Fetishism is a mental illness.

I dare say that this is not a disease, a pathological deviation from the “normal” state, but the norm for almost all bipeds. What are banners, coats of arms, medals, ranks and shoulder straps attached to them, or other “insignia”? What are all these Mausoleums with corpses that have long queues to worship? What are temples of all religions with thousands of ridiculous “symbols” and conditionally significant objects? Holy books, holy stones, holy canvases, banners… What are chants and processions, parades, etc.? These are all rituals, and the people of whom the vast majority of humanity are ritualists and fetishists!

A kind of idolatry, totemization!

I will not hesitate to prove this position using the example of the All-Union Competition of Young Poets named after A.S. Pushkin. Schoolchildren under the age of seventeen take part in this competition. It consists of two parts. A preliminary competition in which students compete for the best knowledge of Pushkin’s poems and verses.

The winners of these qualifying competitions are allowed to enter the final phase: To write a poem in the Pushkin style (that is, imitating the poetic manner of the great poet as much as possible) on any given topic.

The first thirty places in the Pushkin Competition are awarded: Free admission to the Pushkin House Museum.

The third prize is to touch the table on which Pushkin wrote his brilliant poems and verses. The touch time is 30 seconds.

The second prize is to sit on the couch where Pushkin died. The sitting time is 30 seconds.

The first prize is the right to go to the toilet, sit on an Authentic Toilet Seat that was used by Pushkin, and even “do it in a small way.” And only “in a small way”! BUT NOT MORE THAN thirty seconds.

The museum guide talks about the toilet seat with tears in her eyes and with gusty exhalation:

Comrades, Alexander Sergeevich himself used this toilet seat if necessary. Look carefully at its smooth, shiny surface and try to imagine Pushkin himself sitting on it!!! But the most amazing thing, comrades, is that the toilet seat “DID NOT FORGET” the great poet!!!

Remember how a good Russian folk song says!

Chaliapin’s bass sounds powerfully from the speakers:

“Of all the people, was the only one in the toilet,

And was sitting on the seat enjoying…

And toilet seat HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN that man,

And since then, his name has been called!”.

How could a toilet seat “remember”? – you may ask. And so, comrades! If a cliff, a rock, could remember the name of Stepan Razin, then a toilet seat could remember the “Sun of Russian Poetry”, who sanctified him with his genius touch! Let the winner of the first prize first touch the toilet seat with her hand and tell you what he felt!

The girl who won the first place, on legs buckling with excitement, approaches the toilet seat and, under the strict gaze of the guide, carefully touches the toilet seat. With a slight cry, she pulls his hand away.

The tour guide is pleased:

What’s the matter, Olga? Why did you pull your hand away? After all, you still have the great right to sit on it for thirty seconds!

It’s WARM!!! – The “first prize” answers in a voice trembling with intense emotion.

Right! – The guide concludes triumphantly. – Comrades, this toilet seat KEEPS Pushkin’S BODY WARM TO THIS DAY!!! That’s what GENIUS means!!! That’s exactly what I meant when I said that he “HADN’T FORGOTTEN” Alexander Sergeevich!!!

As Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev correctly said,”she edifiantly raised her index finger and appropriately raised her eyes to heaven: “One should not hope for miracles, but one should take them into account!”

The students, expressing adequate delight, applauded together.

(The tour guide lied. When she was in the Lenin Library, in the hall of the “Special Fund”, where only “initiates” are allowed, she sat at the same table with a strange fellow who read two books in two languages at once. One is in Russian, and the other is covered with some incomprehensible signs and for some reason he reads from right to left. The “Russian” one said: “David Ben-Gurion. Articles, letters, statements.” That’s where she read that phrase. And she even thought about telling about this fellow “where it’s needed.” But she didn’t tell, because after all, the “Special Fund” did the right thing. The “comrade” was preparing to be sent to Israel as a “long-term refusenik Zionist” and therefore treated this role quite conscientiously.)

On the wall, so that the person sitting can read, in a frame under glass, a sheet of paper on which his famous poem is written in Pushkin’s handwriting:

In the wilderness, exhausted by a lenten life,

Exhausted by the stomach,

I’m not soaring, I’M SITTING LIKE AN EAGLE,

And am sick with diarrhea.

I’m saving a stock of paper,

The onslaught of inspiration is alien.

I rarely go to Parnassus.
And only for GREAT need!

(The poem was somewhat “cut down” by the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences for moral and didactic reasons)

Then everyone moves away from the toilet, the door closes, and the winning girl is allowed to sit on the toilet seat and perform the sacrament alone with the great shadow of genius for thirty seconds.

Everyone is standing at the closed door, maintaining respectful silence and continuing to see in their mind’s eye not the girl, but Alexander Sergeevich himself, sitting on a magic toilet seat.

(The “secret” of the toilet seat is, of course, known to the guide. At one time, it took a lot of ideas, labor and money to develop and implement this miracle. The board is covered with the thinnest transparent electrically conductive film, through which a small current is constantly passed, heating the board. On top, of course, there is another thin insulating film, so that the person sitting could not accidentally receive some kind of electric shock, although the voltage chosen for this purpose is no more than 12 volts. Everything, of course, is strictly controlled by ultra-sensitive thermostats that strictly maintain the desired temperature of 34.2 degrees. This was the temperature to which Alexander Sergeevich heated the surface of the toilet seat. How was it established? A whole group of the best theoretical physicists of the Soviet Union, specialists in thermodynamics, investigated this problem for a year and a half and after the most complicated calculations came to the conclusion that this particular temperature was achieved due to the minute touch of Pushkin’s body with the board.

However, it should be noted that the opinions of the theorists differed somewhat. Some claimed, citing calculations using tensor calculus, that the temperature was 34 degrees exactly.

The other part, which used quantum mechanics in its matrix form with renormalization, claimed that the temperature was 34.4 degrees. The authorities, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR, in order not to quarrel forever between two groups of outstanding Soviet physicists, came to a Solomonic decision:

Add both temperatures and divide by two. Thus, through the wise intervention of the elected representatives of the people, two goals were achieved at once: a peaceful agreement between groups of physicists and a suitable degree of heating of the genius’s toilet seat.)

The girl served her thirty seconds, then the melodious chiming of the Kremlin chimes sounded, signaling the end of the holy process, and the girl went out to the waiting peers, not hiding her excitement.

After handing out certificates and lollipops to the group of winners, the ceremony ended.

Well, now who dares to say that fetishism is a deviation from the mental norm?!

18 XI 2016