Kathrine Frich
When the weather finally turns warm, we usually try to spend less time staring at our glowing screens.
Most of us just mute our chat notifications. Some leave the smartphone on a kitchen counter for the afternoon. But one prominent political thinker wants to make logging off a mandatory, nationwide law.
Earning the web
Aleksandr Dugin is a highly influential philosopher with close ties to the Kremlin. Now, he has pitched a deeply bizarre plan to control how his fellow citizens connect to the modern world.
He wants authorities to heavily restrict internet access. The conservative thinker believes the state should treat connectivity as a privilege rather than a basic right. The Moscow Times, cited by Onet, reported on this extreme vision for society.
During a recent interview with journalist Ksenia Sobchak, Dugin outlined his strict approach. He simply stated that “Russians should be given portions of the internet for good behavior.”
Earning those few hours of scrolling would require total obedience. And even then, access would vanish as soon as the snow melts.
Banned in the summer
The radical proposal links digital freedom directly to the changing seasons. Dugin believes that keeping people offline during the warmer months will somehow restore their lost identity.
If the state completely shut down the web in the spring, he argues, citizens would be forced to interact in person. They could ride scooters. Or they might simply whistle outside windows to find their friends.
In his past writings, he claimed these harsh limits would push everyone to start making new friends and leading “real, human lives.”
People could only log back into their accounts once the freezing winter weather traps them indoors. Dugin wrote that connectivity must “adapt to the seasonal cycles of bears and butterflies.”
Total state control
Shutting off the entire digital world requires a massive, aggressive security apparatus. The philosopher fully embraces that dark reality.
He repeatedly urges the Russian public to accept strict government authority without asking questions. To him, the idea of a free, unmonitored society is nothing more than a foolish dream.
He insists that intense domestic oppression is much safer than the alternative. The country faces a binary choice. It is either local rulers or outside forces.
Dugin warned his followers to submit to the authorities immediately. He wrote, “If our own people don’t rule, foreigners will rule. Yes, that’s the world we live in; we have no other world for you.”
Sources: The Moscow Times, Ksenia Sobchak
