The value of Russia

Perhaps, to someone, the idea of ​​Russia as universal value may seem very seductive 1 . Like, the conversation should be about the fact that our country finally received a well -deserved recognition. On equal terms with others. They suddenly found that there is something inherent in us in us. Many will probably even perceive this discovery as an incredible conquest of recent times. "Just twenty years ago, we recognized universal values ​​more important than class. And now we ourselves can recognize ourselves as universal value. And others can recognize us. We can let us into a pan-European house."

For me, such a formulation of the question is genetically connected with the Samoyed worldview, which spread in our time during the time of perestroika (or possibly a little earlier.) It was associated with the idea that we are not carriers of "universal" values, they are determined by someone else. West . It is enough to simply recognize the priority of these values ​​over their own, and they will immediately take us "for their own." We will immediately become part of the world civilization. However, the perestroika era ended precisely when the aporia showed itself in full force: the more we delegate the right to determine the "universal" to someone else, the less "universal" (and simply human!) Find us. It all ends with the fact that “us” simply cease to perceive, and our “we” loses any attributes of existential originality.

As a result, it turns out: speaking of universal values ​​(including Russia "as universal value"), we knowingly deprive ourselves of the possibility of what can be called the word "self -determination". This, in fact, is the principle of ideological self -studies - to systematically refuse to take into account your own sovereignty. In turn, this leads to the fact that "their" and "strangers" change places. From now on, the stranger was perceived as something indisputably positive. Its mercilessly is touching. "Everywhere is good where we are not."

The process of forming such a worldview was determined by a very long and gradually performed erasing faces between his own and a stranger, which revealed the possibility of the described inversion. I must say that the line between his own and the stranger has not been restored to this day. Any positive features in ourselves are only if they are approved by someone from the outside. Moreover, if the approval procedures themselves have already been tested and have long received a sanction for use. And to this day, a big brother is strictly looking at us.

To determine yourself independently means not only demonstrating political sovereignty. It is also about the ability to find a universal existential expression. The main problem of the most beautifully reasoning from the point of view of "universal values" is associated with the blocking of the policy of universalization of their own sovereignty. At the same time, there is no paradox in the fact that, deuniversalizing our sovereignty, we deprive ourselves and the right to exist .

And this policy, by the way, has the most directly related to philosophical activity. By thoughtfulness, abandoning her, we are also refusing philosophy - making it unnecessary and worthless. The script arises by itself (o) goats, when, instead of solving specific problems, we are increasingly convincing ourselves of their insolubleness, simultaneously getting rid of the very means of overcoming it.

At the same time, it is precisely philosophy that we need to get rid of the obsessive contradiction between the “native” and “universal” (after all, something “native” can turn out or to initially be a stranger, while the universal one can have domestic roots) and understand the status, purpose and origin of “universal values”.

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The “universal” is the value that, firstly, has fundamentally unlimited validization (i.e., ideally, not only can, but should also be appreciated by everyone), and secondly, it exists according to the principle of a self-realizing program. In fact, this means that "universal value": a) involves a community with an arbitrarily large number of members in its appeal; c) is endowed with the opportunity to persist with all possible "revaluation" (and manage them).

Ultimately, universal value is more material than any material value, since it materializes directly in the person himself. Without possessing this value, a person is already not a person .

This can be expressed differently: the “universal” value itself creates its addressee - a kind of community with the attributes of the universe. Those unique "all" in which she finds her embodiment.

Such a formulation of the issue has, however, a completely visible story. Human identity, considered from the prospect of values, is the identity of a person possessing. A certain specific value characterizes the one who possesses it. "Universal" value characterizes Homo economicus, which arose in the West in modern times; Thus, this value is the means by which the West identifies itself. Self -determination for the Western world is nothing more than appropriation. All. Including oneself. At the same time, the assigned is considered as a product , and relations related to appropriation, as commodity relations .

It’s not worth talking about Russia as a “universal” value. This is like identifying its product characteristics. It is worth talking about her as an alternative "universal" values. The West produces to assign. Russia assigns to produce. In this regard, in Russia, everything is a resource, not a produced artifact. This also has its own costs - the raw materials are exemplary Russian products, and any product produced by our hands is interpreted as not quite finished, somewhat “raw” products, a kind of “semi -finished product”.

