Andrey Madison. Utopias wholesale and retail

I think this idea is crazy enough to have a right to exist.

So, very briefly. Just as the prophetic birds Sirin and Alkonost appeared at the junction of the original Slavic and introduced Christian mythologies, so the image of the future Russia can appear, it seems, only from the public junction of the most diverse ideologies inhabiting it now - and simultaneously.

Whether liberal, communist or Orthodox-monarchist sectarianism, of course, has the right to exist - as a fact, but not as a project. Because, ultimately, the project of the first, second, and third is the same - the extermination (or enslavement) of heretics, which for them is everyone who thinks and acts differently. And the main thing differently here, as evidenced by the practice of both reading and communication, is behavior that goes beyond the scope of any sectarianism: the annoying desire of sectarians (=pure party members) to fit every phenomenon and every person into the systems of standards forever adopted by them is more than sufficient evidence of this .

Creative action is bidirectional: it changes not only the object of its application, but also the subject, this is the action of the one who began it. A non-creative action has no other purpose than manipulation of an object (provided the subject is inviolable). It is not difficult to guess that creativity cannot be total - guard duty definitely does not require improvisation. But if the persons responsible for developing the charter of such a service do not at all take into account the circumstances of those who are to perform this service, they thereby directly contribute to a decrease in the combat effectiveness of the army. Every good deed begins with creativity, which may, at first glance, be aimless.

The popular idea of ​​the social good , meanwhile and in spite of everything, reliably guarantees the absence of repression (that is, routine) as a way to achieve it. The latest example of this: the exhibition “Paradise Apples” (with the subtitle “Images of the Ideal World in Fine Folklore and Naive Art”), currently running at the Moscow Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve, the symbol of which can easily be considered the painting by Maria Primachenko “A Bear Walking with a Viper.”

This “despite everything”, in fact, prompted me to the aforementioned madness - to assume that images of the ideal world exist not only in picturesque, but also in verbal form. And make an appeal: send them to the address of the Russian Journal or directly to my email address: madison@russ.ru.

I can easily imagine the ironic smiles of those who do not value the people, their creativity, or the very possibility of imagining an ideal world. It's easy and I ignore them. The movement of the popular mind is impossible without an admiring imagination, in addition to the disinterested will, and the ironists will that all their efforts be paid for. It does not follow from this that I am going to discuss what is good and what is bad here, but only one thing follows: here is the difference , and this difference is fundamental .

Now some technical details of the proposal, as I see them at the moment. The utopian projects that I, so to speak, strive for are not subject to any genre or ideological framework : anything - from patriarchal instructions to a technocratic fairy tale (or whatever). The form is either prosaic or poetic. The format is within reason, that is, probable, to master under conditions of reading from the display. The expected final deadline for submission is January 9, 2001 (to be tied to the topic - it was January 9, but 95 years ago, one of the utopian faiths collapsed, which led to the victory of another utopia). However, projects can continue to be submitted - the only thing is that they will go outside the formal competition , the results of which will be summed up after January 9. It turns out that I, Andrey Madison, together with colleagues from the author’s team of the politics department will judge the advantages and disadvantages RJ . Surprise prizes (non-monetary, if anyone doesn’t understand) are always provided. Publications (of course, worthy words) too.

The absence of works submitted to the competition (this prospect is clearly taken into account) will indicate the presence of the following circumstances: 1) such projects do not exist in nature; 2) there are such projects, but their authors have nothing to do with the Internet; 3) authors who work or visit the Internet have such projects, but they do not want to publish them at all, or specifically in the Russian Journal , or - which is more than likely - are not its readers and know nothing about the competition.

If such projects suddenly appear, then each of them will at least be an additional argument in favor of the fact that people still need something that is apparently useless for some reason. And, without a doubt, great joy for the one who started this trouble.