The secret of Europe

Review of: Mikhail Mayatsky. Resort Europe. M.: Ad Marginem, 2009. 176 p.

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The book of Mikhail Mayatsky “Resort Europe” is a collection of 19 small essays, written on occasion, sometimes directly, and sometimes quite conditionally connected by the theme of the “resort of Europe”. The essays are simple, accessible to the mind, not that not the educated, and not related to the theoretical humanitarian problem, which is no longer interested in the sequence of evidence, but the final conclusion, in order to take into account and engage in something else. There is no system that would explain to us what happened to Europe and why. It is written in the genre, when everything is as long as it is clear, and only comments on individual private issues are needed, and in particular the reader will finish the whole. In Europe, the population is aging, young people do not find work, production goes to Asia, and China and India are flagships of future development, the proletariat has disappeared, the population has turned into selfish inhabitants, it is not possible to incorporate migrants, trade unions are harassed in programs composed before the war, left -wing and right ones cannot differ in the main occupation, this is a leash, this Resort for the elderly. And so, by the way, about the elderly - it is interesting how the children of the age of 68 are aging, not at all like their fathers old, they remain infantile hippers in old age - and about this, if you please, a separate pretty essay.

The selected genre has a shade of an adventurous adventure. Mikhail Mayatsky - the finest philosopher - just remind his articles in the Logos, the eerudist - just recall his translations of Derrida, and in his presence newspaper intellectuals, like me, are experienced by rather sharp complexes. And here he decided not to use these monstrous competitive advantages, having played almost equal with the writers of columns for weekly.

The essay - a genus of fencing with thought, fences Mayatsky well - quickly, acutely, inventively, nervously - several, I would say, old -fashioned. In the sense that for the sake of extra figures, it does not build beauty, but simply makes a lunge at the first opportunity. Fascinating reading. The post -factor, on the other hand, there remains that he was not so fought on the wrong side, but he could have been on the other. Europe often declares that it has rolled somewhere. I would even venture that this is a stable leitmotif of European philosophy associated with Roman origin - its first self -awareness in scholasticism is initially determined by the fact that there was a great civilization, and we dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of the decayed giants. And then, if not any philosopher, then any era of European philosophy was expressed on the topic that Tapernica is not like a crush, and we are not going there and have already entered there. This is a long story, one way or another, told by any textbook of philosophy, and there is no meaning to retell it.

Mikhail Mayatsky once, in an article about the search for African identity in African philosophy [1] , created an extremely ironic mediating context for any attempts to look for a Russian path. But I will still try to pay attention to some specifics of the Russian perception of the complaints of Europe about its sunset. In connection with the “resort of Europe” it makes sense to remind the last episode - the “disciplinary sanatorium” of Eduard Limonov. In terms of the contestations of the modern state of Europe, the similarity is a striking, even the figurative row itself - the sanatorium, the resort is so close, which is even strange, which is why Maitatsky did not write about a separate essay. Apparently, there was no case, but this is the predecessor in the diagnosis, moreover, the “Disciplinary sanatorium” was written only 20 years ago, so the realities are almost the same. In addition, something, and the essayist Limonov is brilliant.

There is one funny aspect. In principle, according to the views (in any case, in this book), Limonov is a follower of Herbert Marcuse. There, in a “one -dimensional person”, the same set of ideas about the controlled mass media, which refuses development. But M -Arcuz has a question - how it works, Limonov has - who is to blame for this. And this guilty turns out to be an extremely inventive, sophisticated manipulator, so talentedly slipping the society, false values ​​and goals that you can’t tear your eyes directly from it. Modern manipulation of society in Putin's Russia, where the Marcuse society is built, looks some kind of clumsy parody of the game of this virtuoso.

I will give another funny example - the collection “Oswald Spengler and“ Sunset of Europe ”” (Moscow, 1922). Nikolai Berdyaev, Yakov Buppan, Fedor Stepun, Sergey Frank, naturally,, of course, differently, responded to the book of Spengler. But there is a common feature. Oswald Spengler in relation to the history of civilization acts as an art historian who distinguishes forming (morphological) principles of style. Let me remind you that the formal art of history (represented by Henry Velflin) set the task of writing “The History of Art without Names” - not an artist, but morphological principles. In the same way, Sh Pengler in every era distinguishes morphological features, not asking the question of who “blinded” her so. For Russian reactions, the main thing is the question of the image of the author. For the role of this subject, who was sculpting the era, and now leading Europe to its sunset, different figures are advanced, from a basic spirit to the Lord, but in any case, behind this work - Europe - a certain power with which I want to enter into a dispute is found.

