealą, taip pat siūlymus kuo daugiau valstybės gyvenimo sričių atiduoti rinkai arba teismams. Toks demokratijos (atstovų valdžios) naikinimas kartu yra ir politikos naikinimas. Kaip jau minėta, kadangi Lietuvos visuomenė apolitiška, politikos naikinimas jos ne itin jaudina. Tačiau dauguma mūsų jaučia, kad politinė būklė nėra normali, kad savo valstybėje negalime lemti, kur link ji pasuks. Nors ir nejausdami didelių sentimentų pačiai demokratijai, lietuviai turėtų stengtis paimti valstybės vairą į savo rankas. Tik tą padariusi tauta, gali norimu būdu spręsti ir kitus klausimus - tuos, kurie jai iš tiesų rūpi. [Iš Pratarmės]Reikšminiai žodžiai: Lietuvos valstybė; Integracija; Valstybės interesai; Patriotizmas; Pilietiškumas; Šovinizmas; Tauta; Totalitarizmas; Vertybės; State of Lithuania; European Union; Integration; The interests of the state; Patriotism; Citizenship; Chauvinism; Nation; Totalitarianism; Values; Europos Sąjunga (European Union).

ENWhat is Lithuania to us? How do we contemplate it? How do we love it? These are difficult questions that lead to a great deal of other, much more concrete ones. Under normal circumstances, every one of us would answer them personally. However, no matter how you look at it, political life and the relation citizens have with their country here in Lithuania is anything but normal. It is true that citizens of Lithuania love their country, just as citizens of other countries love their own homelands. And yet, there are several "buts" to consider. First of all, loving Lithuania, not unlike elsewhere in Europe, is becoming a sign of poor taste - something that requires apologizing for, followed by a confirmation that one does, indeed, love others as well. Waving flags is considered acceptable behavior, but wishing for Lithuania to remain Christian and Lithuanian has become much less correct. We rarely, if ever, encounter this in our everyday lives, unless we work in politics, news media, law, history or other related fields; yet this "cautious love" is spreading like a virus. This is possibly best shown by the changes in our vocabulary. During the last decade, the term of "patriotism" has been completely supplanted by "citizenship". While both are good and necessary, they are in no way identical, nor can they exist independently of one another. And yet, there is little talk of patriotic education, only a civic one. People are no longer asked to be patriotic, merely civil. Nationalism has one again become a curse word, just like "bourgeois nationalism' was during the Soviet era. The concept of chauvinism has been completely forgotten and is gone from our vocabulary. This is no simple renewal. Patriotism is essentially incapable of becoming an old leftover of the past. As long as the state exists, patriotism stays requisite. Vocabularies change and renew themselves due to ideological reasons.They shape and often restrain our way of thinking. The new political vocabulary is doing just that, and it has changed beyond recognition. Talk of objective virtues has been replaced by subjective values. Pledge of love to a specific Homeland (patriotism) has been replaced by an abstract notion of an active public life (citizenship). The values themselves are new as well: openness, indusivity, tolerance, nondiscrimination. New values require new sins - a role fulfilled by the envisaged hate, xenophobia, homophobia, ethnocentrism, and, of course, fascism. There is no doubt that every pensioner and most of Lithuanian citizens in general are guilty of at least one of them, and often several. There is just as little doubt that the architects of this open Lithuania would easily identify hundreds of thousands of such "fascists", who'd be found to be in need of reeducation. When words lose their true meaning, their usage becomes at first a confusing, soon rather funny, and eventually a nonsensical endeavor. The citizenry is being adamandy lessoned on these new values by the news media, first and foremost the Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT). The legal statute of LRT provides a requirement "for LRT to ensure a variety of topics and genres on the radio and television broadcasts", and that "the programs must be appropriated to all the strata of society - people of various age, various nationalities, and various beliefs". Furthermore, "LRT radio and television programs cannot feature predominantly unilateral political views; information and comments presented on LRT's informative programs must be factually based, and reflective of various political views, while opinions and factual news must be authorized, checked, and comprehensive".And yet, this law has been continuously ignored for the past several years, and politically-oriented LRT broadcasts have consistently promoted the aforementioned values and sins, while persistently vilifying certain foreign leaders, and protecting others from any sort of critique. This propaganda newspeak promotes another significant principle. According to it, decisions of the state can only be made between extremities. First, whatever the course Lithuania chooses, it must unconditionally proceed in that direction. Geopolitically it means that Lithuania must accept all the values and practices of the Western world, including all of its flaws and failures. But what if Lithuania decides to maintain a critical relation with the West, and conducts its integration more deliberately, picking and choosing what it finds suitable and necessary in the West? Well, in that case, Uthuania ostensibly falls right into the arms of Putin’s Russia. Any sort of critique aimed at the Western countries' moral practices, their demographic catastrophes, the failures of multiculturalism, or the (very much ironic) pro-Russian stance of many Western leaders, is turned around and presented as proof of the pro-Russian views supposedly held by the critics themselves. This absurd logic takes its most aggressive form when the question on the concept of family is discussed: any statements that oppose the LGBT movement are labeled as pro-Russian, despite the fact that the idea of a same-sex "family" is opposed by more than 80% of Lithuania's own populace. Isn't it this exact manner of propaganda that pushes our "homophobic" society further into Russia’s embrace? Does it not aid in spreading the false portrayal of Putin as the true defender of "traditional values' and the family?. [From the publication]

• Politikos mokslai / Political sciences
• Istorija / History