Maxim Krongauz: The influence of a neighboring language is inevitable. How to distinguish an objective opinion from a subjective one. What are the features of such verbal skirmishes?

Maxim Krongauz

Public intimacy

I want to immediately warn the reader that this article is not about erotica or even about ethics, as a naive reader might think after reading the title. It's about communication. But don’t let the naive reader be scared by this scientific word, because I will talk about communication only at the very end, and at the beginning I will tell a number of entertaining (as I would like) and instructive (as it seems to me) stories. And they are all connected to the Internet.

Another scandal

In August, another scandal broke out on the Internet. A certain Mikhail Kovalev, a positive and creative person, quite creatively submitted an application to the prosecutor’s office with a request to ban swearing in blogs in general and Artemy Lebedev in particular. Very little is known about Mikhail Kovalev, and his positivity and creativity are easily deduced not only from the fact of the statement to the prosecutor’s office, but also from newspaper reports about this fact, in which he was called the organizer of the “Machine of Happiness” action and the coordinator of the “Warriors of Creativity” movement. There is no point in finding out what it is; the names themselves confirm the accuracy of the data above the characteristics. Artemy Lebedev is also an undeniably creative person and, importantly, much more famous both in RuNet and, as they say now, in life. Since we are talking about the Internet, it is important to know that he is one of the most popular bloggers, and his blog has more than 10 thousand subscribers, that is, regular readers, and much more non-regular ones. The power of his words is such that when he wrote a blog entry on July 10, 2008 yyyyyyyy(11 times), it was commented on more than 680 times (exact numbers vary depending on the date of viewing).

Since I, like most Russian citizens, have not seen the statement itself to the prosecutor’s office, I will quote its author:

“There is such an earthling Artemy Lebedev. Talented guy. Bright. I realized my dream of becoming a creative person. Thinks about the development of design in the country. But…

TODAY my statement appeared in the Moscow prosecutor's office. I simply ask that you limit the dissemination of information offensive to users on Lebedev’s blog and impose an administrative fine. For what?!

Artemy Lebedev cannot overcome the demon in himself - he insults blog readers - he swears. Likes to shock. He seems to consider this his main strategy. ... But THIS is discussed by hundreds of people, and read by hundreds of thousands!

Lebedev knows that his blog is read daily by up to 150 thousand users - and this is comparable and even exceeds the audience of leading Russian media. Lebedev is almost an idol for tens of thousands of young people, which means he is an example to follow. His use of profanity PUBLICLY causes irreparable harm to the psycho-emotional state of an entire generation of creative young people who consider this the standard of behavior for a successful person...” (mashina_s blog entry dated August 17, 2009).

This post received about 2,070 emotional comments, both supporting and condemning the author. I will quote only a fragment of the very first one made by a reader with the nickname tumbo4ka, which cannot but please lovers of the Russian language:

"Finally!!!

I’ve only been reading Lebedev for about a month, but I’m REALLY SICK of it already!
And finally - to everyone who decides to think that this is such a self-promotional move - to sue Lebedev - good health and happiness to everyone in their personal lives. BUT!
But even if so, He, Tyoma, is actually read and read! And it’s really worth stopping this nonsense that sometimes pours out of him! For example, I myself believed that you can’t be a designer and not swear!”

Artemy Lebedev himself did not enter into a discussion with his potential plaintiff on his blog, but unsubscribed on his own. Quoting this text, however, turns out to be not so easy, because either I have to censor a popular blogger, or my text (namely the quote itself) will be censored. I'll do it differently. Since the text received about 1090 comments, it was included in the so-called top of the most popular posts published on the LiveJournal website, where it looked like this (tema blog dated 08/21/2009):

“Fuck, there are so many m******s in the world. F*ck your mother, how many fucking things are there in the world? Oh, fuck, there are so many motherfuckers around. Here’s another m*****l...” (only the beginning of the entry is published on the website, and in obscene words a certain censor, according to legend - an automatic machine, puts asterisks). All this is slightly reminiscent of Zhvanetsky’s famous story, but this is true, by the way.

I am sure that my reader’s eyes lit up at that moment, because he decided that the article was devoted to the eternal topic “Is it good to swear?” I have been participating in discussions on this topic for ten years now and every time I note with satisfaction that it, like the mat itself, cannot die or even wither away. And the number of comments on the two mentioned posts only confirms this. But no, dear reader, this time I will shy away from this most interesting topic, since I’m just pretty tired of it (or, as the respected tumbo4ka writes, it really got me).

Actually, in Artemy Lebedev’s recording I am interested in only one phrase, which I can easily quote: “ That is, the dude wants me to write in my personal private secluded diary not what I want to write.” And this phrase comes into fundamental contradiction with the phrase of Mikhail Kovalev: “Lebedev knows that his blog is read daily by up to 150 thousand users - and this is comparable and even exceeds the audience of leading Russian media.” So, “a private, secluded diary” or, to put it somewhat roughly, “the leading Russian media”? That is the question.

Who are you talking to now?

This question can be answered pursuing different goals and, so to speak, from different positions. Legally, ethically or otherwise. I cannot discuss what lawyers are trying to do due to my incompetence. I will only note that, for example, in Kazakhstan, blogs (more precisely, all Internet resources in general) were recognized as mass media, period (which still seems absurd even taking into account the incompetence). Let us leave ethics to philosophers and moralists. What interests me is “somehow else,” namely, how we ourselves perceive the text of any blog. How public or how private?

In other words, we are talking about what type of communication we engage in and what communication strategies we use. To avoid scientific terms, I will explain with my own example. A university professor (which I am) must talk differently to an audience when giving a lecture or to acquaintances over lunch, even if they are discussing some kind of scientific problem. If he fails to get rid of teaching habits in a private conversation, then he risks alienating his interlocutor, and not at all explaining anything to him. And also to hear the sobering phrase: “Who are you talking to now?” Moreover, these types of communication differ in literally everything: volume of voice, intonation, construction of phrases and even the words that we choose. Moreover, a good lecturer changes the style of his lecture even in the classroom, depending on the number of listeners. It matters whether two people or a hundred are listening to you. For example, a small workshop where old acquaintances have gathered may turn out to be closer to a table conversation than to a public lecture. I remember, for example, home seminars that existed a long time ago, where reports were sometimes combined with tea drinking without any switching of register.

If I go back to the two blog posts, I have to admit that I cannot believe the sincerity of both bloggers. Blogger mashina_s cannot help but understand when he utters the phrase “ Lebedev is almost an idol for tens of thousands of young people, which means he is an example to follow”, that the blogger tema “is almost an idol” precisely because his speech (and the very way of communication, of course) is not similar to the texts of the “leading Russian media”. The blogger tema cannot help but understand that his blog is not a “private, secluded diary,” if these words are used in the literal sense and without any irony. By the way, there were attempts to translate the word “blog”1 as “diary”, but in general they did not catch on, and now we are mainly dealing with “blogs” (although no, no, the word “diary” is also part of this meaning occurs). Indeed, a diary and a blog, despite certain similarities, are still different and even fundamentally different genres. Thus, in Ushakov’s dictionary, a diary is defined as “notes of a personal nature, kept from day to day,” or in another meaning: “daily records of scientific observations made during expeditions and research.” The first definition seems to apply to a blog, but a blog has its own characteristics. Therefore, in the Internet encyclopedia “Krugosvet” blogs are defined as “network diaries that are maintained on special sites that provide the ability to quickly add entries, comment, compile a list of friends, etc.”2.

In short, what they have in common is that they are dated personal records, but the difference is what happens to them next. On blogs, they can be read by anyone (or only those close to them, if we are talking about so-called secret entries), commented on and discussed. Diaries, as a rule, are written exclusively for oneself and only in rare cases are shown to those closest to them (without any quotation marks), and they certainly do not imply comments and discussions. In the history of mankind, there is no genre or, if you like, communicative analogue to a blog.

And if this is so, then it is not always clear how to react to a blog, including outside the network space, so to speak, offline.

A few more stories

A similar incident, as Schweik used to say, took place on the Internet, more than once. This analogy, however, still needs to be seen. Unlike Schweik, I will not name any more names, because the personalities mentioned in the stories will not be public, and the matter did not go to trial (or maybe it did, but I don’t know about that). And these are not stories, but plots, and all coincidences with real people, as you might guess, are completely random.

Story one

One girl, a student, kept a blog, about ten of her friends read it. And somehow, being dissatisfied with her institute and the dean, she expressed herself about the latter in an impartial, even somewhat obscene manner. Well, what’s the big deal, students in their narrow circle can say something unpleasant about their teachers and dean. However, somehow this note (of a personal nature) reached the dean, and the authorship was easily established (it most likely was not hidden). Actually, the mechanism for obtaining information is not important here: was it reported to the dean, or was he himself monitoring the blogs once a week using a search engine, putting his name in there. In any case, he read her diary, which anyone with access to the Internet could do, and became convinced that he had been publicly humiliated. After which the student was expelled from the institute. Without discussing this decision either legally or ethically, I want to draw attention to just one thing that, frankly speaking, I myself do not fully understand. After all, did the student insult the dean publicly or privately (that is, in her narrow student circle)? After all, the possibility or impossibility of an offline reaction, not necessarily deductions, but at least some kind of reaction, depends on this. After all, if a person is insulted publicly, then he must react somehow. And if it’s private, then this is at least not necessary, and sometimes even undesirable, since you can make yourself look like a fool.

Story two

One woman, a husband’s wife, kept a blog, her friends read it, maybe three, maybe five. And since we were talking about personal notes, she described her experiences and feelings, as well as the betrayals that accompanied them, short and long relationships. For some reason, women need to trust someone with their experiences from time to time, so she trusted and shared. But her husband, damn him, somehow got wind of her magazine and read it from cover to cover. And he really didn’t like the magazine. And there was a terrible scandal. And they got divorced. Or vice versa: they lived happily ever after. This is no longer important, because the scandal was terrible in any case. And although I was not present at it, I suspect that it was double-edged. That is, he says: “How could you?!” And she responded: “How dare you?!” And this is what I want to focus on again. Did her husband dare to read her blog? If a jealous man had found a real paper “private, secluded diary” of his wife under the pillow and read it, we would, of course, understand him, but still he would be a brute. And so... After all, anyone could read her blog, that is, she told the whole world about her infidelities - I mean, publicly, and this is somehow unpleasant. And then the question is - who exactly is the beast? So, again it is unclear who is right and who is wrong. Let me remind you once again that this is not about the fact that swearing or cheating on your husband is not good. And about the fact that it is not clear whether we are in public or private space.

The third story (which is not even a story)

One person, quite famous, kept a blog (under his own name), and different people read it, but still not thousands, but rather hundreds. And so, having once visited, a famous person shared his impressions on his blog. In particular, what idiot I had to sit next to and what they were talking about. The idiot, unfortunately, was also a blogger (or was not, which is absolutely unimportant) and went to the blog of a famous person and read that he was an idiot, and, frankly, got upset. The story would be more interesting if he went and punched a famous person in the face, but I won’t lie even for the sake of beauty (especially since I immediately warned: this is not even a story). Basically, he was just upset.

Story four

One person, completely unknown, wrote a blog, and again two or three friends read it. And the unknown person expressed his opinion about another person, a little more famous. And she, in turn, monitored all mentions of her last name and reacted sharply to them. And this time I came to the blog to the first person and reacted very sharply. But the first, due to her own ignorance, was not even offended, but was touched by the attention.

And another called the other a crook, and another demanded a public apology. And another one called the other mediocrity and impotent. And then it finally came to a fight. True, they previously aggravated the quarrel in the comments. And the schoolchildren called the teacher names, and she unfairly gave a bad mark (or was it fair?). And another one called the traffic cops names, and they sued him. And also...

All. The stories are over. We must move on to interpretation. And the interpretation, apparently, is that we do not know what to do and how to behave, or, scientifically speaking, how to communicate correctly in new conditions. The blogosphere, originally conceived as an intimate space, has become a social space, in which, however, you can also remain lonely and non-public. But even if I have no friends at all (in this case I mean regular readers), my blog is potentially open, that is, while remaining intimate, it also turns out to be a public space4. Of course, as readers increase, the degree of publicity seems to increase. But is there a certain number of readers after which intimacy turns into publicity (remember the paradox of the heap)5. This gap between publicity and intimacy allows, in particular, the use of different communication strategies. For example, having a huge number of readers, talk as if you don’t notice them. Or communicate with everyone as if they were very close people whom you really trust. For example, asking for intimate advice and showing intimate photographs. You can scold someone (or, conversely, praise), as if forgetting that he hears everything. It must be said that many authors have perfectly adapted to this gap and skillfully use it (as a kind of artistic device).

Linguists once came up with the idea of ​​distinguishing between the addressee and the listener. The addressee is the one to whom I am directly addressing, and the listener is the one who, without being the direct addressee, simply hears my speech. For example, when the family has gathered at the table, the father of the family addresses his wife (the addressee), realizing that the children also hear him. Likewise, in blogs, there may be very few direct recipients (or none at all, just a diary entry for oneself), but anyone can become a reader (in linguistic terminology, a listener).

Faced with public intimacy, that is, with an essentially intimate statement existing in a public (that is, publicly accessible) space, we do not yet know how to react to it: as intimate or as public. In some situations, these reactions should not only be different, but actually be opposite. Let's say, sometimes a well-mannered person should not notice an intimate statement, but challenge him to a duel for a public one. Today, unfortunately, there is no and cannot be a general recommendation for all occasions. A new type of communication is new to create new problems. Or, as the poet wrote6, “life is given to us for this reason, so that we can endure its meanness.” In general, to summarize, I will say that truly new communicative conditions and, as a consequence, new communicative genres have appeared in the history of mankind. A sign should be hung on one of them: “Caution, public intimacy!”

P.S. Having already written the article, I went into the search engine and typed the words “public intimacy.” The search engine answered me: forty thousand. Even taking into account that two thirds probably come from pornographic sites, the remainder is also sufficient. It seems that it came from a well-known academic joke: “The article contained a lot of new and interesting things, but, unfortunately, everything new is uninteresting, and everything interesting is not new.” The only consolation for my author’s pride can only be that everything is in the search engine, and it is in our time that it has become clearly visible that there is nothing new under the sun, including public intimacy. But now it is much more noticeable.

1 The English word “blog” arose by truncating the beginning of weblog, with only the last letter remaining from the first root web (meaning “network” or “web”). It is clear that this is a unique and playful (and not regular) way of forming a word.

2 Continuation of the definition in “Around the World” takes us even further from the “diary”: “Blogs are used not only for self-expression, but also for business purposes. Many companies maintain corporate blogs, which are online bulletin boards.”

4 An analogy arises with windows that are never curtained, as, say, in Holland. A home is an intimate space, but someone else can always look into it, and therefore you need to behave as if you were in a public place. Which, by the way, for many Russians, and for me personally, is absolutely unacceptable.

5 Let me remind you just in case. If we put one grain of sand, it is not a heap. If we add another grain of sand, it's still not a heap. Adding one grain of sand to any number of grains of sand cannot make a non-heap a heap at all. How do we end up with a heap? Paradox.

On this page, which I wanted to make interesting and fascinating for readers, materials are posted, ours and other authors, reflecting the complex and ambiguous process of a person’s knowledge of the world and himself and the efforts of different people in search of the truth and meaning of what is happening around and in themselves for the benefit of everyone. Some materials on the page are voluminous and complex, like the truth itself, others are very original, for example, the article by Zimbuli A.E. “Paradoxes, paradoxes...” I would like to hope that for an inquisitive and active mind they will not be superfluous and trivial. However, it is not at all necessary to read them all at once and in a row - they are for you and, as long as the Internet is functioning and our website is alive, they are at your disposal.

In search of truth and meaning

Introduction or what search, truth and meaning are we talking about?

Truth, as increasingly adequate knowledge about the world and oneself, is sought by each person in his own way, and this is confirmed by one hundred thousand “whys” of a child and Internet statistics, say, the number of requests for the word “TRUTH” only in the Yandex search engine is about 9000 per year. month, and there are approximately 14,000,000 pages where this word is mentioned. And this despite the fact that, again according to statistics, only 2% of users are interested in serious semantic issues of their existence. Until people engage in consistent self-knowledge and improvement, which is a consequence of a general misunderstanding, this is done by enthusiastic researchers, inquisitive people who are able to rise above the immediate, whose efforts and discoveries provide new knowledge and food for thought to others. What do we mean by truth and meaning? First of all, what gives a person a more objective and true knowledge of the world and himself for a real, not material, improvement of life! Well, by meaning we mean the meaning of a person’s life, which is spoken about vaguely and vaguely, as well as about his essence, which predetermines the content and meaning of his actions - individual, in society and nature!

1. Who, why and how searches for truth and meaning? New: progress and conservatism. Essential, momentary and eternal

Each person seeks truth as ever more accurate knowledge about the world and himself in his own way in order to live better! As A. De Saint-Zupéry said: “The truth of a person is what makes him a person.” In the knowledge of truth, a new thing is born, which is perceived differently by people, often negatively, as some kind of nonsense... This has natural psychological reasons and is a reflection of the fact that people are controlled by the urgent and momentary, and to a greater extent, the less they are able to rise over our desires, aware of their necessity and benefit, which connect the momentary with the universally significant and eternal inherent in our essence.

1.1. Who, why and how searches for truth and meaning?

Everyone is looking for the truth: scientists and politicians, researchers and practitioners, children and old people. TRUTH, as “correspondence of knowledge to reality” (encyclopedic), or in other words, knowledge that corresponds to reality is difficult to achieve and as long as a person lives, he will search for the truth and comprehend the meaning of what is happening, including in himself. Moreover, every person, starting life as if “from scratch,” is forced to seek and comprehend what others have done before him in order to stand on their shoulders and see further in order to live better. Not everyone succeeds in this, and some people pay for their laziness and mistakes with their health and even their lives. How important it is to help every person make the right choice, and how can one not remember human science, the most important task of which is this! Man is an integral part of nature with his own essence, which must be known in order to then follow it for his own good. Having a mind, a person, in the process of self-knowledge and with favorable development, is able to recognize his essence and self-realize with benefit for himself and with the highest benefit for everyone. Unfortunately, this most important task of life has not yet become relevant for all people for a number of reasons, and primarily because its solution is not taught, and each person solves it to the best of his ability, or rather does not solve it, and a lot of problems in life are proof of this. People get stuck in the routine of everyday life and rush between their desires and necessities, trying to find and not finding their balance... Many things prevent this, but first of all, the inability to use what nature has given to every person - the mind and its ability to seek and find the optimal and shortest path to the goal. Human knowledge and education in accordance with the essence will help people learn to desire and do what is necessary and useful, and the search for truth will cease to be the lot of single enthusiasts. Many will begin to do this - and the reasonable, good, eternal, now accessible to a few, like the search for truth, will become vital for everyone!

The search for truth is not an easy task because a person can only approach it, and this process is endless, and because each person has his own experience, his own idea of ​​​​the truth of this or that phenomenon or fact. Pretending that their personal opinion is true, some neglect the need to prove its truth and fool others who are just as gullible as themselves. As a result, and this is a characteristic picture for the humanitarian sphere, in particular for philosophical anthropology, there is an accumulation of diverse and heterogeneous ideas that do not bring us closer to the truth - an understanding of the essence of man, but move away from it. Acting on the contrary, it is natural to take a different path and search for the truth not speculatively and subjectively, but objectively, systematically and demonstratively. An example of a systematic and constructive approach to the study and definition of man is our human studies, and as an example of a scientific attitude to truth we can recommend the work of A.A. Krasilova "What is truth?" Below is an introduction to it, from which it is clear how many conditions must be met for what we consider to be true to be truly so...

