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Introduction. A search for Truth against “Freedom in Pluralism”

One of the must important, if not major, indications of this crisis in our society is the large deficiency of ideas, the absence of a positive, moral basis for human activity. But the actual recognition of the situation is still for from desirable though the statement about the crisis of ideas has already become the common point in the analises. There exists a wide-spread opinion or, to be more exact, a whole theory according to which there is no need for general ideas at all — it just suffices not to impose any restrictions on the personal activity of a human being in order to reach the best and to make the quickest progress in society.

To prevent the most obvious negative consequences of such a freedom (e.g. criminal terror) society should just establish some common Rules of the Game (e.g. Convention, Law, etc.) so that a person who does not violate these rules remains in a sense «absolutely free».
The above view on the best order in society seems to us, at least very aestricted and defective, first of all because in such society the notion about human beings being separate, mutually distant and «bounded in their own thoughts», as well as collaborating with each other only through the prism of egoistical interests is regarded as normal and even natural. Moreover, in the conditions where there is a lack of ideas people become more and more like that mentioned above, and in this case the dangerous, egoistical intentions of some particular individuals become more easily fulfilled because they require less spiritual efforts from a person as a social individual). That means that these egoistical interests and the people who share them might establish a set of rules which could become an external norm for the whole society — the norm to be egoistic and separate from each other and to play according to the Rules which define the minimal necessary measure of such a alienation. This minimal measure of alienation is required to provide the successful functioning of society, so that the people who are well-fitted to these conditions might lead their own private affairs (which, of course, may be useful for each and all (?) since there is no other affairs which can be realized in this set of rules). The freedom of an individual practically furus into the freedom to choose some particular business to be an egoist; and «the quickest social progress» mentioned above is just the quickest «progress into sin», i.e. to that situation then the norm of personal alienation and the set of Rules appealing to human egoism become general and commonly accepted.
The initial mistake of this «pluralistic» theory of social order lies, on our opinion, in the initial «concession to weakness» — i.e. in the initial refusal to accept the existence of the Universal Truth which might unite people or, at least, accept peoples ability to realize this Universal Truth and to use it in their practical activity (at any rate — consciously). To see the role of God (or, to be more exact, the notion about God), please, refer to «The review of the most noticeable mistakes».
One might doubt the relevance of the term «The Universal Truth» as well as the existence of such idea. We are not going to discuss all the «pros» and «cons» in this case. Anyway, as it was shown in History, from personal and world experience and from the activity of any individual — of a religious saint or a quite «atheistic» scientist, social leader or whoever else he could be — the more a man is convinced in the existence of some universal idea or universal truth which a man embodies in one’s activity the more successfully and effectively influences other people’s life. To our way of thinking, the essence of a man is basically determined by the exten degree to which a man has recognized and accepted this Universal Idea as well as by his commitment to reveal and embody this idea in his life.
One important and dangerous tempting question should noted here: «Who can decide what is the truth?» On this occasion we should mention the following: of course, there cannot be a person or a group of people that may have the monopoly on truth. Every man has a freedom in his self-determination towards the truth.
Straight on to the question of «Who can decide?» we can only answer: «The truth decides on it itself» (?) «The truth makes decisions itself». For a religious man — it is God, for a scientist — the Reason or the Nature, for an artist, painter (?) — the The Beauty or sensation, for a fatalist — The Fate and for the educated fatalist — The History. No doubt this distinction is very often conditional and requires thorough personal consideration with any particular individual to answer the question «What underlies his attitude?» whoever he could regard himself to be or whatever words he could use.
The positive conclusion from what we have said above may be the following: the Truth reveals itself to people ingaged in their particular business in the forms of the definite ideas (these ideas have a limited field of application since the people’s ability to perceive them is also limited. These ideas Unite people for their Deeds — There is no difference whether it is the cognition, the spiritual or practical creative work — for us it is not important. We would like to note that the ideas do unite people (not in a fictions or hypothetical way) but to the extent of their applicability. The Search and Development of such unifying ideas is the Deed itself which is difficult and important work.
