The fall of democracy

The choir receives the applaus after a beautiful performance of the opera Boris Godunov
 by Modest Mussorgsky by the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, 14 Juni 2025.

In Modest Mussorgsky’s opera “Boris Godunov” – currently performed by The National Opera in Amsterdam – the Russian tsar Boris Godunov rises to the throne through the murder of the son of Ivan the Terrible, yet a child. His ascent to the throne is controversial, but Boris Godunov is asked to stay in power by an impoverished populace for the sake of their nation’s stability. During his reign, the people expect an improvement of their lives but nothing changes. Meanwhile, other alleged pretenders to the throne try to overthrow Boris Godunov, and the people suffer from repression and neglect and retreat themselves in their own private lives. Through the years, Boris is increasingly tormented by his consciousness of his past of having murdered a child. He descends into paranoid madness, when a pretender to the throne marches on Moscow, and he dies. Next, Russia suffers from a period of unrest and fighting between different political factions.

Opera is art and music, but many operas are also political statements. Also Mussorgsky’s opera “Boris Godunov” is of that kind. Mussorgsky certainly thought of the Russia of his time when composing the opera, but the stage director of the performance in Amsterdam, Kirill Serebrennikov (who had fled Russia in 2022), gave it a modern interpretation. This is quite possible, for the opera explores themes that are still present in modern Russia: the corruption of power, complicity amid widespread injustice, fatalism among the masses, the futility of resisting tyranny, and the nature of life and death itself. The apathy of the masses is represented in an original way: Not a choir walking and singing on the stage, as so often in operas, but people in apartments in an old-fashioned flat building of Soviet time, as there still are so many in Russia (see photo). But Serebrennikov, though being Russian, restricts his political criticism not to Russia, for what applied and applies to Russia is increasingly applicable to the today’s USA as well.
In an interview in the program book of the opera Serebrennikov says: “In Putin’s Russia, people remain speechless out of self-preservation — or swear loyalty to the regime. The state literally buys loyalty, offering the poorest villagers money to go to war and kill neighbors — sums they never imagined before. There is no resistance. Those who protested are now imprisoned or exiled. But what’s wrong with people who send loved ones to war for a paycheck? Why do the widows thank the state instead of cursing it? How did we get here — where complaints are about rusty rifles or bad food, not the killing of innocents?” And that’s what Serebrennikov’s interpretation of Mussorgsky’s opera clearly expresses. However, this is a pure “Russian interpretation” of the opera, but what about an “American interpretation”? For Serebrennikov had certainly not only a criticism of Russia in his mind. In a subtle way, his interpretation of the opera refers also to the situation in the USA. Does this mean that the increasing protests against the Trump regime will fail and that finally the American people will fall into apathy?
This brings me to another reading of the opera. Serebrennikov relates the opera to the fate of the common people, despite its mainline of the rise and fall of tsar Boris Godunov. However, I think that, in view of the present political situation, the opera can also be interpreted at a higher level. After the fall of the Soviet Union, a new child was born in Russia, a child called Democracy. However, soon Democracy was killed by a new tsar: Tsar Putin. As in the opera, it is not only so that Putin has made himself tsar, but a big part of the populace wanted and wants him to stay in power, and just like in the opera opposition is suppressed. In this interpretation Mussorgsky’s opera tells the story of the new Russia and predicts that after Putin’s death a period of unrest will follow. For who will succeed tsar Putin? However, it is hard to imagine that Putin will get pangs of conscience when the end of his career comes near.
In the USA, we see something similar, though in the USA it is not that the child Democracy is killed, since there Democracy is already an old man. Nevertheless, a new tsar has come to the throne by the wish of the people. Once in power this new tsar Trump sees it as one of his main tasks to kill old man Democracy and to persecute everyone on Democracy’s side. If we follow the opera, ultimately the now rising protests against the Trump regime will fail and the American people will fall into apathy. When tsar Trump has quitted the scene, the country will face difficult times and much discord. Nevertheless, also in this American reading the weak point is that it is hard to imagine that Trump will get pangs of conscience for having killed Democracy.
Despite its weak points, I think that this interpretation of “Boris Godunov” is not unrealistic. Be it is it may, as bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny, who sings the part of Boris Godunov, says, when asked what the main message of the opera is: “Arrogance is always punished, and trying to elevate yourself above another has a price. In this opera Boris pays that price in an extremely sad way. I think Mussorgsky wanted to show the world how a dictator like him comes to an end.”

Random quote
The difference between a good prince and a tyrant is that the prince is obedient to the law, and rules his people by a will which is at the service of the people, and that he manages rewards and burdens within the Republic under the guidance of the law.