"A true statement creates comfort. From true statements one can build other true statements. Perhaps that is why a person is busy searching for truth. Often the search for truth determines the goal of a person’s material, energy or information activity. In information activity, the goal may be the formulation of the concept of truth, which is so necessary for the implementation search for truth. In this activity, the formulation of the concept of truth should include subgoals for defining concepts in which the concept of truth will be defined. The definition procedure can be endless. The search for truth can be considered fruitful if you start with a simple description of truth and establishing the relationship of the concept of truth with other concepts. Important fix the language on which the definition is built. Language establishes the relationships between concepts. It is important to remember that what is true in one language may turn out to be false in another language. Language can be natural or formal. Both languages ​​define at least two initial categories: terms and lexemes. In addition to the working language in which statements are formed, it is necessary to consider the language description language or metalanguage in which the working (object) language is defined. A metalanguage must be described in an object language. Then one can find the meaning of the term metalanguage.

The definition must be in the language itself, which deals with the concept of truth. It should be self-service and not resort to metalanguage. After defining the concept of truth, it is necessary to determine the scope of this concept. The volume may be larger, then the search for truth will be more successful. There are a number of forms of definition of a concept; they will be applied to the definition of truth. Each concept is expressed by a pair: name (the term of the concept) and meaning (the current meaning of the concept). Truth stems from any definition of an object (they are usually given without proof). Truth or a true statement as a concept consists of the names of terms and meanings - lexemes, defined in the language. The name TRUTH has the meaning truth, as a lexeme of the language. Demanding the truth of a statement can lead to a search for conditions of truth. The task of determining or logical inferring the condition is important. During the inference process, contradictions can be discovered that invalidate the search and everything associated with it. The search must begin again. Contradictions do not allow us to accomplish the main thing - to determine the meaning or meaning of the concept and statement. We can assume that a process that does not lead to contradictions allows us to determine the essence of a concept or statement.

1.2. New: progress and conservatism

It seems strange that everything new and progressive is very often accepted by people not only without enthusiasm, but with caution, distrust and rejection. However, and such is life, the new is not always progressive, not all people are able to determine the true value - the necessity and usefulness of the new, and finally, the new often requires a serious restructuring of the existing one and large funds are needed for its implementation. In such circumstances, it is natural to be critical of the new with a certain amount of conservatism, however, not too much...

Thoughts from prominent writers and scientists about new ideas and discoveries:

Invent, and you will die, persecuted like a criminal; imitate and you will live happily like a fool! Honore Balzac

A new scientific truth paves the way to triumph not by persuading its opponents and forcing them to see the world in a new light, but rather because its opponents sooner or later die and a new generation grows up who are accustomed to it. M. Planck

It has been jokingly noted that all great discoveries go through three stages. At first they say about the discoverer: “He’s crazy,” then, “There’s something in this,” and at the final stage, “It’s so simple.” In a word, it turns out like that schoolgirl, not without humor, who said: “Poor geniuses, they were forced to discover what we go through at school.”

The factor that attracts people to old paradigms is the so-called “halo effect” that always surrounds scientific authorities. The hypnosis of the great is so great that people follow his instructions without hesitation. But the authorities often use old paradigms. These are not necessarily the laws that they discovered, but they share them, accepting them as a model of scientific thinking. That is why conflicts are inevitable. From the book by A. Sukhotin: Paradoxes of Science. M., 1978.

There is a fatal inexorability: the larger the discovery and the more significant the threatening changes in science, the more desperate the resistance, dooming the new to a fruitless existence in the rank of unclaimed knowledge.

There is no doubt that they will only fight with what is truly new and significant. Why fight the void? Therefore, we have to agree that the touchstone of a theory being put forward is its ability to withstand not just criticism, but stronger storms - ridicule, persecution and even a war of annihilation.

Fateful ideas are often doomed to pass the test of survival, to prove their usefulness in the heat of battle. However, this must also have its own proportion. Let the struggle go on, but let it take place according to the canons of honor and be carried out in the circle of theoretical clashes, according to the rules of the game written by science.

The usual pattern of a big discovery goes through three stages: silence, uncontrollable criticism, and finally recognition. Of course, there are specific variations. But this through line is practically always maintained. From the book by A. Sukhotin: The vicissitudes of scientific ideas. M., 1991

It is not enough to be convinced of your ideas for yourself - they need to be conveyed to other people. People may misunderstand, reject, and even ridicule and deride new ideas and conclusions. This can be done first of all by their own colleagues - scientists, convinced of the inviolability of their views, of their academic infallibility, philistines in academic chairs and professorial departments. A. Alexandrov

1.3. Momentary and eternal

This topic has arisen on our website for the second time (See situation 3.36 on the page “World Events and People”) and, of course, not by chance. Let us note that the first development of this topic was carried out by us spontaneously without elaboration of the available materials in response to the interest that arose in it, which does not at all make it shallow and weak. Having started working on this page and making such a request in several Internet search engines, we received so much and such diverse information that it became clear - firstly, this topic is much richer and wider than we imagined, and secondly, it is so often and on various occasions it is mentioned that they wanted to understand it better and use materials from other authors to illustrate its nuances and ambiguity. First of all, let us remember the context of our first development, which is that many people live in short cycles in the particular and momentary and do not rise above it in order to come into contact with the general and eternal for their own benefit. But why rise above the essential, everyday? Maybe so that, seeing further ahead, it is better to live in the present. Rise to see a better road and get around obstacles, to think about whether you live and act well and whether there is a better way? But in order to do this, you must have a mind with which you can determine what is good and bad for you, and a science about the laws of life, yourself and the world around you, which will teach you to act in accordance with your essence and the necessity and benefit that express it.

Very indicative in this sense are the actions of many in modern crisis: people think about how to get out of the crisis, which is so natural and seemingly logical, but they don’t think about how to live without crises?.. The last thing is far from ambiguous - in order to survive, you really need to think about how to get out of the crisis, but you don’t have to stop there!.. Why isn’t this happening? Yes, because people live by immediate needs, by the momentary, and do not want to rise above it. Why don’t they want to, because this is necessary to achieve their greater benefit? Because they are not aware of this because they are not intelligent enough. But people are not born, but become rational, and only a few are able to rise above the momentary with their minds in order to, connecting with the world and eternity, see the contours better life and the path to it... A lot in people’s lives depends on the upbringing and pedagogical foundation on which their development and education were built. Unfortunately, now the process of upbringing and education does not at all contribute to the effective development of man and his mind. The unreasonableness of what is happening and the triumph of the profitable momentary, which has been going on for an eternity, gave rise not only to the natural expectation of the apocalypse, but also to its likelihood, which increases with the deterioration of the environmental situation in the world and financial and economic problems. However, only a few realize the unsafety of what is happening and the need for changes, first of all, in the upbringing and education of people, not to mention the science of human studies, with the help of which this can be realized and done effectively, in contact with eternity.

Below are materials from two wonderful authors, each of whom is original and interesting in their own way in revealing the topic of the momentary and the eternal, which intersect not only with what we formulated above on this page, but also with other topics and materials on the site. Get to know them and we hope they will not leave you indifferent.

Maxim Krongauz. About the high and the eternal, the low and the momentary

The discussion about education has been thundering, noisy, and sometimes hissing for the last fifteen years, that is, in fact, since the beginning of perestroika. True, in recent years it has acquired a very definite direction. What are we arguing about? About how many years to study or how to enter university, who to give or who not to give bribes. Of course, the topics are important, but, how can I put it, practical and external in relation to education itself. Disputes about the content of education are much rarer, and they mainly concern history. What to write about the Soviet period? How to evaluate perestroika? In reality, this problem is general - it affects all subjects. It is easier to give examples from the humanitarian fields. It’s more interesting and somehow clearer. So, whose poems should we teach in school: Lermontov or Brodsky (or, for greater clarity, Prigov)? Who to go through: Turgenev or Pelevin? Whose activities should be subject to historical assessment: Peter, Lenin, Gorbachev or Putin? Should I teach Latin and Ancient Greek or conversational English (preferably the American version)? In Russian lessons, tell the number of cases or teach how to write advertising texts? In short, what to teach: eternal or relevant, valuable (more precisely, priceless) or useful? The answer of the romantics and idealists is that “everything” should be discarded at once. The program is not flexible, and everything will not fit into it. If we want something current, we will have to sacrifice something eternal. If we want the eternal, we will have to do without the actual. So you have to make a choice - whether you like it or not. Oddly enough, with the eternal the situation is much simpler. Over many centuries, forgive me for the unfortunate expression, it has somehow survived. In culture and in the humanities, a certain value system and a certain hierarchy have developed. Well, it’s stupid to argue whether Pushkin is the first poet of Russia and whether Alexander Sergeevich is ours, even if you prefer the poems of Lermontov or Pasternak. It is stupid to argue with the fact that Shakespeare is Shakespeare, and Homer is Homer, precisely in the sense that culture interprets them, even if in fact Shakespeare is Bacon, a woman or two, or even three people, and Homer is not at all existed. World culture is quite stable, and it makes little sense to overestimate its components and fragments from an aesthetic point of view. As Faina Ranevskaya said about Gioconda, she herself can choose who she likes and who she doesn’t like. Apparently, it will no longer be possible to prove to the world that Mona Lisa has no aesthetic value, and that Lermontov is better than Pushkin.

For school education, this situation is almost ideal. The amount of knowledge recognized as valuable is known, and there is an established hierarchy of values. Essentially in culture, although this is not a sport, there is a first poet, a first artist, a first novelist, a first three poets, or, to put it more correctly, poets of the first rank, second, etc. Over time, the best cultural figures, the most significant works have been selected and, finally, a stable opinion about them has been formed. What more could a teacher wish for! Culture itself writes the program and tells the teacher the right words. There is only one problem with the eternal and the lofty. The less relevant the knowledge, the further it is removed from us in time, the less motivation to master it. That is, if a person likes to learn languages, he will learn both ancient Greek and Sanskrit with great pleasure, and if he likes poetry, he will read both Tyutchev and Pasternak. But if a student is indifferent to some activity, then without motivation by relevance or usefulness he will not touch knowledge. So they read Tolstoy more than Tolstoy, because the first is in fashion, and the second is just eternal. And such a student will learn English, overcoming reluctance, because now there is no way without English. However, it is obvious that it is impossible to simply replace everything that is generally significant with the actual. Firstly, this way we will lose culture. Secondly, what is relevant is more difficult to select. Thirdly, what is relevant is both teaching and learning, oddly enough, more difficult. It is difficult to select what is relevant because there are not always clear selection criteria. Let's say everything is clear with the English language. It has practically become international and is necessary for many people. But modern literary tastes are different for everyone. Who should be considered worthy? school curriculum? It's even more difficult with historical characters. Is it appropriate for us to now evaluate President Putin, and for Americans to evaluate President Bush, or should we wait a couple of decades, or better yet, a hundred years? History, like culture, must “stand.” Political, literary or any other fashion is fleeting, and it is better to evaluate a person or phenomenon when the fashion for it has passed. Following the political fashion, Clinton should have been either praised or scolded terribly (as well as Gorbachev and Yeltsin), and following the literary fashion, Tolstoy, Sorokin, Pelevin, and maybe Lipskerov should have been inserted into the program, then thrown out of it. And teaching the actual, as I have already said, is extremely difficult, since there is no single and generally accepted opinion about the actual. Imposing an assessment of the eternal is a cultural norm, but imposing an assessment of something close is violence against someone else’s taste. All this means that each teacher must form his own opinion, and this is generally fundamentally impossible (not every literature teacher follows the modern literary process), and in some cases it is simply dangerous (in one school the history teacher is for Lenin and the communists, in the next one - for Yeltsin and the democrats). Schools are not always ready to teach current topics.

Nevertheless, the actual is slowly crowding out the eternal, but it is important that this process be slow. The accusations that the school lags behind life are certainly fair, but at the same time, in my opinion, they are essentially wrong. School should lag behind life. It should be more conservative than life, especially as fast as it is now. Otherwise, the connection between life and culture and between generations will be broken, which, however, is partly what is happening now. In addition, we must remember that children and adults acquire relevant knowledge not only and not so much at school. It comes from conversations with friends and relatives, from TV, from newspapers. Nobody teaches our children rock and rap at school, and they know about it better than about Tchaikovsky and Beethoven. The Eternal exists as a constant background, it exists, but they hardly talk about it. Indeed, how often do adults discuss Pushkin’s poems among themselves (we are not talking about Pushkin scholars, this is a separate article), but reading families will definitely say something flattering or unflattering about Marinina or Pelevin. Losing background knowledge is an extremely unpleasant thing culturally; this is called “losing your roots.” On the other hand, very few people are able to exist only due to background (eternal) knowledge. A compromise is required, which is extremely difficult to achieve. The banality is that the school and the content of education need to be changed, but this should be done slowly, at least for the sake of the teachers and for our own sake, so that we understand our children, and they understand us. P.S. Of course, the words “eternal” and “relevant” are very relative. Sometimes the “eternal” is simply a familiar element of culture or everyday life, which is inevitably replaced by technical achievements or new products. For example, I was glad when I was finally allowed to write with a ballpoint pen and when spelling lessons were canceled at school. Indeed, Russian culture is very different from Chinese, and, apparently, calligraphy is not an important and obligatory component for it. Although I know many people who are upset and annoyed by the disappearance of writing culture. Now, when they ask me what to teach children in the first grade during Russian language lessons, I confidently answer: - In Moscow - typing on computers. Although... Maybe it’s not necessary. Either they already know how, or they will learn later themselves. But where, besides school, will they be taught to write with a pen?

Lev Maksimov. Momentary and eternal

In a student audience, it is very difficult to answer a seemingly simple question: what is the main function of a person? The difficulty in answering this question is most often explained by the fact that, due to their youth, most students have not yet thought about the problem of what is human in a person. I think that this question is not often asked by many adults. Take a closer look at yourself, analyze your actions and thoughts, what do you notice? And you will notice, first of all, MOMENTARY problems (food, clothing, housing, establishing relationships with others, money, love, entertainment for tonight, etc.) that surround you, do not allow you to look around, require immediate action, take away almost everything you have time. But these are just problems of preserving life and enjoying pleasure in it and nothing more. So, did man as a rational being appear on Earth only in order to self-preserve and enjoy? How does such a life differ from the life of a rat, a horse or any other animal on our planet? Two problems constantly loom before us: a) the problem of human destiny and b) finding out what is non-animal in us. I’ll talk about the first some other time, but the second can be reformulated as follows: can a person break out of the circle of everyday, momentary problems into the sphere of truly human activity? You can read how the momentary and the eternal, the human and the animal, collide in each of us in the article below.

Strive for the high and the beautiful
Everyday affairs bother us,
And if we managed to achieve earthly blessings,
We attribute that highest good to dreams.
Goethe "Faust"

In a hotel in a small village where I happened to spend the night, on the wall of the room I was given there hung a painting, or rather a copy of Aivazovsky’s painting, in which huge shaggy waves are ready to swallow something in the form of a collapsing raft with seven people desperately fighting for their lives. These people decide this moment(now) one single problem - the problem of survival. The world around us and the events occurring in it directly affect our senses and thereby constantly immerse us in the “now,” sometimes making it seem like the only time for a person. Now I want to eat, drink, warm up, heal, etc. Now I’m sick, now I’m scared, worried, happy, suffering, dreaming. However, one should be aware that these experiences most often arise about something unimportant, that is, about something that does not relate directly to a person’s fate, to his inner spiritual life, the meaning of his existence. However, the “now” has a stranglehold on us. It is real, tangible, obvious, and at the same time, not everything in it is essential and true; much is distorted by our very perception. The fact is that, being in the present time, we are in the world of phenomena, in the world of fears and illusions about mainly the manifestations of the essences of things and events, and not directly under the influence of the essences themselves. Now, if I’m hungry, I don’t think about food, but about something tasty, and similarly, I now think not about warmth, but about fashionable and new clothes, not about cleanliness, but about fragrant soap and my own appearance, not about business , but about when it will begin and end and what it will give me, not about rest, but about the place where it can be spent, not about communication with others, but about what I will tell them, what they will think of me, etc. .P.

It's all "now." It attracts us, it forces us to notice it, experience it, think about it. It does not give us a moment of peace, does not allow us to concentrate, to think about something important, main, essential, to answer the fundamental questions of the meaning of life, our own destiny. And we feel that only by getting rid of such a “now” are we able to see or realize the eternal, only in this case can we look inside ourselves, we can notice world connections, we can begin to cognize the Truth. It turns out that “now” is blocking us from the World, ourselves and the Truth. Overcoming this “now”, Heraclitus renounced the royal throne, Kant did not start a family, many true sages and saints sought to overcome desires. Gautama retired to the forest, Muhammad hid in a cave, Diogenes lived in a barrel, Christ was unknown where for thirty years. And only by moving away from momentary problems were they able to learn the Truth, after which, returning to the people, they had the right and basis to teach. But those citizens to whom they addressed the word of truth were, for the most part, immersed up to their necks in the “now”; therefore, they had no time for the eternal and true. They understood that they were being taught the truth, but they could not live by it, because they were overcome by momentary problems, they thought about how to live the day and survive the night. “Man,” Pascal argued, “is undoubtedly created in order to think: this is his main dignity, and the main task of life, and the main duty is to think decently. And he should start by thinking about himself, about his creator and his end. But what are people thinking? It’s not about this at all, but about dancing, strumming a lute, singing a song, writing poetry, playing rings, etc., fighting, achieving the royal throne, and not for a minute not thinking about what it is: to be a king, to be a man..." (I quote from Nekless A.I. Transmutation of History. // Questions of Philosophy. 2001. No. 3, p. 198).

So Aivazovsky, during a storm at sea, has 7 people “now” solving one of the most important problems for them - saving their lives. For them, this “now” is most important. But you can also take a philosophical look at the situation, although this will seem cynical to many: why do they fight so passionately for life when they know well that they will die someday anyway? After all, the longest life is no different, according to, for example, Marcus Aurelius, from the shortest. Why are they so desperate? Maybe there is a life ahead of them that will be worse than death? Perhaps they obey the dictates of a higher law, which gives them a certain life span, which they instinctively want to realize? They cannot think about anything at the moment, they are gripped by fear, they are afraid of pain, and we can understand them, because they would act in exactly the same way when faced with the threat of death. In moments of calm “now,” a person is able to connect his immediate problems with eternal ones; he can explain this connection theoretically. But in practice, in the overwhelming majority of cases, he is still unable to break through the problems of “now” to the Eternal truth and righteousness. He is unable to think, comprehend and understand the essence of existence, being immersed in the problems of “now”. So, when does he really live, live exactly as a person, that is, a thinking being? Maybe when his shoes are too tight for him, he feels sick, when he gives commands, when he protects himself from cold or heat, and consumes something that most people don’t have. Or does an individual experience human life only when he is blissful in an excellent sauna or on a resort beach, sitting at a rich table and drinking fine wines? Or, perhaps, he truly lives like a human being when he rejects such “pleasures” and experiences as “important,” meaningful, raising him in the eyes of others. When does he think about the Eternal and fundamental, when does his soul “seek what is true and eternal,” when exclusively this true and eternal becomes his life, everyday life, his “now”?

