September is on the way. The holiday of the beginning of school smoothed out into the everyday. Autumn came. People carry on with their personal food programme in order to survive the winter. We recognized two freshly born countries. And prices for gas, potatoes and sausages are on the rise.
People in the West don't bother making conserves for winter. They put their trust in supermarkets. It is already one of the contrasts between us and many democratic peoples. But is it the only difference?
Once Tyutchev said a phrase which became one of the most popular ones in the history of fatherland - "Russia is understood not by the mind..." This phrase somehow lifts the spirits: it is pleasant to think that we posses some sort of a secret which makes us mysterious and inexplicable. It also just makes for a nice thought. It's a pity that Feodor Ivanovich died, because I always wanted to ask him, what exactly did he mean. Whether it is the free orthodox spirit of Russian people which doesn't allow it to make life cosy and convenient, or whether it's something else? Tyutchev himself has noted, that "the cleverest German, when starts talking about Russia, will undoubtedly appear a fool". And what's to be said about the clever American? Regardless, it's hard to judge us from abroad: they see the new Russians and are afraid of our tanks. We tell jokes about the former, but the latter is simply insulting. So how do we understand ourselves and what do we think about us?
A survey took place this spring and summer called "The Name of Russia". Along with that in July there was a study done by Levada-Centre to "name the most outstanding people of all times and nations". If one is to believe the results of this study, some things become quite clear. Here are the 25 most outstanding people: Pushkin, Peter the Great, Stalin, Lenin, Putin, Gagarin, Zhukov, Lomonosov, Suvorov, Tolstoy, Mendeleyev, Kutuzov, Korolev, Napoleon, Lermontov, Brezhnev, Catherine the Great, Einstein, Nikolay II, Hitler, Sakharov, Yeltsin, Tchaikovsky, Gorbatchev, Esenin.
Firstly, where is it evident that in the year 988 Russia accepted Christianity? There is no prince Vladimir, nor a single Russian saint. There is no mention of Sergiy Radonejskiy, nor Serafim Sarovsky. How exactly is one to speak of orthodoxy if the main characters are all generals and statesmen, especially, with a rare exception, those who destroyed more, than they created? So it becomes clear about the tanks.
Secondly, we in general don't have any memory for history. The most ancient on this list is Peter the Great - about 300 years. (But Russia's history spans more than one thousand years.) That's possibly why Ivan the Terrible didn't get a mention: after all he was an excellent destroyer, it's only that he lived such a long time ago. And Alexander II didn't get in, along with Stolipin. Those were killed because they carried out the reforms incorrectly — tried to destroy less, and didn't cut the beards together with the chins.
Thirdly, world history has disappeared. Napoleon got 14th place, and that's only because he was dealt with in 1812. Same reason for Hitler. We've also forgotten Genghis Khan. He isn't great because he conquered us. And all those Alexander the Greats, Caesars, Leonardos and Raphaels, Platos and Newtons - in comparison with Leonid Ilich Brezhnev are all historical sprat.
In general, our historical and other education gives off its own fruits.
The puzzling one is Einstein. This is precisely where mind is useless in helping us understand ourselves. And then we also adore Pushkin who bequeathed love to the coffins of the fathers.
A Russian version of this article can be found here.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
A small requiem to intelligentsia
Recently I took part in a small seminar, which was organised by the Public Chamber of Russian Federation and was dedicated to the problem of intelligentsia. Does it still exist in Russia, and if so, what role does it have? This question has interested me for some time now, and here I would like to provide my point of view (which, as it turned out, seems to be significantly different from some of the others).
The Latin word “intelligentsia” was devised in Russia in the end the 19th Century in order to describe a very strange group of people, which exists only in Russia. Russian intelligentsia. An example of selfless service to the fatherland. Readiness to make whatever sacrifices necessary for the people. A high and certainly deserved value, if we recall such names as Belinskiy, Herzen, Chernishevsky.
Often (under the influence of Marxism) people refer to the educated part of the society as intelligentsia. But it wasn't education that defined Russian intelligentsia. It was its active civic stand and its constant opposition to authority. Defined by the fact that it defended those values, which the state didn't. Apart from anti-state behaviour, intelligentsia was also characterised by its anti-religiousness. I.e. it actively fought with the autocracy and the orthodoxy in the name of the people.
Accordingly, that part of educated Russia, which thought it possible to collaborate with bureaucrats or was itself on civil service (as were, for example, V.I.Dal or I.A.Goncharov), or independent thinkers who didn't share mainstream intelligent opinions, remained outside of intelligentsia and underwent attacks. In such a situation were, for example, N.V.Gogol after the publication of "Chosen Places", F.M.Dostoevsky, N.S.Leskov, A.K.Tolstoy and many others.
The determining feature of intelligentsia in the 19th century was that it clearly divided "ours" from "non-ours", itself from everyone else. But "everyone else" just happened to be the biggest and the most original Russian thinkers.
Naturally, in the period of hegemony of the proletariat, the party officials considered all educated people as intelligentsia and transferred onto them their attitudes of intelligentsia of the 19th century. They always expected an open or secret disagreement with authorities and preventively punished it.
Intelligentsia, as in the sense of the 19th century, showed itself twice in soviet times - in the time of Khrushchev “Thaw” in the second half of the fifties and in the beginning of Perestroika.
However in the process of Perestroika, when super-liberal reforms took place, intelligentsia, as a group, disappeared. It melted. It succumbed.
