Against humanity

Only by leaving Moscow to Ukraine, you can understand something about the war in the East and its connection with the Maidan

The philosopher Anatoly Akhutin, a regular participant in protest actions in Moscow (activist of Strategy-31 and the movement of 2011-13), went to Kyiv for permanent residence with his wife, psychologist Irina Berland. Since 1967, Akhutin has been a student of philosopher Vladimir Bibler and a participant in his non -certificate home seminar. After official recognition, he read the courses of ancient philosophy, Aristotle and Heidegger at the RSUSU.

For the Moscow philosophical magazine, the Blue Sofa Akhutin and Berland wrote an article entitled "The Maidan event": about the meaning of the Maidan and how the quality of people acquired on the Maidan develop in a military situation.

Only by leaving Moscow to Ukraine, you can understand something about the war in the East and its connection with the Maidan

-You wrote about the Maidan as a new type of community of people who do not depend on a number of their characteristics, let's say, socio-psychological. What is this new type of society, what did it express in your opinion on the Maidan?

- This was a conclusion for me from all kinds of ways to understand what the Maidan is, what happened there. Of course, together with many analysts, I also tried to apply some understandable categories to what was happening, such as a class, as we came up with-a creative class, a middle estate, and so on. I understood that this was not suitable. The most interesting, the most curious thing that they gathered there, like our protests, people of completely different classes and faiths, party preferences, and political ones. In short, these people gathered together not according to these criteria. Then the question arises, what collected them. Irina and I called our article "The Maidan event." Here the word "event" is extremely important. Only through understanding the very meaning of the word "event" can we approach the understanding of what has gathered, who has gathered. The fact is that the “event”, I have to come out a little from the everyday language, is now a rather important concept of thought, it makes sense of what is happening not inside the already walking progress, but as it goes beyond it - so that after this event the course of the matter changes the direction. This means that in our usual categories, with the help of which we describe the course of affairs, this phenomenon of the event does not fall. Therefore, we must invent, or invent, or find out something new, new concepts, a new way to approach the business. Here the second aspect, which was discussed in a number of articles of the magazine, namely: there is the so -called "participant understanding", understanding that cannot take place from the outside, as it should be the theorist. The word "theory" itself is a contemplation from outside with existing or invented concepts. And here it is possible only a participable understanding, that is, understanding within the event at the same time as people who are gathered. Only because I had the experience of our own assemblies of this kind, only because I did not come off the monitor, observing what was happening, only because I had living friends who stood all these months on the Maidan, only it seemed to me that, it seemed to me correctly understanding this event, really has power. And this is what happened as a result, now I answer directly to your question. The fact is that all kinds of mass events occur if someone's interest is trampled. People go outside, somehow protesting against the fact that something that causes their lives is being protected. Here we see that it was not about the violation of class interests, not about the violation of national interests, but it was a completely different one that concerned different definitions of social. Speech concerned some creature of human life, the very essence of why a person is a person, not only retains his life, not only belongs to some society or to some group, but because he is a person. The very fact of life does not yet define it as a human life. There is something connected with the experience of this life as a human actually. And this is not given with a guarantee, as our body is given to us, and so on. This can be lost, crushed, trampled. In essence, bypassing all the circumstances that gathered these people together, the protest went against the violating of humanity in a person. To say everything right away. If we determine what war is against.

There is a war in which the current Putin Russia is the initiator, source and the main character. This war goes no more than against human humanity in man

