If you have the time and desire to deal with the state of mind of the nation, the latest study available to you are the results published yesterday by public opinion poll in Macedonia by the Institute for Democracy Societas Civilis from Skopje. The institute is reputable, the survey is methodologically sound, conducted in June this year, and the results are good for a collective fortune teller!

To cut a long story short (although I encourage you to read those less than thirty pages in full), the research through forty carefully formulated questions tries to measure the prevalence and acceptance of political populist tendencies among the citizens of Macedonia as a functional political substitute, as opposed to ideological party offers in the country. And common sense in general.

Conclusions are to be expected, in two-thirds versus one-thirds ratios: politicians are corrupt, the "people" are morally superior to elites who are corrupt and criminal; trust in democratic institutions is at a record low; The "people" prefer a "firm hand" ("uniformed" institutions, such as the church and the army, are far more popular than the civilian institutions of democracy) . And, yes, ethnic Macedonians are (politely speaking) the most conservative part of the "people", with the most lost nerves and patience on all important democratic foundations.

These are trends that, for those who deal with their long-term scientific monitoring, are not very surprising, because for decades they are relatively stable in their growing line of such development.

But the fun part of this research (if you are not prone to depression) is the analysis of the "people" 's resistance to conspiracies. Beware, of the respondents, 72% fully or partially agree that the world is run by several powerful families; 64% think the pandemic was created in the laboratory to control humans; 46% believe that the climate is controlled by satellites and radars; 45% are convinced that the Ministry of Health, for money (?!), Registers more deaths than covid-19; 46% agree that viruses are sprayed by aircraft; climate change is a fabrication of almost 30%; and 57% believe that the media mostly spread lies…

Uuuuuu, here the number of confused is rapidly decreasing, everyone is slowly but surely going crazy!

But if you think that the explanation is in the former "simple people, strong state" - and you are wrong. I quote: "Higher education is a factor that influences susceptibility to conspiracy theories. Thus, there is a noticeable difference in attitudes about the pandemic, where 65% of highly educated people believe that it was created to control people, as opposed to 74% of those with secondary education. 43% of those with higher education think that the climate is controlled by radars and satellites, as opposed to 58% of those with secondary and 62% - with primary. It is similar with the theory of falsification of the number of dead from KOVID-19, where 43% of highly educated people think that the Ministry paid a bribe, while the same opinion is present in 53% of those with secondary and 61% of those with primary education. "In terms of the level of education, the difference is visible in the theory that climate change is a fabrication, but it is between those with primary education (42%) and those with secondary and higher education (about 30%)."

Hmmm… This is hard to fix.

(Admittedly, the correlation of such attitudes towards the education of the respondents may speak more about the quality of secondary and higher education in our country than about the fantasies in which our academic fellow citizens live… But that requires other research.)

All in all, the work is totally flawed, if you look at it from the perspective of the minority. If you are part of the majority, rejoice in the catastrophe that is coming unstoppably, and whose first - only the first - victims will be the members of the minority.

I would not offer another conclusion, because - at least statistically - and the majority of those who read this - you, de! - already have bloodshot eyes and thinned patience like fleece paper.

However, it is instructive to tell an instructive historical story, from which I doubt anyone would learn anything. Namely, the explanations are known that the two world famous and celebrated philosophers and sociologists Theodor Adorno (Jewish by father) and Max Horkheimer (from a family of Orthodox Jews), both members of the influential Frankfurt Critical School of Philosophical Thought in Germany years of the last century, after the coming of Hitler and the Nazis to power, because from the sociological research of the trends and the mood in the German public opinion of that time they realized in time what things are going for, for a start, in their homeland гото The other is, literally, history.

That is. As things stand, there are only 3-4 years left for those who think it is time to pack their bags. Because even today, I saw, planes were flying over us and spraying something!