John of Salisbury (1120-1180)

War propaganda

Women of Lancashire. British recruitment poster, First World War, 1915.

 Source: Imperial War Museums, Image: IWM (Art.IWM PST 6061).

Since there has been war, there has been war propaganda, for war must be justified by those who choose to fight. Justifying war has especially become important, when wars were no longer fought by professional soldiers and mercenaries but by armies of conscripts, and since the rise of the mass media. The introduction of the conscript army by Napoleon made that basically the whole male population of a country could be called up for military service. The rise of mass media made that now everybody could know what was going on in the world and what their soldiers had to fight for and to die for. This made that in order to start and continue a war the consent of the public opinion was required.
The first major war in which mass media were used for war propaganda was the First World War (WW1; 1914-1918). Propaganda became part of the war policy of all fighting countries. It was especially important in the United Kingdom. Not only was not everybody there convinced of the necessity of the war, but moreover, when WW1 began, the country had not yet a conscript army (this was introduced only in 1916), so in order to get enough soldiers, young men had to be convinced that it was their patriotic duty to enlist.
It was no surprise then that, once WW1 had ended, just a British war critic, Arthur Ponsonby, wrote a book in which he analysed war propaganda and unravelled the lies conceived and spread to convince people of the necessity of the war, not only in the UK but in all major warring countries then. This book, Falsehood in Wartime, inspired the Belgian political scientist Anne Morelli to summarise the mechanism of war propaganda described by Ponsonby in ten basic principles in her book Principes élémentaires de propagande de guerre (Elementary principles of war propaganda). For propaganda was not only a major characteristic of WW1, but since then its use has spread more and more; during the Second World War, the Vietnam War, the war in former Yugoslavia, the Gulf Wars, till the present wars between Russia and Ukraine and in Gaza. Therefore, it is still worth taking note of the basics of war propaganda, since they are still applied, when political leaders try to convince us of the need to start a war or to participate in it.
What then are the principles of war propaganda?

1. We do not want war but “they” want it. A reason to go to war that accuses the enemy is often invented, or relevant facts for the war are omitted.
2. Our adversary is solely responsible for the war. It is our adversary who harms our rights, values, territory, etc.; ignoring, for instance, that we, too were already preparing for war.
3. The enemy’s leader is evil and resembles the devil. You cannot hate a whole group or country, so it’s better to direct the hatred to the leader of the enemy country.
4. We are defending a noble cause and not our personal interests. We have higher values than our enemy and must defend them, for example. Or, we defend human rights, not the access to the oil in the enemy country.
5. The enemy deliberately commits atrocities; our mistakes, are not intentional. Not only is it so that the enemy is said to commit atrocities; even if civilian victims are the consequence of mistakes, they are still seen as deliberate atrocities, while if we commit them, we call them “collateral damage”.
6. The enemy uses illegal weapons, like weapons that are “unnecessarily” cruel or forbidden by international law. If we use them, it’s only because they use them.
7. We suffer very few losses; the enemy’s losses are enormous. If our losses are bigger than those of the enemy, it is better not to say so and to hide our real losses, because telling the truth is not good for our morals.
8. Artists and intellectuals support our cause. If such smart people do, why not you?
9. Our cause is sacred. We fight for God, for higher values, for humanity...
10. Everyone who questions our propaganda is a traitor and helps the enemy. There are good guys and there are bad guys. Who isn’t for us is against us. People who ask critical questions – even if they are clearly “on our side” – are considered to undermine “our cause”, also when their questions are justified and should be asked. Criticism is not allowed and it is punished, also in democratic societies.

The aim of war propaganda actually is, so Morelli, “creating a state of shared hypnosis, where we are all in the virtuous camp of the deeply offended ‘Good’ ”, and this apparently is a pathological need. Moreover, it is also possible that the war makers themselves construct this propaganda not purposefully but really believe it. However, this doesn’t make it true. Nevertheless, it is possible that some or even all of the propagandistic statements are true. For instance, maybe our adversary really is solely responsible for the war. As Morelli writes, “It is possible that only one of the two camps is lying and that only one of the two camps has really been attacked, without really wanting a war. In short, the question of who the aggressor is and who is the victim remains particularly delicate.”
Since what is pure propaganda and what is true often is difficult to say and often becomes clear only afterwards, the only thing one can do is being critical. Is it true what the political leaders say, when they want to start a war? Do they hide facts? Are the “facts” invented in order to have a cause of war? Such questions are important, but they are not without risk. Finding the truth can take time, and a being hypercritical and extremely cautious can paralyse any action, even when action is urgent. Nonetheless, systematic doubt is the only thing we can do to avoid falling in the propaganda trap; not only in case of a war or a threatening war. As Morelli writes: “It seems to me that systematic doubt is a good antidote to the daily attempts of the media to persuade us during international wars, ideological conflicts and social conflicts.” Not only then, I think.