We have intelligent people, but have no intelligentsia.
We have educated people (although, increasingly more half-educated, poorly educated, badly educated and those who managed to grab some information somewhere but don't really know how or where to apply it), but there is no intelligentsia.
Instead we have "American Idol" and "Big Brother".
What is the connection? There are many reasons: part of intelligentsia moved into power and out of "sufferers for the people" became "lucky-ones for the people". Part immigrated to various countries, where intelligentsia never existed, and tried as much as possible to fit into the foreign life. Part got busy making money, and in this fuss lost the necessary incandescence. Part simply got tired...
Intelligentsia left together with the habit of reading books, in order to think about life, and not to kill time of this precious life. But the natural and necessary opposition of authority is now searching for other social forms.
A Russian version of this article can be found here.
The Latin word “intelligentsia” was devised in Russia in the end the 19th Century in order to describe a very strange group of people, which exists only in Russia. Russian intelligentsia. An example of selfless service to the fatherland. Readiness to make whatever sacrifices necessary for the people. A high and certainly deserved value, if we recall such names as Belinskiy, Herzen, Chernishevsky.
Often (under the influence of Marxism) people refer to the educated part of the society as intelligentsia. But it wasn't education that defined Russian intelligentsia. It was its active civic stand and its constant opposition to authority. Defined by the fact that it defended those values, which the state didn't. Apart from anti-state behaviour, intelligentsia was also characterised by its anti-religiousness. I.e. it actively fought with the autocracy and the orthodoxy in the name of the people.
Accordingly, that part of educated Russia, which thought it possible to collaborate with bureaucrats or was itself on civil service (as were, for example, V.I.Dal or I.A.Goncharov), or independent thinkers who didn't share mainstream intelligent opinions, remained outside of intelligentsia and underwent attacks. In such a situation were, for example, N.V.Gogol after the publication of "Chosen Places", F.M.Dostoevsky, N.S.Leskov, A.K.Tolstoy and many others.
The determining feature of intelligentsia in the 19th century was that it clearly divided "ours" from "non-ours", itself from everyone else. But "everyone else" just happened to be the biggest and the most original Russian thinkers.
Naturally, in the period of hegemony of the proletariat, the party officials considered all educated people as intelligentsia and transferred onto them their attitudes of intelligentsia of the 19th century. They always expected an open or secret disagreement with authorities and preventively punished it.
Intelligentsia, as in the sense of the 19th century, showed itself twice in soviet times - in the time of Khrushchev “Thaw” in the second half of the fifties and in the beginning of Perestroika.
However in the process of Perestroika, when super-liberal reforms took place, intelligentsia, as a group, disappeared. It melted. It succumbed.
We have intelligent people, but have no intelligentsia.
We have educated people (although, increasingly more half-educated, poorly educated, badly educated and those who managed to grab some information somewhere but don't really know how or where to apply it), but there is no intelligentsia.
Instead we have "American Idol" and "Big Brother".
What is the connection? There are many reasons: part of intelligentsia moved into power and out of "sufferers for the people" became "lucky-ones for the people". Part immigrated to various countries, where intelligentsia never existed, and tried as much as possible to fit into the foreign life. Part got busy making money, and in this fuss lost the necessary incandescence. Part simply got tired...
Intelligentsia left together with the habit of reading books, in order to think about life, and not to kill time of this precious life. But the natural and necessary opposition of authority is now searching for other social forms.
A Russian version of this article can be found here.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Are we different from Cyanobacteria?
Recently there was an article in the press, that at the origin of human sins, which are thought to be mortal, lie simple chemical processes in our organisms. Spanish biologist John Medina in the book “The Genetic Inferno: Inside the Seven Deadly Sins" explains the origin of human imperfections through the specifics of human nature and the presence of specific genes. For example, “each person has something like consciousness-alarm clock, which works like a clock and sends signals to our brain".
It's this inner "alarm clock" that structures the timetable according to which our bodies live. The program that turns this alarm clock on and off is written in our genes. They are also the ones to carry responsibility for our lack of desire to work, idleness and despondency. Greed - this obtrusive, but natural fight for property rights and this right being taken away from you. The center of stinginess has been found. It has also been explained, what section of the human brain is excited in the presence of money.
The list goes on. Accordingly, there is nothing bad about sloth or greed. They're natural. It is useless to try and resist these sins, because in our misdeeds are echoes of our animal instincts, which, even now live in the human consciousness.
What an excellent, all justifying, convenient theory!
However everything has its price. An excuse such as this also. It so happens that the person himself doesn't need to be accountable for anything. He is fully ruled by his genes: when he sees money, he becomes stupid from greed; his "alarm clock" doesn't go off, and he doesn't bother to get up and do something - resulting in boredom. A gene called caM-kII gets itchy, and a person gets a sudden boost of pride. And lets not even start on lust. So a human lives like an animal. Like an amoeba. I'll even go as far as to say that a human lives like the most ancient organic life form on Earth - the blue-green algae known as Cyanobacteria.
Well, almost everything fits! Cyanobacteria live on their own and together in groups, the can form balls, crusts and bushes reaching in size up to 10 cm (little villages, settlements and towns). Some of them are capable of movement similar to sliding (like a person skiing). They multiply. Men also. They live practically everywhere - on the surface of the earth, in hot springs where the water temperature can go up to 80℃, on the snow - in polar regions, and in the mountains. Their greatest numbers are found in fresh waters, where they destroy fish and everything else. Man also mastered entire earth's surface and is destroying everything, too.