The assigned to Russia is still perceived as a gift , and not as a product. The ease with which the idea of ​​communism was perceived in Russia is connected with this: there were no problems in order to imagine a kind of “free” and “common”. Like light and air. The relationship of assignment with us is still based on the exchange of services , and not on trade. At the same time, the service in Russia from ancient times has a completely pronounced commodity form. "Bribes-s."

And yet, if we talk about alternative "universal" values, we should talk about the values ​​of gifts, and not about the values ​​of goods. The values ​​of gifts were also implied by Soviet socialism.

In this case, human life acts as an exemplary gift. However, it is precisely by virtue of its status that it is understood either as something absolutely invaluable, or, conversely, as it is easy to part with (or that it is easy enough to take away.) "God gave, God took." Accordingly, the human identity in our country is something well -made, but not done. The cult of Self-Made Man is something borrowed for us. We do not do, but gain ourselves .

Such a formulation of the issue also concerns the moral side of "universal" values. For the West, morality becomes moral after a certain processing. In the course of it, she turns into a subject of contractual relations. At the same time becoming subordinate to the law. Moreover, morality in the West in its most accurate expression is the Convention, Deal . Something between a transaction and conspiracy. It is protected by bargaining. Moreover, the most monumental (and at the same time ephemeral) embodiment of the Convention is a public contract . It is designed to determine the frame conditions of the existence of a society based on economic competition. In order not to hurt each other too much with elbows.

On the contrary, we have morality only in the event that they follow it without saying a word . The principle that is not processed by reflection has a immeasurably great chance of becoming maximum moral behavior than the principles that have undergone repeated pronunciation. This pronouncing is equivalent to a trade that is intuitively opposed to morality. Moreover, moral issues should not allow us to be excessive discussion, which is equated with bargaining. At the same time, the moral judgment itself is more significant and stronger than the legal: "The law is what a draw:"

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All the Kozliya of Perestroika and New Thinking, when we first had a misfortune to get acquainted with the "universal" values ​​(by the way, in their quite decent, even partly Kantian production), consisted in the formation of the philosophy of the abstract another. He knows better from the side. He sees you better than you yourself. And he knows more about you. And he understands you more precisely. It is generally stronger and better. Already in the fact that it is not like you. In the field of high theory, the fascination with abstract others has become universal fashion. Politics specified this image, giving it quite tangible outlines.

Others in relation to "us", i.e. The whole civilized world was actually declared to the then Soviet. As the creator and exponent of "universal" values. Having recognized the primacy of these values, we once denied our civilization. The consciousness that we are not like everyone else, the subject of pride and enthusiasm, has turned into an occasion for self -flagellation. Klikushi bred. They filled the squares and screens. Glasses reigned. The proudly towering fortress of Soviet civilization, erected by the works of many generations, shuddered and settled.

At the same time, the crisis of Soviet values ​​was predetermined by the limited possibilities for their materialization. The materialism rate remained in the framework of the Soviet project obviously only a philosophical bet. Soviet values ​​were not values ​​of appropriation, so there is nothing surprising in the fact that they could not be assigned to the end. The Soviet man to whom these values ​​were addressed was not included in the generation of Homo Oeconomicus, and was not assigning a creature. More precisely, the appropriation was carried out by him, but not at the level of consciousness . Hence the famous concept of socialist consciousness (which, among other things, also suggested getting rid of various forms of “things”).

Moreover, the materialization of values ​​was blocked precisely at the level of conscious choice. In a situation where the commodity form of materialization of values ​​was systematically reduced to a minimum, numerous substrates of materiality arose, fitted under the consciousness of the Soviet man. It is primarily about the materiality of the heavy industry and materiality of the armed forces. For all their tangibility and heavyness, they were able to turn into a kind of "air castles" overnight.