Sources: The links in the text plus Wikipedia.

Random quote
Those who have no self-confidence call for the big man, the dictator, and for a dictator, people shout almost everywhere today.

Rudolf Rocker (1873-1958), German anarchist and writer

Naturalistic fallacy

The naturalistic fallacy is usually seen as the inverse of the moralistic fallacy, though some see the latter as a variant of the naturalistic fallacy. Whether the one or the other is the case is not relevant in this blog, since here I want to discuss the reasoning error implied in the naturalistic fallacy; not its philosophical status.
Someone commits a naturalistic fallacy if this person argues that if something is natural it must be good or it ought to be. That is the positive version of the naturalistic fallacy, for just like for the moralistic fallacy, there is also a negative version. It says that what is not natural must not be good or it ought to not be. So:

X is, therefore X is good.
or
X is, therefore X ought to be.
and
X is not, therefore X is not good.
or
X is not, therefore X ought not to be.

The term “naturalistic fallacy” was coined by G.E. Moore in his Principia Media (p. 62). Moore argued that what is natural must not be confused with what is good, and that natural and normative properties are metaphysically different. With Ryle, we can say that they belong to different metaphysical categories and that we would make a category mistake, if we would deduce the one from the other. However, Moore was not the first philosopher who discussed the naturalistic fallacy. Already Hume argued that it is not allowed to jump from is to ought statements. On the other hand, even famous philosophers commit this fallacy, like John Stuart Mill, who argued that “human nature is so constituted as to desire nothing which is not either a part of happiness or a means of happiness”, and therefore “happiness is the sole end of human action, and the promotion of it the test by which to judge all human conduct; from whence it necessarily follows that it must be the criterion of morality.” (from McCraw, p. 193; italics mine)
Or another example:
“Nature gives people diseases and sickness; therefore, it is morally wrong to interfere with nature and treat sick people with medicine.
Explanation: If we break this down, we can say that the claim that nature gives people diseases and sickness is a declaration of what is (i.e., a natural property of the world). From this, we are deriving an ought (i.e., we ought not interfere...). The wording and order of these arguments can be confusing, but remember that the underlying fallacy here is the deduction of an ought from an is.
[However,] we go against nature (or what is) all the time. We cannot sometimes use nature as a moral baseline and at other times condemn her for her careless attitude and indifference toward the human race.” (source)
Sometimes it seems that “a naturalistic claim or property to a normative one won’t be fallacious or defective.” (McCraw, p. 195). McCraw discusses a few examples, but to my mind then in fact something else is the case. Instead of discussing McCraw’s examples, I want to take one that is more relevant to the current world situation, in order to make this clear.
I think that many of my readers will agree with the claim that the natural environment is deteriorating rapidly and therefore we ought to stop it. Nevertheless, at first glance, this argument seems to be false, since it is a clear case of a naturalistic fallacy. The reasoning is “fallacious or defective”, to use McCraw’s words, and I think that taken literally it is. However, one can read this sentence also as an elliptic statement, which stands for much more than what these thirteen words literally say. To make this clear, let me split up the statement into two parts: (1) The natural environment is deteriorating rapidly and (2) We ought to stop it. Then (1) is a summary of the state of the natural environment as described by many climate researchers, biologists, etc. and (2) summarizes the view or opinion of many people who think that the environmental degradation is bad for the world and for ourselves, and therefore ought to be stopped. So, (1) is a factual statement and (2) is a normative statement. Seen as a logical statement, the argument “(1) therefore (2)” is a naturalistic fallacy, indeed. However, seen as a practical statement, the argument “(1) therefore (2)” is sound, for a practical argument reasons what must be done on the basis of the known facts and our views. Therefore, if an argument reasons from a natural fact or a statement about what is natural to what ought to be done or what is good, first we must decide whether it is a logical or a practical argument, before we can say whether or not it is a naturalistic fallacy. Only as a logical argument it can be a naturalistic fallacy. As a practical argument it says what must be done. Of course, a practical argument can be unsound or false, but then for other reasons.

Sources and further reading
- Ethics Explainer: Naturalistic Fallacy
- McCraw, Benjamin W., “Naturalistic Fallacy”, in Robert Arp; Steven Barbone; Michael Bruce (eds.), Bad arguments. 100 of the most important fallacies in Western philosophy. Oxford, etc.: Wiley Blackwell, 2019; pp. 193-195.
- Naturalistic Fallacy, in Logically Fallacious
- Naturalistic Fallacy, in Wikipedia