Before everyone normal person Someday the question inevitably arises: what is true life, what are its truly human, non-animal functions? If every day I cook, do laundry, do things that are unnecessary for me (or even no one) at work, eat, drink, have fun, worry about things that don’t depend on me; and all this is only because such things are accepted in society or need to be done, then am I living? Of course I live, but what kind of life is this? Is such a life truly human? Every minute external problems and thoughts arising about them do not allow a person to go deeper into himself. They force him to worry and think, to deceive and get out, to decide and to doubt, in short, to fuss, run unknown where, move without direction, exist exclusively in the world of external problems and circumstances, sail without a rudder or sail in the stream of his own consciousness. What can pull a person out of this constant whirlwind? What can push him to think, to try to look at the flow of life from the outside, to encourage him to strive to understand everything that is happening and himself in it all? Perhaps it is possible to escape from the hustle and bustle through an effort of will, which is what many sages did? But the will also needs a push. It is necessary, for some reason, to first want to isolate yourself from the immediate, to abstract from it, that is, while remaining in everyday life, stop thinking primarily about it. Knowledge plays some role in this matter. But in order to acquire it, willpower is again required.

It seems to me that the beginning of a person’s turning to himself, to philosophical reflections about existence, is rooted in this very momentary vanity of life and in the person lowered into it. Of course, everyday life itself does not allow the individual to concentrate and think, it interferes with this, but in this same everyday life there are momentary things that a person wants to do, which give him pleasure. Then, perhaps, true (human) life is receiving pleasure from anything and absolutely nothing else? In this case, it turns out that when I cook with pleasure, eat and drink with pleasure, bathe in the bliss of love, solve problems with interest, work with passion, plant potatoes with joy, write because I want to, that’s when I live? The main thing is that while enjoying myself, I listen to myself, I feel, in the end, I feel like a unique person. It is the joys of such life episodes that I remember, and they therefore form my actual personal history. “We seek the need for pleasure when we suffer from a lack of pleasure; and when we do not suffer, we no longer need pleasure. That is why we call pleasure the beginning and end of a happy life,” said Epicurus. The rest of life, that is, life outside of receiving pleasure, is not life at all, but just preparation for joy and pleasures, anticipation of the latter, fear of failure of hopes and grief from their non-realization.

In the history of personal life, in addition to extraordinary pleasures, misfortunes, cataclysms, experiences of failures and disappointments are also remembered. Historically, this is also life. In practice, this is a state of refusal, reduction of time, cessation of negative experiences. Is not real life, but essentially a rejection of it, a non-recognition of such a life as a life, a desire to shorten it or, even better, to avoid it. We strive with all our might to evade suffering, not noticing that at the same time we are evading life in general, trying to leave it behind as quickly as possible, in the past, in the eternally memorable sad past, moving faster towards new joys, often imaginary pleasures. Along with avoiding suffering, that is, those necessary everyday boring and unloved things that do not give anything to the human soul and which are, nevertheless, necessary as conditions and prerequisites for the survival of the body. Thus, there is natural life (existence) - this is the life of the body with its sensations and work to ensure this life. Such life is characteristic of all living things, it is true, that is, carried out according to the objective laws of nature, it represents the foundation, the basis for the realization of another unique life, human life, rational, spiritual and in many ways illusory. At the center of this second life is a hypertrophied, unique in comparison with all living things, human insatiable and constant desire for pleasure. And although the enlighteners of the 16th century and the Marquis de Sade argued that Nature endowed us with this desire, this seems doubtful to me, because Nature cherishes only what is proportionate, adjusted to conditions, harmonious, and adapted.

The human desire for pleasure is so limitless and sophisticated that it does not fit within natural boundaries. It upsets the balance, it threatens natural life. It is superfluous in a biological sense, and it is characteristic of only one species of animal - homo sapiens. It is this that, first of all, distinguishes man from Nature and contrasts it. It puts the human mind itself at its service, encourages its development and sometimes denies it, overcomes the reasonable, goes beyond its boundaries. The desire for pleasure is the meaning and highest principle of human existence as some kind of non-biological species. All the troubles of life, all suffering ultimately come down to a state of deprivation of pleasures, to a feeling of dissatisfaction with existing pleasures, their limitations and smallness in comparison with those possible and available to others. We can say that man is an animal striving for endless pleasures, creating pleasures for himself. Man is the only animal that has a special form of expressing pleasure - a smile. The hope of receiving pleasure is a source of activity, illusions, idealism, and self-deception. Thus, constantly thinking about the possible momentary delights of life, plunging into a fantasy world about the pleasures of wine, women and songs (P. Sorokin) and sometimes actually receiving these pleasures, most people turn their lives into a game, into a slight flirtation with the outside world. They consciously turn away from the depths of reality, from themselves as individuals with unlimited possibilities. They seem to agree with what exists in their consciousness, with their own little joys. They protect their tiny world of consumers, where there are small but real joys, from the big world around them, the world of truth, knowledge and creativity. They are protected from fate, their own destiny, which exists as if outside and above their world.

Most people most likely do not want to know about the existence of a limitless world. Or rather, they know that it exists, but they do not want to know anything about it. “The less you know, the better you sleep” - this is their motto. They do not perceive themselves as part of the big world. And when reality inexorably reminds itself of itself with epidemics, wars, crises, ozone holes and meteorites, eclipses and the formidable results of human ingenuity, these people fall into hysterics, rush around in search of a savior and die like mosquitoes affected by chemicals. Nature has endowed us with the desire for self-preservation and pleasure. However, the pursuit of pleasure has become the goal and meaning of human existence. This pursuit pushed the problem of self-preservation into the background, belittled its importance, as if dividing the line between pleasure and survival. Pleasures have become more important than survival for the majority; they have turned into life itself, that is, into a one-sided phenomenon, a phenomenon without essence. Momentary problems seemed to become more important than the problems of existence as a whole. Those who think and talk about the eternal have actually become outcasts. They don’t want to listen to them, they don’t want to think about their words, their goals are ridiculed, their advantages are presented to the majority as shortcomings. That is life. In it, some enjoy what they have to enjoy. They are completely immersed in today's everyday problems, believing that this is real life. An ancient Chinese proverb says: “If a person gives up his desires and frees himself from passions, then he will not have fatigue for the rest of his life. If he lets his passions loose and is absorbed in his own affairs, then there will be no salvation from troubles.” (Tao Te Ching. M., 2004. p. 109). In contrast to such people, other citizens want to look beyond the glitter and noise of phenomena, they want to see and find out what lies at the basis of this life; what is taller and stronger than man; what allows a person to be so careless and not die; what inevitably awaits us all and whether we, people, can control our destiny. These second ones are people who know and create. The feeling of pettiness, temporaryness and limitation of everyday (momentary) pleasures pushes such people to search for boundless and eternal pleasures hidden in the very boundlessness and infinity of the World. There are few of them, tearing apart the web of everyday life, wanting to find out the truth. But they are the guardians of everyone’s lives, they are everyone’s hope. They fight in the snares of the “now,” trying to throw them off. And we, the majority, laugh at them and tighten the net of everyday problems for them. It’s as if we want there to be no exceptional individuals who are not like us, so that everyone is the same; so that everyone would rejoice and be sad from the same thing, from today’s, transitory, temporary. /25.05.09/

This topic provoked us so much that we developed our own version in the 7th series of articles, published in No. 42 for 2010 of the ethical and philosophical journal "Faces of the Epoch", which we bring to your attention

Cycle 7: "From desires to needs"

About the captivating vanity of the momentary and the elusive peace and wisdom of the eternal

Introduction

The phrase “Momentary and Eternal,” as well as the thoughts and associations that arise when it sounds, are very interesting and ambiguous. In it, the finite and the infinite, the relative and the absolute, the transitory and the eternal seem to come into contact. So many works have been written on this topic, among which there are many very interesting and deep ones, that it seems there is nothing left to add... But man and his life are so diverse and dynamic, and his mind is inquisitive, that they will write more and more. This topic is a semantic reflection and manifestation of the still incompletely known essence of man, and in it one can discuss and find so much more that it will be enough for our and future generations... If we look at the momentary and the eternal from the point of view of human science and the essence of man, which it studies, you can see them as different and complementary sides and reflections on the microscale of a person’s life and his urgent and everyday affairs and the whole world in the infinity of space and time, which to one degree or another are perceived and realized by him, intersect and influence him. Throughout his life, a person is constantly between the momentary and the eternal, and the individual embodiment of this alternative is a constant internal struggle between his body and spirit, instincts and mind, desires and necessity, knowledge and ignorance, selfishness and altruism. At the same time, it is by no means necessary to neglect the essential in favor of the eternal, for the latter does not exist in itself, but as a positive collective experience of existence, but it is necessary and useful to live this minute, remembering eternity, so as not only not to get lost, but also to leave your goodness in it. track...

1. Between the momentary and the eternal

Having a mind and being a social being, a person does not cease to be an animal with his body's needs. This community determines not only his immediate needs and concerns, but also his vision of himself, the world around him and himself in the world. However, unlike the rigidly limited instincts of animals, people are able to recognize their desires, see themselves in time, society and space, and vary their actions. However, this ability is not inherent in everyone, and many people see themselves no further than one day, week or month and get stuck in the present and their desires, underestimating or neglecting the necessity and benefit of their entire life. People are dominated by the essential and the immediate, and to a greater extent, the less they are able to rise above their desires, recognizing their necessity and benefit. If our reasoning were only an intellectual exercise? Alas, many of people’s momentary desires and pleasures, as well as their excess, are not only not useful, but also shorten their lives... Thanks to reason, if it is sufficiently developed, people are potentially able to rise above the instinctive predetermination of behavior and not only analyze, but and optimize it, both in individual life and in one’s social and natural interactions. However, people often primitiveize their behavior, preferring to be guided by instincts rather than reason. It seems that rational behavior is the highest logic of life, it is a manifestation of the rational essence of a person and everyone should be interested in this, but the life goals and values ​​of people direct them towards enrichment and achieving a higher position in society, which is a continuation of the model of behavior of animals in a pack . Of course, people are unequal in their development and see their benefits and ideals differently, but most of them rarely or do not rise above the immediate and, moreover, do not think about the reasonable, good and eternal, in other words, about a better life. ..

It will not be a mistake to say that the life of a modern person is a triumph of the moment. By his nature, he must live by daily needs because he depends on a lot: air, water and food, he needs clothing and housing, he needs communication and interaction with people of his own kind and the opposite sex. He lives in a particular place and ethnic group, depends on many factors and circumstances that capture him in the morning and do not let go until the evening. Urgent and momentary needs and desires accompany a person throughout life and keep him in constant tension. Some people are predominantly dependent on the lack of means of subsistence and they are the majority, others, who have them in abundance, are concerned about how best to preserve and increase them. Some want to be no worse than others, others strive to win the sympathy of the audience, and some - the favor of the authorities. All people are constantly preoccupied with something and it seems strange and somehow inhuman when someone is nearby, happy with everything or not worried - such people are considered abnormal or not of this world... People live by their daily needs and few of them try to doubt in its necessity and expediency. However, with age and experience, a person becomes more reasonable, sometimes acquiring not only the ability, but also the need to analyze and even criticize what is happening, albeit in the form of grumbling... Well, at all times there were and are people, of whom there are few, prone to contemplation and philosophy and who have acquired the opportunity to manifest it, having managed to pacify their body and spirit!.. Probably, many of them are not needed - thinkers, while people are so immersed in everyday life, live in the moment and do not realize the need and benefits of something different - better ! And how can you want this when you are carried by some huge multi-billion-dollar stream of life on earth with its colossal inertia of the usual centuries-old existence, which seems beyond the control of the human mind and given from somewhere outside: whether by nature, God or some higher comic mind?.. However, everything in the world is relative and a person with his mind is able to recognize his imperfection and overcome it, rushing to the hard-to-reach heights of wisdom, shining in eternity.

The path to the lofty and eternal is difficult. Man came from nature and is its organic element - he is connected with it and dependent on it. Man is social and, being part of a community, he must be aware of this; finally, man is mortal and with his mind is capable of recognizing the finitude of his life in the endless stream of human life. In these relationships, which are not easy to recognize and, even more so, to rationalize, the subjective and objective, the particular and the general, the present and the future, the momentary and the eternal come into contact. But this is where the rational essence of man is manifested, so that with the mind of one, another, and third, bit by bit, he can collect, accumulate and transmit to other people knowledge about the unity of man and nature, as well as about the inextricable connection of the individual and momentary with the universally significant and eternal. This path of comprehending the meaning of existence and achieving its highest benefit is difficult and long, but gradually a person gains the ability to recognize himself as an individual and part of a community, an individual grain of sand and an entire microcosm. What is most important, a reasonable person, through awareness of the finitude and uniqueness of his life in the endless stream of life of the human race, is able to learn to value his life more highly and strive to make it better by improving himself. Rising above momentary desires and pleasures, a person will be able to see what distinguishes him from animals and elevates him above them - the ability to know and improve himself, without which his life will never get better!..

2. Body and desires, low and high

Religion teaches: the human body is the center of vice and in its desires it is sinful and primitive. But the soul is pure and immaculate if it is directed towards God and subjugates the body... This and similar oppositions contain a very important thing - the body with its desires and the mind with ideals exist, as it were, independently and alienated, as non-kin, and only a certain a higher power is able to subjugate them and reconcile them for some higher benefit. Human science connects this with the level of development and intelligence of a person - the less intelligent he is, the more he is controlled by the desires of the body and needs help from the outside. And on the contrary, the more intelligent a person is, the more self-organized, the higher his thoughts and purer his desires, the closer the connection between body and spirit. Considering a person in the unity of body and spirit, as a whole, which he is, human science connects them through the categories of necessity and benefit, which are understood differently by people. From birth, the needs of the body naturally predominate, expressing their desires and the pleasures associated with them. As a person develops, to one degree or another, he learns to correlate them according to necessity and evaluate them according to the degree of usefulness. However, the power of pleasure can be so great, and the power of reason is insufficient, that people naturally prefer the former to the latter, and not because they are so bad - people are an integral part of this world, they are mammals and breaking away from the earthly, material is not always necessary for them and it is difficult.

Waking up in the morning and during the day coming into contact with the sea of ​​worries and problems that surround him, a person plunges into them, gets bogged down and sometimes dies... How can you, being dependent on something, not obey it? It captivates and captures a person, and he does not resist as long as he has the patience to experience inconvenience. When there is no longer any patience, he tries to find a way out of a difficult situation, and then it is so important to stop, look around, rise above the immediate... Like people themselves, their life is imperfect and relative to their ideas about necessity - the needs of the body and acute needs prevail in it. sensations that are not always vital. However, some people, and the more intelligent they are, the more they are able to analyze their needs and desires and even anticipate what they want to do, firstly, and recognize their benefit or harm, secondly. However, this is not always associated with their essence and the necessity and benefit that expresses it. The absence of a single and generally valid idea of ​​the essence in the unity of the body and spirit of a person results in a variety of ideas about benefits and ideals, reflecting the height and hierarchy of his aspirations and actions, individual and socio-natural. The ideals of man, like himself, are dual and contradictory, expressing his spiritual and physical hypostases...

By their nature, ideals are formed and exist in the minds of people and their meaning and impact are as great as people are able to recognize them. Despite the fact that ideals show a person’s highest goal, their meaning in life is relative to his rationality and life orientation. The problems of modern life indicate that a person’s value orientation is still far from his ideals and is ultimately a derivative of his development and spirituality and will improve with him, reflecting the process of harmonization of his spirit and body and unity with the surrounding world of people and nature. The essence of man is in the harmony of body and spirit, but the primitive desires of the body and high ideals, despite the opposition, are interconnected and are formed in the mind, which is relative to its development and essence. In the same connection are the momentary and the eternal, which are by no means opposite, but complementary, being a reflection and two sides of one person’s life. The momentary is what is here and now, and the eternal is what is around and always. Between them are reason and life experience. The greater and more positive the experience and the higher the mind, the closer a person is to ideals - eternity. The whole person: both his body in harmony of metabolism and relationships with other people and nature, and the spirit-mind, aware of his essence and helping a person in its knowledge and action in accordance with it! A person is one and if he lives by his desires and feelings, without listening or hearing reason, then that is what he is - not developed and not intelligent. On the contrary, if a person is spiritual or reasonable, he controls his feelings, desires and does what is necessary and useful. The ideal of Homo sapiens is to follow one’s essence in fulfilling vital needs to achieve the highest benefit - the improvement of the entire species. And this is possible only in the harmony of body and spirit, man and the world of people and nature. And the more harmonious a person is, the more the momentary will elevate him, bringing him closer to the high and eternal!

3. About the necessity of the momentary and the benefits of the eternal

No matter how high his ideals may be, a person cannot neglect the immediate - being a combination of spirit and body or, in other words, an animal with a mind, he is naturally aware and, as far as possible, realizes his animal physiological needs for self-preservation. And without this there is no person, which means not denying, in principle, the immediate needs of the body, but choosing from them the vital ones. That is, having ceased to be an animal, whose instincts mainly determine his behavior and, using reason, he must desire the necessary and useful, organize and rationalize his life and its resources for a more complete solution to the problems of existence. It can be assumed that over time, the momentary, essential will become more and more reasonable and in accordance with nature, and no one will speak about it critically or arrogantly, as something low, inferior and unworthy of a person. Another thing is that in the modern daily life there is a lot of routine and inconsistency - for the sake of their daily bread, some step over their abilities and ideals, others, not having open opportunities to satisfy their needs, take the criminal path, others abuse pleasures and harm themselves and others. And behind all this one can see the idea that we must immediately strive to live wisely, with greater benefit - individually, in society and in nature. And in this sense, it is very indicative of how people solve the urgent task of procreation.

In the animal world, procreation and natural selection are mainly based on strength - the strongest survives and continues the race. People have a lot in common with animals in procreation, but, thanks to economics, science and medicine, this process takes place in more favorable conditions and natural selection is gradually replaced by rational selection, however, extremely slowly, not everywhere and in everything. Moreover, in the last century, the problem of procreation has been solved by people to an ever lesser extent - among civilized peoples the birth rate is declining, the institution of family and marriage is not thriving, relations between the sexes are ambiguous, they are based less and less on love and more on sex, and humanity is growing mainly due to developing countries - the yellow and black races. Perhaps there is some meaning in this - maybe it is in a fresh stream of renewal, or you can look at what is happening differently, for example, as the primitivization of sexual relations in sex and its excessive protrusion due to behavior incongruous with the essence and vital necessity and people’s failure to fulfill the most important tasks of procreation. The phenomenon of excessive human sexuality, which has no analogues in the animal world, as S. Freud correctly noted, is associated with a simplification of the solution to the problem of self-preservation, which leaves him with a lot of strength and in the case of primitivization of desires or their hypertrophy, contributing to the passion for sex. All this would be good if there were no demographic problems and the population reproduced normally... And here reason should come into play and help people realize the need for not just procreation, but a rational one, ensuring reproduction with an improvement in the gene pool. The latter is impossible in animals, but is possible and necessary in people; only then in the momentary, connected with the relations between men and women, another song should sound - not a one-day affair of a casual relationship and lust, but something more serious and reasonable, consistent with their essence and connecting with the fundamentals of existence and the infinity of life on earth...