The activity of Cyanobacteria led to the first global ecological catastrophe in the natural history and to the dramatic change in biosphere. It was “the creator” of what-we-know-now oxygen-containing atmosphere on Earth. Man also brought biosphere to the edge of catastrophe (or will bring in the very near future, since he has these genes for greed and envy). There are, of course, some differences, but they're insignificant. We shouldn't contain ourselves - after all, we only live once.
On the whole, everything in humans comes from nature, and "what's natural, cannot be ugly" (Rus. proverb). Except that there is no space left for man in this picture. There is a proud, lazily-idle, greedy, lustful, envious, voracious, somewhat psychotic animal.
Thank you, Spanish scientist! We no longer need to worry about our imperfections and can finally have a good nights' sleep. Especially seeing as there must also be a gene responsible for that. I'm wondering - is John Medina conducting any research into the existence of a gene for conscience?
A Russian version of this article can be found here.
It's this inner "alarm clock" that structures the timetable according to which our bodies live. The program that turns this alarm clock on and off is written in our genes. They are also the ones to carry responsibility for our lack of desire to work, idleness and despondency. Greed - this obtrusive, but natural fight for property rights and this right being taken away from you. The center of stinginess has been found. It has also been explained, what section of the human brain is excited in the presence of money.
The list goes on. Accordingly, there is nothing bad about sloth or greed. They're natural. It is useless to try and resist these sins, because in our misdeeds are echoes of our animal instincts, which, even now live in the human consciousness.
What an excellent, all justifying, convenient theory!
However everything has its price. An excuse such as this also. It so happens that the person himself doesn't need to be accountable for anything. He is fully ruled by his genes: when he sees money, he becomes stupid from greed; his "alarm clock" doesn't go off, and he doesn't bother to get up and do something - resulting in boredom. A gene called caM-kII gets itchy, and a person gets a sudden boost of pride. And lets not even start on lust. So a human lives like an animal. Like an amoeba. I'll even go as far as to say that a human lives like the most ancient organic life form on Earth - the blue-green algae known as Cyanobacteria.
Well, almost everything fits! Cyanobacteria live on their own and together in groups, the can form balls, crusts and bushes reaching in size up to 10 cm (little villages, settlements and towns). Some of them are capable of movement similar to sliding (like a person skiing). They multiply. Men also. They live practically everywhere - on the surface of the earth, in hot springs where the water temperature can go up to 80℃, on the snow - in polar regions, and in the mountains. Their greatest numbers are found in fresh waters, where they destroy fish and everything else. Man also mastered entire earth's surface and is destroying everything, too.
The activity of Cyanobacteria led to the first global ecological catastrophe in the natural history and to the dramatic change in biosphere. It was “the creator” of what-we-know-now oxygen-containing atmosphere on Earth. Man also brought biosphere to the edge of catastrophe (or will bring in the very near future, since he has these genes for greed and envy). There are, of course, some differences, but they're insignificant. We shouldn't contain ourselves - after all, we only live once.
On the whole, everything in humans comes from nature, and "what's natural, cannot be ugly" (Rus. proverb). Except that there is no space left for man in this picture. There is a proud, lazily-idle, greedy, lustful, envious, voracious, somewhat psychotic animal.
Thank you, Spanish scientist! We no longer need to worry about our imperfections and can finally have a good nights' sleep. Especially seeing as there must also be a gene responsible for that. I'm wondering - is John Medina conducting any research into the existence of a gene for conscience?
A Russian version of this article can be found here.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Foretelling science
May 16 - day of science in Novosibirsk. This brings joy, and it is relevant. Usually the purpose of such a day is to remind us, that there is such a phenomenon, which this day is dedicated to, and to be glad that there are people who are somehow related to it. And, of course, to congratulate these people, with their professional holiday. In this case - scientists.
For 70 years we lived “scientifically”. Guided by the “most scientific world view” we built the best society where the division between mental and physical labour, between city and village, should have been erased. The government should have just died off by itself, and the freedom of each and everyone should have become a condition for freedom of everyone. And wealth should have reached unprecedented heights.
Reality was somewhat different - the divisions, although were partly erased, but not completely. What concerns government and freedom - here it somehow didn't happen: the government refused to die off, and freedom refused to become a condition. What concerns wealth... In any case everything needed to be changed. The price is known.
In the end science happened to be - clearly or implicitly - in the role of the accused, and those things that it was so much against, flooded from every gap onto the steep of somewhat confused public consciousness. Newspapers became gaudy with advertisements such as this: “Certified hereditary specialist in black magic will remove any dependence, free from curse, basilisk-glance and crown of celibacy, guards and hexes...” Television provides brilliant astrological forecasts regarding the time when it is best to invest extra funds into new business (this is especially relevant to all our rich pensioners), when to talk to our loved or not-so-loved ones... and I am not even talking about the oceans lashings of the mystical and mysterious.
Certified practitioners of black magic are becoming respected citizens and almost more interesting than serious scientists. All this is happening in a country, where journals such as “Science and Life”, “Chemistry and Life “, “Knowledge is strength” and “Young Scientist” were very popular. However now against the background of growing illiteracy (to be more precise, what is still worse, growing half-literacy - when people still kind-of know something, but all of it is so sketchy and vague, that it's not really different from ignorance) it became possible to seriously discuss concepts alternative to science, the ideological pluralism, etc. As if all opinions were equal. And that, which is built on the age-old traditions and enlightenments of brilliant people, who discovered amazing laws of nature, and taken from nowhere.
