Kon's reaction

Igor Kon is known to the wide reader primarily as a sexologist. He was the first person in our country to speak in literary Russian about sex - an object that, as you know, was not in the USSR at all (before these topics could be discussed either in medical jargon, or with the help of obscene vocabulary). However, the contribution of Kon to the Russian intellectual tradition is much weighing. Moreover, sexology itself, by his own admission, was never particularly interested in the scientist, since he did not see the theoretical problem in it. People had a need for knowledge on this subject - and now I began to write about sexuality. The task is not scientific, but exclusively educational.

Throughout his long career, Igor Semenovich acted as an academic tricster. He bravely took the most dangerous topics and worked with them seriously. That is why Kon, in addition to many admirers, had an entire army of enemies by the end of his life. It was a conscious choice - to follow the minefield.

In the early fifties of the last century, in “questions of philosophy”, he proved the inadequacy of the natural sciences, abundantly quoting Stalin [1] . This scandalous demarche alone would be enough to make a biography for the average Russian intellectual. But, of course, not for Kon. Immediately after the torpedoing of the basic principle of the Marxist-Leninsky doctrine of the partisanship of science, he turned to the resuscitation of the “bourgeois science” of sociology, releasing the first texts about the history of discipline in Russian [2] . During the Khrushchev thaw, Igor Semenovich took up explosive ethnopsychology by publishing an article in the “New World”, dedicated to the historical reasons for the formation of anti -Semitism [3] . After the events of 1968, Kon is again taking up an acute topic-now he writes a lot about youth and social and age dynamics. During this period, in the texts devoted to the anthropology of childhood, he for the first time in the USSR speaks of the socio-psychological problems of growing up. Unlike most Soviet researchers, who considered youth culture only as a form of deviant behavior, I emphasized the pattern of the appearance of a youth subculture that is not like a generally accepted in adult society, withdrawing the need for interchangeal dialogue [4] . Along the way, it turned out that Soviet science fundamentally ignored the problems of gender and Gender. Boys and girls in Soviet psychology did not exist at all, but there were only abstract "children".

Hence the next scandalous and logical course of Kon-he begins to engage in scientific sexology [5] . In his view, this is an interdisciplinary field of knowledge, not reduced to medicine and biology, but widely based on sociology, psychology, history, even linguistics. The enemy of the Soviet-Russian traditionalist History Estabrication becomes, making several statements about the need for decriminalization and demedicalization of homosexuality. Religious fundamentalists who have been feeling more and more confident in Russia recently, and are now trying to reduce the whole legacy of the scientist to the propaganda of Pederasty and pedophilia. However, even in the words of the most irreconcilable haters of Igor Semenovich you feel some respect, tribute to the scale. Archpriest Dmitry Smirnov, for example, is sure that it was with Kon that “Sodom and Gomorrah” began in Russia [6] . No more or less. Igor Semenovich reacted to such attacks with irony and invented the concept of “sexual counter -revolution”, the study of which in itself considered an interesting task for science.

The end works tirelessly. At the beginning of the zero, in the center of his attention - the status of a man in an emancipated world, the fate of the myths of masculinity, the decline of traditional models of male behavior [7] . In 2008, he publishes the confessional autobiography “80 years of loneliness” [8] .

The last book of Igor Kon “Beat or not to beat?”, Dedicated to the problem of applying bodily punishments as an instrument of raising children, has already become posthumously - he passed away in the spring of 2011. In it, the scientist again enters the territory, extremely politicized and for a wide discussion half -to -the -effect. Modern "open" societies have been established in the recognition of the rights of the individual to freedom and self -determination. However, the personality, citizen, the subject of legal practices means an adult capable person. As soon as it comes to subjects who are not quite legal capacity, whether it be old people, crazy or children, difficulties arise.

Who and how has the right to raise children? More recently, the answer was unequivocal-the teacher and parent, if you do not take into account cases of orphanage, were synonymous words. The unconditional right of parents and guardians was not disputed by the fate of children. Today in the USA and Europe, and the Russian state is trying to keep up with these samples, a different view of things has been established. If parents lead a socially unacceptable lifestyle, subject the children to violence, do not allow them to develop and study according to the standards adopted in society, then the state is obliged to intervene. Such is the axiom of juvenile justice, terrifying the parents of Russia, not clothed with bureaucratic powers. The axiom sounds reasonable, but the trouble is that the Russian state is not a neutral and effective tool for such intervention. It is interested in the fact that “labor resources”, soldiers and taxpayers who accept their legitimacy as a natural given grow from the children. Worse, the state, considering each parent as a potential pedophile and sadist, actually declares all the children living on its territory their property. It is the “competent authorities” of the state that the supreme right to dispose of the fate of a minor citizen of the country belongs.

When Kon raises the question of the admissibility of bodily punishments for children, he affects the key plots of modern discussions related to power, individual freedom, the boundaries of state powers and the status of the family. The famous definition of the state, proposed by Max Weber, enshrined the monopoly right to legitimate violence. The problem of raising a child in a modern state specifies this issue: who has the right to realize biopolitics [9] , to the use of violence in relation to persons legally incompetent, in need of a guardian endowed only with a biological body? In addition to the main topic, it is acceptable to punish children - also concerns the question of who should be responsible for making such a decision. And therefore, the work of Kon belongs to each of us. Even if you personally have never had to punish your child in your thoughts.

