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Shaping a New Morality: On Television as Propaganda Tool

Mher Yenokyan

(Mher Yenokyan is serving a life sentence in an Armenian corectional facilty and periodically writes for Hetq)

Lecturers from the Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) University visited me at Nubarashen Penitentiary, where I took my first-year final exams. I am so grateful to Rector Armen Darbinyan, Director of the Political Science and Law Institute Larisa Alaverdyan, the lecturers, and those employees who gave me the opportunity to study at the Faculty of Law and ensure the learning process, considering that I am in prison. I approach my studies with great responsibility, and I will continue to justify their confidence, hoping that I will graduate university already free, and I myself will be able to come take my final exams. 

In the second year, I have to study more specialized subjects: criminal, civil, and constitutional rights. The first-year subjects were interesting and I would like to discuss with the reader on various topics. 

One of the Faculty of Law lecturers, who teaches the subject Theory of State and Law, asked me about the priority of law and morality. Legal scholars write that in the beginning there was morality, then law came to the fore. Is that really true? After all, the standards of morality have transformed a thousand times over the millennia. For example, in the initial stage of human civilization, cannibalism, incest, and mass murders were normal. But when humans began to realize the threats to the preservation and security of the race, they began to define taboos, deciding what is permitted and what is not. That is, the understanding of law was born. 

In my opinion, in the beginning was law. Without falling into the trap of which came first, the chicken or the egg, I find that only at first sight does it seem that law is borne from the demand of morality. Let's come to the present day, so it becomes easier to discuss the matter using examples. With the silent agreement of the ruling authorities, often without counteracting, though sometimes unofficially, expressions alien to our society (the entry of various religious organizations, proselytizing, defending gay rights, and so on) are given the green light. That is, initially, society is given the right for unfamiliar, unwritten norms, then these are given the power of written norms, shaping a new "morality". All this happens easily when the immune system of the nation and society, counteracting foreign norms, is weakened and is unable to fight the "virus" imported from the outside world. I have read about Goebbels' monstrous propaganda, through which a favorable public opinion was shaped, that during the years of Hitler's rule everything was implemented through referendums, so the people's voice was heard. 

All this is marvellously implemented also in our society, through the propaganda machine, which is under government control (television still remains the biggest propaganda instrument in the modern world). A short while later, foreign elements suddenly become perceptible and normal, and the public, zombified, fed on poor quality "food," lacking the capacity to produce an independent, bold thought, is easily controllable. But the opportunities of the internet came to counterbalance this unbalance. Unfortunately, we, prisoners, cannot receive online information. In the 21st century, Armenia's penitentiary system forbids those who are imprisoned to use the internet, considering it a means of communication.

Television appeared in lifers' cells after 2003, when Armenia became a Council of Europe member country. Today too it is a salvation for many, so they don't go crazy seeing the same faces every day. In our cell, the television is turned on only in the evenings. And when I return to physical freedom, I think I won't turn on that instrument (I have a friend, who is in the Land of the Living, but he wrote in a letter that he doesn't have a TV in the house, that he specifically hasn't bought a television for many years).

You know, colors aren't allowed in prison. And I had promised to send pictures with my letters. I tried to depict the psychological state of a person on the boundary between Freedom and unFreedom. People, enjoy life, nature, touch it, go meet with your friends, devote a lot of time to your loved ones instead of watching television. After all, living in Freedom is itself happiness.


P.S. Thank to Hetq.am editor Edik Baghdasarayan, who sent me his book on investigative journalism — I will definitely read it. Thank you as well to the organizers of the Orange Armenia Book Prize and the jury, as my story "Toward Lifelong Freedom" made it to the top three, and soon it will also be available for online voting

 

Comments (2)

silva
hpart em keznov txas pind exir
ՄԱՐՏԻ 1
երբ մեր արդարադատությունը ընդունի իր անցյալի սխալները, այս տղային արդարացնի ու նա դուրս գա, կարելի է հավատալ, որ Հայաստանում վերջապես ինչ որ դրական փոփոխություններ են կատարվում

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