Translated material
True
The other day (more precisely, on the nearly Sunday) of the literary public and the gourmets of humanitarianism a new magazine will be presented. The Fund of Scientific Research “Pragmatics of Culture” established it, and is called the magazine “Critical Mass”. I can’t say that the name was delighted. It is too strong in it the primordial, “thermonuclear” meaning. Somehow involuntarily, a number of other names are born in the mind-“Uranus-235” or “chain reaction”.
The “critical mass”, the confident reader will realize, apparently, you need to understand metaphorically. The word “critical”, thus, indicates a philological, and not physical or physiological sphere. That is, to criticism.
In this case, the “chain reaction” could well be, say, a special dog -for -dog publication dedicated to the guard dogs. Although for literary criticism, the name is quite suitable.
And then, with a metaphorical reading of the phrase “critical mass” in the mind, the image of something amorphous, unformed, unclear. A sort of “mass of criticism” is like a piece of dough, like a curd lump, like ... however, I do not insist. Someone may like it.
The main thing is that the magazine gives rich food for thought and further analysis. “Critical mass” is a journal of understanding intellectual book products, a journal of reflexions about the painful problems, a magazine of thoughtful serious reviews, conceptual responses.
“I would like to see the“ critical mass ”place of the assembly of various competencies, the meeting place of various problematic fields,” the president of the Pragmatic of Culture Foundation Alexander Dolgin writes “to the reader”.
I must say that both “fields” and “competencies” are really impressive. Books on history, philosophy, philology, music, and fine art are subjected to attentive reading. Osip Mandelstam, Thaddey Bulgarin, Michelle Foucault, Yakov Druskin, as well as Alexander Brener, Semyon Faybisovich, Vladimir Sorokin - these are just some characters flashing on the pages of the first issue of the “critical mass”.
In general, all in the highest class, and humanitarian forces on the "problem fields" were abandoned considerable. It is curious that the first to meet the reader the “field” of eroticism and pornography. This emphasizes its (that is, this field) special relevance.
So - soar. This means that the pain of our time is hidden here, if the best intellectual forces are mobilized. So, in today's day, some erotic impurities, underdevelopment, and understatement are felt in today. This means that the existence is in conditions when “it is possible and that is also possible” has come to a dead end. The crisis ripens.
“The boundaries of the image of the image are so extended that the question itself is whether we see what we see or not, it seems already inappropriate,” Oleg Aronon writes in the article “Truth of Pornography”.
And he is right, because at a certain angle of view the phrase about the “extended boundaries of decoration” acquires a frankly obscene meaning. But, in fact, this is the pathos of Aronson's speeches. We live during total pornography. Pornography is everywhere, since the consumption society is essentially pornographic. Pornography, Aronson believes, this is a trading in desires, that is, by the fact that by nature it is not subject to consumption. In other words, showing a fried goose of a hungry person is pornography. Even more cunning - artificially exciting hunger in a person, knowing in advance that it is impossible to saturate it is pornography.
According to Aronson, “the nature of pornography is not in obscenity or sex - these things are temporary and random - and in the act of manipulation itself, when the next cranesized“ truth ”takes the place of unknown desire.”
Ready to applaud such a virtuoso solution to the problem. I highly like that “obscenity and sex” - “temporary and random things”. There is neither sex, nor obscenity, but there is pornography. Miracle how good!
Then what is the “cheese-brow”, in fact? In fact, not about private, but about global.
The consumption society eliminated all the prohibitions, destroyed all the taboos, "pushed all the boundaries." Everything became possible. The problem is that you don’t want anything. Pornography is the last attempt to arouse a desire, increase tone, excite the feeling. And it is difficult to do it when all the covers are torn.
What then? How to deal with a disease that has gone so far? The conclusion suggests itself one. Again put on a naked nature, narrow the “boundaries of decency”, and resume prohibitions. The new Puritanism will improve the situation, return the desire and lost excitability. With the total “impossible”, with complete intimacy, even the insignificant particle of “can” gives a fantastic result. However, all this is textbook.
But here is a paradox. It is not known what more than the purity of morals contributes to the universal, total ban, accumulating erotic energy, giving birth to a desire to “tear off clothes and covers”, or, on the contrary, permissiveness, when absolute nakedness becomes boring when you simply do not want.
It is like a smallpox vaccination. Performance enhances immunity, kills pornography, deprives it of life juices, and reduces it. And in order to revive pornography, you need to destroy it.
01/30/2003 / Nikolai Alexandrov