Masha Gessen\u2019s \u201cThe Dying Russians\u201d is an interesting article that demonstrates the interdisciplinary quality of political science. On one hand, hard data is vital in creating any theory. The article cites the evidence of low birth rates and high death rates in Russia over the last century, specifically the modern fertility rate of 1.61 and the 27 million people lost between 1941 and 1946. While the death rate might have seemed to correlate with a lack of economic progress in the era following the demise of the USSR, it has continued to increase through the present, despite the surge of capitalism and relative economic success. In order to make sense of these patterns, one must venture into the humanities to try to find causality. It is not enough to simply site the relationship between heavy drinking and the staggering amount of cardiovascular disease. One must try to decipher the Russian population\u2019s desire to drink so heavily. Gessen mentions both mental illness and the lack of \u201chope\u201d among people. Aside from possible statics of mental illness, this causality between hope and death cannot adequately be described by hard science. It involves exploring the private transcript of the population that cannot be assessed accurately using state propaganda or the birth and death rate statistics, essentially the public transcript of modern Russia. Further, these trends will undoubtedly continue if they remained unquestioned by the people. If such widespread death is half-heartedly accepted, there will remain no impetus for change on a national scale. Overall, this issue can only be understood through a mixture of the hard sciences and humanities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Masha Gessen\u2019s \u201cThe Dying Russians\u201d is an interesting article that demonstrates the interdisciplinary quality of political science. On one hand, hard data is vital in creating any theory. The article cites the evidence of low birth rates and high death … Continue reading