If science doesn't know all, it doesn't mean, that any witchdoctor happens to be on the same level with science. Science, in fact, differs from non-science because it clearly recognises the boundaries of what it still doesn't know. Because it is a system that works according to specific laws. It can make mistakes. As it is made by people. But that in no way justifies those, who never make mistakes.
Yes, mysterious exists. And that's fantastic. But it became mysterious only because, thanks to science, accustomed-to, rationally substantiated non-mysterious appeared. People became illiterate only after grammar appeared. If the timid enamored nervous young women find help in charms and spells, let them go to hereditary fortune tellers. But this abolishes neither the periodic table nor the theory of relativity.
A Russian version of this article can be found here.
For 70 years we lived “scientifically”. Guided by the “most scientific world view” we built the best society where the division between mental and physical labour, between city and village, should have been erased. The government should have just died off by itself, and the freedom of each and everyone should have become a condition for freedom of everyone. And wealth should have reached unprecedented heights.
Reality was somewhat different - the divisions, although were partly erased, but not completely. What concerns government and freedom - here it somehow didn't happen: the government refused to die off, and freedom refused to become a condition. What concerns wealth... In any case everything needed to be changed. The price is known.
In the end science happened to be - clearly or implicitly - in the role of the accused, and those things that it was so much against, flooded from every gap onto the steep of somewhat confused public consciousness. Newspapers became gaudy with advertisements such as this: “Certified hereditary specialist in black magic will remove any dependence, free from curse, basilisk-glance and crown of celibacy, guards and hexes...” Television provides brilliant astrological forecasts regarding the time when it is best to invest extra funds into new business (this is especially relevant to all our rich pensioners), when to talk to our loved or not-so-loved ones... and I am not even talking about the oceans lashings of the mystical and mysterious.
Certified practitioners of black magic are becoming respected citizens and almost more interesting than serious scientists. All this is happening in a country, where journals such as “Science and Life”, “Chemistry and Life “, “Knowledge is strength” and “Young Scientist” were very popular. However now against the background of growing illiteracy (to be more precise, what is still worse, growing half-literacy - when people still kind-of know something, but all of it is so sketchy and vague, that it's not really different from ignorance) it became possible to seriously discuss concepts alternative to science, the ideological pluralism, etc. As if all opinions were equal. And that, which is built on the age-old traditions and enlightenments of brilliant people, who discovered amazing laws of nature, and taken from nowhere.
If science doesn't know all, it doesn't mean, that any witchdoctor happens to be on the same level with science. Science, in fact, differs from non-science because it clearly recognises the boundaries of what it still doesn't know. Because it is a system that works according to specific laws. It can make mistakes. As it is made by people. But that in no way justifies those, who never make mistakes.
Yes, mysterious exists. And that's fantastic. But it became mysterious only because, thanks to science, accustomed-to, rationally substantiated non-mysterious appeared. People became illiterate only after grammar appeared. If the timid enamored nervous young women find help in charms and spells, let them go to hereditary fortune tellers. But this abolishes neither the periodic table nor the theory of relativity.
A Russian version of this article can be found here.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Education - it's a treasure
Earlier education was considered to be of great value. Because it was accessible to only a few.
This is how valued was the job of a scribe (back then only scribes were educated) in Ancient Egypt: "Be a scribe! It will free you, this post, from taxes, protect you from works. It will remove you from a mattock and you will not have to carry a basket. It will separate you from rowing and oar, it will remove you from efforts. You won't be under numerous lords and numerous chiefs". Two points: 1) education liberates a person from hard physical labour and 2) it makes a person more free. Education was a rarity, it gave one a respected position in society and because of that, it was highly valued.
Mass education appears in ancient Greek towns-states together with the birth of democracy. Citizens could actually govern the country, as the supreme body was a national assembly where any citizen could participate. He needed to have understanding in the affairs of the state and that demanded education. The main subjects in private schools (in Ancient Greece there were no state schools) were gymnastics, grammar and mathematics. Education was valued as a right and as a condition of being a responsible citizen.
Here is a fragment from a famous Chinese book "Tao Te Ching": "In antiquity, those who followed tao, didn't educate the people, but made them ignorant. It is difficult to rule people who have knowledge". The wise book is undoubtedly correct: educated, thinking people are uncontrollable. They can criticize decisions of authorities, they can begin to show initiative, they can start to write books, they begin to think... all of this cannot be controlled. Of course, harm from books can be huge. It is not a coincidence that antidemocratic regimes burned and forbade books. It is much easier to deal with uneducated masses.
Thus the first value of education — it makes the person vigilant, responsible member of society.
However when in modern times education became a mass phenomenon, something we're used to, its value diminished. It seems almost as given to us by nature. Along with that came a belief, that education is needed in order to become a professional and make money. In the old days father would teach his son a profession, a mother would teach her daughter. This has been passed onto the state, and the state, however it can, continues what once was a family responsibility. Education began to be treated utilitarianly, from the point of view of material gain. Certainly education is useful. But not in respect that it gives one a trade.
Education, and this is where it's primary value lies, opens up the world to the person beyond his limited horizon. It makes life more interesting and the person who lives that life, richer. That's why broader, more general education is more valuable than narrow. The broader is actually more practical, too. Any employer who needs real specialists knows that narrow specialists are only good in the beginning, while the broader ones are getting the hang of the profession. But in a couple of months, the broader professionals are further ahead, and especially if the business is changing, narrow specialists find themselves in the shadow because they are not capable of changing with it.
