"Do not cling to dead formulas"

Alexander Arkhangelsky - writer, TV presenter, author of the line of school textbooks in Russian literature, the orderly professor of the Higher Superior, has been teaching for more than 20 years at various universities. We talked with Alexander about the emergence of new ethics in the university environment, the “abolition culture” and collective fault

Ethics of ethics violations

-Alexander, when did you feel that there were some changes, that ethical norms are shifted?

- I even climbed in the encyclopedia to watch what they write about new ethics there. And I did not find anything good. So from a theoretical point of view, this is a dark forest for me so far. But I slightly know that serious philosophers about ethics-corporate. The corporation is an invented unity of very different people, and in an invented unity, as on the island of utopia, there must necessarily have its own arches of ideal rules. At the same time, in them, with all the ideality, the features of etiquette appear, that is, a boring set of behavioral instructions. You can come on Friday without a tie, and wear pants 3 centimeters shorter than it was accepted five years ago ... As the hero of one Soviet film said, "Don’t go there, go here, otherwise the snow will get, you’ll be completely dead." There is a strange symbiosis of high ethical goals and primitive etiquette rules. But in addition to instructions and mission, there is also ethics itself - that which is not prescribed in corporate charters and is not associated with the length of the trousers and not even with generally accepted morality, but with informal human relations. It is here, in these relations, that things arise ephemeral, indefinable, unsteady, contradictory, that is, living.

I said all this to the fact that the university with which my life is associated is also a corporation. Let special. And in it, high, uncertain goals, primitive requirements of etiquette and living, informal human relations are always mixed in it. And all these are goals, etiquette, social morality and personal ethics - fluid, changeable, associated with the spirit of time. Before the 1968 revolution, the professor wore a tie, but now it is not obliged. And students can even come in what they want, if only the neckline would not be too large, and the abdomens opened, including boys, not higher than a certain line.

-And it was etiquette, which was formed as a result of the events of the 68th year?

- In the world - yes. And as for the public morality and ethics of relations, we will not forget about the sexual revolution, Woodstock, which influenced the Western University environment. University etiquette in the 68th, 69th freed from a boring norm. And the task of the then university ethics was to overcome the stereotypes of a bourgeois society, including sexual ones. The university was more possible than in the ordinary world, precisely because it is a university. There was freedom, as it was understood in those years. It was ethical to violate ethics.

-But she was understood about the same way-in the 80s, 90s and even, in general, in the 2000s?

Alexander Arkhangelsk photo: Archive "Elena Shubina editors

-Already in the 90s, suddenly something in university life was staggered, and by the end of the zero it crossed-almost simultaneously with the Catholic scandals around pedophilia, when it turned out that the most unbridled violence had hidden. And it turned out that in the university environment, under the conversations about the ethics of freedom, sometimes some bad and non-neglected, false things are hiding. I call the false relationships on their own: they become a lie at the moment when we pretend that they are not there, or that they do not pose a question of the limit, the border that we will cross, or that they are not related to the problem of power, authority and violence.

To pretend that the teacher is sleeping with a student or a student not because he has an attraction, but because he is fighting with anti -bourgeois taboos, therefore, he is not a trembling creature, but has the right, is dishonest. And the problem of honesty for the new university generation suddenly turned out to be more important than the problem of sexuality. It is good and important in itself. Another question is how the problem is posed and how it is solved.

In the world, generally speaking, they began to set this problem much earlier, and first in literature, and only then in journalism. In the great tiny novel, Kutzee's Counteur, a teacher of the South African Cape Town University sleeps with a student from a pietist family. It is not explicitly said, but we guess that it is black. He sincerely does not understand that this is violence and that he uses it. It comes to an ethical commission, it is expelled. And then he goes to the farm where his white daughter-Lesbian lives. And this white daughter is raped by local, indigenous residents, she is pregnant. And the daughter tells his father, who wants to take revenge that all this needs to either be accepted and remain, or reject and leave. It tells about how everything returns. Like a white man who appropriating a black woman not because he loves her, but because he likes her body, and simply because he can, forced to give his white daughter to black men because they like her white body and because it is possible. It will be possible to extinguish this (at least in that of his daughter is sure) only the horror of self -denial. And the White Harasser will become the grandfather of the Black grandson. This is the 90s. Prophetic romance.