Unlike animals, man has a higher goal and benefit - the improvement of his entire species. It seems that to say this in relation to the sphere of intimate relationships between people means to forget about instinct and feelings that are so strong that people cannot resist them and be fully aware of them? , you always have to, because you are a person! However, this is too high for many, but it is not alien to anyone, because everyone has a head on their shoulders, which should do its job well... What kind of business is this? And in short, then - treat the momentary as if it is irretrievably gone, and try to live it as best as possible, in accordance with your essence! So. Well, if the revaluation of the momentary can somehow be understood, although not simply, then what does it mean to live in accordance with one’s essence? The latter is possible when you know well what you are, what you can and should, and what is necessary and useful for you as an individual, part of a community and all humanity. But what is it and why don’t people know it and don’t tell their children about it, just as they don’t teach them to do what is necessary and useful. The answer is unexpected - people for the most part are not aware of the need and benefits of this and therefore do not want to do it. Well, how to treat this, if not philosophically, as something momentary and transitory with our development and improvement. But a person develops and improves naturally and, it seems, there is no point in interfering with this process? It is not worth using violence, but wisely - through knowledge and more and more effective realization of the essence of man, the gradual awareness of one’s highest benefit and its implementation is vitally necessary... Historical experience contributes to the understanding that the development process has its own internal logic, and people will not change their behavior until they want to do it. It is becoming more and more obvious that this problem can be solved only by reasonable, and not by force, actions, and its solution is impossible without the science of knowledge and realization of the essence of man. Human science is designed to help a person live wisely in accordance with his nature, acting more organized and rationally using life resources, harmonizing the spirit and body in their interaction with each other and with the outside world and connecting the private and vital with the universally significant and eternal.

4. How to rise above the momentary and come into contact with the eternal?

Nature has arranged it in such a way that man - her most complex and perfect creation - is not born as such, but becomes and this happens for quite a long time. Not everyone manages to fully realize themselves due to various unfavorable circumstances, one of which is that people are not taught this. However, the latter is secondary, and the primary thing is that people’s life values ​​now consist of something else - enrichment and power, for the achievement of which self-knowledge and improvement are not so important as self-interest and a focus on money, resourcefulness and enterprise. That very momentary, immediate benefit - the cherished dream of many, and especially not the most developed and perfect people, leads them through life in which the reasonable and perfect, the good and the eternal are abstract and unclaimed categories. Among such people, discussions about the momentary and the eternal may not find an echo, if they make sense at all... Is it possible and how to positively influence this? Probably, but at the same time we must realize that it is very difficult to quickly and significantly improve what we have now. But it’s worth thinking about the future, especially since in the absence of high and essential guidelines, people have accumulated so many problems that it is obviously not accidental that regular mentions of the apocalypse and the uncertainty of many about their future are not accidental. Since our children will have to live in the future, it would be natural to help them become better and teach them a more reasonable and perfect life. On this path, such opportunities will open up for them that they will not want to waste time on trifles and get stuck in the moment, and without stopping, move forward to a better life, which will become better only when they themselves become better. However, this is easier said than done...

A feature of human behavior is its inertia with polar varieties: enthusiasm and inertia. By doing something interesting for yourself and doing it regularly, a person learns to do it better and success stimulates his passion and high results. On the contrary, if you do nothing, do it irregularly, or do something you don’t like, say, studying in a modern school, you will not succeed and will lose interest in the matter. This comes from the essence of a person, which encourages him to continuously act with body and spirit in solving more complex problems, so that both muscles and thinking develop and improve. If an increase in load and complexity does not occur, development stops and the reverse process of degradation of the human body and mind begins. Another feature of the human essence, and there are many of them, is that much of a person is laid down in childhood. Then this happens more effectively, the child absorbs everything like a sponge, both good and bad - here, look at the teacher and try to turn the child to his essence and teach self-knowledge and improvement in increasingly natural behavior. And this is the most important task of modern pedagogy and education, the solution of which will lead the child away from the immediate and forbidden to the necessary and more useful, which are achieved by a more developed mind and body.

And what helps a person to come into contact with the eternal or at least sometimes think about the reasonable, good, eternal, because in life, as in the search for truth, a hundred roads lead away from the goal and only one single one leads to it? /M. Montaigne/. Maybe some moments or situations, a fleeting mood or bright thoughts about the high and ideal? Perhaps, but bright thoughts cannot arise in a dark head and dense brains; this happens all the more often and is more desirable for someone who is more developed and richer spiritually, who is more natural, conformable to nature and free. Alas, there are relatively few such people, and those for whom the immediate and especially its benefit are the basis and essence of existence predominate. They set the tone and determine the rules of this life, in which private profit and mass culture, vulgarity and glamor predominate, for which what is more important is not the content, but the form, not the meaning, but the effect, and finally, not the reasonable, good and eternal, but the sensual, malicious and momentary... Thank God, not everyone is like this, but, unfortunately, there are no serious prospects for changing this situation yet. However, as you know, quantity turns into quality, and if people do not learn something useful systematically, they learn from their own experience, by trial and error, and not always without losses. The logic of life is wise and inexorable - knowledge and experience are being accumulated, an increasingly true picture of the world and man is being formed, but people still do not know, do not know and do not see a lot. And first of all, oneself - individually, in society and nature, in space and time... When the human spiritual principle prevails in a person, and for this he needs to cognize and effectively realize his essence, he realizes himself as an organic component of a single flow of life in its development and infinity, the alternative of the momentary and the eternal will cease to exist for him, for he will become the master of himself and his time, managing it and pushing its boundaries!.. /23.07.09/

2. Reason and instincts. Criteria of Reason

The mind is not born along with the human body, but is formed as it develops and becomes aware of itself and its actions in relation to the surrounding world of people and nature, which determine the meaning of its life. Reason is not equivalent to intelligence as a soulless information-logical processor; it is broader, including the semantic criteria of the goals of existence of the person to whom it belongs, and the ability to correlate the essence and actions of a person according to the criteria of necessity and benefit. Reason arose as a complement and continuation of instinct and is the ability of a creature to which, for example, a person belongs, to recognize more or less what is necessary for itself according to the degree of its usefulness, and at a primitive level, and the lower the level, the less so, according to the degree of its usefulness. how pleasant or unpleasant it is. An important manifestation of rationality is the ability to understand the meaning of one’s existence, which is immanent to homo sapiens and unthinkable for the most highly developed animals. In this context, the meaning of a person’s life lies in the awareness of the necessity and usefulness of his actions, in which his essence is manifested. To summarize, we can say that in any creature, starting from the simplest, instincts are formed by sensations, which are supplemented by reason, developed depending on the degree of self-awareness and the ability to recognize the necessity and benefit for self-realization, which is a measure of rationality. And necessity and benefit, predetermined by the essence, are the manifestations and expression of reason!

2.1. Instincts and reason

Instincts, as complex unconditioned reflexes and unconscious unconscious feelings, and feelings, as the ability to sense sensations themselves, are very close physiologically, in essence, and in that they do not have very clear and unambiguous interpretations. Also close to the instincts and feelings of a person and even less clear and definite is his mind, which in the minds of ordinary people can mean mind and intellect and brain and consciousness, and in a number of philosophical movements - the highest principle and essence (panlogism), the basis of knowledge and behavior of people (rationalism). One could continue listing the interpretations of reason, but this is of benefit only for the philosophizing “clever” people, but for others it is only harmful, complicating the understanding and definition of the fundamental essential components and concepts that form the meaningful, semantic content of human life and its actual understanding. Human science rises above this “high mental confusion” and, considering the instincts and mind of a person in the context of his essence and the vital necessities and benefits immanent to it, the tasks of existence and behavior consistent with the essence, connects them with well-defined relationships and determines the functions they realize.

Below are several materials on this topic from the Internet, not all of which, unfortunately, are authorized, not through our fault, but due to the lack of author names.

Instincts and behavior of people

“Humans, as is known, belong to the order of primates, the species homo sapiens. Classification relationship with other primates is determined by greater or lesser similarity of genetic material, externally expressed in the similarity of body structure. For example, the genes of humans and chimpanzees coincide by more than 95%. However, species-forming characteristics - not only structural features of organs, but also behavior, habits (hunting techniques, defense, mating rituals, and much more). Since all species-forming characteristics are strictly inherited (that’s why they are species-forming), then the behavior inherent in the species is also transmitted by inheritance. For example, the ability to make a stance for dogs of hunting breeds is inherited, and is associated specifically with hunting breeds. Another example of an instinctively determined reflex - lowering the eyes, as an acknowledgment of one’s submission to another individual, is characteristic of primates, including humans. Canids (dogs) , for example) in the same situation they tuck their tail in. Such inherited behavior is usually called instinctive, and its individual components are called instincts. In relation to instinctive behavioral programs, the term “innate model of behavior” is also used. Such an instinctive act, interesting for our topic, as a kiss, is part of the innate mating ritual of primates, derived from the feeding ritual. To what extent does all this apply to humans? After all, a person has a mind, some laws, which, in principle, makes following instincts unnecessary. However, man acquired a modern appearance and became truly intelligent only about 30-40 thousand years ago, and the historical era lasts only 5-7 thousand years. Meanwhile, the evolution of primates began somewhere in the Tertiary period, about 20-30 million years ago, and such important instincts as subordination to the herd hierarchy have existed almost as long as life has existed.

Of course, in such short evolutionary periods of time, instincts cannot disappear - they are formed by natural selection slowly and gradually, like morphological characters, and disappear just as slowly. So instincts do not ask whether a person can do without them. They simply turn on when they see fit. Instinctive motivation, illogical and inexplicable from a rational point of view, is very logical and explainable in the primitive coordinate system, and was expedient in primitive times. However, in the modern situation, behavior realized by instincts is not always adequate, and we are often perplexed at how evil and blind love can be... Monkey instincts will live in us as long as you and I belong to the order of primates, for they are firmly recorded in the genetic memory. If humanity manages to get rid of some important monkey instincts and consolidate this in the genes, then man will already belong to a different species, and perhaps even stand out from the order of primates. The development of humanity required forms of “marriage” other than the primitive herd, but instincts do not disappear from the subconscious so easily, and continue to operate, although their time may have long passed. The mind of an individual cannot somehow change his own instinctive programs; Moreover, he doesn’t even know about their existence! He may only disobey them in some cases, but next time instinct will want to do the same. The lowest level of the subconscious is instincts, programs available to it are executed directly and without variations. Programs of the middle level of the subconscious (traditions, habits) can already be somehow modified over time. The mind also widely uses well-functioning behavioral programs, but for the mind they are “information for thought”; the mind does not so much carry out its programs as improvise on their theme.

Instincts control us through emotions, without bothering with motivation. The instinct that prompts a woman to decorate herself, in particular with cosmetics, does not in any way tell her why she needs to do it - she wants that and that’s it. The logical meaning of this is clear - to attract the attention of men, but most women will categorically deny this, saying that they are putting on makeup “for themselves.” But normal men don’t wear makeup “for themselves”! There is no such behavioral program in their instincts. By the way, many modern men have a negative attitude towards cosmetics on women, but instinct does not want to know about it. It is also worth paying attention to the fact that the lower the level of culture of a woman, the brighter and rougher the “plaster” - instinctive motives in this case are not restrained or corrected by reason. It is precisely for the reason that instincts control us through emotions, without bothering with motivation, you can effectively play on these instincts. Control a person using them like buttons on a remote control. Nervous structures that implement instincts arose in ancient times; reasoning, analyzing something, and even simply extrapolating is an impossible task for them. They are triggered when the schematic and static template inherent in the instinct coincides with certain external signaling signs that may accidentally resemble those actually required. However, having free and direct access to the motivational centers of the brain, instincts can cause a feeling of being right in anything. This effect can even be likened to a drug. Drug illusions are also often perceived as some kind of higher wisdom. Therefore, love has no “wisdom”. There is only a feeling of wisdom. In fact, love evaluates the object of choice very superficially, in accordance with a rigid (sometimes even stupid) genetic program that sets the strategy for choosing a marriage partner. In this case, the mind has no choice but to engage in adjustment to the answer. In general, it is very common for a person to engage in adjustments to the answer when he tries to explain his instinctively motivated behavior.

The real picture of human behavior is complicated and confused not only by the presence of two “I”s in us, but also by the fact that the boundary between them is not absolutely clear, instinctive and rational motivation can be intricately intertwined. In addition, for each case, a person has several instinctive behavior programs that arose at different evolutionary times, and sometimes contradict each other. · A person is born with a large number of innate behavioral programs that arose at different evolutionary times, due to which they often contradict each other. · The mechanisms for implementing innate behavior programs are capable only of a signature analysis of the situation, which involves a formal-superficial comparison of the situation with the schematic signal signs embedded in these programs. · Sufficient coincidence of external conditions with these signal signs gives rise to one or another emotion that encourages a person to implement the corresponding instinctive program. · The true motivation of actions is not realized - for a rational explanation of instinctively motivated behavior, the most random arguments are used, which are in the nature of tailoring to the answer."

About the mind

B. Ziganshin. Instincts + reason

Human brain- a multidimensional structure, it was studied and the projection of this structure onto various “planes” was described. Here is another plane - the relationship between instincts and reason: a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of any species of animal is compliance with the law of natural selection. Instincts are precisely the mechanism that realizes this correspondence. instincts can be divided (remember Maslow’s pyramid) into: instincts of SELF-preservation (food, warmth, health), support of the team (need for communication, friendship, hierarchical relationships), instincts of reproduction (courtship, love, family, children), improvement of the gene pool (need for novelty, competition between males) - mortidoto. These groups of instincts ensure the preservation of the individual, the collective, the genus and the species, respectively. The first instincts work for the shorter term of the existence of the species and therefore they are stronger, and the latter can only work when the first are more or less satisfied and do not “put pressure” (with pleasant and unpleasant sensations) on a person or animal. By the way, this is similar to the 3 laws of robotics (Isaac Asimov), only there this pyramid stood at the tip. As soon as there were more than one instincts, the question arose about the priority of their execution and it was decided to create a mechanism that receives impulses (of varying strength) from all instincts, makes decisions and directs motor activity. Then this mechanism (in the process of natural selection) began to improve, such things as conditioned reflexes and foreseeing the future appeared, which made it possible to postpone and redirect the energy of instincts. Finally, this mechanism became so complex that it began to use methods of abstract thinking - MIND appeared. he allowed humanity to achieve an unconditional victory in the competition of species. But the structure instincts->pleasure->choice remained with him as an inheritance from animals, although it became partially useless. So people fuck with condoms; Thus, the mind is part of the mechanism for satisfying instincts, which has a very flexible and self-adjusting organization and transforms the initial energy of instincts into whatever. I remember how surprised old Freud was when he discovered that many simple human joys are just a redirected sexual instinct. Sometimes, in order to change their perception of the world, people try to change the world itself

On the role of the mind

"Let's try to contact one more interesting topic, which excites any inquisitive mind - to the role of the human mind. To begin with, I would like to more accurately determine in what context we will conduct our reasoning. Let's decide that man belongs to living nature, and that he was formed according to the same laws as all other earthly creatures. Let us leave the higher craft out of the picture for now. So, the main thing that distinguishes a person in comparison with his smaller brothers is his mind. The question arises - what is it and why is it needed? Let's start with the second one. As you know, all the properties that creatures on earth acquired in the process of their evolution are aimed at only one thing - to ensure the survival of the species. Each of the creatures developed along its own path - insects towards miniaturization and fertility, crocodiles towards toothiness, cats towards speed and flexibility. Thanks to all these characteristics, which developed and evolved over millions of years, all these species, subspecies, families, etc., inhabit the planet to this day. But the most powerful tool that ensured the dominance of one of the animal species over all others is the mind. The species Homo sapiens has at its disposal the most powerful survival tool. That is why we are forced to admit that initially the only purpose of reason is to ensure the survival of the human race. This property simply does not and cannot have any other purpose. Based on this circumstance, we can consider the various properties of the mind, and very interesting things will open up to us.

What is the mind? How does it differ from the thinking of animals, say monkeys? Even more precisely, is the transition to the human mind an abrupt transition from the thinking of animals or a gradual one? What is the main distinguishing feature? To answer these questions, consider an ordinary person. What motivates him on his life's path? Yes, the same thing as the rest of the animal world - instincts aimed at survival and procreation. Let's take a closer look at them. In descending order of priority. - The instinct of self-preservation. In humans, it is expressed in the fact that he tries to minimize the risk of death or injury. Tries to create more comfortable and safe living conditions for himself. In general, he tries to live as long and healthy as possible. - Instinct of procreation. There is no need to expand on this for a long time, everything is clear to everyone. It is important to note that this instinct in humans is very developed and extends not only to the fact that a person is looking for a partner, but also to the fact that there is a desire to create comfortable conditions for the normal development of offspring. Next comes the instinct of directions for the survival of an individual within a community of its own kind. - Instinct of domination in society. This is a very powerful instinct that weighs on most of us in the process of life. We try to be stronger, more beautiful, smarter, more successful, better than others. We react painfully if someone is clearly superior to us in one or more ways. The desire for power is the driving force that drives many people. Of course, this instinct is expressed differently in different people, as well as others. The main task of this instinct is initially to select the best specimens in the community, which should leave as many offspring as possible. That is why leadership qualities are more important and inherent in the male part of society, because the number of children from one female individual is extremely limited. This is probably why we can assume that the development of humanity occurred precisely through the male half of society, but one should be extremely careful with such comments.

Are there still instincts that govern human life? Yes, undoubtedly, but they are more secondary, derivative and do not yet deserve our attention. Now it is important to understand that the listed instincts determine 95% of a person’s life. This is the environment in which the subject of our today's study exists - the mind. Initially, the role of the mind was reduced to perceiving the world around us and forming a reaction to it in accordance with instincts. It's not even intelligence yet. In this form it remained with many representatives of the existing fauna. But in the process of evolution, the layer between the perception of the world and the formation of a reaction became more and more complex and flexible. The mechanism of this development is not entirely clear, but I think that the instinct of dominance played a major role here. What is important for us now is that the mind, in the process of its development, began to acquire secondary, even sometimes harmful, functions. One of the most amazing creations of the mind is will. I'm not talking about the will to power or the will to achieve another goal, or rather only partly. I'm talking about the will to overcome your instincts. The main purpose of the mind as a tool for survival began to deform. Each individual person could already set goals for themselves! Of course, basic instincts continue to weigh on him, but the mind sometimes successfully fights them. For example, the instinct of self-preservation. Man is the only creature capable of committing suicide. True, they say that scorpions sting themselves when they find themselves in a ring of fire, but this is, of course, nonsense - they sting themselves by accident. Further, the instinct of procreation - many people refuse children, guided by some of their own considerations. As a rule, these considerations are dictated by first instinct. And finally, the instinct of dominance - many people deliberately choose the life of hermits and complete indifference to their place in society. We can talk rather not about the struggle of reason with instincts, but about a monstrous and ugly bias towards one of them to the detriment of the others.

