"Ethnic Nation: Values and Interests" (continued) - Karen AGEKYAN

Karen Agekyan's article "The Ethnic Nation: Values and Interests" (continuation), published in the journal "Aniv" No. 5 (44), continues the author's cycle of reflections on the fate of the ethnic nation and Armenianness in the context of contemporary world trends. The material develops ideas begun in previous issues and focuses on the problem of historical lag, ideological self-determination, and the danger of "hypersystems" for the preservation of national identity.

The Non-Fatality of History

The author disputes the notion of the fatal predetermination of historical cycles. He emphasizes that:
• history does not move along a strict mathematical trajectory — "stops," "loops," and "reverse motion" are possible;
• the struggle against the dominant trends of "dilution" of collective self-awareness is not meaningless, even if it contradicts the current logic of history;
• the strengthening of technological and informational power increases the amplitude of historical oscillations, creating a risk of exceeding a critical threshold.

A Place in Time

Agekyan analyzes the political situation of Armenia and Armenianness, comparing it with the historical experience of France at the end of the 18th century and Greece in the 1820s–1830s. The author points out that the Armenian nation lags behind the "world of modernity" by more than two centuries, while lacking an important resource — a prolonged war of independence that fixes the value of freedom in the collective consciousness.

Ethnonationalism Plus Liberalism

The key thesis of this section is the idea of an inseparable link between classical liberalism and the ethnonationalism of the Modern era. The author distinguishes between:
• classical liberalism and nationalism as complementary ideologies of the liberation of the individual and the nation;
• neoliberalism and pseudo-nationalism as their degraded contemporary forms.

For Armenianness, in Agekyan's view, the union of nationalism and liberalism is not a bygone stage but a current "ideological road to the future."

Hypersystems and the Triumph of Consumerism

The central premise of the article is connected to the concept of the "hypersystem" — a macrostructure of governance that has broken away from the community that gave rise to it and has subordinated ideology to its own interests. Using the examples of the USSR and the USA, the author shows that:
• hypersystems inevitably discredit the "high" ideas they take up as their banner;
• the conflict between ideology and realpolitik leads to the demobilization of society;
• it is hypersystems, not national or liberal ideas, that clear the way for the triumph of consumerism and the unification of the world.

The author draws on the words of Johann Gottfried Herder on the "unnatural growth of the state" and Henry Kissinger on the impossibility of reconciling strategic realism and ideological idealism in foreign policy.

Conclusion

The article's key conclusion is that the fate of the ethnic nation depends on its ability to resist the pressure of hypersystems and consumerist unification, relying on a revived union of classical liberalism and nationalism — an ideological tradition that has already become the past for the "world of modernity," but for Armenianness remains an urgent task of the future.