There is only one life, and education makes it much more meaningful and interesting.
A Russian version of this article can be found here.
This is how valued was the job of a scribe (back then only scribes were educated) in Ancient Egypt: "Be a scribe! It will free you, this post, from taxes, protect you from works. It will remove you from a mattock and you will not have to carry a basket. It will separate you from rowing and oar, it will remove you from efforts. You won't be under numerous lords and numerous chiefs". Two points: 1) education liberates a person from hard physical labour and 2) it makes a person more free. Education was a rarity, it gave one a respected position in society and because of that, it was highly valued.
Mass education appears in ancient Greek towns-states together with the birth of democracy. Citizens could actually govern the country, as the supreme body was a national assembly where any citizen could participate. He needed to have understanding in the affairs of the state and that demanded education. The main subjects in private schools (in Ancient Greece there were no state schools) were gymnastics, grammar and mathematics. Education was valued as a right and as a condition of being a responsible citizen.
Here is a fragment from a famous Chinese book "Tao Te Ching": "In antiquity, those who followed tao, didn't educate the people, but made them ignorant. It is difficult to rule people who have knowledge". The wise book is undoubtedly correct: educated, thinking people are uncontrollable. They can criticize decisions of authorities, they can begin to show initiative, they can start to write books, they begin to think... all of this cannot be controlled. Of course, harm from books can be huge. It is not a coincidence that antidemocratic regimes burned and forbade books. It is much easier to deal with uneducated masses.
Thus the first value of education — it makes the person vigilant, responsible member of society.
However when in modern times education became a mass phenomenon, something we're used to, its value diminished. It seems almost as given to us by nature. Along with that came a belief, that education is needed in order to become a professional and make money. In the old days father would teach his son a profession, a mother would teach her daughter. This has been passed onto the state, and the state, however it can, continues what once was a family responsibility. Education began to be treated utilitarianly, from the point of view of material gain. Certainly education is useful. But not in respect that it gives one a trade.
Education, and this is where it's primary value lies, opens up the world to the person beyond his limited horizon. It makes life more interesting and the person who lives that life, richer. That's why broader, more general education is more valuable than narrow. The broader is actually more practical, too. Any employer who needs real specialists knows that narrow specialists are only good in the beginning, while the broader ones are getting the hang of the profession. But in a couple of months, the broader professionals are further ahead, and especially if the business is changing, narrow specialists find themselves in the shadow because they are not capable of changing with it.
There is only one life, and education makes it much more meaningful and interesting.
A Russian version of this article can be found here.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Sloth or despair?
Every time one gets interested in something that seemed obvious, new aspects of this already known phenomenon open up and one discovers something completely new. While translating from English I recently discovered one such occurrence which I would like to discuss.
I had to translate the list of deadly sins, and it so happens that one of the sins cannot be literally translated, even though I always thought that the list of sins in catholic, protestant and orthodox traditions doesn't vary. This list was first put together by Pope Gregory the Great in the second half of the sixth century and included lust, gluttony, greediness, despondency, anger, envy and pride. But in English in place of despair/despondency (rus. уныние) stands laziness (sloth). Sometimes Russians also write "despair (laziness)", but you have to agree that it's not one and the same.
Historically they were connected, and the younger contemporary of Pope Gregory, St.John Climacus discussed these sins in one Word of his famous work "Ladder of Divine Ascent". However he speaks more about despondency than about laziness, assuming that "each of the other passions gets abolished by one, contrary virtue; however, despondency for the monk is absolute death." Laziness he recalls only in the statement "A brave soul can resurrect a dead mind; despair and laziness rob all these riches."
When I began to look at this, it appeared that the understanding of this particular sin (lat. acedia) has changed the most since the time when it was included in the list of deadly sins. Initially it meant grief and was understood as spiritual laziness, apathy, which leads to a person no longer enjoying the happiness of life, given to him by God. Thomas Aquinas (catholic saint of the thirteenth century), to whom goes back the modern understanding of the deadly sins, treated despondency as the "uneasiness of mind", which, in turn, leads to lesser sins - unbalanced state of mind, worry, trepidation.
Finally, with industrialisation of western civilization, this sin has begun to be understood literally as laziness, or inaction. Thus laziness became a deadly sin, but in our orthodox tradition it stayed as despair.
I think here lies one of the most important differences between Russian and Westeuropean mentalities. If we consider that the deadly sins are those that produce all other sins, then there is a big difference between the sins that are produced by despair, and those produced by laziness. Goncharov wrote with such warmth about Ilya Ilyich Oblomov! "At other times his glance would darken as with weariness or ennui. Yet neither the one nor the other expression could altogether banish from his countenance that gentleness which was the ruling, the fundamental, characteristic, not only of his features, but also of the spirit which lay beneath them. That spirit shone in his eyes, in his smile, and in his every movement of hand and head. On glancing casually at Oblomov a cold, a superficially observant person would have said, "Evidently he is good-natured, but a simpleton"; whereas a person of greater penetration and sympathy than the first would have prolonged his glance, and then gone on his way thoughtfully, and with a smile as though he were pleased with something."
Laziness prevents actions, but despair plagues the spirit. This is more frightful.
A Russian version of this article can be found here.
