Translated material
Political emotions
The publishing house "New Literary Review" represents the book of Professor Chicago University of Marta Nussbaum "Political Emotions. Why love is important for justice ”(translation of Sophia Porfiryeva).
It is generally accepted that emotions and politics are a dangerous combination characteristic of exclusively aggressive societies. The philosopher Marta Nussbaum in his book seeks to refute this thesis and prove that any political principles need emotional support. It is pushed away from the example of leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, Javaharlal Ner and Martin Luther King Jr., who managed to connect political emotions with the desires for the universal world and justice, and not with warlike projects directed against other nations. The author also addresses the results of anthropological research, which argue that the tendency to build add -off hierarchies and discrimination is rooted in human nature, but proposes to contrast these tendencies with cultivation of love and expanded compassion - first to their fellow citizens, and then to representatives of other nations. The main tools in cultivating these feelings should be various types of public art - from poems, novels, monuments and memorials to Bollywood films.
We offer to read the beginning of one of the chapters of the book.
Why is love important for justice
America, visible to me in an insight, is nothing more than me and you:
Her weapons, power and tablets are nothing more than me and you
...
Freedom and creation, language and poetry are nothing more than me and you,
The past, the present, the future of the country is nothing more than me and you.
Whitman "off the coast of Blue Ontario"
I. Reflecting "Civil Religion"
After the French Revolution, the politician in Europe changed. The brotherhood came to the fore. Citizens, no longer restrained by fear of the monarch and obedience to his arbitrariness, had to come up with new methods of coexistence. Since any successful nation should be able to demand victims in the name of the common good, they had to wonder how the victim and joint efforts are possible in the absence of monarchical coercion.
Hence, there were many options for “civil religion”, or “religion of mankind” - public cultivation of sympathy, love and care that could motivate people into various valuable actions - from military defense to philanthropy (and, over time, compliance with tax legislation). As new nations arose around the world, this idea was enriched with non -European approaches.
In the first part, we considered a story that has been telling a lot about the prospects and pitfalls of such a project. The thought of civilian emotions quickly went in two different directions. Both traditions sought to expand the circle of sympathy and opposed narrow egoism and greed. One direction, presented by Rousseau and Comte, whose ideas had a great influence around the world, believed that emotional effectiveness requires forced homogeneity. Supporters of this tradition put forward proposals for emotional solidarity, leaving no space for critical freedom. The lack of concern for dissent and criticism naturally influenced the type of political love to which they strove. The love that Rousseau spoke about and Comte was not bizarre, personal, like the love of one person for another. On the contrary, everything was done in order to create people who would love and think the same and experienced the same emotions.
On the other hand, Mozart and Da Ponte, Mill and Tagor agreed with Rousseau and the Comte to expand sympathy, but they understood this sympathy in a much more diverse and even antinomically way. It is not surprising that they learned the metaphors of new political love from lyrical poetry, disagreement music and even comedies. These two traditions in dialogue with each other and with political leaders who are thinking about these issues provide us with rich material for modern reflections. Our reasoning decisively appeared on the side of the tradition of Mozart, Mill and Tagora, protecting it from attacks as capable of creating and maintaining a more attractive type of society.
The tradition of Mozart, Mill and Tagora, no matter how attractive it was, still needed further development: among other things, it needed a deeper understanding of human psychology. We are unlikely to be able to solve social problems without an idea of what resources we can use and what problems we will have to encounter. The second part is devoted to this problem and lays the foundation for modern ideas in the spirit of Mozart, Mill and Tagora, taking into account the latest research in the field of psychology, anthropology and primatology. In particular, the second part states that the limited circle of sympathy is not the only problem of society. The widespread problems of discrimination and oppression make us think about what role disgust and shame for the human body itself play in the development of a person - to think about a problem that, it seems, does not have any other species.
The development of social justice, in the view of Walt Whitman, requires the elimination of the root cause of human aversion to himself through the formation of a healthier attitude to his body. Further, in the second part, in the spirit of Mill, we claimed that a healthy society should resist the common tendency to all people to obey authority and pressure from others.
The concept of development presented in the second part clearly shows that respect is not the public emotion that is required by good societies, or at least not the only one. Respect is coldly and inert in itself, it is not enough to overcome bad inclinations that make people enslave each other. The disgust refuses to groups of people in basic human dignity, depicting them instead as animals. Consequently, respect based on the idea of human dignity will not be able to cover all citizens in the same way if it is not backed up by creative participation in each other's life and an internal understanding of their complete and equal humanity. However, figurative sympathy can be used by sadists. The type of creative interaction in which society needs, as said in the second part, feeds on love. It turns out that love is important for justice - especially when complete justice has not yet been achieved, but they strive for it (as in all existing nations), although it is important even in societies that have reached justice (if such existed).
But if we agree that love is important for justice, we still have no explanation of how important it is and how a worthy society compatible with liberal freedom can be organized in such a way that citizens experience the emotional experiences of this kind, as the theory describes. Therefore, in the third part, we turned to history, although with additional theoretical arguments, showing how this ideal theory could be and was embodied in reality. Thanks to the detailed reflection on the education of patriotism, conducting public comic and tragic festivities, as well as a number of public strategies to suppress add -on emotions, we saw many different ways to solve our problems and how effective for the development of emotional experience in the context, for which freedom is important.