In Russia, it seems to me that the plot of “Sunset of Europe” is played as if somewhat more interesting than in Europe. Anyway, as if to the plot about how the wolf ate a red hat, another image of the author, who is indifferent to women in red, was added. Actually, historically, we pick up the idea of ​​sunset of Europe, since we carefully monitor European thought. Upon learning that it rolled there, we quickly reprint it as the latest news, but, reprinting, we still retain some kind of singing to this message - nevertheless, the charm of the last European news is maintained here. The result is a charming sunset, the taste of secrets is how it rolls up and the search for the one who rolled.

I am not the fact that Mayatsky also has some subject who sent Europe to the resort - just not. The difference between the “resort of Europe” and the “disciplinary sanatorium” is that if Limonov exposes some conspiracy, then Mayatsky has no conspiracy. Europe has come to a modern state naturally, the development of economics and politics. But the absence of this subject, Krysolov, who led the population of Gammel to the resort, acts so that you begin to doubt in the campaign itself. Nobody led anyone to the bottom - this is clear. So maybe no one came there? Nevertheless, leaving aside all philosophy, it is worth paying attention to the fact that Western Europe is a quarter of world GDP. We are all terribly happy for Asia, especially for China, that it grows so fast. And now we compare it with Europe in the sense that he has twice as much as the population, and production is 2.5 times less, but before it was not at all. But, listen, he grew up completely out of poverty, and is it worth it to brand Europe for the fact that she did not retain that imbalance with China, which was in 1950, and he produced 14 times less? The Chinese should also live? Well, they transferred them part of the production. We are talking about territories destroyed by the war only sixty years ago-is there any feeling that they demonstrated a rather noticeable growth?

I am all to the fact that if Mikhail M Mayatsky managed to get rid of the feeling that there is a conspiracy leading to her sunset, then maybe it makes sense to go a little further and abandon the myth of this sunset? I repeat is just a topos of European thought. Maybe it is worth changing the intonation and not to brand so much? He has an essay in this book on Nedia, I would say about the secret of India, which allows her to go today to a new prosperity. A wonderful essay, and while I read it, I always had a feeling of some regret that he did not wonder about the secret of Europe. There is a secret, but it is not where we are looking for it, not in who is behind her troubles. What allows her to be a resort, constantly repeat about sunset, and at the same time flourish like that?

In two essays, in my opinion, the contours of this issue are even outlined. One thing is about Herman Hesse, this is the analysis of his essay “Kurortnik”, where everything is somehow moving towards the usual complaints about health, aging and treatment, and suddenly a finet is carried out, and it turns out that the very ability to realize and describe it completely removes this problem. The second is about the phenomenon of European leisure, where it somehow grows, grows, grows to unbearable boredom, and suddenly a feint again, and it turns out that the very possibility of reflection is leisure and the content of leisure-intellectual activity as such. I would move on, and said somewhere that the sunset of Europe is the engine of its heyday. He does not say.

I feel sorry for, because he could. He made an incredible leap, once tearing from his Stavropol to Professor Sorbonne. He escaped the arts of the 1990s, did not become a newspaper out of the philosopher, although in terms of the quality of his pen as he could, he ran into this dreary Europe and has been living there for 20 years. So, he saw in her some values, but writes not about them. He knows Europe as few with us - and is silent about this. He says that here the trade unions somehow do not know who to protect, and the parties have no intelligible programs, and young people have no place to find a job. Correctly, of course, all European newspapers write about this, in this sense he is now a real European. Everything seems to be clear. But in fact, nothing is unclear. How can you live like this and at the same time be like that?

Therefore, I say that he could fight on the other hand. Sunses sometimes surprisingly resemble dawn. The only difference is in which direction you look, east or west.

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[1] Mikhail Mayatsky. The older brothers in mind. We treat African philosophy with a complex of Russian exclusivity. Logos. 1999. No. 1. S. 11 - 18.