The more society or each individual recognizes the necessity of this work the more this society and each person are Responsible (i.e. the are actually cultural) and the more social (including governmental) structures are prepared to develop and support those ideas and, consequently, the better this society is organized. The criterion of the best organized society is not the principle of «the least possible limitation» (although as time goes on and with the growing of people’s responsibility and standards of culture this will also come true… — see also «The Humanism and the Power») but the possibility to work «as well as you can» with the biggest possible Freely Recognized Consent. The intention to avoid this work on developing and recognizing these ideas or, at least, the underrating of its importance, very often underlies the phrase: «Let everyone do what he wants». Quite often the reluctance to discuss general ideas disguises the infirmity and doubt fulness of one’s creative reasons and therefore the impossibility to submit them to public consideration. The phrase: «Let everyone be as free as I am» (i.e. in this context to be «free from Universal Ideas») may imply that it is profitable for the speaker to separate people, since as long as they are alienated from him they cannot notice his inferior business.
That is why this text is first of all a suggestion for all people to work and cooperate with this task.

Some features of Ethic Humanism.

There were many social movements in the history which were or less humanistic. Their common feature was that they paid much attention to a human personality. The human personality because the major value and the main test for all the processes on every level and scale: from the personal to the state and global levels. For this reason humanism cannot be determined by the external phenomena which are external to humanity no matter whether it is economics, politics and, for example, or technology. On the contrary, only through approaching the interests of a human being, the understanding of its needs can we further relate this knowledge to all the phenomena and processes which take place in the world and then use it as a criterion for the «Good» and «Evil».
We accept and share completely this humanistic approach to human personality as a prime value. At the same time we realize that «human interests» are quite vague and a conditional notion; i.e. the notion about personal interests varies widely and often is distorted (e.g.: the imposing of some ideas by means of mass communication) and that the measure of adequacy in the understanding of people’s interests may be different. Sometimes it led to crisises of social movements even when they were firmly based on the humanistic ideas. Which is why it seems to us very important to connect the humanism with all the experience of Good and Evil and moral norms acquired and developed by the mankind. «What is moral is humanistic» — so we can shortly express the principle of this connection (It seems relevant to call such humanism which is aimed primarily on the moral side of a man as Ethic humanism). Under ethic here we understand that these very norms of behavior and notions about Good and Evil which are deep inside every human being and here we are also talking about that moral Law, the cognition of which is, in a sense, the general task of all humanity and each person. Moreover we presume some Universality and Unity of this Law and of this Ethic contrasted to the variety of particular ethics (?) in a more narrow sense of just rules of behavior according to which a person acts in one or another situation. According to many relatively separate ethics, for example, the ethic of a scientist, the ethic of an owner of a business or even the ethic of a killer. But we are interested only in that common which unites people and makes them humans.
A country, or may be the whole world: some remarks on social and biological minimum.
