Русское зазеркалье (двуязычная версия)

For me, the ‘general’ of this song is not a trained military professional. Not necessarily so, at least: he may or may not be a military man. His relation to the army has no importance whatsoever. What matters for me is the vivid picture of someone who is approaching his old age and his possible death, someone who ‘did hear the end call’—and it was just the rain hitting against his roof.

I am deliberately omitting ‘her’ as a pronoun: the song speaks of a man. Quite a number of social justice warriors of today would see that as a sufficient reason to ‘cancel’ Tsoi as a white male dominator in the same way in which they want to ‘cancel’ Rudyard Kipling who in his ‘If—’ proudly proclaims:

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

I do not believe that Tsoi’s work in any way belittles us women, though. I only wish to put myself on the side of one very sane, very simple — and very unpopular — idea: the idea that men differ from women, not just through their genitals, but also through the tasks that they face.

Man is a warrior, literally, metaphorically, or spiritually so. His noble task is to protect the weak—which means counteracting those who want to oppress them. His vocation is to defend the truth—which occasionally means to confront those who wish to distort it. Those people who describe traditional masculinity as ‘toxic’ clearly forget that no human culture can exist without persons taking on the roles of hard and unpleasant men, much in the way in which no human body can survive without spine. (‘No culture of the past could do it—the shiny new culture of gender equality which is being built up right now will be able to do so,’ some of you are on the verge to say. I only suggest that you wait and see whether this shiny soap bubble of a culture bursts in ten to twenty years. I will most gladly accept your argument if it doesn’t.)

Warriors are needed. The tiny problem is that not each soldier is awarded his medals or promoted to high ranks. Imagine a modest schoolteacher who tries to confront the ignorance or the lack of morality and compassion of his students, someone like Adrien Brody’s protagonist in Detachment, a 2011 American film. Instead of being awarded a medal, such a person would likely face criticism from his pupils, their parents and guardians, and the school administration. Even if not, his life, when seen externally, would be a most ordinary one. The first two lines of the refrain, asking the general where his uniform, his medals, and his back like a tight string are, are thus perfectly justifiable. Herein lies the first important message of the song: we should never be ashamed of living ordinary lives, lacking ‘pomp and circumstance,’ provided those lives are meaningful. A general is not less a general when his uniform or his medals are missing. After all, it is not medals that ‘maketh man.’

I also want you to think of the meaning of the second half of Verse 1.

We're running out of themes,

Don’t disturb our peace,

This night is way too dark.