Fireless case

In our, let’s say, amazing days, many of us almost forgot how to be amazed or horrified to learn about the next news. Because every new news with a dense snow lump falls on the head and we, as we can, dodge it, not having time to really realize the previous one. And this, of course, is bad - this is an alarming sign of emotional numbness, blocking the will to resist. Actually, this is exactly what they want from us.

But some events are perceived almost personally. Something like this I took the news of a fire in Ionia. Because this fire can be called a humanitarian disaster in the most literal sense. Because for many years - especially the Soviet years - INION was the focus of free - as far as possible - a humanitarian life, he was one of the most reliable passwords that allowed each other to recognize each other in a dense Soviet fog.

Upon learning of the fire, I, of course, was horrified. I was horrified even against the general background of everything else that is happening around. This story struck me with some special meaningful gloom of historical associations.

And I wrote on my Facebook: "Burning books are perhaps the most gloomy symbol in the history of world civilization."

The comments followed, as usual. One of the first was this: "Light people worse !!!"

“People are no longer a symbol,” I answered.

And he began to reflect on another humanitarian catastrophe, the one I think about recently: about the inability or, even worse, unwillingness to clearly distinguish between symbolic and real, human, living.

Such an inability sometimes takes quite harmless or anecdotal forms. For example, such.

My friend told how once in his young years he got somewhere in the south to get acquainted with a young lady who very quickly moved to his acquaintance very close. The young lady, gravitated to speech ornate, and even a certain science, at a minute of proximity called the causal organ of her partner a "phallic symbol." Then he grumbled offendedly: "Why is it suddenly a symbol? Nothing is a symbol. And even quite ..."

But the same inability (or unwillingness) leads to the most serious consequences up to bloody crimes, up to fratricidal wars. That we have been observing more and more often recently.

I remembered a long -standing table. Someone suddenly took and asked: “But imagine a fire in the house. And in this house a lonely ninety-year-old old woman lives in this house. And in the same house, for example, a picture of Leonardo is located. Or Rembrandt, it doesn’t matter. In what sequence you will become ... well, in general, it’s clear.”

And from different ends of the table it began to come:

• The question is wild and also not without meanness. He is vile and on his own, but his additional meanness is that you "settled" in a burning house not children, for example, namely an old woman who did not live long. Of course, I will first get a person, not a picture.

• But human life, especially the life of an old man, is still short, and people will admire the picture for many years or even centuries. Ars Longa, Vita Brevis, remember?

• The picture, even the greatest, is a common thing. And a living person ... even if he is barely alive ...

• You, apparently, just do not like art.

• And, in my opinion, you don't love him enough. And, moreover, you do not really understand his purpose. And it, among other things, is also not to ask such questions.

• The works of art also have fate. How, in your opinion, should the further fate of the picture saved at the expense of human life be formed?

• Art requires sacrifice, you say? Requires, of course. But not human.

They argued for a long time. Including, of course, the manuscripts are still burning or not burning.

In the dispute - the absurdity of the "life", thank God, won a convincing victory over the Party of Art. Despite that - but most likely due to the fact that almost all participants in the dispute were artists and poets.

And one who, who had kept all this time, was just not the artistic profession at the end, nevertheless said: "But in my opinion, it is best to try not to allow the fire with all his might."