At the present time Russia has no advanced and well recognized world outlook (firmed, in particular, in the state politics too), which could be called predominant in that wise sense that the majority would consider it as uncontradictory, unifying and which is close in one or another way to their own will recognized and intuitive views. This absence of the completed General motive idea (or of a number of such ideas) is coupled with a high level of political and economical instability; all that leads to the noticeable crisis of personality, to its moral social and economical degradation. The process of declassation, the wash-out and destruction of different social groups and stratas is not, in our opinion, a definitely negative phenomenon. Among its positive consequences may be the elimination of many false myths, many social stereotypes and behavioristic codes which earlier served as a substitute to a certain extent for the real perception of the world and the active open thinking. Thus a man gets rid of some social role (which, of course, can be even profitable to him) imposed on him by «stable society» and thus actually faces the necessity to search for Truth. Here we mean to say to seek for such Truth of life according to which or, may be, serving to which a man could build all his further existence. However at least two obstacles remain on the way of this process. First, as we have already noted (see «The introduction»), the freedom without Idea leads to the triumph of some Rules of the Game which very often are being determined by morally irresponsible people, lacking both principles and ideas, and who on that basis (?ground) are the most prosperous according to these set of Rules. The rigidity of these rules, of this new absence of freedom is so high that the question of physical and biological survival very often arises for a man (at least in the former Soviet Union). In fact, having «forcibly» liberated a man from his determined social role, illusions, stereotypes and behavioristic codes connected with this role then society «forcible» imposes another social role which can be even more alien to him, to his notions about Good and Evil and to his human essence. All this rigidity of the conditions combined with the mass communication which is devoid of principles and the immorality of mass culture, urges on a man to his moral degradation and makes him reconcile with Falsehood (lie ?), choose this Falsehood as the man who has committed sin, who has degradated and become a slave in his soul (and consequently in his life too) i.e. stuck in even more inferior and ugly stereotypes, can be more easily handled; so to say it is easier to get from such a person some advantage giving him much lecs. Then a man is becoming more and more an abject at compulsion and all these talks about «freedom of choice» simply disguises the compulsion for almost all people and gives a possibility «to wash one’s hands of it» for those who get maximum profit from that freedom. (Also in some restricted sense: who, that is most preoccupied with one’s idea is less and less happy: he is also getting more and more enslaved).
From that said above it seems important to conclude the following: it is necessary to introduce the notion about social and biological minimum which should be accessible for every man — both in our country and in the whole world. This minimum is necessary not simply for the physical survival of an individual but in order that he can be regarded as a human being who possesses a freedom of choice. Of course, the limit after which the notions about Good and Evil becomes totally ousted by the questions of personal survival may be different. In principle, the more standards of the culture of a nation, the more difficult conditions this nation can outlive without degradation in spiritual values. But for society as a whole the notion about this limit must exist. And, correspondingly, the work on the keeping of all people above this limit is obligatory.
It should be noted that we have to do this work not only with the view to make our society controllable — for example, it is sometimes possible or even convenient to govern the slaves or social robots under the limit of their personal spiritual survival. This work is needed so that this society could actually be the society of people who possess a freedom of choice. Therefore the social, spiritual norms and, in particular, the requirement for the quality of the education and information which is available should be included in the notion of this limit side by side with the physical and biological norms, there we are talking not only about formal reliability of the information but, in the first place, about its content and its moral responsibility. We cannot turn the notion into a mass of immoral consumers who nearly could not think — or how could we talk about freedom of choice for those kinds of beings? Therefore there exists the necessity of censorhip over mass communication. It can be realized, for instance, in the form of maximum comprehensive referendums and apparently by the inquest among the most intelligent, competent and authoritative people as an accumulator of knowledge and moral experience of the humanity. The concrete forms will be found out in the process of practice, we would only like to note just one point: these referendums or other forms of dialog should have a status of effective resolutions. We cannot permit them to be reduced to some commercial mechanisms for the world is not merely a market and the relationships between people are not simply an advertisement, sale and purchase so that it is at least intolerable simplification to measure its content by money or may be, by time spent watching TV. (About the question of social mechanisms in general — see «A humanistic synthesis» and «The notes about mistakes»).

About the split of social ideal in modern Russia.

Besides the problem of social and biological survival, i.e. the problem of the imposed dictatorship of external forcible conditions, there exists some other internal causes which hampers man to approach the whole truth. The degree of sinfulness and vagueness of our world outlook and, correspondingly, the measure of falsehood and stereotypes that already exist and by which some people disguise the necessity for the solution of the problems out of cowardliness or greediness is so high that a man very often lacks forces and determination «to endure till the end» even if he sineerely wants to reach the truth, and therefore his choice and reasoning are getting (?) fixed in some particular incomplete and lacking harmony half-truths.