There is a war, war not only in Ukraine, Ukraine is now a hot point, and there is a war in which the current Putin Russia is the initiator, source and the main character. This war goes no more than against human humanity in man, so I understand it. And this is exactly what causes marginal indignation, due to which a completely accurate definition of this, relatively speaking, revolution was found: this is a revolution of dignity, what was previously called the honor of man. There is now, unfortunately, the word "lower" in the usual semi -mortal jargon. There is a war against this, war is not for life, but to death, only now not just, not only a living person, but a person in his essential humanity. If this is destroyed, then it is not necessary to live, life is no longer in life, it is meaningless. That is what the war is against. This is the main thing that I would like to say. This happened on the Maidan, when people were indignant at the violation of themselves as people, first with the fact that the association with the European Union was not signed. Out of habit, in the end, they would reconcile and disperse, but what happened later, adopted anti -constitutional, repressive laws, beating youth - it was perceived by people as an insult to humanity. Then half a million came out from all over Ukraine, this is an unheard of phenomenon. I still can’t believe it, it will sound a little pathetic, in Ukrainians, I can’t believe that they were capable of this insulting, the indignation of the violation of humanity. The farther I live here, the more I communicate with people, the more it amazes me - the ability to be offended when it is trampled, humiliated, humanity is melted. Economically, socially - our ordinary life, we always lived like this under the Soviet regime, so here, unfortunately, so far it is so. But the ability to be offended by what is not at all about, to feel that there is dignity in a person is an amazing property. Of course, in Russia there are also such people, there are still, but in Russia these are separate heroic units, they immediately melt as soon as possible. I would like to say precisely this main thing. I say this again as a lesson in this event, but this lesson is very powerful. This tells me, who is nevertheless interested not just by political events, about the very deep sense of the event that has happened, which, perhaps, is not yet fully understood by us. This metaphor is still, fortunately, about the war, the total war of inhumanity with humanity, not just a metaphor. This is a very serious thing that will determine, as it seems to me, the nearest future, the discovery of an excessive for the inalienable private property of a person, namely his dignity. We are used to understanding this matter as a kind of moral thing, and morality we are sociologists, we are theorists, we are understanding, we interpret as the fact that moral arguments prevent us from understanding. No, now it becomes a fundamental theoretical, philosophical concept: the dignity of a private person, an individual person. I even tried to offer such a sociological category: individual people. The big paradox was that these half a million gathered in one mass. This is a word frightening to us, but this is a lot of individual people, this is a lot of people who have come out to protest against the traffic, individuals, human dignity. That is why here the collection of a huge mass of people does not contradict the fact that everyone went beyond themselves. Because I am a person, and standing nearby is a man, and in this very quality we got together.

- You said about the "participant understanding." Is it possible to interpret your move to Kyiv and work in Kyiv as an attempt to understand, as an attempt to understand what is happening with Ukrainians, with Ukrainian society, simultaneously with Russian society?

- Partly, only partly, unfortunately. In many ways, my personal departure, my wife and I left, is just a flight. It is easy to understand that all this will not remain like this, everything in Russia will collapse, and will collapse very terribly. This is just a flight. Not to mention the fact that this is a flight from stuffiness. I could not do anything there, because either I had to immediately go somewhere and stand somewhere, and I am a weak person, relatively speaking, I could not do this, I could not do anything else, but here I can do it. Therefore, I did not have such a goal at all, I am an old man. I have my own occupation to continue to engage in this occupation, I, in fact, then left. But, of course, I have many wonderful friends and, of course, from here, from the inside it is not only complicated understandings, everything is simply visible here. It is elementary: the degree of hatred that is present in Russia of the current, which was produced by the so -called mass media, in fact, of course, the means of mass misinformation and the mass destruction of consciousness. This is another topic that is extremely important and significant.

The main criminal, I think so in Russia is not Putin at all, although all this is his initiative, but these are educated people who know their business, talented, who are engaged in corruption. Methodical, with all the means of the modern media sphere