I had to translate the list of deadly sins, and it so happens that one of the sins cannot be literally translated, even though I always thought that the list of sins in catholic, protestant and orthodox traditions doesn't vary. This list was first put together by Pope Gregory the Great in the second half of the sixth century and included lust, gluttony, greediness, despondency, anger, envy and pride. But in English in place of despair/despondency (rus. уныние) stands laziness (sloth). Sometimes Russians also write "despair (laziness)", but you have to agree that it's not one and the same.
Historically they were connected, and the younger contemporary of Pope Gregory, St.John Climacus discussed these sins in one Word of his famous work "Ladder of Divine Ascent". However he speaks more about despondency than about laziness, assuming that "each of the other passions gets abolished by one, contrary virtue; however, despondency for the monk is absolute death." Laziness he recalls only in the statement "A brave soul can resurrect a dead mind; despair and laziness rob all these riches."
When I began to look at this, it appeared that the understanding of this particular sin (lat. acedia) has changed the most since the time when it was included in the list of deadly sins. Initially it meant grief and was understood as spiritual laziness, apathy, which leads to a person no longer enjoying the happiness of life, given to him by God. Thomas Aquinas (catholic saint of the thirteenth century), to whom goes back the modern understanding of the deadly sins, treated despondency as the "uneasiness of mind", which, in turn, leads to lesser sins - unbalanced state of mind, worry, trepidation.
Finally, with industrialisation of western civilization, this sin has begun to be understood literally as laziness, or inaction. Thus laziness became a deadly sin, but in our orthodox tradition it stayed as despair.
I think here lies one of the most important differences between Russian and Westeuropean mentalities. If we consider that the deadly sins are those that produce all other sins, then there is a big difference between the sins that are produced by despair, and those produced by laziness. Goncharov wrote with such warmth about Ilya Ilyich Oblomov! "At other times his glance would darken as with weariness or ennui. Yet neither the one nor the other expression could altogether banish from his countenance that gentleness which was the ruling, the fundamental, characteristic, not only of his features, but also of the spirit which lay beneath them. That spirit shone in his eyes, in his smile, and in his every movement of hand and head. On glancing casually at Oblomov a cold, a superficially observant person would have said, "Evidently he is good-natured, but a simpleton"; whereas a person of greater penetration and sympathy than the first would have prolonged his glance, and then gone on his way thoughtfully, and with a smile as though he were pleased with something."
Laziness prevents actions, but despair plagues the spirit. This is more frightful.
A Russian version of this article can be found here.
Friday, April 18, 2008
On the void between reason and heart
In yesterday's edition of "Vecherka" there was my interview with Natalya Leonidovna Chubikina about the problem of waste and rubbish tips, which surround big cities in loops of smoke. Now almost everyone knows that the problem of pollution is one of the most impending. If we continue living as we do now, the generations to come won't have any space left to exist - our surroundings will become our displacement. On top of that, from what our space agencies tell us, we even managed to pollute in space. News report - "Our orbit is slowly becoming a dump for space waste, where sooner or later an area for satellites will cease to exist". But space there's lots of...
This problem bothers me also in a more general sense: the fact of the matter is, that people can't find harmony in their relationship with the environment, because they cannot find harmony within themselves. This is where philosophy begins. People throw out into nature everything that they have collected in their souls.
Animals stay in balance with their natural surroundings because this balance emerges on its own. If one species becomes too aggressive, it kills off the basis for it's own existence and dies off. If one pollutes the environment so much, then it needs to find a new area of habitation. But they're all already taken. There's nowhere else to go. There's no one else to blame but oneself.
Thanks to reason a person received the opportunity to organise life in a generous and lavish fashion. However the life of his reason hasn't found balance with the life of his heart. This is where the absence of harmony comes from. In the person's self, as well as in his relationship with others.
In the 19th century in Russia there lived a remarkable philosopher Pamfil Danilovich Urkevitch. In 1860 he published a book called "The heart and its meaning in the spiritual life of man as based on the word of God". In this work Pamfil Danilovich demonstrated that reason is the highest ability of spiritual life, but the root of spiritual life remains to be the heart. It is on the spiritual abilities of the heart that the moral pride of man is founded on.
Thus when we're following the tendencies of modern life and think that all problems (ours and those of others) can be solved by reason or science alone, we're wrong. A being in disharmony cannot bring anything into the world apart from its own disharmony. This is exactly what it brings. It suffers and brings.
One must say that Russian intelligentsia led by Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky attacked Urkevitch, without even attempting to understand what he was saying. All this despite the fact that he was a professor of Moscow university. But the west-focused Russian intelligentsia always preferred to follow fashionable trends and theories, rather than free thought.
If Urkevitch was heard, then our relation to one another and to the environment would have been slightly different. The West also didn't hear a great scientist and deeply religious man Blaise Pascal and his “The heart has reasons that reason cannot know". "A thinking reed" (a man according to Pascal) became a tyrant. He threw life on earth under the feet of his comforts, but with that he failed to find spiritual happiness.
A Russian version of this article can be found here.
This problem bothers me also in a more general sense: the fact of the matter is, that people can't find harmony in their relationship with the environment, because they cannot find harmony within themselves. This is where philosophy begins. People throw out into nature everything that they have collected in their souls.
Animals stay in balance with their natural surroundings because this balance emerges on its own. If one species becomes too aggressive, it kills off the basis for it's own existence and dies off. If one pollutes the environment so much, then it needs to find a new area of habitation. But they're all already taken. There's nowhere else to go. There's no one else to blame but oneself.
