Vladimir Nikitaev. The Problem of Reality

Continuation. The beginning is here .

Realistic thinking moves from what is given to it, as preception, to what follows as (possible) confirmation. A peculiar perversion of this sequence is distinguished by mythopoetic - or, what is the same thing, conspiracy theological - consciousness, for which what is given is not a foreshadowing, but always the fulfillment, confirmation or repetition of something a priori given (as a rule, in a different order of existence: sacred, esoteric , simply a secret or “shadow”) archetype, an eternal “plan”, “worldwide conspiracy”, etc. Here reality is turned inside out, and myth is drawn on its reverse side .

It is obvious that tradition is structured as a confirmation of itself (to the extent that a son is able to reproduce in himself the father who “foreshadowed” him, a student - a mentor) and, therefore, must be recognized as a special reality. However, won't it turn out that we are denying the reality of events ? And if so, then we deny history , that is, history will turn into nothing more than a relatively systematized set of tales? In fact, if an event does not repeat itself, then we must recognize it as unreal; therefore, for all kinds of stories and interpretations about it, there is fundamentally no “point of correlation,” a complete pluralism of opinions 1 . Fortunately, everything is not so bad: the event fits well within the framework of the confirmatory interpretation of reality, if we accept, for example, the theory of the event developed by Gilles Deleuze in “The Logic of Sense”; namely, that an event exists in a double structure: on the one hand, as an attribute of the state of affairs, and on the other, as a meaning expressed in sentences. As for history, which deals with events that remain in past , then - remember Robin Collingwood: historical events are present in the present in the form of their traces (documents, things, landscape, social institutions, etc.) and are reproduced in understanding ; and only because such reproduction, which simultaneously performs the functions of confirmation , takes place, is historical science possible 2 . Thus, historical reality is provided by "traces" (or documents in the broadest sense of the word) and is confirmed by the "meaning" reconstructing the event ; here reality is distributed heterogeneously , that is, preception and confirmation in this case belong to different types of existence, and this differs from the homogeneous reality of tradition.

In the last example, we see that confirmation , confirmation, is, of course, not simple repetition, copying or replication. It carries within itself a moment of difference, otherness, which does not even exclude heterogeneity. Moreover, this moment of difference does not overturn what is repeated, but affirms it, demonstrates the stability of the object to variations (small, not passing “measure”) and a certain kind of independence from the subject (intersubjectivity). Copying as such is not only not suitable for confirmation, but rather works in the opposite direction. In the relation "preception - confirmation", confirmation (confirmation) is of greater importance, and in the relation "original - copy" - the original. Preception is perceived as a promise, and therefore not quite the reality of what is promised; what was promised is still “to come.” Confirmation, by providing what is promised, thereby affirms both it and itself, and therefore appears as filled with the maximum possible reality. A copy is obviously less valuable than the original, it is secondary in the same way 3 , and reality, like freshness, cannot be secondary (in the same way). In the conditions of mass production, the equivalence and interchangeability of copies rather derealizes each of them separately; at the same time, if it asserts anything, it is the unity and priority of the series as such.

In his 1976 book Symbolic Exchange and Death, Jean Baudrillard mused:

“Why is the World Trade Center building in New York made of two towers? All the skyscrapers in Manhattan were content to confront each other in vertical competition , forming an architectural panorama in the image and likeness of the capitalist system - a picture of a pyramidal jungle where skyscrapers fight among themselves. <...> His architectural graphics today are monopoly graphics; the two WTC towers, regular parallelepipeds 400 meters high on a square base, are impeccably balanced and blind communicating vessels; the very fact of the presence of these two identical towers means the end of all competition, the end of all originality reference. Paradoxically, if there was only one tower, the monopoly would not be embodied in it... This is all Andy Warhol: his numerous copies of Marilyn's face represent both the death of the original and the end of representation as such." 4 .

Question after 09/11/2001: was there a subconscious desire to de-realize this event hidden behind the neurotic endless television replay of footage of the destruction of the WTC towers?..

The evolution of simulacra , described by Baudrillard: counterfeit - serial reproduction - modulation of the model, appears before us as a movement towards an increasingly accurate imitation of reality; imitation, which ultimately claims to abolish reality itself as such, to replace it with “hyperreality”. A simulacrum of the third order - “this is no longer a counterfeit of the original, as in simulacra of the first order, but also not pure seriality, as in simulacra of the second order; here all forms are derived from models by modulating differences. Only correlation with the model has meaning, and everything is no longer occurs according to its own purposefulness, but is derived from the model, from the “referential signifier”, which forms, as it were, an anticipatory target setting and the only factor of credibility” 5 .