The question arises - why does this happen? How did the tool of evolution turn against it? Currently, we see how humanity as a species is heading towards its decline in terms of survival and development, the basic principles of evolution are beginning to rapidly recede. Evolution driven by the transfer of genes was gradually replaced by social evolution based on the transfer of knowledge and technology. It is obvious that the group of people with the most advanced technology is more adapted to survive in modern world. But the paradox is that this group, being dominant over the rest, can begin to collapse from within, because social evolution does not lead to human development, but to the development of technology. Those. the quantity and quality of human material in a closed group begins to rapidly decrease. We come to the conclusion that the development of the mind has crossed the threshold when it helped a person to survive and reproduce. The pendulum has swung in the opposite direction and now the mind is playing against us, although nothing fundamentally has changed in human behavior - just basic instincts, thanks to the developed mind, have led a person in the opposite direction. Is this good or bad? It depends from what position you look at it. It is possible that evolution has fallen away as unnecessary crutches and now humanity is developing itself - with the help of technology, genetic engineering and the like. Those. responsibility for the survival of man as a species fell entirely on the fragile shoulders of a mind that had assumed hypertrophied dimensions. We just have to answer the last question. Is the transition from animal thinking to the human mind an abrupt transition or a gradual evolutionary development? You can answer it by remembering why reason was needed initially. If an animal has characteristics that provide it with dominance in its environment, then they will develop first.”

Our comment: The above very interesting and deep discussion touches on the most important issues of human existence, which led the author to the assumption that the task of survival fell on the “fragile shoulders” of a mind that had assumed hypertrophied dimensions. From the point of view of our human science, this is not entirely true, primarily because the mind, when it is developed, does not have such fragile shoulders, if we at least take into account the scientific and technical achievements of people. What is most important, the mind is not, however, yet, an instrument of human evolution, because natural selection consists of what happens in a closed, uncontrollable system without the participation of the mind. When a person begins to recognize his essence and try to behave in accordance with it, which is impossible without reason, he will be able to rise above natural selection and move on to a meaningful and increasingly rational evolution in the context of fulfilling the vital necessity to achieve the highest benefit. And this is the meaning of his existence on Earth and in the universe! What is also important: the mind is a potential phenomenon, it can be developed or not, to a greater or lesser extent, and the task of its overall development is beyond the life values ​​of people. Why? Because the majority of people are not intelligent enough, and not because the mind has “fragile shoulders,” but because they do not develop and train it enough, like muscles. Nevertheless, regardless of the will of people, there is an objective process of increasing intelligence - slow and gradual, which leads people to a better life, which is the life of better, more intelligent people! (20.10.09)

From Maurice Maeterlinck. Life of termites. Instinct and Reason

J.-A. Fabre, who devoted his entire life to studying this issue, did not recognize the presence of intelligence in insects. He proved to us with the help of experiments that outwardly do not raise objections that if you disrupt the habitual routine of the most resourceful, inventive and perspicacious insect, then it continues to act mechanically and work in vain, stupidly and in vain. “Instinct,” he concludes, “knows everything about the unchanging paths that are laid out for it, and knows nothing beyond these paths. Its destiny is the sublime insights of science or the amazing inconsistency of stupidity, depending on whether the animal acts under ordinary or unusual conditions.” The Languedoc Sphex, for example, is a wonderful surgeon and has an infallible anatomical science. By striking the chest with a stiletto and squeezing the cervical ganglia, he completely paralyzes the grape Sephippigere, but never kills it. He then lays an egg on the chest of his victim and places it in a hole, which he carefully closes. So the larva, having hatched from the egg, from birth finds abundant, motionless, harmless, living and always fresh “game”. But if at the moment when the insect begins to close the hole, Sephippigere is removed, then the sphex, remaining on guard during the invasion of its home, returns to the house as soon as the danger has passed; He examines it carefully as always and, obviously, is convinced that Sephippigere and the egg are no longer there, but he resumes work from the very place where he interrupted it and carefully closes up the hole, in which there is no one else. Similar examples are the hairy sand wasp and the mason bee. The case of the mason bee is very striking and fits perfectly with our theme. She places the honey in the cell, lays an egg in it, and seals it. If you puncture a cell in her absence, but during the period dedicated to construction work, she will immediately repair it. But if you make a hole in the same cell after finishing construction and starting to collect honey, the bee will not pay attention to this and will continue to pour honey into the holey vessel, from where it will gradually flow out; then, if she thinks she has poured into it enough honey to fill it, she lays an egg, flowing out with everything else from the same hole, and seals the empty cell with satisfaction, gravity, and care.

From these and many other experiments, the listing of which would take too much space, Fabre made the quite reasonable conclusion that “an insect can cope with surprise only if the new action does not fall outside the category of things that occupy it at the moment.” . If an unforeseen situation of a different order arises, it does not perceive it at all, as if it “loses its head” and, like a wound-up mechanism, continues to act fatally, blindly, stupidly and absurdly until it completes a series of prescribed movements, the course of which it is unable to reverse back. Let us agree with these facts, which also seem indisputable, and pay attention to the fact that in a rather curious way they reproduce the processes occurring in our own body, in our unconscious, or organic, life. We find within ourselves the same alternating examples of intelligence and stupidity. Modern medicine, with its study of internal secretion, toxins, antibodies, anaphylaxis, etc., provides us with a whole list of them; but what our fathers, who were not very good at it, called simply fever, sums up most of these examples in one. Fever, and even children know this, is just a protective reaction of our body, consisting of thousands of inventive and complex types of help. Before we found a way to neutralize or regulate its excess, it usually claimed the patient's life faster than the disease it was fighting. Moreover, it is quite likely that the most cruel and incurable of our diseases, cancer, with its proliferation of damaged cells, is another manifestation of the blind and misplaced zeal of the elements charged with protecting our lives.

But is it not possible, in anticipation of the best, to temporarily connect the instinct of insects, particularly ants, bees and termites, with the collective soul and, as a consequence, with a kind of immortality or, more precisely, an infinite collective duration that they possess? The inhabitants of a hive, anthill, or termite mound, as I have said above, seem to represent a single individual, one living being, the organs of which, consisting of innumerable cells, are scattered only in appearance and are always subordinated to the same energy or vital personality , the same basic law. Thanks to this collective immortality, the death of hundreds and even thousands of termites, immediately replaced by others, does not affect or destroy a single being, just as in our body the death of thousands of cells, instantly replaced by others, does not affect or destroy the life of my “I”. This is the same termite, living for millions of years and similar to a person who never dies; consequently, no experience of this termite is lost, since there are no interruptions in its life and there is never any splitting or disappearance of memories; there is a single memory that does not cease to function and accumulate all the acquisitions of the collective soul. This explains, along with other mysteries, the fact that queen bees, who for thousands of years have been exclusively engaged in laying eggs and never collected pollen and nectar from flowers, can give birth to worker bees that, even when leaving the cell, know everything that since prehistoric times was unknown to their mothers, and, starting from the very first flight, learning all the secrets of orientation, collecting honey, raising nymphs and the complex chemistry of the hive. They know everything because the organism of which they are a part or one cell knows everything that needs to be known in order to survive. They seem to disperse freely in space, but no matter where they go, they still remain connected to the central unit to which they never cease to belong. Like the cells of our being, they float in the same vital fluid, more extended, more mobile and subtle, more psychic and etheric than the fluid of our body. And this central unit is undoubtedly connected with the general soul of the bee, and probably with the universal soul itself.

It is quite possible that once upon a time we were much more closely connected than we are now with this universal soul, with which our subconscious still communicates. Our minds separated us from her and continues to separate us every day. So our progress leads to alienation? Is this not our specific mistake? This, naturally, contradicts what we said about the desirable hypertrophy of our brain; but in such matters, where nothing can be certain, hypotheses inevitably collide; Moreover, sometimes it happens that an annoying error, taken to an extreme, turns into a useful truth, and the truth, which has long been recognized, becomes clouded, throws off its mask and turns out to be an error or a lie. Do termites offer us a model of social organization, a picture of the future, or a kind of “prophecy”? Are we moving towards a similar goal? We will not say that this is impossible, that we will never achieve this. We come to things we never even dared imagine much easier and faster than it seems. Often a trifle is enough to change the whole morality and fate of a long chain of generations, because energy and life are probably only a form, a movement of matter; and matter itself, as we see it in its densest mass, where it seems to us eternally dead, inert and motionless, is the highest contradiction! - is animated by an incomparably more spiritual existence than our thinking, since it owes to the most mysterious, indefinite and elusive of forces - liquid, electrical or ethereal - the immortal life of its electrons, which from the very beginning of things have revolved, like crazy planets, around a central nucleus . Be that as it may, “let us not try to change the nature of things,” Epictetus tells us, “this is impossible and useless; but, accepting them as they are, let us learn to adapt our soul to them.” In almost two thousand years that have passed since the death of the philosopher from Nikopol, we have not yet come to more optimistic conclusions.

2.2. Reason and reasonableness

The concept of reason as well as rationality does not have a single interpretation, but be that as it may, thanks to reason, a person is able to understand the world and himself, to be aware of the objective meaning of what is happening around him and his actions according to their necessity and benefit or the conformity of their essence. With the help of reason, a person is able to recognize his actions in society and nature and rationalize them, operating with a very specific concept of meaning. However, just as not all people are equally intelligent and there are serious reasons for their irrationality, there are huge untapped potential of their brain - the mind and hope for a bright future, which is possible as a result of the development and improvement of people and the rationalization of their lives. Thoughts that arose in ancient times and are still cultivated about the unknowability of man and the meaning of his life, the impossibility of uniting his body and spirit, as well as the diversity of meanings, are nothing more than negative inertia and laziness of thought, coupled with the fear of taking upon ourselves the courage to dismiss all this, like from annoying flies, and move forward as far as natural science did in understanding the world and the infinite universe!

Instincts, pleasures, reason

In the living world, one of the fundamental properties of matter is conservation: matter itself is in the process of development (development is the result of the contradictions between movement and preservation), more and more advanced methods have appeared that allow the preservation of both an individual and the species as a whole. The final segment of this process can be roughly represented in the form of a diagram: ... instincts - craving for pleasure - Reason. This scheme is very approximate, for example, it does not take into account the fact that there are no sharp transitions from one method to another and in each specific case they are combined in one proportion or another, but for our purposes it is sufficient. Let's take a closer look at each element of the scheme: Instincts. "Instinct is a hereditary tendency towards a certain behavior or course of action." Instincts are inherited, this is beneficial because a newborn organism already “knows” how to survive, but instincts perform their function only if external conditions remain unchanged (since they are rigidly attached to them), which in reality is impossible, and when external conditions change, it is necessary to change instincts; changing hereditary characteristics is a very long process, so instincts are not enough to survive in a constantly changing Universe: conditions have changed and instincts no longer help, but rather hinder survival, new instincts may not have time to appear. Seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. Pleasure (enjoyment, buzz) is a stimulus that forces a living being to achieve a goal - to survive as an individual and as a species (the processes of reproduction and nutrition bring pleasure). Unlike instincts, which regulate behavior in a certain situation, in this case only the goal to be strived for (preservation through nutrition and reproduction) is determined, and the course of action is not specified. This method is more flexible than instincts: if conditions change, behavior will change and the goal will be achieved. Disadvantage: when the goal is achieved, the desire for pleasure remains, for example, medieval feudal lords at banquets artificially induced vomiting in order to continue eating and drinking, another example, in order to leave offspring, there is no need to have sex weekly, - once a year, for a person, quite enough. Intelligence. The mind, which is able to control instincts and limit itself in pleasures, is devoid of all the above-mentioned shortcomings, but the mind has another shortcoming: the consciousness of a newborn person is pure, and if in the process of upbringing he does not understand that conservation is a fundamental property of matter, and therefore the life of society as a whole and he is personally more important, more valuable than death, he can succumb to some destructive ideas or cults, and become dangerous to life, his own and society.

The world of the future. About the intelligence and irrationality of people. BSN, 10/28/2008

The concept of reason in existing generally accepted ideas is blurred; often everyone defines it as they please, calling “reasonable” whatever they please. For some, “reasonable” may have a connotation of benefit, for others - moralizing, for others - filling their brains with unnecessary knowledge, etc. Here I will try to explain what reason is and why modern humanity and its representatives cannot be called reasonable. In an extremely general sense, the concept of “mind” could be associated with the same anti-entropic factor operating in the Universe; in this sense, “mind” appears as a kind of synonym for the concepts of “consciousness”, “spirit”, etc. Acting rationally, doing internal work, directing efforts towards self-development, a person carries out creative activities, organizes and complicates the surrounding reality, succumbing to external factors, showing frivolity, discarding constructive goals, he himself and his activities fall under the influence of the second law of thermodynamics, and the result is destruction, degradation, chaos his own personality and the surrounding reality on which he influences. However, we need a different, narrower and clearer definition of reason, in a meaning closer to ordinary reality. Let's consider two explanations, with an explanation and identification of the criteria of reason and evidence of the irrationality of humanity in a more popular, everyday sense and in a more strict sense. In a simple, popular sense, intelligence is the ability for meaningful behavior, something that makes it possible to think and understand the essence of occurring phenomena. Reason helps a person to ask himself questions and come to certain conclusions through reflection. Reason helps to distinguish right decisions from wrong ones. Thus, a person who makes decisions based on thought and understanding of the state of affairs will be a reasonable person. However, before making decisions, do people think whether their conclusions, assessments, and actions are based on an understanding of things? Obviously not. They are guided by completely different factors. Stamps, labels, image considerations, imitation of authorities, herd instinct, etc. - this is not a complete list of what, in the vast majority of cases, is replaced by an attempt to think and make a meaningful decision.

However, even the absence of a method would not create a situation of hopeless irrationality if people at least strived to understand things and seek the right answers and solutions. However, people do not have such a desire. In place of reasonable aspirations, people, as a rule, have other, more primitive aspirations. As a result, the situation existing in society is a situation of deliberate mass trampling of reason and mockery of common sense. If a person, guided by a reasonable aspiration, strives to understand what he does not understand, does not undertake to categorically affirm theses of which he is not sure, admits mistakes, etc., a person not guided by a rational aspiration does everything differently - he does not care about anything that he does not understand, this does not prevent him from expressing his own categorical opinions on all issues, he does not admit mistakes and tries to pass off erroneous statements as correct, etc., etc. A person who strives to think, strives to establish the truth, early or later he will be able to overcome both the fact that he does not understand the ways to achieve the truth, and his misunderstanding of certain issues. For a person who does not strive for this, who is trying to look not for the truth, but only for solutions to some utilitarian issues, these problems are insoluble. Among other absurd ideas characteristic of modern civilization, one of the most absurd and harmful is the stereotype about the instrumental role of the mind. According to this stereotype, the mind is some kind of auxiliary means for realizing needs, for solving problems set by a person, based on his desires. That is, this stereotype assumes that the mind, in general, in itself, is not particularly needed, it turns on only when a person sees a certain task (or problem) in front of him and wants to find a solution. Such a harmful idea about the role of the mind is indeed widespread in modern society, it is unanimously repeated by all pseudo-intellectuals, and there is no need to give numerous examples in favor of conforming to this stereotype of human behavior. The falsity and harmfulness of this stereotype, however, is easily seen from the fact that in order to see an approaching problem, or, conversely, a certain opportunity, a person must understand reality to a sufficient extent. Moreover, without understanding reality sufficiently and following only his own unreasonable desires, a person can bring (and constantly does) a lot of harm to himself. Thus, the lack of desire to search for truth and the idea of ​​the instrumental role of reason is the final and decisive proof of the irrationality of humanity.

Criteria of Reason

The rise of man above the world around him gave him a reason to recognize himself as a “Homo sapiens.” But does he have enough reason to call himself that? Yes, his thinking abilities are far superior to those of other living beings on earth. But this assessment of intelligence is relative. Let us imagine that man has not yet appeared on earth. Then, based on the “intellectual” superiority over others, one could recognize the monkey as intelligent. And at some time, dinosaurs, bacteria, and even shotguns could be intelligent. That is why, for an impartial assessment of the mind, objective criteria are needed that would allow one to evaluate the mind and determine the degree of its development. If a person is asked whether a ciliate has intelligence, he will, almost without hesitation, answer in the negative. But if you immediately ask the question: why? - the person will think. And really, why? The ability for abstract thinking can be taken as the main criterion of intelligence. The question then arises, what is meant by abstract thinking? After all, in essence, any thought that is currently divorced from reality is abstract. In particular, any planning of actions for the future is abstract thinking, since in this case it is necessary to conjure up a situation that does not exist in reality at the current moment. But many animals are capable of planning their actions, at least for a short period of time. What, then, is the fundamental difference between Homo sapiens and animals? We will find the answer to the question posed if we pay attention to the fact that all the activity of an animal is subordinate to instincts, and all its thinking is aimed at satisfying them. All animal instincts are related to self-preservation and the preservation of the species as a whole. IN natural conditions the animal is not capable of any actions that would contradict its instincts. It is for this reason that the animal’s actions in each specific situation are predictable, and this is what a person uses when training it.

So, we have found the main difference in the thinking of animals and humans. All thinking of animals is aimed at satisfying their instincts, that is, their thinking is limited. Human thinking is more abstract and is not always connected with natural instincts. In this case, it would seem that the ability to suppress instincts can be taken as the main criterion of intelligence. That is, to evaluate the mind by the degree of its superiority over instincts. In this regard, it would seem that quite reasonable arguments can be made. Let's take two extreme cases. In the first case, a person completely obeys his instincts, in the second, he completely controls them. It is quite obvious that in the first case, a person will be no different from an animal - all his actions will be connected only with his instincts, inherent in nature. In the second case, his mind restrains natural instincts, making more rational decisions in each specific case. Thus, all his actions will be connected not with instincts, but with reason. However, it is not. Firstly, animals are still capable of suppressing their instincts. This is achieved by training them with a person. Secondly, a person can suppress his instincts not under the influence of reason, but for a number of specific reasons. In particular, one of these reasons is the fear of punishment for violating community standards defined by laws. In this regard, the ability to suppress instincts can only characterize the relative intelligence of a person - how much more intelligent he is than animals. And yet, when assessing the mind, one cannot do without some parameter characterizing the degree of influence of the mind on the instincts. In addition, it should be recognized as one of the main ones, but at the same time take into account a number of other parameters related to the rationality of thinking, the objectivity of perception of the world around us, as well as the ability of the mind to control emotions. Considering that the mind of an individual person differs from the mind of mankind, it is necessary to separate them when assessing. In order for the assessment of the mind of each individual person or society as a whole to be objective, it is necessary to create some scale. But to do this, you first need to determine the maximum value of this scale, which must correspond to absolute reason. This meaning can be deduced through the signs of absolute reason. Let us highlight five basic concepts that characterize the signs of intelligence in general:

1. Objectivity of perception of the surrounding world.

2. The degree of suppression of instincts.

3. Rationality of thinking.

5. Control of the mind over emotions.

And now, on the basis of these concepts, we will define the signs of absolute reason. There is no need to prove that the more objectively a subject perceives the world around him, the higher his mind. It is quite obvious that absolute reason must correspond to an absolutely objective perception of the surrounding world. However, one should not confuse two concepts – perception and knowledge. A rational subject may not know any laws according to which the material world develops, but he must clearly distinguish between the known and the unknown. The judgments of a subject possessing absolute reason must be based only on reliable facts and strict evidence. Hypotheses can be put forward based on unknown laws and phenomena of the surrounding world, but absolute reason will never transfer these hypotheses to the category of true theories without compelling reasons. A subject with absolute intelligence is in complete control of his natural instincts. He cannot get rid of them (and there is no need to do so), but he subjugates them to reason. Instincts are laid down by nature based on the conditions of survival of the organism. And therefore, given the isolation of the subjects, they were all useful and in demand. However, in conditions when subjects form communities, most of the instincts come into conflict with their new relationships in society. This is where rational thinking is crucial. To what extent should a subject suppress this or that instinct in a given situation? That is, the subject’s behavior must be adequate to the existing relationships in the community to which he belongs. Here, complete control of the mind over emotions is required. The set of assessments made on the basis of the identified concepts makes it possible to determine the degree of development of the mind. To make it easier to create its scale in the future, let's call absolute reason wisdom. Accordingly, the subject who possesses it will be called a wise subject (in particular, a person - a wise person). So, we have identified the characteristics of the highest intelligence and assigned it the meaning of wisdom. From the previous discussions we can conclude that the subject (the subject in the broadest sense) who has the least intelligence has only instincts. Thus, we take instinctuality as the starting point in the scale of reason.