Nobody will believe you

As for morality and rules, today they are largely regulated by university codes - what is possible, what is impossible, what will have to be responsible for the violation. And I am for such codes. It’s just that these codes arose too late.

- The intervention of the third party - the dean, the personnel department, as in the novel of the Kutzea or in the series The Morning Show - immediately causes associations with the party committee. But the writer Sergei Kuznetsov had a post on Facebook that only those who were injured by Soviet life were discussing about the party committee in this context.

- Yes, because he raped a party committee with us and slept with us a party. We did not want, but he led us to him and fucked our brain.

The party committee was an arbitrator, a judge: he made decisions who is right and who is to blame. And the dean or ethical commission may be a moderator.

The norm that has gone forever

-We immediately went into specific things related to universities, but still new ethics is much wider, it looks like a total change of worldview. What else is this manifested, except for a change in university culture? And you think that this originally arose in a university culture, and then it came to #Metoo further?

- Since the university is the left avant -garde of modern society, it should, like any left -wing vanguard, regardless of circumstances, put revolutionary experiments. On the experimenters themselves, including. Then the time comes for large corporations. Well, Winstein's incident begins. Now I can be caught by the hand and say: “My dear, we understand that a) part of the women who declared Harvey Weinstein used these preferences itself, provoked them itself; b) Word for word is not proof. ”

Film Festival in Cannes, 2009. Sharon Stone and Harvey Weinstein Photo: Matt Sayles/Ap Photo/NFCC

I completely agree that there were attempts to use a scandal with him in their favor, but even a dozen real evidence that is in Winstein’s business, enough for a great person to be at least withdrawn from the establishment. Not because he is the worst, but because he is the personification of the norm, which has gone forever. Even if you can’t do it, then you can’t. Another question is where to stop. The insanity of the old ethics was that she turned a blind eye to such disgrace. The stupidity of the new is that she hopes to stagnate everything, turn her life into a reliable insurance policy, even if you need to emasculate it for this.

-In theory, a person who has lived in old ethics all his life-for example, a man who has privileges associated with his white cisgender status and his life achievements who are used to jokes, treat women in a certain way, should be very uncomfortable in this new world. And a rather large layer of people feels bad now. And this is precisely this caused such frenzied resistance to new ethics, under which different arguments are brought up, starting from the same party committee and ending with the fact that love is now impossible, because informed consent is needed. But it turns out that this is really the ethics of a new generation and that we are so strengthening the intercoral gap?

- The only thing I do not like unconditionally (the rest can be discussed) is the disappearance of a sense of humor as the only common norm. Specific jokes may like it, they may not like it, in one it is an idiosinocraise, in the other to cause a fit of laughter to colic. But the understanding itself disappears that almost every word must be uttered with a slight irony so that it is not too pathos, too final. This is the only thing that I really liked in the “old” world and what is really a pity, but I cannot exclude what my generation man says in me.

By the way, in Soviet times, there was also its own norm of "humorous etiquette." A Jew tells about Jews in the company an evil joke - and this is normal. When the Russian or Ukrainian is not comme il faut. And when the company is cramped, everyone has known each other for a thousand years, you can everyone, according to the law of trust. I went beyond - you can’t again. How does this differ from today's gender, racial or other other restrictions? This is normal etiquette, this is not ethics.

And when we want to solve the deep ethical problems with the same directness and simplicity with which we solve the problems of etiquette, to paint all our lives on points - terrible things begin, including the pressure of the environment. And the environment presses much worse than the Politburo than the Church, anyone. Therefore, I will now talk about old and new ethics with the same degree of hostility as a form of collective pressure and shifting responsibility.

