What happened in Slovakia is not just about Slovakia. It’s not just about the hate speech promoted by extremist, populist, sovereignist parties, and the uncontrollable effects of this discourse, which were even invoked by Slovak dignitaries after the assassination attempt on Prime Minister Fico. It’s not just about the political polarization of societies in this complicated political year.
What happened in Slovakia is a symptom of the morbid state of almost all societies in Europe and beyond. Moral drift and extended collective neurosis is, if you will, the new pandemic, much worse than the one we went through because of Covid.
We are no exception, the crime in Crângași is part of the same phenomenon. For next to nothing, for a dispute that, we understand, started on a social network from the rejection of a friend request, not for settling scores between gangsters, a man was beaten to death in the middle of the street.
And it wasn't, obviously, about the unintended effects of a fight gone wrong. When you repeatedly strike a man lying on the ground and unarmed with a bat directly in the head, with all your might, it's no longer about blows that cause death. It's murder, committed with the clearest intention.
The perpetrators - a minor (over 14 years old, therefore with discernment and criminal responsibility) and a 20-year-old. Where does so much hate, so much brutality come from in two young people against a man who hadn't actually done anything to them?
How did we get here?
We can analyze Romania. Probably one cause is the pandemic that shattered some normal psychological mechanisms due to panic, frustration, insecurity, isolation. The conspiracy theories that took flight then accentuated the collective psychosis.
The pandemic crisis was followed by war and the economic crisis, with their fears and victims.
The importance of social networks has steadily increased, also due to the physical isolation during the pandemic, and they have turned into authentic emotional and linguistic swamps, where everyone feels entitled to insult, accuse, and defame anyone.
Any interaction with Facebook sparks at least verbal violence and it wouldn't be a coincidence if, indeed, the scandal that led to the crime in Crângași started like this.
Schools have also become hubs of all kinds of violence. There have been many incidents of this kind. The lesson children learn from a young age is that they have to choose between being victims or joining the aggressors. They learn from an early age that survival means howling with the pack. Those who don't do it risk becoming prey. And they carry these lessons with them outside of school.
At the same time, the educational role of schools in the broader sense has collapsed. An outdated system designed only in the interest and for the comfort of adults doesn't provide them with anchors and references, but rather creates repulsion.
Families are increasingly dysfunctional. Working abroad has effectively left many children orphaned, who carry their frustrations and often depression like a shadow that they project, sometimes violently, onto others.
Listen to how people talk on the street, how they behave, especially in traffic, but not only, how much solidarity there is left, whose side society generally takes. The victim's or the aggressor's side?
This drift is very easily captured by political adventurers, who, just like Șoșoacă or AUR in our case, encourage and valorize violence as a solution to all frustrations and unhappiness. Then violence generates all kinds of violence, which spreads endemic. The Slovakia model.
But the success of these characters is only a symptom of the deep causes without which they would be just exotic unknowns. The explanation of success lies in the state of society. The causes that should shake us.