Following instincts, the ability for irrational thinking appears, that is, a thinking subject appears. Irrational thinking will be the second division in our scale of reason. Irrational thinking is characterized by its complete dependence on instincts. Gradually, the subject becomes more intelligent - he acquires the ability to think rationally. Thus, the third division in the scale of reason will be called rational thinking. In chronological order, the mind scale would look like this:

1. Instinctivity

2. Irrational thinking

3. Rational thinking

4. Wisdom

Now let's try to answer the question, at what point on this scale is the human mind? But, having asked such a question, we suddenly discover that it is impossible to answer it right away, because it is not clear what kind of person we are talking about? The fact is that, due to certain circumstances, the level of intelligence of people is different. In the community of earthlings there are people of all levels on the scale of intelligence we have derived. At the instinctive level there are people with abnormal development (weak-minded, mentally ill). This is a relatively small part of humanity, as a rule, deprived of the opportunity to actively influence society as a whole. At least 20% of the planet's population is at the level of irrational thinking. Who belongs to the category of these people? As already noted, these include people whose thinking is almost completely subordinated to the satisfaction of instincts. Human instincts are no different from the instincts of any animal. Like animals, the basic instinct of man is the instinct of self-preservation. All others are subordinate to this instinct. Among them, one should highlight the instinct that encourages a dominant position in social relations. To achieve this, people with irrational thinking use the entire arsenal of other instincts. Murder, violence, robbery, theft - all these actions are characteristic of all animals at the level of instincts. In the struggle for their existence, they use them without thinking - depending on one or another situation, one or another instinct is simply triggered. At the same time, a thinking person does this consciously. Based on this idea, people with irrational thinking include both individual criminals (murderers, robbers, thieves, swindlers, corrupt officials, etc.) and criminal communities. In addition, this category includes the majority of potential criminals who have not yet committed a crime, but due to the level of their thinking, are ready to do so if the opportunity arises.

A remark needs to be made here. Reason should not be identified with intellect. Intelligence is given to a person by nature, intelligence is acquired in the process of his life. The level of intelligence of healthy people varies slightly, while the level of intelligence varies widely. Representatives underworld, whom I classify as irrationally thinking people, by nature have almost the same intelligence as wise people, but it is realized by satisfying their base instincts. Thus, this category of people is at the lowest stage of development of the mind. In fact, these are animals with high intelligence. At the same time, this is the most active part of people, because they always fight for their own well-being to the detriment of others and do this under the influence of unbridled instincts. Next, we should highlight people who are able to partially suppress their instincts. About 70% of the planet's population can be attributed to this category. These are mostly law-abiding people capable of committing minor offenses. At the same time, at least 80% of them suppress their baser instincts, largely out of fear of punishment. This part is somewhat different in intelligence from irrationally thinking people, but not significantly. They cannot yet be classified as rational thinkers - they are at the stage of transition from irrational to rational thinking. The remaining 20% ​​(from the allocated 70%) are rational thinkers, capable of an objective perception of the world around them and conscious suppression of some of their instincts. The remaining 10% of the planet's population is mainly in the transition stage from rational thinking to wisdom. And only a small part of them can be considered wise people. Here it is appropriate to ask the question: where did all these percentages come from? This is a legitimate question, because it is directly related to the topic. Without an answer to it, all previous arguments are worthless. I would like to note right away that all percentages were not obtained as a result of some statistics or targeted surveys. They were formed as a result of a wide range of personal communication between the author and people and analysis of social relations that manifest themselves in everyday life (that is, one might say, speculatively). For this reason, the division of the people inhabiting our planet according to their intelligence in terms of quantitative ratio can be considered subjective. However, the division itself on the scale of the mind (without quantitative assessment) is objective.

We noted earlier that the mind of an individual individual can differ significantly from the mind of a community. We made sure that the mind modern man can range from the lowest level (instinctiveness) to the highest (wisdom). The mind of the modern community of earthlings has a very specific level. In order to determine this level, let us return to the consideration of the basic concepts that characterize the signs of intelligence. Let's find out to what extent the main signs of intelligence are characteristic of the modern community of earthlings. Let's start by answering the question: “How objectively does humanity perceive the world around it?” Every person in his life at least once asks questions: where did everything come from, how does the world work, what is the soul, what is the meaning of life? At the same time, he turns to the knowledge accumulated by humanity. And here he is faced with complete uncertainty, since there are many different answers to all these questions, often contradicting each other. As a result, a person chooses the answer that is more understandable to him. As a rule, people have great confidence in official science. But at the modern level it does not give clear answers. There are various hypotheses in science, which most people don’t have time to understand. In addition, such concepts as eternity and infinity are perceived as something incomprehensible. That is why most people are closer and more understandable to the mythical statement that the world was created by God. Faith in God generally removes many questions. The thought that everything is from God suppresses the desire to understand the world, since everything can be explained in one phrase: “It was so pleasing to God.” Blind faith is the first sign of ignorance. Belief in the reality of myths created by the ignorant is ignorance squared. Believers always perceive the world biasedly. At the same time, not only those who believe in God should be considered believers. People can believe in anything: in Einstein’s principle of relativity, in the existence of flying saucers, fortune tellers and soothsayers, psychics, ridiculous rumors, etc. The absolute majority of people believe blindly (at least in something). Thus, modern humanity as a whole perceives the world biasedly.

As noted above, most people are guided by their instincts. In general, it is almost impossible to suppress instincts in a person from the outside. Each person can suppress them only consciously. This is an important note because it can explain a lot. In particular, the founders of the idea of ​​​​building a communist society did not take this into account, and therefore its implementation in the USSR was obviously doomed to failure. No repression of Stalin's times could suppress the instincts associated with the desire to satisfy everyone first own needs. The overwhelming number of people, in essence, did not understand the basic principle of communist society, which read: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” They did not understand that “from each according to his ability” meant that a person must demonstrate all his abilities in his work, that is, everyone had to work not to the extent of his desires, but to the extent of his strengths and capabilities. Each person had to consciously bring maximum benefit to society. They also did not understand that “to each according to his need” means a reasonable need that ensures a decent life for every member of society. In the conditions of equality that were envisaged in a communist society, a reassessment of values ​​had to occur. A person should have lost the very desire to stand out among others at the expense of some material costs. The owner of luxury today receives moral self-satisfaction only because it (in their opinion) causes the envy of others. The value of such luxury instantly falls if it is available to everyone without exception. In these conditions, the main values ​​become a person’s mental abilities, his modesty and sociability. Communist society can only be organized in a wise community. At present, humanity is not ready for it, since it is not yet able to suppress its instincts. The overwhelming number of people are generally unable to understand the very idea of ​​​​building a communist society.

Now let’s ask ourselves the question: “How rational is modern humanity”? Rationality should basically be characterized by a minimum of costs with a maximum of the achieved effect. Relations between members of a particular society, actions aimed at creating material values, the very use of these values ​​and natural resources in general can be rational or irrational. Rationality in relations between people must be associated with complete equality and equal responsibility for observing the laws of society. In any modern community, relationships between people are far from rational. Not a single modern country in the world (no matter how democratic it calls itself) has actual equality before the laws, although it is declared in the vast majority of states. In addition, the measure of responsibility before the law is mostly inadequate. From the point of view of rationality, laws should ensure equal rights for every law-abiding person and his protection from people who violate the norms of society. Laws should not provide for punishment for a crime, but a measure of protection, which should be determined based on the danger of the criminal to society. For example, if someone committed murder through negligence, then what is the point of restricting his freedom - he is not dangerous to society. The murder occurred by fatal accident, without any premeditation. In this case, as a measure of responsibility for his negligence, the person must compensate for the damage caused to the relatives of the murdered person. However, contrary to common sense, he may be sent to prison. At the same time, a person who has committed several premeditated murders can be sentenced to 15 years in prison and will be released after 8 years for “exemplary behavior.” At the same time, the interesting thing is that everyone knows (and statistics confirm this): this person is extremely dangerous to society. The overwhelming majority of such people continue their criminal activities, killing innocent citizens. Where is the logic and common sense here? Where is the human mind? When will society understand that punishment is, in essence, a manifestation of animal instinct? This approach is absolutely ineffective, since it has nothing to do with protecting society. This is exactly what pseudo-humanists take advantage of, who oppose toughening the responsibility before the law for people who commit serious crimes. They say, not without reason, that tougher punishment does not lead to a reduction in crime.

From the point of view of rationality, the court should apply not the measure of punishment, but the measure of necessary protection of society. Then everything will fall into place. If a person has repeatedly intentionally committed murder, then he is extremely dangerous to society. For the purpose of self-defense, society has the only option - to permanently isolate the killer from society. Whether he is sentenced to life imprisonment or the death penalty, in any case this will not be a punishment, but a measure of protection. The objections of pseudo-humanists are brushed aside very simply. This may not stop new criminals of this kind from committing atrocities, but those convicted will never commit crimes again. And this will inevitably lead to an overall reduction in crime. To be convinced of this, it is enough to give a (perhaps not entirely correct, but very convincing) example related to the protection of humans from dangerous animals. When killing a mad dog, a person does not think that he is punishing it. He knows that she poses a danger to people, and therefore her murder is regarded as protection. And this measure helps prevent the spread of the disease in people. In the future, when the community of people becomes wise, modern laws will be studied along with Justinian's digests and compared with each other according to the number of absurdities that characterize the level of thinking of people of different eras. The concept of rational behavior is closely related to the rationality of relations between people, because people’s behavior is often regulated by traditions, customs, etiquette and many other conventions. Conventions are, to some extent, unwritten laws that determine human behavior in a given situation. For example, clothing originally served as a means of protection from the cold. Primitive people wore skins only when it got colder. In warm weather they remained naked. However, over time, a convention has emerged that prescribes the wearing of clothing even when there is no need for it. Any person who deviates from this convention is doomed to public condemnation, while from the point of view of rationality a person should dress or be naked only for hygienic reasons. On the beach, for example, clothes are not needed, but on public transport they are simply necessary.

Let's take another example. From a rational point of view, any spoken language is a means of communication. Each word in the language carries a certain semantic load. Initially, words were not divided into bad and good, since assigning a certain meaning to a combination of sounds is conditional. The same concept in different languages ​​is defined by different words, that is, by different combinations of sounds. In addition, the same concept can be expressed in different ways in the same language. We can say about a person that he is very cruel, but we can simply say that he is a despot. We can also say that a person wants to relieve himself, or simply say that he wants to shit. But according to existing convention, the word "shit" is vulgar. This word is not even in the Microsoft Word dictionary. From a rational point of view, such a convention is simply absurd. No matter how sophisticated we become in allegory, the meaning of what was said remains the same. The list of awkward conventions in people's lives is very long. Their multitude has given rise to a whole science related to etiquette. Etiquette prescribes in great detail a person’s behavior when eating, making acquaintances, meeting acquaintances at home, on the street or in another public place, etc. Most rationally thinking people feel the absurdity of conventions. Those who think irrationally also feel this intuitively. Only this can explain the tenderness that the spontaneity of children’s behavior evokes. Children are deprived of all prejudices. Oddly enough, they are more rational than adults. In the future, a wise person will have the spontaneity of a child. Conventions mostly influence the adequacy of behavior. In particular, obeying the requirements of etiquette, a person acts not as he is comfortable, but as etiquette prescribes. Humanity shows blatant irrationality in the use of natural resources. Suffice it to say that about 30 percent of all resources consumed are spent on weapons. That is, not for creation, but for potential destruction and self-destruction. And this despite the fact that humanity knows: the natural resources it wastes are mostly irreplaceable. The use of resources for weapons is directly related to the outbreak of wars. Wars are started by irrationally thinking people, but everyone suffers from them, from instinctive people to wise ones. Only for wars should humanity be denied reason... I do not put an end to it and do not fix the position of modern humanity on the scale of reason. Depending on the level of intelligence of the reader, he himself will determine the place of humanity on it.

2.3. Paradoxes of Man

Zimbuli A.E. Paradoxes, paradoxes...

Dialogue on the tram: "Are you getting off?
- No. - Then let's change.
- Let's. What do you have?"

"Many paradoxes. Few bucks"
(From personal observations of domestic reality)

“Where for a fool there is a dead end, for a wise man there is a fork” (Folk wisdom)

Paradoxes have worried people since ancient times and attracted the attention of sages, humorists, and scoundrels. Perhaps the most laconic paradox is the Liar paradox. It is formulated in just two words: “I’m lying.” This statement turns out to be internally contradictory. After all, by admitting his deceit, a liar ceases to be a liar and tells the truth. Tradition says that the philosopher Diodorus Kronos died of grief, which could not resolve this paradox. And a certain Filit Kossky committed suicide for this reason. I hope you and I will show greater self-control and not rush to conclusions. Moreover, there are still many interesting traps for thought. And most often they are quite harmless, sometimes malicious. Like: “What you haven’t lost, you have. You haven’t lost your horns. That means you have horns.” Another, more recent example: “Have you stopped hitting your old grandmother?” (If you answer “yes,” it means you’ve hit before; if you answer “no,” it means you’re continuing to hit!). Even we, accustomed to all kinds of absurdities and metamorphoses, cannot help but be impressed by paradoxes. What number of grains does the heap start with? After all, one grain clearly does not make a heap. Let's add the second thing - there is no heap yet. Let's add a third - still no! So at what point, adding and adding one grain at a time, will it be possible to say: now we have a bunch of grains? Well indeed. Suppose we, living at the turn of the second and third millennia of the new era, can we clearly say: “now”?

The great master of paradoxes was Tertullian (circa 160-220). “Credo, quia absurdum est” (“I believe because it is absurd”) - this formula conveys one of his most famous theses. Well, it's brilliant! If before Tertullian (and after!) well-wishers tried to justify the faith, support it with knowledge, logical calculations - he did not simply avoid discussion. He desperately turned the discussion to another plane. Not “in spite of”, but “because”! However, we will not deviate from the main line of our reasoning. We are interested in paradoxes not in connection with the relationship between knowledge and faith, and not from the point of view formal logic, but insofar as they are found in moral relationships and assessments. “Pyrrhic victory” (lofty intentions, but disproportionate price and benefit received), “Trampling death upon death” (triumphant words from Christian prayer), “Be right on the wrong path” (advice of Omar Khayyam), “We will destroy the whole world of violence” ( programmatic statement of the communist “International”), “Blinding darkness” (Arthur Koestler, about the same communist world transformation, but in a slightly different socio-historical perspective), “What we protect is what we have” (M. Zhvanetsky - now about real ways of communist construction in our particular country) - this really is: from the great to the ridiculous! ...Paradoxes, paradoxes. And, by the way, these are not exclusively traps for thought - well, very different paradoxes!

Paradoxes of moral perception

The same fact or action will most likely be perceived differently by different people. What one person may see as composure and neatness, another will call tediousness and pedantry. Daydreaming can appear as laziness, frugality as stinginess. I read the following humoresque from A. Matyushkin-Gerke: They demanded a character reference for Donkey from the headquarters. The bear thought and wrote: “Slow-witted and stubborn.” “Don’t do anything stupid,” said the Fox. - Don’t you know that he’s being promoted? - What should I write about him? - Bear was offended. - The same thing, but in different words. - Lisa explained and immediately wrote: “Does not make rash decisions. He is persistent in achieving his goal.” And try it, find fault! On the other hand, there is an ancient Roman saying: “Si duo faciunt idem, non est idem” (“If two do the same thing, it is not the same thing”) (It was expressed by Terence, the great comedian - 190 - 159 BC . e.). Moreover, the local proverb says: “What is permitted to Jupiter is not permitted to a bull” (“Quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi”)7. Of course, this can be called the morality of double standards. But this is reality. Here it makes sense to argue about the admissibility of contrasts, about the need to search for common criteria, but discrepancies will remain. Even when we read the same books, our characters are different. Some people see Kolobok as independent, others as careless, and others as ungrateful. This is both the greatness of literature and the wisdom of life. Very often the perception of one’s own and another’s differs in the most contrasting way. “In work it seems more like one’s own share, but in food it seems like someone else’s.” “The wolf that I never meet may live a thousand years.” Many have noticed that irritation about a crowded street is of a different nature, or rather has a different addressee - depending on whether you are trying to cross the road (let’s say, for completeness, with a stroller), or driving along the same road in a car, trolleybus, tram. And even when the indignation is focused in the same direction, everything is not so simple.

I once happened to be sitting in a room where an angry colleague ran in with the news that in our city some school director was calling boys into his office and making love to them. "Wow, director!" - my neighbor was indignant. "Wow, boys!" - exclaimed another. "Wow, in your office!!" - the third reacted. How right was B. Shaw when he remarked: “There are no people who would remember the same incident in the same way”! There is a Russian proverb about the same thing: “Every Paul has his own truth.” It is no wonder that people who see the situation (or the world as a whole) differently perceive each other as something illogical, paradoxical, sometimes difficult to bear, and even in need of correction. At the same time, one should not overdramatize the situation. After all, what could a hungry cow see, for example, at a football match?! Of course, any of us initially has a much better position than this cow. We are able to listen and think about what others are doing. And even though people’s worlds can be very different, the space of culture unites us all. What is most important here is the attitude towards dialogue. For example, even such a neutral object of perception as the horizon can pit us against each other in an argument. Someone will say: “the horizon is an illusion.” And the other, foaming at the mouth, will prove that “the horizon is something concrete.” But ask one and the other what they understand by the word “horizon”? And it turns out that the first one means the edge of the earth, to which you can move along the surface, but the Earth is round, and therefore we will never reach this “edge”. And his opponent means by horizon a specific line where the earth and the sky meet; from this line it is quite possible to measure the angle at which the Sun rises. And both debaters will be right. The only secret is whether they can take into account the additional version. It is not necessary to immediately take the opponent’s point of view. But from a moral standpoint, to start a dialogue, it is still better if each disputant at least recognizes the opponent’s point of view as a fact. This will lay the foundation, a kind of bridge, to bridge the chasm of misunderstanding. To resolve the paradox. Another thing is that sometimes in negotiations between representatives of different value worlds representatives of the court and the prosecutor's office are forced to act as mediators. After all, one of the most dramatic moral paradoxes is the paradox of tolerance. An infinitely patient, tolerant person is often simply doomed - if he is surrounded by cruel, unprincipled people; and his fate is even worse if, in addition, they skillfully manipulate judgments about liberal values.