There are people of personal choice, there are people of environment. People Wednesdays desperately that someone gives them instructions that cover all cases of life, to decided for them how to think and act correctly. And contrasted the former generations. The sixties had its own ethics, opposed to the ethics of the "fathers". The seventies had its own ethics, opposed to the ethics of the sixties, and further, further, further ... For many, too many it was a herd instinct. And nothing has changed in this sense: “Other times have come. Other names have risen ”, but the essence is the same.

And a person of personal choice says: “Dear friends, now such and such and such rules dominate. I accept the first, second and sixteenth, but from the third to the fifteenth they are not good. My belonging to the generation, new or old, does not play any role here. I don't like. I do not agree. " And then the next comes and says: "Listen, why don't you like the number ten or eleven?"

Today, gender persecution is no longer possible, and this is very good, I am with both hands for. But the curse has been removed from the Aijism, and this is vile. “Okay, Boomer” is still good, this is a joke. But there are still "old people grumble." Yes, they grumble, have the right, lived life. You will also be old people, you will also grumble, there will be your time. Gender identity can be chosen, but age - no, this is an ontological given. And if you are offended for this, in any direction, this is a completely incurable injury.

I repeat, the rule for me acts in both directions. I understand when the people of my generation do not like something in the wording of the new ethics, and I do not have to praise everything new only because it is new. But when they begin to lie, as if everything was fine with us, right, and our old kind ethics ... Yes, it was based on lies, this is your old kind ethics! There would be no new ethics if your old ethics was not a false dead, smelly, sour and decomposed. There is nothing in the past that you need to hold on. Well, except irony. But there is nothing unshakable in the new one. We are in the present: not in the future, unlike what the new ethics says, but not in the past, unlike what the old ethics say.

Nullified and there is no court

Ready -made arches of ethical rules for all occasions are not needed by anyone at all. Corporate descriptions of etiquette, behavior formats are needed, but the main thing was, there is and will have its own ethical feeling based on thought, criticism, constant overcoming. And readiness to be responsible for your choice. And the understanding that there is no and will not be final. Today the world agreed, and probably it is right that, since women, black, homosexuals and other groups have not received their social history, it is fair to have preferences in the same university environment (wider in economics, politics). Let us take the decision of the Oscar Committee on the “representation of unpromocated communities” that caused such a stormy response in Russia. But this task is for a generation, for two, and then? Will this rule act? Will it need to be observed in 30 years? We don't know.

System of collective privileges

- It is very difficult to talk about #blacklivesMatter, because we actually poorly understand how it is from the inside, in America, everything is arranged.

- That's for sure. But at least we understand that it is possible to say “any life is important” outside the context, but in today's American context, it will mean “black life is not important into a simple American context.”

Prayer for the black American at whom the police shot. August 24, 2020. Kenosha, USA photo: STACEY WESCOTT/Chicago Tribune/TNS/ABACAPRESS.com/TASS

This is not a manifestation of humanism at all, but a demonstrative refusal to admit that racism has not yet been overcome.

-But on the other hand, when now the grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren of those who have undergone segregation require compensation, is it still a little strange?

-Could Jews gain Germany's citizenship in the 90s? Could. The descendants of those who committed violence were obliged to open a country for the descendants of those who were killed. Both black and other deprived communities have the right to compensation for the fact that their ancestors were not received. I do not put these horrors on one board, I'm only about the typology. And then, what do we mean by compensation? This is not money for pocket expenses, but social elevators. I am not ready to discuss the forms in which the protest is now clothed - precisely because I don’t know from the inside, as there, in America, everything works.

- Then it turns out that we are returning to the idea of ​​collective guilt, collective repentance, in the end - to the fact that the son is responsible for the father?

- We get the idea of ​​collective privileges, not collective repentance - this is a giant difference. And in history it is better to convey than not to do.

And what does “no collective guilt” mean? There is no collective ethnic guilt. And there is a collective fault of society. Christians, who in a lobe -way understood the words from the Gospel “His Blood on us and on our children” are responsible for what has been with Jews for 2 thousand years of Christian history. I have a conflict with this gospel episode, most likely, the case is in me, but if we seriously relate to this great book, we should not lie.