Is it not according to this law of “operational simulation” that the political life of Russia is now multiplying? What models are “modulated” by the main political parties and blocs, to what areas of confirmation are they appealing?

Naturally, the CPSU serves as a model for (neo)communists, but the CPRF as a modulation of the CPSU is quite far from the latter, representing more of a party organization in a nursing home than a grandiose party that controls almost half the world. The CPSU was the party of the winners, the party of total (undivided) power, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation was the party of the defeated, powerless and powerless. At the same time, the CPSU was a repressive party; a party on whose personal account a mass of atrocities, stupidities and miscalculations, including political suicide, has been recorded, rightly or wrongly. This combination creates considerable difficulties for the political heir. Things are just as difficult for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation with the area of ​​confirmation , and, consequently, with its own reality. Whether the party functionaries want it or not, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is set in a mythopoetic regressive time, which moves from the “golden age” to the present, “iron”, or from the “time of heroes” to the times of general grinding and vulgarity. This is the model of the times in which the basic human resource of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation lives: people who were fully formed under the Soviet system and, by and large, accepted it. It is obvious that this majority cannot be oriented otherwise than eschatologically, because according to the canon, the return of the “golden age” is possible only in the case of a new “beginning of times,” which, naturally, presupposes the end of “this world” and one or another version of the Last Judgment . However, the idea of ​​a Trial over the current hypocritical pseudo-elite is in itself attractive to the broad masses. So, the problem of reality for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is the problem of reproducing the Soviet past, some of its institutions, habitus, psychological dominants, etc. in modern conditions.

After the collapse of the USSR, the communists for a long time were practically the only ones who maintained the historical framework at the political level and refused to curry favor with the West (if only in view of the complete futility of such behavior for them). The “democrats,” who fiercely opposed the communists, demanded that the Russian people “repent,” that is, essentially, renounce their history in order to “with a clear conscience” begin a “new life” according to Western patterns. They happily conceded patriotism to the communists (“communo-patriots,” as they called them), believing that in this way it would be easier to “finish off” the latter, and flaunted the phrase taken out of context and twisted to the opposite meaning: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” . Today among politicians only the lazy do not parasitize on patriotism.

The mistake of the “democrats” was their adherence to the point of idiocy (in other words, to boundless “simplicity”) to the postulates of liberal individualism, according to which only an individual with universal “natural needs” (instincts) possesses true reality, and everything else is epiphenomena and derivative structures, which are correct and good only if they serve these very needs (otherwise one must free oneself from them , and only freaks can not want such “liberation,” that is, liberalization). Russian neo(pseudo)liberalism, theoretically placing Freedom as the existential need of the individual at the forefront, in the manner of an icon, in practice advocates liberation from history, statehood and morality. However, the severe, beyond all measure pathological nature of the “liberal reforms” in Russia showed, among other things, that cultural and historical reality still exists and should be taken into account; those who do not do this risk ultimately losing greatly. Patriotism is a cultural and historical reality, somatized, embodied in the citizens of the state (the state not in the Marxist-Leninist sense of the “coercive apparatus,” but as a country). The reality of the existence of the state is confirmed by the patriotism of its citizens; Moreover, patriotism itself is expressed not in the riots of sports fans, but in the reproduction and continuation of cultural and historical reality. Hence the “conservative turn” and the strange character of the new Russian conservatism for many, which positions itself not as maintaining the status quo, not as a continuation of tradition 6 and not as a restoration, but as a “national revival,” which is essentially a reconstruction within the framework of the reproduction of Russian statehood . Is it because the Russian authorities today support certain patriotic movements and forces because they understand that the country can only be kept from complete collapse by reproducing Russian statehood?..

The ending follows

Notes:

1 Of course, doubting the truth of certain proposals regarding the “point of correlation”, admitting the possibility of making mistakes in finding it as often as you like is far from the same thing as rejecting the existence of such a “point” in principle.

2 From the point of view of our approach, the Matrix from the famous blockbuster, its world, is distinguished by the fact that everything in it is identical to itself - in the sense that it foreshadows nothing and confirms nothing (cf. A. Nedel. "The Matrix": delete and remember. http://magazines.russ.ru/km/2003/2/nedel.html)

3 That is, not in the same way as in the process of implementing a certain plan, in which the reality of what is realized appears as a priori secondary in relation to the ideal (not real) plan.

4 Baudrillard J. “Symbolic exchange and death.” M.: "Dobrosvet", 2000. - pp. 145-146.

5 Baudrillard J. Quoted. op. , p.124.

6 This is impossible due to the loss of continuous continuity of generations. The only “tradition” that can still take place is the “Soviet tradition,” but this requires a number of conditions that are absent at present, starting with the lack of certainty as to what is subject to “traditionalization.”