Norway reportedly has the strictest anti-nicotine legislation in the world. So what does it mean that the rights of smokers are being violated there? Or: the radio broadcast information that a demonstration in defense of the rights of sexual minorities had taken place in the American capital. Somewhere somewhere, burglars and pickpockets will begin to defend their rights (in favor of such an absurd assumption, it would be quite possible to put forward the thesis about the existence of a psychophysiological predisposition to theft...)! Therefore, it is quite natural that the paradox of tolerance in a legal society is called upon to be countered by the paradox of legal responsibility. In its most radical interpretation, it is that in all societies, for example, murder and theft are clearly recognized as crimes. At the same time, in relation to those who have broken the law - to those, in particular, who have committed murder or theft - the state, as a rule, uses the same (prohibited!) means of influence. Only legalized murder is called execution (if not something like the “highest form of social justice”), and legalized taking away property from citizens is called confiscation (or, as once in the country of the victorious proletariat, “expropriation of the expropriators”). One way or another, freeing himself from the captivity of natural conditioning, a person, one might say, becomes dependent on culture. A law-abiding, honest, conscientious person does not behave with absolute independence. He is tightly tied to internal imperatives. In this sense, good impulses most often occur against the will, at least, regardless of rational choice. It is this circumstance, as is known, that greatly embarrassed Kant. He, in particular, pointed to the “paradoxical requirement to consider oneself as a subject a free noumenon and at the same time - in one’s own empirical consciousness - a phenomenon in relation to nature.” Along with the paradoxes of moral perception (due, as we have seen, to the dissimilarity in the perception of morally significant phenomena by different people - and for the same reason a person may be at odds with himself), we can identify paradoxes of moral relations.

Paradoxes of moral relations

These surprises are generated by the multidimensionality of intersubjective relations. In order to save time and space, we will limit ourselves to only some properties of relations - reflexivity, commutativity, associativity, transitivity. Reflexivity is usually understood as the identity of an object with itself, automorphism: A = A. What kind of equality with oneself can be discussed in relation to moral subjects is a big question. For people - normal, conscientious, law-abiding people, rightly respected by others - throughout their lives are far from self-identical, and every now and then they fall into doubts, yearnings, engage in self-criticism, reconsider their views, and overestimate significant values. L. Wittgenstein even wrote about inanimate objects: “By the way: to say about two objects that they are identical is nonsense, but to say about one object that it is identical to itself is to say nothing at all.” The property of commutativity, symmetry, can be explained by the formula: A + B = B + A or A x B = B x A. At the same time, it is well known that even during the simplest chemical experiments it is far from indifferent which substance is added to which. So, for example, when concentrated sulfuric acid is added to water, a lot of heat is simply released, and a solution of sulfuric acid is obtained. If, on the contrary, you pour water into acid, then chemically educated people guarantee that it will splash, threatening to burn those who naively expect that the displaceable law is universal. And is it really necessary to go to a chemical laboratory, if you can just remember the British, who were not at all indifferent to what they poured into what: tea into milk or milk into tea, or the ancient Greeks, who loved diluted wine, but would never diluted the wine with water, but added wine to the water. If we are talking about the moral sphere, then, obviously, the indicated property of symmetry is quite rare and, by and large, unnecessary. For example, “A has a liking for B.” This does not mean at all that B will have the same feelings for A. Or, knowing that: “where A goes, there goes B,” we have very little reason to assert the opposite: “where B goes, there goes A.” In addition, it would be important to understand what is addition (subtraction) in morality? Everything is quite simple, as long as we are talking about the addition and subtraction of simple mathematical or physical quantities - length, weight, duration of time, etc. But even in operations with temperature, the property of addition does not work: two objects heated to 50 degrees will not produce in total 100. Or - adding up the temperature of three patients, each of whom has a fever of 38.5 degrees, we will not boil the water.

Once we enter the world human relations, the operations of addition and subtraction are subject to particularly increased requirements for meaningfulness. Here it becomes clear: the point is not only that one can operate only with quantities of the same modality. That, for example, there is no more sense in the average salary than in the average temperature of patients. Let’s take the seemingly obvious: “The value of two people is greater than the value of one” - with the clarification that this one being compared is at both poles of comparison (either he was alone, then someone was added to him). And here I remember that Ivan Susanin did not agree with this formula! When we add together different actions or different people, we seem to enter a zone of uncertainty. Someone did us a favor. Thank him very much. And now he does exactly the same thing again. Can anyone guarantee that our reaction will be similar, equally grateful? Not at all! Or: if we know that two people met - scoundrel A and highly respectable person B - what follows from this? Whatever! A and B can get along well without conflict, while remaining in their former qualities. They can enter into confrontation with different options for the outcome, or they can disperse without causing any harm to each other. In physics, we do not hesitate to multiply quantities of different modalities by each other. For example, we multiply the speed by the time and get the path. What and by what can be multiplied in morality? The thought suggests itself that a direct analogy of multiplication in the moral sphere are situations when, for example, a person is required to simultaneously possess more than one moral quality. Or when we evaluate a certain morally significant phenomenon according to more than one parameter at the same time. Perhaps, it is “multiplication” that takes place when we say: “a thief stole a thief’s club,” or when we assume that evil needs to be opposed by force - in the hope: minus for minus gives a plus. Associativity - a permutation - in literal expression can be represented as follows: A + B - C = A - C + B, as well as A x B: C = A: C x B. Obviously, in moral relations this property is manifested even if , then with much less straightforwardness and reliability than in the world of arithmetic quantities.

We humans - with our amorousness and jealousy, touchiness and easygoingness - are not necessarily friends with the friends of our friends and are at enmity with those whom our friends consider enemies. Someone who is looked at with sympathy by a person dear to me will quite likely evoke in me ambivalent feelings: “They are attractive to you - that is why they are pleasant to me.” But here it is very close to jealousy - “Not only me, but They are attractive to you.” It is unlikely, further, that the assessment of two situations will be identical: “A friend got into trouble and betrayed” and “A friend betrayed and got into trouble.” Here, as nowhere else, the order of events is important, since the moral world is made up of processes and phenomena that are predominantly irreversible. It is also important to take into account the vector nature of relationships. If, for example, A has an enemy B, and he, in turn, has an enemy C, then it may well happen that A will not make friends with C, but together with B will take up arms against the latter. And this case will undoubtedly seem like a paradox to anyone who perceives relations not as vectors, but as scalars. The property of transitivity - transfer - occurs when, based on the fact that A > B and B > C, we conclude that A > C. In the world of moral relations, one can never be sure that, for example, respect is transferred in such a direct way. That I will definitely respect someone who is valued by a person significant to me. It’s just very likely that he and I are building our relationship on different foundations. “Who loves the priest, who loves the priest, who loves the priest’s daughter.” If A tells B in confidence that “C is inexpressive,” can you guarantee that he will not say the same about B in a conversation with D (or even with the same C)? Intersubjective relations A > B, B > C, A > C are most often simply atomic relations between A and B; between B and C; between A and C. So if A respects B, then as soon as C appears, it means almost absolutely nothing. Here one can see a manifestation of the paradox of human nature; one can exclaim: “All men are the same!” (or “Every beautiful woman is a potential bitch” - depending on gender and other characteristics). But behind all this you can look for and find something more significant and interesting than banal egoism or libido. Perhaps it is possible to identify another type of moral paradoxes, or, more precisely, another perspective that allows us to build a complete series of moral paradoxes. We are talking about structural paradoxes, or paradoxes of moral assessment.

Paradoxes of moral assessment

They are caused, as we can easily understand, by the informational insufficiency of each of the parameters of moral assessment. Of course, only a moral phenomenon that will be characterized by a full set of positive characteristics corresponding to all parameters of the structure of the act will receive a positive assessment. Now we will only briefly list the simplest possible absurdities. Motive: The most obvious paradox is the good intentions with which the road to hell is paved. Additionally, one can imagine a situation where someone, on the contrary, acting from bad motives, did good. Could Hitler have imagined that, as a response to all his villainous attempts, the Jews of the whole world would be able to recreate their ancestral state, Israel! Goal: Examples here could be goals that are disproportionate to other parameters (“Swing for a ruble, hit for a penny”) or incomprehensible to us, “absurd” goals. I remember an anecdote from the sunset of the Soviet seven decades: A ship with emigrants is sailing across the Atlantic from the USSR to America. And towards him is a ship with those who have already been there and are returning. Seeing an oncoming ship, both passengers, huddled on their decks, show those traveling in the opposite direction a characteristic gesture - they twist their finger at their temple. And weren’t the noblest goals set for seven decades before Soviet people his valiant communist party! However, among the paradoxes of the goal one can also include the well-known observation that during a crossing you should steer, aiming not at the place where you want to land, but just upstream Context: There is such an instructive story. "A small newspaper organized a competition to identify the most decent and benevolent citizen of their city. Among the letters received was the following: I do not smoke, do not drink alcohol, do not play cards, do not chase women, am devoted to my wife, work hard, go to bed late and "I get up at dawn. I have been leading this life for three years now... Will you wait until next spring, when I will be released from prison?" "A scoundrel, but our scoundrel!" - another eloquent illustration of the paradox of context. Tool: As paradoxes associated with the choice of a tool, the usual from the newspapers will do: “Peacekeeping forces for maintaining order” or - a replica of the hero of an American film: “Since childhood, I fiercely hated violence. And I became a police officer to fight it.” The sermon read to the sharks in Melville's Moby Dick looked no less paradoxical.

Now a few thoughts about the next parameter of moral assessment. Efforts: “There will be little use in being exhausted, If you haven’t bothered your Head first,” says Kazakh folk wisdom. Here we can talk about all sorts of empty troubles: “Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas” (“Vanity of vanities, and all kinds of vanity” (Eccl. 1:2)). But among other things, it is not difficult to understand that animals also make efforts to obtain food for themselves, compete, and even go to bed for the night. So the main moral paradox in relation to efforts, apparently, will be efforts that are not inspired by a humanly worthy meaning, a waste of effort, time, and resources. Result: In general, the result may or may not meet expectations, and these expectations may have a positive or negative moral sign. The paradox here will arise, firstly, in case of non-compliance with expectations and goals - regardless of who is disappointed: the righteous, the villain or an outside observer. Another version of the paradox: the discrepancy between the result and the efforts and merits of the subject. The following story is told about the Chinese emperor and a young doctor: The emperor ordered doctors to hang a lantern at their doors whenever a patient died. Many doctors soon had their doors literally covered with lanterns. One day, when the emperor fell ill, the courtiers scattered around the capital in search of the best doctor. Finally, he was found and brought to the emperor. The emperor was surprised at how young this best doctor was. - Is there really only one lantern hanging above your door? - he asked. - Oh yes, Your Majesty. According to your regulations, I had the honor of hanging only one lantern at the door of my office. True, I only opened it yesterday. Attitude: Paradoxes here may be, for example, pride and the other pole - self-abasement. Kant persistently sought ways in which virtuous behavior could be done without emotional reinforcement. And therefore, even if he was ready to allow pleasure from the act he had committed, he sharply condemned the anticipatory pleasure from this act. Perhaps this desire for emotionlessness, the prohibition of looking into the future, is also a kind of paradox, a paradox of Kant’s moral philosophy. At the same time, the biblical “everyone who exalts himself will be humiliated, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:11), which outwardly appears as a paradox, is in fact quite realistic, since it comes from a tacit idea of ​​measure, the golden mean. Here we come across another opportunity to identify a specific type of paradoxes - paradoxes of self-esteem.

Among the paradoxes of self-esteem are self-deprecating characteristics given to themselves by those who can rightfully be canonized. And vice versa - narcissism of a nonentity. Albert Schweitzer famously wrote: “A clear conscience is an invention of the devil.” In general, self-esteem is a very subtle concept. How would you, for example, react to the statement: “I am an intellectual”? Personally, such phrases always confuse me. Causes caution. Reminds me of the Liar paradox. Or the witty statement of one acquaintance (twenty-five years ago this statement was not only witty, but also quite bold): “I am modest - like Lenin.” Probably, driving away self-satisfaction for a normal person capable of moral reflection is quite a realistic matter. But, having driven away complacency, it is already more difficult not to rejoice over this! That is why the thought beats so painfully during moral introspection: “For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not do what I want, but what I hate, I do.[...] I do not do the good that I want, but the evil. I do what I do not want" (Rom. 7:15,19). In addition to the listed simplest paradoxes of moral assessments, one should cite paradoxes, so to speak, mixed, compound - in which a failure in one of the morally significant parameters is combined with failures in another/other parameters. But we will not list these options, due to their large number and relatively low heuristics. Let us pay attention to a more significant perspective of moral paradoxes. Paradoxes as an essential feature of culture There is every reason to talk about moral paradoxes in different spheres of life - politics, religion, art, law, science. Politics is literally all riddled with paradoxes. Glorious, Just, Great Revolutions - don’t they grow into the deepest periods of Stagnation! Brave, principled innovators and radicals - don't they end up in the ranks of consistent conservatives! Those who are the most worthy, honest, and intelligent - do they really strive for professional politics? Galina Starovoitova once remarked: “Politicians need to be changed as often as diapers. And most importantly, for the same reason.” And here another paradox emerges. A question arises (even though you are driving him away with all your might): And Galina Vasilievna herself - to what extent was she able to preserve the pristine purity of a professional called to politics... I would like to hope that she was able to - that she resolved this paradox.

Further. It is amazing but true - “It turns out that out of one hundred former royal favorites, at least ninety-five were hanged.” Napoleon points to this. Centuries separate us from the Napoleonic era, but has anything fundamentally changed? So why don’t we revere the courage and dedication of those who, despite the enormous risk, go into politics?... A paradox? Isn’t it a paradox that the wider the democratic freedoms in a society and the more open it is towards its neighbors, the stronger (objectively) the threat of its destruction by enemies from without and/or various separatists from within? A harmless illustration: the recently formed Humanist Society was faced with a problem - what to do with the attempts of various Trotskyists and other radical public to infiltrate it? Well, and interethnic relations - aren’t they strained by paradoxes! International tendencies that threaten to develop into a non-national politics, patriotism, which now and then flows into nationalism. The pulsation of meaning and absurdity, cordiality and irreconcilable hostility, unification and division - there is no end to them! Individual rights are closely, not to say, intricately intertwined with responsibilities. The most enlightened human rights activist and the most meticulous lawyer will find it difficult to indicate where the border between one and the other lies. “An honorable duty”, “a high duty” - we are not surprised by such phrases, although from the point of view of logic and linguistics these are so-called oxymorons (from the Greek oxumwron - witty-stupid), like “a living corpse”, “wretched luxury” or “ optimistic tragedy." At the same time, there is something for ethicists, psychologists, and linguists to think about. Stylistics experts, when describing an oxymoron, note that as a result of such an unexpected combination, a new semantic unity, concept, or idea is born. That is, such phrases, becoming terms, help in words to designate specific phenomena in the multidimensional world of politics. It would be possible to list and list the paradoxes that we encounter every day, now in religion, now in science, now in art, now in medicine, now in sports (and it would be worth devoting a rather large library to the description of the paradoxes of the everyday sphere! ).

One could specifically dwell on how paradoxical the main moral categories are: “good” and “evil” (at least in that without each other they lose all meaning: “What would your good do if evil did not exist, and how “What would the earth look like if the shadows disappeared from it?” Bulgakovsky’s Woland asked sarcastically), and even earlier Mephistopheles certified himself in the same vein: “A particle of that power, Which, while desiring evil, only creates good”; “sin” (a certain ancient king took the wife of his subject, sent the subject to war, taking care that he would not return from there - the 7th and 6th commandments of Moses were violated - but the name of the child born in this marriage, with respect pronounced by people of different nations: Solomon. As we understand, the ancient king and daddy are David, mother is Bathsheba); “humanism” (say, a prison doctor should provide assistance even to someone sentenced to death)”; “violence” (the sword kills one, saves another); “responsibility” (initiative is often punishable, while the careless are often killed blow; worse, those who are unable to bear responsibility demand that others bear responsibility for them); “help” (what if, for example, a beggar expects help from us? A drug addict, an attacker, a suicide?); “freedom” (freeing oneself from one dependence, we immediately fall - be it voluntarily or unconsciously - into another dependence, say, on conscience); “ours and others” (with her characteristic brilliant humor N. Teffi convincingly showed: “The more people of his own, the more he knows bitter truths about himself and the harder it is for him to live in the world"); "justice" (the more closely people look at the problem of justice, the further they are from solving it); "happiness" (apparently, experiencing this state to no small extent does not depend on the possession of those values ​​for which we so passionately pursue; rather, it is like a Blue Bird running from a hunter, or a Firebird flying when it pleases); “tolerance” (is it acceptable to show tolerance towards intolerance?); “respect” (do we have the right to respect someone who himself does not want to respect anyone?); “egoism” (according to one thoughtful definition, an egoist is a person who cares more about himself than about me).

However, let’s take a moment and try to bring our reasoning about paradoxes to the finish line. Generally speaking, one can notice that paradoxes have a number of properties that are difficult to combine. Some can puzzle and even stun, others can make you laugh or motivate you to action. A paradox can induce communication, and can also cause antipathy. Paradoxes can be life-affirming and sacrilegious, elevating and humiliating a person. They can occur involuntarily, but they can also occur intentionally. In a certain sense, we can say that there are paradoxes of strength and weakness. Revaluations and markdowns. Generosity and arrogance. Paradox-embarrassment and paradox-charade. Fun and mystery. Confusion and breakthrough into new meanings. I would like to think that it is in our will to make sure that one of the distinctive features of a person - the ability to find and comprehend paradoxes - is used by us as constructively as possible, for a deeper understanding of life, for building ever more perfect relationships with ourselves, with others, with the world as a whole.

Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko. Paradox

Jan Krysztof Załuski is the main character. A cripple who has no arms since birth; he has a large head, a pale face “with moving, sharp features and large, penetrating, running eyes.” “The body was very small, the shoulders were narrow, the chest and stomach were not visible under a wide, heavily graying beard.” The legs are “long and thin”, with their help the “phenomenon”, as the accompanying “long-moustached” subject calls him, takes off the cap from his head, combs his beard with a comb, crosses himself and, finally, writes on a white piece of paper “an even, beautiful line”: “Man created for happiness, like a bird for flight.” This phrase really became, as Zaluski calls it, an aphorism, and it was especially common in Soviet times. But this, Zaluski emphasized, is not only an aphorism, but also a “paradox.” “Man is created for happiness, but happiness is not always created for him,” he says later. Korolenko, who has repeatedly shown illnesses and human injuries (up to the story “Without Language,” where the situation of a person in a foreign country gives the concept of muteness a philosophical sound), emphasizes Zaluski’s paradox not only for a more poignant depiction of the relationships between people (the confused arrogance of Doctor Dudarov and the dignity Zalusky) and not for pedagogical purposes, but for the sake of establishing the central idea of ​​all his work: “Life... seems to me to be a manifestation of a general great law, the main main features of which are goodness and happiness. The general law of life is the desire for happiness and its ever wider implementation.” It was Załuski’s congenital misfortune that helped him express this cherished thought of his with particular persuasiveness.

If you made it this far, we give you credit! And we will add that this issue from the standpoint of human science is considered in our article “Paradoxes and the relativity of human life” (see on the page “From the first works”) and in an aphoristic form in the work: “Brief thoughts-paradoxes” (see the site page with same name) /30.07.09/

Russian linguists will be specially trained to work in courts. Maxim Krongauz, head of the linguistic conflictology laboratory at the Higher School of Economics, told RG how to determine whether a phrase flashed on Facebook is ordinary online rudeness or incitement of ethnic hatred.

