The loss is irreparable

We publish fragments of an interview with an outstanding sociologist, culturologist, translator Boris Dubin, who died on August 20

We are publishing fragments of an interview with an outstanding sociologist, culturologist, translator Boris Dubin, who died on August 20...

Sociologist, culturologist, scientist, translator, poet Boris Dubin is gone

On August 20, in Moscow, at the age of 67, Boris Vladimirovich Dubin, a leading Russian sociologist, researcher of the phenomenon of the intelligentsia, one of the most important employees of the Levada Center, co-author of the famous study “Soviet Common Man” and no less important studies of the elite and the intellectual environment of Russia, died. XXI century.

And also: translator from French, Spanish, English, Polish, translator of poetry and essays from Apollinaire to Hannah Arendt. And in his youth he was a poet of the SMOG circle.

…He thought deeply. He spoke softly. was anticonjunctural. His interviews with Novaya Gazeta are still accurate today. Dubin the philosopher made diagnoses of the transformation of the Russian educated class, and they revealed the “new meanings” that Dubin the scientist was waiting for.

Here are excerpts from those interviews.

The Soviet mass society... They drove over it like a big skating rink, grinding it down to fairly homogeneous particles. And making it permeable to any type of messages. Like sand: it perfectly passes any liquid.

Just as in 1917 the Bolsheviks had to take over bridges, train stations, telegraphs, so later it was important for them to take over the mass institutions through which society is reproduced. And it was production, the army. School.

Two generations went through a uniform school and army.

And in the 1960s and 1970s, a situation of relative prosperity arose. There was a brief light. There were ideas of some kind of dissent, some kind of culture, some kind of style (at least at the level of “the house must be furnished, and not just so that a light bulb hangs from the ceiling”). It became possible to choose a little bit (by the way, the only alternative in education appeared - special schools). Some groups have emerged, even with their own interests.

The intelligentsia again suddenly turned out to be heterogeneous: some were soil-born, others were neo-religious, and still others were enlightened liberals.

Then the rigid system could not stand its slightly increased complexity.

And fell down.

As soon as the "mass society of a new type" was built, it began to fall apart. Generally speaking, this is a distinctive property of simple systems. And Soviet society was a simple system.

And at the end of the century, it turned out that the existing educated community was used to resisting authority. Or distance yourself from her. But we do not know how to work in the public field, with full-fledged rivals and partners.

Our elites are either simply extremely isolated from the masses, or they are also extremely close to power. And thus additionally cut off from the masses.

And the flexible network of "horizontal connections" of heterogeneous social groups - a corrective network, a safety net - has not been recreated either.

In many ways, we remain a simple system to this day. <…>

The situation of the era of glasnost ... of course - it was the happiest era for writers and readers. But she was completely crazy!

She brought the finished texts to the surface. Ready Meanings. 1920–1930s. At best, the 1960s.

We didn't produce them. It was assumed that one should only convey them to the people. The main thing was to raise and convey!

But there were no new points of view: on the intelligentsia, on the people, on the past, on the future, on the East, on the West. All these concepts have radically changed their content since the 1920s. And “Berdyaevs” and “Fedotovs”, reflecting on the new experience, are not heard. <…>

The 20th century is over... For Russian culture and Russian consciousness, of course, it has not been mastered. Not mastered the Second World War. <...> The memory is still monumental and heroic. And it's the same with camps. And the same with national politics. And the same with the national character. And so on. Here the work is for many, many generations to come.

I think it's just getting started. Whether something will come of it or not, I don't know. Will any new cultural studies be born? Don't know. What has now been introduced into the curricula of universities does not correspond to its tasks either in terms of the composition of teachers or in terms of programs. And the further - the worse.

And after a certain level of decline, it will be possible to teach exclusively Russian material, referring either to the Russian mentality, or to Russian spirituality, or to Russian genetics - the jester knows them ...

And I do not see a group of strong minds that could now - or even claimed to! - to develop a new vision.

Heroism, of course, is a very important condition. But not picked up by the structures of society, the system of non-material rewards and the transfer of what yesterday was heroism into the status of new norms, it degenerates into suicide, into self-sacrifice, into a hysterical outburst ...