Thanks to reason a person received the opportunity to organise life in a generous and lavish fashion. However the life of his reason hasn't found balance with the life of his heart. This is where the absence of harmony comes from. In the person's self, as well as in his relationship with others.
In the 19th century in Russia there lived a remarkable philosopher Pamfil Danilovich Urkevitch. In 1860 he published a book called "The heart and its meaning in the spiritual life of man as based on the word of God". In this work Pamfil Danilovich demonstrated that reason is the highest ability of spiritual life, but the root of spiritual life remains to be the heart. It is on the spiritual abilities of the heart that the moral pride of man is founded on.
Thus when we're following the tendencies of modern life and think that all problems (ours and those of others) can be solved by reason or science alone, we're wrong. A being in disharmony cannot bring anything into the world apart from its own disharmony. This is exactly what it brings. It suffers and brings.
One must say that Russian intelligentsia led by Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky attacked Urkevitch, without even attempting to understand what he was saying. All this despite the fact that he was a professor of Moscow university. But the west-focused Russian intelligentsia always preferred to follow fashionable trends and theories, rather than free thought.
If Urkevitch was heard, then our relation to one another and to the environment would have been slightly different. The West also didn't hear a great scientist and deeply religious man Blaise Pascal and his “The heart has reasons that reason cannot know". "A thinking reed" (a man according to Pascal) became a tyrant. He threw life on earth under the feet of his comforts, but with that he failed to find spiritual happiness.
A Russian version of this article can be found here.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
"With fainting soul not athirst for Grace, to an exam I didn't wander..."
In Griboedov's "Woe from wit" there is a delightful character Skalozub, who says:
"I have good news: there is an education plan, I hear,
For boarding schools, Lyceums and gymnasiums,
They'll teach there simply, like they do it here.
They will use books on some occasions."
Skalozub was a simple person - as simple as a shoe. He himself would have been pleasantly surprised that in some two hundred years his words almost literally would come true.
In front of me is an Order about the specifics of conducting a state (final) certification, where with reference to an order of the Ministry of Education of Russia from 05.02.2008 N 36 and the order of Rosobrnadzor (The Federal Service for supervision in the sphere of education and science) from 16.01.2008 N 75 it says: "An exam in literature can be sat as an exam of choice".
Finally! How long can we torture our children with all these Pushkins and Tolstoys, Turgenevs and Chekhovs?! Let's also not forget the above mentioned Griboedov?! Enough!
So what does all this mean exactly? That the final exam in literature is no longer compulsory. If we consider the pragmatic attitude of modern youth...
Sometimes when I am examining students in cultural studies I ask them to name any three Russian composers. Only one in ten is able to name all three. Far from everyone remembers Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rakhmaninov. And I'm not even talking about Dargomijski or Taneev. Now it is literature's turn. I have already heard from students that "War and Peace" was written by Dostoevsky, and "Fathers and Sons" by Gogol.
When I was just starting to work at school, there was an order that Nekrasov's book "In the trenches of Stalingrad" has to be taken out of the school literature program. This was a singular prohibition. After N.K.Krupskaya, who in the 1920s excluded Plato, Dostoevsky and fairy tales out of school and higher education institution programs, everything was quietly reinstated. Then at some point Esenin would be prohibited, then someone else. Again it would be quietly reinstated. But Russian literature was still one of the core subjects in school education. Certainly, the greatest pride of our culture!
The knowledge of literature was already deteriorating through films that were based on the classics. This way watching a movie replaced reading ... Literature never had it easy.
It is obvious that not all masterpieces of Russian classics are understood by school students. But they are necessary nonetheless. Those, who will want to understand more in life will turn to these classics later, having some life experience. However if it's no longer compulsory to know them for an exam, and then the parents, who can't remember three Russian composers, said that it's boring as hell... All hope lies with those parents, who still remember.
A Russian version of this article can be found here.
"I have good news: there is an education plan, I hear,
For boarding schools, Lyceums and gymnasiums,
They'll teach there simply, like they do it here.
They will use books on some occasions."
Skalozub was a simple person - as simple as a shoe. He himself would have been pleasantly surprised that in some two hundred years his words almost literally would come true.
In front of me is an Order about the specifics of conducting a state (final) certification, where with reference to an order of the Ministry of Education of Russia from 05.02.2008 N 36 and the order of Rosobrnadzor (The Federal Service for supervision in the sphere of education and science) from 16.01.2008 N 75 it says: "An exam in literature can be sat as an exam of choice".
Finally! How long can we torture our children with all these Pushkins and Tolstoys, Turgenevs and Chekhovs?! Let's also not forget the above mentioned Griboedov?! Enough!
So what does all this mean exactly? That the final exam in literature is no longer compulsory. If we consider the pragmatic attitude of modern youth...
Sometimes when I am examining students in cultural studies I ask them to name any three Russian composers. Only one in ten is able to name all three. Far from everyone remembers Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rakhmaninov. And I'm not even talking about Dargomijski or Taneev. Now it is literature's turn. I have already heard from students that "War and Peace" was written by Dostoevsky, and "Fathers and Sons" by Gogol.
When I was just starting to work at school, there was an order that Nekrasov's book "In the trenches of Stalingrad" has to be taken out of the school literature program. This was a singular prohibition. After N.K.Krupskaya, who in the 1920s excluded Plato, Dostoevsky and fairy tales out of school and higher education institution programs, everything was quietly reinstated. Then at some point Esenin would be prohibited, then someone else. Again it would be quietly reinstated. But Russian literature was still one of the core subjects in school education. Certainly, the greatest pride of our culture!