Provocateurs, Turgenev would say, brethren, are “blooming” on the Internet. They enjoy the duel. Photo: depositphotos.com

Until now, expert linguists for courts have not been specifically trained...

Maxim Krongauz: We are planning courses on this issue. Linguists are often involved in resolving disputes, especially at the pre-trial level. Sometimes the court itself invites an independent expert. And his conclusion, if the judge listens to him, causes a great resonance in society. Especially when it comes to insulting and inciting ethnic hatred. It is obvious that it is time to teach competent forensic examination.

Don’t you think that it’s easy to shift the responsibility for making decisions to a linguist?

Maxim Krongauz: Yes, this worries me, so I immediately make a reservation: an examination, say, in ballistics and a linguistic examination are still different in accuracy.

Is the latter more subjective?

Maxim Krongauz: We are dealing with different instruments: physical laws are one thing, laws of language and communication are another. It is clear that language itself is a less clear and orderly system. Therefore, there may be some subjectivity. For example, I object to considering so-called hidden, implicit meanings as some kind of evidence. And some experts use them quite actively. But then a person can be accused of not saying that he meant something. This is a very dangerous path. We are not able to penetrate the brain, but only analyze the text.

What principles is a linguistic conclusion based on, and what does the specialist look at? How can you tell if there was a crime in the story about the “pink blouse”?

Maxim Krongauz: You need to look for signs of so-called negative information. For example, compare the phrases: “Russia for the Russians” and “Beat... (indicating a certain nation), save Russia.” In the second case, everything is obvious: there is a call for violence, even if it was not shouted out in a specific fight, but only as a slogan. Still an article! But with the phrase “Russia for Russians” it’s more complicated. There is still no consensus among lawyers and linguists whether there is incitement here or not.

And from your point of view?

Maxim Krongauz: Although I do not agree with this statement in its meaning, but, analyzing this phrase linguistically, I can say: there is no call for violence or incitement of interethnic hatred. But if you look hidden meanings, to reason approximately like this: if Russia is only for Russians, then, that means, for no other nations, a variety of conclusions can be drawn. This is a direct path to using analytical expertise as a tool to settle scores with political opponents, which seems dangerous to me.

Now is the time of such conflict that philologists are already forced to study conflicts?

Maxim Krongauz: Times are normal, but the situation has changed fundamentally: the conflict can be studied. After all, we are not interested in those squabbles when the neighbors had a fight in the kitchen, then made up, the incident is over. With the advent of the Internet, both abuse and disputes are recorded, they can be analyzed, go to a social network and see that the quarrel has not disappeared, it is acquiring new characters, provocateurs, winners... This is absolutely new area for studying. That is why we are now competing on equal terms with scientists from other countries.

But couldn’t conflicts be studied from diaries and letters? Say, according to the correspondence surrounding the quarrel between Tolstoy and Turgenev?

Maxim Krongauz: Sometimes in the archives there is a letter that begins tension between people, but there is no answer. It is very difficult to build the architecture of a conflict in this way if its fragments are available. Another thing is the Internet. An important role is played by communicative provocateurs; in the times of Turgenev and Tolstoy they would have been called bretters. These are people who enjoy a duel. In this case, verbal.

Maxim Krongauz: The troll is determined to destroy communication, he does not present arguments, he simply prevents people from talking. Photo: Olesya Kurpyaeva / RG

Are they called trolls now?

Maxim Krongauz: No, the troll is determined to destroy communication altogether. This is also an important role in conflict communication. He doesn't make any arguments, he just stops people from talking. As for Internet conflicts, this phenomenon has become so widespread that various online names have appeared for it: “holivar” (from the English “holy war”), “flame” (from the English “flash”), more rude Russians words...

What are the characteristics of such verbal skirmishes?

Maxim Krongauz: Logic and argumentation are often not essential in dialogue. You can’t convince anyone of anything, what’s important is the so-called positioning of your point of view and that’s all. And if there is an argument, it will be with a personal touch, say, about the opponent’s linguistic abilities. This is what grammar nazis do, Internet personalities with a pedantic attitude towards literacy issues. So, in the process of a quarrel, they cling to the simplest grammatical errors, thereby humiliating the interlocutor and discrediting him as an arguer.

Judging by the undying debate “in Ukraine - in Ukraine,” politics is quite capable of provoking a language conflict...

Maxim Krongauz: Interstate linguistic battles are common. Especially when it comes to the names of states: Moldova - Moldova, Belarus - Belarus...

The word "Belarus" came to us from the Belarusian language. Should we listen to the argument that Russian is the state language in Belarus?

Maxim Krongauz: I think they should.

But in the Russian language there is no connecting vowel “a”, I always make a mistake when I write “Belarus”...

Maxim Krongauz: I said, "We have to listen." But what does it mean to “listen”? From my point of view, this means recognizing that on the territory of Belarus the Russian language is different from the Russian language on the territory of Russia. And this applies not only to the country where the Russian state. In Ukraine they say “in Ukraine”. And this is already a fact. There is hardly any need to enter into a linguistic conflict with the Ukrainians. People living in another country have the right to use words in Russian speech that are not used in Russia.

Agree, the names of countries should be written uniformly on maps and in laws. There can be no political correctness here.

Maxim Krongauz: Yes, but it does not depend on linguists. We can only advise, but the decision on how to write this or that name of a country or city is made at the government level. Moreover, a certain norm is fixed, not always consistent. For example, the name of the capital of Estonia, Tallinn, has always been written in Russian with one N, but in Latin - with two. The Estonians asked to write in Russian with two. At some point we did this, but then we returned to traditional spelling. And these throwings led to confusion and variability.

Belarus and Moldova, then, is it wrong?

Maxim Krongauz: Not everything is simple here. In August 1995, Russia officially decided that these countries should be called the “Republic of Belarus” and the “Republic of Moldova.” Short form: "Belarus" and "Moldova". But in 2001, the All-Russian Classifier of Countries of the World appeared, from which it follows that “Republic of Belarus” and “Belarus” are correct.

Moreover, the following is added to this confusion: we still call the language Belarusian and Moldovan, and the population of these countries are “Belarusians” and “Moldavians”, respectively. This is a paradox: the name of the country begins to enter into a strange relationship with the name of the nation and language.

Dossier "RG"

As part of the court case "Aroyan v. Kirkorov", the so-called "pink blouse" case, a linguistic study was carried out at the initiative of the pop star's lawyers. The expert's conclusion is that a word similar to the word "star" uttered by Kirkorov was just a "background obscenity." But the court refused to give the conclusion the status of an official linguistic examination, and it did not affect the verdict. On August 11, 2004, the Rostov-on-Don Magistrate Court found Kirkorov guilty under Part 2 of Article 130 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (insult in a public place) and imposed a fine of 60,000 rubles to be paid to the state.

People love to observe language and discuss it, but more often in the “how bad it is!” mode. Once a week, or maybe a month, I come across people on social networks shouting “They would kill me!” and a list of words and expressions that are punishable by painful execution.

As a linguist, it is obvious to me that everything is not only not bad, but simply wonderful and extremely interesting, although I cannot help but admit that the Russian language is putting some kind of difficult experiment on us.

Mid August. The battle, or rather the battle of two rappers, Oxxxymiron with Gnoiny, has certainly become a fact of mass culture, as evidenced not only by the number of views - about 13 million in two days, but also by the heated discussion of the battle itself on social networks and all kinds of media. The language immediately responded to this, adding a few words from the rappers' slang. In addition to battle, it is also “punch” with “punchline”, “diss” with the verb “dissit”, maybe “flow”. Will these words remain in the language, or is it just a brief squeak of fashion? Let's see, this largely depends on the sustainability of interest in rap among the broad masses. But not even a step, but a leap in this direction has been made. Of course, there is no talk of a general transition to the language of rap, although such a subconscious expectation, and perhaps even a desire, for a linguistic catastrophe is present in the public consciousness.

I once wrote about three lexical waves that covered the Russian language in the 90s: gangster, glamorous and professional. Now there are no waves, rather ripples, but each new group of words and even an individual word corresponds to a certain phenomenon or trend in culture, in everyday life, in politics. For example, in youth slang, which is most sensitive to everything new and fashionable, the borrowings “hate” and “hater” appeared. Why? Hatred has become a very important social phenomenon with a diverse set of functions: from self-identification to cult building. People unite out of hatred for someone and thereby actually create a cult of him. This is what happened with US President Trump, whose every step is viewed through a magnifying glass. Trump haters will not let us pass by his awkward statement or movement.

Or another example. How many new names have appeared to designate people who fall outside of reality and are interested not in the mainstream, but, for example, in study or science: “nerd”, “freak”, “geek”, “nerd” and even, pardon the expression, “nerd”. This is also no coincidence. Those outside the mainstream have ceased to be outcasts and have established themselves as an important social phenomenon.

There is no shame in being a loser, and if the opportunity arises, you can be proud of this as a principled position.

It’s easy to explain the fashion of a word, but it’s almost impossible to guess it. Another youth word - “hype” - hit some very important public nerve and blew up the communication space. Words similar in meaning to it were popular, but, of course, not so popular. Here, for example, is “movement”. Sometimes they talk about some special sound aura of a word. I honestly don't believe in the magic of sound, but the brevity of the word certainly contributes to its success. Sometimes random overlaps, a kind of echo with other words, are important. In this case, I'm referring to the old expression "raise a high", where "high" randomly means something similar - "noise that attracts attention."

But still, not only youth slang replenishes the general vocabulary. Professional vocabulary also changes all the time, and some words suddenly become known not only to a narrow circle of specialists. Here, for example, are words associated with new forms of organizing activities, attracting finance, etc.: “coworking”, “networking”, “crowdfunding”, “crowdsourcing”, “outsourcing”, “outstaffing”... Some of them It’s even difficult to pronounce, but they still take root both in professional language and in a wider space. Interestingly, this vocabulary can serve as a kind of password or pass. If you say “personnel officer” and not “HR”, it means you’re one of those former people, and we won’t get along with you!

Linguists are often asked about the difference between male and female speech. For Russian communication, the opposition between masculine and feminine is not so typical, especially if we are talking about vocabulary. There are, say, certain phonetic differences, although they are not absolute. So, women are more likely to draw out vowels (“miiiily”), and men draw out consonants (“sssvoloch”). There were once certain prohibitions in the vocabulary for women to swear, but they have long been successfully overcome. In general, language and culture are now moving in the direction of mixing genders, rather than differentiating them. The change in the use of sexual language, which has always been gender-oriented, is very interesting.

Today, a woman can easily say to herself rudely and “like a man,” “I’m sticking out from him” or “I would cheat,” but about a man, on the contrary, “He gave it to me.”

Probably the eternal question: what should we call professional women? And here there is a constant discrepancy between theory and practice. Feminists insist that every name of a profession or type of activity should have a female analogue, a feminine: if “weightlifter”, then there should be “weightlifter”, if a broker or dealer, then... This is where the glitch occurs. Professionals do not need a gender designation. A female leader would prefer to be called “chief” rather than “chief”, “boss” rather than... Here even fantasy stops working. It is unlikely that a female financial analyst would want to become an “analyst”... How can one not recall Marina Tsvetaeva, who categorically did not want to be a “poet” and insisted on the word “poet”.

And it's all about him:

Maxim Krongauz, professor, head of the laboratory of linguistic conflictology at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, head of the department of Russian language at the Russian State University for the Humanities, author of the books "The Russian Language on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" and "Albanian Self-Teacher"

Maxim Krongauz. Professor, Head of the Laboratory of Linguistic Conflictology at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Head of the Department of Russian Language at the Russian State University for the Humanities, author of the books “The Russian Language on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” and “Albanian Self-Teacher”.

Photo: Getty Images, press service archives

“Pravmir” continues the “Imaginary Ill” column, in which the country’s leading linguists reassure those who fear for the future of the Russian language. Today our questions are answered Maxim Krongauz. In an interview with Ksenia Turkova, he talked about his new book, what can destroy stereotypes and what readers expect from real scientists.

At the Non/fiction book fair, you will be presenting your new book “Word for Word” and are planning an open discussion with colleagues about the right of a scientist to - quote - “to speak outside the strict scientific framework.” Is this right really worth defending? Is anyone against scientists speaking out like this?

The scientists themselves are against it. Although attitudes towards scientists speaking not only to colleagues but also to society have changed over the past decade, the problem remains. Can a scientist afford to make lax statements that are not always supported by evidence?

Is it possible and necessary to discuss problems that cannot be formulated in scientific language at all?

The fact is that going beyond the usual scientific language is fraught with the loss of the reputation of a “real” scientist.

- Is it a loss among the scientists themselves or among the people to whom the scientist “comes out” in this way?

Loss of reputation among one’s own people, but partly also among society. There are stereotypical ideas about a scientist. The speech of a scientist should be incomprehensible, this is its value. And if a scientist speaks clearly, then he raises doubts. With linguists the situation is even worse. A linguistic professor must be a purist, a linguistic conservative, monitor the literacy of his interlocutor - in general, be an arrogant bore. If he is not like that, then it is suspicious.

In this case, almost all linguists who speak publicly are suspicious. By the way, even if a scientist is an arrogant bore, the average person doesn’t like it either. Because in this case (according to my observations) he says: “These scientists are of no use, they are engaged in some kind of nonsense that no one understands.”

But you shouldn’t like him, this is another stereotype. But in recent years, these stereotypes have been slightly destroyed. A number of cheerful, cheerful scientists appeared, clearly talking about various interesting problems. With the help of Dmitry Borisovich Zimin, they began to be called educators, which also destroys stereotypes. It seemed that educators were not from our lives.

- Your new book, does it also destroy stereotypes?

This is an experiment because it combines the incompatible. One part is scientific articles on linguistics. The other is an essay on all sorts of topics, from national character to reading books to children.

The third is a review of books that are important to me and, it seems to me, to the development of thought. It’s hard for me to imagine a reader who would be interested in everything, but I hope that one exists.

Perhaps my fellow linguists will be interested in my non-rigorous reasoning on various topics. Perhaps it will be interesting for non-specialists to look at my scientific research, although this will require special intellectual effort.

You mentioned problems that cannot be formulated in scientific language at all. What are these problems? Do you touch on them in the new book?

A scientist is always limited in his statements both substantively and stylistically. You can't say something you believe but can't prove. Therefore, the scientist speaks slowly, presenting arguments and evidence, carefully and thoroughly, often obtaining obvious results.

The subject matter is also limited. It is advisable to talk about specific things, strictly and formally. The development of thought, including scientific thought, requires speed, scale and courage. Therefore, deep thoughts are found more often in a non-scientific, non-rigorous form.

Non-scientific or not entirely scientific reasoning allows you to look at science from the outside, and this is very important. And, finally, traditionally, a scientific statement should strive for objectivity, and sometimes in understanding the world, in putting forward hypotheses, one needs (and wants!) to be subjective.

- Can you give an example of a problem that is difficult to talk about only in scientific language?

Well, for example, when I talk about the problems of popularizing science or something similar to the topic of our conversation. Is this important for science itself? I think it's important. Can this conversation be considered scientific? Absolutely not.

One of my articles entitled “Linguistics and Fiction” is largely about this. And it is very subjective.

Talking about reading texts with children also cannot be considered scientific. But in the article “On the benefits of babbling together,” I try, albeit informally, to express some very important thoughts about the acquisition of texts and language.

By the way, this is why I believe that I am not engaged in “scientific science”, but in something else. These free discussions are no less valuable to me than scientific ones. In fact, the idea for the book grew from this. This is all one and the same me, and not different, unrelated hypostases.

Photo from Maxim Krongauz’s Facebook page

Yes, anyone. But only this reader should be interested in the development of thought in different areas and in different ways. Another incentive was the rare, but still occurring, reader’s assessment of my books addressed to non-specialists. “It’s funny, but it’s not very scientific, I already knew all this.” Are you, dear reader, lacking in science? So, catch her quickly!

Can we say that the time of books about “how to do it correctly” is gradually passing and some more meaningful things are coming to the fore: conversations about language, about its development?

Don't think. The audience is too diverse. There are readers who are interested, or rather, important, as it should be. And there are readers who are interested and important about how to eat. I'm writing about the second one.

- But will the blessed times come when people finally figure out everything about coffee and getting dressed?

Of course they won't. Language is also a way of establishing social hierarchy. Knowing the norm of a person elevates. This is why changing the norm is perceived so painfully. Another thing is that people know, as a rule, 5-7 such canonical examples, and in other cases they violate the norm without any remorse.

For example, putting an emphasis on the root in the word “calls” is considered by many to be absolutely unacceptable, but in the word “turns on” - there’s nothing wrong with it. And why? Why did “ringing” become such a reference example? No answer.

It seems to me that knowledge of certain words that make it possible to classify a person as “one of our own” also “elevates”.

This is a slightly different mechanism. In this case, there is not necessarily a vertical hierarchy. Language helps not only to rise (sometimes illusory) above others, but also to unite with socially close ones. And vice versa - to identify strangers.

November 22 was Dictionary Day. In Russia, do native speakers generally understand what a dictionary is, what they eat it with, and which dictionary should they look into to find out this or that norm?

In Russia they know not only dictionaries, but also great lexicographers: Dahl, Ushakov, Ozhegov. This, however, does not mean that they know how to use dictionaries. The most popular dictionary, naturally, is the spelling dictionary, which answers the most popular question: “What is the correct way?” Young people almost never use paper dictionaries. But in general, answering the question about all of Russia is difficult and completely unscientific. There is no data, but only superficial impressions. And the main stereotype: “Young people today are not the same. We weren't like that."

- Is she really not like that? Can we say that subsequent generations speak worse than previous ones?

Young people are most likely not much different, but the conditions of communication are completely different and require different skills. Literacy in the narrow sense is not valued as much as it was in Soviet times. Mistakes are not a shame, which allows you to write without thinking too much about spelling and punctuation. Communication is more important; few people double-check what they write.

You say that people use paper dictionaries little, but at the same time on social networks you can often find snorting at electronic dictionaries. People who don’t understand that this is just digitized data write: “What does this Gramota.ru allow itself to do! There are only illiterate people working there, I wouldn’t give them a penny of money!”

Digitized paper dictionaries are still not electronic dictionaries. I think that we do not yet have real electronic dictionaries, although we are moving towards this. Look at the sites associated with the Oxford Dictionary, and you will understand what opportunities the Internet provides for the development of electronic lexicography. And the inadequate reaction to a digitized dictionary on the Internet just means that people have become unaccustomed to ordinary dictionaries and do not recognize them in a new form. And it’s worse because everything new is worse than the old. "Nowadays..."

What do people want more: to be allowed options (this is possible, or this is possible) or to be left with no choice?

Who will sort them out, people? I think a lot of people want order (read: no choice) on paper. The linguist is required to have a clear answer to the main question: “So-and-so is correct.” But in speech practice it’s the other way around: we speak as we speak, and let the linguist do his work, preserve the norm, and not study the speech of honest citizens. It's just like in life. People want ideal laws, but are not very keen to comply with them.

What words would you use to reassure those who think that the Russian language is dying? By the way, maybe there are some calming texts in the new book?

And I probably wouldn’t try to reassure him. I spent fifteen years calming down, I’m tired. And I would prefer to consider the texts in the new book not as a sedative medicine, but as a stimulating one (for example, a thought). Can the titles “Love in Russian”, “Like a felt boot” or “Difficult to educate” reassure anyone?