(Financial Times; Peščanik.net)
On the sidelines of a military parade in Beijing in early September, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping were heard discussing the question of immortality. They discussed not the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, nor their potential successors or Trump's tariffs, but organ transplants and new biotechnological discoveries that offer quixotic hopes for eternal youth.
Perhaps this unusual conversation could turn out to be more important for the future of our politics than the geopolitical power shifts everyone is talking about. It is often said that “the world is run by old men in a hurry.” What if the great powers are actually run by old men in no hurry, convinced that they have plenty of time? How will this fascination with longevity influence their political decisions?
When Putin finishes his current term - which is unlikely to mark the end of his reign - he will have been in power longer than either Joseph Stalin or Leonid Brezhnev. He will also be older than both.
We often assume that Putin is obsessed with choosing a successor and the survival of post-Putin Russia. But knowing that some of us - probably Putin himself - will soon be able to live much longer, perhaps we should keep a different question in mind. Can the Russian president rule the country for another quarter of a century? How will this extended timeframe affect his policy decisions? Will he be more patient or more aggressive?
Historian Christopher Clarke observes that “as gravity bends light, so power bends time.” The exercise of power is based on a certain set of assumptions about how the past, present, and future are interconnected. Modern politics holds to the belief that individuals are mortal, while nations are immortal. We transcend our mortality by believing in God, having children, and becoming part of a self-aware cultural community that will weather the storms of history.
Our idea of immortality has long been embodied by a monument in a park inscribed with the names of those who sacrificed their lives for the nation, or a poem that future generations will know by heart. As Putin and Xi’s conversation in Beijing suggests, that is no longer the case. We live in an age when the richest and most powerful individuals imagine themselves immortal, while many nations, under the pressure of lower birth rates and mass migration, are beginning to act mortal.
Can we still believe that we will live in the memory of future generations while the speed of ecological, technological and cultural change shatters our power to imagine how future people will live? Can Bulgarian or Slovak political leaders, for example, be sure that anyone will be studying Bulgarian or Slovak history in 100 years?
History reminds us that the pursuit of eternal youth is one of the characteristics of revolutionary times. The life and tragic death of Alexander Bogdanov, a friend of Vladimir Lenin and founder of the Russian National Institute of Hematology, who died as a result of a failed blood transfusion, is the best example of the revolutionary pursuit of immortality understood not as a quest for eternal glory, but as a quest for eternal youth.
Donald Trump is perhaps the best example of the dramatic shift in the time-power axis. Putin and Xi are still preoccupied with the immortality of nations. The Russian president romanticizes a lost imperial past and fantasizes about Russia’s demographic revival; Xi invokes dynastic continuity. Trump is different. Unlike Putin and Xi, he rarely talks about history or how he would like to be remembered by future generations.
Trump certainly wants to live forever, but not in the hearts and minds of future generations. One gets the impression that he would rather spend his immortality at Mar-a-Lago or, better yet, in the White House. His political imagination seems to extend no further than his own term in office—as if history itself should end with him. He shows little concern for what will happen immediately after him. When he talks about the risks of conflict with Taiwan, he reiterates Xi’s promise not to invade the island while Trump is in office. But what about when he is no longer in power?
The immortality talk in Beijing signals a dramatic shift in how political leaders perceive the time-power axis. At the end of his second term, Trump will be America’s oldest president. But is he really that old? The latest U.S. census shows that most Americans born in the same year as Trump, 1946, are still alive (and many of them are likely still voting). According to opinion polls, a majority of Republicans think Trump should run for a third term. Was his predecessor, Joe Biden, the last truly old American president?
It's hard to shake the impression that the future of our politics is beginning to resemble the world of Greek mythology, where the intrigues of immortals set world history in motion. In the meantime, the most that ordinary mortals can hope for is the benevolence of the Immortals.
(Translated by Milica Jovanović)
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