The characteristic feature of a half-truth which differs them from the actually complete and harmonical point of view is its particularity, some incompleteness, non-harmony and, as a consequence, it reveals itself to the world not only by virtue of its content, i.e. its meaning and unifying beauty (the beauty will save the world as F.Dostoevsky once told), not by internal revealing itself but considerably by virtue of opposing itself to other particular incomplete half-truths.
In the political thinking of modern of Russia there are three such noticeable incomplete, underrefined (?) and underdeveloped positions to which, as for the «relatively stable poles», draws mass conscience (?) in our county. There are the positions of the Democrates, the Communists and Russian nationalist (speaking more generally — Russian patriots and «the pochvenniks»). The Patter movement is in special, not always opposite attitude (?) towards the Democrates and the Communists.
The essential point of the democratic position is that for a long time the majority of our country was practically devoid of the human rights in, for example, economics and politics and all that bureaucratic system, very often stupid and useless hampered normal creative development of people and therefor its revivification is extremely undesirable.
The essential point of the communist position is that the relationships of sale and purchase among people are not normal and that capitalism and market dictate their rules of the Game forcing people towards egoism and personal moral degradation and that the dictarship of the «state whip» from which it would not be so difficult to escape changed into the dictatorship of personal poverty and provocation of «freely chosen sale of oneself» — a sin from which it is much more difficult to protect the inmost part of human soul.
And, at last, about the position of the nationalists. We are not going to discuss the nationalism of the nations in the former Soviet Union which opposes one nation to others. We would like only to speak about Russian nationalism itself. The essential point of this nationalism is that in spite of the severe criticism the most characteristic and perhaps sensible positive feature of our nation is its completely uncompromising position. Nevertheless, it does not mean intolerance (our people are very tolerant), on the contrary, it means that this nation will not live according to any set of rules or any half-truth. (Probably this feature exists also in every nation but it seems that we cannot feel it so sharply as now in Russia). This implies that there cannot be any compromise between capitalism and totalitarian communism or approval of any other half-useful schemes without qualitative transformation, without triumph over falsehood and finding of a new more pure and humane basis for the social ideal. It means that Russia has its own «special way», the way of eschatological search for truth, acquiring harmony and justice and overcoming the deep connection of all the half-truths. Russia has always foreseen that task and basically that thought has always been in the minds of its most outstanding representatives and that the very hope itself has always inspired all russian social movements, even those which late proved to be tragic and disastrous.
We hope that our work on Ethic humanism will serve to this spirit of search and reconciliation, to this eschatological supertask to be solved by our country (as well as by the whole world). The spirit of search for truth is a spirit of openness, it is accessible and addressed to all people in the world. We are talking here about the special role of Russia in a sense that for the reason of the historical conditions, all the sufferings and all those vague and mysterious reasons which form a certain type of spiritual value and behavioristic norms, the situation in our county, as it seems, is more anspicious than anywhere else. To search for truth, to serve for truth, to love truth is a little bit easier than anywhere else. Although everything is open to everyone: (?) what you decide will be. In this sense to fix oneself in the uniqueness, to castrate the essence keeping in view only the form, or in another words to stop thinking and begin to «mummify» the achievements of the past — all that is extremely dangerous for the national conscience of Russia (the antient Jews had not managed to overcome the similar fixation on their «uniqueness», though in a different situation).
At last we should note one bad feature which is common to all the half-truths in Russia. Basically all these half-truths are exceptionally lacking in thought and underdeveloped. In fact, except the symbolical words, some fetishes and banners — the Democracy and Market for the first, communism and Justice for the second and Special way for the third or, at least, some similar words which are known for the masses — they have almost nothing to say. This problem seemingly exists in the whole world as sell, but perhaps the split between the desirable and the real (i.e. the concrete forms of the realized ideas) is not so noticeable and tragic as in Russia. The existence of the lack in understanding and the huge task to overcome it is perhaps the indication of the general blame for the past and the task for the future for all people in Russia and in particular, for its special creative layer of Russian intelligence.
The vagueness, the look in understanding of its task not once led Russia to the catastrophe. One of the huge catastrophes was the October revolution. The last half-catastrophe (but nevertheless a catastrophe for many people) is our «perestroika».