The knowledge of literature was already deteriorating through films that were based on the classics. This way watching a movie replaced reading ... Literature never had it easy.
It is obvious that not all masterpieces of Russian classics are understood by school students. But they are necessary nonetheless. Those, who will want to understand more in life will turn to these classics later, having some life experience. However if it's no longer compulsory to know them for an exam, and then the parents, who can't remember three Russian composers, said that it's boring as hell... All hope lies with those parents, who still remember.
A Russian version of this article can be found here.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Man alone in the city
A modern city is a strange place where lonely people pass each other without notice. Sometime ago sociologist David Riesman wrote a book on the subject, with a title-diagnosis of "The Lonely Crowd". It's a common occurrence in a city to live for years in an apartment and not knowing who our neighbours are. This was impossible in a village setting. This catastrophic destruction of all connections happened in a historically incredible short amount of time - four generations, in which the village mentality of Russia became a city mentality.
We haven't had a chance to get used to it. Large families are all but gone. Each person is only related to a couple of relatives, and there's no use even beginning to talk about lonely old people or abandoned children... Instinctively people do everything in their power not to end up lonely, not to be alone with their thoughts. Better TV, better trash of "star" comedians, better soap operas, which are as identical as the conversations in queues of sick people. Better... Anything is better, as long as it takes the mind off oneself!
People are afraid of loneliness, because they feel that loneliness makes life pointless - it becomes useless. Then even the godly beauty of nature cannot save one from melancholy. According to the book 'Suicide' by Émile Durkheim, people commit suicide when all social networks are torn. Not wars or life's difficulties, not even sickness leads to it, rather above all loneliness and its ghosts. Even financially independent people are prepared to live with people they don't love, to suffer humiliations and offences, so long as they have someone nearby and feel that they're needed by someone at least. If it's not a person, then even a dog or a cat will do.
Very few people left alone with themselves are able to preserve their identity. But what about hermits who live many years in isolation? No, solitude does not mean loneliness. If it happens with the full sense of responsibility, then it actually leads to a feeling of calm and unity with the world.
This is a testament of a person who left the city and came to live on a shore of a lake, surviving on what he could get with his own hands - Henry Thoreau in the book 'Walden, or Life in the Woods': "Why should I feel lonely?...What do we want most to dwell near to? Not to many men surely, the depot, the post-office, the bar-room, the meeting-house, the school-house, the grocery, ... where men most congregate, but to the perennial source of our life, whence in all our experience we have found that to issue,..." This was written back in 19th century. Today we have polluted nature so, that finding a place which would allow us to forget about people and feel unity with nature and perennial source of life is getting increasingly difficult and it's frightening to leave our all accustomed comforts.
Cities are becoming brighter and more accommodating, apartments larger, but these are what's making those who live inside them more shallow, indifferent and one-dimensional. We're becoming smaller, proportionally opposite to the increasing population, and perhaps feeling this we don't want to increase the number of children. We have excessively more redundant words than our ancestors. Ads around us are metallically screeching above the growing void.
But the young ones are cherishing hope, and are right in doing so.
A Russian version of this article can be found here.
We haven't had a chance to get used to it. Large families are all but gone. Each person is only related to a couple of relatives, and there's no use even beginning to talk about lonely old people or abandoned children... Instinctively people do everything in their power not to end up lonely, not to be alone with their thoughts. Better TV, better trash of "star" comedians, better soap operas, which are as identical as the conversations in queues of sick people. Better... Anything is better, as long as it takes the mind off oneself!
People are afraid of loneliness, because they feel that loneliness makes life pointless - it becomes useless. Then even the godly beauty of nature cannot save one from melancholy. According to the book 'Suicide' by Émile Durkheim, people commit suicide when all social networks are torn. Not wars or life's difficulties, not even sickness leads to it, rather above all loneliness and its ghosts. Even financially independent people are prepared to live with people they don't love, to suffer humiliations and offences, so long as they have someone nearby and feel that they're needed by someone at least. If it's not a person, then even a dog or a cat will do.
Very few people left alone with themselves are able to preserve their identity. But what about hermits who live many years in isolation? No, solitude does not mean loneliness. If it happens with the full sense of responsibility, then it actually leads to a feeling of calm and unity with the world.
This is a testament of a person who left the city and came to live on a shore of a lake, surviving on what he could get with his own hands - Henry Thoreau in the book 'Walden, or Life in the Woods': "Why should I feel lonely?...What do we want most to dwell near to? Not to many men surely, the depot, the post-office, the bar-room, the meeting-house, the school-house, the grocery, ... where men most congregate, but to the perennial source of our life, whence in all our experience we have found that to issue,..." This was written back in 19th century. Today we have polluted nature so, that finding a place which would allow us to forget about people and feel unity with nature and perennial source of life is getting increasingly difficult and it's frightening to leave our all accustomed comforts.
Cities are becoming brighter and more accommodating, apartments larger, but these are what's making those who live inside them more shallow, indifferent and one-dimensional. We're becoming smaller, proportionally opposite to the increasing population, and perhaps feeling this we don't want to increase the number of children. We have excessively more redundant words than our ancestors. Ads around us are metallically screeching above the growing void.
But the young ones are cherishing hope, and are right in doing so.
A Russian version of this article can be found here.
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