From the examples given in the third part, we can take at least three common lessons. Firstly, our guess was confirmed that good proposals for the development of public emotions should carefully take into account the place, time and features of the culture of various citizens, which are their target audience. This can be seen in the example of the relationship between the two “heroes” of this book, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., who imitated Gandhi and studied his activity very carefully. But he did not use the same strategies or even the same type of self -replacement as Gandhi. King understood that some very general norms proposed by Gandhi can be implemented in the context of the United States, but only through the adoption of very American models of rhetorical self -replacement, different from those used by Gandhi.
In this reasoning, he again followed Gandhi. Having spent most of his life outside of India, Gandhi saw India both inside and from the side. As a result, he saw that a good strategy for India should be sensitive to a number of Indian traditions and cultures. This is true for all our proposals in the field of public rhetoric and art: they must correspond to their place and time, although the parks, monuments and, possibly, speech should take into account not only the present, but also the future. If artists of international level are involved in different countries (for example, Frank Gary and Anish Kapur, involved in work in a millennium park), is extremely important that someone who really knows the city and country coordinates their work.
One of the interesting aspects of this contextuality is the question of cynicism. Some nations are ready to turn to strong public emotions, but in their history there were some events that caused people aversion to the public sphere. The war in Vietnam forced the whole generation of Americans to abandon calls to patriotic feelings.
The artist, who is faced with the task of uniting such people, will have to overcome this disgust, how brilliantly managed to do Maya Lin. She created a work of art, which initially turns to personal grief and detached critical reflection (both of them remained possible after the war) and then leads to reconciliation and general grief.
I just mentioned the task of Walt Whitman to create a less pierced disgust and a healthier attitude to the body. Here lies the second common lesson, which we managed to extract. From the very beginning of the first part, we investigated the danger, which are harsh gender roles for the possibility of social cooperation, and in the second part we said that some very common (especially masculine) gender concepts are associated with “projection of disgust” and social stratification. A normative analysis of emotions in general in the book and in all examples from the third part leads us to the idea that masculinity and femininity should be considered in a less stringent framework. Kerubino Masculinity with his female voice, the Androgynic mother’s “I” Gandhi, the lyrical hero of Whitman, who expresses the emotions of women, gays and racial minorities - all this requires us creative and flexible thinking about ourselves and our embodiment, which is not expressed in the abandonment of more traditional ways to be a man or woman, but in the understanding that culture becomes richer when these traditions are made when these traditions are found They doubt and are supplemented.
The third lesson that we carried out of the third part lies in the fact that political love is and should be polymorphic. The love of parents for children, love for comrades, romantic love-all this is able to inspire public culture differently. We should not be surprised or disappointed if different groups of citizens show different emotions about the same public performance or work of art. Sports fans can relate to their beloved team as a child whom they are proud of and who want to protect; Others can identify themselves with athletes, imagine themselves, love what they love; Still others may experience romantic feelings for athletes; Fourth - to see friends or comrades in them. These attitudes, of course, will change depending on age, gender and personal qualities of a person. And much more such a variety in the whole nation, but nevertheless, all these are forms of love and all of them are differently effective for encouraging cooperation and disinterested behavior. Types of love that encourage good behavior will most likely have some common features: the attitude to the object of love as a goal, and not as an instrument; respect for the human dignity of a lover; willingness to limit your greedy desires in favor of your loved one. However, many types and examples of love can have these characteristics, as we have seen from the very beginning: Kerubino love for the countess is very different from the friendly love of Countess and Suzanne and, again, these two types of love differ from mutual romantic love, to which Figaro and Suzanne come at the end of the opera. However, they are all altruistic and everyone refuses an obsessive search for personal status and honor in favor of reciprocity and vulnerability.
In short, although the goals and ideals of our hypothetical society impose restrictions on the emotions of citizens who should be encouraged, they allow and actively contribute to the fact that in the public sphere all citizens manifest themselves differently in accordance with their age, gender, goals, values and personal qualities. For this, there is a place even in the most normatively loaded works of art. The Vietnam War Veterans memorial really causes some kind of respectful and contemplative attitude, and it would be completely inappropriate to frolic and play there, as this, for example, occurs around the Kruna fountain in a millennium park. But, reacting accordingly to the memorial, visitors experience a variety of emotions, including personal mourning, general or national mourning, detached contemplation, self -reflection and, without a doubt, much more. Political emotions are real emotions of real people; Since all people are different, everyone has different opinions, stories and personal qualities, it can be expected that to love, grieve, laugh and strive for justice, each of them will be different, especially if their freedom of speech is protected and appreciated, as is happening in America. Someone simply will not like Karubino, or they will not want to imitate his softness; They can prefer to play baseball or cricket. But they will still be able to find their own ways to manifest respect and reciprocity. Kerubino and his heirs (Baula, Walt Whitman) are just reflected, and do not offer a dictatorial program.
So, this is the path that we managed to go. However, several general theoretical issues still require more detailed comments.