We still hope that the development of the humanistic world outlook may help us to overcome the lack in understanding of social and personal ideals in our country and perhaps in the whole world as well.

One point seems worth mentioning: any actions and decisions which cause inequality and bound peoples freedom or, to be more exact, any actions which are initially based on inequity and which strengthen this inequality should be considered as being nonhumanistic. (We understand that because of the historical imperfection of human mind there exists many phenomena which imply inequality among people; for example there are State and Trade. All that phenomena, of course, have almost nothing to do with humanistic ideal and therefore they should be regarded as being historically compulsive and temporary. See also «Humanism and Power» and «Humanism and Economy»).
We would like to note that the equality of people’s possibilities does not mean that all the people’s actions are of the same value (have equal value) (?) That is why side by side with the equality in human rights there must exist the system of values in which should be as clear as possible, open and ready to accept and recognize new ideas and according to which the ierarchy of attractiveness of people’s ideas and deeds might be established. A man who is more competent should have more influence in society. There should not be as it seems any special mechanisms, except informational openness. the more man’s ideas and deeds are comprehensive (i.e. adequate to truth), and attractive for other people the more chance they have to get sympathy and cooperation. Besides the general system of values itself is not a special mechanism at all but simply implies some educational level, and competence of all people; the outer form of this system simply deepens the world outlook of each person serving as a protection possible mistakes and profanity.
That way of notion and that world outlook in which a man is regarded as a mean, as a functional instrument for one or another purpose, (e.g. personal or even overhuman) is unacceptable for humanism. All «overhuman» belongs to a man; and «cutting of the sky» from a human personality, setting up limits to its freedom of choice, imposing one or another Role or final function in any «pardonable» («justifiable») circumstances and for any purpose cannot regarded as humanistic.
As a sensible ideal which determines the norm of action we can take the ideal of human Harmony and first of all the harmony of Intentions, feelings and actions for each person. With all its plainness and some vagueness this harmonic trinity, nevertheless, appears to be convenient inner criterion for a man in his analysis of one or another situation as in many particular «bad» cases the disharmony or incompatibility between intentions and actions, feelings and intentions and, in general, the destruction of this trinity can be very clearly seen.
The Absence of Falsehood might also be accepted as more simple and easier applicable norm which is related to this trinity. This norm should spread to all fields of human activity and, of course, be applicable in politics, state and private affairs, (economics), press and so on. This norm implies, on the one hand, «nondistortion of information» and unacceptability of any actions on its deliberate distributing in spite of all «good» motives because these kinds of actions put the receiver of this information in a dependent position towards (?) its giver, and imposes on him some role bounding the freedom of choice; on the other hand, this Norm of Truth puts questions about motives, i.e. why one or another kind of information is given to a man? It seems to us that the ethical answer is as follows: information is given to a man to help him, first, to understand what is going in the world and, secondly, to became more engaged in what is happening around him. Only in that case we could say that society is informationally open to a man and only this situation could be considered (?) humanistic and therefore, normal. the help to a man inevitably presumes the depth (comprehensibility) of the information which is offered to him. Otherwise there may occur the situation that once has happened to the Soviet press during «perestroyka» when, with the weakening of the state control more and more facts appeared in the press and, in the same time, this information was becoming more and more petty and unimportant with less and less clear moral position of its author which as a consequence, led also to the growing indifference of its readers and to the situation when this information itself regardless of its reliability, was getting a subject of the speculation and inferior game of different political forces.
Summing up, we can say, that this Norm of authenticity should include the requirements for the reliability of depth (comprehensibility) of information and the requirements for its moral side (including the motives for the giving of this information and, in particular the absence of speculation). All the said above implies also the necessity of the creative and intellectual effort in order to observe to obey these requirements. All this itself creates the norm of intelligence and sensibility of human efforts. In general, the requirements for harmony and authenticity sets up the norm for presence of intellect in every human activity which than becomes the moral norm.