I think the educated community and the big society are quite hit. And they are struck in precisely those parts that are responsible for the reproduction of values. Insights, breakthroughs, memories, readiness to defend something do not go into a stable state. In those forms that will exist longer than their carrier. No one else wants to become ... a donor of their creation, or something. After all, it is a sacrificial thing.

Now no one has such systems of values, those guidelines that are greater than temporary difficulties.

Nietzsche, who crushed so many values, said that if you have something to live, then, in general, you will learn how.

…About laying new horizons, new meanings. Alas, among them there are a lot of unpleasant ones. We'll have to dig into unpleasant things. Including - unpleasant to themselves. To make rather dramatic discoveries in the “collective self”, in the “individual self”. And the reluctance to do so is understandable. The mechanisms of repression are clear - psychological, social ... But nothing can be done. You'll have to cut through a lot.

I think… the “shock” of 1992-1993 hit the mass intelligentsia harder than other strata. And not even because there were more deprivations.

Tough times faced the "legend of the intelligentsia", with its overestimated ideas about its role in society, about its capabilities, influence on power, about its mobilization potential.

And it turned out: the potential is more modest than in the legend of the intelligentsia. Things that are painful and unpleasant to pronounce were revealed: it is easier to get away from them.

The ideas of the late 1980s and early 1990s: you need to create, you can create, and we are about to create an alternative education system.

... Talk about a radical reform of higher education was in full swing. And it turned out: the system can be transformed without changing. Can increase the load on all teachers without changing their composition. He can produce and pass through the VAK a mass of new educational literature, the level of which is below any understanding.

... And it turned out that despite the impoverished libraries and so on, it is possible to force the population to pay more and more precisely for the level that it is. Not for choice. Not for quality. But just for what it is.

...According to surveys by the Levada Center, the vast majority of students in the Russian Federation do not use the opportunities for additional education that still exist. True, 60% say that they did not have such opportunities. But among those who had, only a third used them.

According to our other survey, 40% of adolescent recipients had the opportunity to study at gymnasiums, lyceums, and special schools. Used - 6%.

Behind our society is not the idea of ​​life as growth, as an increase in one's own potential and the potential of others. We do not preach the idea of ​​quality. The idea of ​​improvement.

I would formulate for myself the know-how of developed societies: apparently, in them the system of ideas that forms a person, his ideas about himself and about others, forms a society (at least its leading groups), rests on three "s". It is independence, competitiveness and solidarity.

Without independence in the world of slaves and masters there can be no modern society. The spirit of competition, alternatives, choice: without it there is no dynamics. And, finally, solidarity: for a person of modern society, solidarity does not negate competition. Solidarity in sustainable forms, reproducible from year to year, from generation to generation.

But Russia is still a very atomized society... It has several serious limitations. Including the extreme poverty of the population. Not only money, but also trust, support for efforts, a positive expectation of another, a desire to do better than it was yesterday and today.

Our problem is not creative abilities: they are. And in the organization of efforts, in maintaining them. In the mechanisms of self-cultivation - as traits of a whole layer, and not of people or families.

A very large part of this group had an atypical family situation: parents read to their children, children read to their parents, and discussed what they had read. Thus, the quality of communication of these boys and girls at school grew, conflict in relations with peers, with teachers fell. And sociability - readiness for positive contact through communication - has a positive effect on general attitudes. On the quality of education. For her results.

Thus: the idea of ​​self-cultivation in Russia is connected with the educational qualification of parents, with a special communicative climate in the family, with the availability of some money and the willingness to spend it on the education of children, on the purchase of good, long-lasting books ... All these are social skills and cultural capital.

But the proportion of these families is small. 6% nationwide. And 4% of youth.

…We must be very attentive to young university students. To those who graduated from the magistracy and begin to teach. This is an important layer, it needs to be invested in, it needs long-term and generous lending: it creates today's students - tomorrow's workers. But here we must at least understand the connection and have a willingness to work for the future. And this is not typical for today's Russia.

…More: we have lost the practice of saying serious things. Or the very practice of speaking seriously has been compromised.

And there is a clear lack of platforms where this can be discussed. And there is a clear shortage of languages ​​in which this can be discussed, and not tear the throat, shouting over each other, like on a talk show. But the overall result: the serious problems of society are discussed poorly.