№ 1 - 2007
Potzeluyev S.P.
Political Paradialogue

It is the phenomenon of political paradialogue as a post-modernist parody of classical dialogic intercourse that constitutes the subject of research in the article. Departing (in contraposition) from M.Bakhtin’s and G.Deleuze’s approaches and using as empirical material a “television duel” between two Russian politicians – V.Zhirinovsky and A.Prokhanov, – the author considers in detail semantic and pragmatic absurdities and paradoxes of paradialogical communication, as well as its infantile-performance aspects as specific markers of authoritarian thinking, and poses the question of certain fictitiousness, theatricality of paradialogical discourse. The article accentuates the simulative and regressive character of political paradialogue, its confusing and at the same time “therapeutic” effect upon mass consciousness.