And, at last, it is worth mentioning the principle of reversing the action on oneself dated back to many ancient teachers of the mankind (i.e. treat other people as you like to be treated. This principle, obviously, does not suffice simple because, as it has already been noted, the notion of a person about him and, in particular, about the best form of attitude towards himself may be quite inadequate but nevertheless this principle should be accepted by all human beings as a natural condition of the symmetry of all people’s actions and be regarded as a principle of ethic humanism.
In conclusion we would like to note the following: in one opinion there cannot be any mechanisms which could guarantee automatic fulfillment of the principles mentioned above or any other humanistic norms (About mechanisms, please, refer to «Humanistic Syntheses (?)…» and «Power and Economy»). Furthermore, the existence of that kind of guarantee or automatic mechanisms would simply contradict to a man’s freedom. That is why the only way to make the ethic humanism come true is through the personal examples of behavior and of the men who are the living holders of these principles and through the realized projects. Only the concrete practice related to the principles of ethic humanism can make these principles clearly seen for our society; and the major success of the humanistic movement — might be the appearance of more and more people who will e the holders of humanistic norms, i.e., first, will understand the meaning of that norms and, secondly, who will make efforts and try to embody them in concrete deeds and projects.
The West and socialist Russia:#motives offered to a man.
The deepest of the questions in the consideration of the ethic bases for human existence which still can be rationally understood is the question about the motives according to which a man acts in his practice; or, if we are talking about society, the question about motives which are considered to be normal. We should approach this question carefully for the motives are very often hidden and not recognized by a man and the understanding for others is hampered by subjectivity. Which is why the question about motives must always be connected with the real outcomes of man’s intentions (it is also needed because the split between «good» motives and «bad» results is the common situation; and sometimes we still can fix the situation if we find out the exact point when the split between the real action and the declared or intuitive motives has begun). Obviously, to avoid bad consequences there must not be any forcible invasion into sovereign world of a human personality, including its motives, and the only one possible way of influence should be one personal example or recognition of new concepts. But, nevertheless, it seems little strange to completely reject this task to influence a person which could be extremely deep and fruitful and to bound oneself only in the analysis of the results. Moreover, to our way of thinking, the notion that the actions which are base on morally doubtful (e.g. egoistical) motives may lead to good results is at any rate a big illusion which follow from that fact that only most simple, rough and obvious results are taken into consideration and all those more hidden and vague sophisticated «bloodshed» casequenees that happened as a result of these actions and all that real price paid for these consequences remains beyond consideration. (We would also like to note a special significance of this question of motives for the Russian conscience with its traditional strong tendency to «sobornost». For Russian man there cannot be any set of rules or conventional norms of cooperation which could suffice for the fruitful cooperation for the fulfillment of any task which is regarded as being common and general. The maximal agreement, the feeling (at least on the intuitive level) of open the spiritual unity which cannot be without enough confidence between people and without the knowledge that another man wants the same has always been required for the people’s deeds. (see also «Humanism and the russian task of Russia»)
In order to formulate that positive motives, that norm which might be acceptable for ethic humanism let us consider modern historical situation.
Nowadays in a modern western civilization regardless of all its pluralism and eclectic variety of views there is only one predominant and widely propagandized motive — that is the motive of success.
The successful egoistical self-assertion that leads to further social recognition and comfort (measured, most commonly, in money) is the major stimulus for the «standard» western man.
Of course, this situation is unsatisfactory. It Happens the following: the result of a man’s activity (i.e. success in society) becomes the major motive and the activity itself becomes of secondary importance to a man. The soul of such a man is not harmonic because, in a sense, «he does what he does not want»: he likes to reach a success and personal «prosperity» but, in addition, he has to do all the rest — including that what society actually needs.
It is evident that there is no harmony in the actions of such a man and there exists a contradiction in values when the success itself becomes prime value and the fulfillment of important tasks is merely the useful outcome of this activity.