Revolutionaries and restorers

- Honestly, I am most confused by the so -called abolition culture in the new ethics, it is also a “boycott culture”, she is also Cancel Culture. If a person did poorly, he said ugly, like Joan Rowling (and also go understand what it means to “speak out beautifully”, when different groups are involved evenly oppressed, and each pulls the blanket over himself), then all his other statements are devastated because of this, his work is depreciated, he is deprived of his freedom, the right to excuse. A beaten example with Gauguin, looking at the works of which now you still think: "What did he do to this Taith?"

- As for Rowling, or even more than Gauguin, here representatives of the new ethics will not understand us at all, because for them this is our usual opposition “art is higher than life, art is higher than the truth” is incomprehensible. They approach art in the same way as any ideologists - instrumental. Art is what expresses the correct attitude, this is what illustrates true thoughts, or it is uninteresting and unnecessary.

- That is, this is such a left approach?

- Levilitar. Because the real left Walter Benjamin would hardly agree with this approach. This is the utilitarian degradation of left thought and its transformation into the right -conserving: on the same basis, right -conservative thought denied the avant -garde, on the same basis, right -conservative thought denied an experiment in art. That is, in this paragraph, our left ones became right, revolutionaries - restorers, with which they cordially congratulate them. The requirement to resolve everything and the appeal to any institutions of violence, if only the right view of the world has triumphed, from the same opera.

For me, art is aesthetics, beautiful or ugly-that which expresses the essence and depth of life, and does not serve as some correct or wrong ideas. To many adherents of new ethics, this formulation of the question is incomprehensible. Was the writer a bad person? Down with his book.

With Rowling, this is exactly what happens: ethical ideas and ethical experiences turn into party attitudes. Suppose she is completely wrong (although I did not delve into too detail, but let's say). And now, we will cross out everything done by her?

This is natural Salieri: "You, Mozart, are not worthy of yourself." Further, Salieri takes the "beginner" and drips in the glass of Mozart. Это же трагедия не про зависть, а про ревность. Сальери ревнует к Богу, который сдуру дал талант не тому, кому нужно. Он восстанавливает всемирную справедливость, он Бога поправляет. Хотите быть Сальери — вперед и с песней.

Кстати, если бы Пушкин сегодня выпустил «Моцарта и Сальери», то его бы обвинили в смертных грехах, поскольку Сальери умер в 1825 году, а Пушкин написал трагедию в 1830-м, еще земля не успела высохнуть на могиле Сальери. У нас, видишь ли, нельзя снять кино «Лето» про Цоя и Майка Науменко, потому что это было недавно и еще живы свидетели. Этика не велит.

Я к тому, что я не сторонник старой этики и не противник новой. Равно как наоборот. Я противник цепляния за мертвые формулы — любые.

— Есть мнение, что новая этика основана на культе травмы, культе жертвы. Жертвы субъективно переживают свою травмированность, и это дает им право силы и становится их основной идентичностью. Андрей Зорин , например, говорил, что ему странно, что эта культура так боится травмы и возводит ее в такую степень, хотя травмы — это то, что нас формирует.

— Во-первых, на мой взгляд, это очень хороший признак. Это значит, что человечество последние 20 лет жило прекрасной, почти утопической жизнью. Дети смогли вырасти нежными, а нежность — это хорошо. Юрий Михайлович Лотман писал про два непоротых поколения, давших Пушкина: на фоне тех битых и запоротых поколений, в том числе дворянских, это были нежные цветочки с острыми и бурными переживаниями, давшими невероятный взлет культуры. Собственно, книжка Андрея Зорина «Появление героя» — она же об этом. Не было бы рождения героя сентиментального, чувствительного, если бы не два поколения непоротых дворян.

Другое дело, что я скептик и что история сейчас режет по живому, нежным душам и телам мало не покажется. Но это, кажется, уже неизбежно. «Розы — морозы» — вечная рифма.