The text of the last book of Kon is striking in its fundamental, bordering on monstrousness. To answer the question brought to the title of work, the author needed to bring together the entire complex of knowledge about historical sociology, anthropology, criminology and psychology of punishment. The starting point for him is the analysis of the dynamics of the European criminal punishment system proposed by Foucault [10] . On this foundation, the typology of children's development and growing theories is built, in which bodily punishments are considered either as a necessary component of the process, or, on the contrary, as an obstacle to the formation of a harmonious person.

The central part of the book, with the second to the fourth chapter, is a large-scale historical and comprehensive study, the purpose of which is to demonstrate how the attitude to the bodily punishment of children changed in different countries of Europe, as well as in pre-revolutionary Russia and the USSR. The pioneer of the prohibition of bodily punishment not only at school, but also in the family in the second half of the 20th century Sweden, the experience of which demonstrates the positive socio-psychological effects of such a step. However, declarative prohibitions themselves do not decide anything. We need work to clarify the meaning of refusing to practice punishment, in addition, the society should develop new answers to a complex of pedagogical problems that were previously stopped by flogging of children.

Domestic society remains extremely archaic in this regard. The Russians still have not decided how to educate their children. In accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989, the USSR joined it in 1990), all participating states were obliged to ensure the conditions under which "no child was subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or humiliating the dignity of circulation or punishment." At the same time, adults in our country are very tolerant of the bodily punishments of children. To move out of the dead point, the systemic work of the state and public organizations is needed, which we cannot boast of. The last systematic domestic campaign for the abolition of bodily punishment of children was carried out by the Soviet authorities in the era of industrialization and collectivization.

The theoretical conclusion of Kon is that the punishment of children is perceived and experienced by the participants in the process contextually, this is a culturally determined practice. In patriarchal cultures, bodily punishments are considered as something natural and are not an obstacle to personality development. As an example, the Code takes English society of the XVII century, with the study of which his scientific career began in his student years. In England until the middle of the 20th century, bodily punishments were normal practice both in the family and at school, which did not interfere with the formation of noble gentlemen, scientists and statesmen, although in childhood they were mercilessly poured - all to one. And vice versa, in modern society, bodily punishment can become a huge psychological trauma for a child who finds out that parents do not punish other boys and girls in his school class. That is, the consequences of bodily punishments depend on the society in which we live.

In the choice between the modern and archaic society, Kon's position is obvious - he is a humanist and progressor. It is better to live in a horses in a free society, where everyone decides what way of existence to choose. But the freedom rate means that we also assume responsibility for our actions. And if you punish your child, then this is not at all because it is so accepted in society. This is your personal choice, connected either with the fact that you simply enjoy the impunity of violence and demonstrations of your power, or you feel fear of your own child, feel your weakness, and the relationship between you is associated with a shortage of attention and love. By punishing the child, be prepared to take responsibility for the consequences of this choice. Be prepared for hatred, contempt and alienation on his part. This is the practical moral of the historical and theoretical work of Kon.

As in the case of sexology, bodily punishment is not at all interested in Kon because of the theoretical complexity of the problem, but on the duty of education. It is difficult to understand how the scientist represented the audience of his last work. Parents who need a specialist council? But why do they need multi-component horsemen excursions into history or sexology-sexopathology? Psychologists? Teachers? For them, the theoretical question about the need for punishments has not existed for a long time, since the answer to it is known - this is unambiguous “no”. It seems that the well -worked text of Kon has two main categories of readers. Firstly, these are intellectuals that will find here historical and conceptual arguments for discussion about juvenile justice and biopolitics. And secondly, religious fundamentalists, for whom Kon's last book is an occasion for accusatory sermons.

The paradox of the Kona is that the simple and clear things that he proved during his life with his fundamental and easily readable books - that children cannot be beaten, that you do not need to climb into the bedroom to a neighbor, you do not need to interfere with the loving each other, that in the changing world they change and ideas about the correct models of gender and sexual behavior, we are pushed into the powerful powerful. Negative reaction of society. Dozens of pamphlets exposing the scientist as an enemy of Russia are written about the horse. But it seems that in reality he acted only as an enemy of those Russian troubles that we are used to bypassing in silence.

[1] Kon I. S. Science as a form of social consciousness // Questions of philosophy. 1951. No. 1.

[2] Kon I. S. Positivism in sociology: Historical essay. L.: Publishing House of Leningrad University, 1964.

[3] Kon I. S. Psychology of prejudice. On the socio-psychological roots of ethnic prejudices // New World. 1966. No. 5.

[4] Kon I. S. Psychology of Youth age. M.: Education, 1979.

[5] Kon I. S. Introduction to sexology. M.: Medicine, 1988.

[7] Kon I.S. A man in a changing world. M.: Time, 2009.

[8] Kon I.S. 80 years of loneliness. M.: Time, 2008.

[9] For biopolitics, see, in particular, the work of J. Agamben “Homo Sacer. Sovereign power and naked life. ” M.: Europe, 2011.

[10] See: Foucault M. oversee and punish. The birth of a prison. M.: Ad Marginem, 2005. It is characteristic that the practices of juvenile justice, which are developing today in the Western world, quite fit into the analysis proposed by Foucault. Thus, the despotist acted as an “old regime”, recognizing the cleansing role of execution-order. The state introducing a ban on despotism in the family does it under the pain of a modern and “humane” punishment - prison or isolation. It is significant that the successful protection of the child with state bodies implies the isolation of not only the parent-criminal parent, but also the victims-it is sent to an orphanage, a closed institution with internal rules, protected by the perimeter and a “period of serving” up to adulthood.