Strange encounters

Friends often ask if I am making up the sayings that I write about in my texts. Like, come on, this can’t be like that. And I just repeat, like the hero of the play “At the Lower Depths”: Yes it was, it was! Therefore, I try to photograph everything I can, record it - in general, record it. True, this does not always work out. And now you will say that this cannot happen. Yes, it was, believe me on my word of honor: Before putting on a topless swimsuit, you should get strong buttocks. I wonder if the person doesn’t know the non-Russian word for topless or the book word for buttocks? Or does he know both inaccurately? This, by the way, was the TV channel “Culture”. True, the translation is French. Maybe the translator got it wrong.

I remembered this in connection with another example, in which there is also a strange convergence of two words. And here, if anyone doesn’t believe, I don’t have to swear or swear, but send those who doubt it straight to the Security Council website, where the “National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation until 2020” is published (approved by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of May 12, 2009 No. 537). And there, under number 80, they write to us: “The main threats to national security in the field of culture are the dominance of mass culture products focused on the spiritual needs of marginalized strata, as well as illegal attacks on cultural objects.” I must admit that I did not catch this pearl myself: I am not able to read such a long text of this genre. But political observers are required to do this by job, so the phrase was noticed and commented on: you guys, they say, will somehow decide what doesn’t suit you - that mass culture, i.e. oriented towards the majority, or - that it is marginal, those. addressed to minorities on the margins, off the main roads. Marginal (from the Latin margo, -inis - boundary, edge) is a person who has strayed from his social group, experiencing the influence of different cultures, norms, values, etc.

Of course, this combination is quite understandable. Words are often grouped according to their assessment, although their meaning does not seem to agree with each other. For example, if an advertisement says about the same product that it is exclusive or, say, elite, then how is this consistent with the fact that it is reported about it that it is affordable or at affordable prices? No way, the main thing is that it’s all good. So in “Strategy”. Since we have before us the “Culture” section, everything bad that threatens this very culture must be considered. What's wrong with that? Of course, mass culture: everything is for sale, songs and one-day films created for the needs of the crowd (the mob, in Pushkin’s sense). People's classic formula is great. What else is there? Oh yes! We must not stoop to the level of the reader, but raise him, educate him, and lead him. At one time, the remarkable scientist M.L. Gasparov called for treating mass culture without arrogance, writing about the heterogeneity and multi-layered nature of any culture, in which all layers have the right to exist and respect. But for most intellectuals, “mass” is still a curse word, expressing the alienated contempt of the bearer of a different, higher and more refined taste. Well then marginal is an obvious curse: they say, get out, you don’t count.

Here's another interesting thing. These two curse words are from slightly different times. Their combination is very natural in collective creativity. Although now, of course, it happens that such different elements are mixed in the speech of one person. But this is how you see how “Strategy” is composed: each member of the team of authors strives to push through more of their formulations. One shouts that mass culture must be stigmatized. Of course, he most likely studied during the Soviet era, and firmly remembered that this very mass culture occurs in bourgeois society. That the enemy environment, having failed to defeat us in the Cold War, insidiously planned to disintegrate our country from the inside, using ideological sabotage, to split and enslave. Because they are afraid of us. However, perhaps he is speaking in a slightly new way: with the help of the export of mass culture, they want to deprive us of our national identity.

But his colleague speaks a completely different language. He read just a lot of Western books, and even studied sociology or political science in this hotbed. He also wants to push through his “Strategy” project. About the marginalized is what remains of his so beautifully written paragraph. The bastards, they threw everything out, with a fight they managed to squeeze one wording into a participial phrase.

But in general, you can look at the matter from the other side. For the last couple of centuries, all sorts of thinkers have been talking about the people: about the good of the people, about the character or soul of the people, about the happiness of the people and their future. At the same time, the people somehow always escaped: they turned out to be not living people, but some kind of construct. As now, I remember the sophistry that we were fed at school: Pushkin’s nationality does not lie in the fact that people like him. The people may not have grown up yet and continue to bring stupid Biron from the market. Pushkin's nationality lies in the fact that his works reflected the soul of the people and their innermost aspirations. Each individual person could be against raising the price of tram travel from three kopecks to five, but the people - the people were for it. Thinkers were never embarrassed if almost the entire population turned out to be enemies of the people.

In essence, this paradoxical accusation of marginality of mass culture reflected the good old romantic idea of ​​​​the people as a kind of ideal hypostasis of the population. Yes, the masses like chanson and Petrosyan. But the people, the people, expect high examples of soaring spirit from the artist.