The main criminal, I think so in Russia is not Putin at all, although all this is his initiative, but these are educated people who know their business, talented, who are engaged in corruption. Methodical, with all the means of the modern media sphere, with their talents, with their minds, they are engaged in the corruption of people. I affirm this, this definition of "corruption of people" is not a metaphor, this is what is happening. In Moscow, I met with young police officers who, before my eyes, wrote during the detention under the dictation of their authorities, that is, they knew that they violate the law, make an unlawful act, they study that this is the norm, that this is their work. This is what I call the molestry of the minors. As you understand, the matter is not only in various kinds of ships, we know the names of the judges who simply destroy people. In ships, there are a huge apparatus of girls and boys who do not participate in the prosecution, but they serve the whole case, they know what is happening - this is also called the molestation of young people. I was distracted, because, living here, communicating with people, watching the local television, listening to the local radio, this degree is more distinct. You see that the opposite is true. When I listen to the discussions on television about Russia here, there is almost this word, it says "neighboring state", there we are talking about losses at the front, problems at the front, and so on. There is no close to inciting hatred here. This is just to what you can see from here. To say for the accuracy, the participant understanding, of course, is the presence in the country in question. And the presence is important directly in this event. Once again I emphasize this concept, word and phenomenon - an event. This kind of thing that cannot be understood, relatively speaking, from the office, it must be in it to see what is happening, because what is happening does not follow from any theoretical presumption, it somehow applies, but does not follow. You have to be here, in place, to see, to know and feel with your skin what is happening.

- Much has been said about the Maidan, but one of the things that interests me in the light of your article: how is this separate people of the Maidan, how is this new human quality now manifested during the war in eastern Ukraine? Maidan, in your opinion, gave new quality to Ukrainians? How do they feel with this experience in a situation where an aggressor country, recently, brother, is on their territory?

-I will say that to refer to something that I know: it is very often said here as an already accepted imperative-"more civil, less state." It will be difficult for us to understand this. This becomes an element of a citizen’s consciousness. That is, the transition from the self -awareness of a person’s dignity to the self -awareness of a citizen is the nearest, impossible self -awareness of a citizen without self -awareness of the dignity of an individual. This consciousness here, of course, is very present after the Maidan. I have a circle of friends, of course, people from the Kiev-Mogilyan Academy, from the university. It is not strange here that this is happening. And it seems to me that this is becoming more and more common, self -awareness. This is the first. Second: the most difficult thing that happens in the war is not bitterness. I can’t talk about it, because I was not there, I am sitting in Kyiv, sitting in my room. But, judging by some reviews, I can refer - this is a priest who has a diocese under Kiev, and he is engaged in very extensive charitable activities, in particular, he travels to hospitals where the wounded lie from the front, their relatives, communicates with them. He told me in a very short conversation: thank God, there are no bitterings of people, they can correctly understand the direction of their indignation.

This, of course, is indignation against Putin, Putin's Russia, Posoputinsky Russia, and not against Russia. The fact that we say that hatred of the Russians is not this trace here

This, of course, is indignation against Putin, Putin's Russia, Posoputinsky Russia, and not against Russia. The fact that we say that hatred of the Russians is not this trace. In any case, in all the circles where I talked, no one ever ever found that I was Russian-I am generally Russian-speaking, I can say in Ukrainian, but here everyone speaks Russian-so I have never seen it. I can tell the episode when I offended a person, saying ironically: I am worse than anyone else, I am Moskal. He was offended that I could suspect it in him, that he could treat me like that. Then I asked him for forgiveness and worried about this for a long time. This is the first thing that the bitterness does not happen. And the second: this is a very widely developed network of assistance to refugees from Donbass, the real help of the population. Of course, there is, of course, the word that I consider unsuccessful and stupid, nevertheless, it spread - “quilted jackets”, that is, people who do not understand, living in the Soviet manner. So, when these refugees come, all this disappears, no one appreciates them as "quilted jackets." Why am I talking about this more or less with knowledge: we were recently in Kharkov and there we met people who contain the camp, the Kharkov station is called the refugee camp, distribute products, things, and so on among them. So, very interesting relationships. These things, these products are collected by people. The government, if it helps here, I don’t know, probably helps somehow, but very little, people gather themselves. Refugees perceive this assistance as help from the state, and sometimes they think that this is Akhmetov’s help. Such a consciousness is that if something is given to us, then this is given to the state, and not by people, really sits in their heads. Communication occurs when people begin to understand again the attitude of a person to a person. This is the enzyme that, the further this communication occurs, the more he processes the consciousness of people. It’s not at all any propaganda, agitation, and so on, but this is a direct simple communication of people with each other, when you just see that you are treated as a person, and not as a function. These are two positive things that I can mention. And it is even difficult for me to come up with negative.