The reason for this is the extinction of socialist consciousness, outside which the materiality of weapons and industry simply ceased to be clearly perceived. And disappeared from the field of view. This, of course, does not mean that the materiality of factories and guns "dematerialized". This does not even mean that weapons and industry have lost the status of significant attributes of local statehood. However, the consciousness that these are precisely values, and the values, "without which it is impossible," is lost.

The USSR was a project in which materiality was primarily the materiality of power. First of all, the military. (Industrial power was perceived as a continuation and at the same time the condition for gaining this force.) Putting the formations on the war, the Soviet Union lost in it precisely because he did not take care of the creation of more advanced materialization technologies. The search for the right embodiment of strength and the materialization of values ​​is not the same thing at all. Sooner or later, they begin to come into conflict. This is a conflict that unfolds between "coercion" and "faith". It is obvious that on the side of "coercion" are lost symbols of faith, on the side of the "faith" itself are more perfect coercion technologies.

The role of "forced instance" in this conflict went to the Soviet Union. As a result of losing its values, despite their partly Western origin, lost all universal meaning. The collapse of Soviet universalism predetermined the voluntary refusal to consider these values ​​as an alternative moral and political project. The West won in the Cold War. Again, confirming his mission to the only carrier and the rightful exponent of "universal" values.

However, this victory was not least technical in nature. More advanced coercion technologies were not just found. New materiality was also postulated - not the materiality of the tools (in the sense that inherited from the 19th century), but the materiality of networks and communications , not the materiality of products (even if their sample is a work of art), but the materiality of information flows , not the materiality of power confrontation , but the materiality of virtual peacekeeping .

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Modern Russia, of all means, wants to comply with the canon of the "civilized world." For this, material values ​​have long been rehabilitated in it. However, privatization was in such a way that these values ​​are in opposition to any productive forms of gaining national identity. Introduction to civilization turned into the absorption of the spirit of the nation of the element of the market . Everything is easily bought. It is even more easy to sell. Nothing is shy to turn into goods. Few people are shy to be. The political superstructure of this is "sovereign democracy." This is the sovereignty of gaping that arose in the place of Russia after it was communed with the holy gifts of a civilized life.

At the same time, everyone has long become obvious: what has been done in the last 15-20 years is not a sufficient condition for recognizing us as a "universal" value. However, still few people understand that no one can recognize “universal” value. And is such a recognition possible? Can it be seriously presented?

To get rid of this illusion, it is enough just to remember what Russia was seen by the "civilized" world. Or, in other way, from the point of view of "universal" values. In the era of the first foreign voyages, it seemed frighteningly close to embodiment of the pitch world, where everything that exists is turned upside down, and everything that is carried out is done "in a consumer." Later, in the XIX century, the “universal” rebuke of Russia was prepared by Westerners. Pyotr Chaadaev in the spirit of educational didactics claimed that our purpose is to present some terrible lesson to the world. Finally, at the turn of the XX and XXI centuries about the fate of Russia, Jean Bodriyar was silent about the fate of Russia. According to the master, Russia has a very honorable role in world history: to be a parody.

In this situation, one thing remains. Do self -determination .

The most “universal” formula for handling values ​​in the modern world is really their materialization. That is why the first step from which you need to start the process of self -determination is a revision of the results of the 1992 privatization policy. So that material values ​​begin to work for Russia. And against her enemies.

The second step in the process of self -determination is to take the construction of a national state. In the era, when the twilight of globalization becomes more and more dense, this is exactly what the action will have a truly universal meaning. From the point of view of the moral and political prospects of the whole world.

The third step is to escape from the understanding of the virtue inspired by Marxiology as the consequence of necessity and to perceive Weberian axiology with its principle: to choose faith in such a way that faith would turn out to be a rational choice.

The fourth step is not to be afraid to understand a simple thing: in order to become a “universal” value, Russia must abandon the canon of borrowed civilization. And to start your civilizational project.

And finally, the fifth step is to enter into a dispute about the content of the human in a person. Having defended the right to its own idea of ​​universal values, Russia will cope with another task - national self -determination . She learns herself, established herself within the boundaries of a re -conquered sovereignty.

Note:

The article 1 was written based on the report uttered on the "round table" "Russia as universal value" organized by the "Russian magazine" on February 13, 2006.