Deliberately false fabrications

As if fabrications could be true. Anyway. For quite some time now, when I move from Okhotny Ryad to Teatralnaya on the metro, I hear one announcement that I think about every time. It says that unauthorized advertising is prohibited in the subway. The announcement is read by a female voice with a characteristic timbre and with the characteristic meaningful intonation of a Soviet announcer.

The ad ends with a slightly threatening phrase: “Such advertising may contain deliberately false information.” In this case, special emphasis is placed on the word knowingly. Well, permitted advertising contains, of course, only the honest truth, yeah. But I keep thinking - why, in fact, in this case is it so important that the information is deliberately false , and not just, say, erroneous?

After all, the word obviously indicates that a person knew in advance something significant related to his activities - for example, to enter into an agreement on conditions that are obviously unfavorable for himself; knowingly violate safety regulations. A deliberately unprofitable enterprise means that they knew that they would incur losses, but still opened the enterprise - for example, because of its social significance. Or maybe they were going to steal something - an investment or something. In general, the idea of ​​“knowing” is obviously visible - the person knew what he was doing. And in legal contexts this is exactly what it says - knowingly for someone: The murder of a woman who, knowingly for the perpetrator, is in a state of pregnancy. That is, it is important not only that the woman was pregnant, but also that the criminal knew about it when he committed his dirty deed. Raskolnikov didn’t know about Lizaveta’s pregnancy. So, not obviously.

The astute reader has probably already guessed where I am going with this. I’m talking about the return of the article “Slander” to the Criminal Code. I think that's what it's all about. The article on libel was removed from the Criminal Code in order to liberalize it, mainly because in most cases it is almost impossible to apply correctly. Slander involves the dissemination of KNOWINGLY false information. And since in a criminal case, due to the principle of the presumption of innocence, the burden of proof lies with the prosecution, the prosecution must prove that the accused KNEW that his statements were false, and this is usually impossible. Let’s say citizen X called citizen Y a thief, and X was prosecuted for slander. So the prosecutor then must prove not only that citizen Y is crystal honest, but also that citizen X knew about it, but this did not stop him. Well, how to prove all this?

By this, by the way, a criminal case for libel is fundamentally different from a civil suit for the protection of honor and dignity. There, the burden of proof lies with the defendant. That is, you said that Y stole something there - prove it. Ideally, present a court decision that has entered into legal force. If you can’t prove it, you’ll also have to pay this thief compensation for moral damages.

And so, by returning slander to the Criminal Code, our legislators are already planning in advance to use this article incorrectly, as a cudgel against undesirables. For example, oppositionist X said that some government official Y stole budget money. He gets a criminal charge for this (because how can a representative of the authorities steal? And how could X not know that representatives of the authorities do not steal?) - and here we are, our Y is already having problems with his nomination for governor.

But let’s leave the legal subtleties and return to the linguistic subtleties. And they are here. In the case of knowingly , our language confirms the reputation of idle talk and craftiness. The fact is that obviously there is another meaning, which can be described as follows: “It is so obvious that this is so that it is pointless to argue about it.” For example: The distance to the fence is obviously more than three meters. That is, it is obvious that there are 5 meters there, let alone three. Here are more examples: I was amazed how Modigliani found one obviously ugly person beautiful and really insisted on this (A. Akhmatova); Most universities accept 90% of applicants, refusing only those obviously weak (Kommersant-Vlast, No. 13, 2002). Knowingly ugly means obviously and undeniably ugly, about whom no one will claim that he is beautiful. An obviously weak applicant means one who reads with difficulty, writes barely, so it is absolutely clear that he will not be able to study at a university.

Interesting in this regard is Article 42 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which, in particular, says: Failure to comply with a knowingly illegal order or instruction excludes criminal liability. What does it mean? For whom is it known? We cannot understand this in the sense that the boss himself knew about the illegality of the order - this is meaningless, because what does the boss’s knowledge have to do with the guilt of the subordinate? No, by obviously illegal order we mean an order that is obviously and clearly illegal (in fact, in the comments to the article that’s what it says - about the obvious).

Stop. It turns out that in the article about slander and in the article about the execution of orders, the word is obviously understood differently? Yes, in fact, what prevents us from interpreting knowledge as evidence in the case of slander? Deliberately false information - that is, obviously, obviously, typically false information about the cutting of the budget. And obviousness is determined on the basis of the judge’s inner conviction.

In general, our legislators are doing well: they are moving the article from the criminal code to the administrative code and back, but first of all, pay attention to the fact that the words in this very Criminal Code are used anyhow - now in one meaning, now in another. But why do they need this? They have different tasks.

But, by the way, a good example was taken at my word: The first, timid glimpses of a conscious relationship between Russian thought and Russian reality disappeared unnoticed. Next to the greatest drama, the entire content of which was exhausted by the word “death,” there was a shameful comedy of idle talk and empty boasting, which not only obscured the events, but positively gave them an unbearable flavor. People, obviously despicable, hypocrites, fools, thieves, robbers and drunkards, showed such impudent vitality and were so entrenched in their positions that it seemed like something fabulous was happening around them. <…> never has the thirst for plunder met with such obvious and unpunished satisfaction. [M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Abroad (1880-1881)].

Irina Levontina