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IN SLOVAKIA #147 (205)
Mikhail Epstein's projective lexicon
March 12, 2006

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Topic of the week: light feelings, vain experiences

This issue examines complex words with the first part light- and sue- and the second part - feeling , - sensuality , - heart . The language has complex words with the following components: gullibility, frivolity; superstition, superstition; premonition, well-being; mercy, cruelty . But there is no ease of feeling or superstition in the language yet, although we are well aware of these human properties, including from our own experience. Let us try to express in words what is contained in experience.

There are obvious similarities between the parallel words with the basic principles easy- and vanity- , but there are also differences. Easy- indicates easy susceptibility to certain feelings, states of the heart, while vanity- contains a more definite negative assessment of such cardiac vanity, since it refers to empty, small objects, not worthy of response.

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levity (cf. gullibility, frivolity) - slight emotional excitability, mobility of feelings, readiness to quickly and deeply respond to any events, including small ones that are not worth recalling.

You should not mistake levity for genuine compassion. He gets worried and forgets.

Southern peoples are distinguished by their light-heartedness . They rush into every sense with acceleration, like jumping into the water from a steep bank.

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levity - easy, quick sensual excitability, responsiveness to sensual temptations and impressions.

light-sensual ( aya ) - one or she who is easily, quickly aroused, responds to sensual temptations.

He's so sensitive ! He walks down the street in the evening - and he already has three loves in his soul.

So what should I do now if I’m so sensitive ? Ripping out one eye for every indiscreet glance? I'll go blind in a minute.

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lightness of heart - a tendency to strong feelings about any reason, increased excitability, mobility of cardiac life; a heart that is easy-going, restless, overly responsive to passing impressions and circumstances.

A quick change of attachments is a sign of light-heartedness . Today one, tomorrow another. Let's remember Pushkin's Olga. Or another Olga - Chekhov's "darling".

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light-hearted - one who is easily worried at heart, worries about any reason.

"Let her cry...
It doesn't mean anything to her!"
the soldier speaks about his light-hearted neighbor (in the poem by M. Lermontov “Testament”).

Maxim Gorky, as you know, could shed tears over any poems or rhymes. He was a light-hearted comrade.

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vanity (cf. superstition, vanity, vanity) - the tendency to feel a lot and strongly for insignificant reasons, to get carried away easily, to worry about nothing.

Suspiciousness, touchiness, irritability - all these are different manifestations of vanity .

Middle-aged mothers easily fall into fussiness , tremble over the baby, and blow away every speck of dust from it.

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Vanity - rapid excitability, scatteredness and illegibility of sensual attractions.

vain ( aya ) - one who is subject to a rapid change of sensual attractions and temptations.

No, she, of course, does not look like a nymphomaniac... But superstitiousness she has . It flares up quickly, like straw, sometimes several times a day.

He seems to be a serious person, capable of long, deep relationships. But he is also superstitious: petty passions constantly pull his string.

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vanity - vanity of the heart, easy and quick responsiveness to what is unworthy of response.

Very sweet, warm-hearted woman! But when she began to be touched first by the baby, then by the kitten, then by the flowers, I thought that there was also some superstition in her .

vain - prone to superstition, taking all sorts of trifles and trifles to heart, allowing himself to be carried away by empty and insignificant worries.

Well, just think, the boy has a cold, and you look like there’s a funeral tomorrow. You can't be so superstitious . Calm down! Each experience must be proportionate to the subject.

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Aphorism

Intolerance of ambiguity is a sign of an authoritarian personality.
Theodor Adorno, German philosopher, musicologist (1903-1969)

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Memo (from previous issues)

Ambipation (gr. amphi - around, on both sides + gr. pathos, suffering, feeling, emotion) - a combination of sympathy and antipathy, attraction and repulsion.

Ambipate - a person torn apart by opposing feelings and aspirations.

Perhaps for the first time, ambipathy was consciously expressed by the poet Catullus in his famous poem addressed to Lesbia (fragment 85):
I hate you and I love you. Why, you ask?
I don’t know myself, but this is what happens, and I suffer.

Well, do you like him? He's really a nice guy, isn't he? - I think I like it, but I can’t stand his jokes and gags. I have ambipathy towards him.

Dmitry Karamazov in Dostoevsky says that man is “too broad”, he is equally attracted by two abysses: the upper and the lower, the ideal of Sodom and the ideal of the Madonna. In this sense, Dmitry, and probably Dostoevsky himself, are the brightest representatives of this universal human ambipathy . ( issue 66)

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New publications by Mikhail Epstein

Books :

Postmodernism in Russian literature (2nd, additional ed.). M., Higher School, 2005, 495 pp.

All essays , in 2 vols. vol. 1. In Russia (1970-1980s); vol. 2. From America (1990-2000s). Ekaterinburg: U-Factoria, 2005, 544 pp. + 704 ss.

New sectarianism. Types of religious and philosophical attitudes in Russia in the 1970s - 1980s . Samara: Bakhrakh-M, 2005, 256 pp. (the first volume in the author's series "Rainbow of Thought. Collection of works in seven disciplines").

Space sign. On the Future of the Humanities . M.: New Literary Review, 2004, 864 pp.

Articles:

Zero cycle of the century. Explosion - explosive style of the 2000s "Zvezda", 2, 2006.

Russian language in the light of creative philology . "Znamya", 1, 2006.192-207.

Oedipus complex of Soviet civilization . "New World", 1, 2006

Projective dictionary of the Russian language. Neology
time, in the book. Semiotics and avant-garde. Anthology . Ed.-comp. Yu.S.
Stepanov, N.A. Fateeva, V.V. Feshchenko, N.S. Sirotkin. Under general ed. Yu.S.
Stepanova. M.: Academic Project; Culture, 2006, pp. 1031-1076.

Word and silence in Russian culture. "Star", 10, 2005, 202-222.

Little man in a case: Bashmachkin-Belikov syndrome .
"Questions of Literature", 6, 2005.

Sensitive people, readable books. About the merits of readers to literature . "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" 8 Dec. 2005.

The body at the crossroads of time. Towards a philosophy of touch. Questions of Philosophy, 8, 2005, 66-81.

Improvisational community (translated from English by M. Esquina), in the book. Values. Canons. Prices. M.: MSU, 2005, 25 pp.

Human transformations. Lexical and conceptual possibilities of the root -person-. Chelovek.ru. Humanitarian almanac. 1, 2005. Novosibirsk, 233-248.

Creepy and strange. About the theoretical meeting between Z. Freud and V. Shklovsky. Sub Rosa. In honor Lenae Szilard. Budapest, 2005, 139-146.

Four sides of love Topos, 12 Dec. 2005

Lubol Topos, 16 Dec. 05.

Love names. Introduction to erotonymy Topos, December 2005 (in 3 issues)

Variety of love experiences. Talents. Genres. Styles Topos, 13 Feb. 2006.

Anaphrase: a linguistic phenomenon and literary device . Topos, March 28, 2005

April 21 is Intellectual's Day, a holiday of alternative consciousness . Topos. 19 April 2005

Culture is an escape... Conversation between Marusya Klimova and Mikhail Epstein. Parts 1-4. Topos, April 2005

Russian Mystical Philosophy and Nature (with Adrian Ivakhiv). The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. New York and London: Continuum, 2005

Projects (ongoing):
Projective Dictionary of Philosophy: New concepts and terms , and in the online magazine "Topos" (approximately once every 2-3 weeks, since October 2003)

The gift of words. Projective Dictionary of the Russian Language (weekly on Sundays, since April 2000).