Look for a woman!

And they found this woman! The winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 Condorch Vurst is a threat to traditional Russian values, as their full-time propagandists, volunteers-guardians and clericals understand. This is perhaps even a threat to national security. The full -time jester from the LDPR and the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly came into predictable indignation, the Russian Orthodox Church expressed concern.

Unlike the joke parties and deputies of different levels, the Russian Orthodox Church tried to justify its position . The head of the Synodal Information Department Vladimir Legoada took up this difficult matter. It turned out not very smart, but catchy. For those who do not read the text, swallowing everything on the fly, quite convincingly. Reception of classical demagogy: mix two heterogeneous concepts and draw the desired conclusion.

For example, the thesis of 1953: "He is a Jew and a killer." The concepts of heterogeneous, but the public, without thinking too, concludes: the Jew is as bad as the killer. The killer is as bad as a Jew. A concept that has a clear negative meaning is fastened to a concept that, in principle, does not have a moral assessment.

Mr. Legoada claims: "... In modern culture, an attempt takes place, alas, quite successful, by the change of moral and cultural values." According to him, even abstract cultural analysis "if it is honest, it must state the change of cultural and moral guidelines."

Moral values ​​for everyone are more or less identical and understandable to everyone. Cultural values ​​do not have to be moral. This is another category and other estimates. A well -known example: "It was raining and two students. One had a wet hat, the other had a bad mood." You can say, but the incompatibility of concepts is striking.

Also with the assessment of cultural, moral and traditional virtues. Hitler cannot be evaluated from the point of view that their author is an international criminal. Tchaikovsky’s first concert for piano with an orchestra cannot be evaluated from the point of view that the composer was a homosexual. The vocal data of the Conchits of VURST cannot be evaluated from the point of view that the contractor is transvestite. The connection between heterogeneous characteristics is possible, but it is not obvious.

Vladimir Legoyda wants to convince us that morality, which is based on the categories of good and evil, and culture, which is based mainly on aesthetic concepts, the essence of the same thing that they are harshly and unambiguously interconnected. At the same time, he is by no means tormented by the Pushkin question about the compatibility of genius and villainy, but categorically argues that the cultural phenomenon that does not meet its aesthetic requirements is evil and the embodiment of immorality. Simply put, "what I do not like is bad." It is not because it is bad that you just do not like it, but because it is immoral.

This identification of their own tastes with ideas about good and evil brought innumerable troubles throughout human history, and in our country - more recently. In general, qualities such as arrogance, peremptory and consciousness of their own immutability are very characteristic of authoritarian systems. The music of Dmitry Shostakovich was stamped as a “confusion”, and the composer himself was accused of “formalism”, “bourgeois decadence” and “stunted in front of the West”. Abstract artists were also accused of formalism. The chairman of the government Khrushchev called their works of the daubs, and the artists themselves - pederasts. At one time, jazz was considered a guide for Western culture at one time, and its performers were persecuted. State propagandists argued that the US State Department tried to use jazz as ideological weapons against the USSR and against the expansion of Soviet influence on the third world countries.

The habit of sticking political or moral labels on everything that is incomprehensible or alien is amazingly tenacious. Aggressive attitude to everything new or stranger is understandable. Xenophobia has deep historical roots. In the past eras in an aggressive environment, it was a means of protection. However, by the XXI century, most people in civilized countries have learned to treat the new and unusual with interest, and not with condemnation.

This is not to say that Russia completely falls out of this series. Russian viewers gave the end of the VURST sixth place in their preferences. So the hysterical reactions of the guardians of patriotic morality do not at all reflect the social mood.

Those who are outraged by the victory of the VURST, not because she sings poorly, but because they do not understand her gender and do not like the beard, we must keep in mind that their feelings are akin to racism. Racists also evaluate the moral and business qualities of a person by external signs. It is difficult to come up with something stupid. You can advise such “connoisseurs” of song skills to pay more attention to the vocal data of the performers and their artistry, and not be tormented by the problems of someone's sexual identification and thoughts about the complexity of their sex life. They will solve these problems without your participation. Better yet, listen to Eurovision contests with closed eyes. For greater objectivity. Or don't listen at all.